For the Sake of the Children. Cynthia Reese

the fork at him. “You told her I missed the deadline?”

      Mel didn’t wait for Patrick to respond, just jumped in. “Yeah, he did. How else was he supposed to explain his sudden change of heart? You’re eighteen, Lissa. Grow up, why don’t—”

      “Mel, that’s enough.” Patrick stepped between them. Now he regretted having mentioned Lissa’s sad story to her elder sister.

      The chicken grease hissed behind them. Lissa broke the stare she had locked on to Mel to attend to it. Her smug look as she turned toward the stove irritated Patrick.

      “Lissa, Mel’s right about one thing. You need to be more responsible. It’s not just the internship paperwork. If you’re serious about a job in the nursing profession, you have to manage a lot of deadlines, and that’s part of the reason your teachers set them—”

      “It’s hard, Dad.”

      Her whine sent his blood pressure up just a tick more. “Yeah, maybe. But when Mel was your age, I never had to worry—”

      “Perfect Mel with her perfect husband and her perfect house and her perfect job. Never-screws-up Mel. Never-try-anything-so-you-don’t-screw-up Mel.” But Lissa’s mutter was barely audible. He shook his head toward Mel to stop her retort.

      More silence. Patrick grabbed some plates and would have put them down on the small table in the kitchen, but Mel took them from him.

      “It’s your birthday, Dad,” she said. “Even if Luke had to work and we can’t all be here, we can eat in the dining room, okay? It’s a celebration.”

      Patrick ignored the derisive sound Lissa made at the mention of Mel’s state-trooper husband. “Okay.” He headed for the dining room with his stack of plates. Over his shoulder he called, “I can top both of you on the bad day at work. Today was my first and last day as a bus driver—and I had to break up a fight.”

      “You? Drive a school bus?” Lissa laughed and was leaning back against the cabinet when he returned. “This I gotta hear.”

      “Why is it that everybody gazes at me like that when I tell them I drove a school bus?” He let mock irritation color his words. “What? I don’t appear competent to drive a bus?”

      He ventured a glance at Melanie, who was openly curious.

      “Go on, Dad. I want to hear.”

      So he started telling them, spinning the story light and funny and eviscerating from it all details of his momentary heart-stopping look at that little girl. Lissa and Mel were laughing now, a beautiful, beautiful sound.

      The doorbell rang, and Melanie wiped her hands on a dish towel, then went headed to answer the front door. “Are you expecting someone? It’s not Luke. He won’t get home until nearly two in the morning.”

      “No. But if it’s Vann, tell him to come on in. We’ve got plenty, don’t we?”

      Lissa lifted her eyebrows in disbelief and held a little tighter to the plate of chicken in her hand. She was the spitting image of Jenny when she did that. “Vann’s huge, Dad. Linebacker huge. He could probably clean us out and still ask for seconds.”

      “According to Vann, it’s all muscle, not an ounce of fat.” Patrick grinned at Lissa. “But I agree, all that muscle has an appetite.”

      “Dad?” Melanie’s strained voice pierced the house. “Someone’s here for you. A Dana Wilson?”

      The name jolted Patrick back to this afternoon, back to the school nurse who’d shifted papers from one pile to another and who had admitted maybe she wasn’t up to the job. A good thing he hadn’t interviewed Dana Wilson for the job. He might have been inclined not to hire her based on how pretty she was. All that blond curly hair and those big brown eyes. And those long legs. Even though her legs had been hidden beneath scrubs, he could tell they were nice.

      “Dad?” Melanie sounded even more strained.

      “I’m coming. Give me a minute to get there. Why don’t you just invite her in.”

      “She—she—”

      Patrick rounded the corner to the living room and saw Melanie at the door, blocking his view. Mel usually had excellent manners. What was her problem?

      He walked up behind Mel. “Dana, hi. Why don’t you—”

      But Patrick could get no more words out. His throat closed up and he gripped the door. Dana wasn’t alone. On her hip was a little girl, blond hair curling softly around her face, thumb in her mouth, sky-blue eyes heavy with drowsiness.

       B EWILDERMENT PARALYZED Dana for a long moment. She stood there on Patrick’s front porch, switching her gaze from Patrick’s befuddled face to his daughter’s, and then back again. Both Patrick and his daughter wore expressions of shell shock.

      What? Had she grown horns or a second head? Had her hair turned purple?

      “I—I thought this was a good time. To talk about the asthma tests,” Dana ventured, shifting Kate from one hip to the other. “On the phone you said to come by?”

      Patrick frowned. “You called me?”

      “No—your daughter here.” Dana nodded toward the young woman. “I stopped by your shop, and they said you were on your way home, so I phoned your home and your daughter—”

      Melanie folded her arms across her chest. “I haven’t spoken to her, Dad. I don’t know what she’s talking about.”

      For a second, Dana considered whether she’d dialed the wrong number, but then she recalled the conversation, her careful check to be sure she had the right Patrick Connor. “Well, I certainly talked to someone who said it was okay for me to stop by. Otherwise, why would I be here?”

      Patrick pursed his lips. “It’s okay. Come in. Forgive my manners.” He stepped back, and Dana brushed past him and his daughter.

      She knew she wasn’t bonkers. She had talked to someone who said she was his daughter.

      “I’m hungry, Mommy.” Kate lifted her head from Dana’s shoulder and tugged at her. “Do they got a snack?”

      “No snack, sweetie. We’ll go home in a few minutes, okay?” Dana patted Kate on the back.

      “But you said that a while ago. I’m hungry .”

      “In a minute. Um, I just had some concerns over the asthmatic kids at school.” Now that she was here, in the man’s living room, Dana had no clue what had possessed her to barge in. This could have waited until Monday.

      “Is there a problem?” Patrick seemed to tense from head to toe.

      “It’s just that—” Shoot. She should have waited. She was totally unprepared, without any sort of speech or script.

      “Dad! Dinner’s getting cold!”

      That sounded more like the person on the phone. Of course. He had two daughters.

      The owner of the voice arrived into the living room, and Dana saw a girl with long highlighted hair, dressed in a hoodie and skintight jeans——the complete opposite of the dark-haired older daughter in business casual.

      “Hi! You must be the nurse,” the younger daughter said. “Sorry, Dad. I completely forgot to tell you she phoned. My bad.”

      Out of the corner of one eye, Dana caught the older daughter’s eyes narrowing in disbelief. Ooh, a good case of sibling rivalry here. With two sisters, Dana knew a thing or two about that.

      “Uh, Dana, this is my older daughter, Melanie, and I guess you’ve already talked to Lissa, my younger daughter.” Patrick’s mouth jerked in an awkward attempt at a smile, but it was considerably dimmer in wattage than the earlier one at Dana’s clinic. “Girls, this is Dana Wilson. She’s the new nurse at the elementary school.”

      Melanie’s