The preaching was good enough, Stephen noted, but there was not a whole lot of joy in the face of Pastor Wells.
When the congregation sang “How Great Thou Art” for the closing hymn, Stephen glanced over the songbook toward the pastor’s daughter, Anne Wells. Pretty. Very pretty, Stephen thought. Oval face. Somber, dark-brown eyes. Straight black hair. Dressed all in black.
Potsy nudged him. “Think she’s attractive, son?”
Momsy nodded agreement but sung on. “I see the stars … I hear the rolling thunder; Thy power throughout the universe displayed …”
The service ended. As the congregation lingered to greet the new pastor and his wife, Anne dashed out and was gone by the time Stephen made it to the foyer.
Momsy spotted Anne walking toward the parsonage as they pulled from the parking lot. “Nice-lookin’ gal. Looks like she might have a little Cherokee in her. Dressed like she’s in mournin’, and I’ll bet she is grieved too. New town. New school, middle of the year.”
“Kyle said he heard she was weird,” Stephen mused aloud.
“Kyle says?” Momsy harrumphed.
Potsy agreed. “That’s the pot calling the kettle black. That boy wouldn’t know normal if it came up and bit him in the—”
“Tom!” Momsy rebuked her husband. “Mind your tongue. Kyle Tucker’s got a load to bear, what with that alcoholic father of his.”
“I’m jus’ sayin’, Loretta,” Potsy said, then instructed Stephen, “You can meet Anne at school. If kids are already talkin’ about her, go easy, Stephen. She’s bound to be spooked by all this. You know these preachers’ kids. Moved from place to place, some of ‘em.”
Momsy clucked her tongue. “Poor little filly. Bet she’s scared to death.”
Stephen followed Anne Wells with his eyes as she ran up the steps to her house and slammed the door behind her. She certainly was pretty. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Chapter Three
TERROR. THAT WAS THE WORD for what Anne felt when her eyes snapped open in the unfamiliar bedroom of the Leonard parsonage. School. First day. New people. New teachers. New everything.
Maybe terror was not a strong enough word. She felt sick to her stomach. Maybe she could stay home. Unpack her stuff from the stacks of boxes. Tell her mother she was sick. It wasn’t a lie.
Terror. Yes. Lay in bed. Sleep all day. Or maybe reread the forbidden novel Twilight. Well, why not? Didn’t her mother do the same thing? Lie in bed and read Lord Nathan romance novels? A sort of mind drug, an escape to Chadwick castle.
Around sunup, Anne had heard the car start as Adam hurried off to set up his new office in the little hick church. The last pastor had stayed for forty years and dropped dead mowing the lawn. Adam wanted to impress the people of Sticksville, all right. Up before the sun, packing crates unloaded. Bookshelves filled with frayed theological volumes, computer humming away on the church’s Wi-Fi network, proudly displaying the website www.LeonardFirst.org.
In the interest of getting to know where she was going, Anne had googled the Leonard, Texas, website. Never mind that it was fall and the homepage had not been updated since the Fourth of July picnic.
The site was thick with fuzzy pictures of potato-sack races and horseshoe-pitching contests. She had stared for a while at high school kids in teams for an egg toss.
She had then gone to the Chamber of Commerce site and seen pretty much the same sort of pictures: the Leonard Fourth of July Parade.
LEONARD HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS RIDE IN HOMETOWN PARADE read the headline. One boy caught her eye. STEPHEN MILLER ON HIS HORSE, MIDNIGHT.
Tall and slim, brown-haired, Stephen wore a red, white, and blue plaid shirt and was riding a black horse while carrying an American flag. “Sticks-boy,” she said aloud in disgust.
Some smarmy blonde chick, also decked out in a patriotic outfit, sat behind him on his horse: SUSAN DILLARD—LEONARD’S FINEST!
Anne asked out loud, “Finest what?”
Susan Dillard had a sort of Britney-before-the-fall look.
Anne hated her immediately.
