Anna Adams - Her Daughter's Father

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.

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.”