Maggie glanced at him. “Bless you?”

He sneezed again. “Better stop there. These’ll just keep going. Allergies.”

“You can wait outside,” she offered.

“No way in hell, Mags.”

“I’ll get you an antihistamine with your dinner,” she promised and drew the curtain back.

There was the octagonal window. Afternoon light filtered through the dirty glass. Beneath the window sat a small desk, a stack of neatly handwritten pages and a blue-glass inkwell next to it.

She picked up the top sheet.

“Holy crap,” she breathed. “I think we found Aaron Campbell’s real study. This looks like a book he was working on.” There were handwritten notes in the margins. Tidy, loopy script.

“Why hide out up here when there was a perfectly comfortable room downstairs?” Silas asked, skimming the page.

She opened the top desk drawer and peered inside. “Who knows? Writers are weird artistic types,” she told him. “I knew a girl in college who ended up writing romance novels. She says she hides in a closet with a bag of fast food to hit her deadlines.”

“Wallace is going to have a heart attack over this room,” Silas said.

“We’ll have to break the news to him carefully,” she decided. She turned and watched Silas as he examined the wall of framed photos before moving on to the bookshelves. She cleared her throat.

He glanced up at her.

She held out her hand, palm up. “Five bucks, sneezy.”

“I don’t have my wallet on me,” he said, gesturing at his still unfastened shorts. “However, I’ve got something I think you’ll like better.”

“We’re not having sex in here. You’d probably have an asthma attack.”

“I am capable of thinking of more than just sex, Nichols,” he said wryly.

She wrinkled her nose in feigned uncertainty. “Are you?”

“Close your eyes,” he ordered suddenly.

She shocked the hell out of both of them by complying.

His fingers skimmed her skin, and something cool and heavy slipped around her neck.

“If you just put some kind of creepy antique BDSM collar on me, we are going to have words,” Maggie said.

“Open your eyes.”

She did as she was told and looked down. “Holy shit,” she gasped. “We need to shoot this.”

“We need to rally the troops,” he said.

“Guess it’ll be dinner for more than just the two of us.” She took a step toward the door and then turned back to him. “Silas?”

“Yeah, darlin’?”

She bit her lip. “Thanks for a really good day.”

His gaze had gone soft and warm again. He reached out and cupped her chin in his hand. “Anytime, Mags.”

They were halfway down the stairs, phones in hand, when they ran into Cody.

“Maggie! We did it—” He took one look at Maggie’s braless outfit, the huge antique necklace, and Silas in his state of undress and almost fell backward down the steps.