Page 1 of Welcome to Forever
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 likeGOOD 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.
