A Flowerpot Christmas Tree

This Christmas, she'll get exactly what she needs...

40-something anthropology professor Lillian Chase knows how to be alone, even if the sights and sounds of the season make her a little lonely. When she's not teaching classes, Lillian helps law enforcement solve missing persons cases through facial reconstruction. But the anthropology department finds this kind of subjective application a little too soft, and Lillian's not sure she'll be approved for tenure. Worse, though, she worries that she won't be able to identify the skull of her most recent "Jane Doe" in time to give the missing woman's family closure for the holidays.

But when a twenty-seven-year-old artist and former student moves in downstairs, Lillian finds herself feeling more than just neighborly. Noah Ames is all kinds of off-limits: he's too young, he's a former student, and he lives right downstairs. Even with three strikes against him, his fiery appeal is undeniable. He pushes Lillian's boundaries--sexual and otherwise--in ways she's not sure she's comfortable with. But that just may be exactly what Lillian needs...