And believe it or not, she has a phone and everything. She stopped using smoking signals last year.

And for an instant, I fantasized about wrapping my arms around her right then and there.

She'd always believed that people come in two varieties: those who look out the windshield and those who stare in the rearview mirror. She'd always been the windshield type: gotta focus on the future, not the past, because that's the only part that's still up for grabs. Mom throws me out? Gotta get some food and find a place to live. Husband dies? Gotta keep working, or I'll end up going crazy. Got some guy stalking me? Gotta figure out a way to stop it.

We sit silently and watch the world around us. This has taken us a lifetime to learn...for silence is pure. Silence is holy. It draws people together...this is the great paradox.

Do you see these hands?" Jo said, holding them up. "These were made for caressing handsome men and meant to be adorned with pretty nails and diamond rings. They're not made for paint rollers and paint splatter and that kind of manual labor.

Because being comfortable meant she might lower her guard, and she could not let that happen.

If you look for me, I'm in the fiction section. Romance has its own section.