Carli wanted more than anything to understand what made her mother do the things she did. Why did Michelle have this incessant need for constant fun and lies to her parents? For as long as Carli could remember she had been the exact opposite, always seeming older than her years. Honestly, the popular party crowd always bored her. Carli couldn’t help but wonder what her life might have been like if her mother had raised her instead of the Fitzgeralds.
“Michelle loved people and parties. We saw her around town, and we heard rumors, but we were caught between a rock and a hard place. Was it our place to rat her out? Now, I wish we had. We were so young and in love, and I just kept my nose buried in the ranch work. If we had said something, it might have stopped her from running away, but then again, she was so darn stubborn. If you tried to rein her in, it just made it worse. Nobody could control the runaway train wreck that was Michelle.”
Carli’s heart raced. She wanted to tell him about the birth certificate she found with the name of her birth father, but she was afraid. Of what, she didn’t know. For some reason it was her secret still. She wanted to hang on to the knowledge for a few days more. “Do you know any of the guys she might have dated?”
“Michelle had many boyfriends, if the rumors were true. I hate to speak of the deceased in a bad way, but you’re asking. I don’t mean to be disrespectful. Your mother was so full of life. Her smile lit up a room the minute she walked in and she never knew a stranger. Everyone claimed to be her friend. Everyone wanted to be her friend.”
“What did my grandparents do?” Carli finally stood, walked into the kitchen to get the coffee pot and refill their mugs.
“It was the classic pushing and pulling between parent and child for dominance, for authority. They grounded her or took her car keys away, forbade her from riding her horse, but she’d rebel and lie about her whereabouts, then things kept getting worse. Coming home late, red eyes or the smell of alcohol, until finally she didn’t come home until the next day or even second day. She talked back to them. Harsh, ugly words were said. Words that can never be taken back. And your Grandma Jean cried. It was becoming an impossible situation. On nights she didn’t come home, they hated to bring the sheriff into it because rumors were already going around. Jean and Ward hated the gossip and attention it brought to the Wild Cow.”
“And then what?” Carli was on the edge of her seat.
“And then she became pregnant with you.”
“Oh.” Carli let out a sigh and rose. “What happened then? Were they upset?”
“I think they were really sad. But I gotta say, neither Ward nor Jean ever yelled at Michelle after that. They showed her love. Unconditional love. And said they would help her raise the baby. You.”
Buck turned quiet, staring into his mug. Lost in the past. “And then she was gone,” he mumbled under his breath. “Vanished. All I remember was the sound of a motorcycle one night. I thought it was someone riding through headquarters really slow but now I know he was parked out by the corral, waiting. The roar when he gunned it was ear splitting and then the sound grew fainter and fainter. I didn’t even look out. Now I know Michelle left with him.”
“My grandparents must have been devastated.” Carli’s heart hurt.
“And she left a scrap of a note,” Buck continued. “If I can remember right, it read something like, ‘I’m leaving. Can’t stay. Don’t worry. I’ll be fine.’ Pretty much broke their hearts. Not only was Michelle gone. But she took you, too. Their only grandchild.”
“What did they do?” Carli leaned in closer and scooted to the edge of her chair.
“They called the sheriff this time. We never found out who she rode off with. The sheriff questioned all her friends, but turned up nothing, so we think the guy must have been from another town. Michelle covered up her tracks well, but she had to have had help. If anyone knew who took her away that night, they weren’t talking.”
Carli let out a whoosh of air, though she hadn’t realized she was holding her breath. She paced over to the windows, her back to Buck. Was the man on the motorcycle that night her birth father? A sadness crept over Carli as she listened. She might never know the truth. “When did they find out I was born?”
“Jean and Ward figured approximately when you’d be born. They asked all over Texas it seemed. Contacted Michelle’s school friends again, asked everybody they knew at rodeos if they’d seen her. Someone kept her hidden, but we never found out who. As for your grandparents, it’s as though the joy was sucked out of them. They kept hitting dead ends until finally they hired a private detective. After that, he gave them the sad report. He tracked your mother to Los Angeles, interviewed a few of her new party-going friends out there who didn’t really want to talk to him until he slipped them a little cash. Ward and Jean spent a fortune trying to find her. Once again Michelle was able to stay hidden. She had slipped through their fingers.”
A sadness jolted her heart. “Was she an addict by then?”
“Some of the crowd she hung with were, as
