He didn’t even know the color of her eyes.
And when people shook their heads, again and again, he resolved not to lose hope. He’d find her.
He had to find her. To know she was safe. To get to know her.
And when he did find her, he was going to spend every waking moment with the child, listening to everything she had to say, telling her about her grandparents. Showing her his home. He was taking no chances. If he went to prison, his daughter was at least going to have these weeks. She was going to know that she came from good, hardworking, honest people.
He had a lot to do in very little time.
The sun was starting to sink and Blake had covered more than a couple of miles of beach, with still no horn sounding from the road above. Worry was starting to override every positive effort he made. If they didn’t find her by nightfall, the entire situation changed. His daughter would no longer be an upset little girl pretending to run away. She’d be an endangered female child.
A young couple with a dog had seen a little girl pass by, although they couldn’t really describe her. A couple of teenage boys with new surfboards and no idea what they were doing were sure they’d seen her. But they didn’t even know the color of her hair.
He should turn back. The police would be there, and a search party would have gathered by now. Maybe Marcie or Juliet had found her and sounded a horn and he just hadn’t heard it.
She’d probably run back home as quickly as she’d left.
But still he plunged on. That little girl had been furious with her mother. She thought she’d been lied to.
He stopped himself just short of determining that her running was justified.
Did he seriously want his little girl sacrificing her life because of a lie?
God, no.
Truth wasn’t worth that.
He almost missed the sound as he walked. A quiet, animal-like moan coming from between a boulder and a cliff in a spot where the beach narrowed to almost nothing.
Heart pounding, Blake focused on calm as he slowly rounded the boulder, not sure what he’d find. An injured squirrel? A dog?
A child.
Sitting hunched over, knees pulled up to her chest, her head buried in her thighs. He’d only seen her once, but one glance at the curly brown head and Blake knew he’d found his daughter.
There was dried blood all over her.
The sound came again. A tiny moan followed by a dry sob, as though she was still hurting but was all cried out.
Keeping his emotions in check, when he wanted to grab up that tiny body and run for the nearest phone, Blake kneeled down a few feet away. He didn’t want to scare her, but he had to know how badly she was hurt.
“Mary Jane?”
She jumped, her eyes wide and glazed with fright. And then, seeing him, she hid her swollen, tear-and-sand-stained face.
“Honey, are you hurt?”
Dumb, Ramsden. Really dumb. Of course she was hurt. It hurt to bleed. And it hurt to think that the one person in the world you could trust had been lying to you.
When she continued to ignore him, Blake tried again. “Mary Jane, I understand that you need to be alone, but you’re bleeding. At least let me make sure you don’t need a doctor.”
“I don’t.” The voice was surprisingly strong.
“Can I please see where you’re hurt, just to be sure?”
A skinny little leg popped out, showing him a severely scraped shin and knee. While the cuts weren’t deep, there wasn’t much skin intact.
“Is that all?”
While she kept her head lowered, the other leg came forth. And then two palms and an elbow. From what he could tell, she was right. She probably didn’t need a doctor. But she would if those scrapes weren’t cleaned up.
“What happened?”
“I fell.” She was talking to her chest, but the words were full of energy. And anger.
“Where?”
She glanced up at him then, her little face puckered with irritation. “On the beach and here.” She pointed to the cliff.
Blake glanced up. And swallowed. “You tried to climb up there?”
“I saw a cave.”
She saw a cave. The kid had walked for miles. Been gone for hours. Missed at least one meal. And she hadn’t been planning on coming home.
And suddenly his years of not being a father were extremely evident. He had no idea what to do next.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
THE ROAR OF THE WAVES was so loud he could hardly hear himself think—not that he was having any thoughts worth hearing.
“I’m a klutz,” the child announced suddenly.
“What?” He watched her, his heart filling, breaking, and filling some more.
“I’m a klutz,” she repeated in a matter-of-fact tone that lost some of its effect with the residual sob that accompanied it. “You might as well know, I knock things over and fall a lot.”
The condition didn’t seem to upset her much.
“Okay.”
“I don’t need a father.”
The words might have hurt, if he’d had any room for any more emotion. But he’d figured out, somewhere during his trek as he’d replayed that scene on the beach between her and her mother, that Mary Jane would not have chosen to see him.
“You know who I am.”
Green. Her eyes were green with little brown flecks, just like her mother’s.
“You met my mother one night a long time ago.”
Well, that just about summed it up.
“I…”
“You can go now. We’re just fine without you,” she said, and then, as he digested that, as he told himself he couldn’t possibly feel more pain, her face screwed up as if she might cry again.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “That was mean.”
“A little.”
“But it’s true, and this is one of those times when someone asks if you like her dress and you have to say no, you hate it.”
In spite of all the heartache and frustration consuming him, Blake smiled. He couldn’t help it. The little girl intrigued him, and not just because she was his daughter.
But she was. He’d only just met her and suddenly felt as though he’d known this child all her life.
“You are your mother’s daughter,” he said.
“Yeah.” The derision was back. “But I don’t want her, either.”
“You don’t mean that.”
She studied him for a minute, her red-rimmed eyes serious beyond her years. “Pro’bly not, but I’m really, really mad right now.”
Taking a chance that she wouldn’t close up on him, Blake settled in the sand in front of her, his legs stretched out so his white tennis shoes were almost touching hers. Huge and so small. The contrast made his throat