Welcome to Forever E-Book

Annie Rains

• Herausgeber: NYLA
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 432

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

This book was previously published in December of 2015 by Loveswept, a digital only imprint of Random House. The residents of the small coastal town of Seaside, North Carolina fall into two categories: Marines and their kids. When outsider Kat Chandler takes a new job as the principal of Seaside Elementary, she faces opposition to her goal of creating an oasis of calm for the children. Adding to her challenges is single father Micah Peterson, who wastes no time in telling Kat the way things should be done. Kat can handle overbearing parents, but when Micah adds passionate kisses to the mix, she knows she's in trouble. Marine Sergeant and single dad Micah Peterson puts all his military discipline and precision into the two most important things in his life: his job and his son, Ben. But meeting Ben's gorgeous new principal causes Micah to wonder if there might be room in his world for one more. Kat is certainly sexy, but Micah feels more for her than just physical attraction as he watches her build meaningful relationships with her students. When he learns Kat has a strict no Marines dating rule, Micah sets out to prove to Kat he's worth the risk . . . a risk that just might turn into forever.

Leseprobe

Welcome to Forever

HERO’S WELCOME

BOOK ONE

ANNIE RAINS

Contents

Dear Reader

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Epilogue

Also by Annie Rains

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Welcome to Forever is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2015 by Annie Rains.

Previously Published by Random House/Loveswept Publishing.

All rights reserved.

eBook ISBN 9781641972338

No part of this work may be used, reproduced, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without prior permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

NYLA Publishing

121 W 27th St., Suite 1201, New York, NY 10001

http://www.nyliterary.com

Dear Reader

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Forever first released in December of 2015 by a digital-only imprint for Random House. It is my first published book and as such, it holds a very special place in my heart. I poured so much love and heart into Kat and Micah’s story and I was so honored when it got picked up for publication. I was surprised and humbled when it then hit the USA Today Bestseller’s list within those first few months after its initial release.

Loveswept, the digital only imprint of Random House, has since closed and the rights to this story were reverted to me. I am thrilled to be re-publishing it now and giving Kat and Micah’s story a chance to reach new readers.

As always, thank you for reading!

xx,

Annie

ChapterOne

Kat Chandler stepped inside the darkened building, and her chest filled with the kind of girlish excitement that had always preceded Christmas, birthdays, and the first day of school.

She’d missed this place and the students who’d be coming back today, giving her hugs and making her feel like she belonged. Which was more than she could say for their parents and the school board.

As she flipped the light switch, something crashed at the far end of the building. She heard it once more, a metallic clang echoing down the west hall. Not again.

Kat kicked off her heels and began to run as the sound combined with children’s laughter. Over the summer, she’d arrived twice to find that vandals had spray-painted obscene messages on the outside walls—messages she didn’t want Seaside’s parents to see, especially on the first day of school.

Following the noise, she pushed the side-entrance door open and ran outside just as a blur of color disappeared into the woods. “Nooo!” She grumbled a few choice words under her breath, and stopped. She would never catch the little rascals and the chase would only make her look disheveled for the parents as they arrived for morning drop-off. That would do little to discredit the disapproving opinions that had circulated about her last year, saying she was too young and inexperienced. That a woman her age should be focused on finding a husband and starting a family—not working sixty-hour weeks.

Two cans of spray paint lay at her feet. Red and black. Her breath stilled in her chest. Maybe the kids had drawn a nice flower this time, or a smiley face. Turning, she gasped at the large, dark letters written haphazardly across the side of the school. The F-word proceeded her school’s initials.

F--- SES.

SES. Seaside Elementary School. Definitely not the message she wanted to send parents as they arrived today. Glancing at the cans again, she grabbed the red one and did the only thing she could think of to fix the problem on such short notice.

Buck. Duck . . . Luck.

She started spraying. GOOD LUCK, SES. Only it kind of looked more like GOOD FU— “Oh, for heaven’s sake.” She ran the paint over everything, scribbling it all out. Stepping back, she frowned at the bright red and black paint dripping down the side of the school. At least kids wouldn’t be asking their parents what the f-word meant this morning. Although, kids these days knew a lot more than she’d known growing up.

Think, Kat. Think.

She’d just have the wall repainted by afternoon pickup, and hopefully, with the school year opening, the Seaside vandals, as she’d started to call them, would find somewhere else to express themselves.

Right.

She began to walk back to her office, absently twisting the ring on the fourth finger of her left hand. Last year she’d been learning the ropes of being a principal. Yeah, the students had tested her and she’d faced more than her fair share of trials for a new principal. But this year would be different—better.

Seaside, North Carolina, was a small coastal town on the outskirts of one of the country’s largest military bases. The community here was a mixture of Marines and retired veterans, which included the town’s mayor. With the mayor’s daughter enrolled at SES, it was an obvious target for scrutiny. She just needed to show the good things that happened under this metal roof, like the art club and the fundraisers that gave shoes and coats to children who needed them.

Kat retrieved her high heels, a little higher than she was used to after being in sandals all summer, and continued walking toward the front office, giving the ring on her finger another twist. The man who’d given it to her had believed in her ability to do this job. He’d been the one to encourage her to go for it and, even if it meant sixty-hour work weeks and no social life to speak of, she was determined to make this “the best school in the state.” The last words tumbled off her lips like her own personal pep talk.

“Talking to yourself?” a deep voice asked from somewhere beside her.

