Kitabı oxu: «A Father's Promise»

Chapter One

The moment he realized his daughter was lost, Daniel Gregory knew his life had to change.

Alone as usual, he balanced on the second-story beam of what was going to be his oceanfront inn and stared down at the teenage baby-sitter. She stood just outside the construction site, tears streaking her face. He’d feel sorry for her if not for the panic searing his nerves.

“How did this happen?” He swung himself to the sand. “How could you let a deaf child out of your sight?”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Gregory. Honest. I didn’t mean to. But the phone rang, and she was just playing on the porch, and I thought I’d only be a minute…”

The girl’s excuses ran out, and she gestured up the path to the house.

“You don’t think she went toward the water?” Daniel’s heart clenched. He shot a glance at the ocean that lapped the shores of the Georgia sea island. The tide was going out; the surf, a gentle ripple.

She shook her head, tears welling. “Sarah’s scared of the waves. I don’t think she’d go that way. I looked out by the road but didn’t see her, so I ran down here to find you.”

The girl dissolved in heart-wrenching sobs, and Daniel gave her shoulder a quick pat. He was about as helpless at comforting her as he was at taking care of his child, he thought bitterly.

“Come on, Patsy. We’ll find her.” He couldn’t let the kid see how scared he was, or she’d be no help at all. “You go back up and search the house. I’ll check the beach.”

Patsy brushed tears from frightened brown eyes. “Right away. I’ll look everywhere.” She turned and darted up the path through sea grass and palmettos toward the house.

Daniel rounded the edge of the construction, scanning the beach. The usual few tourists, a fisherman or two. No little girl with dark hair in untidy braids and the cords of her hearing aid dangling like a necklace.

He forced himself to look again, tamping down the need to run, to shout her name. Shouting wouldn’t do any good. Sarah wouldn’t hear him.

His gut cramped. Sarah, where are you? If she was on the beach he’d see her, but she could be on any of a dozen paths that led through tangles of scrub growth toward the road. He had to make a choice. He jogged down the beach, his gaze probing every inch of sand and beach grass.

Two months. He’d had his daughter for two short months, and already something bad had happened. He was the only one in her life she could count on, and he’d let her down.

I promise. Sarah, I promise. I’ll find a way to take better care of you. I promise. Just be all right.

“Hurry up, Aunt Leigh. The tide’s going out, and I want to look for shells.”

Leigh Christopher smiled down at her impatient nephew. Mark had to do everything in a hurry, just like his mother. Her sister, Jamie, always had an agenda in mind, and Jamie’s seven-year-old son echoed that quality. Meggie, Mark’s five-year-old sister, lagged behind, happily inspecting the tiny insect that crawled along the fan of a palmetto.

“We’ve got plenty of time, Mark.” Leigh shifted an armload of beach towels from one arm to the other.

Mark cast an expert glance at the sun. With his blue eyes and freckles he looked just like Jamie. But Jamie would have been glancing at the businesslike watch she always wore.

“You said you had to go back to the house and work on your…your résumés.” He said the unfamiliar word carefully. Mark always had to know the right word for things. “So we have to hurry.”

“We’re not in that much of a rush,” Leigh began, when Meggie tugged at her hand. Leigh turned to her. “What is it, sweetie?”

“Look, Aunt Leigh. Look at that little girl. She’s losted.”

“Lost,” Mark corrected.

“We have to help her.” Meggie trotted ahead.

Leigh gazed along the path that wound to the beach. Meggie had seen what Leigh hadn’t—a child scrunched against the rough base of a palmetto, arms wrapped protectively around her legs, head down.

Leigh’s heart thumped. Meggie was right. She might not know the word, but she knew what losted looked like.

Leigh hurried toward the little girl. “Hi, there,” she called. “Are you okay?”

The child didn’t respond. Meggie scampered up to her and tugged her arm. “Hey, are you losted?”

The little girl jerked up her head at the touch, panic filling eyes that were as dark a brown as her hair. Leigh saw what she wore around her neck, and it hit her like a blow to the heart. A hearing aid. The child was deaf.

It took a moment to recover from the shock, another moment to reach the child. Leigh knelt in the sand, a bramble wrapping around her bare ankle. She snatched off her glasses so the little girl could see her eyes.

“Hi.” She smiled, touching her hand lightly. “Are you okay?”

She signed the words as she said them, her mind already busy assessing the child, as efficiently as if she’d never left her classroom. Five or six, maybe. She must have some residual hearing or she wouldn’t be wearing an aid.

