It All Started With a Lima Bean (2 page)

“Of course you can.” He carried her on his tired back down the stairs with the ever-present pain in his chest. He thought
anything for my sweet girl
. His life revolved around taking care of her, and he planned to fulfill every reasonable wish she would ever have.

Abby Sullivan stretched in her cozy bed after turning off the Maroon 5 song that played on her cell phone alarm. Using the back of her hands, she rubbed her eyes and grinned. Today marked one of her favorite events of the year, the first day of school. She sat up, stepped onto the cold morning floor, and then slid into her fuzzy cherry colored slippers. With hair sticking in all directions, she shuffled to the bathroom to take a shower. While stepping under the water, she breathed a sigh of relief, feeling lucky to be able to get ready for this day at all. Abby was filled with gratitude that she’d survived all of the school budget cuts. Many of her teacher friends worked for traditional public schools, and some received those dreadful pink slips just before summer break. Charter schools were all the rage in California, and although she was initially skeptical about working for a school that was part of a new fad, she couldn’t be more grateful now for her decision to accept a job at one. Her growing school was flourishing with students and was hiring teachers, rather than laying them off.

Since August in Santa Barbara was still an unusually warm month, Abby wore her dusty rose light cotton button down tunic and black leggings paired with ballet flats. Her outfit was comfy but also modest enough to avoid any embarrassing views from her young students. She grabbed her purse, keys and cell phone before heading out the door of her Spanish-style bungalow. The local tomcat rubbed his fur all over her dark covered legs when she stopped to lock the door. She tried to brush most of the long white hair off, and then walked down the brick pathway toward her forest green VW Jetta. She smiled as she inhaled the perfume from all of the flower blossoms that filled her front yard.

The first destination of the morning was to her favorite coffee spot. No, not the one that sold the fancy coffees for four bucks a cup. She preferred her coffee from the local convenience store. They didn’t mind when she poured just as much vanilla coffee creamer in her travel mug as she did coffee. Abby was a simple girl and didn’t need frou-frou coffee.

Relieved the train through town didn’t delay her, Abby drove the three miles from her coffee stop to school. After claiming her spot in the staff parking lot, she walked into the school and felt butterflies in her belly. With quick steps, she headed straight to the teachers’ lounge, grabbing a couple of papers from her mailbox. Many of her coworkers hung around talking about their summer, but she couldn’t wait to get to the classroom she’d decorated the week before.

Abby sat down at her desk and started to reflect. Had she truly only been teaching for three years? It felt as if she were created to do this. Growing up with a single mom who also taught should have clued her in that it wasn’t the most lucrative career choice, but she was passionate about teaching kids. Like most teachers, she didn’t do it to receive a whopping paycheck.

After memorizing all of her students’ names over the last couple of weeks, Abby couldn’t wait to match faces to them. Noticing the time, she grabbed the kids’ nametags she’d prepared for the first week, and then headed to the gate to greet her new students and their families. She recognized some of the parents and other family members from the community she fondly grew up in, including her own mom’s friends, Grace and Robert Westbrook. They both wore cheerful smiles when she made eye contact. Abby’s mother had told her about the loss of their only daughter. Abby felt her throat tighten as she looked into the round eyes of the sweetest looking girl who stood beside them. She knew this precious face. She’d seen Grace and Robert’s granddaughter a couple of times at her mom’s house when she’d visited. The couple walked hand in hand around the mass of tear-filled families who had a hard time letting their little ones start kindergarten. Grace grabbed Abby for a quick squeeze and introduced her to the angelic child.

“Hi Miss Abby, this is our granddaughter, Madison. She will have the honor of being in your class this year.” Grace proudly proclaimed, smiling from ear to ear.

Abby promptly squatted down on the balls of her feet so that she was at Madison’s eye level and took her hand in greeting. “It’s very nice to meet you, Madison. The honor is actually mine. I can’t wait to learn all about you.” She placed the nametag around Madison’s neck.

The happy little girl handed Abby a flower and offered a big toothy grin. “Nice to meet you too, Miss Abby.” It had taken her a little time to get used to the growing trend of younger students calling teachers by their first names. When her mother taught, pupils always called their schoolteachers by their last names out of respect.

Madison looked up and motioned to someone standing by her side. “This is my daddy. He likes to play in the ocean, watch hockey and give butterfly kisses.”

Abby hadn’t noticed anyone else standing with them. She gazed up just beside Madison and saw
him
. Losing her balance, she fell flat on her bottom. This daddy who liked to give butterfly kisses leaned down to offer her help. “Are you okay?” He didn’t hide the concern on his face. The most gorgeous man she had ever laid eyes on was standing right above her. In addition to his looks, something about his presence immediately drew her in. How had she not noticed him before? His prominent brows shadowed his eyes from the sun, making it difficult to determine the color of his deep-set eyes. It took her a moment to realize that she was sitting on the asphalt at school, ogling this little girl’s daddy. Madison let out a childish giggle.

Embarrassed, she stood up on shaky legs, dusting off her thinly covered behind with both hands causing the nametags she still held to swing back and forth. “Yeah, I’m fine. Just clumsy.” The laugh she offered was unmistakably forced. She looked directly at his grey shirt that displayed a hockey team’s logo on his chest then raked her eyes back up to his face.