She suppressed a scream as she stumbled backward. No one else was supposed to be here. School didn’t start for another hour.

A man jumped forward and grabbed her waist, steadying her on her feet. “Whoa! You okay?” His deep, gravelly voice came with an unspoken promise that as soon as she looked up, he was going to steal more than her breath—her heart or her life, she wasn’t sure.

She met his rich brown eyes, shadowed by a ball cap. “Who…? Are you a burglar?” she asked, as the horrible scenes she’d watched on the nightly news flashed across her mind. This was Seaside, though, where nothing worth CNN’s time ever happened.

A small smile quirked on his mouth. “Not last time I checked.”

Of course not. Burglars didn’t rob schools. But he didn’t have a kid with him, either, which meant he wasn’t an early parent. That only left crazy psychopath. Only, he didn’t look crazy. He looked kind of…dreamy…sexy.

“Here.” He wrapped an arm around her, which she normally would’ve resisted, but she was still a little unsteady on her feet. Then he led her to the benches that lined the opposite wall. “I’m sorry I scared you. Are you sure you’re okay?” As he removed his hands from her waist, his mouth fell open. “You’re bleeding.”

She looked down at a large red spot on her blouse. Not blood. “Spray paint,” she said, letting out a small laugh. “There are some lovely graffiti artists using Seaside as their canvas lately.” She dared to look up at him again. “I’m sorry. Who did you say you were?”

Stepping forward, he offered his hand. “Micah Peterson. I’m the school’s new groundskeeper.”

She noticed that his skin was rough as she slipped her hand in his. A working man’s hands. “I’m Katherine Chandler. School principal.” She pulled her hand away. “Please forgive me. I’m usually well acquainted with my employees.” And this one she would’ve remembered. “My assistant principal told me that she’d hired someone over the summer. It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Peterson.”

“You can call me Micah.”

His name alone was enough to make her bones go soft. “Micah, if you don’t mind me asking, what are you doing here? It’s barely six o’clock.”

He shrugged his quarterback-sized shoulders. “Just stopped by to make sure the campus looked nice for the first day of school. There’s been a rabbit munching on the chrysanthemums I planted out front. I covered some holes in the sod, too. Looks like we might have a mole.”

With a nod, she dropped her guard just a fraction. After all, he was still a man. A tall, dark, and lust-igniting man, who was currently standing alone with her in an empty building.

He scanned the hall, as if not quite sure that they were alone. “I thought I heard yelling. Is everything okay?”

“That was me. And yes, everything’s fine. Or it will be once I get that outside wall repainted.”

His gaze fell to her hand as she twisted her engagement ring. It was a nervous habit, one that reminded people of her past and usually elicited sympathetic frowns in her direction. Poor Kat Chandler. Her fiancé’s dead and she’s still clinging to his promise of forever.

Micah Peterson didn’t know her history, though. Instead of sympathy, silent recognition crossed his face. She was off the market. Reflexively, she glanced at his left hand, too—no ring.

Silence swam between them. Heated, awkward silence punctuated by the soft hum of the overhead lighting.

“Well, it was nice to meet you, Principal Chandler,” he said in a low voice that made her knees wobble just a little.

Her mouth grew dry as she watched a bead of sweat travel down his temple. In her mind, part-time groundskeepers weren’t supposed to look like that. With his T-shirt sticking to the perspiration, she could nearly make out the indentations of well-defined abs. “Please, call me Kat,” she insisted in a squeaky voice that made her cheeks burn.

“Kat,” he repeated, then gestured behind him. “I better go get my son. Wouldn’t want him to be late for his first day of school.”

“You have a son?”

“Third grader this year.”

She waited for the fact that he was a father to shut down her rampant hormones. It didn’t. Her gaze continued to travel down his body as he walked away, her face heating immediately as she realized what she was doing—shamelessly checking out the school’s lawn guy. Not that she’d been drooling, but…it seemed that even if her heart wasn’t ready to move on, her body definitely was. Her body was practically screaming at her, reminding her of how it felt to be touched—loved.

He turned to wave again and her gaze jumped back to his eyes.

Oh, crap. She hoped he hadn’t seen where her eyes were looking—right at where a tight pair of dirt-smudged jeans hugged his backside.

“ ’Bye,” he said with a slight smile curving his lips.

Yeah, he’d caught her looking.

“ ’Bye,” she squeaked as she pretended to look for the newspaper that was conveniently lying in front of the double doors. She hurried to pick it up, and then quickly, carefully, walked back to her office, reprimanding herself all the way. She needed to get a grip, and fast. She also needed to change out of her spray-painted shirt. The staff would be arriving any minute and the students would begin filling the hallways in one hour. This job was the reason she woke up in the morning, not sexy groundsmen. She was practically married to the school anyway, and hopefully she and SES would have their own version of happily ever after.

After a quick shower and change of clothes, Micah drained the coffee from his mug and glanced at the clock on the wall. School started at eight. He still had to get Ben dressed, load the wheelchair in the Jeep, and drive the five miles back to the school, where this morning he’d finally met the principal, looking a little frazzled and more like one of those New York models than a civil servant. Not that he was disappointed.

He clanged his mug in the sink, hoping the noise would rouse the sleepyhead down the hall, and headed in that direction.

Seaside Elementary was the only grade school within a twenty-mile radius, and he wanted to stay close in case there was a medical emergency—or an incident like last year’s.

