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Gracie stared at the cursor blinking on the computer screen. All day, ever since Noah left for breakfast, she’d been typing word after word.

Then deleting word after word. Words that held zero zing. Words that made zero sense. Words she’d clearly forgotten how to string together in anything that might be construed as a story.

Maybe she should call her dad again.

No. They’d already talked once today, and he was adamant about her not visiting until after she met her deadline next week. He was right. The only thing she should be focused on right now was her story.

Five minutes later she still couldn’t focus on her story. “What is wrong with me?”

“Well, for starters you’re not supposed to be up here.”

Gracie flinched at Noah’s voice, then closed her eyes and took as deep a breath as she could with ribs that still hurt like the dickens. “What are you doing up here?”

“What are you doing up here? Hello, stairs? Not supposed to be climbing them alone? That whole falling and plummeting to your death scenario? Any of that ring a bell?”

Gracie gave up on her deep breathing exercise and flapped a hand Noah’s direction without looking away from her screen. “Thank you for the concern, but I climbed them just fine.”

Okay, that might be the most liberal use of the words just fine in the history of mankind, but the important part was she had climbed them.

“Why are you even up here?” Noah asked. “Why aren’t you writing on the couch?”

She tutted as if the answer was obvious. “How am I supposed to add zing to my story if I’m not sitting at my special writing desk?”

Never mind that roughly two hours ago was the first time in her life she decided the monstrous old desk in the spare bedroom should be her special writing desk. And never mind that her special writing desk had yet to add one iota of zing to her story.

“How did you get up the stairs?”

She slammed the lid of her laptop shut, Noah’s nagging not helping in the zing department either. She started to suck in a deep breath, then remembered that deep breaths were overrated and painful. But so was meeting his gaze. So she settled for staring at the thinning tree branches tapping against the glass window panes above her special writing desk.

“Well, if you must know, I scaled the maple tree, swung branch to branch, then somersaulted through the window. Nailed the landing too. Should’ve gotten all tens, but the Russian judge only gave me an eight.”

From her peripheral vision, she saw Noah fold his arms as he crept closer into her central vision, nailing his own perfect landing with a prop of his rear end on the corner of her special writing desk.

Surely she’d called it her special writing desk enough times in her mind by now to truly make it her special writing desk.

“My my,” Noah drawled. “I’d say someone’s wearing their sassy pants today, but considering you’ve given up wearing pants all together, I’ll just assume you’re wearing your sassy undies.” He leaned down and whispered, “Which, as I recall, is the red pair.”

Gracie clutched her robe tight at her neck and swung her gaze to meet his. “Don’t you dare”—her breath rushed out of her, which didn’t take long since she’d lost all capacity for deep breaths ever since her accident—“shave.”

His palm scraped across his smooth cheek, over his mouth. Like a magician’s trick, a devastating smile appeared beneath his fingers. “I think I already did.”

Oh, he certainly had. Shaved. His face. His stupid handsome face. No beard. No scruff. No... Oh my. Goodness. Oh... everything.

Gracie forced her gaze back to her laptop. Lifted the lid. Tried typing something. A sentence. A word. A punctuation mark. Something.

Ajdskfsa;lkdfjdka!

Well, that was something.

She closed the lid again. Why did he have to be so stinking hot? She didn’t need that. No ex-wife needed that.

What she needed was for him to go. Away. Far away. Far enough away she wouldn’t have to look into his eyes and be reminded of everything she’d ever felt for this man. Especially not the good parts. She refused to think about the good parts with this man. Not when the bad parts had nearly destroyed her.

Clearing her throat, Gracie shifted in her seat and opened her laptop. “I need to... You should really. . .” She angled her head sideways toward the door without taking her eyes off the computer screen where the cursor blinked, taunting her as much as the scent of Noah’s aftershave.

Because, oh no, it couldn’t be enough for him to look wonderful. Of course he had to smell delicious too. She tried not to inhale any more of whatever scrumptious scent he was wearing. A scent that was definitely not sandalwood. From now on all her heroes would smell like that—whatever that was. Not that Noah should be setting the bar for her heroes.

She was going back to sandalwood.

“So which part of the story are you working on now?” He slid from the desk, then grabbed the back of her chair and leaned down to look at her computer screen.

“Nothing.” She slammed the lid shut again. “You know I can’t work with you—” Smelling like that . “Hovering next to my nose.” What?

“Nice picture. Did you draw this?” He reached around her shoulders and picked up a flyer lying next to her computer.

Oh, how that smooth-shaven, delectable face was crowding her space. Seriously though, what aftershave had Bobby put on him? It took all her willpower not to bury her nose into Noah’s neck.

“Gracie?”

“Huh?” She blinked. He’d asked a question, hadn’t he? “Uh, yes. Doodles. Those are my doodles.” Is that what he’d asked? “Matt, um, asked me to design something to help promote the animal shelter. He wants to pass those out at the Alda Pumpkin Festival this Saturday.”

She grabbed the brochure, then started to fan herself with it. When had this room turned into a sauna?

Noah perched back on her desk. “You’ve gotten better, you know that? You were always talented, but that—” He pointed at the flyer. “That’s really clever.”

Gracie tried not to let his praise seep past her defenses. “Yes, well, doesn’t exactly pay the bills, though, does it? Now are we done playing fifty questions? I’m sure you’ve got better things to do than grill me over my animal doodles.” She waved the brochure toward the doorway. “Time to go.” And take that glorious yummy-scented face with you.

“How long do you think you’ll be up here?”

