Praise for the novels of New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author Diana Palmer

“Palmer demonstrates, yet again, why she’s the queen of … quests for justice and true love.”

—Publishers Weekly on Dangerous

“The popular Palmer has penned another winning novel, a perfect blend of romance and suspense.”

—Booklist on Lawman

“This is a fascinating story … It’s nice to have a hero wise enough to know when he can’t do things alone and willing to accept help when he needs it. There is pleasure to be found in the nice sense of family this tale imparts.”

—RT Book Reviews on Wyoming Bold

“Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be.”

—Affaire de Coeur

“Readers will be moved by this tale of revenge and justice, grief and healing.”

—Booklist on Dangerous

Texas Born
Diana Palmer

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For our friends Cynthia Burton and Terry Sosebee

Contents

Cover

Praise

Title Page

Dedication

One

Two

Three

Four

Five

Six

Seven

Eight

Nine

Ten

Eleven

Twelve

Extract

Copyright

One

Michelle Godfrey felt the dust of the unpaved road all over her jeans. She couldn’t really see her pants. Her eyes were full of hot tears. It was just one more argument, one more heartache.

Her stepmother, Roberta, was determined to sell off everything her father had owned. He’d only been dead for three weeks. Roberta had wanted to bury him in a plain pine box with no flowers, not even a church service. Michelle had dared her stepmother’s hot temper and appealed to the funeral director.

The kindly man, a friend of her father’s, had pointed out to Roberta that Comanche Wells, Texas, was a very small community. It would not sit well with the locals if Roberta, whom most considered an outsider, was disrespectful of the late Alan Godfrey’s wishes that he be buried in the Methodist church cemetery beside his first wife. The funeral director was soft-spoken but eloquent. He also pointed out that the money Roberta would save with her so-called economy plans, would be a very small amount compared to the outrage she would provoke. If she planned to continue living in Jacobs County, many doors would close to her.

Roberta was irritated at the comment, but she had a shrewd mind. It wouldn’t do to make people mad when she had many things to dispose of on the local market, including some cattle that had belonged to her late husband.

She gave in, with ill grace, and left the arrangements to Michelle. But she got even. After the funeral, she gathered up Alan’s personal items while Michelle was at school and sent them all to the landfill, including his clothes and any jewelry that wasn’t marketable.

Michelle had collapsed in tears. That is, until she saw her stepmother’s wicked smile. At that point, she dried her eyes. It was too late to do anything. But one day, she promised herself, when she was grown and no longer under the woman’s guardianship, there would be a reckoning.

Two weeks after the funeral, Roberta came under fire from Michelle’s soft-spoken minister. He drove up in front of the house in a flashy red older convertible, an odd choice of car for a man of the cloth, Michelle thought. But then, Reverend Blair was a different sort of preacher.

She’d let him in, offered him coffee, which he refused politely. Roberta, curious because they never had visitors, came out of her room and stopped short when she saw Jake Blair.

He greeted her. He even smiled. They’d missed Michelle at services for the past two weeks. He just wanted to make sure everything was all right. Michelle didn’t reply. Roberta looked guilty. There was this strange rumor he’d heard, he continued, that Roberta was preventing her stepdaughter from attending church services. He smiled when he said it, but there was something about him that was strangely chilling for a religious man. His eyes, ice-blue, had a look that Roberta recognized from her own youth, spent following her father around the casinos in Las Vegas, where he made his living. Some of the patrons had that same penetrating gaze. It was dangerous.

“But of course, we didn’t think the rumor was true,” Jake Blair continued with that smile that accompanied the unblinking blue stare. “It isn’t, is it?”

Roberta forced a smile. “Um, of course not.” She faltered, with a nervous little laugh. “She can go whenever she likes.”

“You might consider coming with her,” Jake commented. “We welcome new members in our congregation.”

“Me, in a church?” She burst out laughing, until she saw the two bland faces watching her. She sounded defensive when she added, “I don’t go to church. I don’t believe in all that stuff.”

Jake raised an eyebrow. He smiled to himself, as if at some private joke. “At some point in your life, I assure you, your beliefs may change.”

“Unlikely,” she said stiffly.

He sighed. “As you wish. Then you won’t mind if my daughter, Carlie, comes by to pick Michelle up for services on Sunday, I take it?”

Roberta ground her teeth together. Obviously the minister knew that since Michelle couldn’t drive, Roberta had been refusing to get up and drive her to church. She almost refused. Then she realized that it would mean she could have Bert over without having to watch for her stepdaughter every second. She pursed her lips. “Of course not,” she assured him. “I don’t mind at all.”

“Wonderful. I’ll have Carlie fetch you in time for Sunday school each week and bring you home after church, Michelle. Will that work for you?”

Michelle’s sad face lit up. Her gray eyes were large and beautiful. She had pale blond hair and a flawless, lovely complexion. She was as fair as Roberta was dark. Jake got to his feet. He smiled down at Michelle.

“Thanks, Reverend Blair,” she said in her soft, husky voice, and smiled at him with genuine affection.

“You’re quite welcome.”

She walked him out. Roberta didn’t offer.

He turned at the steps and lowered his voice. “If you ever need help, you know where we are,” he said, and he wasn’t smiling.

She sighed. “It’s just until graduation. Only a few more months,” she said quietly. “I’ll work hard to get a scholarship so I can go to college. I have one picked out in San Antonio.”

He cocked his head. “What do you want to do?”

Her face brightened. “I want to write. I want to be a reporter.”

He laughed. “Not much money in that, you know. Of course, you could go and talk to Minette Carson. She runs the local newspaper.”

She flushed. “Yes, sir,” she said politely, “I already did. She was the one who recommended that I go to college and major in journalism. She said working for a magazine, even a digital one, was the way to go. She’s very kind.”

“She is. And so is her husband,” he added, referring to Jacobs County sheriff Hayes Carson.

“I don’t really know him. Except he brought his iguana to school a few years ago. That was really fascinating.” She laughed.

Jake just nodded. “Well, I’ll get back. Let me know if you need anything.”

“I will. Thank you.”

“Your father was a good man,” he added. “It hurt all of us to lose him. He was one of the best emergency-room doctors we ever had in Jacobs County, even though he was only able to work for a few months before his illness forced him to quit.”

She smiled sadly. “It was a hard way to go, for a doctor,” she replied. “He knew all about his prognosis and he explained to me how things would be. He said if he hadn’t been so stubborn, if he’d had the tests sooner, they might have caught the cancer in time.”

“Young lady,” Jake said softly, “things happen the way they’re meant to. There’s a plan to everything that happens in life, even if we don’t see it.”

“That’s what I think, too. Thank you for talking to her,” she added hesitantly. “She wouldn’t let me learn how to drive, and Dad was too sick to teach me. I don’t really think she’d let me borrow the car, even if I could drive. She wouldn’t get up early for anything, especially on a Sunday. So I had no way to get to church. I’ve missed it.”

“I wish you’d talked to me sooner,” he said, and smiled. “Never mind. Things happen in their own time.”

She looked up into his blue eyes. “Does it...get better? Life, I mean?” she asked with the misery of someone who’d landed in a hard place and saw no way out.

He drew in a long breath. “You’ll soon have more control over the things that happen to you,” he replied. “Life is a test, Michelle. We walk through fire. But there are rewards. Every pain brings a pleasure.”

“Thanks.”

He chuckled. “Don’t let her get you down.”

“I’m trying.”

“And if you need help, don’t hold back.” His eyes narrowed and there was something a little chilling in them. “I have yet to meet a person who frightens me.”

She burst out laughing. “I noticed. She’s a horror, but she was really nice to you!”

“Sensible people are.” He smiled like an angel. “See you.”

He went down the steps two at a time. He was a tall man, very fit, and he walked with a very odd gait, light and almost soundless, as he went to his car. The vehicle wasn’t new, but it had some kind of big engine in it. He started it and wheeled out into the road with a skill and smoothness that she envied. She wondered if she’d ever learn to drive.

She went back into the house, resigned to several minutes of absolute misery.

“You set that man on me!” Roberta raged. “You went over my head when I told you I didn’t want you to bother with that stupid church stuff!”

“I like going to church. Why should you mind? It isn’t hurting you....”

“Dinner was always late when you went, when your father was alive,” the brunette said angrily. “I had to take care of him. So messy.” She made a face. In fact, Roberta had never done a thing for her husband. She left it all to Michelle. “And I had to try to cook. I hate cooking. I’m not doing it. That’s your job. So you’ll make dinner before you go to church and you can eat when you get home, but I’m not waiting an extra hour to sit down to a meal!”

