Her Daughter's Father

“Volunteer?”

“Yes. Unless you’re too tired in the evenings?”

“No.” Drawn to the work she loved best, India leaped at the chance for more contact with the people who lived in this community with Colleen. “I’d love to help. My father might be able to spare me for a couple of hours some days, too.”

“Good. Drop by the library tomorrow—” Mrs. Fisher broke off as a gleaming car braked at the curb next to the stall.

Hard to miss that car, or the girl who climbed out to stand, impossibly tall, unexpectedly uncertain. She’d washed that purple right out of her hair. With the palest brown cap of silky strands hugging her chin, she looked exactly like pictures of India’s mother at fifteen.

India gripped the pole supporting the library booth. She should run for all their lives. This slender child, teetering on the razor blade of adolescence was definitely the daughter she’d given up.

Warmth, as big and bright as the sun, and twice as powerful, exploded in India’s chest. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she could contain the astounding happiness that burst and blossomed to life inside her. She felt the same compulsion she’d had the day Colleen was born, to count all her fingers and toes, to make sure she was all right. And just as she hadn’t then, she couldn’t now. India moved her head from side to side. How could this happen?

“Hi.” The girl twined her fingers in front of her. “My name is Colleen Stephens.”

India managed a stunned nod. “I figured.” She cleared roughness from her throat. Her heart pounded a drum solo. “I met your father.”

“He told me.” With an apparent eye for reinforcements, Colleen looked back at the car.

Her reminder of the boy who waited behind the steering wheel dragged India back to reality in a heartbeat. “You came with him?” she asked before she knew she was going to.

Colleen blushed. “Chris isn’t always like he was that night at the festival.” She swallowed hard and stared at Mrs. Fisher until the older woman moved to the back of her booth. Colleen thrust out her hand, offering to shake. “I just wanted to thank you.”

India spiked a swift glance over Colleen’s shoulder. Did Jack know she was out with Chris? She took her daughter’s hand. It felt small and warm and totally vulnerable.

Her heart contracted. Chris could hurt this child so easily, and she didn’t even recognize the danger. Protective instincts rose in India, as strong as if she’d raised Colleen from day one. Instincts she had to check.

“Colleen!” A tall white-haired man’s sharp voice made the girl jump.

“Grandpa,” she said, turning around.

“I take it you’re with him?” The man tilted a contemptuous chin at Chris, and India swallowed a cheer.

“You’re embarrassing me.” Colleen looked stealthy. “He’s not a bad guy.”

Her grandpa shared India’s doubts, but he broadcast them, not caring Colleen had left the car door open. “Has that boy had anything to drink today?”

“No.” A quick blush reddened her skin. “We had a Coke after school. He’s not like that.”

“All the same, I’ll take you home.” The man looked at India. “You must be Miss Stuart.”

“My grandfather, Hayden Mason.” Colleen rammed her hands into her pockets. “I’m not coming home with you, Grandpa. I’m old enough to take a ride from a friend without you calling the angst police.”

“I have no idea who the angst police might be, young woman, but I’m taking you home. Say goodbye to Miss Stuart.”

“India.”

He looked startled, and India realized he welcomed her contribution to the conversation no more than his grand-daughter’s. “India, then. Colleen, I’m busy this afternoon. Come now.”

Colleen twisted her mouth in a frown India recognized. It usually came just before her mother put her foot down so hard the house rumbled. But Colleen gathered her wits with a wary look at Mrs. Fisher. “Goodbye, Chris,” she called, a hint of panic edging her voice.

Without another word, he yanked her door shut and squealed away on smoking tires. India planted her feet firmly on the ground, instead of comforting Colleen, who broke her heart with a forlorn expression.

Colleen followed her stern grandparent as he turned, but she looked back at India. Defiance and a puzzled awareness struggled in her eyes. India dragged herself to her full height. If she couldn’t stay out of Colleen’s life without looking like a cyclone victim, she needed to leave. Colleen offered a halfhearted smile and lifted one hand that quickly flopped back to her side as her grandfather reached for her other sleeve.

India waved back, but Colleen looked away so fast, India wasn’t even sure she saw. Realizing her daughter had truly come and gone, India shivered, finally feeling the cold air that snaked into her heavy sweater. She stopped waving and wrapped her arms around her waist.

“Great. I’ve turned into Granny Clampett.”

