Not that Gabriel was exempt from eccentricities himself. He was a little more abstract than the average person. So she knew intellectually she shouldn’t worry about his reaction, knew he probably thought nothing at all about her behavior, but she was still grateful for the few minutes in the sun to collect her thoughts before she saw him. Maybe if she was lucky, he would look out his window and see her, and come down to say hi. Then she could greet him sitting down wearing sunglasses instead of standing there shuffling her feet as he opened his front door, her eyes darting all over the place.

It wasn’t a very solid plan, and was in fact highly wimpy of her, but she couldn’t face everything straight on all the time. She was allowed to avoid once in awhile, and she hadn’t even considered not showing up at all. She wasn’t that big of a wimp.

Something out of the corner of her eye moved and she glanced up.

And screamed, leaping out of her chair. “Jesus Christ, what are you doing?”

Gabriel was sitting in the open window and half of his flippin’ body was actually out of the frame and dangling into the ether. Her first thought was that he was trying to jump, but he was just sitting there, with a big pad of paper in his hand.

“Hey,” he called down, waving.

Very casual. Like sitting in the goddamn window forty feet above brain-smashing bricks was normal.

“What are you doing?” Sara clutched her papers and eyed him, waiting for him to lose his balance and come pitching forward. She honestly didn’t think she could catch him, given he had a foot in height and forty pounds on her.

“I was inspired,” he said, showing no signs of retreating inside. In fact, he swung his legs back and forth and held up the pad of paper for her to see.

“Inspired to do what? Fall to your death? For God’s sake, get back inside! Carefully.”

“I’m not going to fall. And I was inspired to sketch. Come up and see.”

Sara was intrigued and pleased that he had felt the urge to sketch, but at the same time she couldn’t fully appreciate the implication because fear was choking her. “I’m not leaving until I see that you’re safely inside.”

His head tilted slightly and he smiled. Then he just nodded and said, “Okay.”

She clutched her papers to her chest as he turned and pulled his legs back into the bedroom. But she didn’t really start breathing again until he was standing up inside and pulling the window closed.

Good grief. What the hell had that been all about? She didn’t think his sense of survival was well honed. He didn’t lock doors, he strolled into dark doorways at two in the morning, and dangled out of third-floor windows.