With a chuckle, he extended his large hand to shake hers. The skin on his hand was smooth and non-callused. This man did not do manual labor. “It’s very nice to meet you, Miss Abby. I’m Caleb.” Unable to pry her eyes off him, she turned fifty shades of red after hearing his deep voice say her name. He was probably used to women staring at him though. How could he not be?

Flustered, she managed to mumble, “It’s nice to meet you as well.” Feeling heat travel up her neck and face, Abby turned to give out nametags while greeting other kids and their parents. She successfully avoided his gaze and hid her embarrassment.

Abby shyly glanced back at Caleb every so often. She caught his eye once, and then swiftly turned to see the tall blonde Zuckerman twins, Blaine and Tiffany. Dread filled her entire body. Their youngest brother, Peter, had been her boyfriend in high school. Her heart nervously pounded as she searched the crowd to see if he was there too. As unsettling as it was, she was not surprised to see them at all. When Abby received her class roster, she spotted their last name and hoped against hope that it was not a child of one of the Zuckerman’s that she’d known all too well so long ago. It looked like luck was not on her side with this situation. After surveying the crowd, she established Peter was nowhere to be found. Abby breathed a sigh of relief before making eye contact with Blaine. He lifted the corner of his mouth then looked down at the little blonde boy beside him.

Blaine was as handsome as ever with his surfer-styled sandy blond hair and beaming blue eyes. He was a couple of years older than Abby and had been the star of their high school’s Lacrosse team. Back then, every girl wanted him, and he had a reputation of not being too picky. Rumor was that he made sure to spread his love around. Blaine always seemed to accept her and Peter’s relationship, but his twin sister and their parents turned their noses up at Abby. They didn’t think she was good enough for their precious Peter. Little did they know what a jerk he actually turned out to be. Scrunching her eyebrows, she wondered why both Blaine and Tiffany were there to drop off one child. As long as the younger Zuckerman brother was absent, she honestly couldn’t care less about the answer to that question.

Abby caught Caleb’s eye one more time. He gave her a look of worry, which meant that her emotions were showing on her face. Time to shake it off; life went on, and you just had to deal with awkward situations like this with dignity. Taking a deep breath, she put on a smiling face, and then announced that the families could come into the classroom for a brief orientation and Q&A time while the kids were being supervised on the playground. Not surprising, the Zuckerman boy Justin was released to the playground as the adults walked away from the gate toward the parking lot. Abby was not disappointed in the least that she would not get the stare down from them while answering questions in front of all of the other parents. Now that his relatives were no longer hovering over him, she would give Justin his nametag when they came in from playing.

Abby’s co-teacher, Melissa, got her attention on the way into the classroom and asked about her interaction with that drop dead gorgeous dad.

Abby blushed again, “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Mentally shaking her head, Abby thought
what is wrong with me today
.

The bell rang, alerting everyone that the first day of school had come to an end. After making sure that all of the kids grabbed their backpacks, sweaters, and lunch boxes out of their cubbies, Abby walked them out to the gate where excited parents waited to greet their kids. She was relieved that Justin Zuckerman waited for his ride in the valet line so that she didn’t have to see his mom or dad. Abby still didn’t know if Justin was Tiffany or Blaine’s son.

Unable to help herself, she scanned the crowd for Caleb but was a little disappointed when she found him. He only had eyes for his little girl. Madison ran out of the gate to his waiting arms. Giving her an enormous smile, kiss, and hug, he carried her on his jean-covered hip to the parking lot. He was so swoon worthy. Who wouldn’t love watching a gorgeous man carry his child?

After dismissing all of the kids, Abby spotted her best friend, Leah, standing by a small brick planter. Holding a large bouquet of flowers, she strolled toward Abby. “Congratulations on another successful first day of school, my friend.” Leah handed her the large bundle, then leaned in for a hug and cheek kiss.

“Well thank you, my dear, but you don’t know if it was a success or not.” Abby pursed her lips.

“You don’t have any stragglers, and I didn’t hear any parents yell at you, so I assume it was a good day.” Leah held up her hands, motioning all around while pulling up the corner of her lips and winking.

Smiling back, Abby had to agree that she did indeed have a fantastic day despite seeing her past flash in front of her so early in the day.

“What do you say about going to Antonio’s for dinner tonight to celebrate?” Leah rubbed her hopeful palms together before intertwining her fingers into a pleading gesture.

“I say that we go there too often to call it a celebration dinner.” Abby brought her shoulder to her chin while smiling again. “But yes, I would love to go.”

“It’s a date then. I’ll pick you up at 5:30. I still have a few more deliveries to make first.” Leah waved while strutting quickly toward her white delivery van parked in front of the school.

“Sounds good. I’ll see you later. Oh, and thanks for this beautiful arrangement. You outdid yourself, as usual,” Abby yelled to her escaping friend. She was so proud of Leah and the success of her flower shop. She could remember sitting in their dorm room at Berkley where Leah was a business major and would glowingly talk about the flower shop she would own someday. Abby had been such an emotional mess at the time that it took her an additional two years to seek the career she longed for. She envied her best friend for always knowing what she wanted and not letting anything stand in her way.