Woman Up (Port Ranch Book #2)

Chapter 14

WALKER

“This place is coming together, Walker.”

Norma glances around the bare living space with a smile on her face. Her blessing means everything to me which is why I asked her over to my new place just a couple of days after getting the keys. “Thanks, Norma. It isn’t much right now, but it has all the essentials. I have a meeting with Children’s Services in two weeks. I need to get a bedroom set for the room that Miles wants to have for his. I just need to show them that I’m ready, you know?”

“You’ve got this, I don’t doubt it for a moment.” She reaches over and gives my hand a comforting squeeze. “If you need help picking anything out, you just let me know.”

“You’re a lifesaver, Norma. I couldn’t have done this entire thing without you.”

“Sure you could have, but I’m glad I can be here to help you. I know sometimes Children’s Services and fostering can get a bad rep, but they never want to take children away from their families or anything, you know?”

“I know that. That’s why they gave her so many chances to get clean.” Norma knew I was talking about Miles’s mom, it was a sore subject, to say the least.

“Everybody deserves the best chance to get it together. It is a shame that it didn’t work out for her, but now he’s got you. The caseworker can see all the good you’ve done. They want Miles to be safe with you as well.”

I put my arm around her for a quick hug, “You just want him to live with me so you don’t have to pick up his dirty socks anymore.”

Norma chuckled, “Well, that will be a benefit, but boy will I miss him when he’s gone. Thankfully you’re staying here so I can keep an eye on him and make sure he eats his vegetables.”

“You know that you’re going to be part of this family forever, right?”

“You’re such a good man, Walker. You’re just the kind of man that he needs.”

She pats my cheek with her hand and I smile at her. Norma is a saint in every sense of the word. When I found out he was in foster care, one of my biggest concerns was him being placed in a bad home. I had heard so many horror stories over the years of families just taking in kids for the paycheck.

Norma was far from that though. She gave her heart and soul to every child that has lived with her. In fact, the first time I met her she showed me a photo album of all the kids that had been in her care over the years and she had so many stories of where they were now. She started doing foster care after her husband passed away. She was a school teacher for most of her career, but after he died she just felt a calling to do something more.

In this area, there are not many foster homes, and many kids were being forced into some of the big cities to live with their foster families, making it almost impossible for family members to visit them and make those trips. In her years she’s had more than three dozen kids come through her home. Sometimes they only stay for a few weeks, other times they are there for a year or more. 

As she got older, she limited herself to only one foster at a time. She said more than that and she couldn’t give it her all. I can’t say how amazing it is that this is who Miles was placed with. There could have been nobody better.

After we toured the rest of the house, I followed Norma as she went to pick Miles up from school and drive him out to Port Ranch. Britt and Norma had set up a full afternoon for the boys to hang out and play with the horses. 

“I see Jace!” Miles was so excited once he exited Norma’s car. We were parked on the side of the big house where the entrance was to my office. Miles could see Jace across the way at the main barn.