“India? Are you all right?”

She couldn’t tell Jack what was on her mind, so she bit back her questions about her daughter’s first days with him and Mary and changed the subject. “I love to look at photos, but I always want to know the stories behind them.”

“Colleen is like that, too. Unfortunately, we couldn’t tell her much. Mother Angelica only told us Colleen had a normal delivery. You don’t seem surprised to hear she’s adopted. Has she already told you?”

India nodded in time to the beat of her own heart. Jack’s question tempted her again to enter a dreamworld, where Colleen would get used to the idea of her true identity, and Jack would forgive her for her lies.

“J-Jack,” she stuttered, “Colleen’s birth mother could tell you all about her birth. Have you never wondered about her?”

His vehemence gave away the depth of his feeling about the “birth mother.” “No. Mary was Colleen’s mother. That’s all I need to know. For years, we dreaded the idea of some woman trying to take our daughter away from us. I still think about it when I hear one of those stories on the news….”

His voice trailed off, and India tried to hide her utter dismay. Averting her face, she scrambled for composure. He’d given her a swift, detailed answer. If she tried to tell him the truth, he’d think she’d come to steal his child.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Anna Adams grew up battling for position with four brothers and five male cousins. Her grandma, concerned when Anna built a tree house that resembled a condo for a family of four, gave her the gift of a Harlequin romance novel and told her that young women (Anna was twelve and—please—no longer a “girl”) could combine other, even more exciting adventures with their architectural accomplishments.

With wholehearted joy, Anna plunged into a world of strong women and loving men who knit their lives together no matter what obstacles stood between them. Now Anna can’t believe she’s lucky enough to add her stories to the ones that came before her. She hopes to bring the same delight she’s known to other readers. She just wishes she could share that cool reading spot, too.

Anna lives in Georgia with her jazz guitarist son, Colin, her swims-like-a-fish daughter, Sarah, and her hero of twenty-one years, Steve.

Her Daughter’s Father
Anna Adams

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Mamie—who gave me that first book.

To Colin and Sarah—may life bring you the love

you’ve given me.

And to Steve—I still listen for your voice on the phone,

your key in the door. You love like a hero.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

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

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

EPILOGUE

PROLOGUE

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, in the basement of St. Genevieve’s Home for Unwed Mothers, India Stuart gripped a small flashlight between her teeth and bent over a locked filing cabinet. Seconds ticked like frantic heartbeats in her head.

She’d learned how to pick locks from a book, but her hands hadn’t trembled this way when she’d practiced at home. Like the attorneys she’d consulted and Mother Angelica, who’d run the home since before India had come here to give birth, the lock remained firm.

She didn’t take burglary lightly. Fifteen years ago, she’d stepped outside the rules and made one mistake that had taught her never to rebel again. She glanced at the window she’d climbed through. Headlights on a waiting car flashed twice.

Her father, encouraging her. He was only trying to help, not alert the local police. “Dad!” She redoubled her efforts. A bead of sweat trickled down her nose. Had he flashed the lights before? Even at a time like this, she and he did not know how to communicate.

She tightened her moist fingers on the tools. Any minute Mother Angelica might materialize to engulf her in voluminous black robes. No, at night, Mother Angelica only ventured from her room to investigate the sound of a gallon of ice cream bouncing across the kitchen tiles. India still remembered.

Inhaling a shaky breath, she started over. Use a gentle touch. Persuade the lock. Don’t force it.

With a metallic thunk, it finally gave and sprang outward. Astounded, she stared at the cabinet. A moment of truth. Fifteen years of hopes and dreams and regrets, all concentrated in one shattering second.

She yanked the handle on the S drawer.

Smith, Smith, Smith—how many frightened young women had borrowed that name? Finally, a Smythe and two Snyders. She ran her fingertips over the folder tabs. Sprayberry, Spritzer? At last, a Stewart, and another, and then—Stuart, India. Even in the dim light her folder looked old.

Fifteen years.

She tugged at the file. Wedged between the others, it stuck. She tugged harder, but left it halfway in, so she wouldn’t have to figure out where it belonged when she finished with it.

Prying the folder open enough to see the writing on the pages inside, India shone her small flashlight on Mother Angelica’s spidery scrawl. She searched for the name she’d tried to imagine for too many years, the name of the child she’d given up for adoption.

Colleen Stephens.

India squeezed her eyes shut, holding in terrified joy. This moment was worth any danger. She shook herself, remembering her father outside. Getting him arrested wouldn’t improve their strained relationship.

She dug a small notebook out of her pocket. Her knees wobbled as she wrote down her daughter’s address. Arran Island, Maryland. So close. She’d always been so close. India stared at Colleen’s adopted parents’ names. Jack and Mary Stephens. She hoped they loved Colleen the way she’d wanted to. She vowed not to hurt them as she jotted down their names and then threaded the file back into its slot.

She shut the drawer and pushed the lock back into place. Quickly she turned off the flashlight and stowed it in her pocket. Across the room, her father’s wrench, upright and gleaming in the moonlight, still braced the window open.

She clambered to the window ledge and eased the wrench out. Then, she forced a space large enough to wriggle through and tumbled out onto the grass. As she leaned back to tug the window down, her father gently revved his car’s engine.

She scrambled up the slight rise and pushed through shrubbery that grabbed at her clothes and skin. Gravel scrunched under her heels as she skidded to the front passenger door and yanked it open. Breathing hard, she slid into the seat. The man behind the steering wheel, all in black, his hair a shock of steel, tilted his head in a silent question.

“Colleen Stephens. Arran Island, Maryland.” India choked on the words, amazed she had gone to such lengths, but unbelievably glad.

For a moment, Mick Stuart’s eyes reflected her happiness. He sobered abruptly. “So you found out her name. Let it go now. Get back on a plane for Seattle and take that job. Hire someone to find out if she’s all right.”

The last plane she’d boarded for Seattle had broken crosswise on the runway, burst into flames and changed her life forever. Dragging herself through smoke so thick she almost had to chew it, she’d seen her bland life for the safe picture of responsibility she’d created. She’d thrown away her parents’ love and hidden her own for them so deep she didn’t know how to find it anymore. Since Colleen’s birth, she’d kept herself from loving anyone.

As she’d struggled into clean air, she’d known—to go forward, she had to confront her past. Later, flat on her back with a broken leg, she’d had plenty of time to face the truth. Giving up her child had been the wrong decision for her to make. She couldn’t change the choice she’d made, but she needed to know Colleen hadn’t suffered because of her.

Now, adrenaline pushed her to snap a sharp reply to her father’s suggestion she put her daughter behind her. She swallowed old resentments. “I was looking to run away once and for all when I considered that Seattle job. I’m tired of running. For the same reasons I want to mend my fences with you and Mom, I have to know Coll—she’s safe.”

Grunting, he eased the car into gear and drove toward the wrought iron gate. “I know the accident changed things for you, but India, you’re looking back with hindsight. You have a master’s degree in library science. You have security I couldn’t provide for you when you got pregnant. You must know we were right. What would you have made of your life if you’d had to care for a child?”

“Dad, my heart still hurts for her. When I woke up in that hospital bed, I knew I had to make my peace—and not just with you and Mom.”

India turned her face to the window. Neither of her parents knew the guilt and shame that had haunted her as she’d carved out her competent life. She’d taken her degrees and then taken jobs in small towns and big cities close to a “home” that no longer felt like hers. Doing unacknowledged penance, she’d lived near her parents and hidden her true feelings—an easy feat, because she couldn’t bear to see them often enough to let them have a good look at her.

“I won’t meet her or talk to her. I don’t want to hurt her family, but I have to see she’s happy and safe.”

“You were sixteen years old. Forgive yourself. Forgive your mother and me. You need a family of your own. You need to let someone love you.”

