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
