Chapter 1
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 hoodlums 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, too 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.
FUCK 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 needy children.
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 damn 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 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. Weren’t part-time groundskeepers supposed to be old with beer guts? Micah’s stomach was flat. With his T-shirt sticking to the perspiration, she could nearly make out the indentations of well-defined muscle there. “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 very nice ass.
“ ’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 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 milky white 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. 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.” Micah had wanted to punch those kids last year. The Marine Corps would frown on one of their own punching the lights out of a couple of eight-year-olds, though. “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 to God 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. Damn hard. 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—ah, damn it—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 damn 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.