“I can’t let anyone love me until I know she’s safe. I’ve believed I abandoned her. I just need to see she’s safe.”

For the first time, he backed down. “It’s my fault. If my business hadn’t failed…” Trailing off, he maneuvered the car into the street and anonymity.

“No, Dad.” India stared at his face, rugged and lined from the years he’d spent painting other people’s houses in Virginia sun and weather. “I made the final choice. It was easy to blame you and Mom, but everything changed when that plane skidded down the runway. I took the easy way out—with my baby and with you.”

“You’ve worked hard for everything you have.”

“I’ve worked at not getting hurt, at not letting anyone love me, including you and Mom.” India eyed the thick, wavy strands of his hair. “You didn’t have to come tonight.”

“I couldn’t let you come alone. I owe you this, and tomorrow, I’ll arrange for an ad in the Arran Island paper. Someone will need a housepainter.” Reaching across the gearshift, he patted her knee. “And his able apprentice. Your mother is going to manage the business while I help you—as long as I remember how to run the equipment after all this time in the front office.”

India splayed her fingers over the ache in her chest. To find her own way, she had to see she’d done right by the child she’d never even held. She’d looked back for too long. From today, she looked forward. No fear, no guilt.

Mick slowed the car for a traffic light. “If we can just get one house, we may find out everything we need to know.”

India’s smile took all her acting ability. She talked brave, but she felt wary. The huge chance she was taking could break her family apart all over again.

“What’s the matter?” Her father’s gaze searched hers in the dim light.

Twisting in the seat, she pressed the back of her head against the cool window. “I just made you an accessory to breaking and entering.”

Mick curved his mouth. “You got my wrench back, right?”

CHAPTER ONE

“HAYDEN, I DON’T NEED YOU and Nettie to help me raise my own daughter.” Jack Stephens pushed away from the worn kitchen table and his half-eaten lunch. His former father-in-law scraped back his chair, too.

“We know you’re a good father to Colleen, but she’s grown even more rebellious since we were here at Christmas. While you’re busy with the boat, let us help you.”

Intense March sunshine flooding through the window hurt Jack’s eyes. The boat. Two months ago, a storm like the hand of God had pushed his boat ashore. Since then, he’d worked on a friend’s boat during the day and made repairs on his own in the evenings. Maybe Colleen had acted up more since then, but his busy schedule hadn’t started her one-girl rebellion.

No, she’d changed when Mary died. Nearly three years ago. He shied from the uncomfortable truth. Colleen had stopped talking to him after her mother died.

Jack shoved his plate onto the counter. “You’ve worked up to this all morning, haven’t you? No wonder Nettie wanted a girl’s day out.” Hayden Mason’s diminutive wife had insisted she and Colleen needed new clothes for the spring festival tonight. “Did Colleen ask you to talk to me?”

“Of course not,” Hayden said, picking up his own plate. “Unless you approve, we won’t even tell her we want to stay.”

Like a living, breathing entity, Jack’s small kitchen seemed to squeeze him. “What if I don’t approve?”

Hayden narrowed his gray eyes, Mary’s eyes, but Jack wouldn’t let memories of Mary soften his impatience with her managing parents. His parents, too, after all these years.

“I don’t want you to stay. You and Nettie come between Colleen and me. When you’re here, she turns to you first, and I can’t reach her.”

“Maybe she needs us.” Hayden took Jack’s shoulder. “I don’t want to hurt you, but you two can’t talk to each other anymore. You don’t understand each other.”

“She doesn’t have to understand me. She has to do what I tell her to do and be where I tell her to be. She forgets she’s fifteen, and I’m her parent.” Jack broke off. Tough talk, tougher than he meant, but his anxiety for Colleen made him feel weak, out of control. “How could you and Nettie do a better job? You pave her way with gifts. Look at that leather jacket Nettie bought her last weekend.”

Hayden sighed reflectively, as if the black and silver-buckled, biker-gang special clanged in his memory, too. “Now, Nettie made a mistake there. She swears Colleen showed her a different jacket. One with a velvet collar.” Hayden shook his head. “But Colleen also told her how much she misses Mary. Has she told you?”

“What kind of man do you think I’ve become?” Taking Hayden’s plate, Jack avoided his eyes. “I know how much Colleen misses her mother.”

“But has she told you? Has she cried in your handkerchief?”

At the sink, Jack stared out the window at the green-blue bay. Colleen hadn’t shed one teardrop in almost three years, not when the police called to say Mary’s car had gone off the road, not when he’d come home from Mary’s hospital bedside two weeks later to tell Colleen her mother was gone.

Colleen seemed to want him to believe she regarded her mother’s death with the same stone-cold apathy she extended toward every word he spoke, from “I love you” to “Call me before you stop at your friend’s house.”

“We’ll work out our problems.” He tried to sound sure. Colleen was his little girl. Why didn’t he know how to reach her? “Maybe you and Nettie should stop running interference for her.”

“You need time to get your boat back in the water. Colleen needs attention. We can give both of you exactly what you need. Let us stay, just until you finish repairing the boat and get your business back on track.”

Pressure beat behind his eyes as Jack stared at the older man. Maybe Hayden was right. If Colleen had talked to Nettie about Mary, maybe she’d find a way to talk about the other things she couldn’t tell him. “What about your house in Baltimore?”

“Nettie’s cousin in D.C. will check on it. Besides, we’re not so far away that we can’t go home if we need to.”

Even as Jack opened his mouth to give in, the front door slammed open. Colleen’s usual entrance. Leaving Hayden behind, he hurried through the kitchen archway. In the dim light, he saw what Colleen had done to herself while in her grandmother’s care.

Her hair, much darker than the honey-blond it had been that morning, stood on end. Exaggerated paleness painted on her cheeks and eyelids stopped Jack cold. She smiled through black lips. Behind her, Nettie hovered, cautious as Colleen ought to be.

“What have you done?” Jack clutched at his slipping temper. Who knew parenting could scare the hell out of a grown man? His daughter needed him, but he couldn’t figure out what she needed. “Colleen, what have you done to yourself?”

Adolescence hadn’t robbed her of all her good sense. A hint of anxiety finally entered her eyes. “I had a make-over.”

“A makeover?” She looked like one of the living dead. Jack eased in a deep breath. Their arguments followed the same pattern. Step one—he lost his mind. Step two—she clammed up. Step three—silence deepened the gap between them. “Go upstairs and clean your face. We’ll talk about this in a few minutes.”

“I paid for the makeup, Dad.” Squaring her shoulders, Colleen lifted a Macy’s shopping bag. “I plan to use it.”

Jack stared at his daughter, pointedly ignoring Nettie and Hayden, who were blind to the fact they didn’t help Colleen when they financed her mistakes. “How did you pay?”

She hesitated, reluctant to involve Nettie, keeper of the moneybags. She bit her lip and shifted her shopping to her other hand. “Grandma gave me the money.”

Nettie scooted around her. “Now, Jack, honey, I know this looks bad.” She was as reluctant as Colleen to come clean. “I didn’t know—I thought, what’s the harm in a little makeup? I—”

“But where were you when she did this?” As he switched on the hall light to see his daughter’s hair, Jack’s fuse burned a little shorter. He turned Colleen’s head so that the spiky ends glinted. “Purple?” Appalled, he let her go.

“No. Burgundy.” Colleen tapped her palm gently over the points.

Her hair looked like an eggplant sunburst.

In one more rescue attempt, Nettie nudged Colleen farther behind her and lifted one hand to her own shoulder. Clenching her face in an exaggerated grimace, she rubbed her shoulder, as if her muscles ached horribly. With a sideways glance, she made sure she’d lured Jack’s attention away from Colleen. “I indulged in a short massage.” She tilted her head toward her granddaughter. “I’ve been under a little stress, you know.”

