With Family In Mind (Saddle Falls Book 1) by Sharon de Vita Page B

and respected.”
    “But you don’t believe me?” she asked. The suspicious tone of his voice had her glancing away again, fearing she might not be able to hide her own tumultuous emotions, at least not about this.
    After the police had picked up her mother for questioning about the disappearance of Jesse Ryan, unscrupulous reporters had inflamed the situation by digging into her mother’s life and past, and printing every detail, couching it in a way that it sounded as sordid as possible. So that as Margaret Brost’s bastard child—as she was referred to in the press—Rebecca, too, became the object of reporters’ prying questions and speculations.
    The Social Services people had tried to protect her, but it was virtually impossible. The reporters made it impossible, following her, snapping her picture, pushing microphones in her face, virtually terrorizing her. At seven, Rebecca hadn’t understood what was happening, or why these strange people were doing this to her. All she knew was that her mother had been taken away from her, leaving her utterly alone and at the mercy of an angry, unforgiving world.
    From the newspaper stories, she knew that although her mother had been picked up by the Saddle Falls police for questioning in Jesse Ryan’s disappearance, she’d never been charged with anything.
    Rebecca could still remember the day her mother had been released from police custody. Her mom’s picture, taken coming out of the police station, had been splashed all over the newspapers. A big smile on her face, she’d been waving to the gathered crowd as if she was enjoying all the commotion and attention.
    Even now, Rebecca clearly remembered how excited and happy she’d been, certain that her mother was coming to get her and their life would get back to normal again.
    But her mother never came.
    Social Services had taken Rebecca into custody and sent her to a “group home” in another town. Group home was a more politically correct term for an orphanage. Because her picture had been splashed all over the papers, everyone recognized her—the “bastard” child of a suspected kidnapper. Rebecca could still remember the taunts she’d endured from the other children at the home and at school. So she changed her name as soon as she left the orphanage.
    It took years for her to accept that her mother wasn’t coming for her.
    She had abandoned her.
    For whatever reason, her mother no longer wanted her.
    And it broke Rebecca’s battered heart just a little more.
    That was when she began withdrawing, erecting a shield to protect herself from the pain that at seven years old she didn’t know how to handle. It was the only way she knew how to survive. She simply stopped feeling and caring. She’d vowed never again to care about anyone enough to let them hurt her.
    And so she’d grown up in self-imposed solitude, learning to be self-sufficient and independent, learning never to need or want anything or anyone.
    She’d thrown herself into her studies, soaking up knowledge like a sponge, excelling first in grade school, then in high school, and finally earning a full-tuition scholarship to college from a generous benefactor.
    She also changed her last name, and in doing so, erased her past and the pain she’d carried like a heavy knapsack for most of her young life.
    And through it all, she valued her privacy, kept to herself and refused to allow anyone entrance beyond the self-imposed walls she’d erected around her heart, her life and her emotions.
    Until now.
    She glanced at Jake. When she’d received the anonymous letter telling her of her mother’s death, she hadn’t realized how much emotion she still carried, how deeply she’d buried it. Perhaps that’s why she was having such a hard time handling her feelings now. They were alien, unexpected, and as much of a stranger to her as the mother she’d buried just a few days ago.
    But Rebecca, better than anyone, knew from experience how important privacy