Chapter 5
First Day
SADIE
“What is he, some kind of pervert or something?” Momma asks.
With a critical look, she takes a drag off her vape and surveys me as I pack my bags.
“I wish you’d use those nicotine patches I got you,” I tell her. “And I have no clue whether he’s a pervert or not, but it’s none of my concern.”
“What kind of man hires a pretty young thing to come live in his house? Not one with pure intentions, I’ll tell you that.”
“Momma, he doesn’t even like me. And the feeling’s mutual. He only hired me because I get along with his son, and that’s the only reason I’m taking this job.”
She snorts. “You’re gonna be cooking and cleaning for this man, taking care of his kid. Only a matter of time before he starts asking for extra services, special just for Daddy. Men with money assume everything’s for sale. “
“Momma!” I sigh with exasperation. “There’s no nanny-to-prostitute pipeline, all right? He’s not gonna ask for extras, and I’m not gonna offer. He’s an asshole, but he’s not a creep.”
“Maybe he won’t mean it to happen, but wires are gonna get crossed in that brain of his. Men are simpletons. You act like his little wifey all over the house, he’s gonna want wifey in his bed, too.”
My cheeks heat at the thought of being in Walker Rhodes’ bed. Playing wifey.
“Not gonna happen,” I assure her.
I get a flinty-eyed stare in return. My own blue eyes, but harder and untrusting, staring right back at me.
“He tries anything with you,” she says, “you come right back here.”
I appreciate her concern, I truly do, but the idea of living here for three more months is a nightmare. The smell of cigarettes and vape smoke, the mess I can barely keep under control, the TV blaring the most obnoxious shows at all hours… I can’t do it.
I touch her shoulder. “I’ll be fine, Momma,” is all I say.
It doesn’t take me long to pack. I have my clothes and accessories, my swimsuits and goggles. My favorite books and my notepads filled with my poetry neatly stacked next to my toiletries all sealed up in water-tight containers. Nothing fancy. It’s enough to fill a single suitcase.
My life is small. It always has been. But I’ve got a big adventure ahead of me, come autumn.
Heaving the suitcase in, just barely, I close the trunk of my car with a firm thud.
I give Momma a hug. “I’ll be back to visit.” Check on her, more like, but I don’t say that. “I put all your medications in that pill dispenser. It’s labeled day by day so it’s easy. You have any trouble with that dialysis machine, you call me, day or night.”
She waves me off the way she always does when I'm taking care of her. The way that means she's grateful and doesn't know how to say it.
“Quit fussing,” she tells me. “Go get that coin and keep your legs closed. Pretend like there’s an aspirin between your knees.”
I huff at her. “Momma! This isn’t the nineteen-fifties.”
“Times change. Men don’t.”
I sigh. I don’t blame Momma for being a cynic. When your husband steals your wedding ring and pawns it off to pay for him and his mistress to have a good time at the blackjack tables, it puts a chip on your shoulder.
I wouldn’t call myself a hardened cynic like her, though. More like a very cautious romantic. One who knows exactly what she wants, has read about it in about ten thousand books, and has yet to find it in an actual living man.
And my legs are staying closed until I find it.
Which definitely won’t be under Walker Rhodes’s roof.
As I close the driver’s side door and roll down the window, she comes up to the car. “I mean it, Sadie. Don’t go falling in love with this man. He’s rich and famous. You’ll only ever be a plaything to him.”
I press my lips together. “Thanks for the vote of confidence, Momma.”
“Just real talk!” she calls out as I drive away.
There’s part of me says that Momma is right. My experience with guys has been limited and what there’s been has not left me impressed.
So it’s a good thing there’s zero chance I’d ever fall in love with Walker Rhodes.
I haven’t listened to a single song of his since our meeting by the lake. I’m petty enough to want to delete him off all my playlists, but that would take way more time than I want to waste on him.
I resolve to put him out of my mind, but it’s not easy considering that it’s his home I’m driving to.
My home, for the summer.
It's a thirty minute drive to the Rhodes' property line.
Wild Rose Ranch. Every kid in Marble Falls grows up knowing about this place.
You learn two things early: the mountains belong to everyone, and land like this only belongs to small town royalty.
It's got to be the prettiest, not to mention priciest, piece of land in the whole county. Maybe even the whole state.
Walker got my phone number through Jane and texted me his address. No hello, no “nice to meet you,” literally just the address. I follow my phone navigation to it now.
