concentrated in one shattering second.
She yanked the handle on the S drawer.
Smith, Smith, Smith—how many frightened young women had borrowed that name? Finally, a Smythe and two Snyders. She ran her fingertips over the folder tabs. Sprayberry, Spritzer? At last, a Stewart, and another, and then—Stuart, India. Even in the dim light her folder looked old.
Fifteen years.
She tugged at the file. Wedged between the others, it stuck. She tugged harder, but left it halfway in, so she wouldn’t have to figure out where it belonged when she finished with it.
Prying the folder open enough to see the writing on the pages inside, India shone her small flashlight on Mother Angelica’s spidery scrawl. She searched for the name she’d tried to imagine for too many years, the name of the child she’d given up for adoption.
Colleen Stephens.
India squeezed her eyes shut, holding in terrified joy. This moment was worth any danger. She shook herself, remembering her father outside. Getting him arrested wouldn’t improve their strained relationship.
She dug a small notebook out of her pocket. Her knees wobbled as she wrote down her daughter’s address. Arran Island, Maryland. So close. She’d always been so close. India stared at Colleen’s adopted parents’ names. Jack and Mary Stephens. She hoped they loved Colleen the way she’d wanted to. She vowed not to hurt them as she jotted down their names and then threaded the file back into its slot.
She shut the drawer and pushed the lock back into place. Quickly she turned off the flashlight and stowed it in her pocket. Across the room, her father’s wrench, upright and gleaming in the moonlight, still braced the window open.
She clambered to the window ledge and eased the wrench out. Then, she forced a space large enough to wriggle through and tumbled out onto the grass. As she leaned back to tug the window down, her father gently revved his car’s engine.
She scrambled up the slight rise and pushed through shrubbery that grabbed at her clothes and skin. Gravel scrunched under her heels as she skidded to the front passenger door and yanked it open. Breathing hard, she slid into the seat. The man behind the steering wheel, all in black, his hair a shock of steel, tilted his head in a silent question.
“Colleen Stephens. Arran Island, Maryland.” India choked on the words, amazed she had gone to such lengths, but unbelievably glad.
For a moment, Mick Stuart’s eyes reflected her happiness. He sobered abruptly. “So you found out her name. Let it go now. Get back on a plane for Seattle and take that job. Hire someone to find out if she’s all right.”
The last plane she’d boarded for Seattle had broken crosswise on the runway, burst into flames and changed her life forever. Dragging herself through smoke so thick she almost had to chew it, she’d seen her bland life for the safe picture of responsibility she’d created. She’d thrown away her parents’ love and hidden her own for them so deep she didn’t know how to find it anymore. Since Colleen’s birth, she’d kept herself from loving anyone.
As she’d struggled into clean air, she’d known—to go forward, she had to confront her past. Later, flat on her back with a broken leg, she’d had plenty of time to face the truth. Giving up her child had been the wrong decision for her to make. She couldn’t change the choice she’d made, but she needed to know Colleen hadn’t suffered because of her.
Now, adrenaline pushed her to snap a sharp reply to her father’s suggestion she put her daughter behind her. She swallowed old resentments. “I was looking to run away once and for all when I considered that Seattle job. I’m tired of running. For the same reasons I want to mend my fences with you and Mom, I have to know Coll—she’s safe.”
Grunting, he eased the car into gear and drove toward the wrought iron gate. “I know the accident changed things for you, but India, you’re looking back with hindsight. You have a master’s degree in library science. You have security I couldn’t provide for you when you got pregnant. You must know we were right. What would you have made of your life if you’d had to care for a child?”
“Dad, my heart still hurts for her. When I woke up in that hospital bed, I knew I had to make my peace—and not just with you and Mom.”
India turned her face to the window. Neither of her parents knew the guilt and shame that had haunted her as she’d carved out her competent life. She’d taken her degrees and then taken jobs in small towns and big cities close to a “home” that no longer felt like hers. Doing unacknowledged penance, she’d lived near her parents and hidden her true feelings—an easy feat, because she couldn’t bear to see them often enough to let them have a good look at her.
“I won’t meet her or talk to her. I don’t want to hurt her family, but I have to see she’s happy and safe.”
“You were sixteen years old. Forgive yourself. Forgive your mother and me. You need a family of your own. You need to let someone love you.”
“I can’t let anyone love me until I know she’s safe. I’ve believed I abandoned her. I just need to see she’s safe.”
For the first time, he backed down. “It’s my fault. If my business hadn’t failed…” Trailing off, he maneuvered the car into the street and anonymity.
“No, Dad.” India stared at his face, rugged and lined from the years he’d spent painting other people’s houses in Virginia sun and weather. “I made the final choice. It was easy to blame you and Mom, but everything changed when that plane skidded down the runway. I took the easy way out—with my baby and with you.”
“You’ve worked hard for everything you have.”
“I’ve worked at not getting hurt, at not letting anyone love me, including you and Mom.” India eyed the thick, wavy strands of his hair. “You didn’t have to come tonight.”
“I couldn’t let you come alone. I owe you this, and tomorrow, I’ll arrange for an ad in the Arran Island paper. Someone will need a housepainter.” Reaching across the gearshift, he patted her knee. “And his able apprentice. Your mother is going to manage the business while I help you—as long as I remember how to run the equipment after all this time in the front office.”
India splayed her fingers over the ache in her chest. To find her own way, she had to see she’d done right by the child she’d never even held. She’d looked back for too long. From today, she looked forward. No fear, no guilt.
Mick slowed the car for a traffic light. “If we can just get one house, we may find out everything we need to know.”
India’s smile took all her acting ability. She talked brave, but she felt wary. The huge chance she was taking could break her family apart all over again.
“What’s the matter?” Her father’s gaze searched hers in the dim light.
Twisting in the seat, she pressed the back of her head against the cool window. “I just made you an accessory to breaking and entering.”
Mick curved his mouth. “You got my wrench back, right?”
CHAPTER ONE
“HAYDEN, I DON’T NEED YOU and Nettie to help
