UAhhh. Are you relieved?"

"Very. Aren't you?"

"You bet. Kids should be planned. I bought a box of condoms the other day. Of course I didn't think to bring any along when I ran over here."

"That's fine, because nothing's happening," she said, though there was a stirring inside that belied the words. Something was happening all right. He hadn't touched her, and he was turning her on, particularly incredible given the ache her period caused. She stood up and begged, "Please leave, Noah. I have to get on with my day, and I can't do it while you're in my bed."

One long arm came from beneath the covers. It lay on the comforter for a minute, before the rest of him emerged.

Paige stepped back. She told herself to leave the roomthen told herself to stay and make sure he leftand all the while she watched him dress. When he was done, he put on his glasses and finger-combed his hair. Then he looked at her and kept on looking.

"What?" she asked, none too steady.

He said nothing, simply came forward, took her face in both hands, and kissed her on the mouth.

It wasn't until she heard the front door closing that she realized he was supposed to have gone back out the window and snuck off through the trees.

An hour later Paige was sitting in the living room, holding Sami on her lap, while the adoption agency's Joan Felix looked through the papers Paige had just passed her.

"Financial report, personal report, medical report, professional record, birth certificateeverything seems to be here," she said and smiled up at Paige. "There was never any question about a temporary placement, of course. You're eminently qualified for that. I don't have to study these papers to know that you're every bit as qualified for a longterm placement. I take it you're willing to do that?"

Paige turned one bright plastic key after another around a plastic key ring, while Sami watched in fascination. "From the start I said I'd keep Sami until an adoptive family is found. The last thing she needs is to be passed from foster home to foster home."

"Will you have a problem attending the pre-adoptive sessions we run?"

Mara had told Paige about those. Held biweekly in Rutland, they were group meetings of the agency's foster and adoptive parents of foreign-born children. Their purpose was both educational and supportive.

"I have no problem with those," Paige said.

2 2 q "It may take a while to find the right family."

"I understand that."

"Do you?" Joan asked kindly but bluntly.

"Given Sameera's background, placing her won't be as easy as placing some babies, not in as homogenous a state as Vermont. Of those families currently in our files, none are appropriate. New families are always coming forward, and we do coordinate with agencies in other states, but I think you ought to know what we're up against."

Looking at Sami, adorable in a green-and-white striped playsuit with a white ribbon in her hair Paige couldn't understand why any parent-to-be wouldn't snap her up in a minute. She was healthy even-tempered, and bright. Paige also could swear that she saw the germs of affection, if the way the little girl was clinging to her arm was any indication.

"What if it takes a year or two?" Joan asked.

A year or two. Paige felt a twinge for Sami's sake. "Won't placing her get harder the older she gets?"

"Yes and no. The older she gets, the more personality she has, and the more appealing she may become. Parents are often scared off by statistics. Knowing that this little one was nearly killed at birth because she was born female, knowing that she was stashed away for the first two months of her life before being passed from orphanage to orphanage, is pretty gruesome. The older she gets, the more that fades away. The older she gets, the more Americanized she becomes.

Vermonters like that."

Paige grunted.

"The problem," Joan cautioned, "is that the older she gets, the more attached she'll be to you and vice versa. It's a problem all foster parents face. When the time comes, will you be able to give her up?"

"I think so," Paige said. She didn't look at Sami this time. "There's so much else going on in my life."

"Do those other things make taking care of her "Oh, no." She held Sami closer, loving her warmth and her sweet baby smell. "Not at all.

It's working out fine. She's doing well."

"That's obvious," Joan said. She sat back, looking from Paige to Sami and back. "Would you consider adopting her yourself?"

',Me? Oh, I couldn't. I never planned on having a "That doesn't mean you wouldn't make a wonderful mother."

But Paige had her doubts. Her own mother had been lousy at it, she had needed her freedom, and though Paige was much more of a homebody than Chloe, everything was relative. Being a homebody to Paige didn't mean staying home with a baby. It meant being daily on the go within the confines of a small town and returning home quite happily each night.

Now she had Jill to baby-sit, but Jill would have her own baby before long, and Paige would have to hire another sitter, which wasn't fair to Sami. She deserved a full-time mother.

"Well . . ." Joan sighed and slipped the papers into her briefcase.

"Do think about it.

I'll file these and be back next week to talk more. In the meantime, we'll be on the lookout for an adoptive family if you're sure that's what you want."

"It's the best thing for Sami," Paige said, and believed that it was, all the more so when Peter cornered her the next morning.

WHAT'S UP?" Paige ASKED, SETTLING IN AT her desk with a cup of coffee and a curious look at Peter.

"We have to talk," he said from the door. He slid a look at Angie, then folded his arms over his chest. "What's going on around here is absurd. I'm tired, Angie's tired, you're tired. Things were supposed to level off once the trauma of Mara's death passed, but it hasn't happened. We need help. We need a fourth doctor."

Angie groaned, expressing Paige's sentiment exactly.

"I know it's hard for you both"he looked from one to the other"you're still feeling an allegiance to Mara, but, damn it, she's dead.

She's up on that hillside, cold as stone. She doesn't know we're working our butts off, so what's the point?"

Paige couldn't put the point into words.

"Okay," he tried, "So you don't want to see someone else walking in and out of her office, but you sold her house, didn't you?"

"I had to," Paige said, defending the action, reluctant thoueh it had been. "The monthly mortgage I was going to waste. And besides, the realtor had a buyer." Paige liked the family. Husband and wife were stockbrokers, fed up with city life, determined to work by computer out of their home. They had two children and believed in feeding the birds. "But it wasn't easy for me. It doesn't seem right that Mara isn't there."

"She's dead," Peter snapped. "Why can't people accept that? It's bad enough here in the office, not a day goes by without someone asking about her, like she has a cold and will be back at the end of the week, and it's worse in town."

"She was loved," Angie said with envy and no small amount of sadness.

So are you, Paige thought, and tried desperately to catch Angie's eye to convey the message, but Angie was looking at Peter, who was scowling.

So she reached into her pocket and unfolded the letter she had been reading that morning before work. "Mara didn't think she was loved."

"Are you kidding?" Peter asked sharply.