A rap on the window sent Dana’s already racing heart into overdrive

She jerked up and saw Patrick leaning down, peering into the car, a frown on his face.

She inched the glass down just enough. “Don’t you have a meeting to finish?” she snapped.

Patrick’s expression dissolved into surprise. He opened his mouth to say something—an excuse, maybe? She didn’t know, didn’t care. But whatever he was going to say, he bit it back and looked away.

“I’m sorry.” He jammed his fingers into the pockets of his jeans. Dana wished she didn’t notice how well those jeans fitted. “I know you were hoping for a better outcome from the school board meeting.”

“I was hoping…Oh, never mind.”

“Can—this is ridiculous. Can you get out of the car? I only have a minute or so, and this is giving me a crick in my neck.”

“Good, because you’ve been a total pain in my neck. Why did you completely waste my time?” She clenched her hands around the steering wheel.

“Come on. Two minutes—that’s all I have and all I’m asking for.” Patrick cocked his head to one side. “Please?”

What could he say in two minutes that would change anything? But what was the harm in wasting another two minutes? “Oh, okay.” Dana reached for the door handle, hating to give in.

She’d have to watch herself around Patrick Connor.

Dear Reader,

As a former teacher, I feel at home in most any part of a school—except when it comes to the school clinic. Beyond handing out a bandage and a hug, I would be at a loss if called upon to do the quick two-step most school nurses are asked to do on a daily basis.

In this day and age of shrinking school budgets, these ladies (and gentlemen) are called upon to be resourceful and caring—and to have a sense of humor about mishaps and mistakes. What better sort of woman could I choose for my heroine?

In fact, it was seeing the deft juggling act of my local elementary-school nurse that inspired me. Her story isn’t Dana’s story, and the school in this book isn’t patterned after any one school, but I hope I got enough of the flavor right so that readers can see how a school nurse has more to do than hand out those aforementioned bandages and hugs, especially when love enters the picture!

I hope you enjoy Dana and Patrick’s story. Let me know via my Web site, www.cynthiareese.net.

Sincerely,

Cynthia Reese

For the Sake of the Children
Cynthia Reese

MILLS & BOON

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Cynthia Reese lives with her husband and their daughter in south Georgia, along with their two dogs, three cats and however many strays show up for morning muster. She has been scribbling since she was knee-high to a grasshopper and reading even before that. A former journalist, teacher and college English instructor, she also enjoys cooking, traveling and photography when she gets the chance. For the Sake of the Children is her fourth book.

In memory of Mama Clyde,

whom I miss most fiercely.

Acknowledgments:

I owe so much in the way of guidance, ideas and vision to my editor Victoria Curran, to Wanda Ottewell and to Megan Long. They had ideas about this project that gave it an entirely new direction and made me grow as a writer. I’d also like to thank my sister, Donna, for helping me through the rough patches, and my critique partners, Tawna Fenske, Cindy Miles, Stephanie Bose and Nelsa Roberto.

Thanks also to fabulous real school nurse Laura White and her nurse friends who helped me along—all errors are mine!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

CHAPTER ONE

T HE CRANKY SCHOOL BUS GEARS ground out a protest as Patrick Connor pedaled the clutch and tried to coax the transmission into shifting.

I had to be out of my ever-lovin’ mind—

“Fight! Fight!”

The words any school-bus driver dreads hearing ricocheted off the curved ceiling of the bus. Patrick’s gaze shot to the wide rearview mirror to confirm his worst fear.

Yep. There it was, the telltale circle of excited onlookers, forming a protective fence around the combatants.

Patrick groaned and pulled the bus next to the curb.

On his first day—and last, if he had any say in it—of driving a school bus, he indeed had a fight on his hands.

At the next board meeting I’m voting for a raise for these bus drivers . With that in mind, he swung himself out of the seat and marched through the pack of students.

The kids reluctantly gave way then drifted back to their seats. Patrick shoved aside the remaining stragglers between him and the combatants to see two boys, their fists flying.

“Take it back!” one boy screamed at the other as he pummeled him. “Take it back! ”

Patrick remembered what it was like to be ten and have your honor on the line. He remembered how fast and hot the adrenaline coursed through your veins, how you either stood up and declared your manhood—well, prepubescent boyhood—or were assigned the status of wuss.

Still, such pressure didn’t change the fact that the bus was already ten minutes behind schedule. Making the situation even worse was that the school was in sight. Five more minutes, and those kids would have been somebody else’s problem.

“Okay, fellas. Break it up.” He yanked the two boys apart and stood between them. A quick check told him that one would be sporting a shiner and the other would have the honor of a split lip and a nosebleed all over his shirt.

What do I do now?

Both the boys were panting like Thoroughbreds at the starting gate. If he stepped from between them in order to make that five-minute trip to school, they’d be at each other’s throats again.

But, dang it, he was ten minutes late already.

“Royce started it, Mr. Connor,” a kid sitting in a nearby seat told him.

The comment initiated a volley of protests from all sides. Patrick came to a decision and guided the boys to the front of the bus, when he evicted the small fry currently occupying the seats.

“You—there.” He indicated that Royce should assume one of the seats. “And you,” he said to the other kid, who looked like a Holmes boy. “Over there. We have five minutes— five minutes —to get us parked and y’all into school. I don’t want to hear a peep from anybody.”

Patrick more or less held his breath for much of the five minutes left of the bus ride.

He drew up to a stop in front of the old school that pretty much appeared as it had back when he’d attended. The air brakes whooshed as he set them, and he sat for a moment longer, not daring to remove his hands from the wheel for fear that the students would notice his fingers trembling.

Then he turned slowly and opened the bus doors. He aimed a warning glance at Royce as the kid bounced up, intent on slipping past him.

“Don’t even think about it,” Patrick growled.

The other students filed past, rubbernecking at Royce’s bloody shirt and the Holmes kid’s eye, which was puffing up like phyllo dough. One little girl in braids and glasses stopped short at Patrick.

“Mr. Connor, you shoulda put ’em in their usual seats. Mr. Willie makes ’em sit in assigned seats. That way, he can keep an eye on ’em.”

She was giving him an eyeful of pity. Now Patrick felt like a total screwup.

“Well, um, thanks, Bridget. It is Bridget, right?” At her nod and smile, he added, “Next time I’ll do that.”

