TAKE A SNEAK PEEK AT HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE'S NEW LOOK!

Harlequin

American Romance features favorite authors such as Muriel Jensen, Judy Christenberry, Tina Leonard and Cathy Gillen Thacker.

Heart, Home and Happiness!

Available at your favorite retail outlet.

HARLEQUIN*

Makes any time special™

Visit us at www.Harlequin.com

“Tell me about your stipulations, Grace.”

“That you become very involved in her life. Take her places, join us for dinner, call her, look over her schoolwork… Be her father.”

David scrutinized her for the longest time. “I’d be over here constantly.”

“That’s okay.” Was it? she asked herself, with a faint sense of panic. Too late.

“Claire won’t want me here.”

“But that’s the deal,” Grace said firmly. “She has to promise to work at being your daughter. One of my rules is that we’re all polite to guests.”

“Guests.” He tasted the word as though it was questionable wine.

And who could blame him? His position would be awkward, to say the least. His daughter was choosing to live with someone else. He gave one of those off-putting nods. “I’ll talk to Claire.”

Grace hardly had time to say goodbye before he was gone, leaving her with the horrifying realization that she’d gotten herself into something she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do.

It should have been Claire she was thinking about. Unsettled, Grace had to admit, if only to herself, that she was far more worried about dealing with the grim father than with the sulky teenage girl.

Dear Reader,

The Daughter Merger came naturally to me, and let me tell you why: I have two teenage daughters. The bickering, the repartee, the gossip about school, all are the stuff of daily life for me. The rehearsals are familiar, too, since both my daughters act and I am, of course, their chauffeur.

Let me hasten to say here that my girls have more in common with Linnet than with Claire. They’re top-notch students and my best friends. So here’s my real secret: I was Claire, not Linnet. At twelve, my mother tells me, I was a nice kid. At thirteen, I woke up one morning a monster. I wept at sad songs, I stormed at my parents’ refusal to let me date, I screamed at them, I spent the night at friends’ houses and… Well, never mind. My mother might read this, and I wouldn’t want to horrify her too much! Fortunately, at about fifteen, I awakened one morning to discover I’d grown up.

The point is, Claire came from my memories of that sad, tumultuous age. She has some reasons to be sad, as her father has reasons for his emotional detachment. Those of you who have read my previous books know that I love heroes who have difficulty expressing emotion—the strong silent type. What makes David Whitcomb a hero is his willingness to learn, to risk and, ultimately, to love passionately. This guy is one of my all-time favorite heroes. Claire is a lucky kid.

Now that you’re in on my secrets…

Janice Kay Johnson

P.S. You can reach me at www.superauthors.com

The Daughter Merger

Janice Kay Johnson

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Nan Hawthorne, Jim Tedford and the real gang: Lemieux, Stanzi and Kitkat

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

NOTHING LIKE FINDING OUT your teenage daughter had cut school to foul up your day. David Whitcomb’s mounting tension was laced with anger. He didn’t have time for this.

But fear was his strongest emotion. Had Claire hit the road again? How far would she get this time?

His gaze found the dashboard clock. Eleven forty-three. School had started at 7:10. That gave her a four-hour head start. If the Attendance Office had notified him sooner…

The garage door was already rising in response to his signal before he turned into his driveway. David killed the engine, set the emergency brake and leaped out, his long stride carrying him into the house.

“Claire?” he bellowed. “Are you home? Claire?”

The kitchen was quiet and dark; a cereal bowl sat in the sink. Loading it into the dishwasher was beyond her. At least she’d had breakfast.

“Claire?” He took the stairs two at a time. No pounding beat of music welcomed him. He slammed open her bedroom door, already knowing what he would find: an empty room.

Covers were tidy, but he knew better than to think Claire had made the bed. She was a quiet, still sleeper, had been since she was a baby. He remembered, with a pang he ignored, how she had sometimes scared him when he checked on her and at first glance thought she’d quit breathing.

Closet doors stood open, and clothes spilled out of drawers. Damn. Her binder and a social studies text lay on the desk. So she never had set out for school. The day pack was gone, as was the framed photo of her mother that usually sat beside her bed.

Fear finally swamped his anger. A thirteen-year-old girl, out on her own, trying to—what? hitch-hike?—to California. Last time she’d made it to Portland before an alert cop had picked her up. What if some psycho found her first?

He’d have to call the police. But for an instant David stood looking around his daughter’s bedroom, bafflement and helplessness holding him captive. What was he doing so terribly wrong that she wouldn’t even give him a chance?

The police came and went, as they had the previous two times Claire had run away. They promised to put out a bulletin, but this time they kept asking questions and David felt the rising tide of suspicion and judgment.

Did he know why his daughter was so determined to leave his home? Here they scrutinized him carefully. Had he considered counseling? Did she have friends in whom she confided? Had he contacted her mother in California? Did he discipline Claire physically?

Hell, no, he didn’t know why she hated his guts. David did understand, sort of, that Claire felt her mother needed her, that he was the bad guy who was keeping mother and daughter apart. Yes, he’d tried counseling, but Claire wasn’t cooperative. Friends? Reluctantly, he decided he would have to call the mother of the one close friend Claire had made in the four months she’d lived with him here in Lakemont. No, he hadn’t yet contacted his ex-wife. No, he never laid hands on his daughter. Literally, as she wouldn’t accept even a hug from him.

Assuming he’d felt comfortable offering one.

The pair of police officers left, and David picked up the phone. He had only a home phone number for Claire’s friend Linnet, but the answering machine suggested that if he urgently needed Grace Blanchet, he should try her work phone number. He did, and she answered.

He had met the woman a couple of times when he was at her town house picking up Claire. What little he knew about Grace Blanchet had been extracted from his sullen daughter. She was a legal secretary for some high-powered firm in neighboring Bellevue. She was a widow, Linnet was her only child.

His lightning impression had been of a tall, slender woman with shiny, thick, light brown hair cut at shoulder length and worn tucked behind her ears. The hair danced when she moved, distracting the eye from a face a man might call plain. Pretty eyes, though, he recalled: a deep blue. And her smile was warm enough to make him feel like a jerk for his cool, answering nod.

“Grace Blanchet,” she said now in a rich, distinctively husky voice. One that, upon first hearing it, had instantly made him imagine darkness and a throaty laugh, tangled sheets and satin skin.

It had the same effect this time, despite everything.

Disbelieving and annoyed at himself, he said, “Ms. Blanchet, this is David Whitcomb. Claire’s father.”

“Yes?” She waited, not making it easy. Apparently she had noticed how cool his previous greeting had been.

“Claire didn’t go to school today,” he said bluntly. “I think she’s run away. I’m wondering if you can find out whether she told your daughter anything.”

“Oh, dear.” That voice resonated with compassion. “Linnet told me that Claire has done this before. She’s so young!”

“Yes.” Images flashed before him. His small, dark-haired daughter beside a busy highway, her thumb out. A truck slowing, stopping. Fear and resolution on her face before she gave a nod and climbed in with two men.

He squeezed the bridge of his nose.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You must be terribly worried. I’ll call the school and have them get Linnet. Are you at home?”

He didn’t want to be. He ached to do something. Anything. Check out the Greyhound bus station. Cruise the freeway entrances. But he knew Claire was probably half a state away by now. The cops were looking. They’d found her before.

“I’m home,” he said. “In case she tries to…” Get in touch with own father? Never.

Grace Blanchet promised to call the moment she’d spoken with her daughter.

David dialed again, this time his ex-wife’s number. The very sound of her on the answering machine message was enough to make his teeth grit. In contrast to Grace Blanchet, Miranda managed to imbue even her voice with a feminine plea that pushed every man’s buttons. What can you do for me? her voice seemed to ask. Her big, velvet-brown eyes had asked the same question. Men fell in line to answer. David had trouble believing he’d been dumb enough to fall for it himself.

