It was Sara. He whipped his head to the side and saw her standing in his doorway, smiling tentatively. It was really her, Sara, standing in his doorway and wearing jeans. He’d never seen her wear jeans before, and he liked the way the denim showed off her legs. Her hair was up in a bouncy ponytail, her skin fresh and clear, the shadows under her eyes lighter. She seemed to have gained about five pounds, and overall she looked very healthy. The best he’d ever seen her. She looked amazing.

“Sara,” he said, unable to prevent a smile from breaking out on his face. Damn, it was so good to see her. He had missed her intensely.

Yet her smile was fading as she looked at him, glanced around the room. “Are you okay? Why are you lying on the floor?” She stepped over an empty pizza box. “And it looks like you’ve stopped cleaning since I left.”

That was probably true. He sat upright and drew his knees up, surveying the room with its many piles of papers, laundry, and food wrappers. “I’m a disgusting pig when I’m writing a book. It’s just part of my process.”

“Part of your process is to stop taking out the trash?” She picked up the pizza box and three soft drink cans and walked into the kitchen.

“Yep.” He stood up and shook his hair off his face.

She reappeared empty-handed and gave him a smile, gazing up at him from under her eyelashes. Pointing to his shirt, she said, “And you stop doing laundry?”

Glancing down, he realized there was chocolate on his T-shirt. “Yep.” Then because chocolate and pizza boxes and papers didn’t matter when he was faced with her in front of him, in the flesh, he reached out and touched her arm with just one finger, sliding it down her warm, smooth skin. “I’m so glad you’re here. I missed you, babe, a lot.”

The softness in her eyes and the wide, genuine smile were both reassuring. “I missed you, too.”

It wasn’t enough, to say those words, it didn’t even begin to encompass what he meant. How could he explain that while he had been doing so well, working so hard, and reaching outside of himself for the first time in years, he had missed her? That he thought about her every day, that he longed to hear her voice, smell her cinnamon scent, touch her soft skin and hair. That he ached with want and loneliness to just see her, be with her, feel her. Words weren’t enough, would never be specific or emotional enough to convey the depth of his love, his passion, his yearning for her.