Mrs. Fisher leaned across the booth’s counter. “I didn’t know anyone your age ever saw that program.”

“JUST TALK TO HIM, DAD,” Colleen whispered through the small opening in her doorway. “I’ll never be able to show my face in front of my friends.”

“What friends? Even you said Mrs. Fisher and India Stuart were the only ones close enough to hear.

“And Chris.”

“Chris is out-of-bounds to you. He’s too old, and he tried to hurt you.”

“No one understands him except me.”

“I understand him, and that’s why I’ve told you to stay away. I need to be able to trust you, Colleen.”

“Trust me? If you did, you wouldn’t set Grandpa on me. Did you have him follow me after school?”

Jack almost laughed, but her frustration made him empathetic. Mary had told him how strict Hayden could be. “No, but he can’t walk away when he sees you doing something dangerous.”

“I don’t want him here if he’s going to embarrass me like that. He was worse than you.”

Jack really had to hold back a grin. Maybe he owed Hayden some gratitude. “I’ll talk to him, but try to see this afternoon from his point of view.”

“No, thank you.” She shut her door with a firm click.

Jack turned, wanting to whistle. She hadn’t thrown herself back into Chris’s car, and she’d come to him for help. Parenthood looked a little brighter tonight. He’d better find Hayden and explain the art of making good ideas seem as if they’d come from Colleen first.

He ran down the stairs, two at a time. Hayden looked up from his paper in the living room.

“We need to talk.” Jack sprawled on the sofa. “You made me look good to her.”

INDIA FIDDLED WITH THE SWITCH on the paint sprayer she was trying to clean. “Dad, I can’t make this thing work.”

“Let me see it.”

But as she turned to him, paint and cloudy water spewed from the nozzle, covering Mick in a smelly cloud. He stopped, a frame from an old cartoon. She couldn’t help laughing as he pulled off his glasses and stared at her, his eyes circled perfectly in white.

“Spray painting the boss?” he teased in a tone that promised retribution.

As he grabbed for the nozzle and she fell, a truck pulled up at the edge of Mr. Tanner’s driveway. Somehow, India knew who’d be driving.

“Jack.”

He leaned out his window, worry creasing his forehead. “I’m sorry to bother you again. Have you seen Colleen?”

India clambered to her feet. Mick stood swiftly beside her. “What’s wrong?” she demanded.

“We haven’t seen her.” Mick glanced down the road. “Shouldn’t she be in school?”

“She should be.” Jack shielded his eyes, more from their gazes than from the sun. He seemed intent on the sails just visible over deep trees at the end of the road. “Sometimes she goes to the marina. I thought she might have passed by here.”

Chris and his shiny car tumbled in India’s mind. “No.” She wished him on his way so she could look for Colleen without his knowing. Mick’s elbow in her ribs startled her.

“Tell him.” Mick nodded toward Jack, his ghostly face not funny anymore.

“Tell me?”

India stared at her father. “Tell him?”

“About yesterday.”

“I know what you want me to tell him, but Dad—”

“Tell me what?”

India grimaced. “I’m sorry. I’m being thoughtless, or maybe we’re both butting in.” She glanced her father’s way. “You probably already know, but I ran into Colleen yesterday. She wanted to apologize. And Chris was with her.”

“Hayden told me. You haven’t seen her today?”

“No.”

With a thank-you wave he hit the gas and headed toward the marina. India stared after the dusty cloud that rose behind him. “I’m supposed to stay out of her life, Dad. Remember?”

“At the cost of her safety? What if her grandfather hadn’t told Jack?”

“I feel like a tattletale. I wish I could go look for her, too.” But she’d given up that right fifteen years ago. India reached for the sprayer they’d left on the ground. “How serious do you suppose this is?”

Her father answered with silence. For several seconds, he only stared at her, his thoughts and his gaze uneasy. “It was serious with you.”

“I don’t know what to do. What if I’m as big a threat to her as Chris? What if she finds out about me, and they didn’t even tell her she was adopted?” She glanced at the road again, clear now of Jack’s dust. “Where is her mother anyway?”

“Maybe she works out of town.”

“I pictured a close-knit, Beaver Cleaver family.” Jack’s hurt had deepened her concern for him, as well as for Colleen. It confused her. Worse, it seemed to create a bond between them. She still felt the emotional brush of his telling gaze, swiftly averted to hide his thoughts.

