Ryan moved a step toward her

Annie sat very still.

“I meant what I said on the river today. I want to give what’s between us a shot.”

“There’s nothing between us,” she denied, jumping to her feet, intending to return to the house. Instead of backing away, he took a step forward, trapping her between the picnic table and his body.

“You know that’s not true.” He laid a hand against her cheek. “You can feel it, the same way I do. There’s always been something there.”

Dear Reader,

As a reader, nothing pulls me into a story more effectively than a secret. That’s probably why my own books tend to be full of them. It’s great fun to uncover the mystery along with the characters. It’s almost as enjoyable when one character keeps something from another.

In most books with a plot involving a secret baby, the father is the one who’s in the dark. In The Secret Sin, it’s the baby herself, who’s grown into a lovely thirteen-year-old girl.

Lindsey Thompson has no idea she’s on a collision course with her birth parents when she runs away to Indigo Springs to visit a family friend—or the effect she’ll have on the two former lovers who haven’t spoken in fourteen years.

I hope you enjoy the third book in the RETURN TO INDIGO SPRINGS series, with the couple who will do anything to keep their birth daughter from getting hurt.

All my best,

Darlene Gardner

The Secret Sin
Darlene Gardner

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

While working as a newspaper sportswriter, Darlene Gardner realized she’d rather make up quotes than rely on an athlete to say something interesting. So she quit her job and concentrated on a fiction career that landed her at Harlequin/Silhouette Books, where she wrote for Harlequin Temptation, Harlequin Duets and Silhouette Intimate Moments before finding a home at Harlequin Superromance. Please visit Darlene on the Web at www.darlenegardner.com.

To Kurt, Paige and Brian—the loves of my life.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

A NNIE S UBLINSKI gulped down the last bite of her turkey sandwich and scooped her sunglasses off the kitchen counter before grabbing the receiver on the ringing telephone.

This was the third time she’d had to answer the phone in the last ten minutes, proving that her father was right. He did need her to take time away from her magazine-writing career to be in charge of Indigo River Rafters while he was away.

She didn’t bother with a hello. “What is it this time, Jason?”

She’d instructed the teenager her father had hired for the summer to prepare the next group of white-water rafters for the one o’clock run down the Lehigh. He was a nice enough kid, but she wouldn’t be surprised if he couldn’t locate the paddles. So far he’d phoned asking first where to find the liability forms and then the sunscreen they sold in the shop.

The silence that carried over the line was uncharacteristic for Jason, whose weak point wasn’t lack of communication.

“I was calling my uncle Frank.” The voice, young and female, was not one Annie could identify.

Annie’s father’s first name was Frank. If the girl had spoken with a Polish accent and called her father Wujeck Franek, she’d conclude it was one of his nieces. But wouldn’t they know he was visiting their family in Kraków?

“I must have the wrong number,” the girl continued, providing an explanation; the call was a mistake.

“No problem.” Annie hung up and headed for the door, instantly putting the girl out of her mind.

From the porch of her father’s modest home, the warehouse-type building serving as company headquarters was visible, with the wide blue ribbon of river beyond it. The rafting trip she was leading wasn’t scheduled to leave for another fifteen minutes, but she needed to brief her customers on the dos and don’ts of spending the afternoon on the rumbling river.

The phone sounded again, the shrill noise stopping her in her tracks. It was probably the girl trying the number a second time. She debated ignoring it.

It continued to ring.

On the other hand, it could be Jason with a real crisis.

Just in case the few minutes it would take her to reach the shop mattered, she reversed course and plucked the receiver off the wall mount. “Yeah?”

“Oh. You again.” It was the same young voice. “I thought I got the number right this time.”

Annie twirled the stem of her polarized sunglasses in her free hand. She didn’t have time for this. If she hadn’t returned to her father’s house to empty the dehumidifier and decided to wolf down lunch, she wouldn’t even be here.

“What number are you calling?” she asked impatiently, then listened to the girl rattle off familiar digits.

“I’m positive that’s the number Uncle Frank gave me,” the girl said. “Are you sure this isn’t the Sublinski residence?”

Annie stopped spinning her sunglasses. “This is the Sublinskis,” she said slowly. “Who is this?”

“Lindsey Thompson.”

The name meant nothing to Annie. Her mind reeled with possibilities of who the girl might be, none of which made sense. “How do you know my father?”

“Uncle Frank’s your father?” It was the girl’s turn to sound surprised. “He never said anything about having a daughter.”

“He never told me about you, either,” Annie said. “But you can’t be his niece. All my father’s nieces live in Poland.”

“I’m not his real niece. I just call him Uncle Frank. He’s friends with my grandpa Joe.”

“Joe Thompson?”

“Joe Nowak.”

The tension left Annie’s coiled muscles. Her father often talked about his friend Joe. They’d known each other as boys in his native Poland. She seemed to recall that Joe lived in western Pennsylvania and had an adult daughter who’d died of breast cancer years ago. Her name had been…Helene. She searched her memory, certain her father had never mentioned Helene having children, but who else could this girl be? “Are you Helene’s daughter?”

“Yes,” the girl said. “So can I talk to Uncle Frank?”

“He’s out of town,” Annie said.

“You’re kidding me?” She sounded distressed. “Now what am I going to do? He said I could come visit him anytime.”

Visit him?

In the ensuing silence, Annie heard distant voices and what sounded like a train whistle. She got an uneasy feeling that Lindsey Thompson wasn’t phoning from home.

“Where are you?” Annie asked.

“In Paoli.” The town was on the westernmost edges of the Philadelphia suburbs, almost a ninety-minute drive from Indigo Springs. “At the train station.”

“Alone?” Annie asked.

“Yes.” The tone of her voice spiked the way a very young child’s might. She no longer sounded as poised and self-assured as she had a few moments ago.

“How old are you?” Annie asked, her stomach clenching in preparation for the answer.

“Fifteen.”

Damn. That was way too young to be alone at a train station in a strange city, even if Paoli wasn’t exactly an urban metropolis. “Can you get on a train and go back home?”

“I don’t know,” Lindsey said. “Probably not. I’m kind of short on cash.”

“You need to phone your parents.”

“No! That’s a terrible idea.” She sounded on the verge of panic. “Oh, God. What am I going to do?”

Annie’s mind whirled until she came to a sudden, inevitable decision. “Here’s what you’re going to do. Go inside the train station, find a bench, sit down and don’t move.”

“Why?”

Annie glanced at the kitchen wall clock, which showed it was ten minutes until her white-water trip was due to leave. Ten minutes in which she needed to find someone to take over for her. Because, really, what choice did she have?

Lindsey Thompson was only fifteen years old.

“I’m on my way.”

T HE WOODEN BENCHES inside the Paoli train station were empty except for a young woman reading a paperback novel and wearing a V-neck wrap top in a bright, eye-catching pink.

Annie did a complete three-sixty, turning slowly to visually cover every inch of a station that was doing brisk business for a Friday afternoon.

Commuters who’d taken the early train home from Philadelphia walked quickly through the corridor, getting a head start on their weekends. Customers sipped from cardboard cups in the coffee shop. Soon-to-be travelers stood at ticket windows or navigated the automated machines. Not a single person looked like a marooned fifteen-year-old.

So where was Lindsey Thompson?

Annie’s heart thudded harder than mallets pounding a drum.

She’d phoned the train station after she’d hung up with Lindsey, and asked the employee who answered to keep an eye on the girl but there was no guarantee that he had.

Her gaze fell once more on the young woman engrossed in her book, part of her face obscured by long, silky honey-brown hair. Annie marched toward her.

“Excuse me.” Annie spoke loudly enough to pull the woman out of her fictional world. “Have you seen a teenage girl?”

The woman lifted her head, brushing her hair back to gaze at Annie out of sky-blue eyes as lovely as the rest of her face. She had been blessed with nearly perfect bone structure: high cheekbones, a narrow, well-shaped nose, a delicate chin and a full mouth.

“Are you Annie Sublinski?” the young woman asked.

The voice matched the one on the phone. Annie looked closer and realized that beneath the makeup was a girl younger than she’d first thought.

Much younger.