Hayden showed up at Jack’s side. “Nettie.” His voice dripped disappointment.

“I know. I know.” Her show of guilt made Jack want to laugh and shout at the same time. Nettie dropped her head. “I don’t know how I—”

“Dad, this isn’t Grandma’s fault.” Colleen stepped in front of Nettie. “I tricked her.”

“I’m the adult, Colleen.” Nettie muscled back in front of her granddaughter, forcing Jack to retreat a step or two. She patted her own perfect silver coiffure with delicate weariness. “I should have paid closer attention.”

Their protective dance softened Jack’s heart. Leaning against the wall, he pressed his palms to the cool plaster. Since Mary’s death, Colleen had held her emotions tight. The joy he’d loved in her seemed muted, and she showed him only frustration. He’d tried to give her privacy, because he understood her need. Later he realized she’d stopped telling him her troubles. Only when she’d begun to act out anger she refused to discuss had he realized he should have pried.

He couldn’t punish Colleen for withdrawing when he’d let her go to give her time. She missed Mary, but she refused to talk to him about her grief. He’d thought he understood because his own pain and sorrow had felt so private.

Maybe if he let Nettie stay, Colleen would find a way to talk to her.

Jack swallowed a huge lump in his throat. Why can’t she talk to me? But before she went and did something to herself he couldn’t undo, she had to talk to someone. And Nettie made her care more than anyone else could.

All three of them waited for what he’d do next. “Go wash your face, Colleen,” he said again. “I don’t want you to wear that stuff to the festival tonight.”

A slight, relieved smile curved her mouth, but she held it back. “I’ll do something about my hair, too.”

Reluctant to look too closely at the damage, Jack allowed himself a brief nod. “Your grandpa and grandma are going to stay awhile, until I finish the boat.”

Colleen hesitated, looking from Nettie to Hayden. “Great. Two more keepers.”

Jack pushed away from the wall. “Cut it out.”

She headed for the stairs, the heels of her ankle boots tapping on the pine floor’s wide planks. She whirled, planting her hands on the balustrade to look down with pink cheeks and stormy eyes.

“Don’t be mad at Grandma, Dad. I’ve tricked you before, too.”

He didn’t trust himself to speak until Colleen slammed her door, and its echo let the air out of him. He turned and took Nettie’s hand. “I’m sorry it’s not a more exclusive club.” He glanced from her to Hayden. “Are you sure you still want to stay?”

“YOU LOOK FINE, INDIA. Stop worrying, and try to have a good time. Tonight’s your chance to meet people who might tell you something about her.” Her father lowered his voice on the pronoun.

India smoothed the hem of her new plaid skirt over her thighs and felt conspicuous. “She might be out there.” India nodded at the festival crowd that snaked around the cavernous high school gym. “I feel like a kid, myself, in this. Maybe I’ll call Mom tonight and ask her to send some of my things.”

Mick handed her a plastic cup of pink stuff. “Try this. A little girl wearing that same skirt poured it for me. I’ve never seen hair her color—purple, I swear. I’m not sure I could mix paint to match.”

Smiling despite choking tension, India held the glass at her lips. “Thanks, Dad. I feel better now.”

Mick ran his hand over her gauzy sleeve. “Your eyes look like big blue marbles. Relax.”

India shifted away. After all these years, she hardly knew how to accept her father’s comfort. She twisted the blond strands of her ponytail. She’d tried so hard to protect her parents, she’d forgotten how to go to them when she was afraid.

And she was scared stiff. What would she say if she met Colleen? Nothing. She couldn’t intrude in Colleen’s life. She had to run away as she had so long ago.

She’d kept running until those few terrifying moments on a burning plane had taught her what was important. Family. Living down the past before it ate up the future. She’d been all appearance before, but now she wanted to feel the emotions she’d hidden from, as long as she did nothing to hurt Colleen. “What if she’s here? What if I meet her accidentally?”

Mick sipped his own drink, somehow understanding her mid-thought conversation. “She might also be at home, tucked up in her own bed. She might be out of town. Don’t get your hopes up.”

India rubbed her index finger through the condensation on her plastic glass. “I’m not secretly hoping to run into her.”

Hurt bruised her father’s gaze. “I’m not saying you’d try to see her, but you’re my daughter, and I don’t want you hurt.”

India took a deep breath and plunged into the heart of the matters between them. “I know what you’ve done for me.” After he’d dragged his business back from the edge of bankruptcy, he’d put away his brushes to manage his company from a desk in a comfortable office. Until now. “I know you only came back into the field to give me an excuse to come here, but we could be lucky. Maybe we’ll meet someone tonight who’ll tell us Colleen lives in a fairy tale, and we can finish painting Mr. Tanner’s house and go home.”

“You could walk right into her, and she wouldn’t know you.” Mick turned, almost blocking out the mob behind him. “We can leave now if you want, if you have second thoughts.”

“No.” A woman in a bright red dress floated on a clear path for Mick. Their landlady at Seasider Inn looked different tonight, without her square white pinafore and her cat’s-eye, tortoiseshell glasses. India shoved her cup into her father’s hand. “Here comes Viveca Henderson. I need some air.”

Warily Mick turned. “Yeah, she likes me too much. I think I’d better mention your mother to her again. Where are you going?”

“Outside, to the high school’s dunking booth.” Reluctant or not, she’d come here to find out about Colleen’s life. “The sooner I find someone who’ll gossip about her, the better.”

Bright lights illuminated the parking lot. India passed an apple-bobbing barrel and a kissing booth, manned by girls in cheerleader uniforms. Could one of them be Colleen?

In the booth’s shadows, India glimpsed a young girl in the same skirt she’d bought. India smoothed her hem again. In this light, she couldn’t tell if the girl’s short cap of hair was purple. Suddenly the girl tried to pull away from the boy at her side, but he held on. Leaning down, he spoke close to her ear, and she slid her arm around his waist.

Hesitating, India studied the crowd around the girl and boy. No one else seemed to see trouble. When the boy turned the girl toward the parking lot, she went willingly.

The cool breeze brushed a paper hamburger wrapper past India’s ankle. What would Colleen be like? Would she have a boyfriend who looked too old for her? Would she seem even younger than the girl with the purple hair?

Rubbing her goose-bumped arms, India watched the people enjoying themselves too much to notice the weather or the children. She wished she’d brought her jacket along. Even if it hadn’t matched her froufrou lacy blouse and plaid skirt.

She’d vowed not to meddle in Colleen’s life, and keeping vows was her strength. Yet deep inside, she had to admit she’d thought she might see Colleen here tonight. She couldn’t help wanting to look “cool.” After she’d sorted through her serviceable though faded jeans, the painting overalls her father had provided, or the one good dress she’d packed for just in case, she’d trekked to the nearest mall on the mainland.

Ridiculous.

What would Colleen Stephens care about a stranger’s wardrobe?

A sudden, urgent cry stopped India beside a large wooden planter. She stared back into the crowd, waiting for another cry, but she heard nothing. Just children’s voices and party sounds.

She scanned the little ones weaving in and out of the festival booths. All happy, many laughing. But that one voice, for a moment, higher than the rest—India pushed nervous fingertips through her hair. While the frightened cry still echoed in her head, she turned toward the parking lot’s edge.

With so many cars here, every house in town must be empty. She craned her neck, searching for—what? Almost before she realized she was hearing it again, the thin, high voice arched over the fun once more.

India made a beeline for the sound. In the weaker light beyond the open lot, cars stood in rows. Three rows back, the tall, gangly boy from beside the kissing booth tried to tug the purple-haired girl into a cherry-red sports car while two more girls dragged at her other arm. They all struggled in silence now.