“I’ll do it,” Michelle said, averting her eyes.

“See that you do! And the house had better be spotless, or I won’t let you go!”

She was bluffing. Michelle knew it. She was unsettled by the Reverend Blair. That amused Michelle, but she didn’t dare let it show.

“Can I go to my room now?” she asked quietly.

Roberta made a face. “Do what you please.” She primped at the hall mirror. “I’m going out. Bert’s taking me to dinner up in San Antonio. I’ll be very late,” she added. She gave Michelle a worldly, patronizing laugh. “You wouldn’t know what to do with a man, you little prude.”

Michelle stiffened. It was the same old song and dance. Roberta thought Michelle was backward and stupid.

“Oh, go on to your room,” she muttered. That wide-eyed, resigned look was irritating.

Michelle went without another word.

She sat up late, studying. She had to make the best grades she could, so that she could get a scholarship. Her father had left her a little money, but her stepmother had control of it until she was of legal age. Probably by then there wouldn’t be a penny left.

Her father hadn’t been lucid at the end because of the massive doses of painkillers he had to take for his condition. Roberta had influenced the way he set up his will, and it had been her own personal attorney who’d drawn it up for her father’s signature. Michelle was certain that he hadn’t meant to leave her so little. But she couldn’t contest it. She wasn’t even out of high school.

It was hard, she thought, to be under someone’s thumb and unable to do anything you wanted to do. Roberta was always after her about something. She made fun of her, ridiculed her conservative clothes, made her life a daily misery. But the reverend was right. One day, she’d be out of this. She’d have her own place, and she wouldn’t have to ask Roberta even for lunch money, which was demeaning enough.

She heard a truck go along the road, and glanced out to see a big black pickup truck pass by. So he was back. Their closest neighbor was Gabriel Brandon. Michelle knew who he was.

She’d seen him for the first time two years ago, the last summer she’d spent with her grandfather and grandmother before their deaths. They’d lived in this very house, the one her father had inherited. She’d gone to town with her grandfather to get medicine for a sick calf. The owner of the store had been talking to a man, a very handsome man who’d just moved down the road from them.

He was very tall, muscular, without it being obvious, and he had the most beautiful liquid black eyes she’d ever seen. He was built like a rodeo cowboy. He had thick, jet-black hair and a face off of a movie poster. He was the most gorgeous man she’d ever seen in her life.

He’d caught her staring at him and he’d laughed. She’d never forgotten how that transformed his hard face. It had melted her. She’d flushed and averted her eyes and almost run out of the store afterward. She’d embarrassed herself by staring. But he was very good-looking, after all—he must be used to women staring at him.

She’d asked her grandfather about him. He hadn’t said much, only that the man was working for Eb Scott, who owned a ranch near Jacobsville. Brandon was rather mysterious, too, her grandfather had mused, and people were curious about him. He wasn’t married. He had a sister who visited him from time to time.

Michelle’s grandfather had chided her for her interest. At fifteen, he’d reminded her, she was much too young to be interested in men. She’d agreed out loud. But privately she thought that that Mr. Brandon was absolutely gorgeous, and most girls would have stared at him.

By comparison, Roberta’s friend, Bert, always looked greasy, as if he never washed his hair. Michelle couldn’t stand him. He looked at her in a way that made her skin crawl and he was always trying to touch her. She’d jerked away from him once, when he’d tried to ruffle her hair, and he made a big joke of it. But his eyes weren’t laughing.

He made her uncomfortable, and she tried to stay out of his way. It would have been all right if he and Roberta didn’t flaunt their affair. Michelle came home from school one Monday to find them on the sofa together, half-dressed and sweaty. Roberta had almost doubled up with laughter at the look she got from her stepdaughter as she lay half across Bert, wearing nothing but a lacy black slip.

“And what are you staring at, you little prude?” Roberta had demanded. “Did you think I’d put on black clothes and abandon men for life because your father died?”

“He’s only been dead two weeks,” Michelle had pointed out with choking pride.

“So what? He wasn’t even that good in bed before he got sick,” she scoffed. “We lived in San Antonio and he had a wonderful practice, he was making loads of money as a cardiologist. Then he gets diagnosed with terminal cancer and decides overnight to pull up stakes and move to this flea-bitten wreck of a town where he sets up a free clinic on weekends and lives on his pension and his investments! Which evaporated in less than a year, thanks to his medical bills,” she added haughtily. “I thought he was rich...!”

“Yes, that’s why you married him,” Michelle said under her breath.

“That’s the only reason I did marry him,” she muttered, sitting up to light a cigarette and blow smoke in Michelle’s direction.

She coughed. “Daddy wouldn’t let you smoke in the house,” she said accusingly.

“Well, Daddy’s dead, isn’t he?” Roberta said pointedly, and she smiled.

“We could make it a threesome, if you like,” Bert offered, sitting up with his shirt half-off.

Michelle’s expression was eloquent. “If I speak to my minister...”

“Shut up, Bert!” Roberta said shortly, and her eyes dared him to say another word. She looked back at Michelle with cold eyes and got to her feet. “Come on, Bert, let’s go to your place.” She grabbed him by the hand and had led him to the bedroom. Apparently their clothes were in there.

Disgusted beyond measure, Michelle went into her room and locked the door.

She could hear them arguing. A few minutes later they came back out.

“I won’t be here for dinner,” Roberta said.

Michelle didn’t reply.

“Little torment,” Roberta grumbled. “She’s always watching, always so pure and unblemished,” she added harshly.

“I could take care of that,” Bert said.

“Shut up!” Roberta said again. “Come on, Bert!”

Michelle could feel herself flushing with anger as she heard them go out the door. Roberta slammed it behind her.

Michelle had peeked out the curtains and watched them climb into Bert’s low-slung car. He pulled out into the road.

She closed the curtains with a sigh of pure relief. Nobody knew what a hell those two made of her life. She had no peace. Apparently Roberta had been seeing Bert for some time, because they were obviously obsessed with each other. But it had come as a shock to walk in the door and find them kissing the day after Michelle’s father was buried, to say nothing of what she’d just seen.

* * *

The days since then had been tense and uncomfortable. The two of them made fun of Michelle, ridiculed the way she dressed, the way she thought. And Roberta was full of petty comments about Michelle’s father and the illness that had killed him. Roberta had never even gone to the hospital. It had been Michelle who’d sat with him until he slipped away, peacefully, in his sleep.

She lay on her back and looked at the ceiling. It was only a few months until graduation. She made very good grades. She hoped Marist College in San Antonio would take her. She’d already applied. She was sweating out the admissions, because she’d have to have a scholarship or she couldn’t afford to go. Not only that, she’d have to have a job.

She’d worked part-time at a mechanic’s shop while her father was alive. He’d drop her off after school and pick her up when she finished work. But his illness had come on quickly and she’d lost the job. Roberta wasn’t about to provide transportation.

She rolled over restlessly. Maybe there would be something she could get in San Antonio, perhaps in a convenience store if all else failed. She didn’t mind hard work. She was used to it. Since her father had married Roberta, Michelle had done all the cooking and cleaning and laundry. She even mowed the lawn.

Her father had seemed to realize his mistake toward the end. He’d apologized for bringing Roberta into their lives. He’d been lonely since her mother died, and Roberta had flattered him and made him feel good. She’d been fun to be around during the courtship—even Michelle had thought so. Roberta went shopping with the girl, praised her cooking, acted like a really nice person. It wasn’t until after the wedding that she’d shown her true colors.

Michelle had always thought it was the alcohol that had made her change so suddenly for the worse. It wasn’t discussed in front of her, but Michelle knew that Roberta had been missing for a few weeks, just before her father was diagnosed with cancer. And there was gossip that the doctor had sent his young wife off to a rehabilitation center because of a drinking problem. Afterward, Roberta hadn’t been quite so hard to live with. Until they’d moved to Comanche Wells, at least.

Dr. Godfrey had patted Michelle on the shoulder only days before the cancer had taken a sudden turn for the worse and he was bedridden. He’d smiled ruefully.

“I’m very sorry, sweetheart,” he’d told her. “If I could go back and change things...”

“I know, Daddy. It’s all right.”

He’d pulled her close and kissed her forehead. “You’re like your mother. She took things to heart, too. You have to learn how to deal with unpleasant people. You have to learn not to take life so seriously....”