In a series of photos featuring a country-western band called The Leonard Bullriders, Stephen “Sticks-boy” was playing a guitar and singing into the microphone. Two other boys, Kyle Tucker and Clifford Thompson, were on the stage with him. Amid the patriotic bunting and balloons, faces of adoring girls grinned up at the trio. Anne sniffed in disdain as she studied the expression of the chick who had been on the back of Stephen’s horse.
So these were the power players of Leonard, Texas.
The caption beneath the photos declared LEONARD BULL-RIDERS—THE NEXT OAK RIDGE BOYS!
Anne googled Oak Ridge Boys to find the reference to an ancient country band. “Like who remembers who these guys are?” she muttered aloud. More to the point, why would Stephen, Kyle, and Clifford want to be like them? Was this some sort of time warp? Reruns of The Brady Bunch?
Anne also recognized faces from among the church congregation, including Candy Cutter and her old-man senator husband. All in all, nothing in the websites should have intimidated her.
But this morning, she was terrified even so.
First day of school. Today Anne would face her fears. She asked herself, How can you be afraid of a bunch of hicks who live in some sort of time warp?
Her mother called to her from the kitchen, “Hurry up! You’ll be late, Anne!”
“That’s me. The late Anne Wells.” She narrowed her dark eyes and studied her reflection in the mirror. “So, Annie-girl, bet they never heard of Twilight. Who knows? Maybe they’ll be more afraid of you than you are of them.”
The First Church website had the look of something from the Dark Ages of dial-up computers, Adam had told Anne and Maurene over dinner last night. He’d vowed to the deacons that he would change all that. He would be the pastor who brought First Church into the twenty-first century. First things first. His request to the elders was that the church office had to have decent access to the Internet. Anne smirked. Wouldn’t they all be amazed when they arrived in Adam’s inner sanctum to find that the good pastor had already been working?
Just so long as no one found out that the pastor’s wife was addicted to romance novels. Or that the pastor’s daughter was digging around for her first cigarette of the day and terrified to the point of puking about starting school.
None of her friends back in Montana would believe it if they could see her now. Goth. Grim. Hopeless.
So this is what Annie-girl had come to.
Anne off to the new school. Adam off to meet with the church staff.
“Alone at last.” Maurene breathed a sigh of relief as she filled the teakettle and put it on to boil. The house was empty. Morning was one of the only times of day she felt truly at peace … when both Adam and Anne were gone and she could lose herself in fantasy.
Steaming teacup in hand, Maurene set out to find her collection of novels among the jumble of shipping crates.
A dozen bulging cardboard containers were stacked in the corner of the bedroom. Maurene could not find the energy to unpack. Still in her bathrobe, she searched for her box of romance novels. Had Adam moved it?
In California, while packing for the journey, Adam had reprimanded her for the extravagance of paying shipping for a library of bodice rippers, calling them “cheap, emotionally addictive trash.”
Maurene had argued with quiet fierceness that night. “The Lord Nathan books are classics. I’ve read them each a dozen times. They’re out of print now. Impossible to find. The bookshop in Leonard won’t have anything to replace them.”
So Adam allowed her to pack her collection into a single book box, bound for Leonard.
He had laughed. “If you try to buy them at a bookstore there … well, it won’t be good if the people in Leonard know the new pastor’s wife is in love with a Victorian Englishman named Lord Nathan.”
But both of them knew he was not amused.
So Maurene selected her favorites, careful to identify the contents
in neat, respectable, square capital letters: MAURENE—STUDY BOOKS—MASTER SUITE. Before the movers came to clear out their house, Adam tossed the rest of her novels into a black garbage bag and threw them into a dumpster of rotten vegetables behind the supermarket on Rosedale Highway. She had felt the loss more than she could explain.
When the moving van arrived at the new parsonage in Leonard, the congregation helped unload. Deacon Brown unknowingly carried Maurene’s novels and placed the container beside the oak bookshelf in the study. “Heavy. Good that a pastor’s wife has her own study books.”
After the welcome potluck supper was eaten and everyone in Leonard had gone home, Maurene hauled the crate to the master bedroom. But where was it now?