A heavy iron gate marks the property line.
Above it, Wild Rose Ranch is burned into the crossbeam in letters that have been here longer than I've been alive.
There's a keypad mounted on a post at the driver's side window.
I roll down my window and punch in the code Walker texted me.
That was his second and final text message: a terse “key code” with the six digits after it.
The gate swings open.
It’s another five minutes of driving through the kind of land I grew up next to but never owned.
Open meadows, hills covered in wildflowers and pine trees, mountains sharp against the sky.
Wood fence line to keep in the grazing cattle and horses.
A hawk flies overhead, riding thermals in the blue sky.
His house sits at the end of a long gravel drive, on a bluff overlooking the river.
It looks like a new build. Not a huge place, but it's beautiful in that expensive, unfussy way: reclaimed wood siding, massive black steel windows, a wide stone chimney.
The kind of house that looks like it grew here out of the materials around it.
Beyond it, the land rolls out in open meadow to tree line, and then the mountains rise up so sudden and enormous you forget for a second what you came here for.
I remember quick, though.
Walker and Jonah are already on the front porch by the time I pull up. As soon as I come to a stop, Jonah scampers up to me. “Sadie! You’re really here!”
Grinning at him, I get out of the car. “Hey bud! I really am. I’m so excited to spend the summer with you.”
He gives me a shy smile. “Me too.”
There’s the sound of boots thumping on the dirt.
I look up into Walker’s green eyes. There are shadows beneath them, as if he didn’t sleep, or he's been up since well before dawn. His hat is pulled low and he’s dressed in a faded blue t-shirt.
There are two days of stubble on his jaw.
He’s the kind of man who rolls out of bed looking like sin and has no idea, or at least pretends not to.
It's all deeply annoying.
“Sadie,” he says, in that deep velvety voice.
“Mr. Rhodes.”
Another flash in his eyes, quick as a lightning strike, at the way I sass him. He’d better get used to it. Just because I agreed to work for him doesn't mean I'm going to roll over and play nice.
But then Jonah’s tugging on my hand, saying, “Come on, let me show you my room.”
“Hang on a sec,” I say with a laugh. “I’m just gonna grab my bag.”
“I got it.” Walker’s already opening up the trunk and grabbing my stuff. The heavy suitcase I needed both hands and a small prayer to get into my trunk, he picks up like it's nothing. Like it weighs the same as a paperback.
I make a point of not noticing his forearms when he does it. Not the way they’re all corded and how they flex and those veins…
Nope, I don’t notice any of it.
“You two go on ahead,” Walker says. “I’ll take this to your room.”
I come around to Walker’s side and grab the dinosaur blanket, the one he wrapped me up in by the lake. It’s freshly laundered now and I drape it around his shoulders.
“Every hero needs a cape,” I say archly.
A dark eyebrow raise is my only response. But the corner of his mouth lifts. Just a tiny bit.
Jonah tugs me again. “This way!”
I follow him into the house. It’s beautiful, with wide-plank wood floors and high ceilings and those huge windows that blur the line between inside and out.
There’s a set of antlers above the fireplace.
A worn leather couch. Bookshelves that surprise me, full ones, actual books with cracked spines nearly overflowing on every shelf.
There are toys everywhere.
Jonah leads me upstairs to an airy room scattered with papers and markers, Legos, a menagerie of stuffed animals and enough toy dinosaurs to fill Jurassic Park.
“This is my fossil kit,” he announces proudly, pulling out a box with sand, rocks, and a tiny toolkit.
As we start brushing off “bones” with tiny makeup brushes, I venture, “So what's your favorite thing about school?”
“Recess.”
I laugh. “Solid answer. What about inside the classroom?”
A shrug. He keeps brushing. “Math is okay. And I like when we do experiments.”
“What don't you like?”
The brushing slows. “Reading.”
“How come?”
Another long pause. “The words are hard. I lose my place and then I have to start over and everybody else is already done and…” He stops. Pushes his glasses up. “It makes me feel dumb.”
I set my brush down and wait until he looks at me.
“Can I tell you something?” I say. “Something I've never told any of my students before?”
That gets his attention. He nods solemnly.
“Reading was hard for me too, when I was your age. Really hard. I used to sit in class and watch everyone else turn the pages and wonder what was wrong with me.”
His eyes go wide behind his glasses. “Really?”