“Alan, are you ever coming inside?” Roberta had interrupted petulantly. She hated seeing her husband and her stepdaughter together. She made every effort to keep them apart. “What are you doing, anyway, looking at those stupid smelly cattle?”

“I’ll be there in a moment, Roberta,” he called back.

“The dishes haven’t been washed,” she told Michelle with a cold smile. “Your job, not mine.”

She’d gone back inside and slammed the screen.

Michelle winced.

So did her father. He drew in a deep breath. “Well, we’ll get through this,” he said absently. He’d winced again, holding his stomach.

“You should see Dr. Coltrain,” she remarked. Dr. Copper Coltrain was one of their local physicians. “You keep putting it off. It’s worse, isn’t it?”

He sighed. “I guess it is. Okay. I’ll see him tomorrow, worrywart.”

She grinned. “Okay.”

* * *

Tomorrow had ended with a battery of tests and a sad prognosis. They’d sent him back home with more medicine and no hope. He’d lasted a few weeks past the diagnosis.

Michelle’s eyes filled with tears. The loss was still new, raw. She missed her father. She hated being at the mercy of her stepmother, who wanted nothing more than to sell the house and land right out from under Michelle. In fact, she’d already said that as soon as the will went through probate, she was going to do exactly that.

Michelle had protested. She had several months of school to go. Where would she live?

That, Roberta had said icily, was no concern of hers. She didn’t care what happened to her stepdaughter. Roberta was young and had a life of her own, and she wasn’t going to spend it smelling cattle and manure. She was going to move in with Bert. He was in between jobs, but the sale of the house and land would keep them for a while. Then they’d go to Las Vegas where she knew people and could make their fortune in the casino.

Michelle had cocked her head and just stared at her stepmother with a patronizing smile. “Nobody beats the house in Las Vegas,” she said in a soft voice.

“I’ll beat it,” Roberta snapped. “You don’t know anything about gambling.”

“I know that sane people avoid it,” she returned.

Roberta shrugged.

* * *

There was only one real-estate agent in Comanche Wells. Michelle called her, nervous and obviously upset.

“Roberta says she’s selling the house,” she began.

“Relax.” Betty Mathers laughed. “She has to get the will through probate, and then she has to list the property. The housing market is in the basement right now, sweetie. She’d have to give it away to sell it.”

“Thanks,” Michelle said huskily. “You don’t know how worried I was....” Her voice broke, and she stopped.

“There’s no reason to worry,” Betty assured her. “Even if she does leave, you have friends here. Somebody will take the property and make sure you have a place to stay. I’ll do it myself if I have to.”

Michelle was really crying now. “That’s so kind...!”

“Michelle, you’ve been a fixture around Jacobs County since you were old enough to walk. You spent summers with your grandparents here and you were always doing things to help them, and other people. You spent the night in the hospital with the Harrises’ little boy when he had to have that emergency appendectomy and wouldn’t let them give you a dime. You baked cakes for the sale that helped Rob Meiner when his house burned. You’re always doing for other people. Don’t think it doesn’t get noticed.” Her voice hardened. “And don’t think we aren’t aware of what your stepmother is up to. She has no friends here, I promise you.”

Michelle drew in a breath and wiped her eyes. “She thought Daddy was rich.”

“I see,” came the reply.

“She hated moving down here. I was never so happy,” she added. “I love Comanche Wells.”

Betty laughed. “So do I. I moved here from New York City. I like hearing crickets instead of sirens at night.”

“Me, too.”

“You stop worrying, okay?” she added. “Everything’s going to be all right.”

“I will. And thanks.”

“No thanks necessary.”

* * *

Michelle was to remember that conversation the very next day. She got home from school that afternoon and her father’s prized stamp collection was sitting on the coffee table. A tall, distinguished man was handing Roberta a check.

“It’s a marvelous collection,” the man said.

“What are you doing?” Michelle exclaimed, dropping her books onto the sofa, as she stared at the man with horror. “You can’t sell Daddy’s stamps! You can’t! It’s the only thing of his I have left that we both shared! I helped him put in those stamps, from the time I was in grammar school!”

Roberta looked embarrassed. “Now, Michelle, we’ve already discussed this....”

“We haven’t discussed anything!” she raged, red-faced and weeping. “My father has only been dead three weeks and you’ve already thrown away every single thing he had, even his clothes! You’ve talked about selling the house... I’m still in school—I won’t even have a place to live. And now this! You...you...mercenary gold digger!”

Roberta tried to smile at the shocked man. “I do apologize for my daughter....”

“I’m not her daughter! She married my father two years ago. She’s got a boyfriend. She was with him while my father was dying in the hospital!”

The man stared at Michelle for a long moment, turned to Roberta, snapped the check out of her hands and tore it into shreds.

“But...we had a deal,” Roberta stammered.

The man gave her a look that made her move back a step. “Madam, if you were kin to me, I would disown you,” he said harshly. “I have no wish to purchase a collection stolen from a child.”

“I’ll sue you!” Roberta raged.

“By all means. Attempt it.”

He turned to Michelle. “I am very sorry,” he said gently. “For your loss and for the situation in which you find yourself.” He turned to Roberta. “Good day.”

He walked out.

Roberta gave him just enough time to get to his car. Then she turned to Michelle and slapped her so hard that her teeth felt as if they’d come loose on that side of her face.

“You little brat!” she yelled. “He was going to give me five thousand dollars for that stamp collection! It took me weeks to find a buyer!”

Michelle just stared at her, cold pride crackling around her. She lifted her chin. “Go ahead. Hit me again. And see what happens.”

Roberta drew back her hand. She meant to do it. The child was a horror. She hated her! But she kept remembering the look that minister had given her. She put her hand down and grabbed her purse.

“I’m going to see Bert,” she said icily. “And you’ll get no lunch money from me from now on. You can mop floors for your food, for all I care!”

She stormed out the door, got into her car and roared away.

Michelle picked up the precious stamp collection and took it into her room. She had a hiding place that, hopefully, Roberta wouldn’t be able to find. There was a loose baseboard in her closet. She pulled it out, slid the stamp book inside and pushed it back into the wall.

She went to the mirror. Her face looked almost blistered where Roberta had hit her. She didn’t care. She had the stamp collection. It was a memento of happy times when she’d sat on her father’s lap and carefully tucked stamps into place while he taught her about them. If Roberta killed her, she wasn’t giving the stamps up.

But she was in a hard place, with no real way out. The months until graduation seemed like years. Roberta would make her life a living hell from now on because she’d opposed her. She was so tired of it. Tired of Roberta. Tired of Bert and his innuendoes. Tired of having to be a slave to her stepmother. It seemed so hopeless.

She thought of her father and started bawling. He was gone. He’d never come back. Roberta would torment her to death. There was nothing left.

She walked out the front door like a sleepwalker, out to the dirt road that lead past the house. And she sat down in the middle of it—heartbroken and dusty with tears running down her cheeks.

Two

Michelle felt the vibration of the vehicle before she smelled the dust that came up around it. Her back was to the direction it was coming from. Desperation had blinded her to the hope of better days. She was sick of life. Sick of everything.

She put her hands on her knees, brought her elbows in, closed her eyes, and waited for the collision. It would probably hurt. Hopefully, it would be quick....

There was a squealing of tires and a metallic jerk. She didn’t feel the impact. Was she dead?

Long, muscular legs in faded blue denim came into view above big black hand-tooled leather boots.

“Would you care to explain what the hell you’re doing sitting in the middle of a road?” a deep, angry voice demanded.

She looked up into chilling liquid black eyes and grimaced. “Trying to get hit by a car?”

“I drive a truck,” he pointed out.

“Trying to get hit by a truck,” she amended in a matter-of-fact tone.

“Care to elaborate?”

She shrugged. “My stepmother will probably beat me when she gets back home because I ruined her sale.”

He frowned. “What sale?”

“My father died three weeks ago,” she said heavily. She figured he didn’t know, because she hadn’t seen any signs of life at the house down the road until she’d watched his truck go by just recently. “She had all his things taken to the landfill because I insisted on a real funeral, not a cremation, and now she’s trying to sell his stamp collection. It’s all I have left of him. I ruined the sale. The man left. She hit me....”

He turned his head. It was the first time he’d noticed the side of her face that looked almost blistered. His eyes narrowed. “Get in the truck.”

She stared at him. “I’m all dusty.”

“It’s a dusty truck. It won’t matter.”

