She started drinking heavily, too, and locking herself in the bedroom with their new houseguest most nights and sometimes all weekend. She was crazy about the drunk, whose name was Henry. He didn’t work, but he made a good job of turning Mina’s life to hell. She’d complained about him, just once, to her mother. Henry had beaten the hell out of her and dared her to go to the law about it.

Mina, bruised all over and hurting, took the dare, feeling that her life couldn’t be any worse than it already was. She was sixteen and sick and scared to death of Henry. So a sheriff’s deputy, a newcomer to the community, had come out to the house to answer Mina’s call.

Mina’s mother got to him first. She swore that Mina had fallen down the steps and blamed it on poor Henry. Her teenage daughter didn’t like her mother’s boyfriend, she said. Mina called him names and threatened to have him put in jail on fake charges all the time, she added. Anthea cried and sounded so convincing that the sheriff’s deputy believed her and went away. Afterward, Mina caught hell. Henry left more bruises on her, along with a few lacerations from the edge of his belt. Anthea didn’t say a word. She poured herself and Henry another drink.

Cody Banks, the sheriff, read the deputy’s report. He didn’t buy Anthea’s explanation. He kept a watch on Mina. But he couldn’t catch her mother’s boyfriend in the act, and Mina’s mother wouldn’t have testified, anyway. It would be Mina’s word against Henry’s, and Mina’s mother had already spread it around town that Mina was a terrible liar.

Life had been so hard. Mina didn’t do well in school because she was shy and withdrawn and bullied. Her home life was even worse. Her only escape had been her writing, a secret she shared with very few people. From the age of thirteen, writing had obsessed her. Cousin Rogan had encouraged her. Her mother wasn’t told, ever.

Mina didn’t date, so she was ridiculed by the other girls. Only one of them, Sassy, had been kind to her. It was why she and Sassy were such good friends. Bart had met Mina when her mother had got her a job after school in the local restaurant as a waitress, to help bring in money, because her mother and her alcoholic boyfriend were too stoned to work. Despite Cousin Rogan keeping the ranch up, there was no food without money, no utilities, either. Her mother had made threats when Mina protested that she didn’t want to work as a waitress. They were sickening threats, and Henry smiled at her while they were made. She didn’t protest again. Henry liked to try and fondle her when her mother wasn’t looking. Not that her mother would have cared. She’d hated Mina her whole life. Mina had never known why.

Mina’s little paycheck took care of groceries and the power and water bill, with nothing left over. Mina gritted her teeth and studied hard so that she could graduate and get away from home as soon as possible. She would have thrown herself on Cousin Rogan’s mercy, but he’d spent a couple of years in Australia, in partnership with the local cattle magnate, McGuire, working on their big cattle station there. He had a man assigned to act as foreman of the ranch in his absence, but the man was cold as ice and Mina was as nervous of him as she was of Henry.