Confessions Bundle. Jo Leigh

than she’d ever been, even with Mom and Aunt Marcie.

      So what? They said it wasn’t safe for her here alone, but who cared? They were both liars.

      She turned some corners and walked really fast. She sweated a lot, too.

      If she got too hot, she’d go in the water. Mom didn’t want her to do that, either. She was just going to do everything Mom didn’t want her to do. Mom deserved it.

      Sometime after she’d passed some people on a blanket—a man, a woman and some boy—Mary Jane thought about how tired her legs were. She’d forgotten how tired the sand could make her feet when she walked in it a long time.

      So she moved closer to the water, letting the waves come up over her new white tennis shoes.

      She loved them most when they were brand-new white. Mom did, too. And she’d be really sorry when she saw them all dirty.

      Not that she was going to see them. Mary Jane wasn’t ever going home again. Who could live with people who lied to you?

      She heard a dog bark and jumped back, kind of scared. Mom said stray dogs were dangerous sometimes and they could bite and give you rabies, which could make you have some pretty bad shots or die. She’d never been alone around a stray dog.

      But when she looked around, there wasn’t one too close. She was kind of thirsty, though. And the ocean water was bad for drinking because of salt making you even thirstier. She shoulda brought her thermos from school. And a sandwich, too. Because it was going to be dinnertime and she hadn’t figured out where she was going to live yet.

      Still, she was away from the liars. And that was all that mattered.

      A man was by himself, up ahead by the water. Mary Jane slowed down. She wasn’t scared or anything, but everyone knew men were sometimes bad and she didn’t want to have to run away fast. She just wanted to be left alone. And quit being lied to.

      Just then she heard the dog bark again. It ran to the man. And then a lady was there, too, and Mary Jane said hi as she walked past. They said hi and smiled. She probably could ask them for water if she had to. And if they fed a dog, they might feed her. A lot of adults thought dogs and kids were a lot alike. And besides, she wasn’t a picky eater and didn’t eat much either.

      So she’d be okay.

      But she was tired. And she needed to find out where she was going to live before it got dark and she had to go to bed.

      Mary Jane ran into a wave, laughing as the water came up to get her shorts wet. And then she did it again.

      Pretty soon she was all wet. It wasn’t really funny when you were all alone and no one could see.

      She wasn’t going to be scared of the dark. She just wanted to get her bed made before she couldn’t see what she was doing. Lumps in beds made her kind of grumpy.

      Mom had teased her about that one time when they’d camped out in a sleeping bag on the beach. Mary Jane kept punching at the lumps in the sand and finally Mom got a sand shovel from the house and dug Mary Jane a perfect oval to sleep in.

      She could dig her own oval, though. She knew how. She’d use her new white tennis shoe and get it even dirtier.

      When she stubbed her toe and fell down, Mary Jane didn’t really care. Her knee was scraped, but only babies cried over stuff like that. And she wasn’t a baby. She was big and strong and didn’t need any father.

      Slopping along at the water’s edge, she thought about Blake Ramsden’s dog. He’d licked her. And his tongue was rough and kind of tickled. And was gross wet.

      She’d always wanted a dog but Mom said they couldn’t have one because they weren’t home enough and who would feed it and train it to go potty outside and clean up on the beach when it made a mess.

      Mary Jane said she would, but Mom still said no.

      But so what? Mom was a liar.

      And then she thought of Blake Ramsden. He’d smiled at her before she knew who he was. She’d liked him then. She’d felt all warm inside when he’d smiled, like she could have run to him if the house was on fire and he’d climb a ladder and save her mom and her dog.

      Even when he’d asked her name, she’d liked him. He probably made good sand villages, and maybe would’ve let her play Frisbee with his dog on the beach. If she had a Frisbee. She’d lost hers.

      Then he’d said his name. Mary Jane hated his name. And she hated him, too. Because Mom didn’t want him to be her dad—or he didn’t really want to be her dad. How did she know which it was?

      She stumbled again. And fell on the very same knee. And got wet sand in with the skin.

      It stung a lot. But that wasn’t why there were tears in her eyes. She just felt like crying. That was all.

      Pretty soon, she felt like crying a lot. And it was going to get dark. She wasn’t afraid of the dark but bad men came out more at night. The ocean meant dreams come true, though, so she’d stay close to that.

      Wondering what she was going to do next, Mary Jane wandered farther up the beach.

      BLAKE DIDN’T KNOWhow to have an eight-year-old daughter. He’d never been a father.

      Striding up the beach, eyes straining to see every movement, focused on any movement, he revised his last thought. He’d been a father. He just hadn’t known about it.

      He couldn’t walk fast enough, look carefully enough. He couldn’t do enough. Ever. He wasn’t going to recapture eight lost years. And he might not have eight more weeks to get to know the child who was flesh of his flesh. His family.

      The only family still alive.

      As he passed a man and woman on a blanket with their little boy, asking if they’d seen a little girl, and moving on as they shook their heads, he wondered if he even wanted his own child to get to know him. Did he want his daughter to meet a man on trial for more crimes than she had years on earth? Did he want her to learn that her father might be spending the rest of his life in jail?

      He wanted her to know he wasn’t guilty of those crimes. He wanted her to know that if she had nothing else but her integrity, it would be enough.

      He wanted her to understand that he loved her without even knowing her. That he’d give his life for her.

      About her mother, he thought not at all. He couldn’t afford to.

      The beach was relatively deserted. Blake wasn’t sure if that was good or bad. With fewer people out, the percentages were less that a twisted jerk would find a little girl strolling alone on the beach. And yet, with fewer people around, a twisted jerk would find that girl easy prey.

      Sick to his stomach, he walked on, moving rapidly, missing nothing. There were indentations in the sand, but too many to be distinguishable as a little girl’s footprints.

      Or there were no footprints, which was why he was only seeing footprint-like indentations. She might not have come this way. She might be somewhere in the village of Mission Beach, wandering streets where all kinds of weirdos could be watching her—a beautiful little curly-headed angel all alone.

      No. He couldn’t think that way. She was out here on the beach, pouting, drawing shapes in the sand somewhere with a twig, maybe even on the verge of running back home.

      Was she smart enough to walk on the edge of the waves so her prints would be washed away? Or smart enough to stay away from the water so that she wasn’t unexpectedly sucked under?

      The familiar dull stabbing in his chest struck again as he considered that he knew nothing at all about his own child. Was she good in school or did she struggle? Did she laugh at cartoons?

      Could she keep herself safe?

      Blake had thought, when he’d been face-to-face with the reality of possibly losing his freedom for the rest of his life, that the emotions consuming