Deep In The Heart Of Texas. Linda Warren

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      CHAPTER FIVE

      SILENCE SURROUNDED THEM as they waited for darkness to fall. He knew she wanted to talk. He could feel it, but she was holding everything inside. Her tortured expression told its own story, and he wanted to help her. That shook him. Most of his life he’d helped people, put his life on the line more times than he could remember, but all that had died one fatal day five years ago. Or so he’d thought. Another inborn trait he probably wasn’t going to outrun. Or maybe it was just her. Something about her was getting to him.

      Bandit lay between them. He made a mournful sound, more like a moan than a whine.

      The hermit rubbed his head. “I know, boy,” he muttered.

      “Go ahead,” he finally said.

      She turned her head, a quizzical expression on her face. “What?”

      “Talk. If you don’t, you’re going to explode.”

      What a difference a day made, she thought. Yesterday he didn’t want to hear anything she had to say. Today he wanted to listen, and she wanted to tell him—everything. Every hurt, pain and bizarre event of her life.

      She shrugged. “I’m in shock. I don’t know what to think. Someone in my family hired Spikes to do this to me. Who? I keep asking myself. And why?”

      “Tell me about your family,” he invited, and he felt as if he was back at his old job, gathering information, clues, anything to find an answer.

      She drew her knees up to her chin. “I have one brother, Tom. There’s fourteen years between us, so naturally we didn’t grow up very close, but we’ve always liked each other and gotten along well. I like his wife, Doreen, and I’m not aware of any hostility between us. I can’t say that about Doreen and Helen—that’s Tom’s mom and my dad’s first wife. Helen’s a very domineering mother, and she tries to control their lives. Doreen even went so far as to send their two children to boarding school to get them out of Helen’s clutches. But that has nothing to do with me.”

      “How does Helen feel about you?” he asked.

      She shrugged again. “She says Dad spoils me and lets me have my way, but then, everyone in my family says that. It doesn’t mean anything, does it?”

      “I don’t know. Is she in need of money?”

      “I don’t think so. My dad left her very well off, and she runs a profitable antique shop, but she’s always been extremely jealous of my dad’s wives. Five is the latest count. He went to Vegas last summer with some cronies of his and came back with number five, Brandi. She was a Las Vegas showgirl, blond, sexy—and just two years older than me. It was a shock to everyone, especially my mother, Alicia. She almost had a nervous breakdown and had to be hospitalized for two weeks to adjust to the news. You see, since my mom, there hadn’t been any new wives, and she’s had this on-and-off-again relationship with my dad since their divorce. So Brandi was a big shock.”

      “Do you get along with Brandi?”

      “Brandi only gets along with men, and no, we are not fond of each other. But that’s typical, don’t you think?”

      “Maybe.”

      “I wish I could talk to Jane. She’d know what’s going on.”

      “Jane?”

      “She’s the housekeeper’s daughter. She’s six months older than me and we grew up together. We’ve always been very good friends, even after my mom took me away.” Miranda rested her chin on her knees, her eyes distant. “My mom is Alicia Adams, former model. You’ve probably heard of her.”

      She turned her head to look at him, wanting to see if he had the same reaction all men had when she mentioned her mother, sort of a leering smirk, but she saw only vague recognition.

      Alicia Adams. He recalled the name and remembered seeing her on TV or somewhere. She was very beautiful, of that he was certain. He now knew where Miranda got her stunning looks.

      When he didn’t say anything, she continued, “My dad met her when she was nineteen, married her when she was twenty, and I was born that same year. Two months after my birth, she went back to modeling. She and my dad fought about it all the time, but her career was important to her, and she wasn’t going to give it up. After five years Dad gave her an ultimatum—marriage or modeling. She chose modeling, leaving me at the ranch with a nanny. Dad wouldn’t have it any other way. So I grew up with an occasional mother, but I was happy. Then one weekend Ali came home and found Jane and me playing baseball and getting dirty. She had a fit, saying her daughter wasn’t going to be a tomboy. She whisked me off to boarding school. I hated it. I missed Jane, my dad and the ranch, but my mother wouldn’t listen. She said I’d get used to it, and then she had this idea that I could be a model, too. I did several ads and commercials, but the agent told my mother I didn’t have the drive or determination to be successful. It’s a cutthroat business.”

      She paused for a moment, then added, “All my life I’ve felt like a piece of taffy, pulled between my parents, back and forth. I never knew which one to please. My mother wanted me to be a model. My dad wanted me to work at Maddox Oil, like Tom. Finally I came back to Texas, enrolled at the University of Texas, got a degree in business and went to work with my dad. At least he was happy.”

      “What did you want to do?”

      Her head swiveled toward him. “What?”

      “You. What did you want to do with your life?”

      She frowned. No one had ever asked her that question before, and she didn’t know how to answer it.

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