While she nibbled on the bacon, Lee glanced over at him. He’d obviously showered earlier. His hair glinted in the sun and he smelled cleanly of soap without the interference of cologne or aftershave. A man didn’t use aftershave if he didn’t bother with a razor, Lee concluded, studying the shadow of stubble over his chin. It should’ve made him look unkempt, but somehow he managed to look oddly dashing. She concentrated on her cold eggs.

“Sleep well?”

“I slept fine,” she lied, and gratefully washed down her breakfast with strong, hot coffee. “You?”

“Very well,” he lied, and lit a cigarette. She was getting on nerves he hadn’t known he had.

“Have you been up long?”

Since dawn, Hunter thought. “Long enough.” He glanced down at her barely scuffed hiking boots and wondered how long it would take before her feet just gave out. “I plan to do some hiking today.”

She wanted to groan but put on a bright smile. “Fine, I’d like to see some of the canyon while I’m here.” Preferably in a Jeep, she thought, swallowing the last crumb of bacon. If there was one cliché she could now attest to, it was that the open air increased the appetite.

It took Lee perhaps half again as long to wash up the breakfast dishes with the plastic water container as it would’ve taken Hunter, but she already understood the unstated rule. One cooks, the other cleans.

By the time she was finished, he was standing impatiently, binocular and canteen straps crisscrossed over his chest and a light pack in one hand. This he shoved at her. Lee resisted the urge to shove it back at him.

“I want my camera.” Without giving him a chance to complain, she dug it out of her own gear and slipped the small rectangle in the back pocket of her jeans. “What’s in here?” she asked, adjusting the strap of the pack over her shoulder.

“Lunch.”

Lee lengthened her stride to keep up with Hunter as he headed out of the clearing. If he’d packed a lunch, she’d have to resign herself to a very long day on her feet. “How do you know where you’re going and how to get back?”

For the first time since she’d returned to camp smelling like fragility and flowers, Hunter smiled. “Landmarks, the sun.”

“Do you mean moss growing on one side of a tree?” She looked around, hoping to find some point of reference for herself. “I’ve never trusted that sort of thing.”

She wouldn’t know east from west, either, he mused, unless they were discussing L.A. and New York. “I’ve got a compass, if that makes you feel better.”

It did—a little. When you hadn’t the faintest idea how something worked, you had to take it on faith. Lee was far from comfortable putting her faith in Hunter.