ELEVEN
Tiana needed to calm the fuck down. What in the hell was wrong with her? She'd never felt threatened or jealous of another female in her life. And now she was ready to tear this one to pieces just for smiling at Ker. If she didn't know better, she'd say she was acting like an animal defending her property. But she was no animal, and Ker was not her property. Nope, he was not, she told the tiny voice inside her insisting otherwise.
“Tiana's a teacher,” Ker said. Tiana glanced at him, the pride in his voice made her feel all mushy and happy inside. It was pathetic.
“First grade,” she smiled. “What grades do you have here?”
Sam glanced back and forth between her and Ker. “All of them. It's best to keep them in an environment they feel happy and understand each other than to send them to a city school.”
Tiana frowned, unsure what made these children different. She glanced at Ker but he only squeezed her hand and pulled her forward. “Come, there's someone I want you to meet.”
Sam giggled and shook her head. “He's in the office. I'll see you guys later. I'm going to help the others make sure nobody gets hurt while playing outside.” She squeezed Tiana's arm. “It was really nice to meet you.”
Ker dragged her away to a new hallway. “There's no need to be jealous, love.”
“I am not jealous,” she said too quickly.
“I beg to differ, but if you want to play it that way, just know Sam is only a friend. Nothing more.”
His words made her disgustingly happy and giddy. She let out a huffed breath. When was she going to get her emotions under control when it came to him?
They got to the end of the hallway and Ker opened a pair of double doors that led into a big office. There were three desks set up with computers and phone lines. A middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair sat behind the desk at the far wall.
His was the largest desk with a pile of files and papers sitting on top. He glanced up and a large smile spread over his lips. Genuine happiness took over his features.
“Ker!” Like a child, he jumped to his feet and rushed over, embracing Ker in a big bear hug. He was almost as tall as Ker, which meant that for a human he was a big man.
“Brian! It's really great to see you this time.”
Brian pulled back, his smile seeming to grow even more to the point Tiana found herself smiling too and didn't know why. He was infectious with a happiness anyone could feel.
“It's not my fault, honest. Jessie,” he turned to Tiana, including her in the conversation, “my other daughter, just had her first baby. She wanted me there since her mother hasn't been feeling well.”
Tiana's throat closed. God. She wished she could have some sort of memory of her father like that. Even if it was not as major as being there for the birth of a child, but anything would be better than nothing. “That's really sweet of you.”
Brian waved his hand in a negative. “Nah, she's a good girl. Well, she's going on thirty, so she's not really a girl, but she's still one of my little girls. I couldn't let her go through it alone. Her husband was traveling for work and couldn't get back in time. And her in-laws live too far away to be here until after the baby was born. It was me or Sam.” He chuckled and shook his head. “Sam is too impatient to be at something like a birthing. She'd start stressing her and the last thing she needed was more of that.”
Ker slapped him in the arm and grinned. “Congrats on the new grandson and welcome back. I hope it wasn't too difficult to walk away from the baby to come back to work?”
Brian sighed and grinned at Tiana as if they were in cahoots. “You know babies are too cute to walk away from them. These kids needed me. With Sam in charge, they were going to run all over her.”
Ker wrapped an arm around her shoulders, pulling her close. The intimacy of the move wasn't lost on her. It made her already hyperactive hormones buzz with excitement. “This is Tiana, Brian. She's really special.” He squeezed her when he said that and her heart did little flutters in her chest. She was so fucked if he could do that with a few words and a half-hug.
Brian's expression was full of excitement. For what, she didn't know. “It's great to meet you, Tiana.”
“She's a teacher. I figured she'd enjoy seeing our setup here. Plus, I brought her to check out your gardens.”
A dark blush covered Brian's features. “We have a gardener, thanks to you.”
“Yes, but you're the one who does all the work making sure those plants and flowers feel loved. Like everyone else in this place. That's why everyone here blooms.”
Brian's face reddened more and turned to Tiana. “He doesn't mean that.”
“How long have you two known each other?” she asked. The banter between the two men was one of old friends, family almost.
Brian glanced at Ker as if waiting on something. She watched Ker nod and turned to face Brian again. That was really weird.
“Come on,” Brian said, taking her hand and pulling her from Ker's grasp. “I'll return her to you after the tour.”
She glanced at Ker but he only winked at her. Damn man and his irresistible charm.
Brian guided her out of the office and up a large winding staircase.
“I was about five years old. My mother had died and I was living in the streets,” he said.