She got to her feet. “Are you abducting me?”

“Yes.”

She sighed. “Okay.” She glanced at him ruefully. “If you don’t mind, I’d really like to go to Mars. Since I’m being abducted, I mean.”

He managed a rough laugh.

She went around to the passenger side. He opened the door for her.

“You’re Mr. Brandon,” she said when he climbed into the driver’s seat and slammed the door.

“Yes.”

She drew in a breath. “I’m Michelle.”

“Michelle.” He chuckled. “There was a song with that name. My father loved it. One of the lines was ‘Michelle, ma belle.’” He glanced at her. “Do you speak French?”

“A little,” she said. “I have it second period. It means something like ‘my beauty.’” She laughed. “And that has nothing to do with me, I’m afraid. I’m just plain.”

He glanced at her with raised eyebrows. Was she serious? She was gorgeous. Young, and untried, but her creamy complexion was without a blemish. She was nicely shaped and her hair was a pale blond. Those soft gray eyes reminded him of a fog in August...

He directed his eyes to the road. She was just a child, what was he thinking? “Beauty, as they say, is in the eye of the beholder.”

“Do you speak French?” she asked, curious.

He nodded. “French, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, Norwegian, Russian, German and a handful of Middle Eastern dialects.”

“Really?” She was fascinated. “Did you work as a translator or something?”

He pursed his lips. “From time to time,” he said, and then laughed to himself.

“Cool.”

He started the truck and drove down the road to the house he owned. It wasn’t far, just about a half mile. It was a ranch house, set back off the road. There were oceans of flowers blooming around it in the summer, planted by the previous owner, Mrs. Eller, who had died. Of course, it was still just February, and very cold. There were no flowers here now.

“Mrs. Eller loved flowers.”

“Excuse me?”

“She lived here all her life,” she told him, smiling as they drove up to the front porch. “Her husband worked as a deputy sheriff. They had a son in the military, but he was killed overseas. Her husband died soon afterward. She planted so many flowers that you could never even see the house. I used to come over and visit her when I was little, with my grandfather.”

“Your people are from here?”

“Oh, yes. For three generations. Daddy went to medical school in Georgia and then he set up a practice in cardiology in San Antonio. We lived there. But I spent every summer here with my grandparents while they were alive. Daddy kept the place up, after, and it was like a vacation home while Mama was alive.” She swallowed. That loss had been harsh. “We still had everything, even the furniture, when Daddy decided to move us down here and take early retirement. She hated it from the first time she saw it.” Her face hardened. “She’s selling it. My stepmother, I mean. She’s already talked about it.”

He drew in a breath. He knew he was going to regret this. He got out, opened the passenger door and waited for her to get out. He led the way into the house, seated her in the kitchen and pulled out a pitcher of iced tea. When he had it in glasses, he sat down at the table with her.

“Go ahead,” he invited. “Get it off your chest.”

“It’s not your problem...”

“You involved me in an attempted suicide,” he said with a droll look. “That makes it my problem.”

She grimaced. “I’m really sorry, Mr. Brandon....”

“Gabriel.”

She hesitated.

He raised an eyebrow. “I’m not that old,” he pointed out.

She managed a shy smile. “Okay.”

He cocked his head. “Say it,” he said, and his liquid black eyes stared unblinking into hers.

She felt her heart drop into her shoes. She swallowed down a hot wave of delight and hoped it didn’t show. “Ga...Gabriel,” she obliged.

His face seemed to soften. Just a little. He smiled, showing beautiful white teeth. “That’s better.”

She flushed. “I’m not...comfortable with men,” she blurted out.

His eyes narrowed on her face, her averted eyes. “Does your stepmother have a boyfriend?”

She swallowed, hard. The glass in her hand trembled.

He took the glass from her and put it on the table. “Tell me.”

It all poured out. Finding Roberta in Bert’s arms just after the funeral, finding them on the couch together that day, the way Bert looked and her and tried to touch her, the visit from her minister...

“And I thought my life was complicated,” he said heavily. He shook his head. “I’d forgotten what it was like to be young and at the mercy of older people.”

She studied him quietly. The expression on his face was...odd.

“You know,” she said softly. “You understand.”

“I had a stepfather,” he said through his teeth. “He was always after my sister. She was very pretty, almost fourteen. I was a few years older, and I was bigger than he was. Our mother loved him, God knew why. We’d moved back to Texas because the international company he worked for promoted him and he had to go to Dallas for the job. One day I heard my sister scream. I went into her room, and there he was. He’d tried to...” He stopped. His face was like stone. “My mother had to get a neighbor to pull me off him. After that, after she knew what had been going on, she still defended him. I was arrested, but the public defender got an earful. He spoke to my sister. My stepfather was arrested, charged, tried. My mother stood by him, the whole time. My sister was victimized by the defense attorney, after what she’d already suffered at our stepfather’s hands. She was so traumatized by the experience that she doesn’t even date.”

She winced. One small hand went shyly to cover his clenched fist on the table. “I’m so sorry.”

He seemed to mentally shake himself, as if he’d been locked into the past. He met her soft, concerned gaze. His big hand turned, curled around hers. “I’ve never spoken of it, until now.”

“Maybe sometimes it’s good to share problems. Dark memories aren’t so bad when you force them into the light.”

“Seventeen going on thirty?” he mused, smiling at her. It didn’t occur to her to wonder how he knew her age.

She smiled. “There are always people who are in worse shape than you are. My friend Billy has an alcoholic father who beats him and his mother. The police are over there all the time, but his mother will never press charges. Sheriff Carson says the next time, he’s going to jail, even if he has to press charges himself.”

“Good for the sheriff.”

“What happened, after the trial?” she prodded gently.

He curled his fingers around Michelle’s, as if he enjoyed their soft comfort. She might have been fascinated to know that he’d never shared these memories with any other woman, and that, as a rule, he hated having people touch him.

“He went to jail for child abuse,” he said. “My mother was there every visiting day.”

“No, what happened to you and your sister?”

“My mother refused to have us in the house with her. We were going to be placed in foster homes. The public defender had a maiden aunt, childless, who was suicidal. Her problems weren’t so terrible, but she tended to depression and she let them take her almost over the edge. So he thought we might be able to help each other. We went to live with Aunt Maude.” He chuckled. “She was not what you think of as anybody’s maiden aunt. She drove a Jaguar, smoked like a furnace, could drink any grown man under the table, loved bingo parties and cooked like a gourmet. Oh, and she spoke about twenty languages. In her youth, she was in the army and mustered out as a sergeant.”

“Wow,” she exclaimed. “She must have been fascinating to live with.”

“She was. And she was rich. She spoiled us rotten. She got my sister into therapy, for a while at least, and me into the army right after I graduated.” He smiled. “She was nuts about Christmas. We had trees that bent at the ceiling, and the limbs groaned under all the decorations. She’d go out and invite every street person she could find over to eat with us.” His face sobered. “She said she’d seen foreign countries where the poor were treated better than they were here. Ironically, it was one of the same people she invited to Christmas dinner who stabbed her to death.”

She winced. “I’m so sorry!”

“Me, too. By that time, though, Sara and I were grown. I was in the...military,” he said, hoping she didn’t notice the involuntary pause, “and Sara had her own apartment. Maude left everything she had to the two of us and her nephew. We tried to give our share back to him, as her only blood heir, but he just laughed and said he got to keep his aunt for years longer because of us. He went into private practice and made a fortune defending drug lords, so he didn’t really need it, he told us.”

“Defending drug lords.” She shook her head.

“We all do what we do,” he pointed out. “Besides, I’ve known at least one so-called drug lord who was better than some upright people.”

She just laughed.

He studied her small hand. “If things get too rough for you over there, let me know. I’ll manage something.”

“It’s only until graduation this spring,” she pointed out.

“In some situations, a few months can be a lifetime,” he said quietly.

She nodded.

“Friends help each other.”

She studied his face. “Are we? Friends, I mean?”

“We must be. I haven’t told anyone else about my stepfather.”

“You didn’t tell me the rest of it.”

His eyes went back to her hand resting in his. “He got out on good behavior six months after his conviction and decided to make my sister pay for testifying against him. She called 911. The police shot him.”

“Oh, my gosh.”

“My mother blamed both of us for it. She moved back to Canada, to Alberta, where we grew up.”

“Are you Canadian?” she asked curiously.