Her gap-toothed smile grew wider. “Don’t worry. My mom says new things need lots of practice.”

This old dog won’t be practicing any more new tricks. But he didn’t want to dash the little girl’s hopes that he wasn’t the wimp she feared, so he settled for a nod.

Driving the bus had seemed the perfect solution to the transportation crisis. Vann Hobbes, the school superintendent and his best friend, had mentioned the previous afternoon that the regular driver had to be out for a doctor’s appointment. Vann had found no takers on the list of substitute drivers.

“I’ll do it,” Patrick had told his buddy. “I’ve got a license to drive a commercial vehicle. Tell me the route, and I’ll do it for you.”

“You? Drive a bus?”

“Why not? At least all my troubles will be behind me,” Patrick had joked.

Boy, had he been dreaming.

Now Patrick squared his shoulders and rose from his seat. With a glower, he silenced Royce’s wailing and trekked from seat to seat, ensuring everyone was off the bus.

Halfway back, he spotted a powder-puff pink shirt and blue jeans with girly little bows. The child was wrapped into a tight fetal position. His breath caught as he zeroed in on dark silky hair and flushed cheeks.

Annabelle .

But of course it wasn’t Annabelle. Gulping down the lump in his throat, Patrick knelt in the aisle. Tentatively, he reached out a hand, then drew back.

He studied the little girl for a long moment, drinking in the innocence of her face, the way her black eyelashes fanned out against her cheeks, how her tiny pink mouth sucked on a forbidden thumb. She couldn’t be more than four or so, probably in pre-kindergarten. Healthy. Whole. Alive.

“Hey, you! That was the tardy bell! Can I go now?”

Royce’s voice boomed through the interior of the bus, shaking Patrick loose from the spell he was under. He gritted his teeth and put his hand on the little girl’s shoulder. She was too damn young to be in school. She should have been outside running and playing, not stuck inside somewhere.

The little girl yawned and stretched. “But I’m tired, Mommy,” she protested, still half-asleep.

“You’re at school, honey,” Patrick said. “It’s time to go in. Who’s your teacher?” he asked.

Brown eyes—thank God they were brown and not blue like Annabelle’s—rounded in panic. Then the panic subsided and she nodded. “Miss Elephant.”

Patrick raised his eyebrows. “Miss Elephant?” He considered the list of pre-K teachers. “Oh, you mean Miss Ellison?”

“That’s what I said,” the little girl told him, sweeping by him in the grand manner of a queen. “Miss Elephant.”

Patrick got up on creaky ankles and knees and watched her go.

He checked the rest of the seats. The bus was empty save for the two defiant, sulking boys. Patrick shepherded them down the steps.

“We gotta go to the office? So what?” Royce mouthed off. “All the principal’s gonna do is suspend me from taking the bus for a week. Fine by me. That way I won’t have to put up with dorks like him.”

The Holmes kid bristled anew. For a second, Patrick thought the two would go at it again.

Jack Harrison, the principal, came out on the sidewalk, a petulant expression on his face. “Do you realize you’re ten minutes late?” he said. “Ten minutes! And some of the students were telling me there was a fight!”

Patrick swallowed a retort and presented the two boys to Harrison. “They’re all yours. Don’t know what it was about, but I expect you can sort it out.”

Harrison stepped back and peered at the students’ faces. “Good Lord! Well, don’t just stand there! They need medical attention. That one has started bleeding from the nose.”

Patrick didn’t bother suppressing a roll of his eyes. “C’mon, fellas. Appears you get to visit the school nurse.”

“See?” Royce said in a singsong voice. “Told you we wouldn’t get in trouble.”

“Now, that’s where you’re wrong,” Patrick replied. “Because I’m not just a substitute bus driver. I happen to be chairman of the board of education, and I can make certain that you, mister, won’t have to put up with other students for just a week. I’m thinking a month’s suspension from the bus. Nah. Two. Nah. Maybe for the rest of the year.”

The fight went out of Royce. “Oh, man,” he moaned. “My mom is gonna kill me.”

Patrick was sure he saw begging in the Holmes kid’s eyes. Satisfied that he had the boys’ attention, he pointed them toward the nurse’s office. “Time to visit the new school nurse. Good thing for you two Nurse Nellie had to retire. Hope the new one doesn’t have any more of that stinging antiseptic Nurse Nellie liked so much.”

T O BE AN OCTOPUS !

Dana Wilson pushed aside the thought and pressed into service the only two arms the Lord had seen fit to give her.

“Here, Ritalin for you,” she said, edging a pill cup over to a rail-thin kid, “and a lovely dose of Zithromax for you.” The liquid sloshed in the cup as she handed it to a pint-size girl with dreadlocks.

“You’re not supposed to be saying what we take,” the older kid admonished. “It’s the law or something. We’re not even s’posed to be in here at the same time. Our old nurse handed out meds to us one at a time.”

Dana quashed a snort of incredulity. Of course she knew that. But try holding back a wave of kids. No thanks to the prankster who had locked her out of her clinic this morning, she was doing well to get the right pills in the right squirmy little bodies before those bodies zipped off to class.

Now, why am I putting up with this? Oh, yes. Kate. One beautiful blue-eyed angel baby—although I can’t call a three-year-old a baby anymore .

Dana’s line of kids waiting for morning meds stretched out the door and down the hall. Well, waiting might create the wrong impression. They shuffled, fidgeted, jostled one another, picked at the staples on the poster of a big laminated hand exhorting them to lend health a hand by actually washing their own hands.

If Dana didn’t get them out of her little clinic soon, they’d be late for class and she wouldn’t have a staple left on that bulletin board.

“Hey! Cut it out! Leave those staples alone!” she yelled as she noticed one kid steadily slipping a fingernail under an already loosened staple. The gesture of the newly positioned middle finger wasn’t difficult to discover. Of course, she could be wrong. This only her third week at the school. She was still getting over how many kids needed morning meds after the school-issued breakfast.

The Ritalin and Zithromax dispatched, Dana called out, “Next!”

But before any other patients could step up to her counter, a man rounded the door and stopped short at the line.

“Whoa. We got an epidemic I don’t know about?” he inquired.

