I’ll call Mom tonight and ask her to send some of my things.”
Mick handed her a plastic cup of pink stuff. “Try this. A little girl wearing that same skirt poured it for me. I’ve never seen hair her color—purple, I swear. I’m not sure I could mix paint to match.”
Smiling despite choking tension, India held the glass at her lips. “Thanks, Dad. I feel better now.”
Mick ran his hand over her gauzy sleeve. “Your eyes look like big blue marbles. Relax.”
India shifted away. After all these years, she hardly knew how to accept her father’s comfort. She twisted the blond strands of her ponytail. She’d tried so hard to protect her parents, she’d forgotten how to go to them when she was afraid.
And she was scared stiff. What would she say if she met Colleen? Nothing. She couldn’t intrude in Colleen’s life. She had to run away as she had so long ago.
She’d kept running until those few terrifying moments on a burning plane had taught her what was important. Family. Living down the past before it ate up the future. She’d been all appearance before, but now she wanted to feel the emotions she’d hidden from, as long as she did nothing to hurt Colleen. “What if she’s here? What if I meet her accidentally?”
Mick sipped his own drink, somehow understanding her mid-thought conversation. “She might also be at home, tucked up in her own bed. She might be out of town. Don’t get your hopes up.”
India rubbed her index finger through the condensation on her plastic glass. “I’m not secretly hoping to run into her.”
Hurt bruised her father’s gaze. “I’m not saying you’d try to see her, but you’re my daughter, and I don’t want you hurt.”
India took a deep breath and plunged into the heart of the matters between them. “I know what you’ve done for me.” After he’d dragged his business back from the edge of bankruptcy, he’d put away his brushes to manage his company from a desk in a comfortable office. Until now. “I know you only came back into the field to give me an excuse to come here, but we could be lucky. Maybe we’ll meet someone tonight who’ll tell us Colleen lives in a fairy tale, and we can finish painting Mr. Tanner’s house and go home.”
“You could walk right into her, and she wouldn’t know you.” Mick turned, almost blocking out the mob behind him. “We can leave now if you want, if you have second thoughts.”
“No.” A woman in a bright red dress floated on a clear path for Mick. Their landlady at Seasider Inn looked different tonight, without her square white pinafore and her cat’s-eye, tortoiseshell glasses. India shoved her cup into her father’s hand. “Here comes Viveca Henderson. I need some air.”
Warily Mick turned. “Yeah, she likes me too much. I think I’d better mention your mother to her again. Where are you going?”
“Outside, to the high school’s dunking booth.” Reluctant or not, she’d come here to find out about Colleen’s life. “The sooner I find someone who’ll gossip about her, the better.”
Bright lights illuminated the parking lot. India passed an apple-bobbing barrel and a kissing booth, manned by girls in cheerleader uniforms. Could one of them be Colleen?
In the booth’s shadows, India glimpsed a young girl in the same skirt she’d bought. India smoothed her hem again. In this light, she couldn’t tell if the girl’s short cap of hair was purple. Suddenly the girl tried to pull away from the boy at her side, but he held on. Leaning down, he spoke close to her ear, and she slid her arm around his waist.
Hesitating, India studied the crowd around the girl and boy. No one else seemed to see trouble. When the boy turned the girl toward the parking lot, she went willingly.
The cool breeze brushed a paper hamburger wrapper past India’s ankle. What would Colleen be like? Would she have a boyfriend who looked too old for her? Would she seem even younger than the girl with the purple hair?
Rubbing her goose-bumped arms, India watched the people enjoying themselves too much to notice the weather or the children. She wished she’d brought her jacket along. Even if it hadn’t matched her froufrou lacy blouse and plaid skirt.
She’d vowed not to meddle in Colleen’s life, and keeping vows was her strength. Yet deep inside, she had to admit she’d thought she might see Colleen here tonight. She couldn’t help wanting to look “cool.” After she’d sorted through her serviceable though faded jeans, the painting overalls her father had provided, or the one good dress she’d packed for just in case, she’d trekked to the nearest mall on the mainland.
Ridiculous.
What would Colleen Stephens care about a stranger’s wardrobe?
A sudden, urgent cry stopped India beside a large wooden planter. She stared back into the crowd, waiting for another cry, but she heard nothing. Just children’s voices and party sounds.
She scanned the little ones weaving in and out of the festival booths. All happy, many laughing. But that one voice, for a moment, higher than the rest—India pushed nervous fingertips through her hair. While the frightened cry still echoed in her head, she turned toward the parking lot’s edge.
With so many cars here, every house in town must be empty. She craned her neck, searching for—what? Almost before she realized she was hearing it again, the thin, high voice arched over the fun once more.
India made a beeline for the sound. In the weaker light beyond the open lot, cars stood in rows. Three rows back, the tall, gangly boy from beside the kissing booth tried to tug the purple-haired girl into a cherry-red sports car while two more girls dragged at her other arm. They all struggled in silence now.
Suddenly the two other girls broke away and ran toward the festival crowds. India had eyes only for the girl who still clung with both hands to the roof of the boy’s car.
“Get in,” he shouted. “Get in or you’ll never see me again.”
Intimately familiar words, in a different context, in a more dangerous situation than when her long-ago boyfriend had threatened her with them, deepened India’s instinctive rage.
“I won’t go with you when you’re like this.” The girl tried to arch away from him, but he only pushed harder.
Her friends ran up to India. Their great relief hurt her. They were just little girls, caught in a bad game of grownup.
One intercepted her. “He’s been drinking. Our friend—Please help us.”
India broke into a run. “Go get more help.”
“Okay.”
With heightened senses, she heard their footsteps fade behind her. In the false light, the paint on the boy’s car looked warm and wet. As she rounded the hood, India slapped her palm on the metal. She would have jumped on it to make him turn away from the girl. He whirled, fists clenched.
“Hey! That’s my car.” Slurring the words, he flailed his arms, to reach for India.
But she bowed her body out of his reach and stationed herself between him and the girl, who stood now, stunned and still.
“Do you think you’re a big man, because you can bully a girl like this?” India sized him up at about seventeen. At least six inches taller than she, and forty pounds heavier, he was mad and drunk enough to be plenty mean. She didn’t dare break her gaze from his to check on the girl.
Completely unintimidated, he marched toward India, his fists again at his sides. “Who are you?”
“The woman you’ll have to go through to get to her.” She braced her hands on her hips and hoped the girl stayed behind her. Bouncing on the balls of her feet, India waited for him to strike—and for instincts that had dragged her this far to tell her what to do next.
The boy stopped. “You don’t know her. You don’t belong here. Who are you?”
“We’ve