“I’m Annie.” She couldn’t contain her surprise. “Are you Lindsey?”

“Yep.” The girl smiled at her, revealing enviable white teeth. “Thanks for coming. I’ve been waiting here, just like you told me to.”

She marked her place with a bookmark and closed the paperback with a soft thump. Annie recognized the name on the book cover. The author wrote romantic stories about good-hearted teenage vampires, wildly popular among young girls.

Even though Lindsey Thompson didn’t look her age, a young girl was exactly what she was.

Lindsey stuffed the book in an expensive-looking oversize bag that matched her top before getting to her feet. She wore metallic pink ballerina flats with her skinny jeans, but still topped Annie by a few inches. She was also model-thin.

“What’s that on your face?” Lindsey asked, touching her own unblemished cheek.

The purplish mark on Annie’s left cheek was about the size of a silver dollar but irregularly shaped. Because of the stares of strangers, Annie never quite managed to forget its existence. Most people she was meeting for the first time didn’t mention it, though. She fought against taking offense.

“A port-wine stain,” Annie said. “I was born with it.”

“Why do you still have it?” Lindsey’s stare grew more intense. “Can’t you get rid of it?”

Enough, Annie decided, was enough.

“Let’s see about getting you on a return train,” she said. “Don’t worry about being short on cash. I’ll pay for the ticket.”

“But I don’t want to go back to Pittsburgh.” In a flash of her mascara-coated eyelashes, Lindsey went from a girl who seemed on the verge of womanhood to a whining teen. “I want to go to Indigo Springs.”

That answered one of Annie’s questions. Lindsey Thompson was from Pittsburgh. Annie steeled herself against the girl’s pout.

“Sorry, but I’m not set up for visitors.” Running her father’s business was a full-time job. Besides, Annie didn’t know anything about taking care of a kid. At nearly thirty, she’d never even babysat.

“I didn’t come to visit you, ” Lindsey retorted, her lower lip still thrust forward. “I came to visit Uncle Frank. When he gets back, he’ll let me stay. You’ll see.”

“My father’s not coming back until next month. He’s in Poland.”

Lindsey’s pretty mouth, with its pink-tinted lips, dropped open. Her expression crumbled. “He never said anything about visiting Poland.”

Frank Sublinski, it seemed, had been closemouthed about a lot of things. Annie had left her father a voice mail on his cell phone during the drive to Paoli and was still waiting to hear why he’d never told her the late Helene Nowak Thompson had a daughter who called him Uncle Frank.

“Wait here while I check the train schedule.” Annie didn’t give Lindsey a chance to object. She headed for a ticket window, keeping guilt at bay by assuring herself the girl would be better off back home in Pittsburgh where she belonged.

She returned in minutes to find Lindsey once again sitting on the bench, but this time her book remained in her trendy bag. Her slender arms were crossed over her chest, her mouth a flat line.

“There isn’t a train to Pittsburgh today,” Annie said.

Lindsey’s lovely face lit up, her lips curling into a smile. “Then I guess I have to come to Indigo Springs with you, don’t I?”

Annie tried to look as though the prospect didn’t disconcert her. “I need to call your parents first and tell them you’re spending the night with me.”

“They were already okay with me staying with Uncle Frank. They’ll be okay with me staying with you.”

Lindsey avoided Annie’s eyes, which put Annie on alert. Her father hadn’t known Lindsey was coming for a visit; Lindsey’s parents probably weren’t aware of the fact, either.

“I still need to call them,” Annie said.

“It’d be pretty hard to call them without the phone number.” Lindsey slung her bag over her shoulder and started moving toward the exit, pulling a piece of designer luggage on wheels behind her.

Now what? If one of her father’s employees openly defied her, Annie could threaten to dock their wages or to fire them. Neither tactic would work on Lindsey Thompson.

She blew out a breath, as annoyed with herself as she was with Lindsey. She easily caught up to the teenager, then moved slightly ahead of her to give the illusion that she was in control.

“We’re calling your parents when we get to Indigo Springs,” Annie told her once they were outside the station. “We’ll tell them you’re coming home tomorrow.”

Lindsey acted as though she hadn’t heard her, her silence more oppressive than the midafternoon heat of the August day. Taking short steps, probably because her jeans were so tight, she trudged along, the wheels of her suitcase wobbling over the cracks in the sidewalk that led to the parking lot.

She was having so much trouble toting the thing Annie itched to pick it up and be done with it.

“I can carry your bag for you,” Annie offered.

“I’ll manage.” Lindsey continued to struggle stubbornly with the suitcase so it seemed to take forever until they reached Annie’s pickup, an eight-year-old Dodge Ram. The vehicle had held up well considering the odometer showed more than one hundred thousand miles.

“ That’s your ride?” Lindsey hung back as though afraid the vehicle would roar to life as if they were in a Stephen King novel.

“That’s my ride,” Annie said. “The suitcase goes in the truck bed.”

She expected Lindsey to leave the task to her but the girl surprised her, retracting the handle and then picking up the suitcase. With the muscles in her thin arms straining, she managed to lift the piece of luggage up and over the side of the truck.

Annie got into the driver’s seat, reaching across the cab to unlock the passenger door. After a prolonged pause, Lindsey stepped gingerly onto the flat step before settling into the seat.

“It’s easier to get in and out when you’re not wearing tight pants,” Annie said.

“Skinny jeans are in.” Lindsey gave her the once-over. “You must not follow fashion.”

Annie glanced down at what for her was normal attire for a day on the river: a sleeveless tank top, waterproof sandals, quick-dry shorts and her Indigo River Rafters cap.

“I was getting ready to guide a group down the Lehigh River when you called,” Annie said, then could have kicked herself. She sounded like she was offering up an excuse for her appearance. She touched the port-wine stain on her left cheek.

“What kind of group?” Lindsey asked.

“White-water rafting.” Annie dropped her hand and put the truck in gear. She noticed that Lindsey was gripping the door handle. “You ever done any?”

Lindsey shuddered. “I’m not the outdoorsy type.”

Great, Annie thought, wondering what they’d talk about during the drive to Indigo Springs. She needn’t have worried. Lindsey leaned her head against the headrest and closed her eyes as though exhaustion had struck her.

Annie started to switch the radio channel to her favorite country-and-western station, then thought better of it, afraid to wake up Lindsey. She considered phoning Jason but rationalized he wouldn’t be shy about calling her if he had an emergency. The long, boring drive seemed to take forever until she finally exited the interstate highway and got on the twisting back roads that cut through the mountains to Indigo Springs. The summer-thick leaves on the tall trees hugging both sides of the pavement let through just a sprinkling of the sun’s rays, casting most of the road in shadows. Lindsey stirred, alerting Annie that the girl was awake.

“We’ll be there in a few minutes,” Annie said. “Base camp is a couple of miles from town, down by the river.”

Lindsey groaned. Now what did that mean? Lindsey had already stated she wasn’t “the outdoorsy type,” but did she not appreciate nature’s beauty?

“It’s really quite a pretty setting,” Annie said.

Lindsey groaned again. Annie might be inexperienced in dealing with teenagers, but she wouldn’t stand for rudeness. She turned to Lindsey, intending to set her straight. The teenager’s head lolled to the side. Her eyes were open but her skin was deathly pale.

Annie’s irritation instantly vanished. “What’s wrong?”

“I don’t feel so good.” The girl’s voice was low and sluggish, and her eyelids fluttered as though she might pass out.

The pickup was approaching the fork in the road that led either downhill to Indigo River Rafters or uphill to town. Annie’s adrenaline kicked in. She took the turn as fast as she dared and headed uphill.

A short time later, she drove into the picturesque heart of Indigo Springs, where century-old stone buildings shared space with restaurants, businesses and retail shops catering primarily to tourists. She pulled the pickup to the curb in front of a pediatrician’s office that sported a sign with blue block lettering and set the parking brake.

“I don’t need to see a doctor.” Lindsey had been repeating the statement since she’d found out their destination. “I already feel better.”

She looked only slightly improved, her coloring verging on frighteningly pale instead of ghostly white.

