She was distinctly lightheaded. "I believe so."

"You want me?"

She pushed his glasses higher on the bridge of his nose. "I've always wanted you."

"To marry?"

She nodded.

"What if I have to leave Tucker?"

"I've always wanted to see Santa Fe."

"If things blow up here, Santa Fe might be out of the question, too. I may have to forget teaching."

"You'll have to work somewhere. And I can work anywhere."

"But you love Tucker." "I love you more." The words flowed from the heart and caused a catch in Noah's breath. He gave her more of his weight. She loved that, too. "Do you rpmpmber our first niYht?" she asked.

"In Mara's yard?"

ill was feeling totally empty. And then you came out and held me, and the emptiness went. Only I'm just now realizing it. Thick-headed of me, huh?"

"We're all thick-headed when it comes to protecting long-held beliefs.

I've done the same. In the pro cess I nearly lost my daughter." He dragged in a long, deep, not-wholly-happy breath. "We have something good at Mount Court, Sara and 1.

Given the choice, I'd take Tucker over Santa Fe, that's how far I've come, but if things blow up, I may not have the choice. I'll be taking the credit for this one whichever way it goes."

"Then we'd better make sure it goes the way we r want," Paige said with a determination that she might have thought had gone to the grave with Mara. But Mara livedin Peter and Kate Ann, in Angie and Ben, and now in Paige. It was an incredi bly good feeling. An incredibly satisfying feeling. An incredibly empowering feeling.

"What?" Noah prompted.

But Paige caught sight of Sara at the kitchen door, looking unsure and alone. She held out an arm and waited for her to join them before saying, "Your dad just made the ultimate confession that even if he had other choices, his first one would be to stay on at Mount Court. What do you think?"

Sara shrugged. "Mount Court's okay."

'Okay' isn't good enough. We need enthusiasm."

I like it," she said.

"Then you want to stay, too?"

"Yes." Paige could tell by the smile she was trying to check that she meant it, and she gave a satisfied sigh. "All that's left, then, is to find out who fathered we do thgat?Sn baby. She looked up at Noah UH d "Small groups," he said. "The last of the classes are being held before exams. I think I'll visit a few."

"You'll turn everyone against Julie," Sara cried.

"No. I'll say that she's trying to protect someone, but that we need to know who that someone is. I won't be criticizing Julie."

"They'll think you are. They won't talk."

"Do you think they know who it is?" he asked.

ill don't know."

"Do you know who it is?"

"You're asking me to betray my friends."

"No. I'm asking if you know who it is."

"Same difference," Sara said. She broke away and returned to the kitchen.

Noah sighed. He looked at Paige. "She's right, Paige ached for them both. "She's in an untenable position, between you and her friends."

"I wouldn't put her there, if I didn't feel so desperate. To come so close, so close to having it all . . ." His voice trailed off. He drew Paige against him, the one in need of comfort now, and Paige gave him her all. It was an honor and a breeze, the farthest thing from a burden that she had ever done in her life.

Noah knew the code of silence kept by students such as those at Mount Court and knew the misery a child could endure if her classmates thought that she had broken it.

That was why he concentrated on talking with juniors and seniors rather than sophomores.

He had worked hard building a relationship with Sara. It was young and fragile. He didn't want anything to shatter it.

No one came forward. One day passed, then another and another, and the charges against Peter Grace and Mount Court, though never formalized in any legal way, seemed to gain legitimacy simply because they weren't proven false. Word spread through town.

There was a rash of canceled appointments.

Noah talked with the students again. Paige followed up on his talks.

They explained what was happening to Peter and what could happen to Mount Court if false charges prevailed. They pushed for the truth, but no matter how often Noah assured the students that they r could come to him in confidence, no one came. t Worried parents called.

Concerned trusteesr called. The faculty began murmuring among them selves much as they had at the start of the year. r Worst of all, in Noah's book, a distance sprang up between Sara and him.

"She's withdrawing again," he told Paige "It's happening right before my eyes, and I can't do a damn thing to stop it. When I ask, she says nothing's wrong. But she avoids me."

"Let me talk with her," Paige said, and she did but with negligible success. "She says she's nervous about exams."

"Do you believe her?"

"She asked me the same thing. I told her I did that exam period was always a tense time, especialiy for the first set of finals at a new school. She bought that. Then I asked if the Julie business might be get ting her down, too, and she said no. Too quickly."

What do you think?"

"I think that the kids are talking.

Something's up I've gotten the same feeling from some of the others I ve spoken with. They know something, Noah."

The problem was getting it out of them. He wanted it done before Christmas, but with classes ending and exams beginning, he couldn't very well keep up the pressure. Their minds would be turning to studying.