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Her Daughter's Father
“What’s up?” Her deep blue gaze narrowed. “Is Colleen all right?”
Well, at least she didn’t assume he’d come on his own behalf. “She’s fine, better even. I don’t know what you said to her, but you must have gotten through.”
India’s guilty start piqued his interest. “What do you mean?” she asked in an innocent tone he didn’t trust.
“She promised not to see Chris alone again.”
“You mean like on a date?”
He nodded. “Finally, one for our side.” Stop stalling. Say what you came to. “I’m sorry I was rude earlier.”
India backed up as if she’d stepped on a cat. “Not at all.” Color flooded her cheeks. Her gaze ducked his. “You were busy with your daughter.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I just—” She swallowed. The muscles in her throat tightened above the nest of her sharp collarbones.
“You just what?” Heeding a sudden need to know the texture of her skin, he trailed his finger through the beads of moisture that hugged her rounded shoulder. Unexpected desire raced in his blood. His mouth watered to taste her taut skin just beneath her jaw, where her pulse fluttered even faster now than when she’d stopped running.
Did his nearness affect her, too?
India looked down at his finger against her skin. Jack jerked his hand away and tried to remember what she’d last said. “You just what?”
She tilted her head, her defiant expression astonishingly like Colleen’s. “I admitted I’d used some bad judgment when I was her age that hurt my family.” The words spilled from her, as if they weighed too much to carry inside.
Jack frowned. Surprised. He didn’t want to know after all. “I appreciate your help, and I don’t know how to say this without sounding harsh, but I’m not sure she needs to hear about anyone else’s bad decisions.” He stopped, realizing he’d insulted her, though she remained stoic. “I mean—judgment.”
“She wanted to know why no one trusts Chris.”
“Why won’t she talk to me?” He shut his mouth, reluctant to follow in his daughter’s footsteps and pull India any deeper into their lives.
“I know I meddled, but the mistakes she can make are even more dangerous than the ones I made at her age. I should have thought harder before I spoke to her.”
Jack hesitated. “I’m grateful for her change of mind about Chris, but I don’t know if she should be talking to you about family matters.”
How could Colleen share her confidences with a stranger? Even a stranger who ran like a tipsy centipede and, in moments like rare treasures, smiled as if she knew how to make the most out of joy. Colleen should talk to him.
Now India’s smile turned brittle. “I’m sorry if I over-stepped.”
“No, I can’t imagine you did.” She’d disappeared that night at the festival. She’d all but refused his gratitude for helping Colleen. “I’m being rude again, but Colleen confuses me. I always thought her diaper days would be the hardest. You can’t go to the bathroom without making sure someone keeps an eye on an infant, but now she’s a teenager, I suddenly realize how much more she needs guidance.”
“Even if she refuses to believe she does?” India finished for him.
Maybe she had known how to talk to Colleen without saying more than she should. What mistakes had India Stuart made? What had she done that made her so anxious to help his daughter?
He lifted his chin. “You must know fifteen-year-olds. Nieces? Nephews?”
“No, I’m an only child.” Color stained her cheeks again, beautiful pale pink that deepened the blue in her eyes. “I’ve just worked with children.”
Intrigued, Jack settled one foot on the stair behind him. “You volunteer?”
India wrapped her arms across her rib cage. Her fingers looked too slender, splayed over her shirt. Her gaze became shuttered with reluctance. “I work at the library at home. I’m helping my father this spring. If you’ll excuse me, Mr. Stuart, I’m still sweaty, and the weather’s changing again.”
A librarian? She’d waited all this time to mention it? Why? “What did I say that turned me into Mr. Stuart? I was Jack when you ran up.”
India scooted past him, her back to the opposite rail. She must have run along the bay, but the salt on her skin was perfume. Drying, it left interesting, powdery patterns. Would her fragile wrist taste different than the full, earthy curve of her mouth?
She braced one hand on her hip and the other against the wooden building, as if she heard his thoughts. Restraint tightened her tone. “You asked me not to pry. Maybe you shouldn’t, either?”
He hesitated. One step closer, and he’d ask her questions a single man asked a single woman. Like why she was so afraid of the awareness that ran like a current between them.
But he wasn’t just any single man. As he searched the shadows on India’s face, he remembered he was a fisherman who worked on another man’s boat so he could pay to repair his own trawler. His daughter barely spoke to him from her side of the great adolescent divide, and his in-laws seemed to agree he was making a mess of things.
