LITMIR.BIZ

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or Diane, his ex-wife, a moment of worry.

      Until now.

      Adam smoothed his hair and straightened his tie as he rushed to the principal’s office.

      A secretary looked up from her computer. “Good morning. Do you have an appointment, Mr.—?”

      “Adam Banks. I’m expected.” Through the open door of the principal’s office he saw Summer sitting with her back to him, her shoulders slumped.

      He swept past the secretary, knocked once and pushed open the door. “Summer, honey, what’s going on?”

      His daughter swiveled on her chair and greeted him with a blank expression and a shrug.

      “I can fill you in, Mr Banks.” Tom Dorian was round and slightly sweaty, with short, dark hair. He rose and extended a clammy hand, then walked around to close the door before returning to his desk. “Please, sit down. I’m sorry to have interrupted you at work, but I had no choice. The shopkeeper is talking about pressing charges.”

      Pressing charges. The words were enough to strike fear into the heart of any parent. Frowning, Adam took the chair next to Summer. She avoided his gaze and picked at the cuticles of her ink-stained hands. “Summer, what did you steal, and from where?”

      Again, she just shrugged.

      “A pair of earrings from the Gift Shop Café.” Tom Dorian laced pudgy fingers over his desk blotter, his earnest, boyish face serious. “It happened around 11:30 a.m. She was also skipping school.”

      Adam rested a hand gently on Summer’s shoulder. “Is this true?”

      “So I cut school. Big deal.” She shrugged his hand off.

      “Not that. Shoplifting. Is this about the horse?”

      “I wanted something for Mom’s birthday and I didn’t have any money.” She raised her chin and stared at him. His heart sank—now she was lying, too. She received a generous monthly allowance, and her mother’s birthday had been two months ago.

      “We’ll talk about that later.” How had she sunk to such a low point without either him or Diane noticing? Behind Summer’s defiance he sensed her fear and heard her unspoken plea: Daddy, get me out of here.

      He turned to the principal. “What happens now?”

      “You need to go to the police station and talk with the arresting officer,” Tom said. “Since it’s a first offense the shopkeeper might let it go. But even disregarding this incident, Summer’s been on a slippery slope. As you know, her attendance is poor, her grades are falling—”

      “No, I didn’t know,” Adam said sharply.

      “Summer’s mother didn’t mention it to you?”

      “She had to leave in a hurry. Summer’s grandmother is having emergency heart surgery in Sydney.” That didn’t explain why she’d never told him Summer was having trouble at school, but that was Diane all over—ignore problems and hope they would go away. “How long has this been going on?”

      “Her problems have been gradually building since the beginning of the school year.” Dorian paused. “The bushfires affected a lot of students. It’s been a difficult time.”

      The bushfires again. They were an unmitigated tragedy. Along with the human life lost, hundreds of homes had been burned, livelihoods destroyed and untold numbers of livestock and wildlife killed.

      He’d never wanted to buy Timbertop, the two-story log home on five acres of mixed forest and pasture. Diane had fallen in love with it on a whim after spending a weekend up here with her girlfriends, riding horses. He’d purchased the property as a summer home in an attempt to save his rocky marriage but not a month later he’d found out she was having an affair. He didn’t know who with and he didn’t care. It had been the last straw. He’d asked Diane for a divorce, and she’d moved herself and Summer permanently to Hope Mountain.

      However, things could have been a lot worse for them. Compared to some others, they had hardly been touched by the fires. “But our house was spared, thanks to the efforts of volunteer firefighters...” he said, still searching for answers as to why his daughter’s behavior had deteriorated. “No close friends of Summer’s were killed—”

      “My horse died!”

      Adam dragged a hand through his hair. “Bailey. Of course. I’m sorry.”

      Bailey had presumably jumped the fence, terrified by the smoke and heat, and run into the woods. They’d never found the horse, or his remains, but undoubtedly he’d succumbed to the fire.

      “And stop talking about me as if I wasn’t here.” Summer bounded to her feet. “Not everything is about the freaking bushfires.”

      “Sit down and tell me what it is about, then,” Adam said.

      She sank back into her chair and crossed her arms and legs, folding into herself. “You wouldn’t understand. You’re never around.”

      The barb hit home. He was supposed to have Summer every second weekend, but for the past few months work had gotten in the way. He’d told himself he was doing his best in a bad situation. The fact he didn’t have a clue what was going on in his daughter’s head right now sent a message as big as skywriting that his best wasn’t good enough.

      Adam was used to being in control of his world, moving with ease among architects, businessmen and government officials, designing and selling development projects worth hundreds of millions. Faced with one troubled teenage girl, he felt as helpless as a newborn kitten.

      This was his daughter, his only child. She was the most precious thing in the world to him. And yet no one would guess it, considering how little time he’d spent with her. Diane going to Sydney to take care of her sick mother might have been a blessing in disguise, since it forced him to reconnect with the girl.

      “What do you suggest?” he asked Tom. “Is there a school counselor she could talk to?”

      “I’ve been seeing her for three months,” Summer said sulkily. “She’s an idiot.”

      “Don’t be rude. Why wasn’t I informed?”

      She shrugged. “Mom probably told you.”

      “Where parents are divorced, school policy is to communicate with both mother and father,” Tom Dorian explained. “A letter would have been sent to your city address as well as your home in Hope Mountain.”

      Adam chewed his bottom lip. Somehow he’d overlooked the communication. News of Summer’s downward slide had slipped through the cracks in his life. He and Diane had both failed Summer. But guilt and shame were unproductive emotions. He thrust them aside and focused on what he could do to make up for his neglect.

      “So school counseling isn’t working.” He eyed Summer thoughtfully. “Maybe it would be best if we moved to my apartment in the city. I’d have more time to spend with you and we could find you a good private counselor.”

      And they could get out of Hope Mountain. Living in a fire-prone wilderness was foolish in the extreme. Next time fire broke out they might not be so lucky.

      “I don’t want to live in the city,” Summer said. “I don’t want to see another stupid counselor. You said I could get a new horse. I’ve been waiting and waiting. It’ll never happen if I’m living in Melbourne.”

      Should he give in to her demand for a horse? Being lenient, giving her too much, hadn’t done her any good. He’d stalled all year on the subject, hoping to convince Diane to move out of the area. She’d pushed back, citing Summer’s love of Hope Mountain and her wish to let their daughter finish the school year with her friends. “Is that why you’ve been getting into trouble, because Bailey died?”

      “No. Yes.” She dropped her head. “I don’t know.”

      Tom Dorian cleared his throat.

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