Page 33 of Welcome to Forever
Micah glanced over. Sitting this close to her, he couldn’t help remembering the kiss they’d shared last week. It’d be so easy to do it again, and see if she still made that little whimper when their lips met. He’d thought about that whimper a lot. It was as sexy as the woman sitting next to him.
“If Mrs. Burroughs wasn’t a woman, I’d offer to kick her ass for you.” He grinned, watching Kat laugh beside him.
“Then we’d be just like these kids, solving our problems the wrong way.” She focused on the group with the hoes in hand. “Do you think it’ll work?”
She met his gaze and he had to force himself not to lift his hand and swipe a lock of hair out of her face.
“The gardening thing, I mean,” she said.
“If it doesn’t, you’ll have a bunch of unruly kids with green thumbs.”
She laughed lightly, still holding his gaze. “Better than a bunch of unruly kids with pages of handwritten sentences, I guess.”
“True.” He swallowed, rubbing his hands over the thighs of his jeans as he refused to blink. He also refused to lean closer, touch her, do all the things that he’d been increasingly fantasizing about. “Kat,” he said, unsure of what he’d say next. A Marine always had a plan of action, but interacting with Kat was uncharted territory.
They both looked up as Ben’s cry broke through the heat radiating between them. Bogie had his hands braced on the arms of Ben’s chair and was leaned in close to Micah’s son’s face. Micah got up and started stalking toward them. As he got closer, he heard Bogie’s words.
Stupid.
Cripple.
Loser.
“Back away,” Micah commanded.
Bogie straightened. “Just checking your son’s theory, sir.” A sarcastic smile molded to his thin, dimpled face.
“Theory?” Micah crossed his arms at his chest.
Bogie grinned, talking loud enough for the others to hear. “Ben thinks talking to his seeds will make them grow faster. Tell them, freak.”
“Hey!” Micah snapped. “You will not talk to anyone here in that manner.”
“It’s science,” Ben said, keeping his gaze low. “If you speak positive things over a plant, it grows faster. And it’s greener, too.”
Bogie snickered. “So, I’m testing to see if Ben shrivels up and dies if I call him bad words.”
Micah didn’t want to, but he instinctively glanced in Ben’s direction and saw the tears shining in his eyes. His son would always have difficulty fitting in with his peers. He’d always struggle. As he turned back to Bogie, he heard the other kids whispering behind him. The Marine in him definitely wanted to win this fight for his son, but he couldn’t very well take on a bunch of elementary-school kids—no matter how much he wanted to. And this wasn’t his fight. It was Ben’s.
“Go back to your work, Bogie.” His jaw was tight as he spoke; his words coming out like machine gun bullets, quick and powerful. Once Bogie had walked away, he squeezed Ben’s shoulder. “Take care of your plants, son.” Micah headed back to the bench with an anchor of guilt and worry weighing him down. He’d hoped this school would be different from the others, but Ben was the same child wherever he went. He was different, which wasn’t a bad thing. It just meant that the other kids noticed, and some would be mean.
That was something that Micah couldn’t control or change, and he hated that. He was Ben’s father. He was supposed to protect him, and he couldn’t. All he could do was stand by helplessly and watch his son learn yet another hard lesson of life.
Kat rested her hand on his shoulder as he returned to the bench with a heavy sigh and sat beside her. “If you think helping with the club will be too much for Ben, I understand. I’m sorry. I didn’t know—”
Micah shook his head. “No. I think this is exactly what he needs. It’ll be good for him to be here.” It just might break Micah watching. “He’s staying.” Looking at Kat, he added, “We both are. And those kids will learn some respect.”
—
The next morning Micah was yawning before the day had even gotten started. He took a sip from his coffee as he watched the men in his squadron arrive for a little basic training. They’d jumped out of a V-22 Osprey a thousand times, but he still liked to do refresher trainings every now and then, especially when there was talk of another deployment coming up next year.
He’d be a civilian by that time. As much as he hated to leave his men, it was what was right for Ben. And he was excited about the prospect of staying on the ground, working in the green, and just enjoying his role of being a dad.
“Working two jobs is starting to take its toll, I see,” Lawson said, coming up beside him. “You make plenty of money, man. I don’t know why you’re helping out at the school.”
Because I am preparing to leave the Corps.Lawson didn’t need to know that just yet, though. Micah shrugged and took another sip from his coffee. “Maybe I like to stay busy.”
“Sergeant in the Marines. Single father to a son with special needs. Sounds pretty busy to me. Want to know what I think?”
