He turned away, then turned back again with that rare smile lightening his serious, contained face. “I’m glad you came, Leigh.”
This was the moment to remind him that she’d agreed to watch Sarah only until he found someone else. Instead, she discovered that she was returning his smile, her gaze caught and held by his until he swung away from her.
She’d been right. That smile of his really should come with a warning label. Maybe its effect was intensified by its rarity.
She crossed the warm sand and dropped to her knees on the blanket next to Sarah.
“Hi, Sarah.” She signed as she spoke. “I’m Leigh. Remember me?”
Sarah’s dark eyes, so like her father’s, surveyed Leigh solemnly for a moment. Finally a smile touched the corner of her mouth, and she nodded.
“That’s a nice baby.” Leigh patted the pink wrapped bundle. “Does she have a name?”
Sarah’s mouth compressed in a firm line. She snatched the doll from the cradle, then carefully rewrapped it, fingers smoothing the blanket with care. Finally she replaced it in the cradle, crooning something unintelligible.
The message was clear. Don’t touch. Without Meggie’s ebullient presence, Sarah was going to be a tough nut to crack.
A half hour later, Leigh had revised her opinion. Not just tough. Nearly impossible. She sat back on her heels, exasperated, as Sarah repeated the routine with the baby doll for perhaps the tenth time. Leigh’s mind seethed with questions, and she wanted to snatch Daniel from his ladder and pepper him with them.
How much residual hearing did Sarah actually have? Had she been to school? If not, who’d been teaching her? And what on earth did this routine with the doll and cradle mean?
You don’t need to know that. You don’t have the right to answers. This is only temporary, remember? That’s what you want.
Well, temporary or not, she had to do her best. She clasped Sarah’s hand before the business with the doll could begin again.
“Come on, Sarah. Let’s go for a walk.”
Sarah drew back, hanging heavily on Leigh’s hand, looking at the doll.
“Daddy will watch the baby, okay? Daddy won’t let her get hurt.”
That seemed to do the trick. With a backward, reluctant look at the cradle, Sarah got to her feet. She let Leigh lead her away from the blanket.
They walked along the upper reaches of the sand, but when Leigh tried to take her down to the smooth, shimmering expanse left by the outgoing tide, Sarah balked.
“No!”
That word she verbalized well enough. Leigh suppressed a smile. Most children did if they talked at all.
“Why not?” Leigh persisted. “Meggie loves to play in the water. Don’t you?”
Sarah stared at the ocean for a moment, lower lip extended. Then her hands moved. “Cold,” she signed. “Too cold.”
Fair enough. The water, warmed by southern ocean currents, seemed comfortable to Leigh, but maybe Sarah did find it cold.
The ebbing tide had left a legacy, though…an oblong, sandy tidal pool, its water warmed by the sun until it was probably the temperature of bathwater.
“Look at this.” She led the reluctant child to the pool. “Look—a Sarah-sized pool.” She knelt, then scooped a handful of water and let it trickle through her fingers. “Warm.”
Sarah clasped her hands firmly, shaking her head. No one, it was clear, would convince her to put her hands in.
Leigh kicked off her sandals, sat down and dipped her toes in the warm pool. She’d always found that the best way to work with deaf children was to bombard their senses with experiences and words. She’d never taught on a beach before, but the principle had to be the same.
“Come on, Sarah,” she coaxed. “Try it. It feels good.”
It took fifteen minutes by Leigh’s watch—fifteen minutes of coaxing, teasing and patience—before Sarah pulled off her sandals and stuck a wary toe in the water. And then it took all of about fifteen seconds for her to be romping across the pool just as Meggie would, splashing the water so that both her shorts and Leigh’s were soaked.
Grinning with a mix of pleasure and triumph, Leigh trickled water on Sarah’s bare arm. It gained her a delighted giggle, the first she’d heard.
A shadow fell across them, shutting off the sun. “What on earth are you doing?” Daniel demanded.
As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Daniel realized how harsh they’d sounded. He couldn’t help it. For a split second, before his brain told him Sarah was safe, he’d panicked at the sight of her in the water. He took a breath. She was okay.
Leigh stood up to her knees in the pool, her shorts thoroughly splashed, her expression wary. Sunlight glinted from droplets of salt water on her bare golden arms. Her eyebrows lifted. “Is something wrong?”
He wasn’t going to get what he wanted by biting off her head. He made a conscious effort to soften his tone.
“Sarah hasn’t gone anywhere near the water since she’s been here. I think that’s best.”
Leigh glanced from him to Sarah, who was bent over, hands on knees, looking at something in the water. “Let me get this straight. You want her to be afraid?”
“Of course I don’t want her to be afraid!” For a moment he wished he were still dealing with a teenage baby-sitter. She might be careless, but at least she didn’t argue with him. “But the surf is dangerous, and Sarah’s not used to it. Besides, she’s…”
“She’s deaf,” Leigh said quietly.
Those sea-green eyes of hers bored right into his soul.
“She’s also a bright five-year-old who should be treated like one.”
He held on to his temper with an effort. “And I’m not treating her right?”
“Well…”
It was so easy to read her expression that the edge of his anger dissolved into amusement. That was exactly what she thought, but she was too polite to say so.
“All right.” He drove a hand through his hair. “You tell me. How do I keep her safe when she can’t hear a warning?”
“That’s one of the reasons she’s wearing a hearing aid. So she can make the most of the hearing she has. She can hear things like the beep of a car horn, the screech of brakes, a train whistle. She wouldn’t have an aid unless she has enough hearing for it to make a difference.”
He jerked his head toward the surf. “No car horns out there.”
“No, but she still has to learn.” She smiled suddenly, sunlight on water. “Jamie and I grew up in the country. I can still remember our mother, every time she took us for a walk in the woods, going over her rules. ‘Never put your hands or feet where your eyes can’t see.’”
He must have looked blank. The smile became a grin.
“Because of snakes,” she said. “Mom was deathly afraid of them, but she wouldn’t let that keep us from enjoying the woods. If Sarah’s going to live near the water, she has to learn safety precautions, just as a child in the Midwest learns what to do in case of a tornado.”
“But…” His argument disappeared at the sight of Sarah. She wasn’t romping across the pool now. She’d crawled out of the water, and she lifted her arms to him, her face clouding with tears.
He bent to pick her up, his throat tightening. “Honey, it’s all