Mueller, a widower, had staked a claim just to the southeast of town where he would farm. His daughter, Britta, would be the new teacher in the school...next year, and his John would help him on the farm. Often Mr. Mueller would come to town and chat with the other men at the mercantile while waiting for Leah's father to fill the order. And just as often, John would accompany him. There, hiding shyly behind the great cracker barrel, Leah would watch as John exchanged news with the other men and. .”There it was again. A reference to someone else.I opened my eyes and put my hands on each side of his face, “As good as what?”“Ahh, nothing, just ahh thinking how good this is.” Bobby stopped moving and had that caught in a lie look about him that I saw in many of my former client’s faces.“As good as when you fuck your mommy?”His eyes started to blink rapidly, and he quickly broke eye contact. “No, no, I would never do that.”“You already called me mom once.”“No, I didn’t say that.”I pushed. The makeup she put on me was much darker, with liquid eyeliner and dark blue shadow. The most dramatic was my lips that she paintedin shiny, glossy black! She topped it off with a wig of straight blackhair with bangs that touched just above my eyes and fell nearly to mywaist in the back!She urged me not to look into any of her mirrors once again, then turnedtowards where the dress was hanging and took it down, telling me to standup and step into it as she held it for me. She drew it up and. Colin had been stalwart in filling in for me. He briefed me on the story so far and took me to meet the other team. They were duly sympathetic about my plight and commiserated with me about being stuck in some god-forsaken village all this time. I said little, merely smiling and nodding acquiescence. Negotiations were quite far advanced and Colin was doing fine. Nobody thought it odd that I contributed little. In truth it all seemed a little unreal. It was an important contract and one that.