The child stared at Leigh, her dark eyes frightened. She scooted a little closer to the tree trunk.

Leigh forced herself to sit back. Scared, poor child. Well, of course she was scared, out here alone. Where were her parents? Leigh took a deep breath. Lord, help me to do the right thing.

“My name is Leigh.” She signed the words again, finger-spelling her name. Then she added the name sign her first students had given her—an L tapped against the dimple that accented her smile. “What’s your name?”

Mark tugged at her shoulder. “Why are you signing, Aunt Leigh?”

“Because she can’t hear. Or at least, not much.” Impossible to tell how much hearing the child had.

“She’s deaf? Like the kids you used to teach?”

“Like the kids I used to teach.” Her voice wobbled a little on the words, making her angry with herself. That part of her life was over, and it was time to move on.

Meggie leaned around him to pat the little girl’s hand. “It’s okay. We’re friends.” Slowly she finger-spelled her name, the way Leigh had taught her. “Meggie. I’m Meggie.”

For an instant the child’s ability to respond hung in the balance. Then, with the smallest of gestures, the child’s fingers began to move. S-A-R-A-H.

“Sarah.” Leigh let her breath out in relief. Now they were getting somewhere. At least the child—Sarah—understood them. That should take some of the fear away.

“I’m Leigh,” she said again. “This is Mark…” She finger-spelled the name. “And Meggie.”

Sarah ducked her head shyly. She must not have been around other children much, judging by the fascinated way she stared at Leigh’s niece and nephew. Why not? She was certainly old enough to be in school.

“How old are you, Sarah?”

She was ready to ask again, when Sarah held up her hand, spreading five fingers wide.

“Five!” Meggie exclaimed, grinning. She tapped her chest and nodded. “Me, too.”

Sarah smiled back. Meggie might not know much signing, but she was doing a better job of communicating with Sarah than Leigh was. Leigh captured the child’s attention and signed as she spoke slowly.

“Who did you come to the beach with today, Sarah? Was it Mommy?”

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.

“Aunt Leigh!” Mark tugged her hand. “Don’t you want to help us finish the sand castle?”

Leigh pulled her gaze from the retreating waves and suppressed a yawn. “Sure I do.” She knelt beside him. “Wow, what a great job. How about a moat?”

Meggie ran to fill her green plastic bucket with water, and Mark began burrowing out a trench. Leigh dug her fingers through hot surface sand to the cool moistness beneath, watching Meggie fill her bucket, spill it, then patiently approach the next wave. Too many more sun-drenched, lazy days like this and she’d turn into a vegetable.

Well, that was the idea, wasn’t it? She’d come to St. Joseph’s Island for just that reason, and in the short time she’d been here, she’d already begun to heal. The encounter with Sarah had been distressing, but the memory of the upheaval receded, slipping away like the tide ruffling the sand, then smoothing it out.

Meggie ran back, water slopping from the pail and splashing her bare brown legs. She sent a convoy of sandpipers veering in another direction as she sloshed to a stop.

“Wait, wait,” Mark directed, his voice fussy. “I haven’t finished the moat yet. You and Aunt Leigh have to wait until I’m done.”

Meggie looked ready to argue, but Leigh was perfectly happy to lean back on her elbows and watch him work. Peace flooded over her, a peace she hadn’t experienced in months. Yes, a few more days like this…

A shadow fell across the sand castle. Leigh looked up, shading her eyes with her hand, but somehow she already knew whom she’d see. Eyes like bittersweet chocolate, dark hair cut short with a ruthless hand, a lean face and a determined jaw. Daniel Gregory.

“Mr. Gregory!” Mark grinned at him. “Look at my castle.”

“Our castle,” Meggie said. “Mine, too.”

“It’s great.” Daniel squatted next to Leigh. He patted a little extra sand into place on the castle wall with one strong hand and smiled at the children. “You did a fine job.”

“Does your little girl like to build sand castles?” Meggie, always ready to be friends with the world, leaned confidingly against his knee.

Daniel frowned, sending a glance toward Leigh that she couldn’t understand, and a flicker of uneasiness went through her.

“Sarah doesn’t like playing on the beach much.”

“She’d like it if she played with me,” Meggie said, confident in her ability. “Bring her to play with me.”

Daniel was beginning to look a bit overwhelmed by Meggie’s volubility. Maybe she’d better rescue him. She handed Meggie an empty pail.

“We need more water for the moat. Why don’t you go and get some.”

Meggie ran off, and Leigh smiled at him. “The rescue is on the house. She loves to talk.”

