“Do you like it?” She looked down again, this time appearing shy.
He nodded and tried to speak past the painful lump in his throat. “You look...” Stunning, beautiful, too classy for the likes of Bradley Baxter. “...just like your mother.” Truthfully, she did. Never had Shayna looked more like Karen than now with the short tendrils framing her face, highlighting the angles of her cheekbones.
“Thanks.” She looked up at him again, a hint of moisture in her eyes.
“She would have been so pleased.” Tightness squeezed his chest, even though Karen had been gone three years.
“I thought I needed a change. In case you were wondering why I cut it.”
Quentin could only nod. She didn’t have to explain. He knew. She wanted to impress a boy. And impress him, she would. Baxter would go crazy over her. Who wouldn’t? She looked more mature, one step closer to womanhood. He needed to stop this situation before it had a chance to get started.
Don’t even think about it, he wanted to say. He knew how devastating teenage love could be. His daughter wouldn’t fall in love with Baxter. Not so long as he had a breath left in his body. He wanted to spare her the inevitable heartbreak a kid like Baxter would bring.
“So,” Shayna said brightly. “We traveled around the neighborhood twice before Rufus took a wrong turn and ended up between Mrs. P.’s fence and the corner of her house.”
“Oh, great.” Stunned by the change in his daughter, Quentin realized he’d forgotten all about Rufus and Mrs. Parsons.
He could well imagine the duck trapped between the fence and the house, quacking loudly and beating his wings while Shayna tried to pick him up. Without a doubt, the disturbance had to be the perfect topper to his earlier conversation with his neighbor.
“Yeah, old Parsnip wasn’t too happy about it.”
“Shayna.” Quentin tipped his head and speared her with a level stare. “How many times have I asked you not to call her that?” It might have been cute when Shayna was younger, but now her voice held a hint of disdain instead of affection. “You’re old enough to know better.”
“Well, she just makes me mad.”
Frustrated by his daughter’s defiance, Quentin huffed under his breath and turned away. He tried to teach her respect, honestly he did. But lately it seemed all his efforts were for naught. His exuberant daughter challenged him at every turn. He turned back to her. “Try to remember to have a little respect for Mrs. P., even if you don’t always agree with her. OK?”
“I never agree with her. She’s a fruit-bag.”
“Shayna.” Quentin lowered his voice in warning. “Knock it off or you’ll end up grounded.”
“Oh, all right.” Shayna slapped her arms across her chest and wrinkled her nose. “But I don’t know what your problem is. It’s not like she can hear me or anything.”
“That is hardly the point. You should always be respectful. It’s not something you can turn on and off, you know.”
Shayna turned away from him, and Quentin had no doubt she was rolling her eyes or pulling some weird face to declare her feelings for what she no doubt viewed as an incompetent adult. He’d caught her doing it before. She turned to face him again, her smile sincere. “Sure, Daddy.”
Quentin reached out and embraced his daughter. Resting his face against the top of her head, he knew he’d never grow tired of holding her this way. He prayed she, in turn, would never grow tired of hugging her dad.
“So,” he said when Shayna finally squirmed away. “Whaddya say we go out for pizza?”
“Alfredo’s?”
“Hmm, I don’t know,” Quentin teased. He didn’t want her to know she had him wrapped around her finger. “They’re always so crowded and noisy.”
“Please? They have the best cheesy garlic bread, and this is Tuesday. You know what that means? Free root beer!”
Free root beer. Quentin loved it when Shayna dropped her guard and let her youthful enthusiasm shine through.
“Well,” he said slowly, unable to keep a grin from sliding across his face. “Since you exerted so much energy chasing after Rufus, I suppose Alfredo’s it is.”
“Great!” Shayna gave him another hug before racing him to the door. “Let’s go now ‘cause I’m starved.”
Quentin deliberately put aside thoughts of journalism class, Baxter, and the new haircut. He planned to enjoy the evening with his daughter.
But some thoughts were difficult to push aside…like those of Amy and the youthful way she still made his heart pound.
