The Daughter Merger. Janice Johnson Kay

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СКАЧАТЬ 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 СКАЧАТЬ