What choice was there? Lee asked herself as she stood with the afternoon sun beating down on her. In L.A., her life had direction, it had purpose. There, she had one goal: to succeed. That goal didn’t seem so important here and now, where just being, just breathing, was enough, but this world wasn’t the one she would live in day after day. Even if Hunter had asked, even if she’d wanted to, Lee couldn’t go on indefinitely in this unscheduled, unplanned existence. Purpose, she wondered. What would her purpose be here? She couldn’t dream by the campfire forever.

But two days. She closed her eyes, telling herself that everything she’d done and everything she’d seen would be forever implanted in her memory. Did the time left have to be so short? And the time ahead of her loomed so long.

“Here.” Hunter came up alongside her, holding out a pair of binoculars. “You should always see as far as you can.”

She took them, with a smile for the way he had of putting things. The canyon zoomed closer, abruptly becoming more personal. She could see the water rushing by in the creek, rushing with a sound too distant to be heard. Why had she never noticed how unique each leaf on a tree could be? She could see other campers loitering near their sites or mingling with the day tourists on paths. Lee let the binoculars drop. They brought intrusion too close.

“Will you come back next year?” She wanted to be able to picture him there, looking out over the endless space, remembering.

“If I can.”

“It won’t have changed,” she murmured. If she came back, five, ten years from then, the creek would still snake by, the buttes would still stand. But she couldn’t come back. With an effort, she shook off the mood and smiled at him. “It must be nearly lunchtime.”

“It’s too hot to eat up here.” Hunter wiped at the sweat on his brow. “We’ll go down and find some shade.”

“All right.” She could see the dust plume up from his boots as he walked. “Someplace near the creek.” She glanced to the right. “Let’s go this way, Hunter. We haven’t walked down there yet.”

He hesitated only a moment. “Fine.” Holding her hand, he took the path she’d chosen.

The walk down was always easier than the walk up. That was another invaluable fact Lee had filed away during the last couple of weeks. And Hunter, though he held her hand, didn’t guide or lead. He simply walked his own way. Just as he’d walk his own way in forty-eight hours, she mused, and stretched her stride to keep pace with him.

“Will you start on your next book as soon as you get back?”

Questions, he thought. He’d never known anyone with such an endless supply of questions. “Yes.”