Read Rescue Me for Free Online

as Texas bluebells.” She ran her rough hands up Sadie’s arms. “We’ve missed you around here.”
    “I missed you, too.” Which was true. She missed Clara Anne and Carolynn. She missed their warm hugs and the touch of their lips on her cheek. Obviously she didn’t miss it enough to move back. She dropped her hands to her sides. “Where’s Daddy?”
    “In the cookhouse eating with the boys. Are you hungry?”
    “Starving.” Of course he was eating with the ranch hands. That’s where he’d usually eaten because it made sense. “Did he remember that I was coming?”
    “Sure he remembered.” The housekeeper reached for a stack of towels. “He wouldn’t forget a thing like you coming home.”
    Sadie wasn’t so sure. He’d forgotten her high school graduation. Or rather, he had been too busy vaccinating cattle. The care of animals had always taken precedence over the care of people. Business came first, and Sadie had accepted that long ago. “How’s his mood?”
    Clara Anne looked at her over the stack of towels in her arms. They both knew why she asked. “Good, now go find your daddy, and we’ll catch up tomorrow. I want to hear all about what you’ve been doin’ with yourself.”
    “Over lunch. Maybe Carolynn will make us her chicken salad on croissants.” It wasn’t something the cook made for the ranch hands. They tended to like more hearty sandwiches for lunch, like thick slices of meat on heavy bread. But Carolynn used to make chicken salad especially for Sadie’s mother and later for Sadie.
    “I’ll tell her you mentioned it. Although I think she’s already planned on it.”
    “Yum.” Sadie took one last look at Clara Anne, then walked back into the kitchen and outside. She moved down the same concrete path she’d walked along thousands of times. Most meals were eaten in the cookhouse and the closer she got to the long cinder-block and stucco building, the more she smelled barbecue and baked bread. Her stomach growled as she stepped onto the long wooden porch. The hinges on the screen door announced her arrival, and a few of the ranch hands looked up from their plates. Roughly eight cowboy hats hung on hooks by the front door. The room looked exactly as it had the last time she’d stepped inside. Pine floor, whitewashed walls, red and white gingham curtains, and the same duo of Frigidaire refrigerators. The only thing different was the shiny new stove and oven.
    She recognized a few of the men’s faces as they rose to their feet. She motioned for them to remain seated and then her gaze found her father, his head bent over his plate, wearing the same classic Western work shirts he always wore. Today it was beige with white pearl snaps. Her stomach got tight and she held her breath a little. She didn’t know quite what to expect. She was thirty-three and still so unsure around her father. Would he be warm or unavailable?
    “Hi, Daddy.”
    He looked up and gave her a tired smile that didn’t quite work its way to the wrinkles at the corners of his blue eyes. “There you are, Sadie Jo.” He placed his hands on the table and rose, and it seemed to take him longer than normal. Her heart fell to her tight stomach as she moved toward him. Her father had always been a thin man. Tall. Long-limbed and high-waisted, but he’d never been gaunt. His cheeks were sunken and he looked like he’d aged about ten years since she’d seen him in Denver three years ago. “I expected you about an hour ago.”
    “I gave someone a ride into town,” she said as she wrapped her arms around his waist. He smelled the same. Like Lifebuoy and dust and the clean Texas air. He lifted one gnarled hand and patted her back. Twice. It was always twice, except on special occasions when she’d done something to garner three pats.
    “You hungry, Sadie girl?”
    “Starving.”
    “Grab a plate and sit down.”
    She dropped her arms and looked up into his face as a selfish fear settled on her shoulders like a