Soldier Daddy

At the driveway, he peered in the window to study them once more. Mina stood near the family-room wall, grinning bigger than he’d seen in a while. Good to see her relaxed for once. Her blood pressure had been climbing to dangerous altitudes lately, which was another reason he needed to secure child care. Though Mina was watching them temporarily, he couldn’t put the full burden on her once he returned to full-time duty.

Aaron stretched to see his boys, who stared at Sarah in wide-eyed wonder. They’d been too wrapped up in her to notice his departure.

He hoped he hadn’t had the boys’ enthralled, enamored look on his own face when he first saw Sarah.

She plopped back down in the floor, probably to reach eye level with his sons. Scooting close, she listened with eager, expressive eyes at something Braden was saying. Braden talked as much with his hands as with his mouth. At least Bryce wasn’t having his usual Monday-morning meltdown at Aaron’s leaving today. Sarah held his quiet yet rapt attention.

“Amazing.”

Aaron tugged out his keys and headed for his SUV. He’d let her spend an hour with the boys and Mina. He’d have his thirty-minute meeting with Senior Master Sergeant Joel Montgomery, the leader of his local PJ team, who was also Aaron’s prayer buddy, then swing back by here to observe Sarah with the boys and the boys with Sarah.

“You want the good, bad or ugly news first?” Joel asked at Refuge’s drop-zone facility moments later.

Aaron pulled out his planner and pen. “Good news first.”

“Thanks to our actions on Reunion Bridge after it collapsed, Refuge city council requested we take part in more community projects. They feel it will help build up town morale since our team’s rapid response saved lives and made national news.”

“What kind of projects are we talking?”

“For one thing, they asked us to conduct water rescue classes for local first responders. Paramedics, EMTs, firemen, police officers, Refuge River Guard, nurses, doctors, et cetera.”

Aaron jotted notes while Joel talked.

“Vince Reardon offered to head that up. He also said he’d expand the program to offer it to the general public. Meaning teach laypeople, adults, children, teachers, day-care workers, et cetera, classes on basic and advanced water safety.”

“And the bad news?”

“Refuge city officials want us to do more than water rescues. Our superiors are agreeable to the plan because it will help raise awareness of pararescue and help military recruitment.”

“So it’s a win-win situation.”

“Yes, except we don’t have the manpower with our seven, eight with you, teammates. Which is the bad news. Unless our superiors agreed to station at least one more of your other two PJ teams here.”

Aaron hated to break this to Joel. “No go. Least not yet. Not until I agree on paper to return to full-time, they said.” And he couldn’t do that until he secured child care for his boys.

Joel scrubbed his hands up his face. “May as well give you the ugly, then. Funders of the community projects have moved up their deadline by two months. Amber and I are scheduled to be out of the country then to visit the children we’re adopting.”

“Two months.” Aaron seethed air through his teeth. “That’s cutting our time in half.”

Joel pulled out his calendar and pencil. “Look, if you need us to reschedule our trip overseas—”

“No. You and Amber have waited years for this.”

“Tell me about it.” Joel casually tossed his pencil on the pad.

Aaron picked it up and twirled it. He knew Joel felt the pressure as much as he did. No doubt they wanted to help the community. The only solution was Aaron coming back full-time. He had to do that before his superiors would station his remaining two pararescue jumper teams in Refuge and that needed to happen in order for the Refuge PJs to help the community effectively.

The way Joel sank into his chair, he looked as if he could use more good news.

“I have a nanny on the radar.”

Joel’s tense expression loosened. He sat up. “Seriously?”

Aaron nodded. “Yeah. If I hire her, I’ll be available immediately to help get more PJs here and the community programs up and running. Name’s Sarah. She’s young, though.”

“Single?”

Aaron nodded. “That’s what her application said.”

“She pretty?” Joel smirked.

“She’s pretty young,” Aaron emphasized.

But Joel’s smirk didn’t fade. “Oh. Right, Chief.”

Silence pervaded for several seconds until Joel’s amused grin morphed into an expression of thoughtfulness.

“Young might be exactly what your boys need,” Joel finally said in sincere tones.

“She’s certainly energetic enough. The last time Mina got on the floor with the boys like the applicant did, Mina claimed it almost took a crane to get her back up.” A smile started to erupt at images of Sarah on the rug with the boys.