“Humor me.” Annie got out of the truck and slammed the door. She opened the passenger door and helped Lindsey down from the high bench seat, careful the girl didn’t wobble when she navigated the step. She let go of Lindsey’s elbow once they were on level ground, but stayed alert just in case the girl actually fainted.

“A pediatrician!” Lindsey exclaimed when she saw where Annie was leading her. “Can’t I at least go to a regular doctor?”

“Pediatricians see children up to age eighteen.”

“Pediatricians are for babies.” Lindsey pointed half a block up the street to a row house with a stone facade that housed another doctor’s office. “Why can’t we go there?”

If a serious illness struck Annie on the spot, she’d still avoid Whitmore Family Practice, even if it meant driving to the next town while feverish and delusional.

It hadn’t always been that way. She’d been a patient of Dr. Whitmore’s until he’d died a few years back, leaving his daughter to run the practice. Although Indigo Springs was no longer a sleepy, small town but a tourist destination, most locals knew by now that Sierra Whitmore had broken her leg in a car accident, then called the most logical person to help her out.

Her brother Ryan Whitmore.

“Dr. Whitmore’s office closes early on Friday afternoons,” Annie said, relatively sure that was still the case. “So no more arguing. Let’s go see the pediatrician.”

Looking too weak to offer up another protest, Lindsey walked with Annie into a cheerful office that featured bright-blue carpeting and wallpaper decorated with clowns and balloons.

Annie blew out a soft breath, silently congratulating herself for avoiding Ryan Whitmore yet again, something she’d done successfully since she was sixteen years old.

T HE GRANDMOTHERLY receptionist listened patiently as Annie explained why she couldn’t fill out the information and insurance papers that were required of every patient.

“Just do your best, honey,” the receptionist said, “and I’ll squeeze in Lindsey as soon as I can.”

“Don’t you need to check with the doctor?” Annie blurted out before she thought better of it. She’d half expected to be directed to the nearest emergency room, but her goal was to get Dr. Goldstein to evaluate Lindsey’s condition, not pass her off to another doctor.

“Believe me, he’ll see her,” the receptionist said with a good-natured smile.

Annie nodded and took a seat beside Lindsey, who had her head down, her sleek brown hair falling like a fashionable curtain over her face.

“How are you holding up?” Annie asked.

“Okay,” she said tremulously.

Annie squeezed her thin shoulder and filled out the few blanks she could on the forms. She tried to hand the paperwork to Lindsey, hoping the girl might be caught off guard into providing her phone number. Lindsey shook her head. Figuring now was not the time to hassle her, Annie returned the forms to the reception desk and settled back to wait.

Noisy twin boys who were probably still in preschool banged around the waiting room, traveling from toy to toy, their attention spans not much longer than a gnat’s. Two seats away, a surprisingly calm woman who looked vaguely familiar leaned over. Her thin legs poked out beneath baggy madras shorts, and she wore her frizzy blond hair in a ponytail.

“One of my boys has a little cold, but they’re mainly here for a checkup,” she said. “I already told the receptionist your Lindsey could go ahead of us.”

“Thanks,” Annie said.

“You don’t remember me, do you?” She placed a bony hand on her chest. “I’m Edie Clark now, but my maiden name is Cristello. We went to high school together.”

Now that the other woman had identified herself, Annie wondered how she could have failed to recognize her. Edie had been one of the popular girls who whispered and giggled whenever Annie passed them in the hall.

“We just moved from Virginia after the school year ended. That’s where my husband’s from. I convinced him Indigo Springs was a great place to raise a family.” Edie looked pointedly at Annie. “Do you have kids?”

The door to the inner office opened. A fortyish nurse with a kind face appeared, clipboard in hand, calling out, “Lindsey Thompson.”

“Go ahead, Lindsey.” Annie nodded to the girl, who got unsteadily to her feet and moved gingerly through the office.

The nurse stood back, letting Lindsey precede her through the inner door, but didn’t immediately follow. Her gaze zeroed in on Annie. “Wouldn’t you like to come with her?”

Annie couldn’t imagine her presence would help put Lindsey at ease. The opposite might be true. “Won’t you be there when the doctor examines her?”

“Well, yes,” the nurse said.

“Then I’ll wait here.”

“Very well.” The nurse’s slow acceptance of her decision made Annie wonder if she’d made the wrong choice. “I’ll come get you when the doctor’s done. You’ll want to hear what he has to say.”

Edie gazed at her curiously as the nurse took her leave, no doubt wondering why she hadn’t gone with Lindsey. Annie remembered that Edie and her high-school friends had been nicknamed the Gossip Girls long before the TV show became popular.

“Lindsey and I aren’t related.” Annie decided it would be better to tell Edie the truth than have her spread rumors. “She’s a friend of the family.”

“I thought she might be a stepdaughter, but I was pretty sure you weren’t married,” Edie said. “Didn’t I hear something about you taking over your father’s rafting business?”

“Not true,” Annie said, although the misconception was a common one. Some people in town already had her as the new owner. “I’m still a magazine writer. My boss let me take the summer off so I can run the business for my father while he’s out of the country.”

“He’s in Poland, right?” Edie asked.

“Right,” Annie said.

One of the twin boys barreled over to Edie, stopped dead in front of her and pointed to his face. Edie dug a tissue out of her purse and wordlessly swiped at the little boy’s runny nose.

Annie picked up a magazine on fly fishing and flipped it open. Edie’s son rejoined his brother, plopping down on the floor in front of a fort they were constructing from plastic building blocks.

Edie ignored the hint that Annie wasn’t up for any more conversation. “You do know Ryan Whitmore’s back in town, right?”

Annie hid a grimace, afraid that Edie and her friends had guessed how Annie felt about him in high school. Why else would Edie bring him up? She composed herself and looked up from the magazine. “Why do you ask?”

Bonnie Raitt started to sing suddenly, her powerful voice cutting off whatever response Edie had been about to give. Annie fished her cell phone from the deep pocket of her shorts, muted the ring tone and checked the display. Her father’s number displayed on the small screen.

“Excuse me.” She stood up, grateful for an excuse to get away from Edie. She headed for the exit and privacy, waiting until she was outside on the sidewalk to press the receive button. The door of a gift shop next door was slowly swinging shut behind a customer, and she caught the sweet smell of scented candles.

“Hello, Dad.” She headed up the hill from the pediatrician’s office, away from a group of window-shopping tourists. As the hour neared five o’clock, the traffic on the street had thickened, the number of cars seemingly out of place on the too narrow quaint street. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

“I didn’t have my phone with me.” Her father’s voice was scratchy and hard to make out, but it was still wonderful to hear from him. After her mother deserted them when Annie was four years old, they’d grown exceptionally close. “Is something wrong?”

“Not really.” She got straight to the point. “I called to ask you about Lindsey Thompson.”

Interference in the connection combined with the incidental street noise made it difficult to tell whether her father had responded.

“Dad?” Annie prompted. “Are you still there?”

“What about Lindsey Thompson?” His voice sounded odd, but that could have been due to the poor reception.

“She phoned from the train station to say she’d come to visit you. She said she knows you through Joe Nowak.”

There was a long pause before he said, “That’s true.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell me Helene Nowak had a daughter?” Annie asked. “I’m positive you didn’t mention it when she died.”

“I didn’t.” The strange vibe remained in his voice. “Where is Lindsey now?”

“Here in Indigo Springs. With me. There were no trains back to Pittsburgh today so now I’m wondering what to do with a fifteen-year-old.”

“Lindsey told you she was fifteen?”

“Isn’t she?”

“She’s thirteen,” her father said.

Thirteen.

The unlucky number flashed in Annie’s mind like a neon warning sign. And just like that, she knew.

Her muscles clenched and her stomach muscles tightened against the blow that was coming. It was the only way the events of the past few hours made sense.

“Who is Lindsey Thompson, Dad?” she prompted, her voice already trembling.

“I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

She suppressed an urge to toss the cell phone into the street, where the tires of a passing car would smash it. She took a deep breath and smelled exhaust fumes. She forced her vocal chords into action. “Want me to find out what?”

“She’s your daughter.”

