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"It’s not ato relanced up, frowning "What do you e?"

"Oh Nursing I want to be an RN Pediatrics" She srants?" he asked

"A couple It’s confusing I really don’t want to get a bunch of loans, if I don’t have to"

"You take the SATs yet?"

"Uh-huh" She slish and 630 on Math"

"Impressive" He was silent for a o toto talk to a lady named Eddie She’s my assistant" He hesitated "She sounds a lot meaner than she is, so don’t let her scare you off She’ll help you with the grants As for the rest of it, you can work for e, if you want Or I won’t pay you anything, but I’ll put aenty dollars for every hour you work At the end of the sue of your choice But if you start and then quit, you get nothing"

E to help h I lied to you?"

"You have to do the work If you’ll see it through, I’ll know you’ve learned your lesson"

Charity felt as surprised as Eirl, then let her go Instead he’d offered her a way to get everything she wanted, while still having to be responsible and show initiative

Eed him Then she stepped back "I’ll be there," she promised "I’ll do whatever you say I swear I’m so sorry" She turned to Charity "I am sorry I was desperate and that’s not an excuse Please don’t be mad at him"

"I’ain She hurried to the door and let herself out

Josh walked over to a small cabinet by the wall, pulled out a bottle of Scotch

"Want some?" he asked

"I’ll wait and have ith dinner"

He poured hi drink "Welcome to my world"

"Does that happen a lot?"

"Every now and then, in different foret" He looked at her over the glass "You know I didn’t sleep with her, right?"

"Of course I knew it before she confessed everything"

He put down the glass "How?"

"You told me there hadn’t been anyone for a while and I believed you Plus, she’s not really your type"

He crossed to her and put his hands on her waist "What’s my type?"

"I’irls still in high school"

"You knoell"

He kissed her

As his ht she knew him a little better than she had before He could have simply thrown Emily out after her confession There was no reason for hiirl he didn’t knoho’d tried to blackmail him Josh was a complicated ht terrified her Not only did she have to worry about the stupidity of falling for aStill, it was too late to run for cover now

He drew back and sry are you?"

She wrapped her arms around his neck and leaned into hiirl"

JOSH WARMED UP WITH the high school tea and laughing without paying attention to anything beyond getting ready for the real workout

Josh didn’t listen to the conversation He couldn’t Every bit of his attention, every ounce of self-control, was focused on not freaking out like a kid at a monster movie

The students rode in a pack, which wasn’t unusual What made the event incredibly different for Josh was the fact that he was part of the pack Not in it, exactly,with the others At least he was doing it

Maybe the slow pace helped There was no sense of being out of control He knew nothing bad was going to happen At this speed, the worst result of a fall would be a skinned knee or elbow

One of the students maneuvered his bike closer to Josh’s The boy, tall but skinny with that aard, lanky look of an adolescent who hasn’t figured out what to do with his new body, sht?"

The kid nodded "I can’t believe you’re riding with us I’uys who ride around the country They think I’ your camera next time and we’ll take pictures to prove it"

"You’d do that?"

"Sure For a hundred bucks a pop"

Brandon’sYes, I’ll take pictures with you and the other guys You can load thelanced at him, then away

Josh wondered if he had more he wanted to say

The pace picked up a little Josh easily kept up with everyone

"You, uht?" Brandon asked

"Sure"

"Coach has , but I’ how many of them could hear "I need to put on some muscle"

"How old are you?" Josh asked