Dana couldn’t remove her eyes from his face. How absurd, plain absurd, to focus on a man’s face to the point when you could look nowhere else. But the last place she expected to find a man that handsome was in a small-town elementary school. With his silvered dark hair, movie-star white teeth and intense blue eyes, he had a face made for a cologne ad.

His voice, though, held a south Georgia twang and his clothes—khakis and a worn chambray work shirt with some sort of logo on it—tagged him as a native of Logan.

A parent? A teacher? The guy did have two kids by the scruff of the neck.

“Oh, my gracious! What happened?” Dana had managed to take her eyes off his face long enough to see obvious injuries. “Bring them on in and I’ll have a look.”

In quick order, she had a pack of ice on the little kid’s eye—Mike Holmes, he’d said his name was—and was tilting the bigger, surlier boy’s head forward, ordering him to pinch his nostrils together.

Only then did she dare return her gaze to the man who’d brought the two boys in.

She found his dark blue eyes assessing her with more than a little interest. At her regard, he spoke up. “They got into a fight on the bus.”

A bus driver? Man, oh, man, she wished they’d had bus drivers like this when she was in school. But no, she’d had all the oogy ones.

Dana yanked her brain back from its descent into a hormone lovefest. Marty had been that good-looking in his own way, and when the going had gotten tough, her ex-husband had run as though demons were after him. So why imbue a guy with wisdom just because genetics had graced him with a gorgeous face?

Mr. Gorgeous stretched out a hand. “Patrick Connor, substitute bus driver and sucker—once, but nevermore.”

She couldn’t accept his extended hand because she was occupied with the two young combatants. Just as well, because she sure knew where casual little handshakes with the likes of Patrick Connor led.

“Um, hi, I’m Wilson Dana—I mean, I’m Wana—” Oh crap. Why wouldn’t her mouth work for a simple introduction?

He chuckled. “Can I help you? You seem a little swamped.”

“Someone locked me out of my clinic—” The morning announcements over the intercom interrupted Dana and she fell silent in response to the loud “Shh, shh” she heard from the students still in line. They weren’t shushing her; they were taking the opportunity to shush one another. She used the moment of calm to hand out the next round of medications.

The medicine assembly line went quicker now, and Dana managed to dispense the meds in record time. She double-checked her list, ticked off the last name and breathed a sigh as the door shut.

“That bad?”

“I had no idea kids could be so inventive.” She leaned against the bulletin board. “I thought that after three weeks I had run the gauntlet of every practical joke a kid could come up with. Maybe I’m not cut out for this job.”

She was rewarded with a frown as Patrick surveyed the room as if inspecting it. The frown eased a bit, but concern still tightened his forehead.

“So things aren’t settling down for you?” Patrick asked after that moment of inspection. “Your résumé said you could run trauma codes in big-city emergency rooms with one hand tied behind your back. Our superintendent figured that operating a little old school clinic would be a breeze.”

The two boys rolled their eyes and snickered.

Dana ignored the noises. The man’s familiarity with her set all inner alarms on full alert. Maybe new school nurses were hot gossip in a small town like Logan.

Again, he must have read her expression. “Sorry. When I’m not completely screwing up bus routes and letting kids like these pull each other apart limb by limb, I manage a glass company and am chairman of the board of education. I voted to hire you—on the principal’s and superintendent’s recommendations, of course.”

Dana couldn’t subdue the cringe overtaking her. The chaos in her office this morning created exactly the wrong impression she wanted to give the powers that be. She swept the clipboard and other paperwork littering her desk into as tidy a pile as she could.

“No, no, things are settling down nicely. It, uh, just, takes time, I guess.”

Patrick skewered her with a stare. She dropped her gaze first to her messy desk, and then swiveled it to the floor, to the copy box of office things she hadn’t gotten around to unpacking. Only the loud ticking of the clock and the boys’ renewed snickers punctuated the silence. If she could have departicalized and slipped through the molecules of the floor, she would have.

Patrick cleared his throat, obviously preparing for a speech of some sort. To occupy her hands and give her some reason not to meet his eyes, Dana once again shifted the items on her desk from one pile to another.

“Ms. Wilson, could you stop that? It’s driving me nuts.” His voice was sharp.

She met his gaze, her pulse pounding in her ears, and prepared for the worst.

CHAPTER TWO

P ATRICK C ONNOR WAS moving his mouth again, but Dana couldn’t focus on his words because of the humiliation humming through her veins. Fired. She was going to get fired.

She saw his frustration and knew he realized she wasn’t paying the slightest attention. She bit her lip and covered up the action by turning to the two malingerers still lounging in clinic. “Boys, out. You’re okay. I’ll put your visit slips into your teacher’s box, all right?”

They went, grumbling, and Dana recovered some of her composure. She forced a smile at Patrick. “You were saying?”

“Oh. Yeah. Just wanted to be clear that you knew how important getting daily status checks on our asthmatic students was. Nellie prepared weekly reports for me.”

Bureaucracy. Red tape had a way of slithering around you until it nearly strangled you. Dana sighed. “Sure. The principal mentioned it to me, though I think daily checks for every asthmatic student we have are a little much. I was hoping we could scale back to perhaps an as-needed basis.”

Patrick’s eyebrows lowered a fraction of an inch, and his eyes cooled ten degrees. “The board and I would like to be certain our students are okay. It wasn’t that much trouble for our other nurse.”

Way to go, Wilson. She had wowed him with her disorganization, and now she was questioning his first request. She didn’t see the need for the twice daily checks, but she did see the need for food on the table, and that meant keeping her bosses happy. “Of course. You still want morning and afternoon checks, correct? Or can we—”

“Yes. Morning and afternoon checks.”

“For all twenty-four asthmatic students?”

“All twenty-four,” he confirmed crisply.

“And any new ones that pop up.”

“Especially the new ones that pop up.” Patrick inclined his head. “Well, I’ll let you get back to your day. No doubt you’ve got a lot to keep you busy.” He stared at her littered desktop, then started for the door.

She sighed as she surveyed the mess Patrick had found so offensive. No point kicking herself now over what qualities not to show your new boss. Dana swept the whole mess into the upturned lid of the copy box leaving a clean desk—and a pile of paperwork to get through before the day was done.

He was right. She had a lot to keep her busy.