Sometimes he wanted to shake Claire and say, Can’t you see how she uses people? She has no damn right to use you!

He clamped down on the words every time. Miranda was Claire’s mother. A child should grow up with some shred of respect for her own mother. He wouldn’t be the one to take that from her.

A call to the police gave him what he’d expected. Yes, sir, they had checked the bus station. No, sir, no sign of a girl answering the description of his daughter.

David called his office to find out what chaos was brewing there, but though he got so far as sitting down in front of his computer, he couldn’t work. Pictures of Claire trudging down the shoulder of the freeway kept intruding.

Damn it! She was so small, so childish, even for thirteen. Too childish to interest a rapist, he tried to convince himself but knew better. David tried to focus on the future, when—when—she was home again. A different counselor? She hadn’t given the first or second one a chance, and the latest wasn’t showing any more promise. A nanny who escorted her to school and picked her up afterward? He knew how that would go over.

“I’m not some stupid little kid!” she liked to yell at him, just before she stormed off to her bedroom. “Quit treating me like I’m in kindergarten!”

David was restlessly pacing when the phone rang. He pounced. “Yeah?”

“Mr. Whitcomb?”

Grace Blanchet. No mistaking that voice.

“Yes,” he said tersely. “Were you able to talk to your daughter?”

“I was, but she doesn’t know anything about Claire’s plans.” She sounded apologetic. “Linnet assumed she was home sick.”

“And you believed her?”

A momentary pause told him he’d offended even before she said crisply, “My daughter does not lie to me.”

David bowed his head and rubbed his neck. “I’m sorry. She was my best hope.”

Her voice softened. “I understand.”

Strangely, he suspected that she did. Damn right he preferred to think her kid was lying. He didn’t want her to be everything his daughter wasn’t. He didn’t want to give up hope that she knew how he could find Claire.

“If there’s anything I can do…” Her sympathy and kindness were as tangible as a touch. Most people didn’t mean it when they said that. She seemed to be an exception.

“There’s nothing.” David hated his own brusqueness but couldn’t seem to help himself. “The police will find her.”

“Yes. Of course they will. Please do let me know. We’ll…worry.”

We. Her good little girl and her.

David swore as he hung up the phone.

The deep wheeze of a truck climbing the hill outside turned his head. He didn’t give a damn whether some neighbor was moving or had just bought a living room full of new furniture. Still, big trucks with air brakes didn’t make it into this exclusive Lakemont neighborhood often. These streets were paved for Mercedes and BMWs and Lexuses.

Outside, a semi pulling a huge trailer that said Hendrix Hauling had stopped outside. A beefy guy was getting out and looking up at David’s house. As David watched, he circled to the passenger side of the truck.

By the time David had reached the front door and opened it, the man had escorted Claire to the porch.

“Found something that might belong to you,” he said.

Despite his daughter’s sulky mouth and hateful stare, David felt relief so intense, he squeezed his eyes shut for a moment.

“Claire.” He stepped aside, controlling his voice with an effort. “You go up to your room. I’ll talk to you in a minute.”

She shook off the trucker’s grip and stalked past her father, racing up the stairs. Her bedroom door slammed, vibrating the lone etching that hung on the vestibule wall.

David said roughly, “I don’t know who you are or where you found her, but…thank you.”

“She was hitching just south of Renton.” He shook his head. “She tried to tell me she was sixteen, but I didn’t buy it.”

“Claire is thirteen.”

“About what I guessed. I’ve got kids myself. I thought about finding a police station, but I figured it wasn’t so far I couldn’t come back. When I said it was the cops or home, she chose home.”

“I’m surprised,” David said with a hint of bitterness. “We’re having our problems.”

“She told me. Said her mom wants her, but the courts gave custody to you.” The trucker wasn’t asking a question, but he was wondering all the same.

David didn’t usually talk about personal business with strangers, but this one had earned an answer.

“Her mother is an alcoholic. She wants Claire only to lean on. Claire was paying the bills, doing the grocery shopping and cooking, calling work to cover when her mom was too sick to go.”

“Being the adult,” the other man said slowly.

“She thinks her mother needs her. The truth is—” he grimaced “—her mother has found a new man and isn’t very interested. But I can’t tell her that.”

The trucker nodded. After an awkward moment, he stuck out his hand. “Make sure you tell her you were worried about her.”

David shook the man’s hand. “Thank you,” he said again, inadequately.

He watched his savior retrace his steps, climb back in the cab and laboriously back the truck into the culde-sac to turn it around. Claire had gotten lucky.

This time, David thought grimly.

Upstairs, music pounded from beneath Claire’s bedroom door, a deep throb that pulsed through the house. David braced himself and opened her door without knocking.

When she saw him, Claire flipped onto her stomach on the bed, as if the sight of her father was unbearable.

David headed straight for the CD player and turned the music off. Usually she would have protested. Today she knew better.

To her back, he said, “You scared me. Do you have any idea what can happen to a girl who gets into cars with strangers?”

She hugged her pillow and remained silent.

His hand itched to whack her bottom, although he’d never believed in spanking.

“We’ve talked about this, Claire. You live here now. If you’d made it to San Francisco, your mother would have shipped you right back to me.”

“No, she wouldn’t!” In a flash, the thirteen-year-old launched herself to her knees and faced him furiously. Her face was wet and swollen with tears. “Mom wants me!” she sobbed. “And you don’t! I can tell you don’t! Why won’t you let me go?”

“I do want you.” Hell, no, he didn’t, not anymore. But he loved her. Or at least the memory of the sweet sprite who had adored her daddy. It was that child he was determined to save from the alcoholic mother who used her as a crutch.

“You don’t!” Claire’s face crumpled and she flung herself back onto her belly. Her shoulders shook with sobs.

David made himself sit on the edge of the bed. He’d forgotten how to say I love you. She wouldn’t have believed him anyway. His hand made an abortive move toward her, but he knew damn well she would have knocked it away.

“I’m sorry you miss your mother.” His every word sounded wooden, and he swore inwardly. “She’s an alcoholic. She can’t take care of you. She can’t even take care of herself.”

“We were doing fine!”

“You weren’t doing fine.” He knew he was wasting his breath. Logic never penetrated with her. But he had no other weapon, so he tried, anyway. “You were missing school, getting Ds on your report card. You were terrified of being alone at night.” And her mother didn’t want to stay home with her.

“So what if I’m not good at school!” she flared. “Mom says she wasn’t, either!”

“You have the ability to do fine,” he said grimly. “If you’d turn in all your assignments.”

She threw one miserable, furious look at him over her shoulder. “That’s all you care about! That I be some perfect daughter. Well, I’m not!”

He’d thought enviously of Grace Blanchet’s daughter today. The memory stung. Did he resent Claire, because she wasn’t a model daughter he could brag about?

Wearily he said, “All I ask is that we be able to hold conversations without them blowing up in my face. That I not be dragged away from work because you’ve taken off again. Is that too much to hope for?”

“I hate you!” she screamed, though the words were muffled in her pillow.

David jerked. Pain engulfed his chest. He stood and started to leave the room, forcing himself to stop in the doorway. “Fine. But you will live with me, like it or not.” He didn’t—quite—slam the door when he left the room.

“I HATE HIM,” Claire repeated gloomily.

She and her best friend, Linnet Blanchet, ignored their school lunches. The salad bar wasn’t that good, anyway. Linnet had wanted to know everything about yesterday. About Claire running away, and whether it had been scary, and what had happened. Claire told her the truth except for the scary part. She’d shrugged and said it was no big deal when really she hated hitchhiking. The cars and trucks would rush by, the wind sucking her toward the tires, and sometimes gravel would pepper her painfully. She’d be there praying someone would stop, but afraid at the same time of who it might be. She was always hoping some nice old couple would pull up, and then they’d offer to drive her all the way to her mother’s front door even if it was two states away, because they felt sorry for her.

Linnet’s brow crinkled. “Why can’t you live with your mom if you want?”

