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gotten up.
    As if the thought of her had conjured the dog from thin air, Nikki barreled across the lawn, charging Jericho with a ferocity belying her size. Her low growl erupted from her tiny chest and when she reached them, she stood in front of Daisy as if daring the big man to hurt her.
    Shaking his head at the dog, Jericho said, “You know that’s just coyote bait.”
    She gasped, bent down and snatched up her dog. Cradling her close, Daisy stroked a hand down Nikki’s back and shot a nervous glance around her at the surrounding trees. “Don’t say that.”
    “Dogs like that don’t belong here,” he told her and his blue eyes were cold and remote. “Hell, it’s small enough it could get carried away by a hawk.”
    “Great,” she muttered, looking up. “Now I have to check the skies, too?”
    “Wouldn’t be a bad idea,” he said, shooting the still growling dog a look of mutual dislike. Then he shifted his glance to Daisy. “Why are you really here?”
    “I told you.”
    “Yeah, but you could work anywhere. You’re a good cook.”
    “Thanks!” She smiled at him and accepted the casually delivered compliment as if he’d delivered it with a speech and a glass of celebratory champagne.
    “So why here?”
    Daisy thought about that for a long minute. Wasn’t as if she could tell him why…not exactly, anyway. So she did the best she could and walked a wide circle around the absolute truth. Setting Nikki down on the grass, she stood up and said, “I told you that I wanted a change…”
    “Yeah, but this seems like a radical jump to make.”
    “Maybe,” she admitted, taking another look at the fantasy lodge draped in sunlight, “but what’s the point in making a change if it’s a safe one? If I just move from one apartment in the city to another? From one restaurant to another? That’s not change. That’s just… ch. ”
    “What?”
    “You know,” she explained, “not a whole change, just a partial one, so a ch. ”
    He shook his head again and rolled his eyes. “Why here, though?”
    “Because you knew my brother,” she blurted, giving him at least that much of the absolute truth. “Andbecause Brant wrote to me about you. He admired you. A lot.”
    His features froze up and his eyes went glacial. Daisy had to wonder why.
    “He was a good kid,” Jericho said after a long moment or two of silence.
    “Yeah,” she agreed, “he was.”
    She’d come a long way in the past year. Used to be that thoughts of Brant would have tears filling her eyes and her throat closing up on a knot of emotion. Now, though, she could remember him and smile. She drew on all of the happy memories she had of him to comfort her and the tears were coming fewer and further between these days.
    Still, when she spoke about him, her voice went a little wistful. “He was several years younger than me, you know. Our parents died when he was very small, so I practically raised him. Always felt more like his mom than his sister.”
    “He told me about you.”
    “He did?” An eager smile curved her mouth. Oh, this was what she’d wanted. What she’d hungered for. Someone else who had known Brant. Who could remember him with her and keep his memory fresh and meaningful. Plus, Jericho King had known him at the end of Brant’s life and those were pieces that Daisy needed. She wanted to know everything. “What did he say about me? No, wait.” She stopped and held up one hand. “If he was complaining about me, maybe I don’t want to know.”
    His features relaxed enough that one corner of his mouth lifted. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “Brant only hadgood things to say about you. Used to tell his buddies all about your secret sauce for hamburgers. Talked about it so much he had the other guys begging him to shut up because he was torturing them.”
    “Oh, I’m so glad.” Her eyes welled with unexpected tears and a too-familiar ache settled around her heart. “Thank you for telling me. It’s hard for me,