Suddenly the two other girls broke away and ran toward the festival crowds. India had eyes only for the girl who still clung with both hands to the roof of the boy’s car.

“Get in,” he shouted. “Get in or you’ll never see me again.”

Intimately familiar words, in a different context, in a more dangerous situation than when her long-ago boyfriend had threatened her with them, deepened India’s instinctive rage.

“I won’t go with you when you’re like this.” The girl tried to arch away from him, but he only pushed harder.

Her friends ran up to India. Their great relief hurt her. They were just little girls, caught in a bad game of grownup.

One intercepted her. “He’s been drinking. Our friend—Please help us.”

India broke into a run. “Go get more help.”

“Okay.”

With heightened senses, she heard their footsteps fade behind her. In the false light, the paint on the boy’s car looked warm and wet. As she rounded the hood, India slapped her palm on the metal. She would have jumped on it to make him turn away from the girl. He whirled, fists clenched.

“Hey! That’s my car.” Slurring the words, he flailed his arms, to reach for India.

But she bowed her body out of his reach and stationed herself between him and the girl, who stood now, stunned and still.

“Do you think you’re a big man, because you can bully a girl like this?” India sized him up at about seventeen. At least six inches taller than she, and forty pounds heavier, he was mad and drunk enough to be plenty mean. She didn’t dare break her gaze from his to check on the girl.

Completely unintimidated, he marched toward India, his fists again at his sides. “Who are you?”

“The woman you’ll have to go through to get to her.” She braced her hands on her hips and hoped the girl stayed behind her. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, India waited for him to strike—and for instincts that had dragged her this far to tell her what to do next.

The boy stopped. “You don’t know her. You don’t belong here. Who are you?”

“We’ve covered that. Where are your parents? Do they know about you?”

“Know what about me?” He stumbled forward. “You hit my car.”

Backing into the girl, India eased her away from the car. She risked a quick glance inside. No keys on the seat. She couldn’t see the ignition.

“Go home.” India pretended she wasn’t afraid. “Before this girl’s friends bring the police back. And next time, pick on someone your own size.”

“I’ll—” Before he could say what he planned to do, a man appeared out of darkness.

“Keep your filthy hands off my daughter.” He hauled the boy around to face him. With his fists full of the kid’s collar, the man studied the girl behind India. “Colleen, are you hurt?”

India stiffened. Her heart lodged in the back of her throat. Go now. Run, before she sees you.

Somehow, she couldn’t move.

“Colleen!”

“I’m fine, Dad.” The girl edged around India, her voice a young echo of India’s mother’s. Rachel sang like an angel. She sang lullabies her grandchild would never hear. And this child spoke with Rachel’s voice.

India wobbled. Plaid skirt and purple hair brushed into a thick cap. The girl who’d served Mick the glass of pink punch.

More than one Colleen might live on Arran Island.

India stared at the man. Strong and inflexible as granite, from wide, high cheekbones to the dent in his chin, his face softened as he searched his daughter for injury.

“Are you sure you’re not hurt?” Her father, he had the right to stay and make sure. He would take her home and comfort her—and hopefully talk to her about boys who drank too much and threatened young girls.

Before Colleen could answer, her friends slipped through the cars to surround her with tears and relief. She collapsed into their arms, instead of in her father’s.

Why? Teenaged angst? Or something deeper, some problem that might motivate a young woman to look up to a boy like Colleen’s bad choice.

India lifted her hand to the girl with the fuzzy purple hair. More than one Colleen might live on Arran Island, but she doubted it. She took one step backward and then two more. Before anyone noticed her again, she faded into the darkness.

CHAPTER TWO

INDIA GLANCED FROM the adjoining door to her father’s room, to the old beige phone on the bureau. For the first time in years, she craved the comfort of her mother’s serenity. She dialed.

Her mother picked up on the first ring. India broke into her hello. “I saw her, Mom, but she’s in trouble.”

“I should have come with you, too.” Through the telephone lines, Rachel Stuart’s voice sounded tinny and far away and too much like Colleen’s.

“She has purple hair, and a boy tried to drag her into his car. I think he’s her boyfriend. If I hadn’t stopped him, he would have hurt her.”

“Her boyfriend?” Rachel squeaked.

“What kind of parents let their daughter date a boy like that? She’s not old enough to date. Even I know she’s not old enough. Maybe I know better than anyone.”

Rachel’s response came more slowly. “Daughters sometimes do things their parents don’t know about.”

India tightened her hand on the phone. “How am I supposed to answer that? I don’t want to hurt you, but I have to hope Jack and Mary Stephens are more suspicious than you and Dad.”

“So do I, but don’t leap to conclusions. Wait awhile.”

Impatient with the same Zen-like acceptance Rachel had shown her in similar straits, India lashed out. “I don’t plan to use this as an excuse to announce I’m her mother, but I hope her real parents won’t give her the freedom to hang herself.”

Rachel’s silence lengthened. Finally she took a tolerant breath that sounded nearer than her voice. “Maybe she made one innocent mistake tonight. Honey, don’t push me away again. I’m glad you called me first and that you want to talk to me, but I’m not sure how to help you. I don’t want to suggest anything that will make you turn away from me, but I really don’t believe you can judge Colleen’s family situation by one incident. Stay there. Keep your eyes open.”

India shook her head, alone again with decisions about the child she’d given up already. She shuddered. Talk about repeating history. When she’d known she was pregnant, she’d turned first to her mother. And Rachel’s answer? Give the child to someone who can make her a good life.

“I’m sure you’re right, Mom.” Old habits died hard. She couldn’t help saying what her mother wanted to hear. “I’ll get Dad. He’ll want to say good-night to you.”

WHITE PAINT PERMEATED the fine black bristles of the brush India dragged carefully over the window ledge. What am I going to do?

Dip the brush in the paint-spattered can.

I promised not to involve myself in her life.

Wipe the bristles against the can’s lip.

But he could have hurt her—and her father knew him. Her father wasn’t surprised to find them together. India turned her face away from paint fumes that rose with the brush, but she had to look back to paint the trim her father had primed.

“Time for lunch, honey.”

She jumped at Mick’s hesitant voice from below her. Was she so transparent he felt he had to be gentle with her? “You can take off the kid gloves, Dad. I’m all right.”

“I guess, but let me be perfectly honest. Your mother’s worried about you, and I’m not supposed to trust your usual ‘I’m all right’ response.” He climbed her ladder’s lower rungs, forcing her to hold on or topple off. “You’ve lived close by, and you always showed up on the required occasions, but you were always all right. You didn’t want college tuition. You never asked me to help you with stuff a dad’s supposed to do, get your keys out when you locked them in the car, paint your apartment. I guess time between you and me stopped when you were sixteen. I’m not always sure what to say to you or how to put it, but I’d like you to try to trust me.”

India shook her bangs out of her eyes and offered a contrite smile that felt strained. “I didn’t abandon you and Mom. I let you help me make a bad decision, and even though it was completely my decision, I haven’t felt comfortable with you since.”

Mick took the brush from her. “Blame us for it. Be as angry as you can, but stop hiding from me. I came here to help you. When will you forgive me enough to think of me as your father again?”

“I’m guilty, not angry. I’ve even wanted to blame you and Mom, but I know better.”

“Excuse me, Miss—Mrs.—Ms.—ma’am.”

Startled by the gravelly, unsure voice, India leaned around her father. The ladder swayed, but the tall man below steadied it as if she and Mick weighed nothing. Instinctively, her heart ricocheting in her chest, India grabbed her father’s wrist. “Dad.”

“I’m Jack Stephens.” The man, his blacker-than-black hair in silky curls that stroked his up-tilted head, eyed them with embarrassment. “I couldn’t hear you until I got close enough to realize I was interrupting.”