She gave her pat answer. She didn’t want to tell even Linnet the truth. “Because Mom couldn’t afford really good lawyers. Not like Dad’s.”

Linnet was stubborn. “But why does he want you so much?”

“I don’t know!” Seeing the way Linnet flinched at her quick, furious response, Claire touched her arm. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to yell at you. It’s just, he’s never home. When he is, all we do is fight. I think he got custody just so Mom couldn’t have me. You know?”

“That’s really mean,” her friend marveled.

She nodded. Her misery burst out of her. “I won’t stay with him. I won’t!”

“But even if you get to your mom, he’ll know where to find you and then you’ll have to come back anyway. Unless your mom is willing to go into hiding with you.” Her face brightened. “She could. If you moved to, like, Idaho or Missouri or something, and she was really careful and didn’t use credit cards or anything, he’d never find you.”

Linnet was used to thinking practically. “Mom is talking about getting married. It’s this guy who I think is really rich. He’d have to come with us, and then how could he get to his money? If you use a bank machine or something, they find you.”

Linnet had seen the same movies. She nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe your mom could forget about him. If she knew how unhappy you are.” The gaze she gave Claire held a hint of a question.

The bell rang, making both girls jump. Claire hadn’t noticed how the cafeteria was emptying out. She stood with Linnet and they carried their untouched trays to the busing station, where they dumped the food and put the utensils in the right tubs.

On the way out, Claire said reluctantly, “My mom isn’t that good at taking care of herself. I do a lot of stuff for her. She gets alimony from my dad, and child support when I lived with her.” Claire knew, because she’d gotten her mother to sign the checks, her hand wavering when she’d had too much to drink, and then Claire had deposited them and bought groceries with the cash. “She’d lose all that money.”

“But she’d have you,” Linnet pointed out inescapably.

Claire didn’t want to say that she had asked her mother. Just a couple of weeks ago. She’d called on a Saturday, about noon, which was the best time. Her mom would be up, but she wouldn’t have had her first drink yet.

“Clairabelle!” Mom had cried, her voice lilting with pleasure. “Oh, I miss you so much.”

“I hate it here,” Claire said with quiet intensity. “I want to come home.”

“Just a minute, honey.” A few clicks and thumps later, her mother sighed. “Coffee. I desperately need that first cup.”

Just as she desperately needed that first drink a few hours later. She was always saying she’d quit, or cut back, but it was hard. At school, Claire had learned that alcoholism was a disease. Her mother couldn’t help herself.

“Now, what were you saying?” Mom asked.

Claire repeated herself.

“You know your father has custody now. The judge decided you have to live with him. I tried.”

“What if we ran away?” Claire had been thinking about it. “If we just moved, and didn’t tell him. You could get a job, and I could baby-sit, and we could start all over.”

“Honey…” Her mother paused. “What would I do for a living?”

“Well…” That took her aback. “What you do now.” Mom was a bookkeeper. Wouldn’t it be easy to do that anywhere?

“I’d need references. About the only kind of job you can get without any is to be waitress or work at a fast-food restaurant. Can you picture me behind the counter at The Burger Quickie?”

“I could help! Besides baby-sitting, I could maybe mow lawns or clean houses or something.” She’d trailed off, knowing already that her mother wouldn’t do it.

“I love you, too,” Mom said sadly. “But what you’re suggesting is impossible. Maybe, if your father was abusive, but he’s not a bad man. I know he’ll take good care of you.”

“But I hate it here!” she’d said again. Tears were running down her cheeks, and she was hunched around the telephone as if it were a magic talisman, her only hope.

“You know, I’m not the world’s best mother.”

“I like you just the way you are!” Claire said fiercely. She had to swipe away tears.

“I’m flattered,” her mother said lightly, “but I need to go now. Pete’s picking me up in…gracious, less than half an hour! You know me. Noon, and I still look a mess.”

Claire sniffed. “Have you…have you had breakfast?”

“Oh, just coffee.” She laughed. “Well, you heard me pouring it, didn’t you? I’ve always told you, I’m not a breakfast eater, but you never believed me, did you?”

If Claire didn’t make it, she wouldn’t bother. In fact, she hardly ate at all if Claire didn’t put a meal on the table.

“I’ll get a bite while I’m out,” she’d say airily. She went out a lot, most evenings, and came home after midnight even on weeknights. Claire would hear her fumbling at the door, the key missing the lock, until finally Mom got it open. Then a whispered goodbye to whoever had brought her, and then thumps as she knocked into furniture on her way to the bedroom. Sometimes she would pause in the hall outside Claire’s room, a dark silhouette that swayed unsteadily.

It was Claire’s job to get her up in the morning. Sometimes she’d miss her bus when Mom groaned and put the pillow over her head and wouldn’t get up at all, or had to run to the bathroom to throw up. Her mother had a delicate stomach. She was always better if she’d had a real dinner the evening before. Claire wondered if Mom was sick every morning now.

“Is everything okay at work?” she asked, not wanting to say Have you been fired again?

“Oh, they’re being the usual poops, but I’m fine. They need me,” Mom declared. She had noticed the clock again and said a hasty goodbye.

Today, the last thing Claire said to Linnet before they separated to go to class was, “Well, I won’t stay with Dad, no matter what! Even if I have to live on the street in Seattle.”

In her math class, the teacher handed out a quiz. They were doing graphing, and Claire didn’t get it. She hadn’t even opened her book in three days. She stared at the paper and decided not to bother scribbling any answers at all. Instead she stood up and said, “Mr. Wilson, I don’t feel good. I need to go to the nurse’s office.”

His eyes narrowed. “Fine, Ms. Whitcomb, I’ll write you a pass, but I’ll expect you after school to make up the quiz.”

She ignored the whispers. “I have to take the bus.”

“Then tomorrow during the lunch hour.”

“Um…sure.” She didn’t quite curl her lip. Yeah, right.

The nurse bought her story of an upset stomach, since she didn’t often use it. She spent the rest of the afternoon lying down in the nurse’s office, only leaving when it was time to catch the bus.

She was hurrying out, trying to ignore all the creeps who went to this school, when a girl she really hated named Alicia called out from a bus line, “I heard you ran away.” Her expression was avid. “Did you sell yourself?”

Claire looked her up and down and said coolly, “Is that what you would have done?” Amid laughter, she continued toward the bus.

“Claire!”

She turned at the sound of her friend’s voice. Linnet was tall and skinny, but she took dance classes, which made her graceful. Her light brown hair hung all the way to her waist. Right now, she looked pretty with her cheeks flushed as she rushed up to Claire.

“I’ve got to go, but I had this idea,” she said, the words tumbling out. “Maybe you could live with me.”

“You?”

“I’ll bet my mom would agree. I’ll ask her, if you think you’d want to.”

Dumbfounded, Claire stared at her. “You really think she’d say yes?”

“I know she likes you.” Linnet glanced toward her bus line. “I really, really have to go. Do you want me to ask?”

Little fizzes that might have been excitement or hope rose in Claire’s chest. What she wanted most was to live with her mom, but until she could figure out a way to do that…

Somebody bumped her from behind, and she was being pushed away from Linnet toward the yawning door of the bus. “Yes!” she called.

“I’ll phone, okay?” Grinning, Linnet ran.

In a daze, Claire found a seat and didn’t even care that it was next to some seventh grader who had opened her notebook and was actually doing homework—homework! Claire was just glad not to be bugged.

Claire didn’t know why Linnet’s mother would take in somebody else’s kid, but Linnet had sounded so sure. Was there any chance at all that Mrs. Blanchet really would agree?

If she did, what would Dad say? Claire frowned. He had all kinds of reasons why she couldn’t go home to Mom, but none of them applied to Mrs. Blanchet. She didn’t drink, and Linnet went to school every day—in fact, she was almost a straight A student, which was an argument Claire could use in her favor. But Mrs. Blanchet didn’t seem to make Linnet do stuff. When Claire was spending the night, she’d ask for help sometimes, but nicely.

