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