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“What were you doing?” She rushed to him “You could have hurt yourself!”

“I just wanted to touch the horns”

He ju off some items onto the floor

“Jake—” She sighed with exasperation

He kept his distance, watching her ide eyes that were suspiciously shiny and it occurred to her that he ht cry if she yelled at him Her irritation dissolved

“Help s on the floor,” was all she said

Jake obeyed, handing her Chase’s flipped-open checkbook without closing it, ht that fortunately hadn’t been broken He cradled its heavy smoothness in his small hands before he returned it to the desk

Sloan wasn’t paying attention She was looking at the last check entry Chase’s handwriting on the stub was clear and bold

To Wade Rogers In the amount of ten thousand dollars

Taken aback, she stared at the stub toif it was for a charitable donation or what But that space had been left blank

Puzzled, she closed the checkbook and returned it to the desktop “Aunt Cat randfather’s in the kitchen Shall we go join him for some milk and cookies?”

“Can I take the paperweight?” He cast one last ad look at it on the desk

“No You don’t want Greypa to know that you went tearing around and s on his desk, do you?”

The little boy squared his shoulders “I’ll tell him He won’t mind”

Sloan absently stroked his hair and smiled “No, he probably won’t”