“Maybe I’m the one who’s overstepping.” Maybe, deep down, he’d come for more than a thank-you. He’d come for his own information, but he’d discovered too much. Finding out what had hurt her enough to teach her how to reach his daughter required a commitment he had no time to make. “I’d better get home before Nettie sets the kitchen on fire and Colleen decides it’s already too late to start her homework. Thanks again, India.” He stepped onto the sidewalk. “Good night.”
CHAPTER FIVE
SATURDAY MORNING, India haunted the clock, anxious to do her own kind of work. Showered and dressed too early for the toddler’s reading group, she made herself sit with a cup of coffee until it was time to go.
Finally she ran down the quivering stairs outside her room. Pursing her lips, she tried to whistle as she strode toward the library. Managing only to blow air, she allowed herself a furtive skip over the curbs at the street corners, until she reached the library building.
“No! I’m tired of lying to my father to be with you, Chris.”
India stumbled over the completely level sidewalk. Colleen. India turned slowly to her right, hoping she’d be wrong, that he’d have found some other child to pick on.
No. Once again gripping Colleen’s arm, Chris tried to pull her away from her two friends. India hesitated, shaking with rage even more intense than the last time. She couldn’t let this happen, not to anyone, not to her child.
With one clenched fist, she pushed aside strands of hair that brushed her face. She searched for the candy-apple lovemobile. Chris hadn’t parked his car on the street, but as attached as he was, he must have left it close by. She couldn’t let him take Colleen to it, especially if Colleen didn’t want to go.
“Your father never has to know.” Yards that felt like miles away, Chris yanked Colleen behind him and eyed the other girls. “Marcy? Leah? Do you think Jack Stephens has to know I’m taking Colleen with me?”
His plain threat fired a shudder through India. Affection played no part in Chris’s need for her child today.
“Leave her alone.” Colleen’s blond friend launched herself at Chris’s chest, but he brushed her off like a fly.
India took flight. Be calm. Be smart. Don’t let him see you’d like to take him apart. But before she reached the four teenagers, Viveca Henderson stepped out of an alley, a blue-uniformed policeman in tow.
“Here he is, Ted. I’m tired of Chris running amok in our streets, and with our young girls. You take him with you, and keep him away from these children.”
Ted, the policeman, hooked his arm through Chris’s and jerked his head toward the small square red granite building behind him. “I’ve been waiting for you to mess up, kid. I just didn’t know you’d oblige me at my own back door.”
India took a few more steps into the street. A white sign nailed to the wide oak door at the center of the building read Official Parking Only. Arran Island Police Headquarters.
“Are you arresting me?” Chris demanded belligerently.
Ted shrugged. “You and I are long overdue for a chat. We’ll go from there.” He tipped his hat to Viveca. “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I’ll take over now.”
“Goodbye, Chris,” Colleen said, apparently unable to welcome the sight of him going to jail. He didn’t even look back as Ted took him away. “Do you want me to call your mom?”
“Don’t bother. This is your fault, Colleen. Leave me alone.”
Disillusionment bunched Colleen’s fragile features. India ached for her. Suddenly she understood parents who wanted to give their children anything and everything. What wouldn’t she do to make Colleen’s trouble better?
But Viveca nodded, completely satisfied, as she turned to Colleen and her friends. “As for you girls—”
“Colleen?” Her name burbled out of India’s mouth. “Are you and your friends busy? I need some help.”
All three girls started, surprised to see India. Colleen’s two friends gaped as if she’d risen from the bay. Colleen’s smile looked dazed, and Viveca grimaced at the interruption.
India threaded her voice with sugary enthusiasm. “I’m helping out at the library this morning, and the toddler’s story group is making lion puppets. I don’t have enough parents.” Astounded at the lie that came out of nowhere, she steamed ahead. Colleen and her friends looked as if they’d already got the point of Viveca’s lecture. “I need someone to cut, someone to glue and someone else to braid yarn into manes. What do you say?”
“I think we should talk to your parents,” Viveca suggested with relish.
“Do you?” India wanted to go to Colleen, but she’d already done far more than she should have. What she’d do for any child in trouble, she could not do for her own daughter.
Colleen’s eyes looked too wide. Her skin gleamed too pale. Could she be in shock?
“Will you help me?” Unable to bear Colleen’s lack of any other response, India was afraid to leave her out here in the cool morning air.
