Matt Sanders

"Ah, Ace," Matt said uneasily, "you know how I promised I'd take you to the antique car show in the morning?"

His daughter was busy coloring at the kiten table, enjoying a saturday morning in her jammies. they were faded cotton-candy pink. They had feet in them, which made her seem like a baby. His baby.

He felt a fresh wave of anger at the kids teasing her. And a fresh frustration at the snippy young teacher for thinking she knew everything.

He had tried to think about that visit from the teacher as little as possible, and not just becasue it made him acutely aware of his failings as a single parent.

No, the teacher had been pretty. Annoying, but pretty.

And when he thought of her, it seemed to be the pretty part he thought of--the lush auburn hair, the sparkling green eyes, the wholesome features, the delicate curves--rather than the annoying part.

Ace glanced up at him. Her shortened blonde hair was sticking up every which way this morning, still an improvement over the tooth paste fin of last week, and the long tangled mop he had tried to tame--unsuccessfully--before that.

"We're not going to the car show?" she asked.

Matt hated disappointing her. He had been mulling over how to break this to her. Which is probably why he hadn't told her earlier that her plans for Saturday were changed. sometimes with Ace, it was better not to let her think things were over for too long.

"We're not going to the car show?" she asked again, something faintly strident in her voice.

Just as he had thought. She was clearly devastated.

"Uh, no. Your teacher is coming over." He had an envelope full of cash ready to hand to Aubree Dawson for any purchases she made for Ace. His guilt over changing the car-show plans was being balanced, somewhat, by the incredibly wonderful fact he didn't have to go shopping.

the devastation dissolved from her face. "Mrs. Dawson?" Ace whispered with reverence. "She's coming here?"

"It's not like it's a visit from the pope," he said vaguely irritated, realizing he may have overestimated the attractions of the car shows by just a little.

"What's a pope?"

"Okay, the queen, then."

"The queen's coming here?" Ace said, clearly baffled.

"No. Miss Dawson's coming here. She's going to take you shopping. Instead of me taking you to the car show."

the crayon fell out of Ace's figures. I'm going to go shopping with Mrs. Dawson? Me?" Her brown eyes got huge. She gave a little squeal of delight, got up and did a little dance around the kitchen, hugging herself. He doubted a million-dollar lottery winner could have outdone her show of exuberance.

Okay, he admitted wryly, so he had overestimated the appeal of the car show by quite a bit.

Matt felt a little smile tickle his own lips at his daughter's delight, and then chastised himself for the fact there had not been nearly enough moments like this since his wife had died. Slippery roads. A single vehicle accident on Christmas eve, Val had succumbed to her horrific injuries on Christmas day. There was no one to blame.

No one to direct the helpless rage at.

Ace stopped dancing abruptly. Her face clouded and her shoulders caved in. It was like watching there air go out of a balloon, buoyancy dissolving into soggy, limp latex.

"No," Ace said, her voice brave, her chin quivering. "I'm not going to go shopping with Mrs. Dawson. I can't."

"Huh? Why?"

"Because Saturday is our day. Yours and mine, Daddy. Always. And forever."

"Well, just this once it would be okay--"

"No," she said firmly. "I'm not leaving you alone."

"I'll be okay, Ace. I can go to the car show by myself."

"Nope," she said, and then furiously insisted, "its' our day." She tried to smile, but wavered, and after struggling valiantly for a few seconds to hide the true cost of her sacrifice, she burst into tears and ran and locked herself in the bathroom.

"Come on, Ace," he said, knocking softly on the bathroom door. "Can can have our day tomorrow. I'll talk you over to Aunt Michelle's and you can ride Happy."

Happy was a chunky Shetland pony, born and bred in hell. Her aunt Michelle had given the pony to Ace for Christmas last year, a stroke of genius that had provided some distraction from the bitter memories of the day. Ace loved the evil dwarf equine completely.

But Happy was not providing the necessary distractions today. There was no answer from the other side of the bathroom door. Except sobbing. Matt realized it was truly serious when even the pony promise didn't work.

Matt knew what he had to do, thought it probably spoke volumes to his character just how reluctant he was to do it.

"Maybe," he said slowly, hoping some miracle--furnace exploding, earthquake--could save him from finishing this sentence, "since it's our day, i could tag along on your shopping trip with Miss Dawson."

No explosion. No earthquake. The desperate suggestion of a cornered man was uttered without intervention from a universe he already suspected was not exactly on his side.

Silence. and then the door opened a crack. Ace regarded him with those big moist brown eyes. Tears were beaded on her lashes, and her cheeks were wet.

