Sadie couldn’t help laughing, trying to ignore the zing that went through her when he smiled. He was a little shocking for a pastor with the keeping it real thing he did. She couldn’t get used to it. “Dude, there’s no kids. I don’t think the walls are going to be warped by your potty-mouth.”
“You never know,” said Mike. “I hear they have ears.”
“It’s a myth, I promise.”
“I’m reassured.”
“In any case,” said Sadie. “I really don’t think you have anything to worry about, Mr. Sanderson. Michaela seems happy and engaged, and she’s doing great. You’ve got a smart, well-adjusted kid.”
“Thanks,” said Mike. “I really–it’s good to hear.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll get out of your hair. But I really wish you’d reconsider calling me Mike.”
“Actually,” Sadie said. “I’m pretty much done here. I’ll walk you out.”
Mike grinned. “Thanks, Ms. Alexander.”
“Okay you can call me Sadie, I’ll call you Mike. This is silly,” said Sadie, grinning in spite of herself.
“I wholeheartedly concur, Sadie. Now, are we going to bury the hatchet and smoke a peace pipe? I happen to know that Mayberry’s has a pineapple crumble on special tonight.”
Sadie shrugged on her coat. “I’d like to but the way my bank account is set up…”
Mike smiled at her again, and Sadie knew her life just got stupid complicated.
*****
It was really hard, coming up with excuses to go to the school to check Sadie out. Michaela was pretty much a model student. She loved school, didn’t get in any trouble, and even assured Mike she could take the bus and didn’t need to be driven in, so Mike never needed to be there at all, pretty much.
Which was frustrating only because Sadie Alexander was the hottest woman Mike had ever seen in his life. Michaela adored her and thought she was awesome, and every day it was “Ms. Alexander this” and “Ms. Alexander that,” so it wasn’t like Mike could forget about her or anything. And he couldn’t tell Michaela to scope her out to see if she was seeing anyone because who did that to their kid? He hadn’t heard of anyone but then that brunch at her mother in law’s house had brought up the possibility that she might be seeing someone.
He knew that Sadie was a widow and lived with her son in an apartment in the valley. He’d wormed that information out of her mother in law. Sadie did not attend his church even though her mother in law did; and sometimes she would come with Jaden. So….either Sadie was deliberately avoiding him outside of school or she was a member of some other church…that was likely since he was new in town. Or else she was just avoiding him.
He groaned. It wasn’t enough that Sadie Alexander had freckles and an adorable smile–she had to be an independent woman who was making her own mark in the community and doing a stellar job bringing up that kid of hers. Not that he couldn’t do with a strong male influence in his life…and Mike was perfectly willing…
Mike was thinking of just picking Michaela up every day, objections be damned, when she came home one Friday and said, “Dad, dad!”
“What, what?” asked Mike, grinning. “Fun day at school?”
“We’re going on a field trip to the zoo and Ms. Alexander said we need chaperones and if we had an adult who was going to be at home we should ask them and you’re at home so you should come!”
Mike had a little trouble processing the flow of words–hell, he taught the kid to talk, but he swore even he didn’t talk that fast–but once he put it together, he started grinning. “The zoo, huh?” He picked Michaela up and tickled her. “Think I could get the monkeys to adopt you, huh? Huh?”
Michaela laughed. “I’m not a monkey! You’ll come, right?”
“Yeah, duh,” said Mike. “How do I sign up?”
“Maybe you could drop me off on Monday and tell Ms. Alexander,” said Michaela, rearranging herself in Mike’s lap so she was sitting comfortably. “Then she’ll know you really really wanna go.”
Mike ruffled Michaela’s hair and tried to keep from grinning too hard. “Yeah, I could do that.”
*****
“Morning Ms. Alexander!” Sadie heard, and grinned as Michaela Sanderson ran into the room. It was ridiculously early, way before the buses arrived, but Sadie was used to parents with weird schedules having to do strange drop-offs. Michaela usually wasn’t one of them, but maybe her dad had something.
Sadie firmly told herself she was not thinking about Michaela’s dad, or his schedule, or anything about him.
“Walk, Michaela,” she said instead. “No running.”
“But I forgot my book,” said Michaela. “And I couldn’t read it all weekend. Dad, come read!”
Sadie gulped and turned back to the door to see Mike Sanderson taking up most of it.
She sort of thought that she kept exaggerating Mike in her mind – after all, no one could be as hot as she remembered Mike being, right? It wasn’t possible. Except there he was, dressed in a worn t-shirt and jeans, smiling at his daughter with warmth and affection, and, okay, Mike was that hot.
“One sec, Michaela,” said Mike. “I better talk to Ms. Alexander first, right?”
Michaela pouted. “Okay.”
Mike redirected his attention to Sadie. “Morning.”
“Good morning,” said Sadie. “To what do I owe the honor?”
“Michaela told me you had a field trip coming up, needed some chaperones. She was afraid if I didn’t come ask you live and in-person, you’d give my spot to someone else.”
“You want to chaperone?” asked Sadie.
“Yeah,” said Mike, glancing over at Michaela. “She’s really excited. And what’s the point of being my own boss if I couldn’t take a day off to hang with my kid?”
“Your own boss?”
“Well, kind of. I do make my own schedule at the church and they understand about me being a single dad,” Mike explained. “Got it set up so mostly I work from home. Pretty weird hours, honestly–when the kid’s at school, then after she’s asleep. But I didn’t want my daughter raised by no nanny or anything.”
Sadie nodded, glanced at the clock, reminding herself how early it was. No one else should be in for a while. Michaela seemed totally engrossed in her book. Jaden was off somewhere with Drew, probably burning the school down. She could chat with Mike guilt-free.
“Hey, uh, if it’s not too forward of me – what happened to her mom?”
Mike smiled, a little sadly. “Nothing. She wasn’t ready to be a mom. We weren’t that serious, and she wasn’t exactly-well. I told her if she’d just–if she’d just have the kid, I’d take her.” He looked at something Sadie couldn’t see. “I love kids. And I wasn’t,” he laughed. “I’m sure you know about my…er previous employment before I found God. I didn’t want to waste the chance to procreate because who knew if I would be alive the next week?”