And it may already be too late for that.
When he heard a sudden noise behind him, he turned to see Daniela holding one of the cutest little cherubs he’d ever seen. She had huge blue eyes, just like his own mother’s. And even more damning was the head of bright red hair, but so soft, so thin and fine.
Sari looked at him, and her bottom lip trembled. Then she burst into tears.
Chapter 3
Daniela chuckled and held Sari close. “Don’t take it personally,” she said to the very startled Weston standing, staring in dismay at his daughter. “She doesn’t generally take to anybody right off.”
He nodded and sank back down again. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t expecting her to run toward me with open arms,” he joked.
She smiled, grabbed his coffee cup, and refilled both hers and his, while she held Sari, cuddling her close.
Finally Sari stopped sobbing, and Daniela sat her daughter on the counter, standing in front of her, Sari with her thumb in her mouth, staring around Daniela at the stranger.
Daniela reached up, gently pulling the thumb from her mouth. “You’re just fine now,” she said. “This is Weston. Remember? I told you about him.”
Sari looked at him with a little more interest and a whole lot less fear as Daniela grabbed Sari once more and moved around the kitchen, making a snack of banana slices for her daughter. She took the plate to the table. With Sari sitting on her lap, Daniela helped her daughter reach toward the plate and pick up pieces to eat. Sari didn’t say a word, but now she stared constantly at Weston.
“Now that she’s over the initial shock,” Daniela said in a quiet voice, “she’s contemplating the scenario.”
“She doesn’t like change, I gather?”
“No, she’s had quite a lot of change in her life.”
“But she doesn’t know I have any impact on her world.”
“I think she does,” Daniela said. “I understand you’re here about a dog?”
At that Sari piped up. “Doggy?” She twisted around, looking in the kitchen for the dog.
Weston chuckled. “I’m here to make sure the dog is doing okay. But I have to track the family down.”
“Why is that?”
Weston slowly and quietly, without raising his voice, tried to keep the little girl calm and happy as he explained about Shambhala’s life. “She’s also blind in one eye,” he said, “but, per her file, she’s apparently very fond of music.”
“That sounds lovely,” Daniela said. “But why would she not be with the adoptive family?”
“We just need to contact them to confirm the dog’s whereabouts and her well-being because nobody’s been able to speak with them. They’re homesteaders, so I’ll make the trek out to where we believe they are to make sure the dog’s doing okay, then come back here and head home again.” At that he stopped and frowned.
She nodded. “I know you have to leave,” she said. “I was just hoping maybe you would come back and have some kind of a relationship with your daughter.”
He looked at Sari, who looked so much like his mom and the pictures he remembered seeing of her when she was a young girl. “She definitely resembles my mother.”
“Is your mother still alive?”
He nodded. “Both of my parents are.”
“So Sari would have grandparents?” Daniela asked in spite of herself.
“Potentially, yes,” he said.
“Potentially?” she challenged.
“Sari’s already lost several important people in her life,” he said. “Angel and then Charlie. I need to know I can be here in her life on a long-term basis.”
She looked at him in surprise. “You know what? I’m really glad you brought that up. I didn’t know quite how to tell you, but you need to either be in or you need to ship out.”
“I was thinking of that myself,” he said. “It’s just not all that easy to come to terms with fatherhood when she’s already a toddler, and I haven’t had that time since her birth or the traditional nine months of pregnancy to get used to the idea.”
“I get it,” she said. “Still, it needs to be a decision you’re prepared to make.”
“You obviously feel very strongly about it,” he said. “Yet you’ve gone to a lot of effort to bring me up here.”
“That was for Sari’s sake,” she said.
Just then, Sari looked back at him. “Doggy?”
He looked at her in surprise. “I’m here to look for a doggy, yes,” he said cautiously, still not exactly sure how he was supposed to talk to her.
“Doggy,” she demanded in a stronger voice.
He smiled, pulled out his phone and brought up the picture of Shambhala. Holding it up for Sari, he said, “Doggy. Shambhala.”
Immediately she tried to get her tongue around that twisted word, ending up with Shamba.
“Good enough,” he said. “I’m here to check on Shamba.”
Daniela held out her hand. “Do you mind if I see her?”
He shifted his cell over so she could take a look.
She took the phone from his hand and held it at a different angle for better viewing. “You know something? I think I’ve seen her.” She frowned. “Somewhere around the feedstore, I think.”
“Maybe the homesteaders were coming in to get something from the store,” he said. “They are supposed to be homesteading about ten miles from here.”
“What are their names?”
“Grant and Ginger Buckman,” he said.
She looked up, her eyes widening. “Oh,” she said in a faint voice.
He frowned. “What does that mean?”
“They’re dead,” she said. “They were killed in a slide about six weeks ago.”
He just stared at her.
She nodded slowly. “It was on the news. But I guess the news didn’t make it down to where you are.”
“Not to mention the fact nobody would know to call us. Any news on the dog?”
“No,” she said. “I haven’t heard anything about a dog.”
“Do you happen to know anybody related to the family?”
She shook her head
