Читать книгу Her Daughter's Father - Anna Adams - Страница 12

SATURDAY MORNING, India haunted the clock, anxious to do her own kind of work. Showered and dressed too early for the toddler’s reading group, she made herself sit with a cup of coffee until it was time to go.

Finally she ran down the quivering stairs outside her room. Pursing her lips, she tried to whistle as she strode toward the library. Managing only to blow air, she allowed herself a furtive skip over the curbs at the street corners, until she reached the library building.

“No! I’m tired of lying to my father to be with you, Chris.”

India stumbled over the completely level sidewalk. Colleen. India turned slowly to her right, hoping she’d be wrong, that he’d have found some other child to pick on.

No. Once again gripping Colleen’s arm, Chris tried to pull her away from her two friends. India hesitated, shaking with rage even more intense than the last time. She couldn’t let this happen, not to anyone, not to her child.

With one clenched fist, she pushed aside strands of hair that brushed her face. She searched for the candy-apple lovemobile. Chris hadn’t parked his car on the street, but as attached as he was, he must have left it close by. She couldn’t let him take Colleen to it, especially if Colleen didn’t want to go.

“Your father never has to know.” Yards that felt like miles away, Chris yanked Colleen behind him and eyed the other girls. “Marcy? Leah? Do you think Jack Stephens has to know I’m taking Colleen with me?”

His plain threat fired a shudder through India. Affection played no part in Chris’s need for her child today.

“Leave her alone.” Colleen’s blond friend launched herself at Chris’s chest, but he brushed her off like a fly.

India took flight. Be calm. Be smart. Don’t let him see you’d like to take him apart. But before she reached the four teenagers, Viveca Henderson stepped out of an alley, a blue-uniformed policeman in tow.

“Here he is, Ted. I’m tired of Chris running amok in our streets, and with our young girls. You take him with you, and keep him away from these children.”

Ted, the policeman, hooked his arm through Chris’s and jerked his head toward the small square red granite building behind him. “I’ve been waiting for you to mess up, kid. I just didn’t know you’d oblige me at my own back door.”

India took a few more steps into the street. A white sign nailed to the wide oak door at the center of the building read Official Parking Only. Arran Island Police Headquarters.

“Are you arresting me?” Chris demanded belligerently.

Ted shrugged. “You and I are long overdue for a chat. We’ll go from there.” He tipped his hat to Viveca. “Thank you, Mrs. Henderson. I’ll take over now.”

“Goodbye, Chris,” Colleen said, apparently unable to welcome the sight of him going to jail. He didn’t even look back as Ted took him away. “Do you want me to call your mom?”

“Don’t bother. This is your fault, Colleen. Leave me alone.”

Disillusionment bunched Colleen’s fragile features. India ached for her. Suddenly she understood parents who wanted to give their children anything and everything. What wouldn’t she do to make Colleen’s trouble better?

But Viveca nodded, completely satisfied, as she turned to Colleen and her friends. “As for you girls—”

“Colleen?” Her name burbled out of India’s mouth. “Are you and your friends busy? I need some help.”

All three girls started, surprised to see India. Colleen’s two friends gaped as if she’d risen from the bay. Colleen’s smile looked dazed, and Viveca grimaced at the interruption.

India threaded her voice with sugary enthusiasm. “I’m helping out at the library this morning, and the toddler’s story group is making lion puppets. I don’t have enough parents.” Astounded at the lie that came out of nowhere, she steamed ahead. Colleen and her friends looked as if they’d already got the point of Viveca’s lecture. “I need someone to cut, someone to glue and someone else to braid yarn into manes. What do you say?”

“I think we should talk to your parents,” Viveca suggested with relish.

“Do you?” India wanted to go to Colleen, but she’d already done far more than she should have. What she’d do for any child in trouble, she could not do for her own daughter.

Colleen’s eyes looked too wide. Her skin gleamed too pale. Could she be in shock?

“Will you help me?” Unable to bear Colleen’s lack of any other response, India was afraid to leave her out here in the cool morning air.

“Colleen!” Elbowing her, the girl on Colleen’s left pushed her lovely pale blond hair away from her forehead and revealed an earring fastened distractingly to her right eyebrow.

