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. Sh
e 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 figure
d 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.”
TEXAS BORN Page 2
