LITMIR.BIZ

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was stuffy, and even though she had hoped she would be able to eventually ignore it, she hadn’t grown accustomed to the smell at all. It was reminiscent of her middle school locker room—body odor and dirty socks.

      “Do you think it’s safe to go up yet?” Casey asked her host expectantly.

      It had been at least fifteen minutes since the wind had knocked anything into the exterior of the house. The pounding sound that the driving rain had made as it pummeled Brock’s antiquated farmhouse had died down.

      “Give it a few more minutes. The last funnel touched down mighty close to here.”

      With a heavy sigh, Casey shifted her body to take pressure off her aching tailbone. Sitting on the floor had stopped being a fun option when she reached her thirties. She preferred a comfy couch or squishy chair. Sitting on the floor was for the birds.

      “God—my poor sister. She has to be scared to death wondering where I am.” Casey readjusted the blanket on her shoulders. “You know—my horoscope did say that this was a bad time to travel.”

      “You don’t really believe in that, do you?” he asked her.

      “Only when they’re right,” she said with the faintest of laughs. “I’d say a broken-down truck, a tornado and getting stuck in your smelly cellar are three very strong indicators that it was a bad time for me to travel.”

      She heard Brock laugh a little after she spoke, and then she realized what she had said. “That sounded really ungrateful.”

      “It’s okay.”

      “I am grateful,” she added. “I could still be out there, stuck.”

      “I knew what you meant,” Brock reassured her.

      “And now I’m babbling. If you want me to zip it, just tell me. I won’t be the least bit offended. My mom has told me that I was a precocious talker and I’ve had the gift of gab ever since I was a toddler. Of course, Mom doesn’t really mean that in the most positive of ways.”

      “Talking makes the time go faster,” Brock reminded her.

      “Well, now you’re probably just being nice, but that’s okay.”

      “I haven’t been accused of that trait too often,” he replied humorously.

      Hannah made a content noise as she snuggled closer to her father. Ladybug, the golden Lab that Brock and Hannah called Lady for short, lifted up her head to check on Hannah before putting her head back down on her front paws. It was endearing to see the closeness between Brock and his daughter. They were so bonded that it was hard to imagine a third person in that dynamic.

      Casey was sure that there were many sides of Brock that she hadn’t seen—wasn’t that the case with all people? But he’d been nothing but nice to her, and he was so gentle with Hannah.

      “I’ve never seen anyone connect with Hannah as quickly as you did,” Brock told her quietly.

      Casey heard the admiration in his voice and it made her feel good. “I work with kids with all sorts of disabilities for a living—I guess it’s just second nature to me now.”

      “What do you do again? I think your sister told me once, but I apologize—I forgot.”

      “I wouldn’t expect you to remember something like that, anyway.” Casey uncrossed her legs to relieve the ache that had shifted from her tailbone to her knees. “I’m a special education teacher for Chicago public schools. I provide services for students who have individual education plans and need extra support to access the curriculum.”

      “Is that right?” Brock asked. “Chicago has a reputation for having some pretty rough neighborhoods, doesn’t it?”

      She nodded. Those rough areas were one of the main objections her father, a prominent judge in Chicago, had to her desire to become a teacher. For her mother, it was all about the prestige of the job and the money. Or lack thereof.

      “I do work in a high-poverty school. It’s not easy, and, yes, there are too many problems to count, but my kids make the challenges worthwhile. Most of the kids I work with—they’re good kids. Great kids. They just need someone to care enough about them to help them succeed—to help them supersede their backgrounds.” Casey’s voice became more passionate as she continued. “Do you know that so many of the kids I serve wouldn’t have needed the services of a special education teacher if they hadn’t been born into poverty? They would have had the exposure to print and early literacy development, and different experiences to build background knowledge. And it’s not that the parents don’t want to provide their kids with the best start possible, but living hand-to-mouth...” Casey counted things on her fingers. “Food insecurity, illiteracy, lack of education and job opportunities, so many factors, that parents don’t have the time, or the energy, or the resources to read to their children, or provide them with those vital foundational skills. By the time these kids get to kindergarten, they’re already behind in all of those fundamental skills, like vocabulary and phonemic awareness... It’s really sad. Shameful, really.”

      When Casey spoke about the kids she worked with in Chicago, her face lit up with excitement. It turned a rather ordinary face into one that was really quite extraordinary.

      “You love your job.”

      Casey gave him a little smile that was self-effacingly saying, What tipped you off?

      “I really appreciate your passion for your work.” Brock seemed like he wanted to reassure her. To validate her. “Kids like my Hannah need teachers who are dedicated, who genuinely care about her success. You’re a hero to parents like me. I mean, the way you redirected Hannah and kept her calm... It was impressive.”

      In the low light cast off from the lantern between them, their eyes met and held for the briefest of moments before Brock looked away. His dark hair, threaded with silver near the temple, was slicked back from his long face. His jawline was square, his brows heavy above deeply set blue eyes. When she was a scrawny teenager, and Brock was eighteen, she had thought he was so handsome—and she still did. But all signs of youthfulness had been worn from his face. The wrinkles on his forehead, around his mouth and eyes, were evidence of frowning and stress. This was a man who was under a major amount of pressure—she recognized the signs. She also recognized the signs of a devoted father. Whatever marital problems he was having—and she had heard from her sister that there were many—he hadn’t let them interfere with his dedication to Hannah.

      “Well, thank you.” Casey felt her cheeks get a little warm. “I’m glad I could help.”

      Hercules picked that moment to sit up, stretch, yawn and then take a large leap off her thigh and onto the blanket.

      “Is that a real dog? Or do you have to wind it every morning?” Brock had turned his attention to her teacup-sized poodle that had just made the large leap off her leg onto the blanket.

      “Hey! Don’t pick on Hercules!” Hannah scooped Hercules up and kissed him several times. “Though he may be but little, he is fierce!”

      “Now it’s getting serious. You brought Shakespeare to the table?” Brock teased her.

      Hercules gave a little yap and ran around in a circle.

      “A little Shakespeare never hurt anyone.”

      “Speak for yourself,” he retorted. “I took a class on Shakespeare in college. Worst semester of my life.”

      “It pains me to shift the subject away from Shakespeare, because I happen to be a fan, but I think—” she nodded her head toward her pocket poodle “—he needs a bathroom break. He does have a microscopic bladder, after all—poor baby.”

      “Okay.” Brock shook Hannah’s shoulder to wake her. “I think it’s safe to go topside.”

      Ignoring the stiffness in her joints from sitting for too long in one position, Casey stood up quickly, shed the blanket, scooped up Hercules and tucked him into the

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