India gripped the aluminum ladder’s cool edge. What had she said? What could he have heard? Nothing that would expose her connection to Colleen, but plenty she and her father should have discussed years ago in private.

“No.” Mick curved his hand around India’s. “We’re on our way down. I came up to remind my daughter the Fish Shop stops serving lunch in twenty minutes.” With a quick pat, he released her hand and started down. “I’m Mick Stuart, and this is my daughter, India.”

Skipping the last several rungs, Mick dropped to the ground. Taking his cue, India tried to remain calm. Act normal. She clung to the sides of the ladder, but at the last minute, she couldn’t risk touching Jack Stephens. Even brushing against him would feel like involving herself with Colleen. She skipped the same rungs her father had, to leap away from Jack.

Confusion lined Jack’s broad forehead. She searched his face, high cheekbones, dark chocolate eyes that returned her intense interest. Jack smiled. He looked far younger than the forty-two she knew him to be.

His smile called up every defense she’d ever constructed. This man was her child’s father. Colleen’s father, as India could never be her mother.

“Hello, Mr. Stephens.” India stepped to Mick’s side. “My father handles the business. Dad, I’ll go on to the Fish Shop and order for you, okay?”

“No, wait.” Jack reached for her arm, but she pulled away. As his fingers drifted through air, he looked slightly embarrassed. “I came to see you. I believe we met at the festival.”

India swept her ponytail over her shoulder. Nervously she inspected the pale yellow strands splayed across her palm. “No, I think I’d remember.”

“You helped my daughter. I’d like to thank you.”

For fifteen years, she’d handled every situation life tossed her way, including a plane crash and a heart that stayed empty no matter how hard she tried to fill it. She might not have made the right choices, but she’d chosen. She flipped her ponytail back and took control. “How did you find me, Mr. Stephens?”

“Jack. My name is Jack.” He shrugged his broad shoulders. “This is a small island. I just asked if anyone had seen you, and a friend told me Tanner’d hired you and your father to paint his house.”

India couldn’t hold back an admiring smile. He’d worked her own plan against her. “You didn’t have to come. I’m sure anyone would have helped your daughter. She didn’t want to go with that boy anyway.”

In obvious relief, he braced his hands on his hips. “I can’t tell you how happy I am to hear that, but I can say how grateful I am for what you did. Colleen’s friends said Chris almost dragged her into his car.”

So Chris was his name. India tried to look through Jack’s handsome self-consciousness to the man beneath. Shouldn’t he know what kind of boy this Chris was? His grip on the kid’s neck implied he’d understood.

“Fortunately, she held on until I got there.” India wiped her hand on her shirt and held it out to him. “Thanks for stopping by. I was glad to help.”

Sliding one foot forward on the grass, Jack took her hand. India released her fingers from his, uncomfortable with a sudden warmth that sizzled up her arm. She noted the dusty jeans that clung to his muscled thighs, the faded Georgetown sweatshirt that stretched across his chest beneath a dark blue field jacket. How did a fisherman get so dusty?

The same pale dust flecked her father’s clothes, but he’d spent the day stripping old paint off Mr. Tanner’s trim. Had Jack lost his fishing business since he’d adopted Colleen?

Could this situation disintegrate any faster? Maybe she was jumping to conclusions. She needed time to think. At any moment, Jack might see something of Colleen in her. She couldn’t let him have even the smallest suspicion. She had to escape his observant gaze.

“I’m starving, Dad. Mind if we go now?”

Mick’s weathered skin flushed with embarrassment at her brisk tone. India squeezed his arm, amazed he didn’t see her point.

He hung back. “We shouldn’t leave our equipment out, India.”

She turned him toward Mr. Tanner’s crushed-shell driveway. “It’ll be fine. Come on.”

“I’ll walk with you.” Jack’s deep voice stayed at her side as he lengthened his stride to keep up. India looked anywhere but at him.

At the top of the driveway, she slid into the passenger seat of her father’s panel truck. Mick took his time coming around the hood, talking to Jack Stephens in quiet words she couldn’t decipher. Tapping her feet on the floor, she was breathless when her father finally lifted a farewell hand to Jack and opened the door.

“Nice to meet you,” Mick called.

Jack nodded. His questioning gaze made him look vulnerable, despite his height and work-hardened body. Wind lifted his silky jet curls again. India shifted in the truck seat. What color would Colleen’s hair be under all that purple?

WAITING FOR COLLEEN outside the Arran Island House of Beauty, Jack tipped his soda can up. The cool drink tasted good on such an unnaturally warm spring day. As he dragged the back of his hand over his mouth, he eyed the woman balancing her groceries, her keys and the bulky D.C. newspaper while she pushed through the grocery’s front door.

In baggy overalls and a dark blue shirt, with the sleeves rolled up her slender arms, she looked more child than woman. Her long corn-silk ponytail didn’t help.

If not for her, Chris Briggs might have hauled Colleen into his car. He might have killed them both, driving under the influence. With a shudder, Jack took another swig of soda that bit at the back of his throat.

His father-in-law came out of the market carrying his own copy of the newspaper. Hayden nodded toward India Stuart as he passed behind the commercial van emblazoned with the words, Stuart Painting. He spoke to her, but she shook her head. With a friendly shrug, he crossed the street in four strides and stepped onto the curb beside Jack. “She’s the one?”

Jack nodded. “She’d rather spill everything in those two bags than ask for help.”

Hayden grinned. “I offered. Did you?”

“No.” Jack smiled, unsure of his response to India. “I figured I’d irritated her enough when I thanked her this morning.”

Hayden thwacked the paper against his thigh. “She’s cute, though.”

“Cute?”

“Go over there and help her, son.”

Jack opened his own truck’s door. “I have enough woman trouble, and I thought you stayed on to help me.”

Hayden cocked an eyebrow at the apparent non sequitur.

Jack looked at Hayden with affection. “Your advice just keeps getting worse.”

Watching India Stuart, Hayden came around the truck and took the other seat. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe she’s too young for you.”

Shouldn’t the guy feel some sort of loyalty toward Mary? Jack danced uncomfortably around thoughts of her, himself.

He’d tried. He’d tried as hard as he could with Mary, accepting her accusations when she’d told him he’d driven her to do what she’d done to their marriage. He’d wanted a child as badly as she had. But as he peered through the House of Beauty’s plate glass window, trying to identify which shadow belonged to his daughter, Jack wished he’d never found out the truth about Mary’s affair. Wished he’d never known she’d settled for him only to keep the child they couldn’t make together.

“There she goes.”

Jack thought Hayden meant Colleen, but when she didn’t stroll through the beauty salon’s doors, he turned to the other side of the street in time to watch India’s van rumble dustily away. Jack curled his fingers around the steering wheel.

“When I thanked her, she acted almost angry. She couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

Hayden offered a sage nod. “People don’t like to get involved. Maybe she’s just a nice woman who helped Colleen because she couldn’t pass a child in need, but she doesn’t want to be thanked. Wouldn’t you have helped a child in Colleen’s position?”

Being in the right place at the right time didn’t explain the ice in India Stuart’s dark blue eyes. “I think there’s more. She had to force herself to look at me.” He pushed her from his mind. “Colleen is my first concern. I’ll talk to Chris as soon as he crawls out from under his rock again.”

“Didn’t you speak to his mother?”

“I tried to talk to Leslie, but she isn’t the same since Tom left them. The whole time we talked she nursed her youngest, and her twin boys climbed all over us. I think Chris requires more energy than she can give him. I suggested he should help more, and she told me he puts all his time and money into that fancy car of his.”

Hayden bounced his fist against the knee of his trousers. “You’ll find him. Hey, if he won’t listen to you, maybe you can set that Stuart woman on him again. From what I hear, she held her own.”