She glanced at his face as he spoke, her heart immediately going out to the little homeless boy he'd been.
“I'm sorry.”
“It's fine. It's been a long time. It's just part of the story.” They went through the second level where she saw classrooms with many drawing and teachers making notes at their desks. They waved when the group walked by. She got the impression this was a very happy place. Not only for the children, but for the adults as well.
“Anyway, I was running across the street, trying to get away from a store owner whose bread I had stolen when I bumped into this very well-dressed man.” He met her gaze, a spark of humor in his eyes. “He was young, so I was hopeful he'd let me go, but he didn't. He had me walk back to the store owner and apologize for taking the bread. Then he paid for it and bought what looked like a month's worth of groceries from the man.”
He gave a hearty chuckle. “You can imagine how the store owner's anger turned to happiness at this point. Once we left the store with all the groceries, Ker asked where I lived, so I took him to the alley I'd made a cardboard fort out of.”
“But didn't you have family?” she interrupted as they passed a massive library worthy of being in a catalog from how beautifully it had been designed. There were children quietly reading or studying so they continued walking.
“I did. My mother's brother and his wife had taken our home and he hit me, so I ran away. They didn't care so they didn't look for me. It would have been a waste of their time.”
“They hit you?” she asked in outrage. “You were a baby!”
Brian stopped and gave her an odd look before glancing over his shoulder at Ker with a sharp nod. “She's perfect.”
What the hell was that about?
“I know,” Ker replied. Which only made her antsy all over. She needed a cold shower.
“Yeah, they hit me. It was pretty bad, which was why I refused to tell Ker or anyone my real name. They couldn't really find out who I was if I didn't tell them and nobody was looking for me.” He took her through big playrooms for the smaller children. Every toy imaginable was in there. From learning toys to plain old Barbies and Legos. It was a toy wonderland.
“Ker refused to let me stay in the streets. He took me home with him.”
She snapped her head back and glanced at her gorgeous dragon. “Really?”
He shrugged. “I couldn't leave him out in the streets. As you said, he was a baby.”
She fell in love with him a little that very moment. “Then what?”
Brian showed her the big kid playroom with video games, art desks, and more. “Then he built this place.” They passed by a giant computer lab with brand new equipment. At the end of the hallway, they went up another set of stairs and they continued their walk. “He wanted other children like me to have a safe place to live.”
There were bedrooms on this level. They went to one of the rooms and she gasped. It was set up so perfectly. Four sailor bunk beds built into the walls. Four desks and what looked like two giant walk-in closets and a bathroom. Each bedspread was different and each section was decorated to what was clearly each owner's taste. “This is amazing.”
“Oh yeah. He made the entire place the home every child would want to live in,” Brian said, a note of admiration in his voice.
“How many children do you have here?”
“There are two floors with the girls’ rooms and two with the boys’. The younger ones share in fours and teens share in twos. We have two hundred children here. Orphans. But we have room for a hundred more.”
Her gaze swept down the hallway at the multiple doors with cute personalized photos of the girls in the room and their names.
“Two hundred.” She was amazed. “And they don’t have parents?”
“Some do, but their parents are on drugs and can't take care of them. Some don't. Others were abandoned, so they don't know,” Brian told her as they walked down the hall. The sense of child happiness filled her. These kids were happy.
They took the stairs up to the last level where she gaped at the amazing set up of a movie room. Complete with standing popcorn machine, soda fountain, and a large screen. But what made it all even more amazing was the ceiling. She turned to Brian after staring at it for a while. “Is that what I think it is?”
He nodded with a grin and pressed a button on the wall. The metal ceiling dome opened, leaving a glass dome behind. Then Brian pressed another button and the glass opened, too.
“Oh, my god. This is amazing,” she gushed, glancing at the clear blue sky. The wind whipped around them in a soft caress. “What do they do up here?”
“Sometimes, they have sleepover night after the movies and leave the metal open so they can look at the sky or snow fall. The astronomy class comes here and uses their telescopes to glance at the stars.”
Brian's cell phone rang. He answered and after a moment excused himself to check on one of the kids, leaving her and Ker alone.
She couldn't believe Ker had done this for all these homeless children. Orphans. Like her. She turned to Ker, her heart full of emotions she still couldn't understand. He was watching her intently. That's right. He didn't know about her past. He couldn't know how this affected her.
“This is...wow.” She took a few steps and stopped in front of him. Her limbs moved without her permission and the next thing she knew she was hugging him tightly. “You're a good man, Ker Drachen.”