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. She 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.