Kris Fletcher - Picket Fence Surprise

With that, he set off across the lawn, doing his best to stay focused on the crowd in front of him rather than the woman behind him. Forward. Onward. No regrets.

He managed to face away from her until he hit the deck, where Millie ceased her prancing long enough to pull up in front of him.

“Whoa,” she said to the air, then looked to him. “Hi, Mr. Sorenson. What’s my mom doing?”

He had to look back at her then, didn’t he?

Heather no longer sat cross-legged and contemplative on the grass. Instead, she was kneeling, hands moving on the ground.

Moving...a pile of sticks?

“Millie,” he said, resting his hand on her curls, “I can’t be certain, but I think your mom is giving hope to a weed.”

CHAPTER TWO

THE NEXT NIGHT, over on the other side of town, Xander buckled Cady into her high chair, set a sippy cup of milk on the tray and took a neat step out of the line of fire before his darling child could spray him.

“Drink, pretty girl. Daddy already had his shower today.”

Cady banged the cup on the tray. “Cookie, Daddy? Pease?”

“After you eat your real food.” In short order, he had a bite-size smorgasbord in front of her—pasta, peas, bites of cheese and chicken. Cady scowled at the assortment.

“Want cookie.”

“Cheese.” He snagged a piece and popped it into her mouth. “Chow down.”

As he’d expected, Cady frowned but obediently chewed before picking up a bite of pasta.

Confident that the meal was under way, Xander grabbed his bowl of beans and followed suit. He used to wait until Cady was done before he attempted to eat, but then she would need a bath. Or she’d pull something over. Or decide there were too many tissues in the box, and it was her God-given duty to empty it. He would race after her and food would be forgotten, and he would fall into bed at night and realize all he’d had since breakfast was a cup of coffee and a handful of Cheerios. Nothing that he couldn’t endure for a day, but definitely not a habit he wanted to build for a lifetime.

So he and Cady ate together now. Not that she was thrilled about staying in her chair until he’d had a chance to catch his breath and unwind a little, but c’est la vie.

And even if she shrieked, and he had to shovel his food in while praying the neighbors didn’t turn him in as a possible child abuser, it would be a more successful dinner than the one he’d shared last night with the latest Ms. Online Dream Date.

“Looks like we’re still in the market for a stepmommy, Cady. Hope you’re not disappointed.”

She dropped a cheese cube on the floor. Lulu, their scruffy but well-loved beagle blend, gave an appreciative whine as she snapped it up.

“No food on the floor, kid. Lulu already had her supper.”

“Ruru supper?”

“That’s right. She already ate. Don’t want her to get sick.”

“Ruru sick?”

“No.”

Cady’s tiny blond head shook back and forth. “No sick.”

Maybe he was going about this dating thing the wrong way. Maybe he should stop taking women to nice restaurants and coffee shops, and start arranging to meet at Bits and Pizzas. He could take Cady, the date could fall in love with her—or not—and depending on everyone else’s reaction, then he could worry about details like his feelings for the woman in question. Or how Ms. Online handled the revelation of his time in the Big House.

“Except I feel like I have to tell them up front,” he said to Cady. “If that’s gonna be a stumbling block, I want to know straight out of the gate. It wouldn’t feel right to keep that hidden.”

Which he supposed was rather ironic—the former convict worrying about doing the right thing. But it wasn’t like history was destiny.

“Did the crime, did the time, from here on in my life is mine. Right, Lu?”

Lulu paused in her nosing of a piece of pasta long enough to glance his way.

“I shouldn’t complain.” He spooned up more beans. “It’s not like things were going really well anyway. I mean, she was nice enough. She has a kid, told me all about him, really loved the pictures of you, Cady girl. So you know she’s smart.”

Cady raised her cup at an angle he knew too well.

“Uh-uh. No shower, remember?”

“Milk!”

“Drink it.” He tapped the cup. She peeked up at him. He plastered on a stern expression, she sighed and cup met mouth.

“The thing was, Cade, she didn’t laugh a lot. I can’t see how you build something with someone you can’t laugh with. And I’m not saying I’m Mr. Comedy,” he added when Lulu rose and turned away from him. “But I had some good lines in there and some funny stuff happened. Like when the guy at the next table got a call. You could tell he was in the middle of being dumped, and instead of taking it outside, he sat there saying ‘but...but...’ and then he came out with, ‘Damn it, I even paid for you to get your cat fixed!’ I was busting a gut trying to keep from laughing. She—Amanda—she kept sending him dirty looks and complaining about cell phones in public. Which, hey, I totally get it. Still, there was something freakin’ hilarious going on beside us, and all she could think about was the rule that was being broken.”

“Cookie? Daddy? Cookie?”

“Two more bites.” He pushed the necessary pieces in her direction. As expected, Cady ignored the small portion he’d set in front of her and raked up a handful from the remainder.

“Eat slowly, kid. Don’t want you to choke. Sloooooooooow.”

Which was advice he should have given himself last night. Instead, as soon as Amanda had finished commenting on the lack of consideration and broken rules, he had gone for the ultimate test and told her about his own experience breaking the rules. And the law.

To her credit, she had listened to the whole story—at least the thirty-second version he had perfected. She had nodded and said something about everyone making mistakes, and downed the rest of her wine pretty fast.

“But I really wasn’t surprised when she left to go to the ladies’ room and never came back.”

“Back?”

“She went bye-bye, babes.”

“Bye-bye,” Cady echoed. “Cookie? Pease?”

He checked the tray, then the floor. Either Lulu was getting faster or Cady really hadn’t dumped it all overboard. “Okay. You earned a cookie. Maybe even two, but don’t tell Mommy.”

“Mommy?” Cady swiveled toward the door. He needed to work fast.

“Mommy in the morning, Cade. After night-night. Look, here’s a cookie! Who do we have—is it a lion? Yeah, I think it’s a lion. What does Leo the Lion say?”

“Rawr.”

“Good trained monkey.” He dropped a couple of animal crackers on the tray and gave thanks that Cady wasn’t yet old enough to tell Darcy everything that went on at his place. Not that Darce would care about an extra hippo or tiger. She was into nutrition, but she wasn’t overboard. But he could live without having her hear about his Adventures in Dating from their daughter.

“The problem is, you’re too smart, kid. Pretty soon I’m going to have to keep all my stories for Lulu. Either that or find someone else to share them with.”

Of course, that was the rub, wasn’t it? If he had someone to share things with, he wouldn’t be off on these fiascos in the first place.

“Ah, well, Cady. I never thought I’d have you, and here you are.” He bopped the end of her nose. “And that right there makes me the luckiest daddy on the planet.”

She beamed up at him and whapped her cup against his arm.

“Ow!” He pulled the cup from her grasp and did the parental finger wag. “No hitting. Got it?”

She scrunched up her face in what he knew was the precursor to a wail.