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      Levity glimmered in Charity’s eyes. Rick was tempted to tell his best knock-knock joke just to see her laugh again.

      But he waited too long, and she started moving closer to the church entry, away from him.

      She glanced at her watch. “I need to grab this…stuff and get home,” she said. “I have to work tonight.” With a wave, she turned and pulled open one of the double-glass doors.

      Rick waved back, wishing he could think of an excuse to stall her. The way she blurred the clear lines around his personal boundaries, he should have been wishing she would disappear until the building dedication instead of hanging around and distracting him.

      Climbing back on the ladder, he still couldn’t help observing when her car pulled out of the church lot. And more than that, he couldn’t help wondering when he’d see her next. Or hoping it wasn’t too long.

      DANA CORBIT

      has been fascinated with words since third grade, when she began stringing together stanzas of rhyme. That interest, and an inherent curiosity, led her to a career as a newspaper reporter and editor. After earning state and national recognition in journalism, she traded her career for stay-at-home motherhood. But the need for creative expression followed her home and, later, through the move from Indiana to Milford, Michigan. Outside the office, Dana discovered the joy of writing fiction. In stolen hours, during naps and between carpooling and church activities, she escapes into her private world, telling stories from her heart.

      Dana makes her home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, with her husband, three young daughters and two cats.

      An Honest Life

      Dana Corbit

      

www.millsandboon.co.uk

      MILLS & BOON

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      No man has ever seen God; if we love one another,

       God abides in us and His love is perfected in us.

      —I John 4:12

      To my grandmother, Jane Bowley,

       who shares my love of romance and whose own

       story of lifetime love inspires me.

      A special thanks to the following people

       for lending your expertise to this story:

       Angela Jacobson, R.N., labor and delivery nurse;

       Lisa Cardle, R.N., neonatal intensive care nurse;

       Dr. Steven Naum, M.D., hand surgeon;

       and Duane Rasch and Jon Tuthill, licensed builders.

       Any mistakes contained within are my own.

      Dear Reader,

      I really enjoyed revisiting the people of Hickory Ridge Community Church in this story. These characters have become so real for me, their ties to each other so powerful, like those in the church of my childhood. Though not perfect, they care for each other and worship together.

      Writing Charity Sims’s story was a special joy because Charity has so much to learn about life, matters of the heart and, especially, God’s love. Who better to teach her than the reluctant hero, Rick McKinley? This story is about living An Honest Life before others and in our own hearts. Through God’s love we can finally find peace.

      I love hearing from readers. You may write to me at P.O. Box 120044, Grand Rapids, MI, 49512, or contact me through the web site http://www.loveinspiredauthors.com.

      Dana Corbit

      Contents

      Chapter One

      Chapter Two

      Chapter Three

      Chapter Four

      Chapter Five

      Chapter Six

      Chapter Seven

      Chapter Eight

      Chapter Nine

      Chapter Ten

      Chapter Eleven

      Chapter Twelve

      Chapter Thirteen

      Chapter Fourteen

      Chapter Fifteen

      Chapter Sixteen

      Chapter Seventeen

      Chapter One

      Adrenaline pumped through Charity’s veins in the same rhythm that her soft-soled shoes tapped on the hallway floor. She rushed into her sixth labor-delivery-recovery-postpartum room since the seven-to-seven shift started five hours before. And for the sixth time, she grumbled about the barometric pressure changes that likely had triggered labor for so many women. Thanks to it, Stanton Birthing Center had become a madhouse over Labor Day weekend. And this was just barely Saturday morning.

      Sucking in a breath of that familiar disinfectant scent, she knocked and pushed open the door. “Hello, Mr. and Mrs.—” she paused, gazing up from her chart to the woman on the bed and the man next to her “—Westin.” She swallowed hard, her heart racing, her hands damp.

      How could she have missed the connection when she’d read the name Westin on the room-status board? Too late. Now she had to face these two people and the most humiliating moment of her life.

      Andrew Westin coughed into his hand before he finally could say, “Hello, Charity.” His wife said nothing at all, her eyes wide.

      With a nod in his direction, Charity turned back to her patient. Serena Jacobs Westin chewed her lip, appearing pained, though the monitor attached to her belly showed she was between contractions. Charity could relate to that nonphysical agony.

      “Mrs. Westin, I’ll be your nurse throughout the night.”

      Throughout the night? Could she survive that long in the same room with the man she’d pined over and who had rejected her so soundly? Or with the former divorcée Andrew had chosen over her? Charity itched to run for the door, to take that much needed vacation far away from southeast lower Michigan, or at least to beg another labor and delivery nurse to take her patient. But she resigned herself to the task. Other staff members were already busy with two ongoing cesarean sections and a “mec” delivery—where an infant’s waste, called meconium, was present in its amniotic fluid and signaled possible complications. She needed to buck up and do her job.

      Wrapping the blood pressure cuff around Serena’s arm, she set up the stethoscope to check her heart rate. “I need to get your vital signs and ask you a few questions before the staff obstetrician examines you. The admitting clerk said your water broke. Can you tell me at what time?”

      Serena glanced at Andrew and turned back to her nurse. “Okay. Wait…I’m starting another one.” She gripped her rounded abdomen and focused on a spot on the opposite wall, making the

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