The Sheikh's Secret Son. Kasey Michaels

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      Her life was hell, pure and simple. Going to school every day was like running a gauntlet with no idea if you’d ever emerge safely.

      “Don’t be afraid to speak to your parents,” Ms. Osborne told the kids. “Your teachers here at school and your parents, working together, can keep you safe from bullies. And those who are threatening you will be punished.”

      Ellie rolled over and buried her face in the pillow.

      It sounded good, that big promise from the principal, but Ellie didn’t believe a word of it. Her home-room teacher, Mr. Kilmer, was a shy man who was probably every bit as terrified of Cody Pollock and his friends as she was.

      Ellie’s father, of course, wasn’t scared of anybody. But Ellie would die of embarrassment if she told him the things those boys said to her and what Cody Pollock threatened to do to her.

      Besides, what good would it do, anyhow? Her father couldn’t kill Cody or make him move away, and so the bullying would just go on. Probably it would be even worse because Cody would know she’d told on him.

      But tonight, for the first time, Ellie could see the possibility of escape.

      She thought about the miraculous fifty-dollar bill she’d found in the river. It was like a present from God, just the same way He’d sent baby Moses floating down the river to lodge in the bulrushes.

      And that money was going to give Ellie a whole new life.

      She knew fifty dollars wasn’t enough for what she wanted to do.

      But she had more than sixty dollars already in her bank account, painstakingly saved over the last two years, mostly birthday and Christmas money from Mary and Bubba. And her father had assured her it was her own money, so she could take the whole amount out of the bank anytime she wanted to.

      A hundred dollars was just about all she needed. Ellie tensed with excitement when she thought of having so much money.

      Her plan was simple. She intended to go into town one day soon, when her father was busy with the haying and couldn’t pay much attention to her. Ellie would withdraw the money, buy a bus ticket and go to Nashville to live with her mother.

      She knew, of course, that Annie didn’t want to be saddled with a twelve-year-old kid when her career was just starting to take off, but she could hardly turn away her own daughter. Besides, Ellie was determined to show how much help she could be. She’d clean Annie’s apartment and cook good meals for her when she came home after singing all night, and she’d never, ever be in the way. And soon Annie would be glad her daughter had come to live with her.

      Dreamily, Ellie pictured their relationship in Nashville, a whole world away from Cody and his awful friends.

      Of course, she didn’t want to stay with Annie forever, because she’d get too lonely for Daddy and Chris and Josh. Maybe after a while, when Cody Pollock got tired of waiting for her to show up and found somebody else to bully, she’d be able to come home to the farm.

      Meanwhile the fifty-dollar bill lay safely in her dresser drawer, a magical promise of better days ahead.

      Within the house, the distant sounds began to fade. She heard her father emptying the bathtub, talking to Chris as he got her ready to go back to bed. Then he came striding through the hallway to fetch something from the kitchen, looking big and hairy in his boxer shorts.

      Cautiously Ellie raised herself on one elbow and saw him carrying a folded newspaper back to his room. He must be planning to read in bed.

      She settled down under the covers, wondering what Nashville was like, imagining her mother’s look of amazement when Ellie turned up on her doorstep. “Hi there,” Ellie would say casually. “I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop in.”

      Or she could say, “Howdy, ma’am. I heard you’re a big country-music star and I thought maybe you needed a cook and housekeeper.”

      Annie was going to like that, Ellie thought drowsily. She always loved being called a star.

      As she drifted off to sleep, Ellie acknowledged that she wasn’t really sure how her mother would receive her. With Annie, you never really knew. It depended on her mood, on whether she was gaining or losing weight and what else was going on in her life at the time.

      Still, putting up with her mother’s moods was a whole lot better than facing Cody Pollock and his friends every day.

      With a final shiver of revulsion, Ellie fell asleep and darkness closed in on the house again.

      ISABEL BLINKED in the warm glow of sunlight. She opened her eyes and saw a patchwork quilt over her body, a green wall hung with framed pictures of children, a dusty nightstand and a wicker basket on the floor, piled with laundry.

      She had a moment of intense panic, unable to recall where she was or how she’d come to be here.

      Breathing deeply, she forced herself to stay calm and concentrate. Like images from some hazy, badly made movie, she saw herself pushing the car over the cliff, then jumping down behind it. She recalled the jarring shock of her landing, the scratches and blood, the hunger and chill and wetness as she fought her way through the brush. And the endless day that followed, when the oppressive heat had emphasized her throbbing pain, hunger and relentless thirst.

      And then the sickening terror of creeping into the darkened house and being caught by that hairy giant wielding a club.

      Isabel gripped the quilt and looked around wildly. Beyond that encounter, her memories weren’t nearly as clear. She’d been taking some food when he sneaked up behind her and grabbed her. After that she could dimly recall being handled and moved, the sheer bliss of finding herself immersed in warm sudsy water, and later a man giving her clothes while she pleaded with him not to tell anyone about her.

      Isabel frowned in confusion and lifted her right arm, examining the neat gauze bandage. The arm was still swollen, though it didn’t feel as tender as it had the day before.

      But had she also asked that hard-faced stranger to cut her hair?

      Surely not. That part must have been a dream, one of the confused fantasies that kept jostling around in her mind.

      Tentatively, she reached to touch her head and encountered the cropped, silky strands around her ears. She raised herself on her elbows in sudden alarm. If that man really had cut her hair, then he must also have been the one who’d helped to cover her nakedness when she almost fainted right after getting out of the bathtub. But who was he, and where was this farmhouse?

      She noticed a glass of water and a plastic pill container on the nightstand, sitting on a sheet of paper with some handwriting on it. Isabel lifted the little container and saw it held several oblong yellow pills.

      “If you’ve had no adverse reaction,” the note said, “take another antibiotic pill when you wake up. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

      The pharmacist’s label was from Wall’s Drugstore in Crystal Creek and read “Dan Gibson: Take one tablet every four hours.”

      Isabel hesitated, then took one of the pills and gulped it down with a mouthful of water. She sat upright on the edge of the bed, feeling dizzy again, and dropped her head to her knees until the feeling passed.

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