T HE DAY WAS OVER . Finally. The last bell had rung, the buses had pulled out, the halls were eerily quiet—and her copy box was empty. Dana celebrated by stretching her tired body on the exam table in the clinic. The tissue paper crinkled and snapped under her as she wiggled her backside a little lower.

“Comfy yet?” Suze Mitchell, the school vice principal, asked from where she’d collapsed in the plastic chair at Dana’s desk. “I come in here to find out whether you survived your day, and you’re bent on taking a nap.”

“Ha! On this thing? If I were four-foot-nothing, maybe.”

“How tall are you?” Suze asked. “I’d kill to be anything more than armpit high.”

“No, you wouldn’t. Try being five-ten for a while.”

“You’re just five-ten? I would have sworn…”

The petite brunette cast an assessing eye up and down Dana’s pretzeled frame.

“I am five-ten. Okay…in bare feet…if I scrunch. I’m five-eleven-and-a-half with good posture. Which might explain why I’ve had such a tough time with relationships. Men get weirded out when the gal is taller than the guy.”

Suze chuckled derisively. “Men get weirded out about a lot of things. Commitment. Fidelity. Bank accounts. And even when you find the right man, he still has trouble accepting that he needs to come home every once in a while instead of going hunting and fishing all the time.”

“Tell me about it, sister,” Dana agreed.

Dana had known from the instant she’d met Suze on her first tour of the school a month ago that the woman would be a keeper friend.

She couldn’t explain the connection. It wasn’t just the way Suze had jumped in and found her a new place to rent after the house Dana had thought she’d secured had fallen through. It wasn’t even that Suze reminded her of her big sister, Tracy, who was older by four years but shorter by at least that many inches. Dana’s little sister was smaller than Dana was, too.

No, it had to be the snap of mischief in Suze’s dark eyes—a snap you might miss behind the otherwise professional mask. But Dana had spotted it. And that glint had told her she’d found a kindred spirit.

Suze stretched and yawned, her own weariness from the day showing. “So, if I can be nosy, how long have you and your ex been divorced?”

“Three years.” Dana stared up at the ceiling and calculated when Marty had presented the papers to her with a flourish. “No, make that nearly four.”

“But…” Suze hesitated. The silence hung, awkwardly the ticking of the clock bringing to Dana’s mind the morning’s earlier awkward silence between her and Patrick.

“But what?”

“Well, it’s none of my business, but I assumed your ex was the father of your little girl. And she’s, what, three?”

Dana agreed. It was none of Suze’s business. She didn’t tear her gaze from the ceiling tiles. “He is,” she answered cryptically.

“Oh.”

Dana could hear the thrum of vacuum cleaners starting up in the halls. Trash cans rattled as they were emptied room by room, the sound nearing the clinic door.

Suze made a show of groaning. When Dana glanced the vice principal’s way, Suze wiggled toes she’d liberated from pointy high heels.

“It’s getting better, isn’t it? You? The job?”

Dana groaned for real. “I’m as tired as if I’d worked a full-moon shift in the E.R. on New Year’s Eve. I think I seriously underestimated what a school nurse does. I was darn busy, I didn’t even get a chance to pee. And I had at least two kids in here upchucking.”

“Pizza,” Suze said.

“Pizza?”

“Yeah. They served pizza in the lunchroom today, and we always have kids upchucking whenever they serve pizza. It’s some immutable law. You’re lucky it was only two.”

“Cooks can’t figure out what’s going on?”

“Don’t ask me.”

“And what’s with all the neurotic asthma tests?”

Suze cocked her head. “Neurotic asthma tests?”

Dana let her exasperation propel her to a sitting position. “Yeah, the asthma tests I have to do on the kids. Every morning I have to check all twenty-four known asthmatic kids, and every afternoon I have to check them again.”

Her thoughts drifted back over her morning conversation with Patrick Connor. His beloved tests added to an already full day and would put her perpetually behind on her daily mountain of paperwork. “Just doing the checks takes a colossal chunk of time out of my day, and that’s not counting the tallying up I do on Mr. Gorgeous’s Excel spreadsheet.”

“Mr. Gorgeous? Who’s Mr. Gorgeous?”

Dana’s cheeks heated with embarrassment. “Uh, you know. Patrick Connor. The board chairman. The man may be a micromanager and a clean-desk freak, but you have to admit he looks like he’s straight out of a cologne ad.”

Suze bit her lip. “Yeah. He does that, all right. Most of the women around here tend to agree—at least, until they try to date him for more than two dates running.”

“Another commitment-phobe, huh? Figures.” Dana recalled the dates her friends had fixed her up with over the years she’d been single. They’d had terrific nights out—until the guys let her know that her friends had neglected to tell them about her daughter. To discover Patrick was the same way didn’t surprise her.

Suze’s face went blank and she shook her head. “I really shouldn’t comment. But what’s this about asthma tests twice a day?”

“I told you. Twenty-four kids twice a day. If they’ve got asthma on their chart, I’ve got them on my list.”

“I didn’t realize—oh, the lunchroom.” Comprehension eased the furrow between Suze’s eyebrows.

“What does the lunchroom have to do with asthma?”

“We’ve got documented mold in the lunchroom.”

“Huh? That’s why I’m checking twenty-four kids?” Dana tried not to gape.

“Yep. About two years ago the roof on the lunchroom building was replaced. The building’s got a gable roof now, but it used to have an old flat roof, and it leaked so much the lunchroom ladies had to put five-gallon buckets out on rainy days just to catch the drips. Anyway, when the repair people went in to fix the roof, they found mold. They traced it down inside the concrete blocks and under some of the floor tiles.”

“Why is there still mold? Why didn’t they get rid of it?”

Suze gave her an amused smile. “The board members sure wished it had been that simple. They figured all they had to do was get in there with a jug of bleach and a scrub brush. But mold, even when it’s been killed, can still cause trouble if it’s not been properly removed. And it can cost half a million dollars to have professionals do a mold abatement. That’s money the school system doesn’t have.”

“Wait a minute. Are you telling me they left mold—”

“No, well, sort of. They took the do-it-yourself approach. Patrick researched out the yin-yang of how to do it, and one CYA thing he’s apparently still doing is these asthma checks.”