Maurene opened the closet and glanced down. “So, Adam hid the crate of Lord Nathan novels out of sight.”
The container was now adorned with a new label. Adam’s scrawl in black Sharpie ink was meant to mock her: MAURENE—ROMANCE—MASTER BEDROOM. Instead it reminded her of how rare real romance was in their marriage.
She mentally replied to his sarcasm, muttering as she tugged the strapping tape, “If you treated me with a little more romance, I wouldn’t need Lord Nathan.”
On the top was her favorite novel: Where Runs the Tide. She picked it up and held it to the light. Strange how the image of the muscled man on the book cover looked like …
Oh, well, what was the use of thinking about that? Maurene’s life hadn’t exactly gone the direction of her dreams. All she had left was the fantasy of living love and passion through another’s story.
So now she tucked Lord Nathan into the pocket of her robe as she sat down to enjoy her cup of tea.
A cold wind howled out of the north, causing the cafeteria windows to rattle in their frames. Like Anne’s knees. She felt a different kind of chill from the students as she took her lunch tray and stood in line for spaghetti. The long tables were already full of laughing, joking kids who glanced her way, then leaned in to discuss the new girl from California.
Behind her, Anne heard the word “Freak.” And just to make sure there was no mistake about who they were talking about, a second female voice remarked, “Preacher’s kid.”
Anne fought back tears of humiliation as she slid the tray along the metal tracks.
Then a warm voice said, “Hello, Anne. How are your folks? Settling in okay?”
Ann glanced up. A matronly cafeteria worker, gray hair covered in a hairnet, eyed Anne with sympathy as she passed her a heaping plate of pasta and red sauce. The woman looked familiar.
“It’s Mizz Cherry. Remember, hon? Church organist.”
Anne replied drily, “Miss Cherry. Sure.”
“Cherry Baker … You okay, hon?”
“Cherry … Baker … great name for a cafeteria worker.”
The woman’s cheerful grin faded a bit at Anne’s ungracious comment. “Well, now, angel cake, you just let me know if you need anything.”
“Thanks. Sure. I will.” She flashed an insincere smile and moved to the cash register to pay. She thought, “Oh, great. Adam will have a spy to report on how I spend my lunch hours.”
This first lunch hour among the Leonard Tigers would go down in history as the worst in her life … so far. The cliques were already established. No room for even one more person. Anne recognized faces from her Google search. They were even worse in person. The girl, Susan Dillard. Queen of the campus. Surrounded by her court. Animated, laughing too loud. Not looking at Anne full on, but sending glances like flaming arrows her way. Warning her that there was room for only one queen at this school.
Susan had a salad in front of her. Ranch dressing. One piece of whole-grain bread. Yogurt for dessert. Healthy. Susan’s amused gaze flitted to the red mound on Anne’s plate.
Why had Anne let Cherry serve her a mountain of pasta? How could Anne eat spaghetti with the whole school staring at her as she slurped it into her mouth? She pictured herself with one long strand dangling from her lips then slowly winding it into her mouth while Susan Dillard pointed at her.
Not gonna happen.
Anne resisted the urge to dump the heaping goo onto Susan Dillard’s head and run screaming onto the flat Texas plain.
And then she caught sight of Sticks-boy, Stephen, and his two sidekicks, Clifford and Kyle. Bullriders. They did not have their band instruments with them. They sat discussing something … Was it her?
Yes.
Stephen looked up with clear-blue eyes and grinned at her. Not an unfriendly, I’m-going-to-destroy-you sort of grin, but a genuine, howdy-I’m-interested-in-you grin.
Anne plopped down on the very end of an almost-empty table. She unwrapped her silverware and put a napkin on her lap. She stared at the disgusting pile in front of her. She would not take even one bite. She wished she had a salad and yogurt. But even salad could be difficult to eat in public if it was not cut up in small enough bites.
Anne did not know how long she stared at her food. Her stomach growled. Conversation swirled around her.
Suddenly a shadow fell over her. A rich male voice with a Sticks-boy twang said, “You wanna come sit with us?”
