1. A Dream Come True

1

A DREAM COME TRUE

S ix Months Later

"Is this the excitement you signed up for volunteering?" Carter asked Aster at the volunteer fire department on the first of October in Stonington, Connecticut.

"It beats some of the things I've done in my life," he said.

He never thought he'd move to the East Coast, least of all the small tourist town of Mystic.

But when life changed so drastically for him six months ago, his military career had sadly ended.

For a man who figured he'd be serving in the Army until the day he died or retired, managing construction and maintenance for a company that produced floral products was...a dream come true.

Not many knew his love for flowers. Something simple, sweet, delicate, and clean. Fresh.

It felt like he didn't have a lot of those things in his life.

But when his old commander, Zane Wolfe, heard about what happened to him, Zane reached out and all but begged him to come work for his construction company. Then Aster got hired by Zane's wife, Lily, who was trying to take the load off of Zane since they had a third child coming.

He never looked back even though he had a few million in the bank for his heroic efforts and a lot of attention on him to boot. Something he never wanted in life.

Maybe that was why he left as soon as he could. He hated all the chatter and noise around him.

Not just from those in his hometown but also from his parents who wouldn't shut up about it to everyone they knew. Like they were the ones that'd done what he had, rather than birthed him and pretty much let him raise himself.

"But showing kids around the fire trucks?" Carter asked. "Even I can't stand doing this. Half of them have runny noses and are wise guys."

"Weren't we all wise guys at that age?" he asked. He knew he was. Maybe he did some of it for attention, but his parents only thought it was funny. Almost encouraged it at some points.

He'd told Zane he wanted to volunteer when he moved here and his buddy had been all for it knowing the community needed it and told Aster to do what he wanted and when he had to. Aster always made the time up, that was never an issue. But right now with the expansion being built on the manufacturing plant, they didn't start until later in the day and worked into the night so that they didn't disrupt production for Blossoms.

Once they got past this phase they could go back to working normal hours, but for now, he had some time this morning for this.

"I was," Carter said, "but my mother would knock it out of me if I got too carried away."

Aster snorted. "I didn't have that worry." His mother would have had to be around enough for that.

"Here they come," Carter said.

He looked out the window and saw the school bus pull up. He'd been on a few calls for fires, but in his mind, this would be more fun.

He'd always liked kids even if he wasn't around them much.

In the service, when he was in another country, he'd try to learn some of the language enough to entertain the kids in the villages they were protecting when he wasn't on missions.

He'd be out kicking or throwing balls with them. It lightened up the day in an otherwise horrible situation.

The bus came to a stop and the doors opened, one by one kids climbed out in single file. He'd been told there'd be three grades, kindergarten through second grade on this trip.

There were maybe fifty kids in total. Not very big classrooms for that.

"Everyone line up with your classroom, please," he heard an older woman say. There were groups of three behind whom he assumed were the teachers.

His eyes went to one that didn't look to be much taller than maybe a sixth grader.

She had light brown hair that was past her shoulders, but he couldn't see how long from the front. Her hair was tucked behind her ears and she had very little makeup on. She wore tan cotton pants, an olive green fleece that fit her petite body zipped up and a pair of brown flats on her feet.

"Ms. Scarsdale, I've got to go to the bathroom," one kid yelled. It was in the classroom of the teacher he'd been looking at.

"Tyler, I asked if everyone had to go before we left," Ms. Scarsdale said. "Did you not go?"

"I didn't think I had to go then ," Tyler said.

Aster saw the young teacher's shoulders drop. "I can show you where the bathroom is," he said.

"Go on," the older teacher said. "I'll keep an eye on the group."

"While your classmate is going to the bathroom, why don't I bring you all over to the fire truck and show you some of the fun things we get to play with on it?" Carter said.

For a guy who said he didn't like kids that much, he could hear the laughter of the kids and the horn going off as he walked Tyler and his teacher into the building.

"Thank you," she said. "I should have known this would happen even though I asked the kids multiple times. If I had more time I would have made them all line up and try to go before we left."

Tyler went into the bathroom while Aster stayed outside the door with Ms. Scarsdale. "You can't make the body go if it's not ready."

"No," she said, grinning. "I just hope he's not staring at the wall and then says he has to go again in twenty minutes because he couldn't right now."

"Want me to pop my head in there and take a listen?" he asked.

"This is horrible, but could you?"

He moved closer to the door, pushed it open and leaned in, saw the boy at the stall and heard the tinkle into the urinal.

"He's going," he said.