India stared. Was this Marcy or Leah? She snapped her mouth shut. So what if Colleen’s friend had pinned an earring through her eyebrow? She’d also tried to come to Colleen’s rescue. Twice.

“We’ll help.” As Colleen took stock of the back of the police station and Viveca Henderson’s eagerness, her frown hardened into disdain.

India swallowed a victorious whoop. She’d half feared Colleen would worry he wouldn’t want to see her again.

Colleen shifted her whole body, firmly turning her back on the station. “India, this is Marcy.” She flapped her hand at the one with the eyebrow ring before she waved at the other girl. “And this is Leah.”

“Marcy.” India shook their hands in turn. “Leah.” She turned to Mrs. Henderson. “Don’t you think they were trying to help Colleen?”

“Yes, but Colleen’s the one that worries me.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Henderson. I know what you want to say to me. I guess you wouldn’t be the first, but I’ve finally heard what everyone else said before you,” Colleen said.

“Are you sure?”

Her concern looked even stronger than her love of gossip. India stayed out of the argument. At last, Viveca seemed satisfied with what she read in Colleen’s eyes, as the girl nodded. “All right, but remember, I’ll be watching you girls.”

India joined them to watch Viveca stroll away, tucking her big white purse beneath her elbow. India smiled. She’d underestimated her landlady.

“Marcy, Leah, this is India Stuart.”

“You’re the one who helped us before.” Marcy apparently did all the talking. Leah just stared as she redid her long auburn ponytail with shaking fingers.

India nodded. “I’d be grateful for your help now.” Ignoring Marcy and Leah’s identical doubts, she started toward the library. “Normally, I cut out felt and sew the pieces together for the bodies, but I don’t have my sewing machine with me, so we’ll have to improvise with glue.” Babbling, she tried to give the girls time to recover.

Colleen lagged behind the others, who seemed anxious to look as if they were on their own. Colleen caught India’s arm.

“Are you going to tell my dad?”

India hesitated. “Mrs. Henderson may. I’m not sure someone shouldn’t.”

Colleen tightened her grip. “I wasn’t going with Chris. I thought you understood me, India. I thought I might be able to trust you.”

Joy and dismay sweeping simultaneously over her, India shook her head. “You need to trust Jack. He’s your father.”

“He worries too much, and I’m half-afraid of what he’d do to Chris. Dad still thinks of me as a child.”

India knew the story. During her father’s business crisis, her parents had directed their energy toward saving the family’s livelihood. They’d ignored her efforts to help and assumed she was too young to trust with their financial straits. But Gabe, Colleen’s natural father, had treated her like the adult she’d thought herself.

“Chris considers you grown-up?”

“No.” In her impatience, Colleen looked more than ever like India’s mom. “I wonder if he sees me as a point he has to make. Everyone on this island thinks he’s a troublemaker, but they all respect my dad. They consider me a ‘good girl.’ Maybe Chris hoped I’d clean up his image. Instead, I think his reputation started to spread to me.”

Colleen’s maturity startled India. “But you aren’t excusing him?”

Colleen shook her head so hard her mature bearing nearly flew off her. “I won’t forgive and forget. He scared me. One thing my mom and dad always told me was never to go with anyone who made me feel funny. Stark, raving terror probably counts as funny.”

India let her hair cover her face. Now that was good judgment. She sent up silent gratitude to Jack and Mary for the way they’d raised Colleen. Could she have done as well?

At the library’s wide doors, Marcy turned around. Sunlight glinted off her gold eyebrow ring.

“Are you sure we want to do this, Colleen? Everything’s okay now.”

Colleen only laughed, and India grinned in relief. A girl couldn’t sound as if she’d just discovered the keys to her freedom if her heart were breaking. In some dismay, Marcy rubbed her ring thoughtfully between her index finger and thumb.

How many toddlers would go home this afternoon and beg their parents for eyebrow hoops? If only I’d planned a pirate story for today.

“COLLEEN?” JACK CALLED his daughter’s name as he opened his front door. All morning long, as he’d finally begun to repaint the boat, thoughts of her had barged between him and his work. He’d found himself smiling at remembered Saturdays in the park with a Frisbee and a cooler of sandwiches. Those Saturdays seemed far away, but his hard work pulled them closer every day.