Dana huffed. “Pardon me, but he’s not doing the asthma checks. I am.” Now her irritation at having to do twice-daily checks increased. If the school system wasn’t going to properly abate the mold, then tracking the school system’s most vulnerable population was like holding a hose over a house on fire with no water in the hose.

Suze shrugged. “He’s probably afraid of a lawsuit. The whole thing was all hush-hush. The only reason I know anything about it is that I’m vice principal.”

Dana’s chest tightened. Lawsuits. That was something she knew about only too well. “They haven’t told the parents of the kids?” She hopped off the exam table and started pacing the tight confines of the clinic. “I can’t believe that! The school has a duty to report—” But she cut off her words. Of course she could believe it.

Suze appeared genuinely miserable. “Hey, I’ve said way too much.”

“No, you’ve said just enough. I’m going to talk to him.”

“Who—Patrick?” Suze blanched. “Listen, you should understand—”

She broke off. Dana peered at her. “Understand what?”

“Could you avoid bringing my name up?”

“They wouldn’t fire you for telling me, would they?” Dana gawked at Suze.

“No, no. But Patrick is one stubborn son of a gun, and, well…there’s some history between us.”

“You dated?”

Suze leaned her head against the wall. “No. Not that kind of history. I’d rather not say, okay? I don’t—Patrick’s not a bad guy. He just has…issues.”

Dana glanced at the clock on the wall. Five minutes past the time to pick up Kate. Great. “Well, Patrick Connor is about to have a few more issues—because how he’s proceeding isn’t right.”

CHAPTER THREE

A LL P ATRICK COULD HEAR in the kitchen was the thunk of Melanie’s knife on the cutting board, as she whacked up carrots a little harder than necessary, and the tap-tap of Lissa’s shoes against the tile floor. The girls had their backs to each other, stiff, unbending.

He’d asked for this. Patrick admonished himself. Self-inflicted agony. He had been the one who said the only thing he wanted for his birthday was a dinner at home with his daughters. Right now, he could have been enjoying a gift card from the home-improvement store.

Patrick sighed and opened the door to the cabinet where the plates were. “Lissa, is that chicken about ready?”

“Uh, yeah. I think so, anyway.”

He handed her a plate. “Should I be worried? Should I head for KFC?” he joked.

His effort at levity lifted the corners of Lissa’s mouth ever so slightly. For a moment, he was tempted to push the joke. But this was probably the longest sentence his eighteen-year-old daughter had spoken to him in months, and at least she’d looked him in the eye.

I should be thankful she’s even agreed to be here. She skipped my birthday last year.

“Dad, salad’s ready. Should I toss it with the dressing?”

At Melanie’s question, his youngest daughter’s tiny smile faded. Patrick’s hope for the evening faded right along with it.

He could remember a time when the two girls—no, Mel was a young woman now, and Lissa, for all her immaturity, was nearly one—were not so polarized by sibling rivalry. But then the divorce and everything that had gone on between Jenny and him had destroyed any closeness. The girls had wound up in either their mom’s corner—that would be Lissa—or their dad’s—that would be Melanie.

Just once he wanted them to forget who had sided with whom and be a family.

Melanie hadn’t been happy about Patrick’s birthday request, he knew. She’d planned on taking him out to dinner and, he suspected, not asking Lissa to join them. Which was understandable. Lissa had ignored more than one of his birthdays.

Except when she wanted something. So what did she want now?

In a desire to mend fences between him and Melanie, he said, “Your cake looks so good, Mel, that I’m tempted to skip the leafy greens altogether.”

She beamed, his approval lessening some of the tension in her still-necked posture. “It was a cinch, Dad. Coconut, your favorite.”

“He likes German chocolate, too,” Lissa observed as she drained a piece of chicken before dropping it on the plate Patrick had given her.

“No, Mom likes German chocolate. Why is it that you can never remember—” But Melanie didn’t finish what she was about to say. “The coconut’s all right, isn’t it?”

“I’m easy to please. Coconut, German chocolate—doesn’t matter to me. But yeah, coconut’s my favorite.” Patrick figured that if this strained atmosphere went on for much longer, his dessert would be Maalox, not cake.

If just he and Lissa had been having this conversation, he would have come straight out and asked her why she was even here. What had made her say yes this year when he’d asked her to spend his birthday with him? Was he foolish to hope that her coolness toward him was thawing?

He jammed his hand into the silverware drawer, smothering an oath when the tine of a fork poked him.

Damn Jenny, anyway. She was the one who’d left. She was the one who’d thought their marriage—their family, what was left of it, anyway—should be scrapped. All because some other guy listened to her. Listened.

Tonight it seemed that he was about to lose Melanie by trying to salvage what was left of his relationship with Lissa.

But if he’d learned anything, it was that you were never guaranteed tomorrow. That and you’d better take advantage of what you had today. Maybe Lissa felt the same way. Maybe her first semester at technical college had rammed home how quickly time flew and how things could never stay the same.

Lissa, in college now. This was the year Annabelle should have graduated from high school.

The silverware in his fist slipped out of his grip and landed with a clatter on the floor. Everybody jumped at the racket.

For an endless moment, Patrick felt his eyes shift from Melanie to Lissa and back again.

Then Melanie chuckled. Lissa joined in and Patrick laughed himself, but out of relief.

“Boy, we’re strung tight,” Patrick told them.

“Long day.” Melanie went back to tossing the salad. “I swear, the phone at my office rang nonstop all afternoon.”

“At least you’re an accountant and you work in an office. You’re not stuck ringing up groceries. Man alive, but I got chewed out for carding somebody who wanted to buy beer,” Lissa said. “I wish I could quit. I have to keep this job, though, and my other job to earn the car down payment because somebody won’t co-sign a loan for me.”

Patrick caught Mel’s knowing older-sister eye. “Oh, poor baby,” she sniped. “Maybe if you had actually done what you were supposed to do and showed a little responsibility, Dad would have a little confidence in you.”

“I am responsible! What do you mean?”

“The internship you flaked out on. If you can’t get your papers in on time, how can Dad expect you to make a car payment on time?”

“Dad!” Lissa whirled to face Patrick, and jabbed the fork at him. “You told her I missed the deadline?”