“Hours. Days. Long time.”

From the corner of her eye she caught him rubbing the bare spot around his left ring finger. How long had it taken before he’d removed his wedding band?

“Promise you won’t take the stairs again without me?”

Where did he put it? Sock drawer? Desk drawer? Snack drawer? Did he ever lose sleep in the middle of the night wondering when she’d taken her wedding ring off? Or where she’d put it?

“Gracie?”

“What?” She lifted her gaze from his bare finger. At some point she’d gone from side-eyeing to full-on staring.

“The stairs?”

“What about them? Oh. The stairs.” She shook her head. Focus, Gracie. “Right. Yes. I mean, no. I’m okay. I won’t need you. I made it up them without any issue.”

If without any issue meant taking a good twenty minutes to clear three steps, then probably never making it any further if the FedEx delivery woman hadn’t just happened to see her through the window while dropping off a package and assumed—rightly so—that Gracie was going to fall, and rushed through the front door to help drag her up the remaining steps while swearing she’d never report anything she had seen in exchange for an advance reader copy of Gracie’s next book.

“I’m good, Noah.” Or at least hopefully she would be. One day. When her ex-husband stopped living right next door to her. Which reminded her... “Don’t you think it’s about time for you to move out of the cottage and head back to Seattle?”

“Why? Want me out of the way before Luke gets back to town?”

Gracie couldn’t help it. She snorted. “Sounds like you got more than a shave and haircut from Bobby.”

He gripped the edge of her special writing desk. “Can’t help wondering why you didn’t tell me.”

“Because there’s nothing to tell. Besides, you didn’t exactly consult me when you started playing patty-cake with Piper Green, you know.”

“Patty-cake? Really?”

“Well, when she looks like a little girl playing dress-up, what else would you call it?”

“Not patty-cake. And I already told you, she was never my girlfriend. We were photographed at one event together. One. That’s it.”

“So that’s why she was wearing your jersey on her little YouTube channel last month? Because nothing’s going on between you?”

“I’m not in charge of her wardrobe. It’s not like I gave it to her. What do you think this is? High school? You think I gave her my class ring, too? Wrapped it in that argyle string you girls always used?”

“Angora. Not argyle.”

“You’re acting just as jealous as you did back when you thought I was taking Patti Sinclair to prom.”

“You were taking Patti Sinclair to prom.”

“Because you broke up with me after I’d already rented a tux and paid for the flowers. I had to take somebody to prom that night just to get my money’s worth.”

“I didn’t break up with you. I just said I didn’t feel like we were on the same page since I was off at college and you were still a senior in high school. You were the one who made it into something it didn’t have to be. All I wanted was for you to talk to me.”

“We talked all the time.”

“But never about anything important. Never about you.”

“Are you kidding? We talked all the time about me.”

“We talked about baseball. That’s not the same.”

“Baseball is me, Gracie. I don’t know why you never got that.”

“Because maybe you never got me.” Gracie pressed the headache building in the space between her eyebrows. Trying to be an ice queen around Noah was giving her a brain freeze. “Look. I don’t want to fight. We’ve both moved on. Let’s just leave it at that.”

“When does Luke get back? I’d like to meet him.”

Gracie focused her gaze out the window, Noah obviously not ready to leave it at that—or anything else. The maple tree in the front yard waved, its branches growing thinner each day. “There is absolutely no reason for you two to meet.”

“Why not? Is he too busy being rich and handsome? I just want to have a chat with the guy.”

“Let’s not do this.” Gracie would rather go outside and rake leaves in her robe the rest of the day than continue this conversation.

Noah braced his hands on the desk, stretching his back like a cat. Then he peered out the window, the lines around his eyes more prominent in the sunlight. “Why the rush to move on, Grace? What’s this really about?”

“First off, I wouldn’t call five years after our divorce a ‘rush to move on.’ Secondly, Luke’s a good guy. He’s a really good guy. Any woman would be lucky to have a guy like him to move on with after—” Going crazy losing a guy like you. “I just like who I am with him, okay? He’s... He’s...”

“What? Mysterious?”

“Safe.”

Noah’s chin jutted back as if that was the last word he expected. Honestly, it was kind of the last word Gracie expected. But now that she’d said it, the word rang true. Luke was safe.

“I can take care of you, Gracie,” Noah said.

Gracie knew he wasn’t boasting. Just stating a fact. She didn’t know the exact sum of his income anymore, but she knew it had to be hefty. And just like when they divorced, she didn’t want a single penny of it. “This isn’t about money.”

“Who says I’m talking about money?”

She couldn’t hold his gaze. Couldn’t continue this conversation. Where it might lead scared her too much. Some days she didn’t have the strength to keep pushing Noah away.

But if she’d learned anything, she’d learned that Noah was the complete opposite of safe. With him, she risked everything.

She’d paid that price once already. She wouldn’t pay it again.

“I really need to get back to work.”

“Fine.” Noah straightened, running his knuckles over his smooth cheeks. “But don’t think about taking those stairs again without me. I’ll be in the living room when you need me.”

“I won’t need you.” If she said it enough times, maybe someday she’d believe it. “For a while.” She added the last bit solely for his benefit. Otherwise he might never leave the room.

Noah retreated to the doorway. She almost allowed herself to breathe easy. But his soft voice carried back to her. “I would, you know. Take care of you. If only you’d let me.”

She closed her eyes as his footsteps disappeared down the stairs. She didn’t even attempt to take a full breath. So long as Noah remained in her life, there was no such thing as breathing easy.