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She promptly held out her hand, palm up. “In that case, I’ll take two pieces please.”

After that, everyone in the room needed a piece of gum to ward off all possible flesh-eating dragons. Logan had to tear the sticks in half so he’d have enough to go around. By the time he had the kids munching contentedly, he and Paige approached the trunk.

“Let’s drag it closer so everyone can see inside,” she suggested.

He took one end, she took the other, and they worked together, heaving the heavy old thing to the center of the half circle.

“Oh, I’m so scared,” Paige told the kids as Logan undid the latch. When she hid behind him and clutched at his shirt, ducking her face against his back, awareness prickled his scalp. He knew it was all an act, but God, he loved having her close to him. Touching him.

Holding back his hand as if to shield her, he paused dramatically and eyed the patients. “Are you ready?”

They cheered out their enthusiasm. Logan slung open the lid, only to yank out…a dress from the top of the pile.

“Clothes?” a crew of disappointed little voices chorused.

He wrinkled his nose. Old and tacky, and gagging him with its overpowering musty perfume, the dress seemed to be made of hot pink gossamer tulle, a little silk, and not much else.

“And I think it’s just your size,” he told Paige with a taunting grin, though it was obviously way too big for her.

She shook her head. “Umm. No. Pink’s not really my color.” Her dark brown eyes sparkled with mischief as she added, “But I think it’d look simply fabulous on you, Logan. With your sky blue eyes, you’d be sooo beautiful in it.”

His smile dropped flat, all joking aside. “I’m not wearing a dress.”

But all the kids rebelled, urging him to put it on. Paige pooched out her bottom lip and gave a fake pout, setting her hands on her hips and everything.

“Fun hater,” she charged.

He closed his eyes briefly and prayed no one had a camera phone on them.

Chapter Twenty-Three

AN HOUR LATER, still decked out in a frilly pink dress over his clothes, Logan accepted a hearty hug from the last kid in line to wish him a farewell and thank him for coming. As an attendant r

olled the little boy from the room, Paige straightened from dumping a pile of shoes into the trunk and called goodbye.

They’d gotten a small lecture from the nurse who’d caught them playing in the chest, something about letting unknown molds and mildew into the air for even unlatching the lid. So their time with the kids had gotten cut short. But Logan still considered it worth it. Every child had left the room grinning. To see those sick, sunken faces so alive with joy, he’d gladly break the rule again.

Feeling very full inside with a positive, glowing kind of energy swirling through him, he turned to grin at Paige.

She beamed back. “So, did that totally suck or what?”

He chuckled. “Yeah. Totally.”

Spinning away, she made a sound of absolute delight. “Oh my God. I had no idea playing with a group of sick children could be so…so fulfilling. Wow.” She whirled back to him, her gorgeous, dark eyes sparkling with her elation. “I haven’t had so much fun in…I don’t know. A long time.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t have to wear the dress,” Logan reminded her.

Rolling her eyes, she playfully nudged his arm. “Oh, whatever. You know you liked it.”

Stuck in the playful disposition from their hour of silliness, Logan primped for her, cocking out his hip and cradling the back of his head as if poofing an imaginary mound of hair. “I am totally rocking this dress, aren’t I? Pink really is my color.”

Paige threw her head back and laughed.

The sound wavered through him. Captivated, he stared at her, enthralled by every facet of her being: the wash of healthy, laughing color on her cheeks, the liquid flow of her hair as she tossed it over her shoulder, the way her lashes swept low over her dark eyes and barely rested against the tops of her creamy cheekbones.

“I was so right,” she admitted with a smug sniff and a lift of her eyebrows. “It does match your eyes brilliantly.”

And her visual beauty only mirrored what lay deep inside her.