LITMIR.BIZ

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It turned Bodie’s stomach. She wanted to order him out of the house, remind him that it had been in her family for three generations, like the land. But she was unsure of her ground. Her grandfather couldn’t be upset, not now, when he was facing the ordeal of his life. She bit her tongue, trying not to snap.

      “I’ll take care of it,” she told her stepfather. “But the bank’s closed by now. It will have to wait until tomorrow.”

      “Oh, you can write me a check,” he said.

      She drew in a long breath. “I don’t have enough in my checking account. I’ll have to draw it out of my savings account. I don’t even write checks. I use a debit card for groceries and gas.” Her old truck needed tires, but they’d have to wait. She couldn’t afford to let Granddaddy lose his home. Not now, of all times.

      She would have told her stepfather what his health was like, but she knew it wouldn’t do any good. Will Jones had been watching old movies on television at home when her mother died, with Bodie at her bedside, in the hospital. Bodie and her grandfather had made all the arrangements. Her stepfather said he couldn’t be bothered with that, although he was quick to call the insurance company and empty her mother’s savings account. He’d also been quick to produce a will with her mother’s signature, leaving everything her mother had to him. That had been strange, because Bodie’s mother had promised everything to her. Perhaps she’d had a change of heart on her deathbed. People did. Bodie hadn’t felt bitter at her for making her husband the beneficiary of her property; after all, he’d paid her medical bills.

      “I’ll come by in the morning, first thing,” her stepfather said irritably. “You’d better have the money.”

      “Bank doesn’t open until nine o’clock,” she pointed out with cold eyes. “If you come before then, you can wait.”

      He stood up and moved toward her, his dark eyes flashing angrily. He was overweight, unkempt, with brown hair that looked as if he never cleaned it. She moved back a step. His scent was offensive.

      “Don’t like me, huh?” he muttered. “Some fine lady you are, right? Well, pride can be cured. You wait and see. I got a real good cure for that.”

      He glanced at the old man, who looked flushed and unhealthy. “I never should have let you stay here. I could get twice the rent from someone better off.”

      “Sure you could,” Bodie drawled coldly. “I just know there are a dozen rich people who couldn’t wait to move into a house with a tin roof that leaks and a porch you can fall right through!”

      He raised his hand. She raised her jaw, daring him.

      “Bodie!” her grandfather called shortly. “Don’t.”

      She was trembling with anger. She wanted him to hit her. “Do it,” she dared, hissing the words through her teeth. “I’ll have the sheriff at your place five minutes later with an arrest warrant!”

      He put his hand down and looked suddenly afraid. He knew she’d do it. He knew it would be the end of his life if she did.

      He lifted his face. “No,” he said insolently. “Hell, no. I’m not giving you a chance to make me look bad in my town. Besides, I wouldn’t soil my hand.”

      “Good thing,” she returned icily, “because I’d hurt you. I’d hurt you bad.”

      “We’ll see about that, one day,” he told her. He looked around the room. “Maybe you’d better start looking for another place to live. Government housing, maybe, if you can find something cheap enough!”

      Bodie’s small hands were clenched at her sides. Now he was trying to make her hit him. It was a good strategy: turn her own threats back on her. But she was too savvy for that. She even smiled, to let him know that she’d seen through his provocation.

      He glared at her. “I can throw you out any time I like.”

      “You can,” Bodie agreed, “when you can prove non-payment of rent. I’ll require a receipt when I give you the money. And if you want to throw us out for any other reason, you’d better have due cause and a warrant. And the sheriff,” she added with a cool smile, “because he’ll be required.”

      He let out a furious curse, turned and slammed out of the house.

      Granddaddy was looking very pale. Bodie ran to him and eased him down into his chair. “Easy, now, I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said anything…!”

      She stopped, because he was laughing. “Damn, girl, if you aren’t just like my mother used to be,” he said. “When I was a boy, she took a length of rope to a man who tried to take one of our cows, said it had strayed onto his land and it belonged to him. She laid into him with it and beat him to his knees, and then invited him into her house to use the phone so he could call the law and have her arrested.” His eyes twinkled. “His pride was busted so bad that he never came back onto the place. Wasn’t going to admit to anyone that a woman beat him up.”

      “My goodness!”

      “You’re named for her. She was called Emily Bolinda, and her nickname was Bodie, too.”

      “I’d forgotten that,” she confessed, smiling. “You okay?”

      He nodded. “Just a bit breathless. Listen, he’s going to get us out of here one way or another. You know that. It isn’t the money. It’s revenge. He hates me. I tried my best to keep her from marrying him. I told her we’d find a way to get enough to support you and her, but she wouldn’t listen. She wanted things for you. She knew there was no money for cancer treatments, and no insurance, and she did what she thought was best for both of us.” He shook his head. “It was wrong thinking. We’d have managed somehow.”

      She sat down opposite him. “It’s not right, that people can’t get treatment because they’re poor. Not right, when some people have ten houses and twenty cars and ride around in chauffeured limousines and others are living in cardboard boxes. Taxes should be fair,” she muttered.

      “Not arguing with that,” he assured her. He sighed. “Well, when do we have to go see that specialist?”

      “I’m just going to call the doctor’s receptionist and find out,” she promised, and got up and went to the phone.

      She was very worried. Not only about her grandfather but about the threats her stepfather had made. He was going to bleed them dry. If he couldn’t find a way to do it with the rent, he’d find another way to humiliate Bodie. He’d always hated her, because she saw through his act to the filthy man underneath. He’d had plans for her mother’s possessions, especially two pieces of jewelry that had been in the family for four generations and were worth a good bit of money. One, a ring, had emeralds and diamonds; there was a matching necklace. Bodie had them locked away. She’d never have sold them, not for worlds. They were her legacy. Her mother had given them to her months before her death. But her stepfather knew about them and wanted them. He was furious that he couldn’t find a legal way to obtain them. He’d tried to argue with the lawyer that all her property belonged to him, as her husband, but the lawyer pointed him to a handwritten note, witnesses, that her mother had given Bodie—probably anticipating that Will might try to reclaim them. The note entitled Bodie to the jewelry. No way around that, the lawyer assured Will. No legal way.

      So it was war. Not only did he want the jewelry, but his younger male friend wanted Bodie. She’d laughed when he’d asked her out on a date. She knew what he was like because her mother had told her. He liked to date prostitutes and film them. She’d said that Will Jones had actually mentioned that it would be fun to film him with Bodie, and her mother had had a screaming, furious argument with him over the comment. Over her dead body, she’d raged, and for once, Jones had backed down. But it had chilled Bodie to the bone, knowing that he’d even thought up such a sleazy intention.

      She hated the man with a passion. Once, she’d thought of going to the Kirk brothers and asking for help. But they were just starting to get out of the hole. She’d heard that they’d

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