Fresh anger curled his fingers into tight balls at his sides as he remembered the group of kids who’d tormented Ben relentlessly. Maybe because he was disabled, or just because he was different from them—always reading instead of socializing and dispersing random facts without prompting. The bullying had finally crossed the line when the kids had tossed his library books and book bag in the cafeteria trashcan several days in a row, forcing Ben to tearfully ask his teacher for help. Micah still couldn’t believe it’d taken them three days to catch on to what was happening. Ben had taken the blame himself, of course, because that’s the kind of kid he was. Everyone knew that wasn’t the case, though.

Micah flipped the light switch and his muscles softened as he watched his son curl deeper into the covers. The kid could sleep forever. “Come on, trooper. Get up.”

Ben moaned.

“First day of school.”

More movement stirred under the solar system–themed blanket.

“I made eggs,” he said, knowing this would do the trick.

Finally, Ben’s head appeared and a groggy smile crossed his face. “Help me up,” he pleaded in a sleep-coated voice.

Micah nearly took a step forward, but stopped himself. “You got this, bud,” he said, remembering what his son’s occupational therapist had told him. If Ben didn’t learn how to do things on his own, he’d always rely on others. He’d never be independent.

Ben’s thin arm reached for the side rail of his bed and pulled, his tiny muscles bulging as he strained to get his body upright. Then he lined his legs up on the ground to stand. It seemed to take more energy for him to do that simple task than it did for Micah to run five miles every morning at the Marines’ physical training center.

After a long moment, Ben’s gaze slid toward him with a hopeful gleam in his eyes, as if he’d get some help on this final step. Micah stayed rooted in the doorway. With a sigh, Ben grabbed the arm of his wheelchair and transferred in one jerky movement, a proud smile crossing his sleep-creased face as he looked up.

“Good job, bud.” The all-too-familiar pride he got watching Ben succeed tightened his throat. “Go ahead and wheel yourself to the bathroom, and then you can have your eggs at the table.” He walked to the kitchen and waited. Ten minutes later, he slid a plate of scrambled eggs in front of his son. “Eat up. It’s going to be an exciting day.”

Ben hesitated, no longer smiling. That was unusual because Ben always smiled.

“Something wrong?” Micah asked, knowing exactly what the problem was. Ben had loved school until last December’s incident.

“What if no one likes me?” he asked in a barely audible voice.

Patting his back, Micah shook his head. “Not possible.”

“What if kids laugh at me?”

“They won’t.”

“But, last year—”

“You’ve got nothing to worry about. I promise. And so what if they laugh? Ignore them.”

Ben stabbed his eggs with his fork. It was crummy advice. Hurtful words were hard to ignore, but the advice Micah’s own father had given him growing up wouldn’t work in this situation, either. If Ben tried to throw the first punch, the kids would pummel him.

Micah set his plate on the table and started to eat.

“Aren’t you going to sit?” Ben asked.

He hesitated. If he sat, he’d probably fall asleep. He’d spent the last three days with his squadron, and then come straight home to relieve Aunt Clara of babysitting duty. In the last four days, he’d barely managed three hours of sleep, which was why he needed to keep moving. Glancing at his son, he hoped Ben didn’t see his red-lined eyes, underscored with almost permanent black circles—battle scars of the parent of a child with special needs. “Nope. I have a laundry list of things to do to make your first day at Seaside Elementary perfect.”

Ben offered one of his huge, heart-shattering smiles, stabbing at another mound of eggs. “Easy there, buddy. Take too big a bite and you’ll spend your day in the ER instead of third grade.”

Ben spoke with a full mouth. “No more trips to the ER this year.”

Micah nodded, knowing they’d be lucky if that were true.

An hour later, he parked his blue Jeep Cherokee in the front of Seaside Elementary and pulled Ben’s wheelchair out of the back. “Ready?”

When he looked at his son, the boy’s pale complexion told him the truth. Ben was scared, but he smiled anyway. “Sure, Dad.”

His son’s bravery gripped his heart and made him, the decorated war hero, feel like a coward. Ben never complained about anything, took everything in stride. But Micah remembered how hard it had been growing up a military brat, drifting from one military town to another. That’s why this would be his last assigned duty station before civilian life. No more moving all over the country. When Micah’s commitment was up next May, he wasn’t reenlisting. Ben needed a home for once, and a dad to teach him to do things for himself, especially since his mother didn’t see fit to call much from whatever assignment she was on these days.

As he walked up beside Ben’s chair, he signaled for him to go forward. Insurance had sprung for a top-notch wheelchair this year with one-sided steering. Everyone had concurred that it was time. Ben’s muscles were getting tighter as he grew taller, a symptom of his cerebral palsy, and soon, walking would be impossible. “Just don’t run over anyone, okay?”

“Okay, Dad.” The chair crawled forward at a steady pace.

“See those flowers, bud? I planted those a few days ago,” Micah said.

Ben didn’t break his concentration. He knew exactly where he was going. Micah had taken him to the school last week to get adjusted to the layout. Each wing of the building was named after sea life. Ben’s classroom was down the Sand Fiddler’s hall, first door on the left.

Micah stopped just short of the school’s front entrance and gave him a quick salute. “I’ll see you this afternoon, okay?” Ben was too old for the hugs and kisses he used to give. That’d only fuel the other kids’ teasing. But maybe this school would be different, he thought.

“See you later, Dad.” Ben returned his salute and continued forward, not looking back. Micah knew if he did, he’d lose control of his body and the wheelchair.