“I can’t afford to see the humor.” Jack broke off, pleasantly surprised as Colleen pushed carefully through the shop door.

A breeze lifted her honey-blond hair into her eyes. Impatiently she brushed it away with a furtive glance, as if she didn’t want anyone to see her without her purple rebellion.

Jack’s relief evaporated. “I don’t think she gets it yet, either. Maybe I should have her thank India Stuart in person, too. It’s only polite, and admitting her mistake to a stranger might make her see how big it was.”

AFTER THEY PUT AWAY THEIR equipment the next day, India and her father headed to the town square for an open-air market Mrs. Henderson had told them about. The local library sponsored a booth that sold used books. India stopped there first.

“You’re new in town,” the woman behind the wooden counter said. “I’m Nell Fisher.”

India held out her hand. “India Stuart. Mrs. Henderson told my father and me the market opens here every week.”

“Yes.” The other woman waved a work-gloved hand at the people who strolled up and down the neat rows. Now that the weather had gone back to chilly normal, everyone wore coats that flapped around them and rubbed the wooden stalls. “We probably have something you’d like. I recommend Clem Tyler’s hydroponic tomatoes, and Reverend Goodling’s wife tats beautiful lace collars and cuffs, if you’re in the market.” An excellent saleswoman, she pointed over her shoulder, at a rocky lean-to with its back to her stall. “And, of course, the requisite tie-dyed-anything-you-ever-wanted-to-wear booth.”

India laughed. “Do you always participate?”

Mrs. Fisher nodded. “When I can get away. I don’t have an assistant just now, so I have to close up while I’m here, but I hope to turn a couple of the youngsters into patrons, while their parents shop for better prices than we can get in the stores out here. You’ll notice we don’t have room for a mall, and we pay the price for our isolation.”

India picked up a dog-eared copy of Peter Pan. “Do you read to the children?”

“If I gather a large enough crowd. You seem pretty interested.”

India hesitated. Gossip ran both ways. Would a house-painting librarian make Colleen’s neighbors suspicious? But no, she and her father had agreed on what she should say, to cover her failings as a painter. She was helping him out, the best he could afford. “I usually work as a librarian. I’m on sabbatical, and my father needed a hand.”

“Really?” Interest lit Mrs. Fisher’s eyes. “And how long do you plan to stay on the island?”

“Depends.” India’s breath grew short. “We don’t know how much business we’ll find for my father.”

“Maybe you’d like to help me out if you have some free time in the evenings. We have a volunteer program.” Mrs. Fisher lifted a stack of books onto the counter. “I just don’t have a volunteer to man it at the moment.”

“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.

She edged another thin slice of space between them. “You could try more with Dad. My grandparents agree with him, and they all try to keep me from seeing you.”

Chris slammed his fist on the gearshift. “I’m tired of Jack Stephens. Who does he think he is? I heard the bank came sniffing around to see how much work he’s done on the repairs. He’s a deadbeat, Colleen.”

She might be mad at her dad, but Chris’s opinion made her madder at him. She shrank against the car door. “Don’t talk about him that way.”

Chris burned her with angry eyes. “I’ll bet you don’t tell him to shut up when he talks about how bad I am.”

“I didn’t say shut up.” She wrapped her palm around the door handle. “He is my father.”

Chris snatched a handful of her sweatshirt. “Maybe it’s time you picked one of us. Look at the way I treat you. Are you loyal to me or to a guy who acts like you’re a baby?”

Unwilling to admit Chris frightened her, even when he forced her to recognize her fear, Colleen tightened her hand on the door. “You want me to choose between you and my dad?”

“Yeah, between me and some guy who’ll be lucky to keep one of those old broken-down nets on his boat. He thinks he’s such a man.”

Colleen opened the door with a slow screech of metal against metal. “I called you because I needed to talk to you. You say you care about me.”

Chris softened his grip on her shirt, trying to turn his palm against her breast. “I say I love you.”

She shoved him away. “I’ve asked you not to do that.”

His pupils glittered. “Maybe you are a baby after all.” His voice hissed like a snake.

Truly afraid now, she slid backward out of the car. He laughed when she landed on the pavement on her bottom.

“Maybe I am a baby, but I’ll walk from here.” She scrambled to her feet, hauling her short skirt down. “Okay?”

“No, it’s not okay. Don’t act like this. You always try to ignore me when you’re mad. We’re just arguing.”

“I wanted to talk.”

“You want me to guess what you want. I know what I need.”

As if that settled everything, he pulled the door shut and drove off. Colleen stared after him, her legs shaking. He drank more than she ever let on, because he hated living in this small town where everyone knew his life inside and out. But Colleen didn’t think he’d had anything today.

He’d left her in the middle of the street, said terrible things about her father. And he’d tried to grope her again. Could her dad be right about Chris?

What had he meant by that crack about making him guess what she wanted? She’d told him, in every way she knew, not to touch her like that. And how was she supposed to tell anyone what she wanted if no one ever listened to her, anyway?

She turned toward the marina, more alone than ever. If only her mother hadn’t died. Colleen swallowed hard. Even after three years, she missed her mom, but she couldn’t talk to her dad about that, either. No matter how much she wanted him out of her business, she hated the look of pain that still came into his eyes when he didn’t think she noticed.

And Grandma. Poor Grandma needs someone to look after her more than I do. If only her mom…

At the top of the hill, Colleen paused. She’d meant to ask Chris to take her to the marina. Looking out at the water, at the sailboats bobbing all around her, she felt clearer, calmer. But today she missed her mother, and her mother had never liked the bay.

She’d resented the water like another woman who stole Colleen’s father away, and sometimes even Colleen had wondered why he’d worked such long hours. She scuffed her feet in the gravel at the edge of the road.

Her dad and mom had loved each other, but they’d had problems, like every other married couple she’d ever heard of. Her dad’s grief had been real after her mom died. Why did everyone believe she couldn’t see what went on around her?

Colleen hesitated on the road. She couldn’t go home. Grandma badgered almost as much as her father about grades. Maybe she’d go to the library. She’d entered her favorite picture of her mom in their exhibition of island families. They hadn’t sent it back yet, so maybe they’d used it. Her father certainly hadn’t missed it from the piano.

Too busy looking for signs she’d spent ten seconds alone with Chris, he couldn’t seem to see their problems went deeper than her choice of a boyfriend. Chris was right about one thing. He already saw her as a woman. She mattered to him, but her father still believed she was a baby. Because of his attitude, even strangers like India Stuart treated her like an infant.

India Stuart. A perfect match for Dad. A worrier who had no problem “helping” even though it meant butting into someone else’s life. Colleen scuffed her feet deliberately along the rough pavement. She tried to forget how scared she’d been of Chris. He’d been completely sober the day he’d driven her to thank India for her help, and he’d given her a lift even though he’d believed India ought to apologize to him for hitting his car. Nothing wrong with that.

NELL FISHER ROSE WITH INDIA and offered her hand across the desk. “I’m so glad you came in. I can’t convince my regular patrons they have time to read to the toddlers or shelve books, or even read back titles for me while I do inventory.”

India lifted her shoulders, uncomfortable with omissions in the picture she’d drawn for Nell. But she might learn more about Colleen here, and then she could go home as she’d told Nettie she was going to. “I’m glad you can use me.” They turned together to the door of Nell’s small office. “I’ll see you on Saturday morning at nine for the toddler’s story time?”

Already distracted by the unusual number of people crowding into the main room to see the historical society’s display of island family photos, Nell nodded. As she drifted away, India searched for Viveca Henderson.

Her landlady had invited her to see this exhibition. India had jumped, just at the off chance of seeing a photo of Colleen as a small girl, as an infant if Viveca could recognize her. But did she need any more regret? Because surely she would grieve even more if she stumbled on a record of Colleen’s life.