Annie sank onto the nearest stoop. The traffic continued to pass by while across the street a bell jingled as customers went in and out of an ice-cream shop, the scene the same as it had been moments before.

But for Annie, everything had changed with three world-shattering words.

“There you are.” Edie Clark appeared as though she’d materialized out of thin air. “I told the receptionist I’d come out and get you.”

“Annie?” Her father’s voice came over the phone, urgent and worried. “Are you okay?”

She wasn’t okay. She’d just discovered the father she’d trusted had let friends adopt her baby, expressly going against her wishes that he arrange a closed adoption. And one of the biggest gossips in Indigo Springs was regarding her with open curiosity. “I can’t talk now, Dad. I’ll call you back later.”

Annie disconnected the call and summoned the will to stand up, determined to appear normal.

“Sorry to interrupt your call,” Edie said brightly, “but Ryan’s waiting.”

She must have misspoken. Annie had gone to the pediatrician specifically to avoid dealing with Ryan Whitmore. “You mean the pediatrician is waiting?”

“Oh, no. That’s why I asked you about Ryan earlier. His office closes early on Fridays.” Edie indicated the placard on the door behind Annie, and she realized they were in front of Whitmore Family Practice. The office hours that were listed confirmed the office was indeed closed. “Dr. Goldstein had a family emergency, so Ryan’s taking his patients this afternoon.”

Somehow Annie managed to nod, although her entire body felt numb. She concentrated on placing one foot in front of the other as she followed Edie to the pediatrician’s office, bracing herself for the ordeal to come.

But how could she possibly prepare to talk to Ryan Whitmore when the girl they’d conceived when they were both only sixteen had inexplicably resurfaced?

CHAPTER TWO

R YAN W HITMORE leaned one shoulder against the bright-blue wall outside the examination room, making a notation on young Lindsey Thompson’s chart.

A pint-sized girl with a mop of dark curls stuck her head around a door frame down the hall from where he stood. She was about four years old. He waved. She giggled, her head disappearing back into the room.

As soon as he talked in private to whomever had brought in Lindsey, it would be the little girl’s turn.

The nurse who’d been assisting him came back, walking down the hall with another woman trailing her. Ryan blinked once, then twice, but his eyes weren’t wrong.

It didn’t matter that the nurse partially obscured his view and a baseball-style cap covered the second woman’s hair. He would have recognized her from a hundred feet away, which was about as close as he’d come to her since they were teenagers.

“Dr. Whitmore, this is the woman who brought in Lindsey,” the nurse said when they reached him. “Annie—?”

“Sublinski,” he finished, keeping his eyes trained on Annie, who had yet to meet his gaze. “We went to high school together.”

“Then you don’t need me,” the nurse said cheerfully. She excused herself as though the chance meeting was nothing out of the ordinary.

She couldn’t know he and Annie Sublinski had last spoken more than thirteen years ago on the telephone about giving up the baby she was carrying.

The nurse couldn’t possibly be aware of all the things Ryan had never said to Annie, or the guilt that never quite went away no matter how much he tried to live in the moment.

He shook off the memories and focused on the present.

“This is a surprise,” he said.

She raised her eyes. The color was an unremarkable mixture of brown and green. He was at a loss as to why he’d always found them so fascinating.

She’d been appealing as a teen but was even more so now that she was nearly thirty. Her bare arms and legs were toned and tanned, and she had a natural, clear-skinned look that could put a cosmetic company out of business—if not for her port-wine stain. He wondered why she’d never had it removed.

“For me, too.” Her eyes were guarded, as though she’d noticed him assessing her birthmark. He hoped she hadn’t. “A surprise, I mean. I didn’t know you were filling in for Dr. Goldstein.”

She clearly wouldn’t have brought Lindsey to the pediatrician’s office if she had. A few years back, while he was visiting family over Christmas, he’d spotted Annie coming out of Abe’s General Store. The downtown had been decorated with wreaths and festive lights, the perfect setting for an apology. Annie had spotted him coming and promptly crossed the street, rushing through the snowflakes drifting from the sky before disappearing into her pickup.

“About Lindsey.” She held herself stiffly, like a cornered animal ready to take flight. “Do you know what’s wrong with her?”

Now obviously was not the time to bring up the past.

“We can talk in there.” He nodded toward his colleague’s office. She hesitated, then complied, not looking at him as she passed. He followed her into the room, closing the door with a soft thud.

She winced at the noise, edged backward and crossed her arms over her chest. Her weight shifted from foot to foot.

Pretending her body language didn’t bother him, he hoisted himself up on the edge of the desk that dominated the room. “There’s nothing wrong with Lindsey a glass of orange juice and a sandwich won’t cure.”

“Excuse me?”

He tapped the girl’s file against his palm. “Her blood sugar was low. The last time she ate was this morning, and all she had was yogurt.”

“That’s all that was wrong with her?”

“Like a lot of teenage girls, she has some skewed ideas about how much she should weigh,” he said. “We gave her some juice and a granola bar one of the nurses had left over from lunch, but she could use a good meal.”

“I should have asked if she’d eaten.” Annie seemed to be talking to herself as much as him. “At the train station, I should have asked her.”

“The train station?” he repeated.

She nodded. “In Paoli. I picked her up an hour or so ago.”

“Who is she?”

Her eyes shifted, which they’d been doing a lot. “A friend of the family.”

That didn’t compute. Whoever had filled out the forms, and he had to assume that was Annie, hadn’t even known the names of Lindsey’s parents.

“I don’t know much about her,” she answered as though she’d read his mind. “I didn’t even know she was coming. She’s here to visit my father. Her grandfather’s a friend of his.”

That didn’t make sense, either. “Didn’t I hear that your father is in Poland?”

“Lindsey didn’t know that.”

“Shouldn’t her parents have known?”

Annie looked away again, heightening his sense that she was hiding something. “I don’t think they know she’s here.”

“Have you called them?”

She seemed to be clenching her teeth. “Kind of tough to do without a phone number.”

So that’s what Annie was concealing. Now that she’d admitted she didn’t have a home phone number for Lindsey, it was easy to piece together what had happened today.

Lindsey had gotten on a train without telling her parents she was leaving, which just might qualify as running away from home. He thought about the little girl who’d waved at him from the room down the hall. She was going to have to wait a little longer for the doctor to arrive.

“Let’s go see Lindsey.” He hopped down from the desk, yanked open the door, then let Annie precede him. There wasn’t much space between him and the door, but she managed to squeeze through without touching him. He caught a whiff of her clean, outdoorsy scent, and he was transported back years, to the single night they’d spent together.

“Second door on the right,” he told her, his mind thick with memories. How could that night, which had been so special, have had such shattering repercussions?

She hung back, wordlessly indicating he should enter the room ahead of her. He wasn’t as careful to avoid contact as she had been, inadvertently brushing her arm as he passed. She jerked sideways as though pricked by a porcupine.

Damn. He’d found it charming that she’d been flustered around him when they were in high school, but this was a new reaction altogether. She was nervous—and not in a good way.

The hell of it was that he couldn’t talk to her about it. Not now. As a doctor, his primary responsibility was to his patient. He had a more pressing matter to deal with than his regrets over the past.

His priorities back in order, he strode through the door to find that Lindsey had moved from the exam table to a chair in the corner of the room. Her color was better, but he read apprehension on her face when she saw Annie following him. What was that about? he wondered.

He smiled at her, an easy task. Lindsey was trying her hardest to act grown-up, but underneath her brave front was a rather charming child. “How’s that orange juice going down?”

“I’d rather have a Diet Coke.” Her quick comeback and smile reminded him of somebody he couldn’t quite place.

“Juice is a better choice,” Annie said.

Lindsey’s smile faded, her hand tightening on the half-full glass. “I like Diet Coke.”

“Annie has a point, Lindsey,” Ryan interjected. “You need nutrients to build up your blood sugar, and diet soda won’t cut it.”

He didn’t give Lindsey an opening to respond, pulling a piece of paper from her file and extending it to her. “I need some information for our records before I can release you.”

With obvious reluctance, she took the form and the pen he handed her along with it.

