“A jacket?”

“It’s a bit cool out.” Brianna set bacon to sizzling in the pan. “The exercise will give you an appetite. You’ll have breakfast when you get back.”

Frowning, Shannon studied Brianna’s back. It looked as if she was going for a walk. A little bemused, she set down her cup and picked up the jacket. “I don’t guess I’ll be long.”

“Take your time,” Brianna said cheerfully.

Amused at each other, they parted company.

Shannon had never considered herself the outdoor type. She wasn’t a fan of hiking. She much preferred the civilized atmosphere of a well-equipped health club—bottled water, the morning news on the television set, machines that told you your progress. She put in fifty minutes three times a week and was pleased to consider herself strong, healthy, and well toned.

But she’d never understood people who strapped on heavy boots and backpacks and hiked trails or climbed mountains.

Still, her discipline was too ingrained to allow her to forfeit all forms of exercise. And one day at Blackthorn had shown her that Brianna’s cooking could be a problem.

So she’d walk. Shannon tucked her hands into the pockets of her borrowed jacket, for the air was chilly. There was a nice little bite in the morning that shook away any lingering dregs of jet lag.

She passed the garden where primroses were still drenched with dew, and the greenhouse that tempted her to cup her hands and peer in through the treated glass. What she saw had her mouth falling open. She’d visited professional nurseries with her mother that were less organized and less well stocked.

Impressed, she turned away, then stopped. It was all so big, she thought as she stared out over the roll of land. So empty. Without being aware she hunched her shoulders defensively in the jacket. She thought nothing of walking down a New York sidewalk, dodging pedestrians, guarding her own personal space. The blare of traffic, blasting horns, raised voices were familiar, not strange like this shimmering silence.

“Not exactly like jogging in Central Park,” she muttered, comforted by the sound of her own voice. Because it was less daunting to go on than to return to the kitchen, she began to walk.

There were sounds, she realized. Birds, the distant hum of some machine, the echoing bark of a dog. Still, it seemed eerie to be so alone. Rather than focus on that, she quickened her pace. Strolling didn’t tone the muscles.

When she came to the first stone wall, she debated her choices. She could walk along it, or climb over it into the next field. With a shrug, she climbed over.

She recognized wheat, just high enough to wave a bit in the breeze, and in the midst of it, a lone tree. Though it looked immensely old to her, its leaves were still the tender green of spring. A bird perched on one of its high, gnarled branches, singing its heart out.

She stopped to watch, to listen, wishing she’d brought her sketch pad. She’d have to come back with it. It had been too long since she’d had the opportunity to do a real landscape.