"Would you, daddy?" she whispered.

the truth was he would rather be staked out on an anthill covered in maple syrup than go shopping with Ace and her startlingly delectable teacher.

But he sucked it up and did what had to be done, wishing the little snip who was so quick tos end the notes criticizing his parenting could see him manning up now.

"Sure," he said, his voice deliberately casual. "I'll go, too." Feeling like a new man who had escaped certain torture, only to be recaptured, Matt slipped the envelope of shopping cash he had prepared for the teacher in his own pocket.

"Are you sure, Daddy?" Ace looked faintly skeptical. She knew how he hated shopping.

Enough to steal overalls to try and save him, he reminded himself. "I don't want to miss our day, either." he assured her.

Inwardly, he was plotting. this could be quick. A trip down to Huntington's one-and-only department store, a beeline to girls' wear, a few outfits--Miss Dawson approved, probably in various shades of pink--stuffed into a carry basket and back out the door.

He hoped the store would be relatively empty. He didn't want rumors starting about him and the teacher.

It occurred to Matt, with any luck, they were still going to make the car show. his happiness must have shown on his face, because Ace shot out of the bathroom and wrapped sturdy arms around his waist.

"Daddy," she said, in that little frog croak of hers, staring up at him with adoration he was so aware of not deserving, "I love you."

Ace saved him from the awkwardness of having to break it to Miss Aubree Dawson that he was accompanying them on their trip by answering the doorbell on the first ring. Freshly dressed in what she had announced was her best outfit--worn pink denims and a shirt that Hannah Montana had long since faded off--Ace threw open the front door.

"Miss Dawson," she crowed, "my daddy's coming, too! He's coming shopping with me and you."

And then Ace hugged herself and hopped around on one foot, while Aubree Dawson slipped in the door.

Matt was suddenly aware his housekeeping was not that good, and annoyed by his awareness of it. He resisted the temptation to shove a pair of his work socks, abandoned on the floor, under the couch with his foot.

It must be the fact that she was a teacher that made him feel as if everything was being graded: newspapers out on the coffee table; a thin layer of dust on everything, unfolded laundry leaning out of a hamper balanced perilously on the arm of the couch.

At Ace's favorite play station, the raised fireplace hearth, there was an entire orphanage of naked dolls, Play-Doh formations long since cracked and hardened, a forlorn-looking green plush dog that had once had stuffing.

So instead of looking like he cared how Aubree Dawson felt about is house and his housekeeping--or lack thereof--Matt did his best to look casual, braced his shoulder against the door frame of the living room, and shoved his hands into the front of his jeans pockets.

Aubree actually seemed stunned enough by Ace's announcement that he would be joining them that she didn't appear to notice one thing about the controlled chaos of his housekeeping methods.

She was blushing.

He found himself surprised and reluctantly charmed that anyone blushed anymore, at least over something as benign as shopping trip with a six-year old and her fashion handicapped father.

The first-grade teacher was pretty as he remembered her, maybe prettier, especially with that high color in her cheeks.

"I'm surprised you'll be joining us," Aubree said to him, tilting her chin in defiance of the blush, "I thought you made your feelings about shopping eminently clear."

He shrugged, enjoying her discomfort over his addition to the party enough that it almost made up for his aversion to shopping.

Almost.

"I thought we'd go tot he mall in Orange County," Aubree said, jingling her car keys in her hand and glancing away from him.

Why did it please him that he made her nervous? And how could he be pleased and annoyed at the same time. A trip to Orange County was a full-day excursion!

"I thought we were going to stay in Huntington," he said. Why couldn't Ace have just been bribed with Happy time, same as always?

Why did he have to have an ugly feeling Aubree Dawson was the type of woman who changed same as always?

"Huntington?" Morgan said. "Oh." In the same tone one might use if a fishmonger was trying to talk them into buying a particularly smelly piece of fish. "There's not much of a selection here."

"But Orange County is a half an hour away!" he protested. By the time they got there, they'd have to have lunch. Even before they started shopping. He could see the car show slip a little further from his grasp.

And lunch with the first-grade teacher? His life, deliberately same as always since Val's death, was being hijacked, and getting more complicated by the minute.

"It's the closest mall," Aubree said, and he could see she had a stubborn bent to her that might match his own, if tested.

As if the careful script on the handwritten notes sent home hadn't been fair enough warning of that.

"And the best shopping."

"The best shopping," Ace breathed, "Could we go to The Snow Cave? That's where Suzzie Weston got her winter coat. It has white fur."

