alone was almost deafening. Between the crowd itself and the country-and-western band playing at the far edge of the square, peace and quiet would be hard to come by today. But then, who needed peaceful on the Fourth of July?
Summer heat sizzled every breath and the delectable scent of barbecue drifted on a lazy wind. Sadie was having a good time. In fact, the day would have been perfect. If not for thoughts of Rick Pruitt. The man was keeping her on edge, though she hated to admit it, even to herself.
True to his word, he was getting to know his daughters, dropping by the house every day during the last week, playing, reading stories, helping with bath time. And the girls were delighted with the attention. Both Gail and Wendy woke up every morning now asking when Daddy was going to come.
“How you doing, Sadie?”
“What?” She turned and smiled at Abby Langley. “Sorry, I was daydreaming, I guess.”
“In this heat, maybe you’re just hallucinating.”
Sadie laughed and shook her head. “If only …”
Abby leaned one hip against the counter. Handing Sadie a bottle of cold water, she uncapped her own and took a long drink. “Boy, that’s good. Okay, so who’s the daydream about? A certain marine, I’m guessing.”
Sadie took a grateful sip of the icy water and let it slide through her system. Even with the fans behind them stirring the hot July air, it was stifling in the fireworks booth.
“Hey, Abby,” one of the other workers called out.
“Sadie and I are on a break,” she answered.
“I could use one. Too much heat and too many thoughts,” Sadie admitted. “And yes, your guess was right. All of those thoughts are about Rick.”
Abby was one of the only people outside her immediate family who knew the truth about the twins’ father. Sadie hadn’t had many close friends in her life, so she treasured Abby and had really missed their friendship when she and the girls were living in Houston. Abby understood growing up in Royal as the daughter of wealthy parents. But she also knew what it was like to strike out on her own. She had made a dot-com fortune when she lived in Seattle, then come home to Royal to marry her high school sweetheart. Everything had seemed perfect for her.
Of course, nothing had turned out the way she’d expected. What ever did?
“Tell me,” Abby urged.
Sighing, Sadie said, “He’s been coming over every day. Spending time with the girls …”
“And this is a bad thing?”
“No.”
One of the other workers in the booth reached past Sadie for a box of red sparklers. Sadie took Abby’s arm and pulled her away a few steps. Lowering her voice, she continued, “It’s not that I don’t want him to get to know his daughters. They should have a father in their lives and they’re already crazy about him—”
“I hear a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”
“But,” Sadie acknowledged with a nod, “what happens when he ships out again? He’s home on leave. He’s still a marine, Abby. Which means he’s not staying in Royal. When he leaves, the girls won’t understand. They’ll just know their daddy’s gone.”
“Okay, that would be hard,” Abby said as they both deliberately ignored the customers starting to stack up on the other side of the counter. “But isn’t it still better for them to know him?”
“Yes, of course, it’s just …”
“Confusing?”
“Extremely,” Sadie said with a sigh. “You know, even when I was a kid, Rick Pruitt … confused me.”
Abby laughed. “Sadie, when we were kids, all boys confused us. Hasn’t changed much.”
“No.” A sad smile curved Sadie’s mouth as she idly straightened a stack of Magic Wonder fountains. “But for you, it was different. Your family was rich, but they didn’t keep you separate from everyone in town. Brad and I went to private academies, remember?”
She shrugged as if it didn’t bother her, but it still did. When she was a girl, Sadie had wanted friends. She’d seen the other girls her age going shopping or sitting in the diner, laughing together or flirting with boys, and she had desperately wanted to be one of them. But except for Abby, she remained an outsider. Just as she had been for most of her life.
“True, you weren’t around much,” Abby mused. “Even when you were, your father didn’t really like you hanging out at the diner with the rest of us.”
Sadie laughed at the image. “The children of Robert Price didn’t ‘hang out.’” She took another sip of water and looked out over the crowd gathered in the square. “We didn’t really belong in Royal, you know? Oh, born and raised here, sure, but we could only see the other kids on the weekends, so we never really built the kind of friendships here that everyone else had. Our father was too determined to keep us isolated for whatever reasons.” She smiled, reached over to squeeze Abby’s hand. “If not for you, I would have been miserable. It was hard on me, but in a way, I think it was even worse for Brad.”
“In what way?”
Sadie pushed a stray lock of blond hair out of her eyes and shrugged again. “I don’t know, he was popular with the girls in town.”
“Of course,” Abby muttered. “He never did have any trouble attracting girls.”
Sadie grinned. “He’s my brother and he irritates me beyond all reason at times, but come on. He is great-looking.”
“Maybe,” Abby allowed.
Still chuckling, Sadie said, “Anyway, even though most—” she paused for a knowing look at Abby “—of the girls liked him, the guys in town weren’t real thrilled with the ‘rich guy’ swooping in on the weekends.”
“Yeah,” Abby said softly, reluctantly. “I’d forgotten about that.”
Sadie blew out a breath. “God, that sounds so whiny, doesn’t it? Poor little rich kids….”
“You’re not whiny. Ever. So,” Abby prodded, “tell me about Rick?”
Sadie smiled ruefully. “You remember, he was Mr. Popularity even then. Captain of the football team.” She shook her head and called up the memory of a teenaged Rick Pruitt, and in response, she felt that odd fluttering in her stomach again just as she had then. “He wore jeans and boots and T-shirts and his hair was too long and his eyes were too dark and he looked like every girl’s dream of a bad boy who was really a good guy.”
“Yeah,” Abby said, smiling with her. “I do remember Rick as a teenager. Pretty studly even then.”
Smiling, she looked at Abby. “He would walk into the diner and every girl there would turn to look at him.”
“Even you,” Abby said.
“Me, too,” she admitted, then laughed a