“Any chance you girls could empty the dishwasher?” she’d say with a smile.

Linnet was never grounded, like Claire seemed to be half the time.

It had to be better than Dad’s.

She hugged her day pack to her chest and stared out the window past the seventh grader.

If Mrs. Blanchet said yes, and Claire’s father said no, she’d never forgive him.

Never.

CHAPTER TWO

DINNER 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 here it is. I don’t know. I have no idea why my own daughter hates my guts.” He faced her, expression raw. “I wouldn’t blame you if you can’t buy that.”

Did she? Was it possible to be genuinely ignorant of where you had taken such a monumental misstep?

“I don’t want to ask,” Grace said slowly, “but will you tell me more of the background? How long you’ve been divorced, for example?”

He picked up the wineglass from the table, looked at it, set it down. “Six years. Claire was seven. Miranda’s drinking was a problem between us, but she didn’t drink and drive, and I thought Claire was better with her. I thought, for a girl, that her mother was important.”

At last Grace put down the spoon. “And Claire?”

He shook his head. “There was so much tumult, I just don’t know. I assumed she’d rather stay with her mother.” Sounding stiff, he added, “Obviously now she wants to be with her, so I guess I was right.”

Or very, very wrong, Grace thought but didn’t say.

“I assume you continued to see her.”

He began rubbing the back of his neck. “Not as often as I should have. I was transferred up here from the Bay Area. I talked to her on the phone, but when you’re not living with someone it gets harder and harder to think of anything to say. She was supposed to spend summers, but Miranda had her in swimming lessons and an arts program, and I work long hours, so—” his eyes closed briefly “—I took the easy road.”

“She never came?” Grace couldn’t help sounding shocked.

“Oh, two weeks here and there. It was…not comfortable.” His eyes met hers, his hooded. “I’d take time off, but she didn’t want to do anything. She was always sullen. I thought it was her age. Or later I figured it was me. I wasn’t real life for her. Eventually—” he grimaced “—I realized that real life was doing the grocery shopping and coaxing her hungover mother out of bed in the morning and making excuses to the boss if she couldn’t. The first couple of years, Claire would show off her report card. This past couple, she stopped. I found out that’s because she had so many tardies and unexcused absences, she was flunking. I flew down for a visit at the end of the last school year and talked to teachers and Miranda. Claire threw a fit, but I packed her up and brought her home with me. She’s been trying to run away ever since. And that,” he said, “is the whole pathetic story.”

“I’m sorry.” She stirred uselessly again. “This must be very difficult.”

“Being her father?” he asked ironically. “Or admitting to you how inadequate I am?”

“Well, both.”

He said something under his breath that she suspected was profane, and then took a swallow of the wine. The stare he gave her held a challenge. “You were the one who was going to say your piece, as I recall. Somehow, I seem to have done all the talking instead.”

“Yes.” She made a business of turning off the stove, setting the pan to one side. “Well, here it is.” She lifted her chin. “If it would help you and Claire, if you need some space to work out your problems, she is welcome to stay here for the time being.” Here was the hard part. “But only if you both make some promises. And keep them.”

His eyes narrowed. “These being the stipulations.”

She nodded, mute.

“And they are?”

“Claire has to promise not to run away. And to go to school every day. No cutting classes. Plus to, well, follow my house rules.” She gestured vaguely. “You know. Help clean the kitchen. That kind of thing.”

David Whitcomb inclined his head, his watchful gaze never leaving hers. “And what do you expect from me, aside from support money?”

“That you become very involved in her life. Take her places, join us for dinner, call her, look over her schoolwork…be her father.”

He scrutinized her for the longest time. “I’d be over here constantly.”

“That’s okay.” Was it? she asked herself, with a faint, fluttering sense of panic. Too late.

“Claire won’t want me here.”

“But that’s the deal,” Grace said firmly. “She, too, has to promise to work at being your daughter. And one of my house rules is that we are all polite to each other and to guests.”

“Guests.” He tasted the word as though it was questionable wine.

And who could blame him? His position would be awkward, to say the least. His daughter was choosing to live with someone else because she detested him. He would feel constantly as if he was foisting his company on strangers—and on Claire, who would be civil, if at all, simply because her foster mother insisted on it.

Not a palatable option. Except that his only other one was to go on the way he had been—with his thirteen-year-old daughter determined to hitchhike to her mother in California.

The struggle, visible on his face, was severe but short. She had to give him that much credit.

Jaw muscles flexed, and then he gave one of those brief, off-putting nods. “I’ll talk to Claire.”

Grace pressed her lips together. “If you think I’m presuming—”

“What?” Irony edged into his tone. “That I can’t cope with my daughter? You’d be right.”

“I’m trying to help,” she said gently.

He looked at her with a disquieting lack of expression. “I know you are.”

“Mr. Whitcomb…”

“Hadn’t you better make it David?” he suggested sardonically. “Since we’re going to be one big happy family?”

A gasp from behind him startled them both. Linnet stood in the doorway, Lemieux draped in her arms. The big snowshoe Siamese struggled as she squeezed him.

“Claire’s going to live with us?” Linnet’s face glowed with hope.

“Her dad will talk to her,” Grace said repressively. “And, you know, if Claire does come to stay, it won’t be one long sleepover. You’ll both have to do homework and chores.”

“But it’ll be like having a sister.” She hugged the cat again, so hard he uttered a cry that sounded very much like “no-o-o!”

“Sisters,” her mother said dryly, “often get tired of each other.” Grace was very conscious of Claire’s father, silent and stiff.

“Not us. We never will.” Linnet set poor Lemieux down and twirled into the kitchen. The cat shot a look at David and bolted. “Can I call her?” Linnet begged.

“No. Dinner is almost ready. And Mr. Whitcomb and I haven’t made a decision. He and Claire need to talk. This is between them.”

“Oh.” She halted her pirouette and showed the whites of her eyes as she rolled them toward her friend’s father. “I didn’t mean…that is…I mean…”

“I think he knows what you mean.” Grace held out two plates with silverware piled atop. “In the meantime, please set the table while I show him out.”

“No need.” His face and voice were wooden. “I’m sure we’ll be talking.”

She’d hardly had time to set one foot in front of another when she heard the soft sound of the front door opening and closing behind him. She was left with the horrifying realization that she’d gotten herself into something she wasn’t at all sure she wanted to do.

It should have been Claire she was thinking about. Unsettled, Grace had to admit, if only to herself, that she was far more worried about dealing with the grim father than with the sulky teenage girl.

DAVID HEAVED CLAIRE’S SUITCASE out of the trunk of his Mercedes and found his daughter was already hurrying up the brick steps to the front door of the condo. Her step was light; he could feel her joy as she raced toward liberation from her father. The door was swinging open even before she reached it, the two girls squealing, vanishing inside with their arms around each other’s waists.

He was left with a lump of heavy, rough concrete where his heart should have been and with the certain knowledge that, once again, he had taken the low road.

He was her father, damn it. He’d walked away once, and here he was essentially doing it again. He wasn’t tough enough to see his own child through a bad patch. Despising himself, David thought, Hell, no, hand her over to someone else. Let them deal with her.

He wondered how sternly Claire’s foster mom would hold him to his part of the bargain. Would Claire meld gradually, naturally, into Grace Blanchet’s family? Or did she really expect him to somehow become the father Claire needed?

Grunting at the thought, David picked up the suitcase and started after his daughter. The woman was a legal secretary, for Pete’s sake! How the hell could he think she would do for him—and Claire—what licensed psychologists couldn’t?

But did it matter? his mocking inner voice asked. So what if he failed, again? At least Claire was out of his hair. He didn’t have to come home from work every day to the deep, obscene beat of rap music, to a kid who’d rather sneer “I’m not hungry” and starve than sit down to dinner with him.

