Our days ran together as we fell into a routine. Like clockwork I awoke before the sun and had coffee ready and waiting for Maggie as she stumbled with bleary eyes into the kitchen. She’d blindly hold out a hand, and I put a full mug in it, and then she’d retreat to the porch where she’d write and sing for several hours. Creatively, she seemed to prefer those crisp, cool early morning hours. She liked to watch the fog lift and the day start.

A little before lunch, she would wander in, blanket dragging across the floor behind her. She’d join me at the computer where I dug deep, looking for anything odd in the reams of information my team dug up and sent to me.

Nothing was out of place. Everyone was as she said they were, so we moved outward. Her band we checked first, then the crew, then the support staff, casting wider and wider circles in a tireless effort to find whoever was after her.

By noon, she was restless and itching to drag me away from squinting at computer screens. “Let’s go do something outside,” she’d say. She was used to performing for hours several nights a week, and staying in shape was just who she was.

We started slowly, walking a bit around the cabin, until day after day, she built her strength back up. She had lost a lot of blood and got easily frustrated at her own weakness. “I don’t understand why I’m so tired all the time!”

“Give your body a break, Maggie. You need to relax and let it heal. You will know when you’re ready.”

“My shoulder itches so bad it’s driving me crazy.” She slowly rotated it in circles, checking her mobility and carefully stretching it. The limb was still stiff from being stuck at her side for so long.

“Here. Let me look.” I gently peeled back her gauze pad and was thrilled to see the bright pink flesh with a scab in the center looking back at me. “It’s healing beautifully. No infection, but you got shot, Mags. That doesn’t go away overnight.”

She growled at me, her green eyes snapping and hair standing on end. “I am bored to death!”

“Okay, okay. Let’s go for a walk then.”

“Fine, but none of those sissy walks where we circle the cabin twice, and you pronounce us done.”

I sighed. She really must be feeling better if she’s giving me this much attitude. “You tell me where you want to go, and we will. But just be careful.”

She bumped my shoulder with hers, and leaned up on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek. Electricity zapped when her lips touched my flesh, and we both jumped back, eyes wide.

“Must be some static in this wool blanket,” she said, shrugging it off and draping it across the back of the couch. “Come on. I’m going to put on my shoes, and we can go.”

“Sure,” I said. “Be right there.”

I was stunned by the feelings that shot through me when her lips touched my cheek. That was ornery, frustrating, live wire Maggie Lane, lead singer of Indigo. She had her own life, her own band. She was building her own fortune. She was already celebrity and growing more famous all the time. She certainly didn’t need my money with talent like hers. I couldn’t even think about getting involved with her. What would she want with a half-man like me?

“You ready?” She came out of her room with her fresh-scrubbed face shining, her bright red hair pulled back in a bouncy ponytail, and jogging shoes at the end of her long slim legs.

“I sure am!” I admired her figure as she passed me by.

She still held her arm close to her side, trying to relieve the stress on her shoulder, but more and more, I saw her carefully using her hand. I was relieved by how well she was healing. I had medical training from my time in the military—we all did—and I had augmented it when I started the company. We all got certified as paramedics, and a couple of guys even went to nursing and physician’s assistant school just to make sure we could patch ourselves up if we got hurt. Still, this was Maggie, and I was responsible for getting her shot. I never would have forgiven myself if things had gone south.

“Liam? You coming?” She stood expectantly at the doorway, waiting for me to join her.

“Yeah. Let’s go.” I grabbed a light jacket from the hall closet and followed her out.

“How did you ever pick this spot for your cabin?” She gazed at the small area cleared around the house.

“This is where my family is from originally. We didn’t always live in the city. I remembered my grandfather, a few years before he died, talking about growing up in a one-room cabin in the mountains.”

She looked back at the house. “This is no one-room cabin.”

“No,” I chuckled. “Jeannie would never have been happy in something like that. But when I decided I wanted to build us a home, I knew I wanted it to be here—a place we could come to get away from all the craziness. We’ve all got a touch of PTSD. Loud noises startle us. We get uncomfortable and anxious around too many people. We can’t let our guard down. We always think something is going to happen. It makes us great at what we do, but not so good at relaxing. I knew I could do that here.”

“Relax?” she asked, and I nodded. “How did you build it?”

“I know some people.”

She just looked over at me as we walked, one eyebrow raised as if to say, “Really?”

I guess I said that a lot, about knowing people. “Okay, okay. I had some contacts. Some guys I met overseas worked constructions. I contacted them, told them what I wanted, sent them plans I’d had drawn up years ago for the cabin, and they made it happen. It was done by the time I finished my last tour.”

“What did your fiancé think? Did she like the house?”

“She never saw it.”

“Wait, what? You built it for her and she never saw it?” We kept a good pace as Maggie led us down the mountain, following the long driveway that wound along the side of the mountain.

“No. That last tour, I got injured and spent some time in the hospital. When I got back stateside, she was gone.”

Maggie stopped in the center of the path, sucking in a gasp of air, a look of horror on her face. “She left you like that?”

“Yeah.” I bent down, plucked a loose stone from the path, and hucked it as far into the clearing as I could. “She couldn’t handle it. She told me it wasn’t what she signed up for, said she’d been waiting too long and her life was passing by.”

“That’s horrible.” Maggie’s voice bled sympathy.

“At least, that’s what she said when I finally tracked her down at her new husband's place. She answered the door six months pregnant. I guess I made her wait too long.”

“Oh my God. Liam, I am so sorry.” Maggie threw her arms around me in an impulsive hug. When her slight weight hit my chest, I instinctively wrapped my arms around her, holding her close. I breathed in the sweet coconut smell of her hair. The wisps that had worked their way loose of her ponytail tickled my nose.

My eyes opened suddenly, this felt too right.