ABANDONED. Trashy romance set in 1950s Oklahoma/Texas

[Tiffany]

I'm looking for the following book and I hope someone can help me.

I read this book around 1990 in mass market paperback, so it could have been published anytime before then. It was a pretty trashy romance, set I think in the 1950s, post WW2 (but I'm fuzzy on this).

I'm pretty certain the main character's name was Cassie. It starts when she's a little girl living in Oklahoma in very poor conditions. She has an older half brother and a grandma, and a father, all living in like a shack or very small house, post dust bowl, I think. There's a local rich family that comes to vacation near where she's living and she meets two brothers, and she forms an attachment to both of them, sort of.

Some time later, her dad and grandma dies, leaving Cassie in dire circumstances. I think somewhere around here she's almost raped by her half-brother? But some one saves her, I think her grandma, which may have been when the grandmother died.

Then, Cassie's put into a foster care situation with a couple that mistreat her, but eventually she gets a job as a secretary for one of the two brothers she met as a kid. I want to say their last name is Steele (?). They have (not very good) sex and get married and she's now a part of this rich family. But it's not all peaches and roses because she basically married the selfish, cheating brother, realizing that it was the other younger brother who had always been kind and nice to her as children. Whoops. She's an odd one out in that family, not knowing the ways of rich people, and always making a faux pas or whatnot. The Steele family is rich but dysfunctional (naturally) and her husband quickly beings to cheat on her, even with those she thought of as her friends. The marriage ends in divorce and a case of STDs, but she gets a settlement of money out of it and moves to Houston, Texas.

She gets a job as a secretary for either a lawyer or real estate tycoon person. He's good to her, helps her invest her money, and she gains some independence. She has an affair with her boss, but it doesn't end badly (it does eventually end).

Then, as she has more money now and is some what well off, she buys the land and property of her old Oklahoma home, goes there for a bit and meets up with the good brother whom she should have married. They have a fling, she gets pregnant. She decides to keep the child, and eventually she and her soul mate meet again just after the birth of the baby and they live happily ever after.

Sound familiar??

She also becomes friends with her childhood school teacher who she had been very close to as a kid, and also she becomes best friends of a sort with one of the rich society women she met while married to her first husband who had actually been one of the women he had been cheating on Cassie with, but they forgive each other that, and become friends.

Hope someone recognizes this book! It's driving me crazy not remembering the title.

Thanks in advance.

[Juels]

Not ringing a bell. Did you try Dorothy Garlock? She writes a lot or romance for that time period and location.

[Tiffany]

Thanks for the suggestion! Unfortunately, I don't think it's any of Dorothy Garlock's books.

[Ayshe]

All Manner of Riches by Mary Elmblad? This is the Kirkus review: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-re... It appears it has sequel: Changes and Chances

[Lobstergirl, au gratin]

Tiffany, are you still looking for this or did you find it? Did you look at Ayshe's suggestion?

[Kris]

No response, moving to Abandoned folder.

Tiffany (OP) was last active on the site November 2016.