“India, be careful with that. You could cut yourself—”

Too late. She let the sprayer tumble to the ground and covered the gash on her palm with her other hand. She eyed her father, thoughts of Jack and Colleen weighting the air between them. “None of this was supposed to happen.”

CHAPTER THREE

NARROWING HER EYES against the glare of the sun off polished chrome handles, India pushed through the drugstore doors and angled away from the soda fountain to the stocked shelves. She’d left her father cleaning the Tanners’ yard. He’d offered to drive her, but she’d taken the long way, hoping for a glimpse of Colleen.

India turned down the aisle of first-aid products. She’d never considered what she might do if the baby she’d handed over to Mother Angelica had grown into a fifteen-year-old in trouble. Though he obviously loved her, Jack couldn’t manage to keep Colleen from making one bad decision after another.

Were Colleen’s actions merely those of an average girl of fifteen?

India stopped in front of the bandages. Frustration made her shift on restless feet.

She picked up a tin of Band-Aids. Dinosaurs. Not one serious-looking box in the row. Teletubbies, dolls with big hair, birds with big hair, even soldier gargoyles hulking across adhesive battlefields, but not one plain Band-Aid. And no answers to her questions, either.

“Grandma, what about this one? Golden Auburn? How could Dad object to Golden Auburn?

India dropped the tin. As it rattled across the floor, she ducked after it. Colleen’s voice. She knew it with a mixture of delight and apprehension that clenched her stomach muscles. But “Grandma”? Colleen was playing hooky with her grandmother?

“Are you kidding? Your dad would throw Grandpa and me into the street.” The light voice paused. “Frankly, I couldn’t blame him. Absolutely no more hair color for you, Colleen.”

“Auburn, Grandma. A-U-B-U-R-N. Not burgundy this time.”

India rose slowly as Colleen inexorably turned her head.

“Trouble,” the older woman said, not noticing her granddaughter’s wandering attention. “T-R-O-U-B-L-E. Can you spell disaster? Put the dye back, and let’s go home.”

Recognition faded slowly to ambivalence in Colleen’s gaze. India nodded, relieved she wasn’t with Chris. Colleen lifted her chin in unwilling acknowledgment.

“I saw your father.” India spoke before she had time to think twice about whether she should. “He’s looking for you.”

At least four inches shorter than the girl by her side, Colleen’s grandmother also turned. A faint tint of lavender in her silvery hair hinted at Colleen’s love of color. She grabbed her granddaughter’s shoulder. “Oh, dear. I forgot the note. Did you speak to your teacher before you left? Did you ask for your assignment for tomorrow?”

Colleen grimaced. “I didn’t go to last period. My other teacher, Mrs. Denton, held us late. They never call parents, Grandma. I figured you’d give me a note tomorrow morning, and I’d straighten it out.”

The older woman hunched her tiny shoulders. “You might as well buy the dye. I’m swimming in soup now.” But as Colleen grabbed a box off the shelf, her grandma snatched it away. “Don’t you know a joke when you hear it? Let’s pay for the rest of this and—” She broke off as the miniature ship’s bell above the drugstore door clanged. “Uh-oh.”

By the time India turned, Jack had already seen Colleen. His relief, potent as India’s, seemed to confuse his daughter. India felt like a tennis spectator.

“Dad?” Colleen took the hair color from her grandmother and shoved it back onto the shelf. “I had a dentist’s appointment.”

Jack’s smile took India’s breath away. He looked so young, his wide mouth masculine and yet terribly tender.

“I forgot,” he said. “Your assistant principal called to say you’d missed your last period class. Thanks for taking her, Nettie.”

“I forgot the note. I’m sorry, Jack.”

He shook his head, a man who’d fought free of danger. “No problem.”

India sucked in a deep breath that somehow made Jack see her. For the slightest moment, they shared silent, heart-felt relief. Comforted and afraid all at the same time, India tried to withdraw. She had to get out of here before he began to wonder why Colleen mattered so much to her.

“Nettie, did Colleen introduce you to India?”

“Not yet, Dad.” Colleen’s exasperation sounded blessedly adolescent.

Jack seemed to agree. His grin widened. He walked toward India, only to narrow his gaze as he stared at her hand, still wrapped in the clean white cloth her father had produced from the depths of his truck. Her heart beat a strangely disturbing rhythm at his concern. She made an instinctive move for the door, but Jack blocked her way.