Grace was waiting for him in the open doorway. This being a Saturday, she had her hair in a ponytail and she wore jeans and a blue flannel shirt tucked into them. Casual, but her loafers gleamed like her warm brown hair. A classy lady who invariably left him feeling unsettled for reasons he didn’t understand.

And wasn’t in any hurry to identify.

“Why don’t you take that right up?” she suggested. “The girls wanted to share a bedroom, but for now I’m giving Claire our spare.” She lowered her voice. “I’m guessing that they will eventually want their privacy, even if they don’t believe me.”

Now, how did she know that? The way those two had hugged and squealed had him guessing the opposite. But then, his insight into a thirteen-year-old girl’s mind had been skewed from the get-go. Grace Blanchet had the advantage, at least, of having been a thirteen-year-old girl once upon a time.

“Sure,” he said, and started up the stairs behind her.

Even burdened with his daughter’s possessions and his own foul mood, he found his gaze lingering on Grace’s tiny waist and gently curved rear end. In her usual conservative suits, she looked skinnier than he found appealing in a woman. Snug jeans and the soft flannel of her shirt made plain that she was more womanly than he’d guessed. Half memory, half imagination stirred, and his palms briefly tingled with the knowledge of how her bottom would feel gripped in his hands.

He was grateful to reach the top of the stairs and be distracted by her gesture as she stood aside.

“Second door on the left.”

Although she’d said it was for guests, this bedroom had as much personality as the downstairs. A puffy denim comforter covered the antique bed. The maple bedside stand with spooled legs matched the bed. On the wall above the bed hung a small quilt, beautifully hand-stitched even to his uneducated eye, and old, he thought. A lacy valance matched a doily on the carved oak bureau.

The girls had flung open the closet doors and pounced on the suitcase the moment he walked in. Ignoring him, Claire unzipped it while he headed back downstairs for another load.

He was carrying her CD player in when he heard Linnet say, “You can do whatever you want to this room. You can put posters everywhere and—”

“I don’t think so,” David said. “Claire, you’re a guest. You can’t punch holes in the walls.”

She gave him a spiteful look.

Behind him, Grace intervened, her voice easy. “Of course, you can put up posters, Claire. Just use the sticky stuff that peels off, if you don’t mind. Do you want me to take down the quilt?”

Claire held the blistering look for one more moment, then turned her back. “I don’t mind it, Mrs. Blanchet.”

Grace laughed. “Somehow it doesn’t look right for a teenage girl. You need a poster of…who, Freddie Prinze, Jr. there?”

He doubted very much that his daughter would choose anyone so innocuous to emblazon on the walls. She preferred men with multiple body parts pierced, lank greasy hair and foul mouths.

“Dad had me bring my posters,” she said. Her tone suggested he’d ripped them off the wall and shoved them down her throat. Where, in fact, she was the one to strip her bedroom bare, as if she never intended to come back.

He turned to fetch them. That was, apparently, his only acceptable role in this handoff. He couldn’t imagine coming back tomorrow or the next day and knocking on this bedroom door, going in for a chat. How, he wondered, would Grace deal with it when Claire refused to sit down at the dinner table if he was there?

“You’ll stay for lunch, won’t you?” Grace asked, when he came back with the roll of posters.

He sensed Claire’s sharp movement without looking at her. “Thanks, but I have to go into the office. Another time.”

“Then dinner tomorrow,” she said with an air of satisfaction. “Claire, what’s your favorite dinner? I cook a lot of pastas. Do you both like Italian?”

He had no idea what Claire ate besides the microwave meals she’d pop in when he wasn’t around. “I do,” he said. “But maybe I should let Claire settle in before I start hanging around.”

The stubborn woman didn’t know when to let up. “No, the sooner the better,” she said. “We’ll expect you tomorrow. About six?”

His daughter’s eyes narrowed.

“Fine.” He made himself look at her. “Claire…”

It was hard not to flinch at the hatred blazing in her eyes.

Without expression, he said, “I hope you’ll be happy here,” and walked away.

His specialty.

SHE WAS SO HAPPY when he left without bothering with some fakey goodbye scene. She didn’t even know why she’d been worried about that. Look how glad he was to get rid of her.

Well, he wasn’t any gladder than she was to be gone! Claire told herself for the fiftieth time today that anything had to be better than his house.

Mrs. Blanchet had made him promise he’d come over all the time and play daddy. Yeah. Right. They’d see how long that lasted, she thought bitterly. He might come a couple of times, but then he’d cancel at the last minute and say he had to work, and finally weeks would go by without anything but a check from him. He’d pay whatever he promised. Why not? Like he wasn’t loaded. And if he didn’t pay, Claire might be dumped back in his lap. Which he wouldn’t want.

What she figured was, once he’d forgotten all about her existence, she’d get Mrs. Blanchet talking to her mom. That way, once they got tired of her here, she could just quietly go home again.

Daddy might never even notice.

She wished, Claire thought viciously, hating the sadness that squeezed her chest like the asthma she’d had as a little kid. So what if he didn’t love her? She had her mother. Mom was all she needed.

“What CDs do you have?” Linnet was digging in her bag. “You have hardly any!”

“I left most of mine at Mom’s house. I just brought a few.” She didn’t have that many there, either, because Mom didn’t make much money. If she’d asked him for money, he probably would have given it to her, but she wasn’t going to.

“Oh.” Linnet gave up looking and flopped on the bed. “You can just borrow any of mine you want.”

Like she’d want to listen to Britney Spears or ’N Sync. Music was one thing she and Linnet did not agree about.

“This is going to be so cool,” Linnet said dreamily. “We can talk whenever we want. And do our homework together, and borrow each other’s clothes, and…” She rolled onto her side and propped her head on her hand. “Hey! Would you like to take dance with me?”

“Me?” Claire scrunched up her face. “I am so-o clumsy. I’d fall on my face.”

“Yeah, but see, dance makes you less clumsy,” Linnet said earnestly.

“And I’d be in a beginner class. Not with you.”

“Well…” Linnet frowned. “Yeah, but there’s one at the same time as my jazz dance. I think it’s ballet, but that’s okay, because you should get training in ballet first.”

Claire pictured herself in a pink leotard, standing with heels together and toes pointing out in that dorky position, slowly bending her knees and straightening all to the tinkle of a piano. No, thank you.

“Dance isn’t my thing.”

“What is your thing?”

Claire jumped to her feet and yanked open a drawer. She wasn’t going to hang those posters, she wouldn’t be here that long, but she might as well put her clothes in the drawers.

“What do you mean, what’s my thing? I like music and hanging out. It’s not like everybody has to dance.” She knew she sounded disagreeable and was mad at herself. She didn’t have to take her bad mood out on Linnet, who had rescued her from purgatory.

“I’m sorry.” Her friend flushed. “I mean, I just thought you’d want…”

“To be like you.” She still sounded weird. Abrupt. “I can’t be.”

“I’m nothing so great! I just think dancing is fun.” Linnet was starting to look ticked. “Is that so bad?”

Collapsing onto the floor cross-legged, Claire wrinkled her nose in apology. “I’m really sorry! I’m just jealous because I know you’re really good at dance, and I don’t want to be the only beginner over eight years old. Besides, your mom shouldn’t have to pay for stuff like that.”

“No, but I’ll bet your father would.”

“I don’t want to take his money!”

Her friend rolled onto her stomach and hung her arms off the bed, her chin resting on the edge. “Why not?”

“Because I don’t want to owe him anything!” she said fiercely.

“Who says you owe him?” Linnet asked logically. “I mean, parents don’t expect to be paid back. He’s already giving Mom money for your food, right? Mom says he is. So why not lessons? Isn’t there something you’ve always wanted to do? Skiing? Windsurfing?”

“Horseback riding.” Where had that come from? It just popped out, a little kid dream. She had those plastic horse statues, now sitting on a shelf in her bedroom at home. She used to play with them for hours. Sometimes, with her eyes closed, she’d imagine herself on horseback, galloping like the wind.

