That night at Grey’s he’d been quiet, letting Quinn and the Sheenan brothers hold center court, but she’d been aware of Rory the entire time. She’d heard him tell one of the girls that he’d be moving back to Marietta soon, and even though those words weren’t spoken to her, they’d filled her with relief. If he was coming back, that meant he was leaving the tour.
Finally. Finally, he’d be safe.
Only he didn’t mean it. He continued competing, and he continued living on the road, and he just got more injured and damaged every year.
In hindsight, she should have realized he’d been drinking when he said what he did, and he was trying to say goodbye, and it always sounded better to tell people what they wanted to hear.
It wasn’t until she visited him in the hospital in Fresno that she realized she was the problem, not him.
He’d never asked her to wait for him.
He’d never asked her to care.
He didn’t even know who she was.
That was when she gave him up. Not him, of course, because she’d never had him, but the idea of him, and the hope that he could find life, and meaning, beyond the circuit.
And now, just when she thought she’d moved on, he was back, and she was tossing and turning, sleepless and conflicted, two things she shouldn’t be since she’d vowed to stop thinking and caring about him. Unfortunately, old habits were hard to break, and she’d been obsessing about Rory since she was thirteen.
Annoyed, Sadie tossed back the covers and left her bed, yanking on a thick sweatshirt over her pajama top and then pulling sweat pants over the bottoms before heading into the dining room. She’d turned the small dining room into her workshop since the garage was freezing this time of year.
Picking up a sheet of sandpaper, she sat down in front of the small dresser she was refinishing and began buffing off the varnish. Sadie had grown up haunting garage sales, thrift stores, and flea markets with her mother, but the scavenging hadn’t been for fun, it was a necessity. Her mom worked as a cleaning woman for the mayor of Marietta and other wealthy people in the nice part of town, but being a cleaner didn’t pay much and money was always tight. Her mom never complained, though. She just made do and improvised. When rich families discarded throw pillows because the seam was ripped, or tossed a perfectly good lamp because the wiring was loose, her mom would repair the pillow and rewire the lamp and then she’d sell them, making a small profit. Those small profits added up and paid for repairs on their station wagon and new shingles to patch their old roof.
When Sadie was too young to be left home, Mom would sometimes take her to work and give Sadie tasks, showing her how to remove burn marks from a dining room table, or how to remove scuffs from glossy, white baseboards and trim with a little bit of white cleaning powder and a soft damp cloth.
It was inevitable that Sadie would learn how to renew and refurbish furniture and fabrics. She’d grown up salvaging goods, and it turned out she had a good eye for design and so when she wasn’t flying for Big Sky Air, she made headboards and coffee tables and painted dressers that were snapped up the moment she listed them on her The Montana Rose website. It was a fun and flexible second job that helped supplement her income.
But refinishing furniture now just made her miss Mom more. It wasn’t the same without her. The house needed noise and activity, as well as the smell of something delicious coming from the kitchen. Pumpkin pie. Roast chicken. Pork chops and spiced apples. The house needed a family. Correction, she needed a family. She wanted children.
Love.
Sadie put down the sandpaper and exhaled slowly.
She was thirty-five, and she’d been so sure she would have at least a couple of children by now. Instead, she was wide awake, sanding an old dresser in the middle of the night, to stave off loneliness and heartache.
It was her own fault she was still single.
Plenty of men had asked her out, and she’d tried dating, she had, but her heart wasn’t in it because none of them were Rory. None of them were as handsome, as rugged, as dedicated. Or as destructive.
Taking a soft cloth to the dresser top, she wiped away the fine layer of dust before gently running her fingertips across the dresser surface. It was finally satin smooth. Ready for fresh paint and her magic.
Friends had asked her over the years if it was difficult refinishing furniture and she’d always said no. It seemed she had a gift for turning something scarred and damaged into something beautiful.
Maybe that was why she’d hung on to the dream of Rory for so long.
Thanks to his pain meds, Rory fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow but he was awake early, and once awake he wasn’t going to fall back asleep.
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