India found Viveca at the exact spot where she’d left her, a perfect vantage point. Viveca leaned into India’s shoulder and nodded at the young girl with honey hair who was disappearing around the first panel of photographs.

“That Stephens girl. Her father ought to worry more about her than about his boat.” Her voice rang tartly. “Are you ready, dear? How nice of you to help Nell out.” She held her vintage fifties skirt away from the crowd. “You know, I always liked Colleen until she started going around with that Chris Briggs.”

India no longer wanted to hear island gossip about Colleen. In fact, she bit gently at the inner skin of her cheeks to swallow a defensive response.

The first lady of the Seasider went on. “She’s making decisions she’ll regret one day.”

India curled her nails into her palms. The woman could be too right. Am I not living proof? Though she’d hoped for just this kind of opportunity, she couldn’t take it now. Instead, she wished she’d stayed home, where she’d never have known the townspeople had already begun to judge Colleen.

Small towns. They provided loving arms or bitter verdicts. No in-between in a small town.

Hoping to change the subject, India pointed at the first line of pictures, of women in crisp white shirtwaists and full skirts and men proudly flanking their fishing boats.

“Do any of these families still live here?”

Mrs. Henderson obliged. India cruised along at her side, only half taking in Captain Torquay and the shark he’d netted one day with his shrimp, or the Honorable Honoria Madison, the mayor’s wife who’d run away with a traveling milliner.

“No, Viveca, you’re wrong about Honoria. She was my great-great-great-aunt, and I happen to know….” A woman India didn’t know spoke up.

India ducked out of the conversation, impatient to see the later photos, the ones from the past fifteen years. She strolled through the panels, drinking in the good library air, flavored with old and new books and casually stored newspapers. She missed this world.

She turned a corner and saw Colleen. A study in concentration, the girl might have been completely alone. She saw nothing, appeared to hear nothing except memories suggested by the photo that held her attention.

Her look of utter loneliness drew India on reluctant feet. She’d been right to stop Chris from taking Colleen with him that night, but she was completely wrong to speak to her now, to intrude on the privacy her daughter had drawn around herself. Colleen could never be her child. And she couldn’t let herself forget that.

But Colleen didn’t notice her. Over the girl’s shoulder, India stared at the picture in its simple silver frame. A beautiful woman laughed with love at Jack as he curved his arm around her and smiled into the camera. Something about his smile…The vulnerable curve of his mouth sparked an uncomfortable pang in India’s heart, but the woman’s blissful face intrigued. Her blond hair, as pale as sea foam after a storm, clung to the woven shoulder of Jack’s sweater. Her eyes overflowed happiness.

Mary Stephens, at last. Ashamed of her involuntary envy, India pressed her hands to her belly. “Is she your mother, Colleen?”

As if India at her side didn’t surprise her, Colleen stretched her hand to the finely carved frame. Her eyes glowed, brilliant yet subdued, like light seeping past the door of a closed room. She rubbed one fingertip around the woman’s face.

“That’s Mom. She died three years ago.”

CHAPTER FOUR

DEEP SADNESS HELD INDIA silent in the face of Colleen’s lingering grief for her mother. Colleen kept her eyes trained on the photo.

“They adopted me when I was only a few hours old. Mom always said adopted children were luckiest, because their parents chose them. I felt pretty lucky until she died.”

Aching for her, India lifted her hand to touch the girl’s arm, but she kept her comfort to herself as Colleen turned with an accusation in her eyes.

“Why does everyone in this town take Dad’s side about Chris when no one knows him the way I do?”

“I can’t speak for everyone else.”

“Why do you, then? What do you think you know about Chris that I don’t?”

Nothing here had turned out as India had expected. Her daughter no longer had a mother. And I can’t step in. She couldn’t tell the truth, and she definitely didn’t want to lie. Not now, when she needed to most.

“When I was your age, I made a mistake.” Putting her hand on her throat, India felt for the lump that made talking difficult. “I don’t know how to tell you this. I’ve never talked to anyone about that time. I hurt myself and my parents—I hurt too many people. Maybe, when I saw you with Chris, I thought of that. Maybe I just don’t want you to be hurt, and I don’t know Chris except for what I saw of him that night at the festival.”

“What makes you think your past has anything to do with me?”

Reaching behind herself, India gripped the lip of a bookshelf. She’d already confessed too much. “Colleen, I know—I know you think nothing bad will happen to you. You can tell right from wrong. You can’t imagine why you’d make a foolish decision.”

Her wide eyes slightly softening her air of haughtiness, Colleen stepped back. “Yeah? So?”

“I don’t want any girl your age to go through what I did.”

“No one in this town believes I’m capable of thinking for myself.”

“Maybe you should think about your grandparents and your father. Think of the place you live and how these people look at you.”

Colleen raked her fingers through her hair, a gesture so familiar to India it brought instant tears to her eyes. Colleen might have been India’s mother in youthful form. India bit the inside of her cheek again. No crying, no whining. I can take this. She’s the important one.

Colleen only shook her head in disgust. “I know how they talk. To them, I’m a child. You’re a complete stranger, and even you gossip about me.” Stranger came out of her mouth like an epithet.

“Colleen!”

India’s tears vanished at the harsh rasp of Jack’s voice. She turned. Tall and male, he vibrated with the wrath of an angry parent.

“Apologize.” Silk in his voice chased apprehensive shivers down India’s back.

“Dad, I—”

He stopped her with a fed-up look. She tilted her chin.

“I’m sorry, Miss Stuart.” Without warning, she relaxed, the stiffness falling out of her body as she tried to claim all of India’s attention. “Sometimes I let my temper go, but I understand what you tried to tell me.”

Touched beyond bearing, India turned to Jack. “She had a right to be upset.”

“I know you left the boatyard with Chris.” Jack closed in on his daughter. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? You have to get me back because you’re too young to date an eighteen-year-old boy?”

Colleen’s pink blush spread. She grabbed the loose cloth of his sleeve, evidently surprising them both. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Dad. I don’t like sitting in that boat shop, and the dust hurts my head. I just wanted to see—” She broke off and pulled her hand away, trying to retire back into her adolescent shell. Her eyes drifted over Jack’s shoulder to the photo of him with Mary.

As he followed her gaze, his face tightened with pain, but only long enough for him to catch himself. “Let’s go, Colleen.”

“Dad, I’m sorry.”

In the grip of need she didn’t understand or trust, India curled her fingers over the hard, strained muscles in his forearm. Why were they so reluctant to talk about Mary Stephens? What had happened to make them so protective of each other? She had no right, but she wanted to make it better. “Maybe you should—”

He stepped away from her, in a hands-off gesture she couldn’t ignore. In a moment of startling clarity, India realized her concern for Jack stood apart from her burgeoning, maternal anxieties for Colleen.

India backed into one of the panels. Mercifully, Colleen and Jack were too fixed on each other to notice.

His hands shook on Colleen’s sleeves as he turned her toward the door. Rooted to the floor, India ached to do something. Clearly Colleen regretted letting Jack find out she’d needed to see her mother’s picture.

India tossed her ponytail over her shoulder. Had he considered renewing the paint on his house? A watery smile curved her mouth, but Jack’s shadowed eyes cut to her heart again.

“I wish I’d learned to swim better,” she said as she watched them leave. “I’m in way over my head here.”

“India?” Viveca Henderson’s voice preceded her hand on India’s shoulder. “To whom are you speaking? Are you aware you’re quite alone?”

AS INDIA SLIPPED INSIDE her hotel room, Mick came through the adjoining door, holding a towel to his chin as if he’d just finished a shave. His smile made her feel normal again.

“We’ve had company,” he said.

“Who now?”