Good boy.

Micah recognized the young principal from this morning greeting the children at the school’s entrance.

“Walk,” she warned in a sweet voice that did little to slow the excited feet as they stampeded toward her. Her beautiful smile grew larger as she looked at Ben. He usually had that effect on people. Then she waved and—oh, her heart—Ben lifted his arm to wave back.

His excitement jerked his body around like a marionette and the lunchbox on his lap toppled to the ground and opened with a loud crash that made Micah flinch. Watching as the scene unfolded in slow motion, he did his best not to run up to his son and grab the falling items as they rolled toward the other students. That’s what he wanted to do, but it wouldn’t help anything.

His jaw tightened as he watched Principal Chandler kneel down in those ridiculous heels that made her legs, and other assets, look delicious. She began reaching for Ben’s sandwich and apple, tossing them quickly in his box and closing it. She didn’t hand it back to him, which is exactly what Micah would’ve done. Instead, she carried Ben’s lunchbox, grabbed the books he’d also had in his lap, and walked with him inside.

Seeing that she didn’t reappear, Micah guessed she then proceeded to walk with him to class. He ran a quick hand through his hair. How the hell was Ben supposed to make his own way at this school with his principal escorting him around the building? If only she hadn’t waved, not that he could blame her for the friendly gesture. Ignoring Ben would have been worse.

Realizing he was still standing at the edge of the parking lot, and probably looking like a crazy person, Micah decided to turn around and head to work. His squadron was waiting. Instead, his feet started to move forward, heading toward the school. As he veered into the front office on his right, the young secretary glanced up.

“May I help you?”

“I’m a new parent here and I want a quick word with the principal,” he said, crossing his arms and not budging toward the row of seats behind him. There was no time to wait. He just needed to make sure Kat Chandler knew how to treat his son because there was no way he was going to let Ben have another bad school year.

The woman looked down at an appointment book on her desk. “Um, okay. I’ll just see if—”

They both turned as Kat stepped into the office, slightly out of breath. “I just ran into Stanley. The graffiti will be gone by afternoon pickup.” She braced her hands on her hips, where his own hands had rested earlier this morning, looking slightly stressed and absolutely beautiful.

Clearing her throat, the secretary jerked her head in his direction. “You have a visitor.”

“Oh. Good morning,” Kat said, noticing him now. “I’m Kat Chandler, the school’s principal.” She held out a hand for him to shake as she smiled warmly.

Taking it, he waited for her to recognize him. She didn’t. But he’d been wearing a ball cap this morning, and coated in sweat. Good. He’d prefer not to lose the first big landscaping job he’d scored in Seaside over this—not that he was going to cause a scene. He just wanted to make sure his son had a great year at SES. Ben was perfectly able to be an independent kid, and part of the reason for that was because he let him carry his own lunchbox.

Micah’s jaw clenched at the memory of last year. He wasn’t going to tell the pretty principal how to do her job—okay, maybe he was—but for Ben, he’d do anything.

ChapterTwo

Kat studied the parent standing in her office. He had a deep frown creasing the skin between his dark eyes. There was also something vaguely familiar about him. Maybe they’d met at parent orientation last week. “What can I help you with?” she asked, taking a seat behind her desk, and gesturing for him to sit across from her.

Bracing his hands on his hips, he didn’t budge. “You walked my son to his class this morning,” he said, his voice edged with slight irritation. “He dropped his lunchbox, and you picked it up and carried it for him.”

She nodded, flashing her best principal smile—the one that was supposed to exude confidence and put parents at ease. “Yes. Ben. I did walk with him this morning. He’s new here and I wanted to get to know him.”

“You should’ve let him do it alone,” he said in such a way that her spine straightened. “He’s in a wheelchair, but he’s capable. I don’t want him to be defined by his disability here. If you treat him that way, everyone else will, too.”

Sucking in a breath, she suddenly felt like she was a student visiting the principal’s office.

“Mister. . .?”

“Peterson.”

Nodding, she spoke slowly, calmly. This was the first upset parent to walk into her office this year, but he wouldn’t be the last. Talking parents down from their fear-and-worry-ridden ledges was an unwritten part of her job. “Mr. Peterson. I assure you, I was only getting to know your son.”

“And that’s nice of you, Principal Chandler, but don’t treat Ben different from the other students,” he said, his voice as abrasive as the look he was giving her. While he was handsome, she didn’t appreciate what he was insinuating. “I don’t want my son to suffer because he’s in a wheelchair and you feel bad. That’s your weakness, not his.”

“Weakness?” She took a deep breath, then bit the inside of her cheek, focusing her energy there. This parent was doing more than insinuating; he wanted a fight, and she wasn’t going to give it to him. That was his weakness, not hers. “Your son didn’t seem to mind that I was walking with him this morning.”

“Of course not. But walking with the principal doesn’t exactly help him make friends, does it?”

Seriously? It was hard for parents to let go. She got that. Harder for some than others, but this dad needed to back off.

“I understand what you’re saying, Mr. Peterson,” she said, continuing to keep her calm, cool demeanor, “but I assure you that I did not treat your son any differently than I would any other student on this campus.”

“You walk every child to class?” he asked, obviously biting back his temper.

“If they ask me to, and I have the time, then yes, I do. Especially the new students. It’s easy to get lost if you don’t know our school’s layout.”