He smiled. “I’m actually Texas born. We moved to Canada to stay with my mother’s people when my father was in the military and stationed overseas. Sara was born in Calgary. We lived there until just after my mother married my stepfather.”

“Did you see your mother again, after that?” she asked gently.

He shook his head. “Our mother never spoke to us again. She died a few years back. Her attorney tracked me down and said she left her estate, what there was of it, to the cousins in Alberta.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Life is what it is. I had hoped she might one day realize what she’d done to my sister. She never did.”

“We can’t help who we love, or what it does to mess us up.”

He frowned. “You really are seventeen going on thirty.”

She laughed softly. “Maybe I’m an old soul.”

“Ah. Been reading philosophy, have we?”

“Yes.” She paused. “You haven’t mentioned your father.”

He smiled sadly. “He was in a paramilitary group overseas. He stepped on an antipersonnel mine.”

She didn’t know what a paramilitary group was, so she just nodded.

“He was from Dallas,” he continued. “He had a small ranch in Texas that he inherited from his grandfather. He and my mother met at the Calgary Stampede. He trained horses and he’d sold several to be used at the stampede. She had an uncle who owned a ranch in Alberta and also supplied livestock to the stampede.” He stared at her small hand in his. “Her people were French-Canadian. One of my grandmothers was a member of the Blackfoot Nation.”

“Wow!”

He smiled.

“Then, you’re an American citizen,” she said.

“Our parents did the whole citizenship process. In short, I now have both Canadian and American citizenship.”

“My dad loved this Canadian television show, Due South. He had the whole DVD collection. I liked the Mountie’s dog. He was a wolf.”

He laughed. “I’ve got the DVDs, too. I loved the show. It was hilarious.”

She glanced at the clock on the wall. “I have to go. If you aren’t going to run over me, I’ll have to fix supper in case she comes home to eat. It’s going to be gruesome. She’ll still be furious about the stamp collection.” Her face grew hard. “She won’t find it. I’ve got a hiding place she doesn’t know about.”

He smiled. “Devious.”

“Not normally. But she’s not selling Daddy’s stamps.”

He let go of her hand and got up from his chair. “If she hits you again, call 911.”

“She’d kill me for that.”

“Not likely.”

She sighed. “I guess I could, if I had to.”

“You mentioned your minister. Who is he?”

“Jake Blair. Why?”

His expression was deliberately blank.

“Do you know him? He’s a wonderful minister. Odd thing, my stepmother was intimidated by him.”

He hesitated, and seemed to be trying not to laugh. “Yes. I’ve heard of him.”

“He told her that his daughter was going to pick me up and bring me home from church every week. His daughter works for the Jacobsville police chief.”

“Cash Grier.”

She nodded. “He’s very nice.”

“Cash Grier?” he exclaimed. “Nice?”

“Oh, I know people talk about him, but he came to speak to my civics class once. He’s intelligent.”

“Very.”

He helped her back into the truck and drove her to her front door.

She hesitated before she got out, turning to him. “Thank you. I don’t think I’ve ever been so depressed. I’ve never actually tried to kill myself before.”

His liquid black eyes searched hers. “We all have days when we’re ridden by the ‘black dog.’”

She blinked. “Excuse me?”

He chuckled. “Winston Churchill had periods of severe depression. He called it that.”

She frowned. “Winston Churchill...”

“There was this really big world war,” he said facetiously, with over-the-top enthusiasm, “and this country called England, and it had a leader during—”

“Oh, give me a break!” She burst out laughing.

He grinned at her. “Just checking.”

She shook her head. “I know who he was. I just had to put it into context is all. Thanks again.”

“Anytime.”

She got out and closed the door, noting with relief that Roberta hadn’t come home yet. She smiled and waved. He waved back. When he drove off, she noticed that he didn’t look back. Not at all.

* * *

She had supper ready when Roberta walked in the door. Her stepmother was still fuming.

“I’m not eating beef,” she said haughtily. “You know I hate it. And are those mashed potatoes? I’ll bet you crammed them with butter!”

“Yes, I did,” Michelle replied quietly, “because you always said you liked them that way.”

Roberta’s cheeks flushed. She shifted, as if the words, in that quiet voice, made her feel guilty.

In fact, they did. She was remembering her behavior with something close to shame. Her husband had only been dead three weeks. She’d tossed his belongings, refused to go to the funeral, made fun of her stepdaughter at every turn, even slapped her for messing up the sale of stamps which Alan had left to Michelle. And after all that, the child made her favorite food. Her behavior should be raising red flags, but her stepdaughter was, thankfully, too naive to notice it. Bert’s doing, she thought bitterly. All his fault.

“You don’t have to eat it,” Michelle said, turning away.

Roberta made a rough sound in her throat. “It’s all right,” she managed tautly. She sat down at the table. She glanced at Michelle, who was dipping a tea bag in a cup of steaming water. “Aren’t you eating?”

“I had soup.”

Roberta made inroads into the meat loaf and mashed potatoes. The girl had even made creamed peas, her favorite.

She started to put her fork down and noticed her hand trembling. She jerked it down onto the wood and pulled her hand back.

It was getting worse. She needed more and more. Bert was complaining about the expense. They’d had a fight. She’d gone storming up to his apartment in San Antonio to cry on his shoulder about her idiot stepdaughter and he’d started complaining when she dipped into his stash. But after all, he was the one who’d gotten her hooked in the first place.

It had taken more money than she’d realized to keep up, and Alan had finally figured out what she was doing. They’d argued. He’d asked her for a divorce, but she’d pleaded with him. She had no place to go. She knew Bert wouldn’t hear of her moving in with him. Her whole family was dead.

Alan had agreed, but the price of his agreement was that she had to move down to his hometown with him after he sold his very lucrative practice in San Antonio.

She’d thought he meant the move to be a temporary one. He was tired of the rat race. He wanted something quieter. But they’d only been in his old family homestead for a few days when he confessed that he’d been diagnosed with an inoperable cancer. He wanted to spend some time with his daughter before the end. He wanted to run a free clinic, to help people who had no money for doctors. He wanted his life to end on a positive note, in the place where he was born.

So here was Roberta, stuck after his death with a habit she could no longer afford and no way to break it. Stuck with Cinderella here, who knew about as much about life as she knew about men.

She glared at the girl. She’d really needed the money from those stamps. There was nothing left that she could liquidate for cash. She hadn’t taken all of Alan’s things to the landfill. She’d told Michelle that so she wouldn’t look for them. She’d gone to a consignment shop in San Antonio and sold the works, even his watch. It brought in a few hundred dollars. But she was going through money like water.

“What did you do with the stamps?” Roberta asked suddenly.

Michelle schooled her features to give away nothing, and she turned. “I hitched a ride into town and asked Cash Grier to keep them for me.”

Roberta sucked in her breath. Fear radiated from her. “Cash Grier?”

Michelle nodded. “I figured it was the safest place. I told him I was worried about someone stealing them while I was at school.”

Which meant she hadn’t told the man that Roberta had slapped her. Thank God. All she needed now was an assault charge. She had to be more careful. The girl was too stupid to recognize her symptoms. The police chief wouldn’t be. She didn’t want anyone from law enforcement on the place. But she didn’t even have the grace to blush when Michelle made the comment about someone possibly “stealing” her stamp collection.

She got up from the table. She was thirsty, but she knew it would be disastrous to pick up her cup of coffee. Not until she’d taken what she needed to steady her hands.

She paused on her way to the bathroom, with her back to Michelle. “I’m... I shouldn’t have slapped you,” she bit off.

She didn’t wait for a reply. She was furious with herself for that apology. Why should the kid’s feelings matter to her, anyway? She pushed away memories of how welcoming Michelle had been when she first started dating Alan. Michelle had wanted to impress her father’s new friend.

Well, that was ancient history now. She was broke and Alan had died, leaving her next to nothing. She picked up her purse from the side table and went into the bathroom with it.

Michelle cleaned off the table and put the dishes into the dishwasher. Roberta hadn’t come out of the bathroom even after she’d done all that, so she went to her room.

* * *

Michelle had been surprised by the almost-apology. But once she thought about it, she realized that Roberta might think she was going to press charges. She was afraid of her stepmother. She had violent mood swings and she’d threatened to hit Michelle several times.

It was odd, because when she’d first married Dr. Alan Godfrey, Michelle had liked her. She’d been fun to be around. But she had a roving eye. She liked men. If they went to a restaurant, someone always struck up a conversation with Roberta, who was exquisitely groomed and dressed and had excellent manners. Roberta enjoyed masculine attention, without being either coarse or forward.

