“Of course she does—she’s always been a child of the mountains.” This time the faint censure in Sarah’s tone was clear, and surprising. Lily had never known Sarah to be judgmental about anyone’s life choices—but then, they’d all changed in the last few years. And sometimes with family, one’s attitudes were different.

“Can’t say I blame her there,” Alisha put in. “Riding herd on a pack of kids is exhausting.” She grinned. “But then, I get to sleep in a nice cozy cabin and eat great food at every meal. So—worth it.”

“Chase’ll adjust—she’s had a lot of practice at that,” Sarah said quietly. In a lighter tone, she added, “You’re not doing justice to our very fine cuisine there, Lil.”

Surprised, Lily said, “Oh. It’s great.”

“We do have an excellent chef,” Sarah said. “The mountain air will probably ramp up your appetite soon enough.”

Lily heard what she wasn’t saying—that she’d lost weight and looked the worse for it—and appreciated that Sarah wasn’t nagging about it. She hadn’t really thought about food as anything other than essential fuel that she grabbed whenever she could for the last year. So many changes and she’d only been here a day. No schedule, no line of critical patients waiting, no constant clamor of emergency sirens and alerts. People who weren’t fighting to survive, but who were actually enjoying life. And most surprising of all, a woman who kept darting into her thoughts at unexpected moments. Lily hardly recognized herself. She’d lost so much of her old resiliency, everything was a challenge. But at least here, any missteps wouldn’t lead to disaster.

When the meal finished, Alisha headed off to see that the campers were getting settled into their accommodations, and Sarah left to untangle a snafu with a delivery that had gone missing. Upstairs in her room, Lily showered, changed into a light cotton shirt and loose drawstring shorts, and pulled up a book on her iPad. She’d left the window beside her bed open, and a pine-scented breeze drifted in. An hour later the room had darkened, and the air had chilled. She set her iPad aside, exchanged her shorts for lightweight gray sweats, and headed downstairs. She wasn’t used to going to bed so early and sometimes didn’t get more than a few broken hours in a twenty-four-hour period.

The sun had dropped almost completely beyond the mountains, and twilight settled over the camp. The great room was empty, and just a few lamps on side tables provided enough light to see by. Lily wandered out onto the front porch and contemplated the path leading down to the lake. The moon was high and, in places where it reached through the trees, nearly as bright as day. The trees gleamed silver.

“Beautiful,” she murmured. The lake beckoned, and then she thought about what Chase had said. Snakes slept at night, didn’t they? Still.

“Thinking about a walk?” Chase said quietly from the darkness.

Lily jumped as Chase rose from a chair on the far end of the porch and walked toward her. “Hello.”