****
Amy needed to stay as far away from Quentin Macmillan as possible. In fact, as her rowdy students burst into the classroom the next morning, she thought maybe it would be better if she just left Goose Bay when school let out for the summer.
Originally she’d planned to stay through the summer. It would have given her enough time to deal with her feelings toward Quentin and decide if she should pursue a relationship with Jared Parker.
Now she wondered if she should just go back to Issaquah. Then she would only have eight weeks left here. Eight weeks to try to avoid running into Quentin again. Eight weeks to try to forget Shayna Macmillan, student extraordinaire, was Quentin’s daughter. His and Karen’s.
Pressing the backs of her hands to her cheeks, she felt relieved to find them dry. It wouldn’t do to have the students asking questions. Especially her most inquisitive student—Shayna Macmillan.
She forgot to ask Quentin if he told Shayna about their past. She forgot to ask him about Karen. She forgot a lot of things in that instant when he’d placed his hand over hers.
Oh, who was she kidding? She’d forgotten merely because she’d been in his presence again, all the while fighting valiantly to keep her emotions at bay. Especially the one of betrayal. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to feel it. Thankfully she’d been able to keep any sign of her inner turbulence from him.
During class, Amy followed through on her promise to keep an eye on Shayna. There was nothing unusual in the girl’s actions, and she certainly didn’t seem to be obsessed with Bradley, though she couldn’t say the same for Bradley.
From the first day Amy stepped into this classroom, she’d noticed Bradley’s crush on Shayna. But up until she’d asked to work with him, Shayna seemed a bit cool toward him. Even today, she seemed more interested in passing notes to Ashley and receiving comments and compliments on her new haircut.
After class, Shayna and Ashley were the last ones to leave. Amy observed them out of the corner of her eye as she gathered up her assignment book and tote bag. They giggled and whispered, and it almost seemed as if they wanted to be noticed. Ridiculous.
Her conversation with Quentin caused her to be suspicious. She pressed her lips together, irritated at him, irritated at being dragged to the level of spying on her students.
“Have a good evening, girls.” Amy reached over to flick off the lights.
“You too, Miss Welsh.” Ashley giggled, which garnered her a poke in the ribs from Shayna.
“Be quiet,” Shayna whispered loud enough for Amy to hear. “You’re going to...” Ashley shut the door behind them, drowning out the rest of Shayna’s sentence.
Most curious. Amy pushed the door open, hoping to hear some more of this conversation. But the two girls were huddled just outside the classroom, their heads bent together, obviously in no hurry to leave the building. Amy had no choice but to continue walking, slowly, in hopes they would eventually draw near enough for her to hear them. Each step left her feeling like the lowest sort of eavesdropper, and she couldn’t believe she’d allowed herself to be dragged into this. Where was her professionalism, her sense of dignity?
Sweeping her irritation aside when she sensed their sneaker-soft footsteps behind her, she strained to hear their conversation. Snatches of whispered words drifted to her, but no complete sentences. The words boys, sister’s car, drive-in, and spending the night sent a wave of alarm through her. If she hadn’t believed Quentin yest
erday, she certainly did now. The girls were definitely up to something.
Amy thought of Quentin’s desire to keep his daughter from falling for the wrong boy. Should she tell him? If Shayna ended up with a broken heart, she’d never forgive herself.
Unable to help herself, Amy glanced over her shoulder. The two girls came to a halt in front of a row of lockers.
What now? She couldn’t hear a thing. Amy bit her lip uncertainly, then, in a moment of inspiration, unclipped her pen from the cover of her assignment book and let it roll to the floor in the direction of the lockers.
Pleased when the pen headed in Shayna’s direction, Amy slowly followed it. Looking down, she tried to tune back in to the conversation. A well-worn sneaker stopped the pen before it could roll under the lockers. She swallowed a groan before looking up, recognizing the sneaker.
Stewart Snyder. Photography teacher. Poster boy for the nerd society, right down to the masking tape on the nosepiece of his black glasses. As always, Amy’s heart went out to him. Desperate for a date, he always seemed to wear his heart on his sleeve and continually hounded Amy no matter how many times she said no. Now he stood to ruin her chances of determining what the impulsive teenagers were up to.