He met her smile with an intent look in those chocolate brown eyes. “I wish Sarah did.”

“I know,” she said softly. That was always a problem. Hearing parents hoped against hope that their children would learn to speak. Some even refused to sign, as if denying the situation would make it go away.

Daniel squared his body toward her. He was close enough that she could feel the heat that radiated from his olive skin. “I want to talk to you.”

Leigh shrugged, feeling ridiculously off balance. “We are talking, aren’t we?” All right, he was an attractive man. Very attractive. That was no reason for her breath to quicken or her pulse to suddenly beat a tattoo in her throat.

Brown eyes locked on hers, holding her gaze captive.

“It’s about something important. About my daughter. Sarah.”

His voice softened on the name, and something melted inside her. She’d always been a fool for that kind of gentleness in a strong, rugged man.

“Sarah’s a darling,” she said.

“Sarah needs help,” he countered.

Trouble, that’s all she could think. Whatever he wanted, it meant trouble. She glanced at Mark, but he’d moved away to dig up some fresh sand, and Meggie splashed through an inch or two of water, trying to scoop it up.

Leigh leaned back, as if an added inch of space between her and Gregory might give her an advantage.

“Look, I know you don’t know me.” He frowned. “I know this is sudden. But your brother-in-law can vouch for me, and I can get references…”

“What are you talking about?” She knew what was coming now, and the peace of the day unraveled in an instant.

“I want you to work for me, taking care of Sarah.”

He said it in a rush, as if he had to get the words out in a hurry. As if asking anyone for help were a blow to his pride.

“I’m not looking for a job,” she said quickly.

“But Mark said you were filling out résumés.”

She felt her cheeks warm. “I know. I mean, I’m not looking for that kind of a job.” Not ever again. “And anyway, you don’t know anything about me.”

He smiled, as if the hard part were over. As if convincing her to agree to what he wanted would be a piece of cake. “I know you’re Jamie Reynolds’s sister. I know they trust you with their kids. I know you’re a teacher of deaf children.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m the right person for Sarah.” She had to think. She wasn’t about to take on this challenge, and she certainly wasn’t about to tell him why she would never again be teaching.

His hand came down over hers suddenly. His palm, roughened by hard work, set her skin tingling.

“I also know you’re warm and generous with kids, and they like you instinctively. And I know Sarah talked more to you in five minutes than she’s talked to anyone else in the two months she’s been here.”

She took a breath, let it out, then drew her hand away as Meggie splashed back up with her pail. Two months? Where had Sarah been before she’d come to the island?

“Sarah’s mother…” she began, then stopped, not sure she should ask the question.

“She died in an accident.”

A protective barrier screened his eyes, warning her away.

“Sarah is living with me now. And I want the best for her.”

A hundred questions bubbled up in Leigh, but she couldn’t ask them. Not of him, not now. Not when he was obviously dealing with a great deal of pain. Not when she had no intention of doing what he wanted.

“I’m sorry. Of course you want the best for Sarah, but I’m really not looking for that kind of a job. I’ve been filling out résumés because I hope to find something in another field by the end of the summer.”

“You’re leaving teaching?”

The question was like a knife to her heart. “Yes.” She could only hope the monosyllable would discourage any questions. She glanced at Mark and Meggie, who were sitting back on their heels, listening wide-eyed.

He looked down at the sand castle for a moment, his hand absently patting at its towers. Then he looked back at her. “That wouldn’t be a problem. If everything goes the way I plan, Sarah will be attending a residential school in the fall. Right now is when I need someone. You could still go for interviews, if that’s what’s worrying you.”

Residential school…Her mind brimmed with objections that were none of her business. Since she had no intention of doing as he asked, she couldn’t interfere.

Doing as he asked. For a moment her treacherous mind toyed with the possibility of her working with Sarah, of her teaching again. She pictured that solemn little face smiling, communicating. She saw herself tapping into the energy and intelligence that hid behind Sarah’s deafness.

No. It was impossible, and even considering it would be opening herself up to the kind of emotional pain she had barely started to recover from. Not to mention the totally inappropriate sizzle she felt when she was near Daniel Gregory.

“Look, I just can’t.” She forced her voice to be cool and firm. “I’m sorry, but it’s out of the question.” She stood. “Come on, kids, we’ve got to get home. Gather things up now.”

Daniel stood when she did, still way too close. When she moved, his hand closed lightly on her wrist. The slightest movement would break the contact, but she didn’t move.

“Think about it.” He leaned closer, a breath away. “Think about it. We’ll talk again.”