“I realize you don’t know your insurance information,” he added, “but it would help if you filled out what you can.”

Lindsey nodded before turning her attention to the form, her brow knitting in concentration as she wrote. Annie stood like a statue just inside the door, keeping as far away from him as possible.

Her low opinion of him smarted, although he didn’t blame her. He should have made his peace with her years before now. He could use the excuse that getting through med school and his residency had required total concentration and dedication, but that’s all it was: an excuse.

Within moments, Lindsey handed the pen and paper back to him. A quick glance at the form confirmed he’d achieved his objective: The girl had written down her phone number.

“So, can we go?” Lindsey asked.

“As long as you promise to eat something,” Ryan said.

Lindsey stood up, although her jeans were so tight he questioned how she could move. She held up the granola bar, from which she’d taken maybe two bites. “I’m already eating something.”

“Something more than a granola bar,” Ryan clarified.

“I’ll see to it that she has a meal,” Annie said.

Lindsey slanted her a dubious look. He wondered if Annie had any experience dealing with teenagers, but then he speculated about a lot where Annie was concerned.

Like whether she’d ever forgive him for that night.

“Bye, Dr. Whitmore,” Lindsey said.

“Bye, Lindsey.”

The girl strolled out of the examination room. Before Annie could follow, Ryan caught her arm in a gentle grip. She inhaled sharply.

“Let me go.” Her voice was an urgent whisper.

Stung, he did as she asked. “I was just going to give you Lindsey’s home phone number.”

She pursed her lips, mumbling, “Sorry.” She fumbled in the pocket of her shorts, withdrawing her cell phone. “What is it?”

He read off the ten digits, which she entered, never once glancing up at him. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome.”

She started walking away from him, rebuilding the distance she’d kept between them all these years. “Annie?”

He thought she’d pretend she hadn’t heard him and keep on walking, but then she turned. “Yes?”

“It was good to finally talk to you again.”

He supposed it was too much to hope that she’d echo the sentiment. She nodded once, then pivoted, as though eager to get away from him.

He didn’t stop her retreat. Not this time. But now that she was back in his life, he wouldn’t let her walk out of it again until he said his long-overdue piece.

A NNIE had never held the baby she delivered.

After a lengthy, tough labor, she’d heard a lusty cry and felt like weeping herself. The nurse had brought the infant close enough for Annie to see her, but she’d only gotten a brief look.

She’d been awed that she had helped create someone so tiny and perfect, but she’d tried to pay attention to the baby’s red, wrinkled skin. Anything to take her mind off the enormity of what she was giving up.

Even though her heart was aching, she hadn’t protested when the nurse claimed it was best for the separation to be immediate. From her experience with her own mother, who’d popped in and out of her life before finally disappearing for good, Annie knew the nurse was right.

The nurse had whisked the baby away, and Annie had fully expected never to see her again.

“You’re staring at me,” Lindsey accused.

Annie blinked, and the snack counter at the back of Abe’s General Store came into focus. They were sitting on red vinyl stools, their reflections bouncing back at them from the stainless steel of the old-fashioned soda machine. She smelled grease from the grill and the hot dogs on the rotating rack.

Annie had been taking a mental snapshot of Lindsey that she could call to mind in the years to come. It wouldn’t be difficult. The shape of Lindsey’s face, the spacing of her eyes, the arch of her eyebrows and the even whiteness of her smile were all reminiscent of Ryan.

Ryan, who brought out the nervous, insecure teenager in her that she’d desperately wanted to believe was gone forever.

She fought the feeling that she’d been unfair in not revealing who Lindsey was. It was better this way. If Ryan never knew Lindsey was the baby they’d given up for adoption, he wouldn’t have to lose her all over again.

The way Annie was going to.

“I can’t eat when you’re looking at me like that,” Lindsey complained.

They’d swung by the snack counter after leaving the pediatrician’s office. Annie had given Lindsey a ten-dollar bill, then stepped outside to phone the girl’s parents, nervously wondering whether they’d recognize her as Lindsey’s birth mother. The call had gone straight to voice mail.

“I’m sorry,” Annie said. “I didn’t realize I was staring.”

“Well, you were.” Lindsey set her nibbled-on sandwich back down on her bare plate.

Annie worried that the girl should have ordered something more substantial than turkey on rye bread and a Diet Coke. If the woman who’d prepared the food hadn’t left the counter, Annie would ask her to throw in potato salad or at least a bag of chips.

“You should finish that.” Annie nodded at the sandwich.

“It’s not very good.”

Of course it wasn’t. It contained no cheese, no pickle, no lettuce, no tomato and probably no condiments. Annie pursed her lips, unsure of what to do or say next. Uncertain how to get a teenager to do anything at all.

“Dr. Whitmore would tell you to eat your food,” Annie said, dismayed that she’d resorted to using his name.

Lindsey’s mouth twisted, but she picked up her sandwich and took a bite.

Was there already an invisible connection between Ryan and Lindsey? Is that how he’d succeeded in getting the girl’s phone number when Annie had failed?

How would he react if he knew the truth? Surely he’d noticed how edgy Annie was, so why hadn’t he guessed? A reason occurred to her.

“How old did you tell Dr. Whitmore you were?” she asked.

Lindsey didn’t look up from her food. “Fifteen.”

Now that Annie knew the truth, it was easy to see through the lie. “Is fifteen how old you need to be to travel alone on the train?”

“I don’t know,” Lindsey mumbled.

“I think you do know,” Annie said. “That’s why you said you were fifteen when you’re only thirteen.”

Lindsey’s head jerked up. “How do you know I’m thirteen?”

“My father told me.”

Lindsey swiped strands of her long hair out of her face and sat up straighter, an eager light in her eyes. “Is Uncle Frank back? Did you ask him if I could stay?”

Annie’s fingers clenched into fists. How could her father not have told her about Lindsey? She’d confided in him when she got pregnant and trusted him to handle the adoption arrangements. Her faith in him had been so absolute that she’d signed the papers severing her parental rights without reading them. She’d never dreamed he’d give her baby to someone Annie might possibly know.

“I talked to him on the phone,” Annie said. “He’ll be in Poland for at least another month.”

Lindsey’s head dropped again. “What else did he tell you about me?”

“Not much,” Annie said. If she was alone, she’d call her father back and demand answers, the six-hour time difference be damned. “I don’t even know what grade you’re in.”

Or if Lindsey knew she was adopted.

“I’ll be in eighth grade in September,” Lindsey said. “I’m almost fourteen, you know.”

Her birth date was in mid-March, which meant Lindsey wasn’t yet thirteen and a half. She wondered if Lindsey had written down her true birthday on the medical form or whether she’d tried to preserve the fiction that she was fifteen.

She also wondered how closely Ryan had looked at the form.

“And you live in Pittsburgh?” Annie asked.

“Not in Pittsburgh exactly,” Lindsey said. “We live in Fox Chapel. It’s near Pittsburgh.”

“Any brothers or sisters?”

Lindsey narrowed her eyes. “Are you going to ask my phone number next?”

Annie had been attempting to fill a desperate need to find out more about Lindsey, but that wasn’t what the girl had asked. “I already called your parents.”

“But…but how did you get the number?”

“The form in Dr. Whitmore’s office.”

From the shocked expression on Lindsey’s face, she hadn’t considered that possibility.

“I left your parents a message,” Annie continued. “They’re probably worried sick about you.”

“They don’t even know I’m gone,” Lindsey said. “Dad took Timmy and Teddy to Kennywood, and Gretchel’s working. She’s supposed to pick me up at a friend’s house at five o’clock.”

Kennywood, Annie knew, was a popular amusement park near Pittsburgh that was one of the oldest in the nation. “Who’s Gretchel?”

“My stepmother.”

“Are Timmy and Teddy your brothers?” Annie asked.

“Sort of,” Lindsey said. “I’m adopted. They’re not.”

Annie bit her lower lip to find it trembling. Lindsey had been matter-of-fact in stating she was adopted, but she considered Annie’s father to be her uncle and not her grandfather. Lindsey obviously didn’t know the truth about her birth, and it wasn’t Annie’s place to tell her.

