Diana Palmer - Texas Born

“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.