The Firefighter Daddy. Margaret Daley
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grandmother started for the rear door, Sarah moved into action, cutting off her path. She slung her arm around Nana’s thin shoulders and turned her away. “You’ve got dye on your legs. I need to scrub it off before it turns your skin red and brown.” She sat her grandmother in the chair nearby, grabbed a wet cloth and began scrubbing the dye off her skin.
“Sammy will get hungry if I don’t go get him.”
“Nana, the tomcat is long gone. How did you get him inside? He usually eats outside on the back stoop.”
“I left the door open while I fixed his food. He came in.” Nana beamed. “Until lately, Sammy hasn’t always come to me.”
“Sammy,” as her grandmother called the white tomcat that had been showing up lately at the shop, was a stray that Nana thought was her pet when she was a little girl.
“Mama, what did you do?” Sarah’s mother asked as she charged into the kitchen.
Nana peered at her daughter and pursed her lips. “My job. I was preparing a dye for a customer. One bowl slipped from my hand, and I must have dropped the other. The sound scared Sammy. I’ve got to find him.”
Sarah’s mom sighed, her shoulders drooping forward as she faced Sarah. “Go finish Mrs. Calhoun’s cut then style Beatrice’s hair for me. I’m taking her home—” she glanced at Nana “—and get her cleaned up. Good thing they’re our last clients.”
As her mom took over with Nana, Sarah reentered the front of the small hair salon, plastering a grin on her face, when she didn’t feel like smiling. Not when she understood her grandmother’s need to look for what she thought was her pet. Three days ago Sarah’s dog had disappeared. A lump lodged in her throat at the thought of not seeing Gabe again. Her late husband had given her the black Lab on their second anniversary, and Gabe had helped her get through the deaths of Peter and her unborn child. Many late nights she’d held the Lab and cried over her loss.
“Is everything okay?” Mrs. Calhoun’s question drew Sarah from the past, and she mentally shook Peter from her thoughts.
“Nana dropped a bowl of dye. No big deal. Mom is taking care of her.” Sarah shifted toward Mrs. Miller, who was sitting in her mother’s booth with wet hair. “I’ll be with you soon. Mom had to drive Nana home.”
Beatrice Miller snorted, muttering, “I told your mother Carla needed to be put in a nursing home.”
Sarah took a deep breath and refrained from saying anything to the woman who wasn’t that many years away from retirement herself. She hurried to her customer, snatching up her scissors. “I only have to make sure it’s even, Mrs. Calhoun, then blow-dry your hair and—”
“Nonsense. It’s almost dry, and I love this short cut the way it is. You have more pressing issues to take care of, dear.” The older woman winked at Sarah in the mirror and gave her a huge grin as she turned and pointedly looked at Mrs. Miller.
It was people like Mrs. Calhoun that had made it bearable coming home to Buffalo, Oklahoma, after fleeing five years ago because of the overwhelming memories of what she’d lost, crushing her until she hadn’t even wanted to leave her house.
It was the thought of Mrs. Calhoun’s smile and wink, which Sarah carried with her through fixing Mrs. Miller’s hair and listening to the woman’s complaints the whole time she did, that helped. After she left the shop, Sarah cleaned up the mess in the kitchen, locked up then slid behind the steering wheel of the restored yellow MINI Cooper that Peter had given her on their first anniversary.
As she headed to her mom’s house, she glimpsed a sign for the highway that led to Tulsa, and the urge to go there swamped her. Only home three months, she felt as though she were experiencing the loss of Peter all over again everywhere she went in Buffalo. She hadn’t even been able to drive by the house they had rented and had been thankful it wasn’t near any of the usual places she frequented.
She approached the intersection where an old man had run a stop sign and changed her life forever. Forcing herself to continue, since it was the fastest way home, she crept toward it, her hands shaking. Usually she avoided it. She tightened her grip on the steering wheel and kept going at ten miles under the speed limit.
Out of the corner of her eye she caught a glimpse of a poster on a telephone pole of a black Lab. She pulled over to the curb, fortified herself with a deep breath, climbed from her car and then jogged over to the picture to read it.
One look at the black Lab on the sign and she knew it was Gabe. Her spirits soared at the prospects of getting her dog back. She snatched the poster from the pole, hurried back to her car and drove through the intersection with her mind focused on seeing Gabe again.
* * *
When Liam McGregory entered the kitchen to fix the dish he was going to take to his second meeting with the Single Dads’ Club, he came to an abrupt halt and scanned the mess. What happened? After putting away the groceries, he’d only left to wash up and check the mail. No more than ten minutes.
His seven-year-old niece, Madison, stood on a stool with a mixing bowl in front of her, dumping something that looked like sugar into it. Obviously she’d already put flour in, because the counter was covered in a dusting of white powder. Madison stirred whatever was in the dish while looking at a book next to her. “Milk is next.”
On a chair pulled over from the table, Katie put a half-gallon milk carton down on the counter after pouring some into a glass and then passed it to her older sister. “Here.” In the middle of the transfer, hands wobbled and the white liquid splashed all over the marbled-granite top, dribbling its way through the flour.
“I’m not gonna let you help me next time.” Madison dumped what was left into the bowl, grabbed the carton and poured more straight into the concoction she was making. “You spilled most of it.”
“You did, not me.” Katie’s expression morphed into her pouting one, her baby blue eyes narrowing. She snatched the milk from her older sister so hard more went flying out of the half-gallon container and splattered everywhere.
“Madison and Katherine McGregory, what are you two doing?”
Both girls suddenly twisted toward Liam, Madison’s ponytail whipping around so fast it hit Katie in the cheek. Two sets of blue eyes, round as saucers, fixed on Liam.
Madison recovered quicker than her younger sister. “We’re helping you, Uncle Liam. Aunt Betty said you’ve been working hard and we need to pitch in more.” Her set jaw challenged him to disagree.
He inhaled a calming breath and moved toward his nieces, who he’d adopted when his younger brother died six months ago. “How you two can help me is to make sure the black Lab has water in his bowl out back.”
The girls hopped down from their chairs at the counter and raced for the door to the backyard. Katie tried to go first through the entrance, but Madison quickly maneuvered herself into the lead. Only eighteen months separated them in age, but Madison was determined to make sure her younger sister remembered she was the oldest.
Before Liam began cleaning up, he needed to check that they weren’t creating another mess outside, or they might never make the meeting for single fathers and their children started by the church his brother and nieces attended. He walked to the large window in the breakfast nook that afforded him a good view of his fenced-in yard. The black Lab came up to Madison and Katie, his tail wagging. His nieces lavished attention on the lost dog with no tags they’d found three days ago at the nearby park.
As far as his nieces were concerned, Buddy, their name for the dog, was theirs to keep. Reluctantly they’d agreed to help Liam put up posters about the lost Lab before he’d gone on his twenty-four-hour shift at the fire station yesterday morning. Liam had tried to explain to them that Buddy’s owner was probably looking for him.
Buffalo had more than twenty thousand people but with a small-town feel to it. Residents looked out for each other. However, Madison and Katie were sure they were going to get to keep Buddy. Just another problem