Joel must have noticed. He leaned in and eyed Aaron with a funny expression.

Aaron swiped all evidence of the grin from his face and cleared his throat. “So anyway, it’s something to be praying about.”

Joel and his own grin didn’t look deterred. Best change the subject before he could probe.

“Which other projects did Refuge officials mention?” Aaron clicked his pen and poised it over his planner.

“In addition to Vince Reardon’s community and military scuba diving and water safety classes, they got wind of, pun intended, Brockton Drake’s wind tunnel idea. They knew we’d requested zoning for the facility in order to train military skydivers indoors during bad weather. They asked if we might also open it to the community as a family fun center and have some of our guys run it. In exchange, they offered to front half on the cost of the facility.”

“Wow.”

“They’re also interested in Chance Garrison’s rope safety training. They know he’s been working with local Eagle Scouts to teach that stuff, which has been beneficial. With all the caves, bluffs and craggy hiking crevices around Refuge, local volunteer firemen and paramedics could also benefit from his training.”

“Let’s focus on those three programs for now. Stepping out in faith that God is drawing me back into duty, I’m going to talk to my other two PJ teams about transferring to Refuge.”

“Meaning you’re officially giving word and paperwork that you’re returning full-time?”

Aaron nodded.

“And the nanny situation?”

“I’m confident God has it under control.”

After praying with Joel, Aaron returned home. As he pulled into the driveway and exited his car, he could hear shrieks of laughter from inside. Curiosity piqued, Aaron moved faster to see. He paused at the picture window, taking in the live Norman Rockwell-ish scene in his Thomas Kinkade-like living room.

Clapping her hands, Mina tossed her head back and laughed so hard her mouth didn’t close for what had to be fifteen full seconds. Aaron’s gaze followed Mina’s to the floor. In an undignified scramble, Sarah crawled on her hands and knees after Braden, who shrieked with laughter. Bryce scuttled from the footstool onto Sarah’s back yelling, “Yee-haw! Giddy up, pony! Giddy up!”

Making very unladylike burring sounds and snorts, the previously poised Sarah moved faster, holding Bryce on her back with one hand while doing a strange-looking crawl-run-gallop thing after Braden. The entire room pulsed with fun and family togetherness, like the Rockwell and Kinkade paintings lining the guest room he couldn’t bear to enter because the beautiful images of family and light felt more like a mockery in the midst of the dark sadness that had swept his home the night thieving death broke down his door and left widowhood in place of his wife.

Aaron watched through the window and swallowed. But a good kind of lump sat in this throat.

Because today was the first inkling things could be different. Aaron continued to soak in the warm scene. Sarah probably had no idea what she’d already brought into his home. Yet it was more than her. God’s presence in and through her?

The sight melted something inside that had been frigid nearly four years. All Aaron could do was stare. It seemed a miracle was unfolding before his eyes. He’d seen admirable women before but never quite like this and never quite like this one.

The melancholy cloud blocking his emotions for so long lifted, making way for rays of marvel to beam bright streaks through a formerly dark place as he watched. Tender sprigs of hope pushed forth.

He couldn’t turn away from this atypical scene, where the sun seemed to be shining inside his house as well as outside. Nor could he remove his vision from the source of it: this glowing, vibrant woman who’d enraptured his children faster than an F-22 takes vertical flight and who had aced the Mina test with Top Gun colors.

What was the deal? He couldn’t stop thinking about the Air Force blue of her eyes or the contagious sound of her laugh.

Laughter.

Something his home had been devoid of since Donna died. He couldn’t change the past and he wouldn’t trade his boys for anything. But his future in Pararescue and the future of quality time with his boys depended on his return to work. So did the success of community projects the Refuge city council sought for his team to bring about to heal the town after the bridge collapse. Everything rode on his ability to return to duty. Sarah seemed the key.

But things weren’t always as they seemed.

He had days to decide. And his duty was divided between his little boys and the bigger ones who understood his need to be with his children.

Overcome with emotion he hadn’t felt since he’d lost his wife and plunged himself into blind survival mode for his boys, Aaron heaved a breath and watched his children with mixed emotions and mounting wonder as they danced around with this virtual stranger.

