Missing 4-Year-Old Found Safe : Reunion: Her mother’s boyfriend took the girl after an argument. She is left with unsuspecting baby-sitter.

A missing 4-year-old girl was reunited with her tearful mother Wednesday, two days after the mother’s boyfriend disappeared with the child following an argument.

Marianna Kirby screamed, “They found my baby! They found my baby!” as she leaped into a stunned visitor’s arms at the front door of her apartment, just seconds after getting a phone call from police saying they had found Heather Kirby safe and unharmed in the care of an unsuspecting baby-sitter.

After keeping Heather overnight on Monday, the boyfriend--Sean Patrick Flanary--had left the girl with the baby-sitter Tuesday morning, saying the mother would eventually be by to pick the girl up, police said.

Police had been looking for the child and Flanary since Monday evening.

Flanary, 22, who met Kirby two months ago at a nightclub, is still being sought for questioning by police along with Kirby’s car and a $700 money order she had bought to pay her rent.

“I’m so happy, I’m so happy, I’m so happy!” Kirby cried as she sat on her sofa midday Wednesday clutching a small leather pocketbook, awaiting a neighbor who would drive her to the Placentia police station and the reunion.

“I have not slept for three days. I never thought (Flanary) would hurt her. He said Heather was like a daughter to him,” she said. “He can have my car. He can have my money. I’m just glad he gave me back my baby. He always seemed like a good guy, but he is evil for what he did.”

Thirty minutes later, Kirby was reunited with the younger of her two daughters at a news conference at the police station.

Sweeping Heather off her feet, Kirby kissed the girl repeatedly, weeping, “My baby. My baby.” Kirby also has a daughter who is a high school freshman.

The tiny girl, who seemed stunned by the mass of television cameras surrounding her, could only nod, “Yes,” when her mother asked, “Did you miss me?” The girl clutched a small purple-haired troll and a larger “Beast” doll from the movie “Beauty and the Beast” that her mother had brought for her.

Kirby had last seen Heather at 8 a.m. Monday, when Flanary dropped the woman off at Western Medical Center-Santa Ana, where she works as a blood technician. Unemployed, Flanary was to take care of Heather for the day and return to the hospital at 3 p.m. to pick up Kirby. He never arrived and, by that evening, police were notified.

“We had had an argument,” Kirby said. “He wanted me to marry him, but I told him I didn’t want to hurry. If he loves me, why would he want to hurt me like this? Why would he take my little girl away from me?”

Police spokeswoman Corinne Loomis said Flanary was seen at a Santa Ana check cashing store Monday night, but it was unclear where else he went with the child between 8 a.m. Monday and 7:15 a.m. Tuesday. That’s when he and the child showed up at the Anaheim home of Stacy O’Neill, the girl’s usual baby-sitter.

O’Neill, 30, said that on Tuesday morning she “was walking out the door and here’s Sean with Heather. I didn’t think anything of it, because he sometimes brings her.

“He did seem a little nervous. He asked me if I could loan him a couple of dollars for gas. I said no. He told me he had a money order I could hold until he paid me back, but I still said no. Then he got in Marianna’s car and he left.”

O’Neill said she took the girl with her to Santa Ana to take care of some business at the courthouse Tuesday and then returned home. She was a little concerned when Kirby did not arrive to take Heather home, but she had taken care of Heather overnight on previous occasions.

She said the girl didn’t complain too much that she had not been home for a day.

“About 9 o’clock (Tuesday night), I just put her to bed,” O’Neill said. “Heather cried, wanting to know where her mommy was, but I said she would come get her soon.”

Meanwhile, Flanary--who has three children from a previous marriage who live with their mother in Santa Ana--was stopped for driving through a known drug-dealing area by Santa Ana police Tuesday; but because of a computer problem, officers didn’t know he and the car were being sought, police said.

When Placentia investigators realized Flanary had been spotted, but without Heather, that caused them some concern.

Heather, meanwhile, was still at O’Neill’s house Wednesday morning, after spending the night. O’Neill, who had not seen the papers or heard news reports about the girl being sought, was unaware anything was amiss.

She dressed Heather and took her to the Prince of Peace Day Care Center, an Anaheim facility where she works.

O’Neill’s mother, however, had seen the girl’s picture in the paper. After failing to reach O’Neill, who was driving to work, her mother called police. They reached O’Neill at work.

“They asked if I had Heather,” O’Neill said. “When I said, ‘Yes,’ they said, ‘Just stay right there.’ ”

Staff writer Davan Maharaj contributed to this story.