“I’m okay here.”
“Well, I know you’re okay. Just wanted to know if you want some company.”
Anne looked up and in her most disinterested voice asked, “So, Sticks-boy, do you ride your horse to school?”
Stephen threw his head back and laughed loud. A real laugh. Not at her, but at what she said.
“How’d you know I have a horse?”
She wouldn’t admit that she had seen him on the horse when she googled Leonard, Texas. She pointed at his boots. “Is that mud … or what?”
Stephen laughed again. “I guess it’s ‘or what.’ ” He leaned on his hands. “They make ‘em all this sharp in California?”
She shrugged. “You’re famous.”
“What?” He seemed genuinely confused.
“Internet.”
“What’re you talkin’ about?”
“You have the Internet here, don’t you?”
“Huh?”
“You don’t think I moved here without checking you all out.”
“Oh. That.”
“Leonard Bullriders?”
“Can I sit down?” Stephen slid into a chair and grinned again.
“Your buddies are looking at you.”
“Kyle and Clifford.”
“Disapproving.”
“So what?”
“What? They don’t like the way I dress?”
“You in mournin’?”
“Yes.”
“Somebody die?”
“Me.”
“No life after California, huh?”
“Something like that.”
“Lighten up. It’s not all that dark.”
“Your horse is black.”
“Her name is Midnight.”
“Wow. Really. How’d you come up with that?” Her tone dripped with sarcasm.
He paused. “We’ve all been waitin’ for you to try to eat that spaghetti.”
“I bet you have.”
“… or maybe throw it at somebody.”
“I thought about it. Your girlfriend, for instance. That one?” She inclined her head toward Susan, who fumed at them.
“She’s not my—”
“Whatever. Her name is Britney, right?”
“Susan.”
“Her face looks like Midnight to me.”
“We were goin’ out for a while.”
“Did you take her for midnight rides?”
“Sometimes.”
“Barbie and Ken on the prairie.”
Stephen stretched. “You’ve got a chip on your shoulder …”
“… and you’ve got a chip on your boot. Should I ask Britney—”
“Susan.”
“Should I ask her if she minds you talking to me?”
“You’re too smart for that, right?” “Right, Sticks-boy.”
“Call me St
ephen. And you … You’re Annie Wells.”
“If you have to call me anything, call me Anne.”
“Annie. Question is, Annie-girl … can I call you?”
Anne walked across campus in the midst of the Bullriders. Raised eyebrows from the campus princesses indicated disapproval. Which of the boys was spoken for? Anne wondered. Was she trespassing?
“I’ve got to go back to my locker,” she said. “You guys go on.”
“Lemme go with you.” Stephen was two steps behind. “Wait at the pickup,” he instructed Kyle and Clifford.
It was then that Anne saw the resentment in Kyle’s blazing green eyes. “You’ll make me late. Sheriff don’t like it if I’m late.”
Stephen waved him away. “Chill.”
Kyle and Clifford waited impatiently beside the pickup as Stephen walked Anne to her locker.
She fiddled with the combination lock in the deserted corridor. “Kyle doesn’t like me much,” she remarked, extracting her English textbook from the locker.
“Kyle doesn’t like anybody much.”
“Except you.”
“Friends since we were kids.”
“He worried I’ll mess that up?”
“He’s worried he’ll be late. Workin’ off community service at the sheriff’s office.”
“Probation?”
“Stole a TV from the motel.”
“Stupid.”
She closed her locker, reset the combination, and they headed out the door of the school.
“His old man beats him up pretty good. Jackson Tucker’s a drunk. Beats up Kyle’s stepmom too. Kyle’s better off working at the sheriff’s office than goin’ straight home. Sheriff Burns can keep an eye on the situation that way, if you know what I mean.”
“So why’s he stay with his dad?” Anne raised her face to see Kyle’s fierce eyes boring into her. Dangerous. Maybe Kyle was like his dad.
“Where’s he gonna go?” Stephen waved as they approached the pickup.