“Whew, that was close.” Stewart’s husky voice didn’t seem to match anything about him. He stooped down and grabbed the pen, then held it out to her. “Here you go, Amy.” As she took it, his sweaty hand brushed against hers. She resisted the urge to wipe it on her skirt.
“Thank you, Stewart.” She tried to smile at him but feared her ire showed through anyway, irritation at Quentin for making her stoop so low as to spy on her students. But then, he’d always had that effect on her. A smile, a lift of the eyebrows, a touch on the arm... She’d always been, and obviously still was, too much like putty where Quentin was concerned.
“I didn’t want it to roll under the lockers,” Stewart said. “It might be lost forever under there, and I thought, I don’t know, it might be special or something.”
“No, it’s nothing special.” This time, Amy gave him a genuine smile. Stewart was so sweet. She sincerely hoped some woman would recognize it someday. It just wouldn’t be her.
A locker door slammed shut.
“Just a dime-store pen,” she said in a rush. “But thanks just the same.” She looked away from his hopeful stare, wondering how to leave without seeming too abrupt. But when she looked away from Stewart, she noticed someone had joined the girls at their locker. Bradley Baxter. He gazed down at Shayna, a curious expression on his face.
“How do you know this will work?”
“Because.” Shayna’s tone sounded unfriendly, almost harsh, and Bradley flinched. “You know my dad can’t stand y—” She broke off suddenly and glanced around, her gaze sweeping across the hall where Amy stood with Stewart. Turning back to her friends, she said loudly, “This is going to be so cool. I can’t wait ‘til tomorrow night.”
Alarmed, Amy turned and headed for the office. “Excuse me, Stewart,” she said over her shoulder. “I have to go.”
She needed to look up Quentin and Karen’s phone number and let them know right away. The girls really were planning on going to the drive-in movie with boys. Bradley Baxter included.
Granted Bradley seemed nice, but she wasn’t Shayna’s mother. Her parents had the right to know about their plans. But did they really? Didn’t teenagers have the right to make their own mistakes and learn from them?
But what if those mistakes could be prevented?
“Hey, Amy, I wanted to—” Stewart’s voice was cut off as the office door closed behind her. Amy felt a pang of guilt. She resisted the urge to open the door and apologize. It would only encourage him.
After retrieving Shayna’s file from the school secretary, Amy punched in the phone number. While the phone rang, her focus strayed to Shayna’s statistics. She pulled her gaze away, knowing she didn’t have a right to look at it for anything other than a phone number. But before she could scold herself further, she’d scanned the page.
One glaring absence stood fresh in her mind. Karen. Karen Macmillan wasn’t listed anywhere on the stat sheet.
Were they divorced? The girl Quentin married immediately upon high school graduation was no longer in his life, and Amy thoroughly disliked the twinge of gladness she felt upon the realization.
Ugly thoughts, Amy, ugly thoughts.
She asked God to remove those thoughts from her heart. She’d been praying about the hurt and bitterness for years and thought she’d dealt with them fairly well until she came back to town and they slammed her full in the face again. Lord, Jesus, I can’t do it without Your help and guidance.
“Macmillan here.” Quentin’s deep voice startled Amy out of her thoughts.
“Quentin, hi. It’s Amy.”
“Amy. I didn’t expect to hear from you.”
Did that mean he was glad? Or did it mean she was intruding?
“I, um, need to talk to you about Shayna and her plans for tomorrow night.” Unsure how to take his comment, Amy stumbled over her words.
3
He would ground Shayna for life!
Quentin paced the living room, stopping every few feet to glare at the telephone. Amy frustrated him almost as much as his daughter. After stating the purpose for the call, she’d simply hung up. She hadn’t bothered to discuss the situation with him or offer any advice. Wasn’t she supposed to be the expert on teenage girls?