Then, several months ago, everything had changed. Roberta had started going out at night alone. She told her husband that she’d joined an exercise club at a friend’s house, a private one. They did aerobics and Pilates and things like that. Just women.

But soon afterward, Roberta became more careless about her appearance. Her manners slipped, badly. She complained about everything. Alan wasn’t giving her enough spending money. The house needed cleaning, why wasn’t Michelle doing more when she wasn’t in school? She wasn’t doing any more cooking, she didn’t like it, Michelle would have to take over for her. And on it went. Alan had been devastated by the change. So had Michelle, who had to bear the brunt of most of Roberta’s fury.

“Some women have mood swings as they get older,” Alan had confided to his daughter, but there was something odd in his tone of voice. “But you mustn’t say anything about it to her. She doesn’t like thinking she’s getting on in years. All right?”

“All right, Daddy,” she’d agreed, with a big smile.

He’d hugged her close. “That’s my girl.”

* * *

Roberta had gone away for a few weeks after that. Then, not too long after her return, they’d moved to Comanche Wells, into the house where Michelle had spent so many happy weeks with her grandparents every summer.

The elderly couple had died in a wreck only a few years after Michelle’s mother had died of a stroke. It had been a blow. Her father had gone through terrible grief. But then, so had Michelle.

Despite the double tragedy, Comanche Wells and this house seemed far more like home than San Antonio ever had, because it was so small that Michelle knew almost every family who lived in it. She knew people in Jacobsville, too, of course, but it was much larger. Comanche Wells was tiny by comparison.

Michelle loved the farm animals that her grandparents had kept. They always had dogs and cats and chickens for her to play with. But by the time Alan moved his family down here, there was only the small herd of beef cattle. Now the herd had been sold and was going to a local rancher who was going to truck the steers over to his own ranch.

Her door opened suddenly. Roberta looked wild-eyed. “I’m going back up to San Antonio for the night. I have to see Bert.”

“All...” She had started to say “all right,” but the door slammed. Roberta went straight out to her car, revved it up and scattered gravel on the way to the road.

It was odd behavior, even for her.

Michelle felt a little better than she had. At least she and Roberta might be able to manage each other’s company until May, when graduation rolled around.

But Gabriel had helped her cope with what she thought was unbearable. She smiled, remembering his kindness, remembering the strong, warm clasp of his fingers. Her heart sailed at the memory. She’d almost never held hands with a boy. Once, when she was twelve, at a school dance. But the boy had moved away, and she was far too shy and old-fashioned to appeal to most of the boys in her high school classes. There had been another boy, at high school, but that date had ended in near disaster.

Gabriel was no boy. He had to be at least in his mid-twenties. He would think of her as a child. She grimaced. Well, she was growing up. One day...who knew what might happen?

She opened her English textbook and got busy with her homework. Then she remembered with a start what she’d told Roberta, that lie about having Cash Grier keep the stamp book. What if Roberta asked him?

Her face flamed. It would be a disaster. She’d lied, and Roberta would know it. She’d tear the house apart looking for that collection...

Then Michelle calmed down. Roberta seemed afraid of Cash Grier. Most people were. She doubted very seriously that her stepmother would approach him. But just to cover her bases, she was going to stop by his office after school. She could do it by pretending to ask Carlie what time she would pick her up for church services. Then maybe she could work up the nerve to tell him what she’d done. She would go without lunch. That would give her just enough money to pay for a cab home from Jacobsville, which was only a few miles away. Good thing she already had her lunch money for the week, because Roberta had told her there wouldn’t be any more. She was going to have to do without lunch from now on, apparently. Or get a job. And good luck to that, without a car or a driver’s license.

She sighed. Her life was more complicated than it had ever been. But things might get better. Someday.

Three

Michelle got off the school bus in downtown Jacobsville on Friday afternoon. She had to stop by the newspaper office to ask Minette Carson if she’d give her a reference for the scholarship she was applying for. The office was very close to police chief Grier’s office, whom she also needed to see. And she had just enough money to get the local cab company to take her home.

Minette was sitting out front at her desk when Michelle walked in. She grinned and got up to greet her.

“How’s school?” she asked.

“Going very well,” Michelle said. “I wanted to ask if I could put you down as a reference. I’m applying for that journalism scholarship we spoke about last month, at Marist College in San Antonio.”

“Of course you can.”

“Thanks. I’m hoping I can keep my grades up so I’ll have a shot at it.”

“You’ll do fine, Michelle. You have a way with words.” She held up a hand when Michelle looked as if she might protest. “I never lie about writing. I’m brutally honest. If I thought you didn’t have the skill, I’d keep my mouth shut.”

Michelle laughed. “Okay. Thanks, then.”

Minette perched on the edge of her desk. “I was wondering if you might like to work part-time for me. After school and Saturday morning.”

Michelle’s jaw dropped. “You mean, work here?” she exclaimed. “Oh, my gosh, I’d love to!” Then the joy drained out of her face. “I can’t,” she groaned. “I don’t drive, and I don’t have cab fare home. I mean, I do today, but I went without lunch....” Her face flamed.

“Carlie lives just past you,” she said gently. “She works until five. So do we. I know she’d let you ride with her. She works Saturday mornings, too.”

The joy came back into her features. “I’ll ask her!”

Minette chuckled. “Do that. And let me know.”

“I will, I promise.”

“You can start Monday, if you like. Do you have a cell phone?” Minette asked.

Michelle hesitated and shook her head with lowered eyes.

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll get you one.”

“Oh, but....”

“I’ll have you phoning around town for news. Junior reporter stuff,” she added with a grin. “A cell’s an absolute necessity.”

“In that case, okay, but I’ll pay you back.”

“That’s a deal.”

“I’ll go over and talk to Carlie.”

“Stop back by and let me know, okay?”

“Okay!”

She didn’t normally rush, but she was so excited that her feet carried her across the street like wings.

She walked into the police station. Cash Grier was perched on Carlie’s desk, dictating from a paper he held in his hand. He stopped when he saw Michelle.

“Sorry,” Michelle said, coloring. She clutched her textbooks to her chest almost as a shield. “I just needed to ask Carlie something. I can come back later....”

“Nonsense,” Cash said, and grinned.

She managed a shy smile. “Thanks.” She hesitated. “I told a lie to my stepmother,” she blurted out. “I think you should know, because it involved you.”

His dark eyebrows arched. “Really? Did you volunteer me for the lead in a motion picture or something? Because I have to tell you, my asking price is extremely high....”

She laughed with pure delight. “No. I told her I gave you my father’s stamp collection for safekeeping.” She flushed again. “She was going to sell it. She’d already thrown away all his stuff. He and I worked on the stamp collection together as long as I can remember. It’s all I have left of him.” She swallowed. Hard.

Cash got up. He towered over her. He wasn’t laughing. “You bring it in here and I’ll put it in the safe,” he said gently. “Nobody will touch it.”

“Thanks.” She was trying not to cry. “That’s so kind...”

“Now, don’t cry or you’ll have me in tears. What would people think? I mean, I’m a big, tough cop. I can’t be seen standing around sobbing all over the place. Crime would flourish!”

That amused her. She stopped biting her lip and actually grinned.

“That’s better.” His black eyes narrowed quizzically. “Your stepmother seems to have some issues. I got an earful from your minister this morning.”

She nodded sadly. “She was so different when we lived in San Antonio. I mean, we went shopping together, we took turns cooking. Then we moved down here and she got mixed up with that Bert person.” She shivered. “He gives me cold chills, but she’s crazy about him.”

“Bert Sims?” Cash asked in a deceptively soft tone.

“That’s him.”

Cash didn’t say anything else. “If things get rough over there, call me, will you? I know you’re outside the city limits, but I can get to Hayes Carson pretty quick if I have to, and he has jurisdiction.”

“Oh, it’s nothing like that....”

“Isn’t it?” Cash asked.

She felt chilled. It was as if he was able to see Roberta through her eyes, and he saw everything.

“She did apologize. Sort of. For hitting me, I mean.”

“Hitting you?” Cash stood straighter. “When?”

“I messed up the sale of Daddy’s stamps. She was wild-eyed and screaming. She just slapped me, is all. She’s been excitable since before Daddy died, but now she’s just...just...nuts. She talks about money all the time, like she’s dying to get her hands on some. But she doesn’t buy clothes or cosmetics, she doesn’t even dress well anymore.”