Aaron looked away, only to send his gaze searching across the sky he loved so much.

“I need Your wisdom. Outwardly she’s beautiful, but You see inside a person, Father, to the very core of the heart. Only You can tell me if she’s the right one to care for my sons. Help me know I’m drawn to her because of the beauty You see, and not because of what I see.”

Chapter Three

“I’ll see who it is.” Mina made her way to the trilling phone the next evening. After answering, Mina handed the cordless to Aaron. “Sarah.”

Aaron brought it to his ear. “Hey, Sarah. What’s up?”

“Hi. Hope I didn’t wake the boys by calling.”

“No, we’re just getting ready for bath time.”

“I’m calling to see if maybe I left my phone there. I’ve checked all other places I was yesterday and today and can’t find it. I don’t use it that often, so I didn’t realize it was missing until a couple hours ago.”

“Have you tried calling it?”

“Yes, but I might have left it on vibrate. I don’t remember. Strange thing is, a couple of times I’ve called, it seemed like someone answered. Then what sounds like a small snowblower runs. Then it disconnects.”

A small snowblower? Aaron eyed his boys—particularly the one with the penchant for phones and making sneak calls: Bryce. But of course there was Braden—not a day shy—who still sometimes answered the phone at times when Aaron’s voice came across the answering machine before Mina could make it to the cordless. Small snowblower did quite accurately describe Braden breathing into a phone before he spoke into it.

Aaron tuned back into Sarah.

“…then it goes to voice mail. I’m afraid the battery will die soon and I won’t be able to find it.”

Aaron rose and looked around the sitting room where Sarah had romped with the boys. “I don’t see it at first glance, but I’ll take a better look and call you back.”

“Thanks, I appreciate that.”

Aaron hung up and moved the footstool. No phone.

Bryce approached cautiously, finger in mouth. “Whatcha doin’ Daddy? Who was on the phone?”

On his knees, Aaron angled toward Bryce. “Miss Sarah. I’m looking for her phone. She might have lost it here. Have you seen it?”

Bryce’s eyes grew wide. He faced Braden, who suddenly avoided Aaron and streaked past the bathroom.

“Son?”

“Um…” Bryce looked ready to flee or cry. He darted guilty looks toward the stairs, where Braden now half slunk, half tiptoed upward.

And suddenly Aaron knew. One of them had the phone.

He could go ahead and call it, hoping to hear it vibrate or chime, but he wanted to give the mini-criminal a chance to come clean first.

“Bryce? Do you know where the phone is?”

He gnawed his finger. “Um. Maybe.”

“Does Braden have the phone?”

Bryce shook his head with vigor. “He doesn’t have it.”

“Does he know where it is?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you?”

“No. Please don’t be mad at him, Daddy.”

Aaron rose. “Braden? Come down here, please.”

Braden had never descended stairs so slowly. “What, Dad?”

“Do you know where Miss Sarah’s phone is?”

Braden fidgeted so much the banister jiggled.

“Son?” Aaron lengthened the word and firmed his tone.

“I don’t have it!”

Aaron drew a breath, hoping to inhale patience along with oxygen.

God, help Braden want to be honest. And help me deal with this right so he learns integrity.

Aaron picked up his cell phone and typed in Sarah’s number. Seconds later a musical tune sounded from the playroom.

Bryce gasped. Braden’s eyes bugged.

“Busted.”

He must not have heard the chime before due to the solid-wood door being closed.

Aaron tilted his chin at Braden, frozen to the stairs. “Go get it. Now.” Aaron’s tone left no room to refute or resist.

He dialed Sarah back at the number in the caller ID and let her know the phone was there. “I’ll call you right back, Sarah.”

Braden shuffled like an endangered snail to the other room. His ploy when he didn’t want to do something or when he was in trouble was to feign fatigue.

“Get a move on. Or get used to no cartoons.”

Braden sped up considerably, then returned with the phone outstretched. “I didn’t mean to steal it.” Braden’s chin wobbled. At least he looked contrite now.

Aaron sat and pulled Braden onto his lap. “Then why did you take it, son?”

“I just borrowed it so she would come back and get it.”

Bryce moved close. “Yeah. We like Miss Sarah and want her to come back.”

