Kendra had done nothing but obsessively count the days since Balthazar had showed up at the winery.

She’d gone over it again and again. The truth was, she hadn’t spared a single thought about whether or not her monthly cycle was showing up as it should have been...because she’d never had any need to think about such things. Not only had Kendra never been late, as far as she knew—she’d never had any cause to worry about it if for some reason she had been.

Why hadn’t it occurred to her to worry about it now that there was a reason?

But she knew the answer to that. She might wake in the night, suffused with heat and with Balthazar’s name on her lips, but by day she never, ever allowed herself to think about that night. To think about him. Part of that was also not thinking about her own body—from the things he’d made her feel to its biological functions.

As she’d sat there in her cottage, barricaded against truths she didn’t want to face, Kendra honestly hadn’t known if she’d been motivated by denial...or survival.