Her Daughter's Father. Anna Adams

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.