“Are you all right?” Spoken so close, the words skittered over her skin. Before she could answer, he wrapped his large hand around her forearm. Even through her dismay, she enjoyed the heat of his skin, the weight of his large, capable fingers.

No. This, most of all, wasn’t supposed to happen. She tried to pull away. “I’m fine.”

“Jack,” a bluff voice said, “good to see you out of the boatyard.” A burly man came out of the office behind the counter. He spelled S-A-F-E-T-Y to India.

“I just need these Band-Aids.” She brandished the dinosaur tin like a trophy.

The man looked at her, startled. “Yes, you do. Your hand is bleeding.”

Colleen and Nettie hurried around the shelves at the other end of the aisle. India ping-ponged back to Jack. “It’s already stopped. I only cut it.”

She wrenched away from his dark gaze, rationalizing her strange response to him. He knew things about Colleen that were forever lost to her. Little things, like her favorite ice cream. Big things, like the whys and wherefores of her belligerence toward him.

She tugged out of his grasp, but her arm felt cool where he’d touched her. Cupping her injured hand between her waist and the Band-Aids, she hurried to the counter. “How much are these?” She risked a last glance at Colleen, who stared back with curiosity.

Despite all her best intentions, India’s mouth curved. Gladness overwhelmed her as she memorized the girl’s sharp chin and soft cheeks, the graceful sweep of her poor distressed hair. Colleen smiled back, a real smile this time.

India’s insides crumpled.

Her daughter. The tiny infant she’d loved and longed for and entrusted to Mother Angelica. No longer a mystery, but flesh-and-blood real, and for once in a safe place. Colleen looked like a miracle.

“Wait, that cut’s dirty.” Impossibly oblivious to the longing India wore like a coat, Jack Stephens strode to her side. “Do you need stitches?”

She shook her head and dodged his reaching hand. “No.”

Nettie leaned in and gently plucked the edges of the cloth away. “It doesn’t look good, young lady.”

Jack covered the cut again and eased his shoulder in front of the older woman. “Careful, Nettie. You know how bleeding makes you queasy.” To India, he was all business again. “The clinic’s close. I’ll drive you.”

Though tempted, India came to her senses. She’d do a lot to snatch a few more minutes with Colleen, but in the end, it was too risky.

“I don’t need to go.” She dug change out of her pocket and waited for the man behind the counter to ring up her purchase. “I have to get back to Mr. Tanner’s house and help my dad.”

Jack explained to Nettie. “India and her father are painting the house.”

“Are you?” Nettie’s polite, old-fashioned manners deepened the burden of India’s lie.

“We’re almost finished, actually,” India blurted, unnerved enough to say the first thing she thought. “I guess we’ll head back to Virginia soon.”

“You want a bag for this?” The man behind the counter pushed the tin toward her.

“No, thanks.” She opened the lid and took out a large Band-Aid she managed to open with one hand and a little leverage from the other.

“Here, let me help you.” Jack took the Band-Aid from her and put it on the counter. “What do you have to clean her cut with, Al?”

The man passed Jack a small, square package that contained a medicated wipe. India pulled it from Jack’s fingers.

“I’ll do it.” She swabbed her cut, wincing as the treated wipe stung. Before she could reach for the Band-Aid again, Jack picked it up and peeled off its backing. His bemused smile set off loud alarms that clamored up and down her body. He’d never understand why she was so reluctant to accept his aid. Not if she could help it.

He smoothed the bandage over her palm with exquisite gentleness and a wry look at the dinosaur springing across the colorful background. “Nice ornithomimus. How do you suppose they print the whole name on there?” His roughened, callused fingers irritated her skin with pleasure and scattered her wits.

She pulled away. “Small dinosaur. Big Band-Aid.” This man was not just her daughter’s father. He was married to her daughter’s mother. She scooped up her tin. “Thank you again.”

So willing to lend aid to a stranger, Jack disconcerted her. She tugged at the strap of her overalls. Had she and her father stepped into another world when they’d crossed the long, low bridge to Arran Island? Or did people just naturally help each other in a small community? She flexed her sore hand.

“Can you drive?” Jack asked.

“I drove here.” She peered around him, though he seemed to take up half the room. “Goodbye, Colleen.” She had to mean it. She fought a lump in her throat. “Nice to meet you, Nettie.” Was Nettie Jack’s mother, or Mary’s? She’d never even know.

“WHERE’S INDIA FROM?” Nettie asked.