“That doesn’t make them any less your brothers,” Annie said.

Lindsey blew air out her nose, but stayed quiet. Neither did it seem as though she planned to eat any more of her sandwich. Yet she needed nourishment. She was too thin and still pale enough that she looked as though she might topple off the stool.

“You could have another dizzy spell if you don’t eat,” Annie said. “You don’t want to go back to the doctor, do you?”

Lindsey’s blue eyes flashed. “At least Dr. Whitmore was nice to me. If I came to visit his father, he wouldn’t make me go back to Pittsburgh.”

Her words were like blows. Annie had tried to forget about the daughter she’d given up, but now that she’d met Lindsey she realized how miserably she’d failed. The clawing need to know the girl was as fierce as the unconditional love that nearly overwhelmed her. She couldn’t give in to that love without risking that somebody would figure out Lindsey was her birth daughter. If only the girl knew how desperately Annie wanted to keep her around. Annie swallowed, pushing words past the lump in her throat. “It’s for your own good.”

“Annie Sublinski,” a deep male voice announced from behind them. “What brings you off the river?”

Annie swiveled on her stool to see Michael Donahue moving toward them, his tall frame dressed in jeans and a work shirt, his thick, dark hair slightly sweaty. Since moving back to Indigo Springs earlier in the summer, he’d gone into business with the Pollocks, who owned a local construction company.

She’d always felt a certain kinship toward Michael because he’d been another of the outcasts of Indigo Springs High. An incident at this very snack counter had landed him in juvenile detention. Fathers, including hers, had warned their daughters to stay away from him.

He’d since redeemed himself in dramatic fashion, although very few people knew he was the hero who’d rescued a child from drowning during an Indigo River Rafters trip earlier that summer. “Hey, Michael,” Annie said, then turned to Lindsey, preparing to introduce her.

“Wait a minute. Don’t tell me why you’re here. Let me guess.” Michael placed three fingers on his forehead and closed his eyes before snapping them open. “It has something to do with a young brunette.”

Lindsey giggled at Michael’s antics, but Annie’s breath caught. Did he know about the child she’d given up for adoption? Could he? Surely there’d been talk when Annie had abruptly left town before her senior year of high school. Had somebody figured out that the real reason she’d moved in with her ailing grandparents was because she was pregnant?

“I’m Michael Donahue.” He jumped in with an introduction before Annie could untie her tongue. “And you are?”

“Lindsey Thompson,” she supplied. “I came to visit my uncle Frank, but he’s in Poland.”

“I heard something about that,” Michael said. “You took over your dad’s business, right, Annie?”

His question stopped Annie from denying her father’s relationship to Lindsey. “Actually, I didn’t. I’m just filling in while he’s gone.”

“My bad. Some people in this town like to talk even when they don’t know what they’re talking about.” He spoke from experience, Annie thought. At one point town gossip about him had been rampant. He winked at Lindsey. “Pretty soon they’ll be spreading stories about you.”

Annie willed her heartbeat to slow down. It had been an innocent remark.

She and Lindsey didn’t share a strong resemblance, and Annie was barely old enough to be the mother of a teenager.

“There’s nothing to talk about.” She forced her voice to sound normal. “Lindsey’s a family friend.”

Michael pulled open the glass door of the refrigerated unit beside the counter, then paused. “I thought she was your Dad’s niece.”

“We’re not really related,” Lindsey interjected before Annie could panic. “I just call him uncle.”

Michael nodded, accepting the answer. Some of the pressure inside Annie’s chest eased as he removed four bottles of water from the refrigerator.

“We’re finishing up a remodel job down the street and the crew is getting thirsty,” he explained. “Good seeing you, Annie. And a pleasure meeting you, Miss Lindsey.”

“He was nice,” Lindsey said as he walked away.

“Most people in Indigo Springs are,” Annie said.

Lindsey looked unhappy. “Then why can’t I stay here?”

So far three people who’d known Annie as a sixteen-year-old had seen her with Lindsey and none of them had put the pieces together. In all probability, nobody would, ensuring that Lindsey wouldn’t have her world inadvertently turned upside down.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” Annie said slowly. “Maybe you don’t have to go back just yet.”

“You mean I can stay?” Lindsey asked excitedly.

The thought of letting the girl go without spending at least a little time with her was like a dagger through Annie’s heart. Staying in Indigo Springs was clearly what Lindsey wanted, too. Annie simply wasn’t strong enough to fight fate and what she so desperately wanted anyway.

“Only if your parents say yes,” Annie said.

“They’ll say yes.” Lindsey smiled and took a big bite of her sandwich, unaware she’d agreed to a visit with her birth mother.

That was exactly the way Annie intended to keep it.

M AYBE SHE’D messed up in coming to Indigo Springs, Lindsey thought.

Uncle Frank had made it sound really cool, but the downtown was nothing but a bunch of old buildings. Once she and Annie had gotten back in her truck and headed out of town, all she’d seen was trees.

The parking lot they’d pulled into wasn’t even paved, and the building they were approaching looked like a grungy warehouse. A couple of dozen sturdy-looking bikes were parked in neat rows off to one side. On the other were nine or ten faded picnic tables.

Lindsey read the sign over the door: Indigo River Rafters.

“ This is your father’s business?” she asked Annie.

“This is it,” Annie said.

Lindsey slowed down but didn’t dare stop. If she did, the gnats that were flying around her hair might attack her eyes. She supposed the setting was okay, although there weren’t a lot of trees close to this part of the river and the grass around the shop was trampled down dirt. The water was maybe fifty yards away, with a flatbed trailer blocking part of the view.

“All our trips end here at base camp. That spot over by the flatbed trailer is the take-out point,” Annie said. “We load the boats so we can transport them to the put-in for the next trip.”

“Boats?” Lindsey asked.

“Rafts, kayaks, tubes.” She pointed to a pair of yellow school buses so old you couldn’t pay Lindsey to get in them. “We shuttle the customers in those.”

Annie acted like it was really important to her that Lindsey like it here, which was totally different from her attitude at the train station. Earlier, Annie’s main goal had been sending Lindsey home.

“Can’t you just drag a raft down to the river and go?” Lindsey asked, although there was no way she’d do that. The bugs wouldn’t be as bad out on the river, but she shuddered just thinking about the mud and the cold water.

“You could,” Annie said, “except the river’s like a one-way street. It only flows in a single direction.”

Whatever, Lindsey thought. That hadn’t been what sounded so cool when she’d heard about the business. “Uncle Frank said there was a store.”

“It’s more like a gift shop,” Annie said. “We sell T-shirts, waterproof sandals, sunglasses—that kind of thing. It supplements the income from the river trips and the mountain-bike rentals.”

Great, Lindsey thought with a sinking heart. Just great.

“Where does your dad live?” Lindsey asked.

Annie pointed to a tiny building behind the shop. “Back there. That’s where we’re going.”

Lindsey stopped walking. “Are you serious?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Lindsey thought of the big, five-bedroom, two-story house she’d woken up in that morning. “I guess I just expected something different when Uncle Frank talked about all this.”

Lindsey made a face when she spotted the rocking chairs on the wooden porch, but the inside of the house turned out to be not so bad. A decent-sized room with a really old TV opened into a kitchen. The furniture was simple—a navy blue sofa and wood chairs. Beyond the kitchen was a smaller space with a washer and dryer.

Annie indicated the left side of the house. “There are two bedrooms with separate baths over here. You can sleep in my dad’s room.”

“Cool,” Lindsey said. She could stay here, she decided, which was a good thing because she had nowhere else to go.

“I need to finish up a couple of things at the shop,” Annie said. “Will you be okay for an hour or so?”

“Yeah, sure,” Lindsey said, but she ran out of things to do after putting her clothes in an empty drawer and checking her e-mail on the computer with an ancient modem.

She was flipping through a magazine from a nearby rack when Annie showed up. No way was she going to read Field and Stream, Outdoor Life and Backpacker.

“Don’t you have anything good?” Lindsey asked. “Like Vogue or Elle ?”

“Afraid not,” Annie said.

Lindsey held up an issue of something called Outdoor Women . On the cover was a picture of three women with fishing poles standing in river water up to their thighs, with mountains rising behind them.

