Rescue Me by Rachel Gibson Read Free Book Online

sweetheart. She’d been asked out, gone on some dates, but she’d never been serious about anyone.
    She screwed on the gas cap, then opened her car door and grabbed her purse from the seat. She’d had her first real relationship her freshman year at UT at Austin. His name had been Frank Bassinger, but everyone called him Frosty.
    Yeah, Frosty.
    He’d been beautiful, with sun-kissed hair and clear blue eyes. A true Texan, he’d played football and had been clean-cut, like a someday senator. He’d taken her virginity, and he’d made it so good, she’d gone back for more that very same night.
    They’d dated for almost a year and, in hindsight, he was probably the only real good guy she’d ever dated, but she’d been young and started to feel trapped and restless and wanted to move on from Frosty and Austin and Texas altogether.
    She’d broken his heart, and she’d felt bad about that, but she’d been young with a wide-open future. A future even more wide-open than the flat Texas plains she’d always known.
    The heels of her four-inch pumps tapped across the parking lot as she made her way to the front of the store. She wondered what had become of Frosty. Probably married to one of those perfect, perky Junior Leaguers, had two children, and worked in his father’s law firm. He probably had the perfectly perfect life.
    She moved between a white pickup and a Jeep Wrangler. After Frosty, she’d had a series of boyfriends at different universities. Only one of them had been what she’d consider a serious relationship. Only one of them had twisted and broken her heart like a pretzel. His name had been Brent. Just Brent. One name. Not two. No nickname, and she’d met him at UC Berkeley. He hadn’t been like any guy she’d ever known. Looking back now, she could see that he’d been a rebel without a clue, a radical without a cause, but in her early twenties, she hadn’t seen that. Hadn’t seen that there’d been nothing behind his dark, broody moods. The son of privilege with nothing but pretentious anger against “the system.” God, she’d been crazy for him. When he’d dumped her for a black-haired girl with soulful eyes, Sadie had thought she was going to die. Of course she hadn’t, but it had taken her a long time to get over Brent. These days, she was much too smart to love so blindly. She’d been there and done that and had no interest in emotionally unavailable men. Men like her dad who shut down when anyone got too close.
    She opened the door to the Gas and Go, and a little chime rang somewhere in the store. Her nostrils were assaulted by the smell of popcorn, hot dogs, and pine cleaner. She moved down a row of chips to the glass refrigerator cases. Her last relationship had been short-lived. He’d been successful and handsome, but she’d had to kick him to the curb because his sexual technique hadn’t improved after three months. Three frustrating months of him falling asleep before he finished the job. She didn’t need a man for his money. She needed him for things she couldn’t do for herself like lift heavy objects and knock boots.
    Simple, but it was always shocking how many guys weren’t that great at knocking boots. Which was just baffling. Wasn’t sex their number one job? Even above actually having a job?
    She grabbed a six-pack of Diet Coke and slid past a middle-aged cowboy reaching for a case of Lone Star in the next cooler. Beneath his hat, his big mustache looked somewhat familiar, but she didn’t stop for a close look. She was tired, and after the rehearsal dinner, preceded by lunch with the Parton twins, she was talked and tuckered out.
    Tuckered out? Lord, she hadn’t used, or even thought of, that expression in a raccoon’s age. Maybe a raccoon and a half even.
    She grabbed a bag of Chee-tos and set it by the six-pack on the counter in front of Luraleen Jinks. If it was possible, Mrs. Jinks had even more wrinkles. She wore a neon pink blouse and pink skull earrings with