The Daughter Merger. Janice Kay Johnson

WAS BUBBLING on the stove when the door-bell rang. Surprised, Grace wiped her hands on a dish towel and hurried to answer it. No clatter of feet from upstairs; Linnet must have her headphones on, or else she’d be racing to beat Grace, sure one of her friends was here.

      Grace opened her front door and was immediately sorry that the caller wasn’t Erica from down the street, wanting to share a new music CD. Because, instead, a very angry man stood on her doorstep.

      Claire’s father was a devastatingly attractive man with dark brown hair, hooded eyes and bulky shoulders that belonged on a construction worker, not an executive. If he would just once smile…But on those few occasions when they’d met while exchanging daughters, his expression ranged from preoccupied to tense.

      Today, he didn’t bother with a hello or a “we need to talk.” He glowered. “How dare you tell Claire she could move in with you!”

      A spurt of anger surprised Grace, who rarely let herself be bothered by other people’s foul tempers. Suppressing it, she gripped the open door. She didn’t want the neighbors to hear a brawl on her front doorstep.

      “I did not,” she said very carefully, “say that your daughter could live here. What I told my daughter is that I would discuss with you having Claire stay here on a temporary basis and with stipulations. If you agreed.”

      “Really.” David Whitcomb’s voice was soft and yet icy. “Claire announced to me that you had given permission and she was ready to pack.”

      Thank goodness for the headphones that kept Linnet deaf while she did her homework. Grace had tried to give this man the benefit of the doubt and to convince Linnet to do the same, despite all of Claire’s complaints. If Linnet saw him in a towering rage once, she’d be ready to do anything to aid her friend. Which, given their age, might be something very foolish.

      Trying to lighten the mood, Grace said, “Surely you know better than to take every word a thirteen-year-old says at face value.”

      If anything, his voice hardened. “And yet, you professed to be shocked when I questioned whether Linnet was telling the truth.”

      This time, she let herself be offended. “My daughter knows when it’s important to be honest.” If she spoke crisply, she didn’t care. “Which doesn’t mean I don’t sometimes have to delve for the real truth, not the truth as she sees it.”

      He swore and shoved his fingers through his disheveled hair. “Why in the hell should there be a difference?”

      For the first time, Grace felt a pang of sympathy. The lines in his face were carved deeper today than on the other occasions when she’d met him. Genuine bafflement was tangled with the anger in his eyes. He wore a beautifully cut dark suit, but the silk tie was yanked askew and the top button of his shirt was undone. He’d probably come home from work and hoped to pour a martini, put on dinner—although she had difficulty picturing him cooking—read the newspaper. Instead, his daughter had hit him with this, using all the subtlety of a jackhammer.

      “Would you like to come in?” Grace suggested. “Probably we should talk about this.”

      He grimaced. “I can’t imagine why you would want to.”

      “I like Claire.” At his open disbelief, she smiled ruefully. “Okay. I feel sorry for Claire. And I like my daughter, who has faith that I will extend a generous hand to her best friend. How can I fail her?”

      His expression closed, became stony. “Let me count the ways.”

      “What?” she asked, startled.

      “I seem to be failing my daughter on a regular basis. The only trouble is, I’m not quite sure how. Or why. When I figure it out, I’ll tell you.”

      “Oh, dear,” she said on a rush of real compassion. “You do care, don’t you?”

      He rocked back, that same hard stare not disguising the faint shock in his eyes. “You thought I didn’t?”

      “Some parents don’t, you know,” Grace said gently. “How was I supposed to know?”

      He frowned. “I was hunting for her.”

      “That didn’t mean you loved her.”

      David Whitcomb made a guttural sound. “It’s hard as hell to love her.”

      “But you do.” Why she was so certain, she couldn’t have said, but she would have bet her paycheck that this man was hurting right now. “Please.” She stepped back. “Come in.”

      He hesitated, then gave an abrupt nod and stepped over the threshold, the glance he gave toward her living room wary.

      Grace took a guess at the reason. “Linnet’s upstairs.”

      Another nod was the only response, but he seemed marginally less tense when she led him into the kitchen of the compact town house. “I was working on dinner,” she explained.

      She had gradually and completely remodeled since buying the place after Roger’s death. The pale colors that seemed to be standard issue these days had struck her as cold, echoing too much the bleakness of grief. Now the floor of the kitchen was tiled in terra-cotta, the countertops in peach. She’d stripped and stained the cherry cabinets herself, until they glowed to match the antique table in the small dining room. Touches of copper, baskets and rough-textured stone-ware all added to the warmth of her kitchen.

      As she went to the stove, she covertly watched her guest. His expression showed surprise and, she thought, reluctant admiration.

      “Can I pour you some wine?” she asked.

      He stood by the table looking awkward, a state that was probably rare for a man with his presence. “Thank you,” he said.

      When she handed him the glass, she was careful not to let their fingers touch. Why, she couldn’t have said.

      He took a deep swallow, then met her eyes. “This isn’t a good time. Why don’t I come back?”

      “And what are you going to say to Claire in the meantime?” Grace stirred the sauce simmering on the stove top. “No. Actually, right now is fine. Dinner won’t be ready for fifteen or twenty minutes, and Linnet is occupied with homework. Let me say my piece.”

      His frowning gaze continued to hold hers. She kept stirring to give herself something to do.

      “Linnet tells me Claire has run away several times.”

      He gave another of those sharp nods that seemed to be his speciality.

      “Apparently going to live with her mother is not an option?”

      “No.” For a moment it seemed he would say nothing more, but finally he added grudgingly, “My ex-wife is an alcoholic. She is also seeing a new man who is apparently not interested in being a stepfather.”

      “Oh.” Poor Claire, Grace thought sadly. She’d been wrenched from a drunken mother who had lost interest in her into the care of this remote, uncommunicative man who admitted it was hard to love her.

      “Claire is convinced her mother needs her.”

      Grace stirred, processing the information. “I see.”

      “Do you?” His gaze was ironic.

      “Well, no.” She hesitated, knowing she was crossing an invisible line but choosing to do it anyway. “What I don’t understand is why she is so determined not to live with you.”

      “You haven’t been fed stories of abuse?”

      “No-o, not exactly.”

      He gave a rough laugh that held no humor and turned from her to stare out the window at her tiny brick patio. “Do you want to know the honest-to-God truth?”

      She felt unforgivably nosy, but… “If I’m to become involved…yes. Yes, I do.”

      “Then