Mel didn’t wait for Patrick to respond, just jumped in. “Yeah, he did. How else was he supposed to explain his sudden change of heart? You’re eighteen, Lissa. Grow up, why don’t—”

“Mel, that’s enough.” Patrick stepped between them. Now he regretted having mentioned Lissa’s sad story to her elder sister.

The chicken grease hissed behind them. Lissa broke the stare she had locked on to Mel to attend to it. Her smug look as she turned toward the stove irritated Patrick.

“Lissa, Mel’s right about one thing. You need to be more responsible. It’s not just the internship paperwork. If you’re serious about a job in the nursing profession, you have to manage a lot of deadlines, and that’s part of the reason your teachers set them—”

“It’s hard, Dad.”

Her whine sent his blood pressure up just a tick more. “Yeah, maybe. But when Mel was your age, I never had to worry—”

“Perfect Mel with her perfect husband and her perfect house and her perfect job. Never-screws-up Mel. Never-try-anything-so-you-don’t-screw-up Mel.” But Lissa’s mutter was barely audible. He shook his head toward Mel to stop her retort.

More silence. Patrick grabbed some plates and would have put them down on the small table in the kitchen, but Mel took them from him.

“It’s your birthday, Dad,” she said. “Even if Luke had to work and we can’t all be here, we can eat in the dining room, okay? It’s a celebration.”

Patrick ignored the derisive sound Lissa made at the mention of Mel’s state-trooper husband. “Okay.” He headed for the dining room with his stack of plates. Over his shoulder he called, “I can top both of you on the bad day at work. Today was my first and last day as a bus driver—and I had to break up a fight.”

“You? Drive a school bus?” Lissa laughed and was leaning back against the cabinet when he returned. “This I gotta hear.”

“Why is it that everybody gazes at me like that when I tell them I drove a school bus?” He let mock irritation color his words. “What? I don’t appear competent to drive a bus?”

He ventured a glance at Melanie, who was openly curious.

“Go on, Dad. I want to hear.”

So he started telling them, spinning the story light and funny and eviscerating from it all details of his momentary heart-stopping look at that little girl. Lissa and Mel were laughing now, a beautiful, beautiful sound.

The doorbell rang, and Melanie wiped her hands on a dish towel, then went headed to answer the front door. “Are you expecting someone? It’s not Luke. He won’t get home until nearly two in the morning.”

“No. But if it’s Vann, tell him to come on in. We’ve got plenty, don’t we?”

Lissa lifted her eyebrows in disbelief and held a little tighter to the plate of chicken in her hand. She was the spitting image of Jenny when she did that. “Vann’s huge, Dad. Linebacker huge. He could probably clean us out and still ask for seconds.”

“According to Vann, it’s all muscle, not an ounce of fat.” Patrick grinned at Lissa. “But I agree, all that muscle has an appetite.”

“Dad?” Melanie’s strained voice pierced the house. “Someone’s here for you. A Dana Wilson?”

The name jolted Patrick back to this afternoon, back to the school nurse who’d shifted papers from one pile to another and who had admitted maybe she wasn’t up to the job. A good thing he hadn’t interviewed Dana Wilson for the job. He might have been inclined not to hire her based on how pretty she was. All that blond curly hair and those big brown eyes. And those long legs. Even though her legs had been hidden beneath scrubs, he could tell they were nice.

“Dad?” Melanie sounded even more strained.

“I’m coming. Give me a minute to get there. Why don’t you just invite her in.”

“She—she—”

Patrick rounded the corner to the living room and saw Melanie at the door, blocking his view. Mel usually had excellent manners. What was her problem?

He walked up behind Mel. “Dana, hi. Why don’t you—”

But Patrick could get no more words out. His throat closed up and he gripped the door. Dana wasn’t alone. On her hip was a little girl, blond hair curling softly around her face, thumb in her mouth, sky-blue eyes heavy with drowsiness.

B EWILDERMENT PARALYZED Dana for a long moment. She stood there on Patrick’s front porch, switching her gaze from Patrick’s befuddled face to his daughter’s, and then back again. Both Patrick and his daughter wore expressions of shell shock.

What? Had she grown horns or a second head? Had her hair turned purple?

“I—I thought this was a good time. To talk about the asthma tests,” Dana ventured, shifting Kate from one hip to the other. “On the phone you said to come by?”

Patrick frowned. “You called me?”

“No—your daughter here.” Dana nodded toward the young woman. “I stopped by your shop, and they said you were on your way home, so I phoned your home and your daughter—”

Melanie folded her arms across her chest. “I haven’t spoken to her, Dad. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

For a second, Dana considered whether she’d dialed the wrong number, but then she recalled the conversation, her careful check to be sure she had the right Patrick Connor. “Well, I certainly talked to someone who said it was okay for me to stop by. Otherwise, why would I be here?”

Patrick pursed his lips. “It’s okay. Come in. Forgive my manners.” He stepped back, and Dana brushed past him and his daughter.

She knew she wasn’t bonkers. She had talked to someone who said she was his daughter.

“I’m hungry, Mommy.” Kate lifted her head from Dana’s shoulder and tugged at her. “Do they got a snack?”

“No snack, sweetie. We’ll go home in a few minutes, okay?” Dana patted Kate on the back.

“But you said that a while ago. I’m hungry .”

“In a minute. Um, I just had some concerns over the asthmatic kids at school.” Now that she was here, in the man’s living room, Dana had no clue what had possessed her to barge in. This could have waited until Monday.

“Is there a problem?” Patrick seemed to tense from head to toe.

“It’s just that—” Shoot. She should have waited. She was totally unprepared, without any sort of speech or script.

“Dad! Dinner’s getting cold!”

That sounded more like the person on the phone. Of course. He had two daughters.

The owner of the voice arrived into the living room, and Dana saw a girl with long highlighted hair, dressed in a hoodie and skintight jeans——the complete opposite of the dark-haired older daughter in business casual.

“Hi! You must be the nurse,” the younger daughter said. “Sorry, Dad. I completely forgot to tell you she phoned. My bad.”

Out of the corner of one eye, Dana caught the older daughter’s eyes narrowing in disbelief. Ooh, a good case of sibling rivalry here. With two sisters, Dana knew a thing or two about that.

