“Mom will use any excuse to go shopping. She was going to pick some stuff up for me tomorrow morning.”

“Okay. I’ll go and let you sleep then.”

Wesley sat up and shook his head.

“Don’t go. Please.”

“I’ll stay as long as you want me to, Wes,” she said to the almost panic in his voice. “Scoot over and make room.”

Wesley laughed but she wasn’t joking. She carefully crawled into his hospital bed and slid under the wires and tubes. She stretched out next to him and Wesley wrapped an IVed arm around her back. She lay against his chest and closed her eyes.

“You know, I’ve fooled around in a hospital before but never in the pediatric ward.”

“Nora, you’re disgusting. Go to sleep.”

“You sleep first.”

“I don’t want to sleep. I want to talk to you.”

“Good. I don’t want to sleep, either. What do you want to talk about? Horses?”

“You want to talk about horses?”

“Don’t be mad but I was digging through your stuff trying to find your friends’ phone numbers. I found the photo album from last summer. And the stupid picture of me with Speakeasy.”

She looked up at him. Even in the dark she could see Wesley’s blush.

“It’s not a stupid picture. You look happy in it.”

“Of course I do. I was with you.”

Wesley smiled down at her. Nora kissed him on the cheek and rested her head once more against his chest. It was such a relief to hear his heart beating steadily against her ear.

“How did you find out where I was?” Wesley asked. He ran his hand up and down her arm. She knew the last thing he wanted to hear was that Søren had hunted him down for her, and that Kingsley, her partner in crime, had used some of his connections to get confidential information.

Nora shut her eyes and nestled in closer to Wesley.

“Magic.”

CHAPTER 10

Zach was relieved to find almost fifteen thousand new words from Nora in his email when he arrived at work two days after finding her half-unconscious in his office. Apparently she was working out her nervous energy from not having Wesley at home by writing five breathlessly intense chapters. He read through them and jotted down notes as he went. He was thrilled with what she was doing with the book. But he needed to steer her in a new direction before she wrote any more. The whole book couldn’t be a sprint. She needed to stop and let the reader breathe for a chapter or two before kicking into high gear again.

Zach read through his notes again and dialed her office number.

“Sophocles’s House of Patricide and Incest,” Nora answered. “How may I blind you?”

Zach bit the inside of his cheek to keep her from hearing him laugh.

“Nora.”

“Zachary,” she said breathlessly.

“You’re in a chipper mood, I see.”

“You can see me? Where are you? Are you in my house?”