To be stopped by a firm grip on his shoulder. “Where do you think you’re going?”
“Out… I…” Crap! He’d come so close to escaping.
Reverend Thaddeus Rose stared down his long nose at Mike. “Michael, you’re supposed to be manning the table. I expect you to do your part.”
“But it’s…”
“I don’t care if it’s your brother’s turn. I said for you to get over there.”
Darn it! He’d almost escaped. Instead, he trudged to the vestibule and rounded a table full of Raptured Roses CDs. Who even bothered with CDs these days?
“How much?” a woman asked, lifting a CD case to her nose. Her purse nearly hung on the price list she conveniently ignored.
“Ten each or three for twenty.” He’d recited the speech so often he probably muttered the words in his sleep.
She hogged the table, keeping others at bay until they gave up and wandered off—then left herself, empty-handed. Oh, the preacher wouldn’t be happy.
Several more people stopped by, most to ogle, make sure Mike’s stepfather saw them perusing and assuming they were buying CDs. Raptured Roses made pretty good money for appearances and merchandise, not that Mike saw a penny of the proceeds.
“We’re putting it up for your college fund,”his stepfather always told him when he asked. Yet, here Mike was, nearly nineteen, and attending community college instead of an out-of-state university, like he’d done in his dreams.
Would he ever escape this life, when someone else planned every single moment of his time?
The preacher, formerly Thaddeus Stout, had struck gold when he’d found a young widow and four sons, all possessing musical talents. Thanks to Dad, who’d taught Mike how to play a variety of instruments and ride horses like a pro. If only his father were still here.
The small-time preacher had been a nobody until he’d charmed the widow and took her last name because it had a memorable ring to it—what wouldn’t sound better than “Stout?” —and it kept him from having to adopt four boys for them to all have the same last name.
Now the Reverend Rose preached all over Texas, and Raptured Roses performed for larger audiences, even on televised religious events.
Mike would rather still be on the farm, helping Daddy haul hay, or seeing his father on the sidelines, gripping the corral railing during Mike’s junior rodeo events. Or sitting on a hard bench in the sweltering sun, watching the man he so admired riding a hellion on four hooves for longer than eight seconds.
Until he’d met his match.
No, Mike wouldn’t think about that day, the horror of seeing his father airborne.
And trampled.
No, no, no.
“Hey!” Keith’s grin bloomed on his beautiful face. How could a mere mortal look like an angel? “You sounded good tonight. Can you get away?”
Mike sighed. “Sorry. My stepdad makes me earn my keep.” Like he didn’t do enough around the house, or for members of the congregation, to prove the minister’s family performed good deeds.
If only he had the money he should have been paid for all the yards he mowed, all the little old ladies he’d run errands for. All the times he’d been forced to babysit for someone who never even bothered to thank him.
Two more weeks. In two more weeks, he’d be nineteen. He’d hidden what money he had managed to squirrel away. He had his dad’s old Bronco. Nothing said he had to stay here. He could take Keith and go somewhere else, start his own life far from Nowhere, Texas, play for one of the rock bands his stepfather forbade him to listen to.
Keith shrugged. “That’s okay. Meet me later?”
Mike’s heart ached to be with Keith, kissing him, holding him—seeing what came next. But no.
“He’s really strict. No way I can sneak out of the house.” Most of the guys he’d gone to school with came and went as they pleased, or moved out of the parental house into their own place.
The Roses kept their boys on the shortest leashes imaginable.
Keith let out a disgusted snort. “Dude, do you live in a house or a maximum-security facility?”
Mike smiled at the far too accurate image. “Definitely the second one.”