“Who reads this lame stuff?” Lindsey wrinkled her nose.

“Enough people to keep me employed,” Annie said. Lindsey must have looked puzzled, because Annie added, “I wrote the cover story.”

“Get out!” Lindsey eagerly turned the glossy pages until she found the article. It was about something called heli-fishing, where helicopters flew fishermen to remote areas that couldn’t be reached any other way. “Oh, my gosh. Your name’s on this story. That’s really awesome.”

“Didn’t you just say the magazine was lame?”

“Well, yeah. But getting your name in a magazine is cool.” Lindsey rethought her lukewarm opinion of Annie. “Maybe one day you can write about something better.”

Annie looked doubtful. “The outdoors is pretty much my thing.”

“Not mine.” Lindsey rolled her eyes. “I’d take a mall over a river any day.”

Annie perched on the edge of the sofa near where Lindsey sat on the floor. “Then why did you come to visit my father? There aren’t any malls in Indigo Springs.”

Lindsey stuffed the magazines back in the rack. “I didn’t know that. I thought there were malls everywhere.”

“Is something wrong at home?” Annie seemed to be deciding what to say. “You can tell me if you don’t feel…safe.”

Lindsey had sat through films in health class about the different types of abuse. She knew what Annie was really asking. Wow. Was she way off!

“There’s nothing like that going on,” Lindsey said.

Annie seemed to relax. “Something must have happened to make you leave home. Your parents will be calling back soon. It would help if I knew what it was.”

Lindsey stood up. “I just needed to get away, that’s all.”

“Away from what?” Annie asked.

Lindsey waved a hand. “Away from everything.”

Now that Annie was on board, Lindsey wasn’t going to say anything that would get her sent back to Pittsburgh. She was staying put if she could help it.

Anywhere was better than home.

CHAPTER THREE

W ELL , that hadn’t gone well.

Annie watched helplessly as Lindsey retreated into the bedroom she was using. The girl had changed out of her jeans into a pair of gray jersey knit shorts with Princess printed across the bottom.

Princess. Yeah, Annie was way out of her league when it came to Lindsey.

She’d half feared that Lindsey would change her mind about staying and say she wanted to go home, but the girl had surprised her. Not that the visit would be a done deal until she talked to Lindsey’s parents.

Annie had left a second message for them and could barely concentrate while she waited for the phone to ring. Sometime between inviting Lindsey to stay and now, Annie had allowed herself to hope for time to get to know the girl.

No. Not hope. That was too mild a word.

She craved more time with Lindsey—and she was desperately afraid she wouldn’t get it.

The phone rang, making Annie jump. She hurried into the kitchen and picked up the receiver of the wall-mounted phone. “Hello.”

“Annie, it’s Ryan.”

Annie’s brain froze, her throat closed up and her legs almost gave out. She could only think of one reason for him to call.

He knew.

She put a hand on the counter to steady herself. Her heart pounded like a jackhammer. She braced herself, struggling to decide whether she would admit the truth.

“I’m calling to see how Lindsey’s feeling,” Ryan said.

How Lindsey was feeling? His words didn’t compute. She’d expected him to say he’d guessed Lindsey was the baby they’d given up for adoption.

“Annie? Are you still there?”

“Yes,” she choked out, feeling overwhelming relief. “I’m here.”

Her voice sounded raspy and unfamiliar with none of the maturity she’d strived so hard to develop over the years.

“How is Lindsey?” he asked.

A few more seconds passed. She closed her eyes briefly. She was handling the call poorly, arousing suspicion where there might not be any. She fought to regain her equilibrium. “Fine. She’s fine.”

“Good to hear. Just make sure she doesn’t skip meals and she shouldn’t have the problem again.”

“Okay. Sure.” She still sounded unsophisticated and unsure of herself, which was unacceptable. Especially with Ryan Whitmore on the other end of the line. Get off the phone, her brain screamed. The less you talk to him, the better. “Thanks for calling.”

“Wait!” Ryan’s appeal was loud enough that she heard him even though she was just about to hang up. She reluctantly held the phone back up to her ear.

“You’re guiding the ten o’clock white-water trip tomorrow morning, right?” he asked.

“I’m planning to,” she said slowly, afraid of what he would say next.

“Good, because I’m thinking about taking it.”

She grimaced at the prospect of Ryan coming along on one of the trips, invading her world. How could she do her job with him in one of the rafts, reminding her of a past she didn’t want to think about?

A beep sounded, signaling an incoming call. Annie normally considered it rude to place one person on hold to talk to another. Rarely, if ever, did she use call waiting. She didn’t intend to now, either.

“I’ve got to take this call,” she said. “It could be Lindsey’s parents.”

“Of course,” he said. “I don’t mind hold—?”

“Goodbye,” she interrupted, pretending not to hear him. She disconnected, then answered the other call. She was right. The caller was Gretchel Thompson, Lindsey’s stepmother.

Out of the fire and into the inferno, Annie thought.

“Thanks for calling,” she said. “I’m Annie Sublinski, Frank Sublinski’s daughter.”

“Oh, yes,” Gretchel said. “Your father’s visited us a bunch of times, usually with Lindsey’s grandfather. He’s a great guy.”

Gretchel seemed to have no idea that Annie was Lindsey’s birth mother. Had her husband failed to tell Gretchel about the adoption arrangement? Was it possible he didn’t know about it, either?

Annie realized she had something in her hand. It was a piece of paper she’d crumpled into a ball from the pad she kept by the phone. She set it down and explained how Lindsey had ended up in Indigo Springs.

“I’m so sorry,” Gretchel said. “I’ll have a return ticket waiting tomorrow morning at the train station.”

“I wanted to talk to you about that.” Annie prayed she wouldn’t sound too eager. “Since Lindsey’s already here, why not let her stay a while?”

“You want her to stay?” The woman sounded incredulous.

Lindsey wandered into the kitchen and stood against a wall, watching Annie with hooded eyes.

“It’ll give me a chance to see why my father is so fond of her.” Annie took a breath, trying to figure out how to persuade Lindsey’s stepmother to agree to the visit. “I promise to take good care of her.”

“Since you’re Frank’s daughter, I’m sure you would,” Gretchel said. “Could I talk to Lindsey, please? I’d like to hear what she has to say.”

“Sure.” Annie kept her excitement in check, reminding herself Gretchel hadn’t agreed to anything yet. She held the phone out to Lindsey. “She wants to talk to you.”

Lindsey moved toward Annie as though she were walking the plank. She took the receiver and listened, no doubt to a scolding, in silence. Her face seemed to run the gamut of expressions, from annoyance to acceptance and finally to what Annie hoped was pleasure.

“Yes,” Lindsey said. “I want to stay.”

The weight that felt as though it had been pressing on Annie’s heart lifted. She took the phone from Lindsey, one question paramount in her mind.

“How long can she stay?” Annie asked.

“I’ll get back to you on that,” Gretchel said. “To be honest, it might be better if Lindsey’s out of the house for a while. She’s a good girl, but as you’ll find out she can be sullen and unhappy. Lately we’ve had some…friction.”

“Anything I should know about?”

“Nothing important,” Gretchel said. “Just teenage stuff.”

Annie was painfully aware it wasn’t her place to ask for the details even if the girl hadn’t been listening in on the conversation.

“It’s settled, right?” Lindsey asked after Annie hung up. “I can stay?”

“You can stay,” Annie confirmed.

Lindsey clapped her hands and smiled. Annie smiled back, enjoying the moment but realizing trouble might lie ahead. Now that she’d cleared one hurdle, a bigger problem remained.

What was she going to do about Ryan?

R YAN had expected Annie to avoid him when he showed up for the Saturday morning white-water trip. He hadn’t anticipated she’d be a no-show.

In his experience, the person in charge tended to at least be on-site during the busiest times of the week. Unless, of course, there was a good reason for her to stay away.

Like a man she clearly wished would leave her alone.

Letting Annie dodge him, however, was the one thing his conscience would no longer allow him to do.

