A Father's Promise

The little face froze, and then she shook her head violently, braids and hearing-aid cords flopping.

Something about her innocent question had upset the child. She hated to push, but she had to get some answers in order to help.

“Daddy?” she questioned.

Sarah nodded vigorously. “Dad—dy,” she pronounced, speaking for the first time.

“Nice talking, Sarah.” The words came out of Leigh’s mouth automatically, her standard response when one of her students attempted to verbalize. It was nice talking, especially in this case.

“Where is Daddy?”

The brown eyes filled suddenly with tears, piercing Leigh’s heart. She longed to hold the little body close and comforting, but she didn’t want to risk scaring her further.

Meggie wasn’t held back by that concern. She shoved her way past Leigh and put both arms around Sarah.

“It’s okay.” She patted Sarah as if the child were one of her many dolls. “It’s okay. We’ll find your daddy.”

Of course they’d find him. But where was he? Leigh looked toward the beach, then back along the path toward the road. Nothing. The parents of children with disabilities were usually overprotective to a fault in her experience, especially fathers. How had Sarah’s father been so careless as to lose her?

She stood, trying to decide the best thing to do. She could take Sarah to the island police station, but she hated to put her through that if it wasn’t necessary.

“Tell you what.” She held out her hand to Sarah, giving her an encouraging smile. “Let’s walk down to the beach. Maybe we can find Daddy.”

And if not, they could walk back up to the nearest phone and call for help. There had to be one closer than her sister’s place.

Sarah stared at Leigh for a long moment. Then she got up, dusted sand from her shorts and took her hand.

Leigh’s fingers closed around the small hand, and her throat tightened. She managed a smile. “Let’s go.”

He had to turn back, had to run for a phone and set a search in motion—Then Daniel saw them coming toward him down the path. A woman, a couple of towheaded kids and his Sarah.

“Sarah!” In an instant he had reached her, scooped her up in his arms, held her close. “Sarah, I was so worried.”

Her arms went around his neck, and she buried her face in his shoulder. He hugged her, the little angles of her knees poking him, her tears wetting his shirt.

He’d never felt anything so sweet in his life. He had her back. If he had to wipe out everything he’d saved to hire a decent sitter, he’d do it. This was never going to happen again.

Carefully he peeled away the stranglehold Sarah had on him so he could see her face. “Honey, it’s okay. You’re safe now.”

The smallest of smiles peeked out from behind the tears, like sunlight through the clouds.

He smoothed tangled dark hair back from her face, coaxing a bigger smile. “Okay? That’s my girl.”

She nodded, brushing away tears with the back of her hand.

Tugging his attention from Sarah, he turned to the woman and kids. The two little towheads looked familiar—Josh and Jamie Reynolds’s kids, he thought they were. But the woman…

He hadn’t seen her on the island before; Daniel knew that. If he had, he’d remember.

Slim, straight, almost tomboyish in jeans shorts and a T-shirt, except that no boy sported curves like that. Short blond hair ruffled by the wind; sea-green eyes; a spattering of freckles across her cheeks, giving her a sun-kissed golden glow. She reminded him of a buttercup, all yellow and windblown.

“Thank you.” The words were inadequate.

She smiled, and a misplaced dimple appeared at the corner of lips that curved upward easily. “You’re welcome. I know how scary it is to lose one of these creatures.” She gestured toward the two Reynolds kids.

He shifted Sarah to his left shoulder so that he could hold out his hand. “I’m Daniel Gregory. Sarah’s father.”

Her palm was warm and a little sandy, and it fit nicely into his. “Leigh Christopher.”

His fingers tightened a little. “Nice to meet you, Leigh. And thank you again.” To his embarrassment, his voice roughened on the words.

“Our pleasure.”

Time to end the exchange and walk away. Somehow he didn’t want to do that.

“Are you the Reynolds’s baby-sitter?”

“No—” she began, but the little girl preempted her.

“She can’t be our baby-sitter!” For some reason she seemed to find that hilarious. “She’s our aunt!”

The boy frowned at his sister. “Stupid, she could still be our baby-sitter, if she wanted to be, but she’s not. Aunt Leigh teaches deaf kids—” He stopped suddenly, a blush sweeping across his freckled face.

“It’s okay.” Leigh tousled his hair. “Mr. Gregory knows Sarah is deaf.”

“‘Daniel,’” he said. “Not ‘Mr. Gregory.’” He liked her easy manner with the kids. Liked everything he’d seen, in fact. He found himself wanting to see that generous smile again.

“I know Josh doesn’t have any sisters, so you must be Jamie’s. Are you visiting long?”

“Probably the rest of the summer.” She touched the two kids. “Have to spend some time with these guys before they grow up on me.”

“Aunt Leigh’s looking for a new job,” the boy informed him. “She sends out résumés every day.”

Now it was her turn to blush, and she met his eyes with a rueful smile. “No privacy around kids, is there?”

“Not much privacy on an island anyway.” His mind churned, way too fast. He had to think this through, but he couldn’t let her get away. Maybe, for once in his life, the answer to his problems had dropped right into his lap.

“Look, I need to get Sarah back to the house, but I’d like to talk to you again. Are you going to be on the beach for a while?”

He thought he saw something a little wary in those sea-green eyes, but she nodded. “We plan to do some serious beachcombing today.”

“Good.” He cradled Sarah against him. “I’ll see you a little later, then.”

She nodded, then touched Sarah lightly, signing as she spoke. “Goodbye, Sarah. I’m glad we met you.”

His shy daughter smiled in return, then waved to them. He realized she was trying to finger-spell Leigh’s name.

Daniel’s heart beat somewhere up in his throat. That was more than she’d tried to communicate with anyone else in the two months since she’d come to live with him. Leigh Christopher was the perfect answer to his problems. And all he had to do was figure out how to convince her of that.