Her Daughter's Father

His father-in-law came out of the market carrying his own copy of the newspaper. Hayden nodded toward India Stuart as he passed behind the commercial van emblazoned with the words, Stuart Painting. He spoke to her, but she shook her head. With a friendly shrug, he crossed the street in four strides and stepped onto the curb beside Jack. “She’s the one?”

Jack nodded. “She’d rather spill everything in those two bags than ask for help.”

Hayden grinned. “I offered. Did you?”

“No.” Jack smiled, unsure of his response to India. “I figured I’d irritated her enough when I thanked her this morning.”

Hayden thwacked the paper against his thigh. “She’s cute, though.”

“Cute?”

“Go over there and help her, son.”

Jack opened his own truck’s door. “I have enough woman trouble, and I thought you stayed on to help me.”

Hayden cocked an eyebrow at the apparent non sequitur.

Jack looked at Hayden with affection. “Your advice just keeps getting worse.”

Watching India Stuart, Hayden came around the truck and took the other seat. “Yeah, I guess. Maybe she’s too young for you.”

Shouldn’t the guy feel some sort of loyalty toward Mary? Jack danced uncomfortably around thoughts of her, himself.

He’d tried. He’d tried as hard as he could with Mary, accepting her accusations when she’d told him he’d driven her to do what she’d done to their marriage. He’d wanted a child as badly as she had. But as he peered through the House of Beauty’s plate glass window, trying to identify which shadow belonged to his daughter, Jack wished he’d never found out the truth about Mary’s affair. Wished he’d never known she’d settled for him only to keep the child they couldn’t make together.

“There she goes.”

Jack thought Hayden meant Colleen, but when she didn’t stroll through the beauty salon’s doors, he turned to the other side of the street in time to watch India’s van rumble dustily away. Jack curled his fingers around the steering wheel.

“When I thanked her, she acted almost angry. She couldn’t wait to get rid of me.”

Hayden offered a sage nod. “People don’t like to get involved. Maybe she’s just a nice woman who helped Colleen because she couldn’t pass a child in need, but she doesn’t want to be thanked. Wouldn’t you have helped a child in Colleen’s position?”

Being in the right place at the right time didn’t explain the ice in India Stuart’s dark blue eyes. “I think there’s more. She had to force herself to look at me.” He pushed her from his mind. “Colleen is my first concern. I’ll talk to Chris as soon as he crawls out from under his rock again.”

“Didn’t you speak to his mother?”

“I tried to talk to Leslie, but she isn’t the same since Tom left them. The whole time we talked she nursed her youngest, and her twin boys climbed all over us. I think Chris requires more energy than she can give him. I suggested he should help more, and she told me he puts all his time and money into that fancy car of his.”

Hayden bounced his fist against the knee of his trousers. “You’ll find him. Hey, if he won’t listen to you, maybe you can set that Stuart woman on him again. From what I hear, she held her own.”

“I can’t afford to see the humor.” Jack broke off, pleasantly surprised as Colleen pushed carefully through the shop door.

A breeze lifted her honey-blond hair into her eyes. Impatiently she brushed it away with a furtive glance, as if she didn’t want anyone to see her without her purple rebellion.

Jack’s relief evaporated. “I don’t think she gets it yet, either. Maybe I should have her thank India Stuart in person, too. It’s only polite, and admitting her mistake to a stranger might make her see how big it was.”

AFTER THEY PUT AWAY THEIR equipment the next day, India and her father headed to the town square for an open-air market Mrs. Henderson had told them about. The local library sponsored a booth that sold used books. India stopped there first.

“You’re new in town,” the woman behind the wooden counter said. “I’m Nell Fisher.”

India held out her hand. “India Stuart. Mrs. Henderson told my father and me the market opens here every week.”

“Yes.” The other woman waved a work-gloved hand at the people who strolled up and down the neat rows. Now that the weather had gone back to chilly normal, everyone wore coats that flapped around them and rubbed the wooden stalls. “We probably have something you’d like. I recommend Clem Tyler’s hydroponic tomatoes, and Reverend Goodling’s wife tats beautiful lace collars and cuffs, if you’re in the market.” An excellent saleswoman, she pointed over her shoulder, at a rocky lean-to with its back to her stall. “And, of course, the requisite tie-dyed-anything-you-ever-wanted-to-wear booth.”

India laughed. “Do you always participate?”

Mrs. Fisher nodded. “When I can get away. I don’t have an assistant just now, so I have to close up while I’m here, but I hope to turn a couple of the youngsters into patrons, while their parents shop for better prices than we can get in the stores out here. You’ll notice we don’t have room for a mall, and we pay the price for our isolation.”

India picked up a dog-eared copy of Peter Pan. “Do you read to the children?”

“If I gather a large enough crowd. You seem pretty interested.”

India hesitated. Gossip ran both ways. Would a house-painting librarian make Colleen’s neighbors suspicious? But no, she and her father had agreed on what she should say, to cover her failings as a painter. She was helping him out, the best he could afford. “I usually work as a librarian. I’m on sabbatical, and my father needed a hand.”

“Really?” Interest lit Mrs. Fisher’s eyes. “And how long do you plan to stay on the island?”

“Depends.” India’s breath grew short. “We don’t know how much business we’ll find for my father.”

“Maybe you’d like to help me out if you have some free time in the evenings. We have a volunteer program.” Mrs. Fisher lifted a stack of books onto the counter. “I just don’t have a volunteer to man it at the moment.”

“Volunteer?”

“Yes. Unless you’re too tired in the evenings?”

“No.” Drawn to the work she loved best, India leaped at the chance for more contact with the people who lived in this community with Colleen. “I’d love to help. My father might be able to spare me for a couple of hours some days, too.”

“Good. Drop by the library tomorrow—” Mrs. Fisher broke off as a gleaming car braked at the curb next to the stall.

Hard to miss that car, or the girl who climbed out to stand, impossibly tall, unexpectedly uncertain. She’d washed that purple right out of her hair. With the palest brown cap of silky strands hugging her chin, she looked exactly like pictures of India’s mother at fifteen.

India gripped the pole supporting the library booth. She should run for all their lives. This slender child, teetering on the razor blade of adolescence was definitely the daughter she’d given up.

Warmth, as big and bright as the sun, and twice as powerful, exploded in India’s chest. She wrapped her arms around herself as if she could contain the astounding happiness that burst and blossomed to life inside her. She felt the same compulsion she’d had the day Colleen was born, to count all her fingers and toes, to make sure she was all right. And just as she hadn’t then, she couldn’t now. India moved her head from side to side. How could this happen?

“Hi.” The girl twined her fingers in front of her. “My name is Colleen Stephens.”

India managed a stunned nod. “I figured.” She cleared roughness from her throat. Her heart pounded a drum solo. “I met your father.”

“He told me.” With an apparent eye for reinforcements, Colleen looked back at the car.

Her reminder of the boy who waited behind the steering wheel dragged India back to reality in a heartbeat. “You came with him?” she asked before she knew she was going to.

Colleen blushed. “Chris isn’t always like he was that night at the festival.” She swallowed hard and stared at Mrs. Fisher until the older woman moved to the back of her booth. Colleen thrust out her hand, offering to shake. “I just wanted to thank you.”

India spiked a swift glance over Colleen’s shoulder. Did Jack know she was out with Chris? She took her daughter’s hand. It felt small and warm and totally vulnerable.

Her heart contracted. Chris could hurt this child so easily, and she didn’t even recognize the danger. Protective instincts rose in India, as strong as if she’d raised Colleen from day one. Instincts she had to check.