“See?” Linnet crowed. “I knew there was something! That’s it! Ask to take horseback riding lessons.”

Part of her balked at the idea. But another part started thinking, why not? The temptation nibbled at her resolve. She could spend his money. Lots of his money. Maybe she could ride English. Learn to show-jump.

Uh-huh. Sure. Let him think he’d done something for her. Tell everyone he was a good daddy because he’d paid for horseback riding lessons.

“No!” She shoved the roll of posters in the closet, in her haste denting it. “No. I don’t want his money. I don’t want anything from him.”

“Wow.” Linnet sounded awed. “You must really hate your dad.”

“I told you I did.” And she didn’t want to think about him, not anymore. One of the Blanchets’ two cats gave her an excuse, poking his head into the bedroom. “Hey, Lemieux,” Claire coaxed, holding out her hand. “Here kitty-kitty. Maybe he’ll sleep with me.” She trailed her fingers down the big Siamese’s taupe back. “Listen,” she said to Linnet, “why don’t you set up my stereo while I put away my clothes? Okay?”

Linnet slid nose first off the bed, like a seal going into the water. As she hit the floor, the cat erupted under Claire’s hand and fled, thundering down the hall.

Both girls laughed, and Claire’s mood improved for the first time. This wasn’t home, but it would be okay.

For now.

CHAPTER THREE

DAVID HAD NEVER SO BADLY wanted to make an excuse as he did Sunday. But he wouldn’t—couldn’t—let himself. Leaving Claire with her mother, believing she’d be better off there, was one thing. Deserting her on a stranger’s doorstep was another. He might be a coward, but not that big a one.

Besides which, damn it, he’d promised.

What the hell, he thought with grim humor as he rang the doorbell, Grace Blanchet might as well find out now what her Good Samaritan plans would come to.

She was the one to open the door. She wore an apron again, like the other day. From inside her home wafted the smell of garlic and baking bread and a whiff of something sweeter. Apple pie? Behind her, on the stairs, lay a different cat from the other day, this one a fluffy brown Maine coon type with a white bib. It paused in the midst of some intricate grooming ritual and stared at him, unblinking and distinctly unfriendly.

He tore his gaze away from the cat and looked at Grace Blanchet, who was smiling like any good hostess should, even one entertaining this particular guest only because she felt she had to.

“I’m glad you made it.” That smoky voice completely belied her prim exterior. “Claire wasn’t so sure you would.”

Yeah. More likely, Claire had hoped.

When Grace turned, his gaze flicked to her jean-clad rear. The white bow of the apron was a saucy accent to her slender curves.

Hating himself for ogling, feeling the cat’s stare between his shoulder blades, David followed Grace back to the kitchen, into déjà vu. There she was, behind the tiled counter, the apron protecting her clothes from the marinara sauce bubbling on the stove, which she stirred. He stood in exactly the same spot, beside the sliding door, feeling as socially inept as he had that day. He hadn’t stuck his foot in his mouth yet, but he knew damn well what was to come and hadn’t warned this perfectly nice woman.

“If you want to go up and say hi to Claire,” she began.

“I was hoping to talk to you first,” David said truthfully. “Is she, uh…”

“Behaving herself? You bet. She’s very polite.” A faintly troubled look crossed Grace’s face. “She hasn’t exactly settled in, though. She doesn’t want to put up her posters, for example. I wish you hadn’t said that.”

He shook his head. “Usually, my opening my mouth would guarantee that she’d do whatever I suggested she not do.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Worse.”

She set a wine bottle and corkscrew on the counter. “Would you open this?”

He automatically began turning the screw into the cork. “In all fairness,” he said gruffly, “I should warn you that Claire and I haven’t sat down for a meal together in a month or more. She’s bound to make an excuse tonight.”

For an apparently gentle, pleasant woman, Grace had a steely core. “She can try.”

With a pop, the cork came out. David poured two glasses, held his up, and said, “To a very brave woman.”

She lifted hers in turn. “Courage is in the eye of the beholder.”

They both swallowed.

David leaned one hip against the cabinet and watched her run water into a big pot for the pasta.

“I want you to know that I’m grateful to you for trying this,” he said abruptly.

She clapped a lid on the pot. “All I’m doing is giving your daughter a safe place to stay while you two work out your problems.”

He took another gulp of wine. “I have a bad feeling that you’re underestimating our problems. We don’t have father-daughter tension. Claire hates my guts.”

Her eyes were drenched with compassion. “And loves you, too.”

His laugh hurt. “Sure she does. So much so, she’d rather hitch a ride across three states than stay with me.”

“Thirteen-year-olds don’t think anything bad can happen to them.”

He wasn’t so sure about that. Claire knew that divorce happened, that mothers became drunks, that fathers disappeared from their daughters’ lives.

“Maybe. Just remember,” David said, “if you have trouble with her, you’re not stuck with her.”

“If she doesn’t keep her word, you’ll be the first to know.” She gave him an odd, crooked smile. “Now, would you go yell up the stairs? Tell the girls dinner is ready.”

She made it sound so easy, so casual. Bemused by the idea of being able to call, “Dinner’s ready,” and have his daughter come running in good humor, David went to the foot of the stairs and braced himself for the customary rejection.

“Claire? Linnet? Time for dinner.”

“Okay!” Linnet’s voice floated cheerfully down from above.

David didn’t wait. The less obvious his presence was to Claire, the better.

Back in the kitchen, he discovered Grace had the phone tucked between her shoulder and ear as she took a strainer out of the cupboard and set it in the sink.

“Mom, Claire is a very nice girl.” There was a pause as she lifted the huge steaming pan of pasta to the sink and dumped the spaghetti into the strainer. “No, she won’t be here forever.” Seeing David, she rolled her eyes although her tone was very patient. “Mom, I really can’t talk right now. Claire’s father is here to see his daughter, and I’m putting dinner on the table.”

He mouthed, “Can I help?”

Covering the receiver, she whispered, “Will you put this on the table? Are they coming?”

“Linnet answered me,” he said noncommittally.

“Oh, good. Here.” Grace handed him a heaping bowl of sauce. Then, into the receiver, she said, “No, I wasn’t talking to you, Mom. Listen, I’ll call tomorrow. Say hi to Dad, okay?” She listened for another minute, repeated goodbye and set down the phone, shaking her head. “Maybe we forever feel like teenagers in the presence of our parents.” Her gusty sigh told him she did not look forward to speaking to her mother again. “Oh, well. Okay, here’s the spaghetti.” She handed him this bowl in turn, although clearly she was murmuring to herself now. He could all but see her ticking items off on her fingers. “The garlic bread is on the table and all I have to do is dish up the green beans.”

“Smells good.”

So did she. Close to her, he caught a whiff of an elusive, flowery scent. His gaze lingered on the slender, elegant line of her neck, on tiny wisps of hair against the cream of her skin.

Thank heavens, she didn’t seem to notice his momentary reverie…oh, hell, call a spade a spade—what he’d felt was yet another spark of sexual awareness that was, to put it mildly, highly inconvenient. For crying out loud, this situation was complicated enough without her becoming self-conscious around him, or him having to stonewall yet another emotion. As it was, he couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t developed an ulcer.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Grace suggested, smiling at him. “Pick any place.”

The talking-to he’d just given himself didn’t keep him from noticing how pretty that smile made a face he’d labeled plain.

His daughter’s timing was, as always, impeccable. She chose that moment to slouch into the dining room, Linnet at her heels. She had a gift for killing any good mood of his.

“Oh, girls.” Grace bustled from the kitchen. “I hope you’re hungry. I made tons. Sit, sit!”

“Hello, Claire,” David said quietly.

She rolled her eyes and dropped into a chair.

Grace cleared her throat meaningfully.

Claire stirred, shot him a resentful look and mumbled reluctantly, “Hi.” And I wish it was goodbye, her tone seemed to say.