Aaron nibbled his bottom lip. At least Braden hadn’t lifted the phone solely for the sake of stealing it. “Taking her phone wasn’t the best way to go about making her want to come back though. Was it?”

The boys shook their heads.

Aaron called Sarah’s landline again. “I’ll bring your phone by so you don’t have to use the gas. But first, I have a couple of boys who’d like to say something.”

“Okay.” Sarah sounded mildly curious.

He passed the phone to Braden.

As Sarah sat at the tiny motel-room table preparing to write one of her thrice-weekly letters, whimpers came across the line, causing her to pause.

“Mi-iss Sarah?”

Bryce or Braden? She couldn’t be sure. “Yes?”

“I—I—I—Please don’t be mad at me and not come back.”

Sarah’s heart melted. “Is this Braden?”

“Ye-heaw.”

“Do you have something to tell me?”

Sniffles. “Uh-huh.”

Shuffling came across the line. Then in the background she heard Aaron’s voice, softly coaching Braden. Then what sounded like an escalating, “I-don’t-want-to-I-don’t-want-to-I-don’t-want-to,” then a minor scuffle then sniffling back on the line.

“M-Miss Sarah, I took your phone.”

“Oh. Why? Did you just want to play with it?”

“No-oo. I wanted to play with you.”

Sarah covered the phone and turned her mouth away. Easier to quell the laugh. “You thought if you took my phone that I’d have to come back. Is that it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Aaron whispered in the background.

“Yes, ma’am,” Braden corrected in a wobbly voice.

“Well, how about if I want to come back on my own? Wouldn’t that be better?”

“Uh-huh. Daddy says, wait…” The sound of a hand muting the phone but not covering it completely. “What did you say, Daddy?” Then Braden’s windlike breath came back across the phone. “He says it’s not wrong to wanna see you again. Just how I took the phone to get my way wasn’t right.”

A deep male voice from the background: “And I’m sorry.”

“And I’m…wait. Daddy, why are you sorry?”

A sigh. Then an Aaron-size chuckle. “Not me, son. You.”

“Oh. I’m sorry, Miss Sarah.”

“I forgive you, Braden. And I hope we get to see each other again, too. Your daddy loves you and your brother very much. So much that he wants to be very sure to pick the right nanny. If that’s not me, then God will send someone better. Do you believe that?”

“Guess so.”

“So you learned a lesson today. Sometimes I’ve learned lessons the hard way, too.”

“You did?”

“Yup. But you’re a good boy and I know your daddy knows that.”

“Kay. Bye.” More shuffling.

Then, “Sarah?” The deep baritone of the father whose voice should not make her want to swoon or melt. But did nonetheless.

“I’m here.” But wish I was there.

“Thanks for being so gracious with forgiveness.”

Please return the favor. “No problem.”

But there was a problem. Braden’s innocent words rang in her head like a gong.

Daddy says it’s not wrong to want to see you again.

Why did her mind question whether it was wrong to hope the boys’ father wanted to see her again, too?

“If you’ll shoot me your address, I’ll run this phone by.”

Nor could she deny the hope lifting her joy and her pulse in anticipation of seeing Aaron again.

Sarah fumbled with reciting the address. “If you want to bring the boys, that’s fine.”

“They’d love to come see you, but bedtime looms.”

“Ahh, yes. Very important to keep schedules consistent.”

“Especially since their emotional equilibrium is a little off with me returning to work.”

“Would it be better for me to come there to get my phone?”

“No, then the boys would be too riled to sleep. Besides, that’d reward Braden for taking your phone and Bryce for hiding the fact from me. Especially since they did so to force you back. I’ll just bring it by.”

“Okay.” Sarah hated for Mina to have to do the bedtime ritual alone. “If you need to wait until the boys are bathed and settled to come over, that’s fine.”

“That’d be good. I’ll help Mina put the boys down to sleep first if you don’t mind waiting.”

“I don’t have anywhere to be.”

“Great, then. See you in a bit.”

The call disconnected, but she could still imagine his voice on the line. See you in a bit. She melted at the notion.

Then she remembered she was wearing her oldest pair of snarled-leg jeans with her favorite—but falling apart—flip-flops.

She surged to her closet and searched for something nicer. She flipped through hangers, struggling to convince herself she was trying to impress Aaron her potential boss and not Aaron the drop-dead gorgeous man.

