surprises. That’s what he’d told himself he wanted after Suzanne had walked out. Routine and boredom had seemed attractive after the turbulence of their last few weeks together. No emotional entanglements, not even with his own kid. He sighed heavily as he considered the selfishness of that.
He’d pay for it now, no doubt about it. Annie was no longer the joyous, carefree sprite she’d been a year ago. Suzanne was to blame for some of that, but he had to shoulder the rest. It was up to him to make up for the fact that Annie’s mother had walked out on both of them. If he’d been neglectful in the months since, Suzanne had been cruel. He knew for a fact she hadn’t written or called in all that time.
Rainwater dripped from the roof as he watched and waited. The summer storm finally ended almost as quickly as it had begun, leaving the air steamy and the dirt driveway a sea of mud. Dirt splattered every which way when his father’s car finally came barreling in just after one o’clock. Slade grinned at the sight. His father was driving the way he always did, as if he were ten minutes late for a military dress parade. The marine in him had never fully died.
Slade stepped off the porch and went to greet them, wrapping his mother in a bear hug that had her laughing. Only when he’d released her did he notice the exhaustion in her eyes, the tired lines around her mouth. Surely she hadn’t looked that old the last time he’d seen her. Knowing the toll Annie had taken on her was just one more thing for him to feel guilty about.
He studied his father intently as he shook his hand. He didn’t see any noticeable changes in Harold Sutton’s appearance. His close-cropped hair had been gray for years, so Slade couldn’t blame that on Annie. His grip was as strong as ever, his manner as brusque and hearty. He didn’t look like the kind of man who’d let a child get the better of him. Slade had to wonder if that hadn’t just been an excuse to force him to take Annie back into his life.
“Good to see you, Son.”
“You, too, Dad.”
“Annie, girl, get on out here and say hello to your daddy,” Harold Sutton commanded in a booming voice left from his days as a marine drill sergeant. None of his sons had ever dared to ignore one of his orders. Punishments for disobedience had been doled out swiftly. For a minute, though, Slade thought that Annie might. She stared out at them from the back seat, her expression mulish.
Eventually, though, she slipped out of the car with obvious reluctance and stood there awkwardly, refusing to come closer. It was all Slade could do not to gape when he saw her.
How the devil had his daughter gone from being a little angel in frilly dresses to this? he wondered, staring at the ripped jeans, baggy T-shirt and filthy sneakers Annie was wearing. He’d been prepared for the cast on her arm, but not for the fact that it appeared she’d been rolling in mud wearing it.
And what the dickens had happened to her curls? The last time he’d seen her, she’d had pretty, chestnut-colored hair, braided neatly and tied with bows. Now it looked as if someone had taken a pair of dull scissors and whacked it off about two inches from her scalp.
Annie regarded him with a sullen expression, while he tried to figure out what to say to her.
“You look real good,” he managed finally.
Annie didn’t even waste her breath replying to the blatant lie. She just continued to stare at him with a defiant tilt to her chin and a heartbreaking mix of hurt and anger in her eyes. He might have responded to that, if his mother hadn’t latched onto his arm and pulled him aside.
“I’ll explain to you about that later,” she muttered under her breath, her gaze pointedly focused on Annie’s hairstyle. “Please don’t say anything about her hair. She’s very self-conscious about it.”
“She darned well ought to be,” Slade retorted. “What were you thinking?”
“It wasn’t me,” she snapped. “When she found out we were bringing her over here, she did it herself.”
He shot a bewildered glance toward his daughter. “But why?”
“I have no idea. She’s a mystery, Slade. Keeps everything bottled up inside. It comes out in these daredevil acts of hers. I never know what kind of trouble