The Sheriff With The Wyoming-Size Heart

Ariel sighed and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Only sometimes. Like when I’m unhappy and I want her, and she just isn’t there.”

It took Riley a second to retrack their conversation. It hadn’t occurred to him his daughter could be longing for the very thing he’d been trying to bury. “I miss her, too.”

“That lady knew I was scared I’d forget, so she told me just to sing. Then she made Jelly stop hiding. I like her.”

“I can see that, but—”

“Please let me go back, Daddy.”

Ariel’s plea took Riley back another couple of steps. She wanted to visit their new neighbor. In this, he had no muddled feelings. “What have I always taught you about talking to strangers?”

Ariel widened her eyes artlessly, indicating she thought she had him licked. “People who live in the same neighborhood can’t be strangers.”

“We don’t know anything about her.”

“We can ask.”

Ariel was right. Sort of. In Laramie, so far, neighbors were not strangers to each other. But the horrors endemic to other, bigger cities were moving in. And sometimes danger hid in unlikely places. He cupped Ariel’s face in his palm. “Promise me you won’t go over there alone.”

“Then come with me. Please. Because she might die, like Mommy did, and I don’t have a way to remember her.”

Riley cuddled Ariel against his chest. A child should not have to deal with the unpredictability of life. She shouldn’t have to play little games to remember the face of someone she loved. And she shouldn’t be deprived of kindness just because one icy night her mother died in an automobile accident and left her father leery of the unknown.

“Let me think about it. In the meantime, don’t go over there alone.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” Ariel gave him a noisy, giggly kiss. Then she grew solemn again and pulled back to look at him earnestly. “Daddy, will I ever have a mommy again?”

“I don’t know.” He thought about it occasionally, especially when he didn’t know how he could give his daughter everything she needed. Or when she seemed too much child for one person to handle. He’d thought about it today, when she’d disappeared from the school before he could pick her up.

But marrying again didn’t mean Ariel would automatically have a full-time mother—or that he would find a woman who could curb Ariel’s recklessness. And more than that, he wasn’t sure he could add the anxiety he’d feel for a wife to his worry for his daughter. Before Kendra’s death, he’d taken life’s risks as a matter of course, as part of his job. Now he measured every aspect of his life against them.

“When Whiskers got lost and I missed her so much, we got another kitten.”

Not quite sure what she needed, Riley folded his daughter in his arms. “We were really lucky to find another kitten that was just right.”

“Can we look for another mommy?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy, Scooter.”

She wriggled free of his embrace and giggled. “But, Daddy, it is. I wished for Jelly and I got him. So I’ll just wish for a new mommy.”

She slid off his lap, picked up the can of cat food and skipped across the room to empty it into Jelly’s dish. Great. Now Ariel was wishing for a new mommy, as if people gave them away through the Want Ads, like a kitten. Free to good home. Box trained.

Ariel was a terrific kid, and he’d give her the moon if he could. She’d adjusted to losing Kendra better than anyone expected. In spite of being one of the youngest in her class, she did well in school. She might be too adventuresome for his comfort, but her spunk made her popular with the other kids. So why couldn’t they go on as they were?

She’d just thrown him a curveball he couldn’t possibly hit, and now she knelt on the floor, petting Jelly as if—

The bottom of her left sock was dirty and grass-stained. “Ariel, where’s your shoe?”

She sat back, stretched out her legs and wiggled her shoeless foot. Hunching her shoulders, she looked up at him solemnly. “I don’t know.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

She pondered for a while, but he didn’t hold much hope she would remember, since she hadn’t even realized it was missing.

“I had it when I came home from school.”

“Did you have it when you came home here?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you have it on when you were visiting the lady?”

She lifted her shoulders again. “I don’t remember.”

“Sheesh, Ariel. How could you forget losing your shoe?”

Sticking out her bottom lip, she examined her foot again. “It has to be somewhere.”

Yeah. Anywhere between the kitchen and the school. Which covered about two square miles, since he doubted she’d taken a direct route or could retrace whatever way she’d come. It wasn’t worth a full-scale search, but he could check with their new neighbor.

In fact, the missing shoe would be a very good excuse to pursue Ariel’s request. He could pay their new neighbor a visit. Learn her name. See if he could depend on her concern for Ariel. Because at the very least, it never hurt to have as many people as possible keeping an eye out for his headstrong little girl.

Margo couldn’t get Ariel—or Ariel’s father—out of her head. Between the two of them, they’d left her mind in a whirl, and nothing she’d tried had restored her equilibrium.

Not a shower, not fixing supper, not unpacking a couple more boxes. Even her heroine’s next exploit couldn’t hold her concentration. Finally she gave up the effort.

She brewed a pot of decaf, put some melancholy music on the stereo and wrapped herself in an afghan by the fire.

She wasn’t sure who had affected her most, the girl or her father. The father was a sheriff. And so what if he was? Past was past, right? With her new identity, she had a spotless record, a clear conscience, and a limitless future.

Unfortunately, she also knew both people and the system too well to be neutral. With people, a hint of suspicion would lead to judgment, an impression too quickly became a fact, and past sins were never forgotten. With the system, a single misstep could tumble a person into a legal landslide, and from then on you could kiss a normal life goodbye.

She sipped her coffee, leaned back and closed her eyes. No, society wasn’t perfect, and most people did the best they could. She had no one to blame but herself.

Looking back, her fault had lain in how recklessly she’d followed where her emotions led. She’d let grief after her grandmother’s death lead her into a relationship with Nick. She’d let herself need him so much that she did anything he wanted and made excuses for his abuse. Her love for their baby had made her blind to the downward spiral of her relationship with Holly’s father.

Since coming to that conclusion, she’d worked at self-discipline. She’d practiced deliberating alternatives and thinking before she acted. She’d learned to look ahead and imagine where different alternatives would lead. She thought she’d mastered control.

Ha!

Just today, so many emotions had erupted in such a short space of time, she couldn’t catalog them all. Starting with feelings she hadn’t experienced since losing Holly.

She hadn’t been a part of her daughter’s life since Holly was eight months old. She hadn’t watched Holly learn to walk or count or tell time. She didn’t know if Holly took music lessons or played soccer or could ride a horse. She had never heard Holly sing a song. In giving her daughter a chance for security, she’d forfeited any right to ever be a part of Holly’s life.

Could anyone blame her for enjoying Ariel’s company for a little while?

The girl’s father could. He obviously did.