“Do you know why?”

She shook her head. She drew in a breath. “She doesn’t drink,” she said. “I know that’s what you’re thinking. She and Daddy used to have drinks every night, and she had a problem for a little while, but she got over it.”

Cash just nodded. “You let me know if things get worse. Okay?”

“Okay, Chief. Thanks,” she added.

The phone rang. Carlie answered it. “It’s your wife,” she said with a big grin.

Cash’s face lit up. “Really? Wow. A big-time movie star calling me up on the phone. I’m just awed, I am.” He grinned. Everybody knew his wife, Tippy, had been known as the Georgia Firefly when she’d been a supermodel and, later, an actress. “I’ll take it in my office. With the door closed.” He made a mock scowl. “And no eavesdropping.”

Carlie put her hand over her heart. “I swear.”

“Not in my office, you don’t,” he informed her. “Swearing is a misdemeanor.”

She stuck out her tongue at his departing back.

“I saw that,” he said without looking behind him. He went into his office and closed the door on two giggling women.

“He’s a trip to work for,” Carlie enthused, her green eyes sparkling in a face framed by short, dark, wavy hair. “I was scared to death of him when I interviewed for the job. At least, until he accused me of hiding his bullets and telling his men that he read fashion magazines in the bathroom.”

Michelle laughed.

“He’s really funny. He says he keeps files on aliens in the filing cabinet and locks it so I won’t peek.” The smile moderated. “But if there’s an emergency, he’s the toughest guy I’ve ever known. I would never cross him, if I was a criminal.”

“They say he chased a speeder all the way to San Antonio once.”

She laughed. “That wasn’t the chief. That was Kilraven, who worked here undercover.” She leaned forward. “He really belongs to a federal agency. We’re not supposed to mention it.”

“I won’t tell,” Michelle promised.

“However, the chief—” she nodded toward his closed door “—got on a plane to an unnamed foreign country, tossed a runaway criminal into a bag and boated him to Miami. The criminal was part of a drug cartel. He killed a small-town deputy because he thought the man was a spy. He wasn’t, but he was just as dead. Then the feds got involved and the little weasel escaped into a country that didn’t have an extradition treaty with us. However, once he was on American soil, he was immediately arrested by Dade County deputies.” She grinned. “The chief denied ever having seen the man, and nobody could prove that it was him on the beach. And,” she added darkly, “you never heard that from me. Right?”

“Right!”

Carlie laughed. “So what can I do for you?”

“I need a ride home from work.”

“I’ve got another hour to go, but...”

“Not today,” Michelle said. “Starting Monday. Minette Carson just offered me a part-time job, but I don’t have a way to get home. And she said I could work part-time Saturday, but I can’t drive and I don’t have a car.”

“You can ride with me, and I’d welcome the company,” Carlie said easily.

“I’ll chip in for the gas.”

“That would really help! Have you seen what I drive?” She groaned. “My dad has this thing about cars. He thinks you need an old truck to keep you from speeding, so he bought me a twelve-year-old tank. At least, it looks like a tank.” She frowned. “Maybe it was a tank and he had it remodeled. Anyway, it barely gets twelve miles to a gallon and it won’t go over fifty.” She shook her head. “He drives a vintage Ford Cobra,” she added with a scowl. “One of the neatest rides on the planet and I’m not allowed to touch it, can you believe that?”

Michelle just grinned. She didn’t know anything about cars. She did recall the way the minister had peeled out of the driveway, scattering gravel. That car he drove had one big engine.

“Your dad scared my stepmother.” Michelle laughed. “She wasn’t letting me go to church. Your dad said I could ride with you.” She stopped and flushed. “I really feel like I’m imposing. I wish I could drive. I wish I had a car....”

“It’s really not imposing,” Carlie said softly, smiling. “As I said, I’d like the company. I go down lots of back roads getting here from Comanche Wells. I’m not spooky or anything, but this guy did try to kill my Dad with a knife.” She lowered her eyes. “I got in the way.”

Michelle felt guilty that she hadn’t remembered. “I’ll learn karate,” she promised. “We can go to a class together or something, and if anybody attacks us we can fight back!”

“Bad idea,” Cash said, rejoining them. “A few weeks of martial arts won’t make you an expert. Even an expert,” he added solemnly, “knows better than to fight if he can get away from an armed man.”

“That isn’t what the ads say,” Carlie mused, grinning.

“Yes, I know,” Cash replied. “Take it from me, disarming someone with a gun is difficult even for a black belt.” He leaned forward. “Which I am.”

Carlie stood up, bowed deeply from the waist, and said, “Sensei!” Cash lost it. He roared with laughter.

“You could teach us,” Michelle suggested. “Couldn’t you?”

Cash just smiled. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt. Just a few basics for an emergency. But if you have an armed opponent, you run,” he said firmly. “Or if you’re cornered, scream, make a fuss. Never,” he emphasized, “get into a car with anyone who threatens to kill you if you don’t. Once he’s got you in a car, away from help, you’re dead, anyway.”

Michelle felt chills run down her spine. “Okay.”

Carlie looked uncomfortable. She knew firsthand about an armed attacker. Unconsciously, she rubbed the shoulder where the knife had gone in. She’d tried to protect her father. Her assailant had been arrested, but had died soon afterward. She never knew why her father had been the target of an attack by a madman.

“Deep thoughts?” Michelle asked her.

She snapped back. “Sorry. I was remembering the guy who attacked my father.” She frowned. “What sort of person attacks a minister, for goodness’ sake!”

“Come on down to federal lockup with me, and I’ll show you a baker’s dozen who have,” Cash told her. “Religious arguments quite often lead to murder, even in families. That’s why,” he added, “we don’t discuss politics or religion in the office.” He frowned. “Well, if someone died in here, we’d probably say a prayer. And if the president came to see me, and why wouldn’t he, we’d probably discuss his foreign policy.”

“Why would the president come to see you?” Michelle asked innocently.

Cash pursed his lips. “For advice, of course. I have some great ideas about foreign policy.”

“For instance?” Carlie mused.

“I think we should declare war on Tahiti.”

They both stared at him.

“Well, if we do, we can send troops, right?” he continued. “And what soldier in his right mind wouldn’t want to go and fight in Tahiti? Lush tropical flowers, fire-dancing, beautiful women, the ocean...”

“Tahiti doesn’t have a standing army, I don’t think,” Michelle ventured.

“All the better. We can just occupy it for like three weeks, let them surrender, and then give them foreign aid.” He glowered. “Now you’ve done it. You’ll repeat that everywhere and the president will hear about it and he’ll never have to come and hear me explain it. You’ve blown my chances for an invitation to the White House,” he groaned. “And I did so want to spend a night in the Lincoln bedroom!”

“Listen, break out those files on aliens that you keep in your filing cabinet and tell the president you’ve got them!” Carlie suggested, while Michelle giggled. “He’ll come right down here to have a look at them!”

“They won’t let him,” Cash sighed. “His security clearance isn’t high enough.”

“What?” Carlie exclaimed.

“Well, he’s only in the office for four years, eight tops. So the guys in charge of the letter agencies—the really secretive ones—allegedly keep some secrets to themselves. Particularly those dealing with aliens.” He chuckled.

The girls, who didn’t know whether to believe him or not, just laughed along with him.

* * *

Michelle stopped back by Minette’s office to tell her the good news, and to thank her again for the job.

“You know,” she said, “Chief Grier is really nice.”

“Nice when he likes you,” Minette said drily. “There are a few criminals in maximum-security prisons who might disagree.”

“No doubt there.”

“So, will Monday suit you, to start to work?” Minette asked.

“I’d really love to start yesterday.” Michelle laughed. “I’m so excited!”

Minette grinned. “Monday will come soon enough. We’ll see you then.”

“Can you write me a note? Just in case I need one?” She was thinking of how to break it to Roberta. That was going to be tricky.

“No problem.” Minette went to her desk, typed out an explanation of Michelle’s new position, and signed it. She handed it to the younger woman. “There you go.”

“Dress code?” Michelle asked, glancing around the big open room where several people were sitting at desks, to a glass-walled room beyond which big sheets of paper rested on a long section like a chalkboard.

“Just be neat,” Minette said easily. “I mostly kick around in jeans and T-shirts, although I dress when I go to political meetings or to interviews with state or federal politicians. You’ll need to learn how to use a camera, as well. We have digital ones. They’re very user-friendly.”