“Uh, Dana, this is my older daughter, Melanie, and I guess you’ve already talked to Lissa, my younger daughter.” Patrick’s mouth jerked in an awkward attempt at a smile, but it was considerably dimmer in wattage than the earlier one at Dana’s clinic. “Girls, this is Dana Wilson. She’s the new nurse at the elementary school.”

Melanie’s smile was as tight and awkward as Patrick’s had been—no small wonder, since she favored him in appearance. Lissa’s grin crinkled the girl’s big blue eyes and seemed ten degrees warmer than Melanie’s.

“Cute little one you’ve got there,” Lissa said. “How old is she?”

“Um, Kate’s three. She’ll turn four in the summer.”

Had Patrick just winced? Was Kate what this cool reception was all about? Figured. He’d been nice enough at the clinic when he hadn’t known she had a kid, but the minute he saw a child, he was like every other guy she’d dated since Marty.

Maybe she should save herself a lot of time and trouble and have single mom tattooed on her forehead. At least then she wouldn’t have to endure a guy’s hot and cold reactions.

“Mommy,” Kate whimpered. “I’m hungry. Please?”

“Hey, why don’t you guys eat with us. Does fried chicken, tossed salad, butter beans, cream corn and rolls sound good?” Lissa rubbed her hands together. “Dad was just saying we had plenty.”

CHAPTER FOUR

F OR THE LIFE OF HER , Dana couldn’t figure out how she came to be sitting at a dinner table with Patrick and his two daughters, one of whom was staring daggers at her.

She cast a glance at Kate, who was eating up Lissa’s attention. Usually, Kate was shy and hesitant with strangers, but not with Lissa. Lissa had her in giggles within seconds—and the fried chicken on Kate’s plate had sealed the deal.

At least one daughter was kid friendly.

The jury was still out on Patrick. After Lissa’s off-the-cuff invitation, he’d heartily agreed. Yes, absolutely, she must join them.

She’d overheard Melanie hiss, “But, Dad! This is your birthday supper!” and Dana had tried to leave then. Patrick wouldn’t hear of it.

“No, no, it’s fine. This is no big deal. Only supper and a cake. You like cake, don’t you? Melanie makes a mean coconut cake.”

The tension at the table dissipated as Patrick shook out his napkin and passed around the platter of chicken. “I was just telling the girls about my two wannabe professional wrestlers this morning. How’d they do, anyway?”

“I didn’t hear a peep out of them all day long, so I guess they must have survived.” Dana took a piece of chicken and handed the platter to Melanie. “This looks great!”

“Lissa fried it. I hope you can eat it.” If Dana was reading Melanie’s underlying sentiment correctly, the truer words would have been, I hope you get an ulcer .

But Dana just ignored Melanie’s remark and switched her praise to Lissa. “You’re a better cook than me. I never fool with frying chicken.”

“My mom is the best cook, and we do a lot of cooking together,” Lissa told her.

Dana recalled Suze’s allusions to Patrick’s divorced status and wasn’t sure what to say. She mumbled, “That’s nice.”

On the heels of that awkward moment came another when Lissa skewered her with blue eyes alight with curiosity. “So are you and Dad seeing each other?”

Dana dropped the piece of chicken she held and Patrick choked on butter beans he was eating.

“Uh, no, actually, we’re not. I met your father for the first time today.”

“Oh. That’s nice.” Lissa beamed. “I just figured, you know, you calling, looking for him on his birthday—you know.”

Dana picked up the drumstick with numb fingers. “No. No. Remember? I mentioned on the phone that this had to do with the clinic at school.”

Melanie seemed to relax a bit then. Dana wondered if perhaps Melanie’s earlier reaction derived from the same wrong conclusion Lissa had jumped to.

“I like this corn, Mommy! Why doesn’t our corn taste this way?”

“I don’t know, sweetheart.” Dana felt her cheeks heat up. She chuckled and said to Patrick and his daughters, “I did say I wasn’t much of a cook.”

“Kate, it’s probably because we grew this corn ourselves,” Patrick offered.

Kate frowned. “My mommy buys corn in cans.”

Lissa laughed; Melanie managed a subdued chuckle and Dana cringed. At least Kate’s confession indicated Dana attempted to cook. If Kate kept going, she’d probably tell them just how many trips to the McDonald’s drive-thru she and Kate made.

Patrick nodded to Kate. “Well, yeah, I guess she does. That’s what a lot of people do. But we grow it.” He turned to Dana. “My older sister and her husband live out in the country and we grow a big garden together.”

“That’s very nice.”

“You have brothers or sisters?”

“Two sisters. I’m in the middle.”

“Are they as tall as you?” Lissa asked.

Melanie again shot daggers, but now at her little sister. Dana smothered a laugh, remembering how many times her older sister had tried—and failed—to keep her straight.

“Uh, no. My older sister is a little above average height, and my younger one is on the petite side. She likes to say she’s vertically challenged.”

“Oh, that’s like my aunt. She always says—”

“Lissa, can you get us some more ice?” Melanie broke in. “Dana’s glass needs refreshing.”

The interruption caught Dana by surprise. What had that been all about?

But Lissa shoved back her chair with an under-the-breath mumble about bossy older sisters and Patrick interjected a question about where Dana had found a place to live, and she pushed aside her curiosity and answered his question.

The rest of the meal went smoothly enough. Civil, polite on Melanie and Patrick’s part; effusively warm on Lissa’s part. Dana had to admit that Lissa was a sheer wonder with Kate, and acknowledged it was great to have a meal where she had some help retrieving dropped spoons and napkins, cutting up the food into bite-size pieces, making a quick save of a toppling glass. Lissa was a natural.

When Dana remarked on it, Lissa told her, “I like kids, especially this age. I babysit a lot during the summer, and I have a little brother. He’s six now, but you know, my mom needed help. I’m going to school to be a nurse, and I hope I get to work with pedes.”

“Oh. I see. You’ll be good at it.”

Lissa beamed. “If you ever need somebody to watch Kate, I’ll be glad to do it. I’ve got excellent references.”

Dana grinned. Had Lissa’s motivation simply been to drum up business? If so, the gambit had been an effective one. “I don’t get out much, but I’ll keep you in mind.”

Not until the lighting of Patrick’s birthday cake did Dana find herself feeling awkward and in the way. Melanie brought in the cake, aglow with too many candles for Dana to count, though she did try to figure out Patrick’s age.

