Truly, Madly, Dangerously. Linda Winstead Jones
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wanted Sadie to meet with Aidan Hearn and reason with him. If she didn’t know better, she’d think her staunch aunt was afraid of the man.
She’d tried to get that chore out of the way yesterday afternoon, immediately after her arrival. But Hearn’s airhead secretary had insisted that the loan officer could not possibly see her without an appointment. It would be Thursday before he could squeeze her in. Two more days!
Once the financial concerns were taken care of, would Lillian let her niece go? Or did she think this waitress job that called Sadie out of bed at an ungodly hour was—horrors—permanent? Why hire a stranger when Sadie Harlow was the biggest sucker this side of the Mississippi?
The atrocious pink uniform dropped over her head. It was two sizes too big, at least. And closer inspection showed that someone else’s name had previously been in the spot where Sadie was now embroidered in red. Not only was she wearing the ugliest uniform imaginable, it was a hand-me-down.
She opened her bedside drawer and eyed the pistol there. The sight eased her. The well-oiled weapon had a soothing kind of beauty, caught in the light of the bedside lamp. For the past five years, Sadie hadn’t gone many places without that weapon close at hand. You only had to get in a jam once to get itchy about having some sort of protection nearby. No wonder she found the small pistol beautiful.
But there was no good place to conceal the weapon in the bubble-gum-pink uniform and thigh holsters were so damn uncomfortable. Maybe she didn’t need to have her pistol within reach, for a change. There was nowhere on the planet safer than Garth, Alabama. The small town was quiet. Peaceful. Dull. Which is why Sadie had been so anxious to leave her home town eleven years ago.
She left her pistol in the bedside drawer and settled for a pocket knife, which sat heavily in a deep, very pink pocket.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Sadie muttered as she walked down the stairs, again with only one eye open. That slit between tired lids was just enough to see where she was going as she made her way down to the motel lobby where Conrad Hudson—who helped out a couple of days a week and much preferred working nights—manned the desk. He’d been there last night, when Sadie had finally gone to bed. He greeted her in an annoyingly energetic voice. She grunted a surly good morning and stepped into the parking lot.
The Banks family lived above the front office and lobby, and had for as long as Sadie could remember. Right now only Jennifer and Lillian lived there, but in the old days the apartment had been crowded. Aunt Lillian and Uncle Jimmy, cousins Jennifer and Johnny. And then Sadie had come along to make everyone uncomfortable and to crowd the conditions even more.
She’d hated coming here after her mother’s death. Orphaned, grieving and different, she had realized right away that she did not fit in well. Little Jennifer and her big brother Johnny had been blond and happy, good students who had lots of friends, while Sadie had barged in with tangled dark hair, shell-shocked by her mother’s sudden passing and filled with an anger she couldn’t explain away.
It had been just Sadie and her mother for so long, since Peter Harlow had died when his only child was a baby. To be thrust into family life was an additional shock all its own. Aunt Lillian had done everything possible to make the new member of her family feel like this place was home. And it had been, for a while.
But Sadie had left Garth as soon as possible after high school graduation. Had she been running away? Sure she had, though she hadn’t known it at the time. She had run from the family who had taken her in, certain that somewhere out there was a place for her. A place where she didn’t always feel different. A place where she fit. She’d dedicated herself to college for a few years, though she’d never found an area of study that she could fully embrace. She had about decided she’d be a career student, always at loose ends.
Then Spencer Mayfield had come along, with his slick ways and his “friendship” and his smooth seduction.
She’d come so close to actually marrying Spencer. The wedding date had been a mere two months away when she’d discovered that she wasn’t his only “friend.” Just as well. She really didn’t want to go through life as Sadie Mae Mayfield.
The only men she trusted these days were her coworkers—Santana, Mangino, Cal, Murphy…even the Major. It had taken her a long time, but she’d finally found a place where she felt as if she truly fit in. And she didn’t need anything else. The fact that she was the only female in a group of difficult men didn’t faze her.
Sadie walked across the parking lot, yawning as she went, her white tennis shoes shuffling on the asphalt. Even though her coming here years ago had been sudden and tragic, in an unexpected way Garth still felt like home. Lillian and Jennifer were family. She had put down a few delicate and deep roots in her time here, but that didn’t mean she wanted those roots to grow stronger and tie her to the place.
This afternoon she’d visit the bank without an appointment and have a word with Hearn about extending the loan. After that, she’d hire at least two new employees and see them settled in. And then, if she was very lucky, someone else would get themselves kidnapped and she’d be called away on urgent business.
Three days, tops, and she’d be outta here.
Why were so many people actually awake at five in the morning? Dressed and disgustingly cheerful, the patrons of Lillian’s Café smiled and talked and…ugh, was that guy flirting with her? Did he have something in his eye or was he winking at her? She was in no mood. Maybe that was the customer Jennifer had spilled coffee on. Sadie hoped so.
She moved from booth to booth to table, pouring coffee without spilling a drop. She scribbled breakfast orders on a notepad and quickly squelched any unwanted overtures. The place was packed. Aunt Lillian worked behind the counter, and Bowie Keegan, a thin, short-haired young man who was the latest in a long line of short-order cooks, worked the grill. Sadie was the one who ended up scurrying from one end of the room to the other, trying to take care of all the tables while Lillian handled the counter and some of the cooking. Sadie did the best she could. If someone didn’t get exactly what they ordered, well, they did get fed. At this ungodly hour, they should be grateful.
“Sadie?”
She glanced down at the customer in the booth, a man in a sharp khaki uniform, a deputy who grinned widely at her. That smile was familiar, in an odd way. Wicked and cocky and…Truman McCain. Please, not now.
“No,” she said as she poured Truman a cup of coffee. “No Sadie here.” She wore no makeup, was draped in a hideous pink waitress uniform that was two sizes too large, and she had a terrible case of bed-head. This was no way to run into the guy she’d had a crush on during her impressionable fifteenth and sixteenth years. Not that Truman, who had been her cousin Johnny’s best friend since they were five, had ever given Sadie the time of day. “You must have me confused with someone else.”
He pointed at her breast. “It says Sadie right there.”
“Borrowed uniform.”
“You look vaguely familiar,” he teased.
“I get that from a lot of people. Are you ready to order?”
Truman just smiled. Why did he have to look so good? A good three years past thirty he still had all his hair, which was a lovely warm brown that curled a little at the ends, just as she remembered. His eyes remained undulled by time. They were a fabulous shade of blue—not too dark, not too light—that seemed to see right through her. He was bigger, wider in the shoulders and maybe a little taller, though it was hard to tell with him sitting in the booth that way. He just seemed… larger than she remembered.
The man who had provided her with the most humiliating moment of her life should not have aged so well. It just wasn’t fair.
“Do you need a few more minutes to decide?” she asked.
He ordered the special and she walked away, too aware that his eyes were on her legs that needed shaving, her too-big uniform, and her tangled hair. Her ill-advised return home was not getting any better.
Truman’s smile