...“Time for a break,” Maggie said when she realized she had stared at her computer screen for nearly ten minutes, playing with the script for convincing Rick to stay in town, rather than how to get Stacy from the hotel to the riverbank without running into the college football team she had taunted and teased until they were nearly in heat.

“Already?” Rick looked up from the coffeemaker, where he waited for the second pot of the morning to finish dripping. He turned, searching for the clock. And whistled. “Time sure does fly. Is it always like that for you writers?”

“Not all the time.” Maggie slipped her flash drive into the port, saved the file, and slipped it back into the protective case that hung around her neck on a thin cord. Her fingers actually shook for a moment, when she looked up and saw Rick watching her movements. How long had it been since a man looked at her figure without Magda’s costume covering it? “When I’m with my writing friends and we’re all talking a mile-a-minute, busting blocks like they were wet paper, yeah, the day goes fast.” She shrugged and got up, focusing on the refrigerator to escape that thoughtful look in Rick’s big, dark eyes. “What do you want for lunch?”

“Depends on what By has. Or doesn’t have.” He moved over to stand behind her and watch over her shoulder—at least, she hoped he was watching over her shoulder—as she studied the contents of the refrigerator. “Lots to choose from, but not much of anything, huh?”

“Typical bachelor.” She decided not to tell him her refrigerator looked pretty much the same as Byron’s; fragments of meals, small portions left in deli tubs, mostly condiments, a few slightly shriveled pieces of fruit. The single life didn’t tend toward buying in family-sized packs, even though it was more economical. She never seemed to have the time to portion out those multi-serving packages. At least Byron had eggs and cheese and enough veggies for a decent salad.

“That’s the creative mind at work,” Rick said with a chuckle, half an hour later, as they sat down to cheese-topped garlic toast and enormous salads that had emptied at least one-third of the containers in Byron’s refrigerator. “I never would have thought about putting all that in a salad, but it makes sense.”

“You didn’t go to college, did you?”

“They teach this in college?”

“No, I’m referring to the last three days of the month, when your student aid checks have run out and neither of your part-time jobs is going to pay until the end of the week and your meal tickets for the cafeteria have been used up because your husband is a soft-touch for his starving buddies…” She swallowed hard against that thick lump that wasn’t quite so thick as it used to be when she thought about those blissful college newlywed days with Al. “And you have to come up with new and tasty ways to turn macaroni and cheese and sauerkraut into a satisfying meal.”

“Please tell me you didn’t mix them together.” He shuddered, then a moment later took a big bite of the garlic toast and groaned, rolling his eyes in obvious pleasure.

It had been a long time since Maggie enjoyed cooking for a man, and enjoyed getting a half-sensuous groan from him. Maybe because Clint had been such a slimeball, breathing down her neck and trying to get his clammy hands on her since she walked away from her lazy insurance investigator boss and went to work for Byron.

“What’s that grin for?” Rick asked, reaching for the homemade French dressing in the glass measuring cup sitting on the table between them.

“I’m gonna burn in hell for being glad Clint is dead.”

“Yeah, well, if that’s all it takes, you’ll have a lot of company. Look at it this way.” He watched the thin stream of red-orange liquid trickle over his salad, as if it were the most important thing in the world. Maggie liked the intensity he devoted to every little thing he did. “Clint finally proved a useful purpose for his miserable life—he took a bullet meant for Byron and ensured a much better man got to live a little longer.”

“A little longer.” She shivered and tried not to show it. “Byron’ll find whoever is after him before he gets found. He’s good. I just wish he was holed up with us here, instead of out working.”