Kara Larkin - The Sheriff With The Wyoming-Size Heart

Ariel pushed a chair over to the counter and climbed up to fit the cat-food can into the electric can opener. Her cool competence in the kitchen reminded him how quickly she was growing up, and reinforced his fear.

“Did you hear what I said? I don’t want you wandering around by yourself.”

“okay.”

But the promise came so easily that Riley doubted he’d gotten through to her. It terrified him to think what it would take to instill caution in her. He hated that there were enough mean, angry, scary people out there to make prevention necessary.

Once she had the cat food open, Ariel looked over her shoulder at him. “That lady was nice.”

“Was she?” With effort, Riley pulled himself out of his deep thoughts to reconnect with the present. That lady. Their new neighbor across the alley. He’d thought her both feisty and remote. It would take a meeting when his own emotions weren’t topping the chart to form a real opinion of her temperament.

“Oh, yes,” Ariel continued. “And pretty.”

“Yeah?” More like beautiful, in an exotic sort of way. Her olive skin, dark eyes and black hair indicated a Hispanic or Mediterranean heritage—probably Hispanic, given the Southern inflection of her words. Her fine bones and delicate features gave an impression of fragility that would bring out the protective instinct in any man. Definitely beautiful.

“Yes. And she helped me remember Mommy.”

“Oh, Scooter.” Riley closed the distance between them and cupped her chin tenderly with his palm. The last two years had been tough on them both.

“I sang, ‘Merry Airy, merry, merry, merry, Ariel.”’

He hadn’t heard the familiar tune since Kendra died, but over his daughter’s high little voice, he heard Kendra’s rich alto singing the love ditty she’d made up the day they’d named their baby. Along with Kendra’s voice he could hear her laugh, almost feel her touch.

Unwilling to confront ghosts of the past, he shut the images away. After two years he thought of his wife only when, with a word or a gesture, Ariel brought her suddenly to mind. He didn’t need to start hearing the Airy tune on Ariel’s lips.

Pulling his daughter into his arms, he sat on the chair. She straddled his legs and wrapped her arms around his neck.

“Scooter, I know you miss—”

“Now I’m not scared I’ll forget what she looked like.”

“Were you?” Before he could guard against them, a flood of memories poured over him. Almost curiously, he sifted through them, but he couldn’t find a clear image of Kendra’s face. Snatches of conversations, impressions of good times, a whiff of her scent, the feel of her hair, a flash of her smile. But no firm, indelible picture.

Stunned, he stared at Ariel and tried to find Kendra’s face. It wasn’t there.

After two years of trying not to remember, it shocked him to realize he couldn’t.

Ariel sighed and lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “Only sometimes. Like when I’m unhappy and I want her, and she just isn’t there.”

It took Riley a second to retrack their conversation. It hadn’t occurred to him his daughter could be longing for the very thing he’d been trying to bury. “I miss her, too.”

“That lady knew I was scared I’d forget, so she told me just to sing. Then she made Jelly stop hiding. I like her.”

“I can see that, but—”

“Please let me go back, Daddy.”

Ariel’s plea took Riley back another couple of steps. She wanted to visit their new neighbor. In this, he had no muddled feelings. “What have I always taught you about talking to strangers?”

Ariel widened her eyes artlessly, indicating she thought she had him licked. “People who live in the same neighborhood can’t be strangers.”

“We don’t know anything about her.”

“We can ask.”

Ariel was right. Sort of. In Laramie, so far, neighbors were not strangers to each other. But the horrors endemic to other, bigger cities were moving in. And sometimes danger hid in unlikely places. He cupped Ariel’s face in his palm. “Promise me you won’t go over there alone.”

“Then come with me. Please. Because she might die, like Mommy did, and I don’t have a way to remember her.”

Riley cuddled Ariel against his chest. A child should not have to deal with the unpredictability of life. She shouldn’t have to play little games to remember the face of someone she loved. And she shouldn’t be deprived of kindness just because one icy night her mother died in an automobile accident and left her father leery of the unknown.

“Let me think about it. In the meantime, don’t go over there alone.”

“Thanks, Daddy.” Ariel gave him a noisy, giggly kiss. Then she grew solemn again and pulled back to look at him earnestly. “Daddy, will I ever have a mommy again?”

“I don’t know.” He thought about it occasionally, especially when he didn’t know how he could give his daughter everything she needed. Or when she seemed too much child for one person to handle. He’d thought about it today, when she’d disappeared from the school before he could pick her up.

But marrying again didn’t mean Ariel would automatically have a full-time mother—or that he would find a woman who could curb Ariel’s recklessness. And more than that, he wasn’t sure he could add the anxiety he’d feel for a wife to his worry for his daughter. Before Kendra’s death, he’d taken life’s risks as a matter of course, as part of his job. Now he measured every aspect of his life against them.

“When Whiskers got lost and I missed her so much, we got another kitten.”

Not quite sure what she needed, Riley folded his daughter in his arms. “We were really lucky to find another kitten that was just right.”

“Can we look for another mommy?”

“I’m afraid it’s not that easy, Scooter.”

She wriggled free of his embrace and giggled. “But, Daddy, it is. I wished for Jelly and I got him. So I’ll just wish for a new mommy.”

She slid off his lap, picked up the can of cat food and skipped across the room to empty it into Jelly’s dish. Great. Now Ariel was wishing for a new mommy, as if people gave them away through the Want Ads, like a kitten. Free to good home. Box trained.

Ariel was a terrific kid, and he’d give her the moon if he could. She’d adjusted to losing Kendra better than anyone expected. In spite of being one of the youngest in her class, she did well in school. She might be too adventuresome for his comfort, but her spunk made her popular with the other kids. So why couldn’t they go on as they were?

She’d just thrown him a curveball he couldn’t possibly hit, and now she knelt on the floor, petting Jelly as if—

The bottom of her left sock was dirty and grass-stained. “Ariel, where’s your shoe?”

She sat back, stretched out her legs and wiggled her shoeless foot. Hunching her shoulders, she looked up at him solemnly. “I don’t know.”

“When was the last time you saw it?”

She pondered for a while, but he didn’t hold much hope she would remember, since she hadn’t even realized it was missing.

“I had it when I came home from school.”

“Did you have it when you came home here?”

“Maybe.”

“Did you have it on when you were visiting the lady?”

She lifted her shoulders again. “I don’t remember.”

“Sheesh, Ariel. How could you forget losing your shoe?”

Sticking out her bottom lip, she examined her foot again. “It has to be somewhere.”

Yeah. Anywhere between the kitchen and the school. Which covered about two square miles, since he doubted she’d taken a direct route or could retrace whatever way she’d come. It wasn’t worth a full-scale search, but he could check with their new neighbor.