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her mouth with a Q-Tip.
    Now she was meeting him.
    Now.
    Finally.
    There was no hiding place for her now. Mrs. Lecia’s smile was probably supposed to make Kate feel good. She wanted to throw up.
    And hide.
    Instead she twisted the knot at her wrist. The ribbon was filthy and frayed now, but she wasn’t going to throw it away no matter what anyone said. Once upon a time it had been a bright pink color. Mom had gone to throw it out, but it was pretty so Kate took it, making Mom tie it around her wrist like a pretty, bright bracelet. There was more than one knot now because it kept breaking apart.
    The meeting room in the lawyer’s office was big and smelled like lemons. The table seemed as big as the trailer had been. One large window gave a view of downtown Vancouver while the other had some of the harbor where a ferry slowly crawled through the water.  
    The door opened and Kate jumped to her feet. The chair rolled away while she looked for a safe place to go.  
    “It’s okay, Kate,” Mrs. Lecia said, but she wasn’t sure she believed her.
    Nothing had been okay for a long time.  
    Then there he was. Kate stopped breathing as she saw him for the first time. This wasn’t a magazine picture. This was him . His brown hair was messy, his face a little pale and his eyes had that red look Mom’s got when she drank a lot.
    He stopped when he saw her, and he stared at her with his hungover green eyes. She had the same hair, the same eyes, even her nose looked like his. My dad. The words whispered through her heart and she wanted to throw herself at him. This was her dad.  
    Her body froze as he looked at her like Mom did. Kate knew that look and something cracked deep inside. He looked at her like she was this unwelcome thing in his life.  
    Her dad spoke for the first time. “Well, fuck.”  
    That’s when she knew while she had weaved fantasies about a Dad who would look after her, he had woven fantasies that she wasn’t his kid, that maybe those DNA tests they had taken were wrong. Only she looked like him. Kate looked just like him.
    No wonder Mom always cursed her.
    She looked just like him.
    Just like Mom, Kate was pretty sure it made him hate her too.

Chapter 4
    “Fuck, what a mess.” Doyle shut the door, closing away the noise that had chased him in. He handed her a bottled water and tossed a bag of cheezies on the bed. “Someone almost mugged me for those so you better enjoy every one.”
    “Thanks.” She twisted off the plastic lid and took a sip. She was mildly surprised he hadn’t sent her home.
    “I tossed your clothes in the dryer. I even got to kick some guy who was passed out in the doorway. Bonus.” He opened the door and brought in one chair, putting it in the corner.
    “How late do these last?”
    “Until the drugs and booze run out.”
    “The cops don’t come?”
    “They haven’t yet. Jace tends to invite some of the residents below us so they can’t complain. Five floors down? After that you can’t really hear anything except the random person who screams off the balcony.” He put the other chair in a small nook and shut the door, dimming the noise.
    The bottle froze against her lips as she watched him grab the back of his shirt and drag it off. Holy. Shit.
    She blinked as she watched thick muscles twist and bulge as he threw the shirt at the chair. The tattoos ended at the ball of his shoulders so his chest and back were free of ink but for a small one over his heart. It wasn’t like she hadn’t seen him with his shirt off before. Magazines seemed to love having him on the cover, especially drum, rock and roll, and tattoo ones. Considering how impressive his body was, it wasn’t hard to see why.
    He even had those sexy diagonal muscles that angled from the hip to the groin, like God was framing perfection. The hard ridges of his stomach bunched as he shoved the jeans down and tossed them aside. Kate’s breath left her in an audible puff of air as she saw him wearing those