Secrets & Seductions by Pamela Toth

two groups and led them away.
    â€œNo running!” Heidi called out. She was a caseworker, too, and her husband, Derrick, was in the second year of his residency at Portland General. Between him, Jeff and those who were Red Cross certified, there would be no shortage of trained medical personnel.
    Emma, wearing denim cutoffs and a plaid blouse, was the last to exit the van. Jeff helped her down, saying something that made her laugh before he, too, hurried toward the long, low main building.
    When her gaze met Morgan’s, she surprised him by smiling before she donned blue-tinted sunglasses. After her outburst back in his office the first time they had met, he hadn’t been sure what to expect, despite her civility on the phone.
    One of the female college students waited for Emma to join her.
    â€œDoing okay?” Morgan asked the two of them.
    â€œI can’t wait to get there,” Franny replied.
    Emma merely nodded before Franny gestured toward the facilities and the two of them walked away together. In a few moments, the kids would be coming back to the picnic tables, so Morgan took advantage of the break as well.
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    â€œHe’s so cute,” Franny said under her breath as she and Emma hurried down the path. “Don’t you think so?”
    Except for Morgan, the bus driver and the two staffers who had driven over earlier, everyone else was riding together in the van. The five others already knew each other and they had all been at the camp before. Franny and another girl, Sarah, had made a special point of including Emma in the lively conversation.
    Emma would have liked to ignore Franny’s question about Morgan, but she didn’t want to appear unfriendly.
    â€œI consider any man with black hair and blue eyes to be attractive,” she replied, attempting to sound flip as they joined the line on the ladies’ side of the concrete building.
    Fifteen young girls from the bus were ahead of them. A few of them chatted and giggled, one or two squirmed impatiently and the rest stood in silence with arms folded and their heads bowed.
    Morgan had warned Emma that most of these kids had never been placed, for one reason or another. The rest were here because of disrupted adoptions, ones that hadn’t worked out.
    She couldn’t imagine how awful it would feel to get sent back, no matter what the reason. After dealing with that kind of rejection, these kids weren’t about to risk it again.
    â€œWere you talking about Morgan?” Sarah asked, sticking her head around the open rest room door as she wiped her hands. “For an older guy, he’s not bad.”
    â€œJeez, how old is he?” Emma asked with a lift of her eyebrows. Compared to these girls, she must, at twenty-seven, seem like Methuselah’s sister.
    Sarah shrugged her narrow shoulders. She was fashionably thin with streaked hair and a silver ring piercing one side of her nose. “He’s not ancient, but I heard someone say that he’s over thirty.”
    â€œGood thing we all know CPR,” Emma quipped.
    â€œThat’s for sure,” said a familiar masculine voice from behind them. “With some of us approaching senility, you never know when you’ll need it.”
    How much of their conversation had Morgan heard? As Emma’s face began to burn with embarrassment, Sarah and Franny turned around and burst into giggles.
    â€œYou’re not that old,” Sarah cooed as she made a point to look him up and down. “You’ve probably got a few miles left on you.”
    Emma realized right then that she probably wasn’t going to like Sarah very much. And Morgan looked totally different than he had at his office.
    After seeing his banker attire of suit and tie, Emma would have guessed his idea of casual to be pleated khakis with a crease and a name-brand polo. Instead he wore old jeans and a faded USC T-shirt. She wondered if that was where he’d gone to