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A Father's Promise
Marta Perry
A LESSON IN LOVEJust when compassionate teacher Leigh Christopher was about to give up on her God-given talent, she bonded with a special littler girl. Rejuvenated, she vowed to do anything to inspire young Sarah–even if it meant clashing with the child's rugged, fiercely protective father. But the quiet agony in Daniel Gregory's eyes told Leigh that his daughter wasn't the only one who needed her. Despite herself, Leigh was deeply drawn to Daniel and longed to ease the bitterness in his heart. Would it take a miracle from above for Daniel to accept Leigh's tender love?
Table of Contents
Cover Page (#u1dd1d921-3d4a-5aa2-834a-e85e729b8c09)
Excerpt (#u7ff127c2-788f-5114-880a-11040f60ac9e)
About the Author (#u61a2750a-322e-522a-be9b-5460c5bf0df9)
Title Page (#uf5957e25-e088-5b26-83d5-be54c355facc)
Epigraph (#uca4876d9-b732-565f-ab75-e9ce17985030)
Dedication (#u2be8da6b-92af-5529-97ae-8e9557804f03)
Chapter One (#u04c28c53-0b6a-583a-b9e9-72404cb4f874)
Chapter Two (#ube63fe34-dc84-5771-8aa8-f5f5f40b957f)
Chapter Three (#u72ff560f-fce3-5741-9904-63b711e4da1b)
Chapter Four (#u5c38b445-f92c-5dc9-8f8b-3761c0b65dc1)
Chapter Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue (#litres_trial_promo)
Dear Reader (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
“Sarah!”
In an instant he reached for his daughter, scooped her up in his arms, held her close. “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. “You’re safe now, honey.”
Daniel turned to the woman before him. He hadn’t seen her on the island before. If he had, he’d have remembered. Short blond hair, sea-green eyes and a splattering of freckles across her cheeks that gave her a sun-kissed glow.
“Thank you.” The words were inadequate.
She smiled. “You’re welcome.”
He held out his hand. “I’m Daniel Gregory, Sarah’s father.”
Her palm fit nicely into his. “Leigh Christopher.”
Daniel knew it was time to thank her again and walk away. But somehow he couldn’t just leave…
MARTA PERRY
loves seeing the stories in her imagination take shape on the page, so that they can be shared with others. The idea for A Father’s Promise began in a chance meeting at a church conference with a child whose hearing impairment didn’t keep her from doing everything she wanted to do. The Sea Islands, where the author and her husband have a vacation home, provided the perfect setting for the story of Daniel, Leigh and little Sarah.
Marta wanted to be a writer from the moment she encountered Nancy Drew, at about age eight. She didn’t see publication of her stories until many years later, when she began writing children’s fiction for Sunday school papers while she was a church education director. Although now retired from that position in order to write full-time, she continues to play an active part in her church and loves teaching a lively class of fifth- and sixth-grade Sunday school students.
As is true for Daniel and Leigh, the author has found in her own life that God gives far more than we could ask.
The author lives in rural Pennsylvania with her husband of thirty-six years and has three grown children. She loves to hear from readers and enjoys responding. She can be reached c/o Steeple Hill Books, 300 E. 42nd St., New York, NY 10017.
A Father’s Promise
Marta Perry
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we can ask or conceive, by the power which is at work within us…
—Ephesians 3:20
This book is dedicated to my children, Lorie, Susan and Scott, who have taught me much about love. And, as always, to Brian.
Chapter One (#ulink_091c0bd0-790c-53b3-91a0-8ea98efe8c61)
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?”
