The Homecoming Baby by Kathleen O`Brien Page A

learn sitting across a desk from that same kid for fifty minutes of formal “session.”
    Besides, it was fun. She was getting pretty good at basketball, and the center had the best popcorn in town. It was the highlight of her week.
    But that day she was having a little trouble concentrating.
    Her mind kept drifting back to last night. To the kiss that hadn’t quite happened. And to the meeting with Trish, which most definitely had.
    So…Celia’s initial reaction to Patrick hadn’t been purely her imagination after all. He did look like Tee Ellis. He looked so much like Tee, in fact, that both Lydia and Trish had done rather dramatic double-takes the first time they saw him.
    But was it just a coincidence? People resembled other people all the time, without the similarity having any significance. The world was riddled with Elvis and Marilyn lookalikes. The bio-pic movie industry depended on it. Heck, there was a girl working down at Slim Jim’s Diner who, if she had the money for implants, would be a dead ringer for Britney Spears. That didn’t mean they were related.
    â€œHey, Miss Brice! Heads up!”
    Celia looked up a nanosecond too late. The basketball hit her on the head. “Ouch!” She tried to catch it, but her feet tangled. She fumbled with the ball, stumbled and fell on her bottom with a bang.
    Dylan Carson, one of the kids who helped out at the teen center, came loping over. “Oh, man, I’m sorry, Miss Brice. I thought you knew what play we were running.”
    She rubbed her forehead, which was burning so much she knew she was going to have a nice big red circle there. Dylan looked so concerned. What a darling boy he was! Hard to remember how recently he’d been sour and difficult and eager to leave Enchantment.
    â€œI did know, Dylan,” she said. Laughing, she put out her hand to let him help her up. “I just zoned out. I’m sorry. I’m really not much use today, am I?”
    Nolan McKinnon, the editor of Enchantment’s local newspaper, and one of the Center’s strongest supporters, came over, too.
    â€œWhat can I tell you, Celia? You play like a girl.” Nolan pushed back her hair to check her forehead. “Better go in and put some ice on that.”
    She stuck out her tongue at him and wrinkled her nose. The two of them had become good friends over the past few months, while she’d been counseling his niece, Sammy. Sammy had lost both parents at the beginning of the year, and Nolan had been woefully unprepared to take over guardianship.
    And yet Sammy had come through magnificently—partly because Sammy was a brave little soldier, andpartly because Nolan McKinnon had been smart enough to fall in love with Kim Sherman. Kim surprised everyone by turning out to be the perfect woman to create an integrated family out of the pitiful, heartbroken pair. They were going to be married this summer.
    â€œIn fact,” Nolan said, “maybe you should just go on home? It’s almost six, and I hear your love life has been heating up lately. I wouldn’t want you to miss a big date.”
    Dylan and a couple of the other boys made teasing “hoo-hoo” sounds. Celia rolled her eyes at all of them. “And maybe you guys should mind your own business. Do I interfere in your love lives?”
    Dylan bounced the basketball against the concrete. “Heck, yeah, you do,” he said, grinning. “Except you call it counseling.”
    She had to laugh at that. “Okay, I’m leaving! You wore me out anyhow.” She picked up her towel and wiped her arms, which were damp from the exertion. Enchantment was going through a pretty severe drought—so though the spring days were blue and beautiful, the afternoons could be relentlessly hot.
    She’d be glad to get inside. Besides, Nolan had been right, in a way. She was hoping Patrick might call tonight. That kiss last night would have been something