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  God bless him, he made her smile. Then he looked straight at her with that loopy grin of his as wide as sky, with happiness warm in his ordinary eyes. “See ya,” he said, and he lead-footed the gas and roared away.

  Buffy watched after him until he was out of sight, which didn’t take long, the way he drove. She sighed. Just like always. Give a kid a soul, then let go.

  She hardly ever heard from the other two, Curtis and Marjorie.

  Emily was coming to live with her, God bless sweet Emily, her phone call had been the best surprise in a long time—but Emily would grow up, too. Soon. Emily would leave.

  I’m gonna be completely on my own.

  Slowly Buffy began to smile. The smile warmed and widened and grew into a grin, because a new idea was tickling her cortex and tingling its way toward her brain stem: she was going to be completely on her own, and for the first time in her life, she was going to like it.

  Once she had said that all she wanted was for somebody to love her.

  Well, by damn, somebody did. And that somebody was the one person she would always live with.

  Grinning, Buffy started to hum. Humming, she headed down the street, thumping along in her old sneakers, jeans swishing between her thighs. Taking a walk. Making a new story.

  About the Author

  Nancy Springer has passed the fifty-book milestone with novels for adults, young adults, and children, in genres including mythic fantasy, contemporary fiction, magic realism, horror, and mystery—although she did not realize she wrote mystery until she won the Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America two years in succession. Born in Montclair, New Jersey, Springer moved with her family to Gettysburg, of Civil War fame, when she was thirteen. She spent the next forty-six years in Pennsylvania, raising two children (Jonathan and Nora), writing, horseback riding, fishing, and bird-watching. In 2007 she surprised her friends and herself by moving with her second husband to an isolated area of the Florida Panhandle where the bird-watching is spectacular, and where, when fishing, she occasionally catches an alligator.

  All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Copyright © 1996 by Nancy Springer

  Cover design by Drew Padrutt

  ISBN: 978-1-4532-9376-8

  This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

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