He was too surprised by getting a semi-civil response to take offense.

“Well…” Grace smiled at them all from her place at one end of the table. “Linnet, why don’t you start the pasta? Claire, would you like garlic bread?”

David’s sense of unreality grew as the meal progressed. An outsider would guess this to be a family—Mom, Pop and kids. Grace, with help from her daughter, maintained a cheerful stream of chatter that disguised Claire’s sullenness and David’s monosyllabic responses to his hostess’s occasional questions. He had the queasy feeling that he was delicately balanced over a deadly precipice.

Claire had come to the table. She was keeping her head bent, but she was eating. She even laughed once at something her friend said. She wasn’t refusing to break bread with her father. She wasn’t shooting him dagger looks. She was following Grace Blanchet’s first rule of basic civility.

It stung, of course, to know that she was trying this hard only because she was so desperate to stay here, to not have to go home with him.

But she was trying.

And David knew damn well it would take only the smallest misstep on his part to fuel one of her explosions. So he couldn’t make that misstep. Unfortunately, his care made him a lousy guest. Not by glance or tone did Grace acknowledge that this meal was anything but a pleasure.

The girls were done and looking restless when she said, as casually as when she asked him to summon their daughters to dinner, “David, Linnet’s thinking about trying out for the middle school play on Wednesday. Claire is considering the idea, too. At the very least, she wants to stay and watch the audition. Unfortunately, I have a meeting that might run until almost six. PTA board. We’re planning the autumn dance and carnival. I hate to have the girls hanging around waiting too long. Any chance you could pick them up?”

“A play?” He couldn’t help sounding startled. Claire? On stage? And taking direction from someone in a position of authority?

“I told you he’d be busy,” Claire said, not looking at him.

“No. Of course I can pick them up.” He ventured a toe in the waters, speaking directly to his daughter. “I just didn’t realize you were interested in theater, Claire.”

She slouched lower in the chair and twirled her hair on her finger. “I don’t know if I am.”

Grace was looking at him with obvious appeal. Persuade her, those extraordinary eyes begged. Be a father.

What a joke. If he said a single damned word in favor of the idea, Claire would…

Whoa.

He gave his idea a lightning assessment and deemed it sound.

“It would mean a lot of reading and memorization.” He sipped his wine, shrugged. “And it’s no fun to try out and not get a part.”

Claire’s eyes flashed at him. “That figures! You’re so sure I wouldn’t!”

“I didn’t say that,” he argued mildly. “What’s the play?”

“Much Ado About Nothing,” Linnet contributed, her anxiety about the new-sprung tension evident in the way she hastened to fill the silence. “You know. Shakespeare.”

Grace made a sound that might have been a suppressed laugh, buried in her napkin.

“I know that one,” David said, straight-faced. “Beatrice and Benedick. The wimpy Hero and the jerk…what’s his name?”

“Claudio,” Linnet supplied. She frowned. “You think Hero is a wimp?”

He saw the error of his ways. Hero was undoubtedly her dream part, and with reason: she was no Beatrice. “Actually,” he said hastily, “she is probably a realistic product of her time and class. She didn’t have much choice but to marry the man her father chose.” Not an idea Claire would embrace, he realized belatedly, and not a good idea as a topic at this dinner table. Turning to her, he asked, “Which part were you thinking about?”

Her chin shot up. “Beatrice.”

She had the fire, in a preteen sort of way. He found that he badly wanted her to go out on a limb and try for this.

He nodded, managing to make his expression subtly doubtful.

Fury on her face, Claire said to Grace, “I am going to try out.”

“Oh, good.” She smiled warmly. “Darn. I wish I could see the audition. Except Linnet would be embarrassed if her mom was there. For which I don’t blame her. Listen, do you want me to be an audience tonight when you practice?”

“Yeah, cool,” they said almost in tandem.

“Then I’ll clean the kitchen if you two want to go take your showers and get ready for school.”

Silverware clattered and chairs scraped on the wood floor as they raced for the door. David watched them go, then braced himself yet again. He hated this feeling, as though he was a high school kid in trouble waiting outside the principal’s office. He resented the fact that this woman, a stranger, was able to sit in judgment of him.

Grace said not a word until the thunder on the stairs was followed by a slammed door upstairs. Then she grinned. “Well done.”

Some of the tension in his neck eased. “I expected you to chew me out.”

“It’s hardly my place.” She laughed. “Well, maybe I would, in my bossy way. But I could tell what you were doing. You won’t get away with it very many times. She’ll start to catch on.”

David grimaced. “I just hope she actually gets a part. If not Beatrice, at least the maid who plays foot-sie with the scumbag. What’s his name. Don John.” He got back to the point. “Her ego is delicate right now, to put it mildly.”

“Mmm,” she agreed. “I hope they both get parts. They’re getting along great right now, and we don’t need any jealousy to interfere.”

Another horrifying possibility.

Slowly he said, “Maybe I should have kept my mouth shut.”

“Heavens, no!” Grace stood. “Would you like a cup of coffee? I’ll just clear the table and—”

“I’ll help.”

Against her protests, he gathered dishes and even insisted on rinsing them and loading the dishwasher while she put leftovers in the refrigerator and got out cream and sugar for the coffee.

There seemed to be no polite way to excuse himself although he guessed she was no more excited about a further tête-à-tête than he was.

He felt raw in her presence. She knew more about him than anyone but his closest friend. Not many people knew even the basic facts: that his ex-wife was an alcoholic, that he’d sloughed off responsibility for his daughter, that she’d come to live with him because she was in trouble at school. Never mind that she had run away three times.

But this woman had seen how desperate Claire was to escape him, how pathetic he was as a parent and had been, presumably, as a husband. She had a clear gaze that seemed to see right through what few pretenses he still possessed to wear as protection. She must despise him, but unless she wanted to be saddled with Claire permanently, it was smart of her to encourage his effort to build some kind of decent relationship with his daughter.

He gave a soft grunt of rueful amusement. No, Grace Blanchet would not want his sulky daughter permanently.

In the interest of speeding up this obligatory social interlude, he took a gulp of his coffee.

Grace sat back down at her place at the table. “Tell me, what do you do for a living?” she asked, her gaze inquiring, interested, all that a good hostess’s should be.

“Didn’t Claire tell you?”

“She said you’re a businessman.” Enunciating the one word with a hint of distaste, Grace suggested the sneer his daughter had worn when she spoke it.

“I’m a vice president with International Parcel Service. We focus primarily on quick service for businesses, versus the birthday gift to Tulsa.”

She nodded. “The law firm where I work uses IPS.”

“I’m in charge of day-to-day operations as well as some long-term planning. If an airplane is grounded in Boston because of ice, it’s my problem.”

“That sounds stressful.”

“I like problem solving. I don’t find the job stressful in the sense that it’s affecting my blood pressure.” He made a sound. “If I’m getting high blood pressure, it’s this thing with Claire doing it to me.”

“Do you work really long hours?” She sounded tentative.

He realized with a start of irritation that she was, in a sense, interviewing him. He was being judged again. The counselor had asked him the same question. Was he supposed to quit his job? Claire was a teenager! It wasn’t as if he was leaving a two-year-old in day care fourteen hours a day.

“Sometimes,” he said tersely. After a moment, he decided reluctantly that she deserved better. Shrugging, he expanded. “Long days—and sometimes nights—goes with the territory. On the other hand, when the weather is good, the pilots aren’t threatening a strike, and we haven’t committed some PR faux pas, my schedule isn’t too bad. When a crisis threatens, sometimes whether I can get home for dinner or not is out of my hands. That’s a drawback when you’re a single parent.”

Grace made a face. “No kidding. I may be the only parent of a teenager in this town who can’t wait until her kid gets a driver’s license.”

Claire behind the wheel…he shuddered.

