Janice Johnson - Finding Her Dad

Lucy smiled at Jon’s words. As she climbed the porch steps, his hand came to rest on the small of her back, as if she needed guidance. She was dismayed by how very good that large hand felt touching her.

“I did, too.” So much it scared her. They hadn’t talked about anything that special, they hadn’t gone dancing, he hadn’t kissed her yet, but she liked looking at him and listening to him. That was dangerous. She couldn’t imagine that an ambitious man willing to run for public office to get what he wanted would find she suited his public image.

His knuckles stroked her cheek. She looked up at the shadows and planes of his face, at his crystalline eyes, narrowed now, and finally at the mouth she’d thought to be hard even when he smiled politely.

She wanted, quite desperately, for him to kiss her.

Dear Reader,

I loved the idea for Finding Her Dad the minute I had it. Who doesn’t enjoy the whole secret baby theme? Although in this case, the baby is a kid…well, a teenager. And I really like teenagers at that age when they’re a wonderful mix of vulnerable and surly, feeling a huge need to pull away even as they need just as desperately to feel confident someone is holding tight on to them.

This is a secret baby who isn’t found by chance, or because Dad goes looking for Mom, or Mom for Dad. No, sixteen-year-old Sierra is the one who finds her dad—because with her mom dead, the only other person she has in the world is her foster mother, Lucy, who has good reason for being suspicious of men who aren’t around to raise their own children.

And yes, Sierra has a teensy bit in common with my own two girls, now safely past those teenage years (whew!), but still needing (as all of us do) to know that their parents are always there when needed.

Happy reading,

Janice Kay Johnson

P.S. I enjoy hearing from readers! Please contact me c/o Harlequin Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, ON, M3B 3K9, Canada.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

The author of more than sixty books for children and adults, Janice Kay Johnson writes Harlequin Superromance novels about love and family—about the way generations connect and the power our earliest experiences have on us throughout life. Her 2007 novel Snowbound won a RITA® Award from Romance Writers of America for Best Contemporary Series Romance. A former librarian, Janice raised two daughters in a small rural town north of Seattle, Washington. She loves to read and is an active volunteer and board member for Purrfect Pals, a no-kill cat shelter.

For my own,

much loved daughters, Sarah and Katie.

May they always find what they seek.

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

EPILOGUE

“SEE, I DIDN’T WANT TO just, like, email him or something. I thought I should really go talk to him. In person. You know?” Earnest and wide-eyed, Sierra twirled one lock of indigo-blue hair around her finger. Elaborately casual, she finished, “It would be cooler if I had my driver’s license, but since I can’t drive myself with only a permit…”

Permit. Driver’s license. Email him. Him who? Lucy Malone realized, as she stared at her foster daughter in bewilderment, that her mind seemed to be scrolling backward through what had been a fairly lengthy recitation. Back to the beginning, which had been…

“I found my dad.” Perfectly timed, the sixteen-year-old said it again, hugged herself and did a small end-zone dance. “Is that amazing or what?”

Lucy pressed her fingertips to her suddenly aching temples. “Wait. No. You don’t have a father.”

Sierra rolled her eyes as only a teenager could. “Of course I have a father. What do you think? Mom managed an immaculate conception? I mean, sure, it was close, but…”

Oh, Lord, Lucy didn’t want to believe Sierra knew anything at all about conception, especially the kind that wasn’t immaculate. Which was foolish in the extreme. What else did girls—and boys—her age think about, if it wasn’t sex?

Fathers, apparently.

What Lucy did know was that Sierra’s mother had never married and had decided to have a child on her own. She’d gone to a sperm bank; yes, the closest thing to an immaculate conception that a woman could achieve. From what Sierra said, all her mother had ever known about Sierra’s father was what he’d chosen to share about himself for the women shopping for sperm. Catalog copy. And how accurate was that likely to be? No guy selling sperm was likely to admit that his IQ was really eighty-five and his best skill was belching louder than his buddies.

Lucy sank onto the stool behind the cash register. “Explain,” she ordered.

Thank God there were no customers in the store at the moment, a fact that wouldn’t normally make her grateful. She’d opened her gourmet pet food supply store only a year before, and although business had been steadily climbing, she still sweated through paying the bills every month. But this was definitely not a conversation she wanted overheard.

“I told you!” Sierra complained. “Weren’t you listening?”

“You know me. My idea of high-tech is ultrasonic teeth-cleaning equipment. I know zilch about DNA.” Lucy was a licensed veterinary technician who’d gotten tired of taking orders from other people. But if there was one thing she knew, it was animals, so her choice of business made sense.

“I sent in a swab from the inside of my cheek to a lab for DNA testing,” the teenager said with exaggerated patience.

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“Not that much. Anyway, I was saving all the money I made babysitting and working for you.”

“Okay.” Lucy closed her eyes briefly. “Then what?”

Then, Sierra said, she had compared her DNA results to millions of others on a variety of online databases.

Lucy frowned. “Surely you couldn’t get on— I don’t know. Whatever one law enforcement uses. Isn’t that the main one?”

Sierra’s sky-blue eyes gave a betraying flicker. Lucy recognized it. Aghast, she whispered, “You didn’t.”

Her foster daughter was going through a Goth phase. Currently her hair, shoulder length and blunt cut, was dyed blue, a change from last year’s jet-black. A tattoo of a dragon twined around one slender ankle. Her nose and one eyebrow were pierced. More piercings climbed the rim of each ear. Lucy had nixed the idea of a tongue piercing until, at a minimum, Sierra turned eighteen. Fortunately, she’d taken the refusal in good humor.

The thing was, she was brilliant. Scary smart. At home she was rarely without her fingers on a computer keyboard. She carried her laptop everywhere. Screens constantly popped up as friends sent instant messages. They didn’t seem ever to talk; they communicated in a sort of bizarre shorthand via the internet. Lucy knew that Sierra was very, very good at hacking in to forbidden websites; she’d gotten into big trouble while in eighth grade for changing a friend’s marks in the school records. When telling Lucy about it recently, she’d said blithely, “It was easy. Hey, I did them a favor! They’ve at least made it a little harder now.”

Lucy had not pursued the subject. Had there been more recent incursions into the school district personnel or student records, she didn’t really want to know about it. What worried her were Sierra’s exact capabilities now, almost three years later.