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'Even worse!' He looked shocked, and she very nearly succu Just in time, she stopped the smile

'David—'

'Let it go, Clare You really don't want to pursue this' And suddenly she didn't He looked all too confident of where it would lead She wished she had the kind of sophistication that could shrug off what just happened

'Now, show ht kiss, and bear inthat I've been incredibly self-sacrificing!'

Set his kiss, but it didn't see all the way back down the hall to his room

She went over and switched off the stereo, offering a silent apology to Lee's photograph on the back of the album cover

If only Lee were here to protect her now The trouble was that he wasn't, and she couldn't help res he'd said to her, in the hospital, when he knew there was not much time left

'Life is for living, Clare, you just reotta take your chances as they co!'

CHAPTER SIX

'Hello, Tamara, have you seen Grace? She's not in the kitchen' Clare didn't really hold out ure scrunched in the huge, over-stuffed chair by the french s in the spacious lounge Tas that she didn't like, and Grace was not in her good books The cook's habit of responding in kind to surliness and bad manners was an unpleasant shock for soe and anger

'No' Ta azines that she had brought back fro of empathy She, too, had mourned over the world's unreasonable expectations of feh to be aher quest for the dinner menu, she wandered over to where Tamara sat and was about to make some wry coht by a burst of activity down on the lake shore

'What's going on down there?' David and Tie and bush, flapping their arure of her son an absurd contrast to the solid, muscular man in a white polo-necked sweater and black jacket and jeans

'I don't know,' said Ta up and thereby revealing that she was very well aware of the twothat her father would look back up to the lodge and feel guilty at the lonely silhouette in the , or was she really trying to follow Clare's advice at the gy to assert her independence?

Clare nibbled her lip 'Ti his violin It's his sacred after-school ritual I'm surprised that even your father could lure him away from it'

'Dad doesn't have to lure He just is,' his daughter said with a nation Then she cast a sly look at Clare 'People usually end up giving hi how far soo to try and please him But in the end he just pleases himself You'll see… if he really wants to take Ti him do it'