Sarah shoved down flares of attraction trying to ignite in her mind. Fended off fond remembrances of the way he said her name, of how deep and rich and soothing-suave his voice was. How intent and coordinated he looked when he walked: sure and solid yet graceful and sublime.

“That’s it.” She’d nip this nonsense right now. Sarah reached blindly and yanked a shirt, any shirt, from a hanger, vowing she’d wear whatever her hand landed on. The material slid off into her fingers, which recoiled at the feel of steely, pokey wool.

The closet mocked her like an open, laughing mouth.

Great. The ugly unisex fruitcake cardigan her family passed around at Christmas. Year after year they’d rewrap it and send it to someone else. Sarah had managed to avoid it until this year. It was four sizes too big, but oh, well. She must endure her choice and ensure her motives were pure.

After throwing the cardigan over her pink, paint-splotched T-shirt, Sarah intentionally resisted the urge to rush to the bathroom and freshen up her hair and makeup before he came.

She stood in front of the motel dresser mirror and pointed a finger at her reflection. “Don’t feed this attraction. Don’t. And it will starve into nothing.”

Deep inside, she knew she wanted this for the boys.

She sat on the creaky bed and picked up her Bible. “Please order this attraction back in its place,” she asked God and opened to where she’d started reading this morning.

Then she sat to write her letter.

I pray you always have people in your life who love and care about you. I wish you a full life. I’m sorry I might have taken that away. I pray for you every day. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about you and wonder how you are. I’m sorry for my choice beyond what words can say. With love, Sarah.

She stamped a flower on the front of the envelope and fancied it with her embosser. Sunflower this time. She rose and eyed the sparse parking lot. The clock. Paced the small room. Pondered how heavy a responsibility it would be to find the most well-suited long-term caregiver for those little cuties, who were obviously Aaron’s cherished treasures.

“And please, for their sake, let me have this job. I know I’m right for it. For them. Help Mr. Petrowski know that, too.”

“Could this be it?” Aaron stepped from his SUV into the parking lot of a run-down motel in the bad part of town. The sort of shady that had nothing to do with trees.

One of the unit doors opened. Sarah, dressed in a gaudy top and worn jeans, stepped out. “Hi there.”

“Hi.” He held out the phone and tried not to balk at the horrific attire. “Here’s the evidence.”

She laughed and stepped forward, reaching. Their hands brushed with the transference of the cell.

He paused, endeared at how her cheeks matched the color of her pink shirt beneath the V-neck of her old, Army tent-looking sweater. One that looked as if it had waged a war and lost. Still experiencing a zing in his fingers, he shoved his hands in his pockets at the same time as she fumbled her phone into hers.

“So,” they said simultaneously, then laughed.

“You live in a motel?” Aaron rocked back on his heels to view the buzzing sign, missing the first and last letters. “Or should I say an ‘ote’?”

Her shy smile faded. But only for a second. “For now. It’s a lot nicer inside than the outside looks.”

He peered around the neglected neighborhood. Same area where Celia Munez, now Peña, wife of team member Manny, lost her first husband. He was killed here during a drug bust years prior to her meeting Manny. The team had talked of ways to reach out to the area’s gang-prone teens and their families.

“This isn’t exactly the safest part of town.”

“I figured that out. I plan to get a better place. I just wanted to wait until…”

Her voice trailed but he knew her thoughts. She wanted to wait to see if she got this position as his boys’ nanny, for if she did, she’d have a place to live. But until he was one hundred percent certain she was it, he couldn’t give her false hope. Still, he hated for a young woman like her to be living in a place like this.

“I’m sure you’ll find something better soon.” He offered a reassuring smile.

She studied his face, then nodded. Yet her uncertain expression suggested she held doubt over getting the job.

Throat cleared, he hesitated a moment, deciding how best to word this. “I’m not that good at telling people how I feel. I’m better at giving orders and controlling insubordination.” He cleared his throat again. “But I just wanted to say thanks.”

“For?”

“Yesterday. I’ve never seen my children laugh that hard for that long. Ever.”

She looked momentarily disturbed. Same way he felt.

“Whatever you brought to our home that day, Sarah, don’t ever lose that in your life. No matter how things work out with us, I mean, with this job.”