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eruption, and her face went angrily hot. She bit back her thoughts and followed Dr. Riordan down to the exam room, hoping he’d put Beck in his place.

      After doing a quick assessment and patient interview the doctor said, “Looks like MRSA.”

      So much for back-up.

      “We can either treat you with broad-spectrum antibiotics, which may or may not help, or we can open and drain the area tonight, stitch you up and send you home. We’ll get culture results in forty-eight hours and make sure you’re on the right antibiotic. Then you can follow up with your primary-care physician next week.”

      Jan felt conspired against as she chewed her lower lip and had the patient sign the consent for the procedure. She started to leave the room when Beck rolled his tray of equipment inside.

      “Stick around,” he said. “I’ll need your help.”

      The exam room took on a red cast as she swallowed her anger and nodded her head, knowing this was a one-man job. As long as he didn’t let on that he knew who she was, she’d play along with his little game, even if it meant her blood pressure getting elevated.

      With her throat growing sorer by the minute, and her nasal congestion getting worse, she’d avoid him tomorrow by calling in sick to work.

      Beck finished the last stitch and turned to Jan. “You can take it from here.”

      She nodded dutifully, but refused to look at him. He smiled at the patient, who thanked him, then left the room.

      It was almost more than he could do not to grab her by the arm and drag her down the hall to some secluded place and tell her exactly how she’d screwed up his life. Oh, but he’d had the last laugh because he’d risen above all the dirt everyone in Atwater had tried to dump on him his whole life. He’d proved wrong everyone who’d said he would never amount to anything. He’d served his country well, seen more countries than most people dreamed about, and now he proudly wore the LAPD badge and served on the elite SWAT team. For someone who’d received the infamous honor in his senior class of being tagged “most likely to wind up in a correctional center” he’d done pretty damn well for himself.

      Beck straightened his shoulders and swaggered toward the doctors’ lounge. He needed a drink, but a good strong cup of coffee would have to do instead.

      Jan finally had a chance to take her dinner break around eight p.m. She notified Carmen and headed for the nurses’ lounge. Unable to wait one more second to read the special letter, she dug it out of her pocket and ripped it open. This time every year, as promised, the updated letter arrived.

      A shining smile from Meghan Jean greeted her inside the envelope. She’d be twelve and a half now, and in seventh grade. Long dark brown French braids rested on her bony shoulders. A handful of freckles were sprinkled across her nose, a nose very much like Jan’s. But the eyes were definitely placed and shaped like her father’s, except their color was blue…like hers.

      Dear January,

      We’re reporting in on this year’s progress with our daughter. Meghan has joined the track team and also loves to dance. She scored in the top ten percent for her annual scholastic testing and her teachers want to place her in some gifted classes. It seems that out of the blue she has discovered a love of art, and wants to take painting classes. She continues to be a warm and loving girl with a natural excitement and curiosity for life even though puberty is fast approaching. Meghan absolutely hates wearing braces, but we’ve discovered clear wires and sometimes she likes to have bright blue ones applied just for fun. As you know, she’s quite the ham and keeps Daryl and me laughing. We promised her a Disney World vacation this year and she can barely go to sleep each night from thinking about it.

      On another note, something new has cropped up in school. Meghan’s science class is studying genetics and genealogy and she is suddenly bursting with questions about her birth parents. Would it be okay for us to tell her a bit more about you? We understand that you never named the father, but if there is any information whatsoever you can provide, we’d appreciate it.

      As always, Daryl and I are so grateful to you for your unselfish act and want you to know we treat our daughter as the precious gift she is. We pray that life is treating you well.

      All the best,

      The Williams

      The last part of the letter went blurry. Had it been an unselfish act? Could giving her daughter away to strangers in an open adoption be considered anything less than an easy way out for a frightened seventeen-year-old? Sure, they had been well screened, willing and anxious to become parents, but they’d solved her “problem” and life had never been the same since.

      She glanced again at the school picture, and choked back her tears.

      The door flew open behind her. “Apparently only the nurses keep fresh coffee in the pot,” Beck said.

      Jan startled, dropping the letter, and the picture went flying through the air to the floor. She scrambled to reach it before Beck could see, but he was just as quick.

      She leaned. He knelt. They almost bumped heads. They looked into each other’s eyes. Fear of being found out sent a rocket fueled with adrenaline through her chest. His hand rested on top of hers on the picture on the floor.

       CHAPTER TWO

      “SO HOW’VE you been, January?” Beck asked, glancing up from the overturned picture on the floor and staring deep into her eyes.

      Jan glanced into Beck’s challenging glare and willed herself not to shake. She swallowed a hard lump and narrowed her gaze, then reverted to old, well-practiced techniques of evasion.

      “I’ve been fantastical, Beck. And you?” She gingerly retrieved the photograph of her daughter from the floor and slipped it back inside her pocket before he had a chance to see it.

      “Outstanding. I’ve been outstanding.”

      Was his point to let her know how well he’d gotten along in life without her? To point out that leaving her behind and joining the army had made him “all that he could be” like the ad on the military poster said? Or was he lying through his teeth, like she was?

      He seemed on the verge of saying something more.

      Before Jan could begin to decipher the multitude of expressions in his eyes, Carmen appeared in the doorway.

      “Here you are. I’ve got good news,” she said, looking toward Beck. “Gavin has arranged for you to scrub in with the gunshot wound. You’d better high-tail it up there before anyone changes their mind.”

      “Fantastical,” he said, slanting a glance Jan’s way. A grim look that promised they hadn’t even begun to broach the subject foremost on their minds. Then Beck swept out of the tiny room without looking back, leaving a gust of air that seemed to strangle her instead of offer relief.

      Carmen leaned against the door frame, cocking a brow. “Did he just say ‘fantastical’?”

      Jan nodded solemnly.

      “He’s kind of cute, don’t you think?” Carmen continued.

      “I hadn’t noticed.”

      “Then those glasses are the wrong prescription. Did I interrupt something?”

      “Not at all. He was just looking for a decent cup of coffee, and, being a smart guy, knew to come to the nurses’ lounge.” She feigned a carefree smile, gathered her letter and lunch items and hustled back to work.

      The next day, her guilty conscience wouldn’t let her call in sick to work. Sure, her nose was congested, but she wasn’t running a fever and she could sneeze into the crook of her elbow on the job if needed. If her condition warranted it, she’d don a mask. But knowing the glut of emergencies on weekends, not to mention the people without health insurance who

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