Colleen slid across the truck’s seat and bumped the rearview mirror out of place with her forehead.

“Are you okay?” Jack patted her head and readjusted the mirror. “I don’t know where she lives, Nettie. Maybe Virginia, since she said they were heading back there. I guess she and her father go where they find work. Al told me he remembers an ad they placed in the paper a month or so ago.”

“Oh no. Their business must be off.” Softhearted to a fault, Nettie leaned around Colleen. “And the only work they found here was the Tanners?”

Jack nodded, his attention split uncomfortably between Nettie and India’s image in his mind, her feminine, soft body lost in her overalls. Water blisters on her palms puzzled him. “I assume so.”

“Then you’ll have to find them something else,” Nettie said.

He almost hit the brakes. “You mean find another job for them?” His daughter’s amused expression caught his eye. “How am I supposed to find another house for them to paint?”

“You know everyone on this island. Whose house needs paint?”

Jack cast a glance at the bay on his side of the truck. Fishing didn’t provide the living it had for his father and his friends’ fathers. “Who can afford new paint?”

Nettie settled back in her seat. “Just go through each of your friends, Jack. You’ll come up with someone. A young girl like that, giving up her life to work for her father. Where is her mother anyway?”

“Maybe she likes to paint,” Colleen suggested.

“Do you like to work with your father?” Nettie made it sound like duty on a garbage scow.

Tense, Jack waited for Colleen’s response. She took her time.

“Well, no, not really.” She caught hold of his wrist, but quickly released it. Fifteen-year-olds must never show affection. “You don’t treat me like one of your employees, Dad. You always have to instruct me, like I’m a kid.”

Her explanation hurt his feelings as much as her first answer. “You’ve never worked the nets for me, Colleen. You’ve only sanded paint since we’ve had the boat out of the water. Did you know how to sand before I showed you?”

A mocking laugh gusted out of her mouth. “How hard is sanding? I can figure out how to push a piece of sandpaper back and forth.”

Jack tightened his hands on the wheel. “Let’s let this go for now. I’ve enjoyed the past hour with you, and I’d like to stretch it as far as we can.”

To his astonishment, Colleen laughed. A sweet, rich peal of laughter he’d known all her life. He grinned. Somewhere inside her lingered his little girl, the child who’d once firmly believed he knew all the answers.

“You know, Dad, Marcy’s mother has been after Mr. Shipp to paint their house.”

“Marcy?” Jack knew the girl. “How’s her eyebrow ring working out?”

“We’re talking about her house. Honest, the paint looks as bad as Mrs. Shipp says. Maybe we should stop by there.”

Her sincerity reeled him in. Jack nudged her shoulder, teasing. “All right, but I have to know one thing, and tell me the truth.” She looked so worried, he almost laughed. “Did Marcy pierce her own eyebrow?”

“Dad!” She shoved back, which apparently didn’t count as affection.

“All right, but your eyebrows are off-limits. Agreed?”

A FEW DAYS LATER, Colleen couldn’t remember the laughter she’d shared with her father. With one swift glance at him sanding the bow of the Sweet Mary, she dropped over the boatyard fence. Chris waited, engine running, behind a stand of trees that hid his car from her father. Boiling with resentment, Colleen slid into the passenger seat.

“What did he say to you?” Chris didn’t even wait for her to speak before he turned into the street.

Colleen twisted on the vinyl. “Everything. He just kept on. He said if they had nothing to teach me I’d be bored, but making straight A’s. Then he started on how I wouldn’t be able to get into a good college.”

Chris snorted. “How can he expect you to know what you want to do for the rest of your life? I’m eighteen, and I don’t know.”

Colleen held a careful silence. Her father wouldn’t be surprised to hear that. “He said I let you change me, that I’ve been different since you came along—like I needed you to tell me school is a waste of time.”

“Since I came along?” Chris’s derisive laugh raised prickles of discomfort along Colleen’s spine. He leaned over for a swift, hard kiss. “I don’t see a thing wrong with your attitude. Maybe I should talk to your dad, myself.”

“He’s not kidding, Chris. He really doesn’t like you.”

“Do I care?” Chris nosed the car to the curb. “He doesn’t have to like me as long as you do.”

Pretending to check the buckle on her boot, Colleen shifted away from Chris’s hand. Lately, when he touched her, he made sure she knew what he wanted and how hard he’d try to take it.