Then Lissa started singing “Happy Birthday” in a clear, beautiful alto and urged everyone to join in. Kate sang along without any prompting, but Dana hesitated. She felt shy and uncertain about singing “Happy Birthday” to a man she’d only just met.

Her eyes searched out cues from Melanie and Lissa and then finally Patrick. His gaze wasn’t on his daughters or the cake. It was locked on Kate as she lisped out the song. His jaw was set, his lips compressed.

The Patrick Connor she’d seen earlier in the day had vanished. Whatever interest he’d shown in Dana had vanished, as well.

She’d encountered that reaction too many times not to know it for what it was. The first time was the day she’d told Marty she was pregnant. His face had gone from happy anticipation at the prospect of big news to complete and utter gray-white shock when he learned what that news was.

Marty had tried to muscle his way through the moment, but he’d looked a lot the way Patrick Connor did now. No doubt about it. Patrick—as did most of the men who followed in Marty’s footsteps—had a problem with kids.

E VERY LITTLE OFF-KEY note that Kate Wilson sang knifed Patrick.

She’s not Annabelle. She doesn’t even resemble Annabelle.

That he’d even been able to speak when he’d seen the child on Dana’s hip had been a sheer miracle. If he’d just had some sort of warning…

Dana had to think he was a loon. He couldn’t believe it when he’d impulsively agreed with Lissa that she and Kate should join them for supper. Part of him had been eager to seize on anything that would encourage any rapprochement with Lissa.

And the other part?

Sheer insanity.

After supper, Patrick followed the girls into the kitchen with his plate, while Dana stayed at the table, cleaning up after Kate. Kate’s giggle floated after him.

God, so much time had passed since a baby had been in the house. He’d forgotten what wonderful music their giggles made.

Patrick found Melanie and Lissa in an argument, carried on in low hisses at the sink.

“Like you really forgot to tell Dad some woman had called. And to invite her here when you were aware it was Dad’s birthday.”

“She’s nice, Melanie! What’s the problem?”

“The problem is you’re up to something, and I know it, Lissa, so don’t—”

“You never believe me, so why should I bother saying anything at all? I forgot. Take it or leave it.”

“Girls.” At Patrick’s voice, they jumped guiltily. “We have a guest. One whom one of you invited.”

“Not me. Dad, you’re not going to start dating her, are you? I mean, she has a…” Melanie bit her lip.

Lissa put her hands on her hips. “Say it. You can say it. The world won’t end if you do. She has a child.”

The corners of Melanie’s mouth turned down. “That’s rather obvious. Did you know that when you invited her to party-crash?”

“No. But I sure would have invited her if I had. Because I just love to watch you wig out. You still haven’t gotten over Mom having Christopher and he’s six now,” Lissa said.

Melanie blanched at Lissa’s second mention of their stepbrother. “That’s—I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Girls. Enough.” Patrick glanced behind him to make sure Dana and Kate hadn’t left the dining room, then spoke in a low voice. “Let’s not fight on my birthday, especially when we have a guest. And Melanie, I’ve barely met the woman. Of course I’m not dating her. If I were, though, it’s my business.”

Melanie rolled her eyes at Lissa’s triumphant little “Yes!” complete with dragged-down fist gesture.

“You think you want this, but you don’t have a clue, do you? You don’t care about anybody but you. You’ve completely ruined Dad’s birthday, all because you’re a drama queen,” Melanie said.

After Patrick shot her a warning look, she waved away whatever else she was going to add. “Okay, okay. I won’t say any more. You deal with Lissa.”

“Later. And that’s a promise, Lissa.” He set his plate on the countertop. “Right now, I’m going to attempt to be a good host.”

When he returned to the dining room, Kate was cleaned up and Dana was gathering her things. “I am so sorry to have interrupted this night. I should have thought things through and waited until Monday.”

Patrick curled his fingers around the woodwork on the dining room chair. “You said something about the asthma tests. So what’s on your mind?”

“I should go. It’ll keep—I am so sorry.”

“No problem. We enjoyed having you.”

Dana didn’t seem at all convinced by his words, and he had to admit they sounded insincere. He tried again. “Lissa enjoyed having you guys here tonight, and I’m grateful for that. She’s at a…well, a difficult age.”

Dana’s smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. “Yes. I’m glad to be of service. Now, I’ll get out of your hair and be on my way, and perhaps we can talk about this on Monday.”

“Talk about what? You never did tell me precisely,” he pointed out.

She stopped in the middle of stuffing some child gear into her oversize purse. “The asthmatic kids. The mold. Why didn’t you tell me about the mold?”

Her accusatory question caught him as off guard as Kate’s rendition of “Happy Birthday” had. Patrick rubbed at his eyes, struggling to figure out how to respond.

“I thought Vann—” No. That was a lie. He knew Vann well enough to realize that Vann wouldn’t have immediately offered up that information without asking him first.

“Yes?” Now her tone had an edge to it, cool and crisp.

“We should have. I should have. I’m sorry.”

“Is this a cover-up? Am I part of a bean-counting process?”

“No! No, of course not. We’re just trying to do due diligence—”

“If you’re trying to do due diligence, how about getting in professionals to eliminate the mold? Instead of tackling a job that’s beyond an amateur’s scope,” she added equably.

“Can I take you up on that offer to talk about this Monday? Because I am not up to it tonight. Consider it a birthday gift.” Patrick added that last bit as a joke, but it fell flat.

Dana scooped up Kate and slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Fine. You know where to find me. I’ll be the one spending two hours every morning and two hours every afternoon doing useless asthma tests that don’t really tell you much of anything.”

She marched to the front door. Patrick followed her out, down the steps and to her car.

“Listen, if you want, we can talk about this now.”

“No, you’re right. I need a weekend to cool off.”

He took a step back. “Sure. Then okay. I’ll talk to you Monday. It was…nice having you here tonight. You and, um, Kate.”

He hadn’t intended to say those last words and he wasn’t sure where the sentiment had come from.

The words had the effect of arresting Dana as she put a sleepy Kate into her car seat. “If you mean that, then I’m glad.”

She slid behind the wheel of her car, gave him a brief, inscrutable smile and backed around.

Leaving Patrick standing there, wondering, had he meant what he’d said? And what if he had?

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