“I left his name—” Mick crossed back into his own room, and India followed in his footsteps. He bumped into her as he turned with a business card he took off the desk. “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

“We have to get out of town.”

“You sound like a Clint Eastwood movie.”

India snatched his towel away. “Mary Stephens died three years ago. Colleen can’t talk to Jack, and Jack’s heart is broken.”

Mick stepped back. “You expected a fairy tale?”

Though they’d disagreed so often for so many years, Mick’s pragmatic acceptance of Colleen’s family comforted India. She might be overreacting if he didn’t panic with her. “I like happily-ever-after, Dad.”

“So you want to run away before you see if she gets one?”

“Run away? I’ve tossed myself nearly into the middle of their problems. I have to get out before I confess who I am.”

Mick shook his head. “You won’t. You know you can’t.”

“I’m dying to.” India slumped on his neatly made, rust-colored hotel comforter. In the silence, water dripped from a faucet. The heater struggled to live but gave in with a gurgle. India lifted her head. “Thank you for coming with me. I’m so grateful I can be honest with you.”

“See? I don’t know how many times I’ve told you to come to me when you have a problem. Tell me about Jack’s heart.”

She froze. “I usually don’t come to you because you hear and see too well.”

“We painters.” He waved an admonishing finger at her. “People talk to us. You might think bartenders hear it all, but give a man a paint can, and he looks like he’s waiting to solve all your problems. Remember Tom Sawyer.”

“He worked his way out of painting.”

Mick gave a move-it-along motion with his right index finger. “Jack’s heart?”

“Colleen came to the library to look at her mother’s picture, but Jack was in the picture, too.” Searching for the meaning underneath, India frowned. “Maybe she wanted to see her parents together again? Anyway, I don’t think she told him she was coming to the library. I think they’d had some sort of argument, and she’d pulled a disappearing act.”

“Familiar story.”

“You mean for her? No, you mean me, but I only disappeared when you couldn’t help me anymore.”

“Your mother and I are your family, just like Jack is Colleen’s. We were supposed to help, especially when you needed us most. Look at Colleen. She’s the same age you were when you got pregnant. Now, make me believe she could provide for a child of her own.”

India refused to contemplate his homespun truth, but neither could she take the absolution he offered. “When Jack showed up, he asked her where she’d been. Instead of answering, she just looked at the picture, and he looked, too. I’ve never seen anything like the pain in his eyes, but he covered it up so fast I almost thought I’d imagined it.” She rubbed her chest. “No, I didn’t imagine it.”

“You like Jack.” Mick leaned against the desk.

“I’m confused about Jack, because he’s Colleen’s father.”

“He’s a good father, but why won’t she talk to him?”

“Exactly.” India slapped her hands against her thighs. “And that’s the one question I cannot ask them.”

“I think you might hang yourself on several questions.” Mick straightened and held out the business card. “Like I said, we have a new client.”

India tilted the card toward the weak gold and green lamp. “Leon Shipp. Power Trucks for Power Men?”

“He wants us to paint his house. We could stay another week or so.” Mick nodded at the card. “If you think we should.”

“No, I don’t.” She blushed. “But I volunteered to help with toddler story time at the library, so we have to stay until Saturday.”

Mick laughed. “Run to the familiar? I’ll call this Leon and tell him to expect us tomorrow morning. Okay?”

India tilted her head sharply to one side. “I’m afraid.”

As if she were his little girl again—and she’d been a daddy’s girl once—Mick sank onto the edge of the bed beside her and tucked her cheek against his rough shirt. “I know you won’t hurt anyone—well, except yourself, and I’m here this time to help you if you make that mistake again. I don’t want you to spend fifteen more years wondering what might have been.”

“She’s your granddaughter, too. And she’s Mom all over again.”

His chin moved up and down against her forehead. “Mmm-hmm.”

Miserably she clutched his sleeve. “I wish I could give you back everything I took from you.”

“Shh. You refused to take anything from us, India.”

“I love you, Dad.”

As she absorbed her father’s silence, she realized how long it’d been since she’d last said those words.

Mick cleared his throat. “I’d paint Leon Shipp’s house and his entire fleet of bumper cars to hear you say that again.”

India smiled. “Power trucks, Dad.”

“Whatever. Try not to ruin the moment, honey.”

AT THE TOP OF THE HOTEL’S rickety wooden steps, Jack hesitated. By the time he reached India’s door, his courage damn near deserted him. Whatever she’d said to Colleen at the library had made his daughter more receptive to him. On the way home, he’d kept silent, afraid anything he said to Colleen might only push her further away. But the moment he parked the truck, she’d announced she wouldn’t see Chris anymore unless they met within a group of her friends.

Which ought to cut down nicely on their time together. And Jack didn’t intend to look that gift horse in the mouth.

Still puzzled over India’s unexpected powers of persuasion, Jack stared at her sea-salted, pale gray door. He rubbed his palms against his jeans. Sweaty as a teenage boy’s, they bumped over the denim. If he didn’t knock now, he never would. He owed India an apology for the brusque way he’d treated her at the library, especially since she’d managed to help his daughter.

He’d shut down the moment he realized Colleen had come to see her mother’s picture. Memories of Mary sprang a truckload of feelings on him, just when he felt least prepared to deal with the past. Hayden had snapped that photo of them together the day they’d heard Colleen was coming.

Jack hated that picture. He wondered that no one else had ever seen the truth in his eyes. That morning, Mary had told him Mother Angelica had called. At the same time, she’d confessed she’d made love with another man. She’d said she couldn’t go on with their marriage without coming clean. The man had been one of the island’s summer people, and Jack hadn’t let her say his name.

“I just wanted to remember what love felt like without a purpose.”

Mary’s words still tore him apart with a deeper emotion than he’d ever felt for her again. Both desperate to have a child, they’d tried every crazy procreation theory anyone suggested. In some horrible, too-sane recess of his mind, he’d understood what she’d meant about needing a different kind of love.

In the same breath as her confession, she’d asked him to stay with her and adopt the infant girl Mother Angelica had offered them. How many times over how many years had he wished she’d kept her secret?

Able to feel such strange compassion for Mary, he’d believed he would be able to forget her betrayal. He never had. He’d loved her still, but he’d never loved her in the same way. He’d hidden from the truth behind work and behind his and Mary’s mutual joy in Colleen. She’d used him to keep the baby who’d, in a way, cost them their marriage. He’d accepted the compromise.

Why now, outside India Stuart’s room, had he lost his long-standing ability to shield himself from those memories? Impatient, he stepped forward and pounded on the door.

Startled at the shotlike echoes in the otherwise silent street, he peered at the windows around him. His resolute knock had sounded more like police on a raid. Just the kind of commotion to raise a dozen or more Arran Islanders.

Nobody answered the door. He knocked again, more gently, just in case India had ducked behind her bed at his first demand to be let in. Still no answer. He turned toward the stairs, feeling foolish. All that idiotic soul-searching, just so he could apologize to an empty room.

Glancing down the street to the bay, he saw India before he’d gone down one stair. In silky blue shorts and a white oversize tank top, she ran through the waning sunshine like a grasshopper, all arms and legs that flailed in way too many different directions.

He laughed to himself. “Exercise is exercise. I thought she’d be more graceful.”

Her clumsy stride didn’t detract from the taut line of her thighs or the sweet curve of her upper arms. Jack tightened his hand on the stair rail. Oh, my God—I just ogled her. Again he surveyed the surrounding windows. Thankfully, not a single curtain twitched. And India came toward him.

“Jack?” she panted as she crested the hill.

A stride like that ought to leave her out of breath. “India,” he returned, descending the steps two at a time. Movement made him feel less asinine, less as if she’d caught him loitering outside her door. Since she had.

“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.”

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