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The calain He felt the ain, he wished for Paige, for her common sense, her unruffled feathers, her expertise, her reassuring influence She gave too ht to ask for more But she would know exactly how to handle this, how to put the his fists at every word out of that woet the answers to all the questions he couldn’t see for the control to keep fro his ive Mrs M a chance to answer It was an excuse to get out of that room To breathe for a few precious moments Even if it was Whitney on the other side of the door, right now she see at his front door

Paige was

The wo about

The wo for

He practically yanked her off her feet as he pulled her inside He hugged her before he could reeous curves against hi his head simply scrambled whatever was left of his senses, and he blurted out, "My long-lostwith the brother and sister I never knew I had"

Chapter Nine

Paige would have dropped her purse if the strap hadn’t been slung crosswise over her shoulder

She’d been nervous about coone out of his way to avoid her at the wedding reception But she couldn’t possibly pretend she hadn’t loved kissing hiainst hers Or that she didn’t wantherself up for a terrible fall, she still had to knohat their kiss meant to hi him alone…he suddenly had a mother, a brother, and a sister?

In the face of this astonishing news, her nerves, her questions about what the two of them were to each other--all of that disappeared At least for now Although, the heat his greeting hug had flooded her asn’t going anywhere

Paige knew the bare bones of his past Evan had never hidden where he came from, but he didn’t talk about it much either She knew that hishim with an abusive, alcoholic father The Spencers had rescued hi him off his father’s hands, which probably had felt like another abandonh his dad was violent Then Susan and Bob had worked their lovingman despite his difficult youth

"I know," Evan said, reading her expression "It’s a shocker"

Shocker was the understatement of the century It felt more like the first enormous hill on the Giant Dipper roller coaster out at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, when your stoht out of you

And it wasn’t just the shock of his family that knocked her off balance It was how hard she’d worked to gather the courage to confront hiain Because she certainly couldn’t talk to him about their kiss now