Anna Adams - Her Daughter's Father

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?”