“This is very exciting,” Michelle said, her gray eyes glimmering with delight.

Minette laughed. “It is to me, too, and I’ve done this since I was younger than you are. I grew up running around this office.” She looked around with pure love in her eyes. “It’s home.”

“I’m really looking forward to it. Will I just be reporting news?”

“No. Well, not immediately, at least. You’ll learn every aspect of the business, from selling ads to typing copy to composition. Even subscriptions.” She leaned forward. “You’ll learn that some subscribers probably used to be doctors, because the handwriting looks more like Sanskrit than English.”

Michelle chuckled. “I’ll cope. My dad had the worst handwriting in the world.”

“And he was a doctor,” Minette agreed, smiling.

The smile faded. “He was a very good doctor,” she said, trying not to choke up. “Sorry,” she said, wiping away a tear. “It’s still hard.”

“It takes time,” Minette said with genuine sympathy. “I lost my mother, my stepfather, my stepmother—I loved them all. You’ll adjust, but you have to get through the grief process first. Tears are healing.”

“Thanks.”

“If you need to talk, I’m here. Anytime. Night or day.”

Michelle wiped away more tears. “That’s really nice of you.”

“I know how it feels.”

The phone rang and one of the employees called out. “For you, boss. The mayor returning your call.”

Minette grimaced. “I have to take it. I’m working on a story about the new water system. It’s going to be super.”

“I’ll see you after school Monday, then. And thanks again.”

“My pleasure.”

* * *

Michelle went home with dreams of journalism dancing in her head. She’d never been so happy. Things were really looking up.

She noted that Roberta’s car was in the driveway and she mentally braced herself for a fight. It was suppertime and she hadn’t been there to cook. She was going to be in big trouble.

Sure enough, the minute she walked in the door, Roberta threw her hands up and glared at her. “I’m not cooking,” she said furiously. “That’s your job. Where the hell have you been?”

Michelle swallowed. “I was in...in town.”

“Doing what?” came the tart query.

She shifted. “Getting a job.”

“A job?” She frowned, and her eyes didn’t seem to quite focus. “Well, I’m not driving you to work, even if somebody was crazy enough to hire you!”

“I have a ride,” she replied.

“A job,” she scoffed. “As if you’re ever around to do chores as it is. You’re going to get a job? Who’s going to do the laundry and the housecleaning and the cooking?”

Michelle bit her tongue, trying not to say what she was thinking. “I have to have money for lunch,” she said, thinking fast.

Roberta blinked, then she remembered that she’d said Michelle wasn’t getting any more lunch money. She averted her eyes.

“Besides, I have to save for college. I’ll start in the fall semester.”

“Jobs. College.” Roberta looked absolutely furious. “And you think I’m going to stay down here in this hick town while you sashay off to college in some big city, do you?”

“I graduate in just over three months...”

“I’m putting the house on the market,” Roberta shot back. She held up a hand. “Don’t even bother arguing. I’m listing the house with a San Antonio broker, not one from here.” She gave Michelle a dirty look. “They’re all on your side, trying to keep the property off the market. It won’t work. I need money!”

For just one instant, Michelle thought about letting her have the stamps. Then she decided it was useless to do that. Roberta would spend the money and still try to sell the house. She comforted herself with what the local Realtor had told her—that it would take time for the will to get through probate. If there was a guardian angel, perhaps hers would drag out the time required for all that. And even then, there was a chance the house wouldn’t sell.

“I don’t imagine a lot of people want to move to a town this small,” Michelle said out loud.

“Somebody local might buy it. One of those ranchers.” She made it sound like a dirty word.

That made Michelle feel better. If someone from here bought the house, they might consider renting it to her. Since she had a job, thanks to Minette, she could probably afford reasonable rent.

Roberta wiped her face. She was sweating.

Michelle frowned. “Are you all right?”

“Of course I’m all right, I’m just hungry!”

“I’ll make supper.” She went to her room to put her books away and stopped short. The place was in shambles. Drawers had been emptied, the clothes from the shelves in the closet were tossed haphazardly all over the floor. Michelle’s heart jumped, but she noticed without looking too hard that the baseboards in the closet were still where they should be. She looked around but not too closely. After all, she’d told Roberta that Chief Grier had her father’s stamp collection. It hadn’t stopped Roberta from searching the room. But it was obvious that she hadn’t found anything.

She went back out into the hall, where her stepmother was standing with folded arms, a disappointed look on her face. She’d expected that the girl would go immediately to where she’d hidden the stamps. The fact that she didn’t even search meant they weren’t here. Damn the luck, she really had taken them to the police chief. And even Roberta wasn’t brash enough to walk up to Cash Grier and demand the stamp collection back, although she was probably within her legal rights to do so.

“Don’t tell me,” Michelle said, staring at her. “Squirrels?”

Roberta was disconcerted. Without meaning to, she burst out laughing at the girl’s audacity. She turned away, shaking her head. “All right, I just wanted to make sure the stamp collection wasn’t still here. I guess you were telling the truth all along.”

“Roberta, if you need money so much, why don’t you get a job?”

“I had a job, if you recall,” she replied. “I worked in retail.”

That was true. Roberta had worked at the cosmetics counter in one of San Antonio’s most prestigious department stores.

“But I’m not going back to that,” Roberta scoffed. “Once I sell this dump of a house, I’ll be able to go to New York or Los Angeles and find a man who really is rich, instead of one who’s just pretending to be,” she added sarcastically.

“Gosh. Poor Bert,” Michelle said. “Does he know?”

Roberta’s eyes flashed angrily. “If you say a word to him...!”

Michelle held up both hands. “Not my business.”

“Exactly!” Roberta snapped. “Now, how about fixing supper?”

“Sure,” Michelle agreed. “As soon as I clean up my room,” she added in a bland tone.

Her stepmother actually flushed. She took a quick breath. She was shivering. “I need...more...” she mumbled to herself. She went back into her own room and slammed the door.

* * *

They ate together, but Michelle didn’t taste much of her supper. Roberta read a fashion magazine while she spooned food into her mouth.

“Where are you getting a job? Who’s going to even hire a kid like you?” she asked suddenly.

“Minette Carson.”

The magazine stilled in her hands. “You’re going to work for a newspaper?”

“Of course. I want to study journalism in college.”

Roberta looked threatened. “Well, I don’t want you working for newspapers. Find something else.”

“I won’t,” Michelle said firmly. “This is what I want to do for a living. I have to start somewhere. And I have to save for college. Unless you’d like to volunteer to pay my tuition....”

“Ha! Fat chance!” Roberta scoffed.

“That’s what I thought. I’m going to a public college, but I still have to pay for books and tuition.”

“Newspapers. Filthy rags.” Her voice sounded slurred. She was picking at her food. Her fork was moving in slow motion. And she was still sweating.

“They do a great deal of good,” Michelle argued. “They’re the eyes and ears of the public.”

“Nosy people sticking their heads into things that don’t concern them!”

Michelle looked down at her plate. She didn’t mention that people without things to hide shouldn’t have a problem with that.

Roberta took her paper towel and mopped her sweaty face. She seemed disoriented and she was flushed, as well.

“You should see a doctor,” Michelle said quietly. “There’s that flu still going around.”

“I’m not sick,” the older woman said sharply. “And my health is none of your business!”

Michelle grimaced. She sipped milk instead of answering.

“It’s too hot in here. You don’t have to keep the thermostat so high!”

“It’s seventy degrees,” Michelle said, surprised. “I can’t keep it higher or we couldn’t afford the gas bill.” She paid the bills with money that was grudgingly supplied by Roberta from the joint bank account she’d had with Michelle’s father. Roberta hadn’t lifted a finger to pay a bill since Alan had died.

“Well, it’s still hot!” came the agitated reply. She got up from the table. “I’m going outside. I can’t breathe in here.”

Michelle watched her go with open curiosity. Odd. Roberta seemed out of breath and flushed more and more lately. She had episodes of shaking that seemed very unusual. She acted drunk sometimes, but Michelle knew she wasn’t drinking. There was no liquor in the house. It probably was the flu. She couldn’t understand why a person who was obviously sick wouldn’t just go to the doctor in the first—

There was a loud thud from the general direction of the front porch.

Four

Michelle got up from her chair and went out onto the porch. It sounded as if Roberta had flung a chair against the wall, maybe in another outburst of temper.

She opened the door and stopped. Roberta was lying there, on her back on the porch, gasping for breath, her eyes wide, her face horrified.

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