“Colleen!” Elbowing her, the girl on Colleen’s left pushed her lovely pale blond hair away from her forehead and revealed an earring fastened distractingly to her right eyebrow.
India stared. Was this Marcy or Leah? She snapped her mouth shut. So what if Colleen’s friend had pinned an earring through her eyebrow? She’d also tried to come to Colleen’s rescue. Twice.
“We’ll help.” As Colleen took stock of the back of the police station and Viveca Henderson’s eagerness, her frown hardened into disdain.
India swallowed a victorious whoop. She’d half feared Colleen would worry he wouldn’t want to see her again.
Colleen shifted her whole body, firmly turning her back on the station. “India, this is Marcy.” She flapped her hand at the one with the eyebrow ring before she waved at the other girl. “And this is Leah.”
“Marcy.” India shook their hands in turn. “Leah.” She turned to Mrs. Henderson. “Don’t you think they were trying to help Colleen?”
“Yes, but Colleen’s the one that worries me.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Henderson. I know what you want to say to me. I guess you wouldn’t be the first, but I’ve finally heard what everyone else said before you,” Colleen said.
“Are you sure?”
Her concern looked even stronger than her love of gossip. India stayed out of the argument. At last, Viveca seemed satisfied with what she read in Colleen’s eyes, as the girl nodded. “All right, but remember, I’ll be watching you girls.”
India joined them to watch Viveca stroll away, tucking her big white purse beneath her elbow. India smiled. She’d underestimated her landlady.
“Marcy, Leah, this is India Stuart.”
“You’re the one who helped us before.” Marcy apparently did all the talking. Leah just stared as she redid her long auburn ponytail with shaking fingers.
India nodded. “I’d be grateful for your help now.” Ignoring Marcy and Leah’s identical doubts, she started toward the library. “Normally, I cut out felt and sew the pieces together for the bodies, but I don’t have my sewing machine with me, so we’ll have to improvise with glue.” Babbling, she tried to give the girls time to recover.
Colleen lagged behind the others, who seemed anxious to look as if they were on their own. Colleen caught India’s arm.
“Are you going to tell my dad?”
India hesitated. “Mrs. Henderson may. I’m not sure someone shouldn’t.”
Colleen tightened her grip. “I wasn’t going with Chris. I thought you understood me, India. I thought I might be able to trust you.”
Joy and dismay sweeping simultaneously over her, India shook her head. “You need to trust Jack. He’s your father.”
“He worries too much, and I’m half-afraid of what he’d do to Chris. Dad still thinks of me as a child.”
India knew the story. During her father’s business crisis, her parents had directed their energy toward saving the family’s livelihood. They’d ignored her efforts to help and assumed she was too young to trust with their financial straits. But Gabe, Colleen’s natural father, had treated her like the adult she’d thought herself.
“Chris considers you grown-up?”
“No.” In her impatience, Colleen looked more than ever like India’s mom. “I wonder if he sees me as a point he has to make. Everyone on this island thinks he’s a troublemaker, but they all respect my dad. They consider me a ‘good girl.’ Maybe Chris hoped I’d clean up his image. Instead, I think his reputation started to spread to me.”
Colleen’s maturity startled India. “But you aren’t excusing him?”
Colleen shook her head so hard her mature bearing nearly flew off her. “I won’t forgive and forget. He scared me. One thing my mom and dad always told me was never to go with anyone who made me feel funny. Stark, raving terror probably counts as funny.”
India let her hair cover her face. Now that was good judgment. She sent up silent gratitude to Jack and Mary for the way they’d raised Colleen. Could she have done as well?
At the library’s wide doors, Marcy turned around. Sunlight glinted off her gold eyebrow ring.
“Are you sure we want to do this, Colleen? Everything’s okay now.”
Colleen only laughed, and India grinned in relief. A girl couldn’t sound as if she’d just discovered the keys to her freedom if her heart were breaking. In some dismay, Marcy rubbed her ring thoughtfully between her index finger and thumb.
How many toddlers would go home this afternoon and beg their parents for eyebrow hoops? If only I’d planned a pirate story for today.
“COLLEEN?” JACK CALLED his daughter’s name as he opened his front door. All morning long, as he’d finally begun to repaint the boat, thoughts of her had barged between him and his work. He’d found himself smiling at remembered Saturdays in the park with a Frisbee and a cooler of sandwiches. Those Saturdays seemed far away, but his hard work pulled them closer every day.
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