He laughed at that. “Not to mention the fact I don’t have wheels at the moment either,” he said with a nod. “So, if you don’t mind, I’ll accept your generous offer.”
“Good enough,” she said. “We can leave in thirty if you’d like. Puts us there a little early but not too much”
“Is that a problem? I can work with your timeframe. It really doesn’t matter when we get there. I had to give them a timeframe and I hadn’t asked you.”
She shook her head. “No, not at all. It’s fine.” She seemed to come to a decision as she stood and said, “Would you mind straightening up the kitchen, while I take Sari to the bathroom and grab her a sweater?”
“No problem,” he said. He started clearing away the dishes.
She noted how he turned to watch the two of them walk from the room. She had to hand it to him. This was a pretty strange event in his life, but he appeared to be handling it. She was a little disoriented by the conversation about needing to be all in or all out because she’d had the same thought herself. It never really occurred to her that he might choose to be all out. Mostly because she didn’t want him to.
At the same time though, he was correct. Sari had already lost Charlie and Angel. Sari was young and would adapt, but Daniela hoped Weston would want to stay in his daughter’s life. He didn’t look like somebody who’d spent his life around nieces and nephews, and that made the adjustment that much harder for him. Not that she was making any excuses because, if there was ever a time for somebody to step up, it was when he found out he was a father. And yet complications for him arose, since he hadn’t found out until he’d already lost all access to the child. That was the part that really bothered her.
She had wanted him to meet Sari because she thought it was the right thing to do for her little girl. But now, maybe she was trying to give him a role in his daughter’s life because he’d had it taken away. It certainly wasn’t the story Angel had told her. But then, Angel was that kind of a person.
He was right. Angel was a bar-hopping party girl who lied to make ends meet and to make the world revolve around her in the way she wanted it to. Not the easiest of people to get along with.
Daniela placed Sari on the toilet-training seat. The little girl was doing really well. Daniela had wanted to potty train Sari early, and sometimes she managed, and sometimes she didn’t. Daniela had been happy to wait until Sari was a little bit older, but Sari had a mind of her own. When she was done, Daniela helped her off the seat, cleaned her up and pulled up her clothes. Washing her hands, she ran a comb over both of their heads and then picked Sari up and carried her downstairs, where she put on her coat.
Weston stood at the door, waiting for them, his bag in hand.
“Are you bringing your bag too?” she asked with a frown.
He raised his eyebrows. “I can hardly just stay here at your generosity,” he said. “I need to get some wheels at least, and I need to find a place to stay.”
“Oh,” she said, staring down at Sari.
“I don’t want to be a burden,” he said gently.
She looked up, flashed him a bright smile and said, “You won’t be.”
He hesitated, and she realized he really wasn’t sure about staying with her.
“It’s okay, you know?” she said. “It would be a good chance for you and Sari to be together.”
He nodded and then dropped his bag, tucking it by the wall. “In that case, thank you. But I still need to get some wheels.”
Feeling much better, she nodded. “That makes sense, if you’ve got a bunch of running around to do. I’m sure it would be nice to be independent.”
“Always,” he said.
She went to open the front door, but he stepped ahead of her, opened it and let them go through. As she walked down the front steps, he called out, “You lock the door, right?”
She looked back at him with a shrug. “I never do.”
When he frowned at her, she chuckled. “It’s Alaska, not Detroit.”
“I hear you,” he said, as he walked toward the sidewalk with a smile.
“I locked it anyway,” he said.
She shrugged. “Good thing I have a key hidden and keys on me. Otherwise I wouldn’t have thanked you for that.”
“Maybe not, but I’d still feel better to have it locked.” He hopped into the passenger side of the front seat and watched as she buckled his daughter into the back. It was still something for him to get used to. His little girl looked up at him and said, “Doggy.”
He chuckled. “You have a one-track mind.”
“Doggy.”
“We’ll go see what happened to the doggy,” he said.
Daniela hopped into the front seat, turned on the engine and pulled out of the driveway. “Where do you want to go first?”
“I’d rather check out the feedstore first,” he said. “I guess it’s a slim chance the dog is still there, but, if that was the last sighted location, then that’s our best bet.”
“And then what?” she asked as she turned the truck onto the main road.
“I need to get a set of rental wheels, so, if you can drop me off there, I’ll pick up a truck and probably take a drive out to Grant and Ginger’s place.”
“We might as well do that after the feedstore,” she said. “No point in us taking two vehicles out there.”
“Or you could go home,” he said gently, “and spend some quality time with Sari.”
She snorted at that. “We’re trying to spend quality time with you, if you hadn’t noticed.”
He had the grace to feel bad about that. “I just don’t