“Ask you?” His face was expressionless, but there was a definite emotion firing in those dark eyes of his, and it wasn’t anger, despite his stiff posture. “He asked you to walk him to class?” he clarified.

“And carry his books. He said he didn’t want to risk dropping them again.”

Running a hand through his short, buzz-cut hair, the father surprised her by laughing. It wasn’t the kind of laugh that would’ve put her at ease, though. More of a laugh of someone who was so frustrated, they had no idea what to do. “Figures.” He glanced down as his cellphone rang in his pocket, drawing her attention to his fitted blue jeans.

She’d seen those hips before. And the V-shaped torso opening up to a broad pair of drool-worthy shoulders. Her gaze jumped up, and—uh oh. She’d also seen those dark brown eyes. For the love of chocolate. Why hadn’t she recognized him immediately? “Micah Peterson?”

He didn’t blink. “Good morning again,” he said, true amusement lacing his voice this time.

A gasp caught in her throat. “I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize you. You had on a hat earlier and a different shirt.” As if the hat and clean shirt were a disguise.

“It seems to me you had on a different shirt, too.” He gestured to the fresh blouse she was wearing, free of spray paint unlike this morning’s.

“I’ve learned to always have a spare, just in case. In this profession, it’s necessary . . . So, Ben is the son you were talking about this morning?” Again, duh. Had her brain overheated from the image of Micah’s lower half?

“Listen, I’m not trying to be a hard-ass,” he said.

Hard ass? Yep. Very hard. Swallowing, she pulled her mind out of the gutter and straightened. She was a professional, she reminded herself. No drooling over the hot, completely irrational parent.

“First day of school nerves. We all have them,” she said. “And you’re just looking out for your son. I respect that.”

“Right.” He nodded as his defensive posture relaxed just a little. “He didn’t have many friends at his old school. And it’s not easy when the other kids are running around and riding their bikes. Ben will never do any of that. To make matters worse, he sometimes puts up a fight about doing the stuff he is capable of.”

Maybe not so irrational. A parent who wanted to do right by their child always squeezed at her heart.

“Don’t worry about Ben, Mr. Peterson. Seaside is a great school, and I’m sure he’ll fit right in.”

His cellphone rang again and this time she averted her gaze to look somewhere less mind-blowing, like at her secretary, Val, who was nosily watching them from her desk. Great.

“I have to get to work.” He offered what appeared to be a genuine smile.

That’s a good smile.

“Of course. We’ll see you this afternoon.”

As he started to walk away, her gaze traveled down his tall, lean body.

With a sigh, Kat watched the father disappear out of the school’s double doors and pointed at her friend. “I knew I shouldn’t have given you this job, Val. You’re going to be trouble this year.” She shook her head and reached for a stack of to-dos on her desk. Thirty minutes later, her phone rang, breaking the steady progress on paperwork that she rarely got to make.

“Trouble in Miss Hadley’s classroom,” Val said through the speakerphone. “You better get down there quick.”

Micah’s phone rang for the hundredth time that morning as he sat in the long line of traffic leading to Camp Leon’s military base. He had a good mind to turn the whole thing off. Glancing at the caller ID before answering, his chest tightened. Yeah, I should’ve turned it off.

“Hey, Jessica. How are you?” He didn’t hide the distaste of her name on his lips, or the fact that he’d rather be doing PT in the desert than talking to his ex.

“I’m good,” she said efficiently. “Listen, I don’t have time for small talk, Micah.”

Of course she didn’t. She never had. “What do you have time for? Other than the Marine Corps?”

She laughed dryly. Once upon a time, that laugh had been an adrenaline shot to his heart.

Now, it made his teeth grind together. “I volunteered for another deployment.”

Stars burst behind his vision. “What the hell, Jess? Ben has been looking forward to us driving to Georgia at Christmas. He’ll be devastated.”

“He’ll understand.” There was a dismissive annoyance in her voice.

“I doubt it,” he said, his fingers gripping the steering wheel so hard that his arms went numb.

“It’s my job, Micah.”

“And what do you expect me to do if I get a mandatory, not a voluntary, order of deployment? What happens to Ben then?” Uncurling his fingers, he watched as the blood rushed back into his hand.

“Your aunt Clara will take care of him. Just like last time. Or you could get out of it somehow.”

“Yeah, how would I do that? Tell my command that I’m pregnant?” he asked.

Silence sizzled between them.

“I never wanted kids. You knew that from the beginning.”

“Yeah.” He pressed the gas as traffic slowly inched forward. “Will you at least call him later and explain the importance of your career yourself?”

She didn’t answer. Right. He’d forgotten what a self-centered ex he had. If she hadn’t gotten pregnant during their five-month “relationship,” they never would’ve gotten married. He’d thought they could make it work, though. Micah had loved her, or thought he did at least. But the Marine Corps always came first with her, just like with his own dad. And he understood that, hadn’t even minded that she’d loved the Corps more than him. But he minded that she loved the Corps more than her own son. Getting married had been a huge mistake. Except for Ben. Ben was the only thing they’d ever done right.

“Fine. I’ll tell him tonight,” he muttered. Then, after a hurried goodbye, he hung up and entered the military base. A short drive later, he parked and was preparing to get out of his Jeep when his phone rang again. With a low growl, he glanced down at his caller ID—he didn’t have the patience for another round with Jessica. He didn’t recognize this number, though. “Hello?”

