“Sometimes a detour is more interesting than a planned route, and you get to the same place eventually.”

“He looks at me as though he knows what I’m thinking. More, as if he knows what I thought yesterday, or last year. It’s not comfortable.”

“You’ve never looked for the comfortable,” Bryan stated, pillowing her head on her folded arms. “You’ve always looked for a challenge. You’ve just never found one in a man before.”

“I don’t want one in a man.” Violently, Lee stuffed the sweatshirt into the knapsack. “I want them in my work.”

“You don’t have to go.”

Lee lifted her head. “I’m going.”

“Then don’t go with your teeth gritted.” Crossing her legs under her, Bryan sat up. She was as rumpled as Lee was tidy but seemed oddly suited to the luxurious pile of pillows around her. “This is a tremendous opportunity for you, professionally and personally. Oak Creek’s one of the most beautiful canyons in the country. You’ll have two weeks to be part of it. There’s a man who doesn’t bore or cater to you.” She grinned at Lee’s arch look. “You know damn well they do one or the other and you can’t abide it. Enjoy the change of scene.”

“I’m going to work,” Lee reminded her. “Not to pick wildflowers.”

“Pick a few anyway. You’ll still get your story.”

“And make Hunter Brown squirm.”

Bryan gave her throaty laugh, tossing a pillow into the air. “If that’s what you’re set on doing, you’ll do it. I’d feel sorry for the guy if he hadn’t given me nightmares.” After a quick grimace, her look softened into one of affection. “And, Lee…” She laid her hand over her friend’s. “If he makes you want something, take it. Life isn’t crowded with offers. Give yourself a present.”

Lee sat silently for a moment, then sighed. “I’m not sure if I’d be giving myself a present or a curse.” Rising, she went to her dresser. “How many pairs of socks?”

“But is she pretty?” Sarah sat in the middle of the rug, one leg bent toward her while she tried valiantly to hook the other behind her neck. “Really pretty?”

Hunter dug into the basket of laundry. Sarah had scrupulously reminded him it was his turn to sort and fold. “I wouldn’t use the word pretty. A carefully arranged basket of fruit’s pretty.”

Sarah giggled, then rolled and arched into a back bend. She liked nothing better than talking with her father, because no one else talked like him. “What word would you use, then?”

Hunter folded a T-shirt with the name of a popular rock band glittered across it. “She has a rare, classic beauty that a lot of women wouldn’t know precisely what to do with.”

“But she does?”

He remembered. He wanted. “She does.”