Almost apologetically, she said, “Linnet has common sense. Knock on wood. It’s always scary, I imagine, but she’s not the kind to drink and drive or speed.”

He could live without hearing about the perfect kid. The way Claire was going, by the time she was sixteen, she’d have her eyebrows and nose pierced, be pregnant by a nineteen-year-old boyfriend who played drums in band, and be a high school dropout.

Unless this woman, Saint Grace, could pull Claire’s bacon out of the fire.

He did hate having to be grateful.

Physically aching to be gone, he took another sip of coffee and said, “I understand you’re a legal secretary.”

“That’s right. Nine to five. The girls, by the way, should be done by four.”

Four. He hadn’t left the office that early in years, except for once when he had come down with the stomach flu and for the three times Claire had hit the road.

Hell, he was entitled. If it would make a difference to Claire…

He came back to the present to realize that Grace was studying him with crinkled brow.

“Is that a problem?”

“No.” David shook his head. “No. Of course not.” He took a last swallow of coffee. “Listen, you must have things you need to get done, and I have some paperwork waiting. I’ll pick up Claire and Linnet on Wednesday. Why don’t I take you all out for pizza afterward? You must hate to cook when you don’t walk in the door until six-fifteen or later.”

“What a nice idea.” She looked pleased—and surprised, which stung.

Apparently he wasn’t expected to be considerate. Which made him wonder what Claire had told her foster mother about him.

“Oh, I wanted to mention that Claire and I have an appointment with the counselor on Thursday. For what it’s worth,” he added sardonically.

“She seems to be making an effort.”

For you, he thought. Resentful yet again, he was then angry at himself for his pettiness. Grace Blanchet had generously taken on a difficult teenager. He had no business blaming her for what was his fault.

She walked him to the door, courtesy worn like skillfully applied makeup, making her hard to read, somehow remote despite her unfailing friendliness and warmth. An unworthy part of him would have liked to see her veneer crack. Surely she got mad sometimes, had moments of being spiteful, passionate, tired. He wouldn’t mind seeing one.

If for an instant he chose to imagine her not angry but passionate, her cheeks flushed, mouth soft, hair tangled, well, it wasn’t a picture he let linger in his mind.

“Thank you,” he made himself say again. “Not just for dinner, but for—”

“No.” A sharper note entered her voice. She closed her eyes, opened them again, said more quietly, “Please. We’ll both get sick of it if you feel you have to thank me every time you come. Let’s just consider it said, okay? I’m doing this for Claire’s sake, and for Linnet’s. I like kids, I’m comfortable with them. Having her is really no problem.”

“Then good night.”

He felt no less guilt, no less relief when he walked away this time.

SLUMPED LOW IN HER SEAT in the darkened auditorium, Claire chewed on her fingernail and pretended to listen to the guy auditioning for Benedick.

“‘Hath not the world,’ um—” he frowned at his script “‘—one man but he will wear his cap with sus…suspicion.”‘ He sounded it out carefully, then continued in the same monotone, one word at a time.

Totally tuning him out, Claire focused on her terror. This was worse than hitchhiking. Way worse. Not that she couldn’t do better than all these morons who’d already gone. But still. There must be forty kids trying out for parts, and half of them had friends hanging out, too. They were all listening. She’d have to stand up there on the stage and face not only the two teachers sitting in the front row who were going to be director and assistant director, but half the school, too.

So far nobody had been mean when someone screwed up, but probably they were all, like, buds. Everybody hated her. Claire knew they did. What if they laughed? Or booed?

Her stomach cramped and she had to scramble out of her seat, whispering, “Excuse me, excuse me,” six times to get to the aisle and race to the bathroom.

When she got back, a totally cute ninth-grade guy who was also—wouldn’t you know—president of the student body was reading Benedick. Josh Mc-Kendrick was really good. You could tell he actually understood what he was saying.

“‘I can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter,”‘ he declared. And then, with a scowl, he demanded of Claudio, “‘But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?”‘

Please, please, please, she whispered to herself. It would be so cool to play Beatrice to his Benedick. People would look at her differently. Like she was cool.

This was taking forever. Finally they finished with the guys and started on girls reading for Hero. Linnet went sixth. Her voice was too soft, but she stood straight, without fidgeting, and read, “‘But nature never fram’d a woman’s heart, Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.”‘

Claire thought she was the best. Hero was sweet. Well, wimpy. Claire hated to agree with her father, but he was right; that’s why she didn’t want to be Hero. This guy treats her really badly, and then she falls into his arms when he realizes he was wrong about her? Yeah, right.

“We’ll start with those reading for Beatrice now,” the director said. “Jessica Wisniewski? You go first, please.”

Jessica was one of the popular girls. She grabbed the script and sauntered out on stage in her flare jeans and peasant blouse, tiny crystal butterflies sparkling in her hair. The scene Mrs. Hinchen was having them read was from near the end, when Claudio had spurned Hero and Beatrice was mad.

“‘I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”‘ Jessica sounded like she was gossiping with her friends. She kept giggling.

“Thank you,” Mrs. Hinchen said hastily, interrupting before Jessica could go on to Beatrice’s next speech. “Lacy Parker, you’re up next.”

Claire’s hands were sweating. She couldn’t do this, she thought desperately. She didn’t have to! This wasn’t her thing, it was Linnet’s. The only reason she’d opened her big mouth and agreed to audition was…

Her father.

“I didn’t bother to try out,” she’d have to tell him. Which was exactly what he expected.

No. She’d go up there if it killed her.

Which it might.

“Claire Whitcomb?”

Her knees were jelly when she stood up and started down the aisle. She stumbled over somebody’s book bag and heard a whispered sorry. It seemed to take forever to get to the front row. She took the script in stiff fingers, then tripped again on the stairs going up to the stage. If anybody laughed…Claire turned and faced the audience with a glare.

Silence.

She could see faces better than she’d expected. Linnet had moved up closer to the front and was smiling encouragement. Josh McKendrick was whispering something to Jessica Wisniewski. The door at the back opened and a man came in, letting it ease shut behind him.

Claire gaped. Her father. What was he doing here?

She stole a glance at the clock. Five o’clock. This was taking forever. He must have sat in the car for ages and then decided to hunt for them.

But, oh wow. Wasn’t he lucky, arriving just in time to watch his darling daughter? He stood unmoving at the back, waiting for her to make a fool of herself.

“Claire?” Mrs. Hinchen prompted.

Claire moistened her lips and looked at the script. For a moment the words on it were all a blur. She absolutely could not do this.

You can! she told herself. Deep breath. Show everybody. Especially him.

Mrs. Hinchen had highlighted Beatrice’s speeches with a hot pink marker. Another deep breath, and Claire focused on the opening lines. She’d already heard them over and over.

You can.

“‘Is he not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman! O! that I were a man.”‘

Mom had always complained that even her whisper could be heard two blocks away. Now Claire let her scathing voice soar to the back, to her father. She let her bitterness be Beatrice’s.

“‘O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.”‘

It came more easily. A sense of power flooded her veins and made her giddy. She was better than Jessica Wisniewski. Better than anyone. She was dazzling her father, who had been so sure she couldn’t do it.

Still facing the audience proudly, Claire finished at last, a heartfelt, anguished cry, “‘I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.”‘

Her voice seemed to linger in her ears, if not the air. In the long moment of silence that followed, her confidence drained from her with a whoosh, and heat rose in her cheeks.

She’d made a fool of herself. Nobody else had acted. If you were cool, you didn’t.

But then, suddenly, kids were clapping. As she stared, incredulous, somebody—Josh McKendrick—stood. Others joined him. They were giving her—her—a standing ovation. Dazed, she kept standing there.

Mrs. Hinchen’s smile was broad, approving. And her father—Claire’s gaze sought the back of the auditorium.

Her father was gone.

He probably hadn’t even stayed to watch. Unexpected anger gave her the courage to grin, wave and walk nonchalantly off the stage.

Without tripping.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.