“Mr. Peterson?” a woman asked, her voice tight. “It’s Kat Chandler. I’m afraid you’re going to have to come back to the school. There’s been an accident with Ben.”

ChapterThree

This didn’t bode well for Seaside Elementary. Ben had barely been here two hours and already he’d been involved in some sort of incident.

Micah walked right in, didn’t bother to speak to the office secretary, and headed straight toward Principal Chandler’s open office door, pausing at the sight of her—wearing the same fitted skirt that had hugged her body so perfectly this morning.

He glanced over at the wheelchair in the center of the room and back at her. “Where’s Ben?”

“He’s in class, sitting in one of the nurse’s spare wheelchairs,” she said.

Which was no doubt oversized for his small frame. “Is he okay?” Micah asked, his voice coming out harder than he intended.

She nodded as she stood and walked around her desk. “Yes, he seems fine. As I said on the phone, I’m very sorry about this, Mr. Peterson.”

“You can’t monitor every second of the day. I know that.” But she could make sure Ben’s teacher kept better control over her classroom. Ben had already been nervous about being the new kid. Micah could only imagine how he was rolling with Seaside’s punches thus far. But if she said he was fine, he wasn’t going to interrupt Ben’s first day any more by checking on him while he was in class.

He crouched beside the chair and inspected the tire. Last year’s chair had solid rubber tires that never would have gone flat. This one had pneumatic tires that resembled those on a ten- speed bicycle, allowing him to move over more surfaces, including outdoors. “Tell me again what happened.”

“A child stabbed it with his pencil,” she said, stepping up beside him. “I don’t think it was directed at Ben as much as an attention tactic. The school will pay for any replacement parts.”

Micah laid a bicycle repair kit down on the floor and started to patch the puncture, doing his best not to notice Kat’s long-as-summer legs standing a few feet away. “It needs a patch and some air, just like if you had a bike flat. I keep a kit on me at all times.”

“I see.” She shifted around, as if looking for something to do. “Would you like some coffee?” she asked.

“Love some.” Micah had been up more hours than usual, which may have accounted for his outburst this morning. He’d been an ass, and he knew it. But Ben was his son and, while he was easy to love, it was hard not to worry about him.

Glancing over, he watched her grab two mugs from a cabinet, enjoying the view as her skirt raised two inches along the backs of her thighs.

“He had a flat last month, too,” he said, redirecting his attention to the task in front of him. “The mobility guy who sold us this chair said flats could happen, but rarely did.” Shaking his head, he reached for the mug of coffee that she handed him. “I guess he didn’t realize how active Ben was. Especially for a kid with his level of cerebral palsy.”

She pulled up a chair and sipped her coffee as she watched.

Her high-heel shoes were gone, he noticed. There were a lot of things he noticed sitting at this angle. His man parts reacted without consulting with his brain first. His brain knew that checking out Ben’s principal was a bad idea. Clearing his throat, he forced his eyes back to the chair and started pumping air into the tire. He refocused his thoughts back on his son. “Ben might’ve said it didn’t bother him, but believe me, it does. He knows you can’t control what others do, but today’ll hurt. The best I can do is teach him to hold his chin high. It’s not as much fun to bully someone who doesn’t let it get to them.”

“That’s pretty good advice.” She held on to her mug with both hands, making her look too young to be in charge of a school. When he met her gaze, however, he saw what a quick glance of her appearance didn’t tell: It didn’t matter how young she looked, she’d already seen too much in life.

Which raised all kinds of questions in his mind that he had no business contemplating.

“Listen, I’m sorry about this morning,” he said, lowering his voice and turning back to the wheelchair. “Ben had a rough time last year. I just want to make sure he does okay here.”

“No need to apologize. And he’ll be fine. We’re in this together.”

In this together. Those words were foreign to him. Since Jessica had quit her role as mother, he’d been handling everything on his own. Of course, Kat hadn’t meant anything by saying that. She was a principal and he was a parent. In that sense, they were a team. But something about those words didn’t make him ache. It also made him feel like running out of her office, which he needed to do anyway. His phone was blinking, no doubt signaling a dozen messages from his squadron. “Ben’s wheelchair is ready to use,” he said, standing.

“That was fast.”

“I’m a pro at patching tires,” he said, relieved there wasn’t damage to the chair. Ben’s fragile ego was another story. “I’ll pick him up after school.” He placed his empty coffee mug on the counter and headed toward the door, feeling her follow behind him.

“Again, I’m s—” she began, stopping when he turned back. “Right. I already said that. Well, hopefully our next meeting will be under better circumstances.”

A few lurid fantasies of reasons he’d like to be called back to her office filtered through his mind. Reining in his imagination, he waved. “See you this afternoon, Kat.”

As he walked through the front office, he tipped his head at the young secretary, who was smiling like the cat who’d swallowed a canary. What was that about? He probably didn’t want to know. He had bigger things to worry about. Tonight, he’d have to break his son’s heart and tell him that his mother was going back to war—that she’d volunteered to go.

Micah climbed into his Jeep and headed toward the military base. If Jessica was going to be an absentee mother, he’d just have to be a better father. That meant no more dating women like the last one he’d gone out with—Nicole. And certainly no ogling his son’s principal. Even if he was interested in dating, Kat Chandler had a ring on her left hand, which made it as clear as the diamond at its center that she was off the market.

Dinner sizzled on the stove in front of Kat—a can of SpaghettiOs.

