Tears trailed down her cheeks. No one had ever given her something so lovely and personal. Ever.

Luke took her hand and kissed her palm.

“Don’t cry, Sarah. It was meant to make you happy. I know you like music and this song especially. You sang it so beautifully to Ace. I thought you’d like it.”

She squeezed his hand. “I love it. It’s the nicest, most thoughtful gift I’ve ever received. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sure Sean bought you some really nice things, but this reminded me of you. Sometimes when I go to sleep at night I think I hear you singing. Your voice haunts my dreams.”

“You probably do hear me. I’ve been sneaking into your stables at night. Well, the early morning.”

“Jerry told me. Why don’t you ever sleep? You look completely exhausted. I’m worried about you.” Concern and caring filled his eyes and voice.

She hadn’t been taking very good care of herself. She’d gotten buried in work and often forgot to eat.

The Knox Project was coming down to the wire, and now that Abby had sent her three more problems to fix that stumped her team of programmers, she just couldn’t find the time to do everything that needed to be done. Losing ground on all fronts, her anxiety jacked up high, she couldn’t sleep.

The boys were begging for more attention, Margaret’s hostility grew the more she worked, and she spent hours on the phone attending meetings as one of the faces of the company.

She had a lot of people depending on her, and sometimes it all became too much.

Luke looked like he’d had a rough couple of weeks, too. Maybe they both needed some quiet time.

Before she gave Luke an answer, her cell phone rang. She sighed deeply when she glanced at the caller ID. “It’s my office. I’ve been waiting for this call. Only take a minute, and then we’ll talk.”

“Okay, but I want an answer. I’m about ready to slip a sleeping pill into your iced tea.”

She appreciated the sentiment but rolled her eyes and answered the phone.

“Hi, Marcel, did you get it?” She picked up one of the laptops at her feet and began typing to bring up the files she had just sent to the office.

Luke kept watching her.

Marcel jumped right in. “I got it. This is the best encryption code I’ve ever seen.”

“If it works, it will be the most secure system ever created. Now, use your considerable talents to try to break my encryption and find the back door. If you find it, I’ll give you a twenty-five-thousand-dollar bonus. If you break the encryption, you can have my job.”

“I don’t want your job. I have a life.”

“I have a life.” She scoffed. “It’s not a very fun one,” she admitted, earning an affirmative nod from Luke. “Get to work. We only have a couple weeks left to finish this. Oh, I’m sending back two of the laptops tomorrow. I fixed the problems with the Petticoat Project and updated the North Pole Project. Contact the customers and let them know they’ll be there in a couple of days, then contact David and tell him once he gets the laptops to go to the customer sites for the install. He can take as many people as he thinks is necessary to complete the jobs. Let’s see, did I miss anything?”