"Thank God," she said. When the door opened a second later and Tyler rushed out, she asked, "Did you wash your hands?"

"Oops," Tyler said and turned back to do it.

"Want me to check on that too?" he asked.

"I've got it covered," she said, pulling out hand sanitizer from her pocket. "Germs are a big thing with me."

He raised his eyebrow at her. "Maybe teaching kids wasn't the best career path then."

"I'm not that bad," she said, smiling. Her eyes lit up like it was a joke of some kind. "Just that I don't want them getting each other sick, and since they are six, they don't necessarily do what they are told or do it well."

Tyler came out of the bathroom wiping his wet hands on his jeans even though Aster knew there were paper towels in there.

When Tyler held his hands out to his teacher, Aster realized this was a classroom norm.

She spritzed the sanitizer on Tyler's hands and he rubbed them together for a count of five and then ran toward the group of his classmates that could be seen through the big window.

"You must go through a lot of that stuff."

"I do," she said. "But the kids like the way it smells and want to use it."

He'd noticed it wasn't one of the plain generic kinds that the school districts most likely provided. It looked like a bottle of the stuff produced at the plant he worked at.

"That's a good way to get them to use it," he said, opening the door for her to walk out and join her students.

He moved past her and helped Carter talk about the fire truck, then gave a tour of the firehouse and let the kids try to pick up hoses and honk some horns, even sprayed water at targets for the kids to see how fast and hard the water came out.

The kids were giggling, the teachers were smiling, but he only had eyes for the young Ms. Scarsdale.

Though he didn't think she was all that young. She could just look it because she was so small.

At the end of the two hours, the kids were on the bus and he and Carter returned the firehouse to shape before he changed out of his gear and back into his work clothes.

"That was one of the best school visits ever," Carter said. "You should do them all. I never thought to put the target up and try to spray it."

"Kids just like to be engaged," he said. It was the simple things he learned from his years in the service. In many of those poor countries, the kids barely had more than two changes of clothing, and toys were few and far between.

Maybe he used some of his money to buy stuff for the community center. He didn't have enough to give every family or every child something, but he could keep the activity centers full when he was there.

It's not like he had much more to do with it and he wasn't going to give it to his parents to waste on partying with their friends.

"So I noticed," Carter said. "I'll use that next time I have to do one of these."

Aster left after that and went to the plant.

"How did it go?" Zane asked him. The crews were just getting to work, and though he didn't work for Zane's construction company anymore, he joined in to try to get this expansion done. Lily might be his boss, but she'd deferred his work at this point to fall under Zane.

He might have found it confusing, but since Zane was the one who oversaw all the maintenance on the building anyway, he had to start somewhere.

He was slowly getting everything in order and set up in a good routine. The floor and shift managers were learning to come to him with concerns or problems with machines. He'd been able to fix most on his own, or with a few calls to the companies. Something Zane hadn't had the time to do and it would halt production.

"It was good," he said. "The kids were laughing the whole time."

"You always were good that way," Zane said. "I want to say I'm surprised you don't have a few yourself by now, but you'd have to settle down for that. Unless you've got a few out there you don't know about."

He laughed when Zane said that. There was always this ease and comfort he had around people he knew well. Those he didn't, he kept it in more.

"Not that I'm aware of," he said. "And yeah, I never felt like I could put some woman through the life."

Though he had to admit he never shut off the possibility of finding a wife and having kids, just didn't get lucky enough to find one strong enough for it.

"I know that," Zane said.

He knew Zane's history with his ex and how Zane had to leave the service before his time too because of his daughter, Willow. Zane was a few years older than him, so he hadn't served with him for that long. But coming to the area and connecting not just with Zane but also with Luke Remington had felt almost like a homecoming that he needed in his life when he was lucky to even be alive.

"Speaking of kids," he said, "how is the baby sleeping?"

"She's only getting up once a night now. Lily never lets me deal with it. Says since she's still on leave, I should be the one to sleep."

"Is she really on leave?" he asked.

"No," Zane said. "No matter how much her sisters tell her to take the time off. At least she's not going into the office but rather doing work from home. Staff come to her more than anything. Not much I can do about it. She's as stubborn as me."

He grinned. "You'd have her no other way."

"I wouldn't," Zane said.

"Time to get to work and get this expansion done for her then," Aster said. The two of them got their tool belts on and he got right to the hard labor that he loved to do.

If his body was working, his brain would focus on that and not on the life he'd thought he'd have and left behind.

At least he was starting to feel less like a fish out of water.