“You know, if you keep cooking for me, I might not go back to Doug when he gets home. I might stay with you,” Val said, pulling her thick, black hair into a ponytail. “The dad is hot, by the way.”

Kat kept her eyes on the food. “Dad?” she asked, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible. She knew exactly who Val was referring to. Her matchmaking best friend always brought up the single, remotely attractive men who graced Seaside. Although, in Micah’s case, attractive was an understatement. He was so hot, he practically had steam rising from his muscled body. His social skills, however, were slightly lacking and, as hot as he was, he could be a bit of a jerk. A well- intentioned jerk, but . . .

Kat turned the heat down on the stove and served up two bowls of pasta. “Changing the subject, I spoke to Julie last night. She’s coming to town this weekend.”

Val emitted a low grunt as she ate. “Alert the presses.”

Kat looked over, her mouth quirking to one side. “She says she wants to take me out to the bars and nightclubs in search of my rebound guy.”

“Bars and nightclubs? She does remember that this is still Seaside, the place where we were born and raised? Only one bar and zero nightclubs.” Val’s brows hung low. “Besides, I’m your best friend. I’m the one who’s supposed to help you find your rebound guy.”

“You know I’m not looking for a relationship right now. It’ll just be us sitting around and checking out Seaside’s selection. Besides, I was thinking that you could come with us.”

Drawing back, Val’s eyes widened. “Oh, no. I have never been a huge fan of your sister. Hanging with you two would only spell a weeklong migraine for me.”

Kat scooped pasta into her mouth, considering this. “We’ve been out of high school for nine years. Don’t you think it’s time to shake hands and make up? Turn the other cheek, or whatever your dad would advise, per the Good Book.”

Val’s bright blue eyes bore into hers. “She stole my boyfriend right from under my nose. It’s unforgivable. And I don’t like the way she treats you. When was the last time she even called to ask how you were?”

“Before last night? A year ago maybe. We have busy lives.”

Val shook her head, returning her attention to her dinner. “You aren’t too busy for anyone. You’re the most caring, giving person I know. Julie, on the other hand, is a soul sucker. She’s the one who’s too busy to grace her own hometown, even after John was killed.” Val’s expression softened as she realized what she’d said. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to—”

“It’s fine. I’m done crying into my SpaghettiOs.” Unless she’d had too much to drink, which she rarely ever did.

“Did you ever make it to that support group? The one at the Veterans’ Center?”

Swallowing thickly, Kat shook her head. “No.”

“Why not? I think it’d be good for you. You could connect with other Marine widows.”

“Except I’m not a widow. John and I were never married, remember? It just wouldn’t feel right. A lot of the people who go to those meetings were married for years. They have kids.” Kat reached for her glass of water, her mouth suddenly as dry as paper.

Val watched her for a moment, and then sighed dramatically, setting her fork down. “Fine. I’ll consider hanging out with you two.”

“Really? Yay! It’ll be fun, I promise.”

Val’s gaze lowered to the ring on Kat’s left hand. “You might want to put that in your jewelry box while she’s here, though.”

Staring down at the sparkling, oval-cut diamond, she shook her head. “I can’t . . . yet. But I have started packing up his stuff. That’s progress.”

“Yes, it’s . . . progress.” There was a playful hint to Val’s tone, lightening the mood for both of them.

“It’s just hard. I hope you never have to go through it.”

Val’s body tensed beside her. “Just because I’m dating a Marine, doesn’t mean he’s going to die.”

Crap! She hadn’t meant to say what she’d been thinking. She just didn’t want her best friend to go through what she had. “I know. I didn’t mean anything by that. I’m sure Doug will come home safe and sound. Most Marines come home safe and sound.” She heard her voice waver as she spoke, those pesky emotions rising to the surface.

Looking up, she offered her best I’m-completely-together-smile, knowing Val wouldn’t buy it the way most did. Kat allowed herself a temporary moment of self-pity—something reserved only for when she was alone or with her best friend—and then she was done. Back to the positive. The future. “He was the one who encouraged me to take this job as principal. He believed I could do it, that I’d make a difference.”

“And you are,” Val said softly.

“I’m trying, but look at today. It was the first day of school and already there was vandalism and a student popped the tire of another child’s wheelchair.”

“Two incidents. No big deal. You were perfect.”

“Huge deal.” Kat set down her spoon, no longer hungry. “Don’t you remember how the last school year ended? Seaside Elementary was becoming known for its incidents rather than the fact that we have top-notch teachers and some of the highest academic scores in the state.”

Val nodded. “We’re a military town. It’s kind of natural for the kids to duke it out. Like dogs marking their territory.”

This roused a smile from her—one of the reasons she loved Val. “You’re comparing my students to dogs?”

“Or wolves. It’s the hierarchy of nature, or something like that.”

Kat collected her bowl and headed to the sink. “That’s it. You’re cut off from the Discovery Channel.”

“So, what are you going to do?” Val asked, following behind her.

“I don’t know yet. But I’m going to do something, in John’s honor. I’m going to turn Seaside Elementary into a place where students accept each other, care about each other—”

“And you’re cut off from the Hallmark Channel.” Val gave Kat’s shoulder a playful shove, then jumped as the phone rang in her pocket. “It’s Doug,” she said, reading her caller ID. “I’ll take it outside.”

