It was true, all of it. But Stone loved his life. Loved his work.

And loved…

Sara rushed into Toy Station with a wide grin on her face.

Sara. Just the sight of her completed his thought. He loved his daughter.

“Didja get it?” She bounced from one foot to the other like a Ping-Pong ball. “Didja? Didja?”

“Get what?”

“Daddyyyyy!”

Smiling, he handed her the one-hour-photo envelope.

“Cool!” She tore open the envelope, then flipped through each shot, giggling at some, making faces at others. “Come look. I’m getting good.”

Stone glanced down at the mostly blurred and very unbalanced shots, some with suspicious-looking smudges that might have been a finger on the lens, and nodded seriously. “Very,” he said encouragingly.

“Look, there’s Sally pretending my teddy is her daddy. She doesn’t see him since he remarried, so I told her it was okay to pretend, just like I do about Mommy.”

Stone held his tongue, but it was difficult because anger nearly choked him. He had no patience for people who turned away from family. To him, family was everything. Family took care of their own, or rather, they should. It was that simple. Maybe he was just old-fashioned, but it was the way he felt, and he knew nothing would ever change that.

Unfortunately, he also knew that things rarely happened as they should. “Bring Sally over here, Sara. We’ll be her family anytime she needs us. Okay?”

Her smile lit his heart. “’Kay.”

“So what was your hurry to have the pictures developed?”

She didn’t answer, but pulled out the last photograph with a frown. “Oh, Daddy. I can’t believe you took this one.” She moaned theatrically, as only a ten-year-old can do.

Stone glanced at the photo causing the distress and laughed. “This is my proof,” he teased, tugging on a loose curl the color of coal. “You helped me paint your bedroom. You picked out those horrid colors.” He shook his head. “Chartreuse, of all things.”