The Daughter Merger. Janice Kay Johnson
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Название: The Daughter Merger
Автор: Janice Kay Johnson
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Контркультура
Серия: Mills & Boon Vintage Superromance
isbn: 9781474019606
isbn:
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 СКАЧАТЬ