So what should he do now? She’d said the girls were planning to sneak out of Ashley’s house tomorrow night and go to the drive-in with Baxter and some other boys. Not if he could help it.
Determined, he headed up the stairs.
This was his fault. Raising a teenage daughter grew more difficult by the day, and somehow he’d failed. Shayna needed a woman to talk to and he’d never thought to provide one.
Pausing outside the door of Shayna’s room, where she’d disappeared as soon as the dinner dishes were done, he wondered what he should say. Theoretically, the words should come easily to him. They’d always had a warm, open relationship.
Until now.
Until Shayna decided to start lying and sneaking around.
He’d tell her she couldn’t stay the night at Ashley’s.
Without another second’s hesitation, he rapped on her door.
“Shayna?” He opened the door and stuck his head in the room. She sat on the bed staring absently at a poster on her wall—some smart-alecky kid from a TV show. She was probably mooning over Baxter though, not really seeing the kid on the poster at all.
“Shayna,” he said again.
“Hmm?” Shayna looked over at him. “Oh. Hi, Dad.”
Did she seem disappointed to see him? Or did he just imagine it?
“Do you want to play a game of Monopoly or Battleship?”
Rolling her eyes in disgust, she shook her head. “I’m busy.”
Busy? Doing what? Staring at the wall?
“OK then. If you change your mind—”
“I won’t,” she interrupted.
Confused, hurt, Quentin didn’t know what to say. All of a sudden he’d been relegated to a bothersome adult his daughter no longer wanted to spend time with. This was so unlike Shayna, so unlike their way of relating to each other, he was at a loss over what to do. To bring up the slumber party and her plans now would undoubtedly result in an argument. An argument he didn’t feel like having at the moment. They would, however, discuss it thoroughly before she went to Ashley’s tomorrow night.
If he let her go at all.
Quentin quietly shut the door. “I’m at a loss, Lord,” he muttered. “Help me to understand this.”
Walking down the hall toward his own room, thinking about Shayna drooling over a no-good kid, Quentin clenched his jaw in disgust. That his daughter would become interested in boys was bound to happen someday. He just didn’t understand why it had to be now, and why it had to be Baxter.
He flipped on the light and groaned at t
he sight of a week’s worth of laundry piled on his bed waiting to be folded. Switching on the radio, he clenched his jaw harder as the voice of Dr. Wendy Wakefield filled the room. He couldn’t stand that woman. She thought she knew everything about everything, claimed she was a good listener. Ha. He’d heard her many a time when she hadn’t truly listened to the caller. He thought radio psychologists were the biggest blight on the American public since cell phones and text messaging bombarded their way into everyday life.
Absently, Quentin picked through the pile of laundry searching for towels to fold. He liked to fold them first. It gave him a sense of accomplishment to see them stacked in neat piles.
Dr. Wendy’s first caller shared her problems with her thirteen-year-old son. The second caller complained of some problems with a co-worker. Thus far, this evening, Wacky Wendy seemed at the height of compassion. And her advice wasn’t half bad either.
No. Absolutely not. Ridiculous. He didn’t need advice on raising his daughter. Still, it might be good to get an outside opinion on whether or not Shayna should be grounded for life. No. It was crazy.
Perhaps he could blame it on the fear of losing his daughter to a no-account kid with a bad reputation. Perhaps it was the certainty that he’d failed to meet the needs of his teenaged daughter who desperately needed a mother. Quentin wasn’t entirely certain why but, feeling more ridiculous than nervous, he reached for the phone.
He’d only get a busy signal. What were the chances he’d even get through?
Surprised when the call connected, he almost dropped it.
“This is Stan at Ask Dr. Wendy. Do you have a question for her?”
Quentin coughed and tried to remind himself of why he’d dialed the phone in the first place.
For Shayna.
“Hello, are you there?”
“Uh, yes. Sorry,” Quentin muttered. “I have a problem with my daughter. She’s uh—I just wanted to know if I should ground her or how exactly I should handle it.” Great. He sounded like intelligence in all its glory. What a stupid idea. He felt like a jerk.
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