Anna Adams - Her Daughter's Father

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.