Kat watched her friend disappear out the front door. Glancing down at her engagement ring, she thought about Julie’s announcement that she was coming home for a visit. Julie was a lot of things, but Val was wrong about her. Her sister wasn’t a soul sucker. She just had a different way of doing things. And if Julie had it her way, by the end of next week, she’d have John’s stuff boxed up, the engagement ring on its way to a pawnshop, and a new man in Kat’s life, possibly in her bed.

Well, that last part might be nice. She’d just have one ground rule—no Marines.

Micah glanced at Ben in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t smiling. It had been a rough first week—not horrible, but it hadn’t lived up to Ben’s hopes—and now Micah had to stop procrastinating and finally tell him that his mother was deploying again.

“Pizza?” he asked, meeting Ben’s gaze in the rearview mirror.

“On a school night?”

“Yeah, why not?” He tried to act like it was a spur-of-the-moment thing. Those rarely happened in the Peterson household, though. His workload and Ben’s disability necessitated a schedule, which he did his best to maintain.

Ben scrunched his face.

“All right. Fine. If you don’t want pizza—”

“I do,” his son protested, slurring his words the way he did when his muscles were tired. And there was that lopsided smile.

Micah turned the Jeep Cherokee into the parking lot for Kirk’s Pizza House. It was the only pizza joint in Seaside, and the place was packed. A hostess showed them to the last table in the back and Micah followed, as Ben carefully maneuvered his chair down the narrow aisles.

When they were seated, Ben seemed to shrink in his chair. “You have something to tell me.” It wasn’t a question. “Otherwise, we’d be having boring chicken and green beans. That’s what you laid out this morning,” he said.

My kid is smart.

Micah licked his lips, stalling like the old Mustang he’d had when he was sixteen. “Maybe I didn’t want boring chicken and beans tonight,” he said, silently thanking God when the waitress interrupted, bringing them glasses of water and breadsticks. He wasn’t ready to talk about Jessica yet. Couldn’t they just enjoy their night for a while before his ex squashed it with her proverbial combat boots? “So, tell me about your day.”

Ben blew a breath toward a lock of dark hair falling in his honey-colored eyes. He’d inherited those from his mother. His left arm was too stiff to swipe the hair away, and his right arm—the strong one—was locked on a breadstick, slowly submerging it in pizza sauce. “We had a rally.”

Micah grabbed his own breadstick. “A pep rally?”

“Yeah.” Talking while he chewed, his son’s muddled words were even harder to understand. “Principal Chandler added a new subject to our curriculum. It’s called Good Deeds. We’ll be emailing the wounded soldiers at Camp Leon and writing letters to people in nursing homes. She’s also changing after-school detention to something called the Friendship Club. If you get in trouble, you have to stay after school and work on the campus doing recycling and making new friends.”

Micah didn’t know what kind of friends were to be made in detention, but before he could think too much on it, the waitress was back to take their orders. He ordered a large pizza, half with just spinach for him and half with ham and sausage for Ben. His little man was a meat lover, and tonight he deserved whatever he wanted. “A club for misbehaving kids, huh?” he asked, recapping the conversation. He reached for a second breadstick, promising himself that he’d stop with this one so as not to ruin his appetite. “That would’ve been nice last year, huh? A mean kid club.”

Ben stopped dipping his bread for a second, and Micah immediately regretted bringing up the bullies.

“Friendship Club,” Ben corrected quietly, his voice so low that Micah had to guess at what he’d actually said. “And the kids in the club have to do nice things for everyone.”

“Even the girls?” Micah soured his face in a weak attempt to make his son laugh.

Ben glanced up, not even cracking a smile. “Dad, I’m in third grade now. I’m allowed to like girls.”

“You are?” This was news to him.

“And I was thinking . . .” The tone of his voice, more confident now with a hint of wanting, made Micah’s heart beat in an uh-oh rhythm.

“You should start liking girls again, too.” His son swiped at his hair, staring at him expectantly across the table. “I won’t get in the way anymore. I promise.”

“In the way? Anymore?” Micah leaned forward. What was Ben talking about?

“Like with Nicole.” Ben’s gaze fell on the table.

Micah groaned at just the mention of the name. He’d only dated Nicole a couple weeks. “You know that wasn’t you, right? She just wasn’t right for me. Wasn’t right for us.”

“But I think I know who is right for you—I mean us.” Ben looked up, eyes wide like they got when he was about to ask for a too-expensive toy or an extra serving of dessert.

Suddenly, Micah was rethinking taking his son out for pizza. The night was quickly turning into a discussion about his love life. Or lack thereof. “Who?”

“Principal Chandler.”

Kat’s succulent green eyes came to mind. And the sparkling diamond on her left hand. Clearing his throat, he leaned back and scratched the side of his jaw. He was stalling again, looking for the right response to his son’s suggestion. “And what makes you think we’d be a good match?”

“Because she also likes spinach on her pizza.”

Micah furrowed his brow and followed Ben’s gaze to a table across the room, where Kat was eating alone.

As if sensing people watching her, she looked up from a stack of papers on the table and a slow smile formed. Tonight, she wore her corn silk hair down, letting it cascade around her shoulders.

Micah forgot to chew the last bite of his breadstick and started to choke. After plowing a quick fist into his chest to get the food down, he looked back across the room.

She had a concerned tilt to her eyebrows that relaxed as her gaze moved to Ben, who was happily waving her over with his right arm.

“Ben, she looks like she’s working,” Micah said. And he wasn’t prepared to share space with a woman who looked like that.

“People don’t work at dinner, Dad,” Ben said, a duh