Matt shot his daughter an astonished look. This was the first time she'd ever indicated she knew the same store in Orange County or that she convened a coat that had white fur.

"Surrender to the day," he muttered sternly to himself, not in the word surrender had appeared in Sanders' vocabulary for at least two hundred years.

"Pardon?" Aubree asked.

"I said lead the way."

But when she did, he wasn't happy about that, either. She drove one of those teeny tiny cars that got three zillion miles per every gallon of gas.

There was no way he could sit in the sardine-can-size backseat, and if he got in the front seat, his shoulder was going to be touching hers.

All the way to Orange County.

And even if he was determined to surrender to the day, he was not about to invite additional assaults on his defenses.

"I've seen to Tinkertoys bigger than this car," he muttered. "We'd better take my vehicle."

And there was something about Miss Aubree Dawson that already attacked his defenses. That made a part of him he thought was broken beyond repair wonder if there was even the slimmest chance it could be fixed.

Why would anyone in their right mind want to fix something that hurt so bad when it broke?

He realized he was thinking of his heart.

Stupid thoughts for a man about to spend a half an hour in a vehicle--any vehicle--with someone as cute as Aubree Dawson. He was pretty sure it was going to be the longest hour and a half of his life.

Stupid thoughts for a man who had vowed when his wife died--and Sanders' took their vows seriously--that his heart was going to be made of iron.

Out of nowhere, a memory blasted him.

I wish you could know what it is to fall in love, Matt.

Stop it, Val, I love you.

No. head over heels, I can't breathe, think, function. That kind of fall-in-love.

Valerie had been his best friend since they were kids, but Val was his friend's girl before his. David had joined the services and been killed over-seas. For a while, it had looked like the grief would take her, too. But Matt had done what best friends do, what he had promised David. He had stepped in to look after her.

Can't breathe? Think? Function? That doesn't even sound fun to me.

She's laughed. But sadly. Matt, you don't know squat.

There was a problem with vowing your heart was going to be made of iron, and Matt was aware of it as he settled in the driver's seat beside Aubree, and her delicate perfume surrounded him.

Iron had a secret. It was only strong until it was tested by fire. Heated hot enough it was pliable as butter.

And someone like Aubree Dawson probably had a whole lot more fire than her prim exterior was letting on.

But as long as he didn't have to touch her shoulder all the way to Orange County he didn't have to find out. He could make himself immune to her, despite the delicacy of her scent.

It should be easy. After all, Matt made himself immune to every other woman who had come calling, thinking he and Ace needed sympathy and help, loving and saving.

He didn't need anything. From anyone. And in that, he took pride.

and some days it felt like price--and Ace--were all he had left.

but even once they were all loaded into his spacious SUV, even though his shoulder was not touching Aubree's, Matt was totally aware of her in the passenger seat, turning around talking to Ace.

and he was aware the trip to Orange County had never gone by more quickly.

Because Aubree had switched cars, but not intent. And Matt saw that she was intent on making the day fur for Ace, and her genuine caring for his daughter softened him toward her in a way he did not want to be softened.

for as much as he resisted her attempts to involve him, it made Matt mildly ashamed that on a long car trip with Ace he had a tendency to plug a movie into the portable DVD player.

Matt glanced over at Aubree. Her eyes had a shine to them, a clearness, a trueness.

He was aware that since the death of Val he had lived in the darkness of sorrow, in the grip of how helpless he had been to change anything at a moment when it had really counted.

Aubree's light was not going to pierce that. He wasn't going to allow it.

"With an oink, oink here, and an oink, oink there," Aubree Dawson sang with enthusiasm that made up for a surprisingly horrible voice.

It was written all over her that she was young and innocent and completely naive. that she had never known hardship like his own hardscrabble upbringing at a place that was going broke, that she had been untouched by true tragedy.

"Oink," she invited him, and then teased, "you look like you would make a terrific pig."

He hoped that wasn't a dig at his housekeeping, but again he was taken by the transparency in her face. Aubree Dawson appeared to be the woman least likely to make digs.

"--here an oink, there an oink, everywhere an oink, oink--"

He shook his head, refusing to be drawn into her would. No good could come from it. When soft met hard, soft lost.

The best thing he could do for this teacher who cared about his daughter with a genuineness he could not deny, was to make sure he didn't repay her caring by hurting her.

and following the thin thread of attraction he could feel leaping him as her voice and her scent and her enthusiasm for oinking filled his vehicle, could only end in that one place.

And he was cynical to know that.

Even if she wasn't.