He waited until the few dozen rafters who were taking the morning trip had boarded the bus and he was the only one left in the shop before approaching the long-haired kid at the counter.

“When’s the next white-water trip?” Ryan asked.

“Two o’clock.” The kid didn’t bother to point out that Ryan had arrived in plenty of time to take the first one.

Ryan stuck out a hand. “Ryan Whitmore.”

Looking suspicious of a customer who introduced himself, the kid took a few moments before he shook Ryan’s hand. “Jason Garrity.”

“You been working here long, Jason?” Ryan asked.

One of the fans behind the cash register blew a lock of Jason’s hair into his eyes. He tucked it behind his ear, his fingers brushing against his gold stud earring. “About a month. You want me to sign you up for the afternoon trip?”

So much for small talk. “That depends on who’s guiding the trip.”

“It’ll probably be Annie,” Jason said. “She usually does the morning run but she switched off today.”

“When did she do that?” Ryan leaned one of his forearms on the counter as though he was only casually interested in the answer.

“Last night, I think,” Jason said. It had probably been right after Ryan had mentioned his interest in the trip. “Jill—she’s one of our other guides—showed up here pretty early to take her place.”

Ryan glanced at the wooden wall clock, which was shaped like a fish. At shortly past ten, it wasn’t early anymore, but the little house behind the shop where Annie lived had looked suspiciously quiet. Lindsey might still be asleep but it didn’t make sense that Annie would be. “Do you know where Annie is?”

“Yeah,” Jason said. “She took a mountain bike out on the trail.”

“Which trail?”

“The one with the view of the river, out past where the cars are parked,” he said.

“Any idea when she’ll be back?” Ryan asked.

“I don’t know.” Jason frowned at him. “You sure ask a lot of questions.”

“I guess I do,” Ryan acknowledged and left it at that. He slapped the counter once with the palm of his hand and headed out the door. “Thanks.”

He sat down at one of the outdoor tables outside the shop that were set up for rafters waiting for the trips to leave. He situated himself so he had a view of the bike trail, stretched out his legs and crossed his arms over his chest.

Annie might have avoided having him along on one of her white-water trips, but she couldn’t evade him forever. Sooner or later, she’d ride her bike back to the river rafters.

When she did, he’d be waiting.

A NNIE leaned over the handlebars of her mountain bike and pumped her legs, trying to concentrate on climbing the hill.

Unfortunately all she could think about was Ryan.

She’d timed her ride so she wouldn’t be back at Indigo River Rafters until after the ten o’clock group left for the river. That way she’d miss Ryan entirely.

Perhaps she was a coward for not facing him, but there was no point in complicating things. Gretchel Thompson hadn’t set a date for Lindsey’s return, but school started two weeks from Monday. That was sixteen days from now.

Annie was determined to keep the circumstances of Lindsey’s birth a secret so the girl’s life could return to normal at her visit’s end. She already knew hers never would.

Not when the baby she’d given up had grown into a young girl with a face and a name and a penchant for sleeping late.

Annie’s lungs strained for air and her breaths came in short gasps as she approached the crest of the hill. Her mind whirled as much as the bike wheels while she tried to come to terms with her decision not to tell Ryan about Lindsey.

She was rotten at keeping secrets and always had been. Her father maintained that she was the most straightforward person he knew.

Her father.

He’d phoned minutes after she’d awakened, full of apologies for keeping the truth about Lindsey’s adoption from her all these years.

His excuse was that he couldn’t bear to lose all contact with his granddaughter.

As though it had been his decision to make.

It seemed her father wasn’t the only one who’d kept secrets. He reported that the late Helene Nowak had had so much trouble persuading her husband, Ted, to agree to adopt that she hadn’t told him she knew the birth family. Lindsey had been told she was adopted but given no further details.

All of which put Annie in the uncomfortable, uncharacteristic position of hiding the truth.

She crested the hill, the burning sensation in her thighs finally easing. The tough part of the ride was over. The rest of the way was downhill, with the dirt trail cutting a path through a thicket of trees and emerging near the field Indigo River Rafters used for a parking lot.

Air whooshed over her face, cooling her skin and blowing through her hair as the bike jostled over the slightly uneven ground.

She glimpsed base camp in the distance, her signal to ease up. Intending to coast the rest of the way, she stood up, resting her weight on the pedals.

The left pedal snapped off with an audible click.

Annie’s foot touched air and then the sole of her shoe scraped along the dirt of the path.

The bicycle skidded sideways, sliding out from under her. She pitched forward, her upper body going airborne. The ground rushed up to meet her.

Desperately fighting the impulse to tense up, she let herself fall. The right side of her body smacked the ground, with her rear end absorbing the brunt of the impact.

Then she was half sliding, half rolling down the hill.

“Annie!” Someone was calling her name. She was too stunned by the fall to figure out who it was.

She smelled grass and saw stars. She blinked a few times and her vision cleared enough for her to realize she was sprawled in a soft patch of grass to the side of the trail.

“Annie!”

She heard the same voice, closer this time and jarringly familiar.

She groaned, not so much in pain but in dread. Sitting up, she struggled to gather her scrambled wits for the confrontation she couldn’t avoid.

“Are you okay?” Ryan Whitmore’s face entered her field of vision, his handsome features full of concern. He bent over, looking as though he intended to determine the extent of her injuries.

She raised a hand, dismayed to find it shaking. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?” He didn’t touch her but still hovered over her. “That was quite a fall.”

She didn’t yet know how badly she was hurt, but wasn’t about to admit to anything. She brushed the leaves and the grass and the dirt from her arms and legs, taking stock of her injuries. A bad scrape on her right thigh. A sore spot on her hip that would turn into a bruise if it hadn’t already. A banged-up elbow.

And severely wounded pride.

“Like I told you,” she said, “I’m fine.”

Before he could insist on helping her up, she got to her feet. Various body parts screamed in protest. The world went momentarily black, the stars returning before they performed another disappearing act.

“Let me help you down the hill.” Ryan’s eyebrows were drawn together, and his mouth was pinched. She ignored his outstretched arm.

“You can carry the bike if you want to help.” She doubted she’d be able to lift it, not when she’d yet to recover her wits fully. She took a step, relieved when her leg supported her weight. She might be bruised and stiff, but she’d live.

He seemed about to protest, but then crossed the path to where the bike had come to rest against a bush. He righted it, then frowned. “It’s missing a pedal.”

“That’s why I fell,” Annie said. “When I stood up and put my weight on it, it came off.”

“Odd,” Ryan said.

“Not so odd,” she said. “Things like that happen.”

Too bad it had had to happen while he was watching. Annie trudged ahead of him, silently cursing her bad luck. If she’d stuck to the original plan to guide the early group down-river, she could have at least avoided one-on-one time with him.

“I thought you were going rafting,” she said.

“I thought you’d be the guide.”

She looked down at the trickle of blood running down her leg instead of at him. The scrape on her thigh smarted so she doubled her efforts to walk as though she was injury-free.

“All our guides are capable,” she said.

“Yeah, but only one of them has been avoiding me for almost fourteen years.”

She kept walking, determined not to let him know his comment had thrown her, irked that it had. “I haven’t been avoiding you. I just haven’t had anything to say to you.”

“If I was the kind of guy who took advantage of the injured,” he said in a conversational tone, “I’d take exception to that comment.”

“I’m not injured,” she denied.

“I’d disagree with that one, too.”

She increased her pace, which should have been enough to put distance between them. She was in hiking shape, and he was rolling a broken bicycle, but the fall had slowed her down. The sun was shining brightly overhead, heating up the August morning and making her feel even more uncomfortable.

“You should let me take a look at you when we get back to your shop,” he said as though she hadn’t already refused him. “Then there are a couple of things I want to talk to you about.”

Before alarm took hold, the rational part of her brain kicked in. He sounded too cool and calm to have figured out the volatile secret about Lindsey.

“You can’t always get what you want,” she said.

It was a childish retort, one she immediately wished she could take back. She was a grown woman who successfully dealt with men in both her business and personal lives. She’d had a serious romantic relationship, even though it hadn’t worked out in the end. It bothered her that she became a quivering mass of nerves in this man’s presence.

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