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Daniel leaned a broad shoulder against thedoors "You sure you don’t ht?"

"Not at all I’m too tired to notice he’s there"

Daniel eyed his bed, ru with each baby breath froht?"

"Says so on the package" A sled expression when they’d bought the sleeper-diapers, a purchase so conspicuously different fro a bottle of wine, a plastic-wrapped rose--and a box of condoms

Mary Elise banished that h his tousled hair until it stood even more on end, much like his buddy Spike’s "I’ll find bunk beds over at the base toh selection"

"Uh, the boys ht Of course" He shot her a wry s to other people"

He shoved away fro an airplane fu the bulky comforter around tiny shoulders, not that it stalled hiray bedspread tucked as snuggly around Austin as any cotton sailboat blankie

Her heart hitched

Tension rippled up Daniel’s back beneath the stretched green fabric: He reached toward Austin

Swiped a tear off the cherub cheek

Tears stung her own eyes "He wants hiss moved Daniel’s throat before he dropped to the foot of the bed Broad shoulders sagged for the first tio "What the hell a to do with two kids, Mary Elise?"

His hoarse question filled the roo both Austin and Danny close It would be difficult enough for her not to play mama to this motherless child She da more than friends with Danny "You’ll make adjustone for weeks at a tilass doors revealing the stretch of sandy beach "Even that’s a hazard with Austin around"

His quiet anguish echoed, transporting her back to the time he’d asked her how his father could be so cliché as to opt for a trophy wife in his ht a freaking sports car?

Daniel rested his elbows on his knees while studying the mud-brown carpet as if it bore answers not likely held in the stack of books by his bed "What kind of screwed-up world is this where those boys don’t have anyone but me and a terrorist uncle ready to recruit them for his own special brand of ’summer camp’?"

Austin shuffled under the covers With undue concentration, she closed the glass door and drew the steel blinds, trying to avoid otherDaniel was trapped by circunancy But even at twenty-one, he’d been aothers first She’d known he would coh for their baby

She just hadn’t expected the surprise need for hih for her, too

A tiny voice taunted froed Kent Horribly so

She’d been looking for so different in those days Herto the point she’d realized bearing children would be doubtful Her first o hadn’t been some fluke, and with the build-up of internal scar tissue over the years, even conception became difficult She’d met Kent at a time when she’d expected to focus on her newspaper career since life had shifted her plans

Kent changed the rules

She refused to let her ex-husband take anything else froood memories she had of Daniel Despite the trau about so concerns that didn’t involve a stalker ex-husband

Moving deeper into the roolide over Daniel’s dresser, tap a change cup, an abacus "The world isn’t fair, Danny, and it’s wasted energy expecting it to be We make the best of e have"

Mary Elise shuffled the abacus beads back and forth and back again Whiuard "God knows, you alere one who could build a rocket out of a junior che Ware"

A rusty chuckle slipped free "I blew a hole in the yard big enough for a pig-roast Man, wasin thefro his father’s fear for his safety The father not recognizing his son’s need for freedom and acceptance