ring. He set large rocks in a small circle, while clearing away any nearby brush that might catch with a stray spark.
When he was finished, he laid a couple more flat-sided rocks inside the ring and built a campfire. Once the flames were going, Daisy took over, surprising him again. She carried the battered tin coffeepot down to the nearby stream, filled it with water and set it on one of the rocks to boil.
“You almost seem to know what you’re doing,” he commented.
“Well, I was a Girl Scout like a hundred years ago,” she said quietly. “I went on a couple of overnight trips and I can still remember watching our troop leader setting up camp.” She flashed him a smile and in the firelight, her features were soft, ethereal and downright beautiful.
Darkness surrounded their campsite and stars were glittering like jewels flung carelessly across the sky. Nikki was curled up on a sleeping bag and he and Daisy sat across the fire from each other.
While she waited for the water to boil, she reached into her backpack and drew out a couple of large, covered plastic dishes. “What’s that?”
“Dinner!” She grinned at him. “I made more beef pasties late last night to bring along. And I’ve got some great corn chowder here, too. All we need to do is heat it up.”
Surprised again, he shook his head. “You realize this isn’t supposed to be a picnic.”
“We have to eat and I just thought it would be easier this way. Don’t worry,” she told him with a tender touch of sarcasm. “Tomorrow we can chew on bark if you insist. But tonight, dinner’s on me.”
A short laugh shot from his throat. “Chew on bark?”
She tipped her head to one side and looked at him with a bemused expression on her face. “You should do that more often.”
“Eat bark?”
“No,” she said. “Smile.”
Jericho watched her then as she expertly scooped coffee into the pot, then sat back to let it boil on the edge of the fire. “You keep surprising me,” he said after another moment of shared silence. “I expected you to fold early today.”
“I know.”
“That why you hung in?”
“Partially, I suppose,” she admitted, drawing her knees up and wrapping both arms around them. “And partially to prove to myself I could do it.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I’m not saying my legs aren’t screaming at me, or that I’m not so tired I couldn’t flop backward over a boulder and fall right asleep, but I did it.”
He nodded, willing to give her that much at least. “You did.”
“So, does that mean I’ve proved myself?”
“Not yet,” he said, reluctantly thinking about what she had to face on the coming day. She’d be a lot more exhausted tomorrow night than she was at this moment, he thought and realized that he didn’t like thinking about that. “You’ve got to make it through the full two days and nights.”
“I will, you know.”
Her voice was steel covered in velvet. Soft but strong, and the purpose in her eyes flashed at him in the firelight. “I’m convinced you’ll give it a good shot,” Jericho said.
“That’s something, anyway,” she mused.
Just beyond their campsite, the river rushed through the darkness, swiftly moving water sounding like hundreds of sighs rising together. A cold wind swept through the trees and had Daisy tugging the edges of her borrowed coat closer together.
“I can’t believe it’s so cold up here. In L.A., it’s still warm at night.”
“We’ll probably have first snow by the end of the month.”
“Can’t wait to see it,” she said, her eyes still glittering at him.
“We’ll see.” Jericho reached out, tapped the coffeepot carefully with his fingertips and, satisfied, picked up a cloth to grab the pot by its curved handle. He poured each of them a cup of the steaming black brew, then watched as Daisy pulled a cook pan closer and dumped her corn chowder into it to heat.
“It’ll be ready in a few minutes,” she said, picking up her coffee cup for a sip. “So while we wait, tell me about Brant.”
That caught him off guard and Jericho’s gaze snapped to hers. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, what was it like over there? Was Brant happy where he was—before he died?”
Frowning, Jericho said, “Happy? Nobody’s happy on a battlefield.”
“You know what I mean,” she persisted.
He stared into his coffee as if looking for answers. Finally, he said, “Yeah, I do. The thing is, people always ask that question, but they don’t really want to know what a war zone is like.”
“I do. I want to know what my brother’s life was like before it ended.”
Lifting his gaze to hers, he kept his face deliberately blank. “Brant did his job. He was good at it. He was well-liked.”
When she opened her mouth to ask another question, he cut her off. “Daisy, let it go.”
“I can’t,” she told him, regret shining in her whiskey-brown eyes. “I have to know.”
Jericho sighed a little, took a drink of his coffee and told her what he could, with some judicious editing. Civilians would never understand what it was like in a combat zone. Would never know the moments of pure adrenaline rush, followed by the searing hours of boredom. They wouldn’t understand what it was to put your life in someone else’s hands and to trust them with yours, or the fierce loyalty that the military experienced on a daily basis.
And how could they?
So he kept it simple and as vague as he could possibly get away with. “The days were blistering hot and the nights were so cold,” he said, “you half expected to wake up with icicles on your nose.”
“Brant complained about the cold in an e-mail once. I sent blankets,” she told him. “To everyone in his unit.”
“I know,” he said, giving her a real smile now as his memory raced back in time. “There was a lot of celebrating that day. After that, every mail call, Brant’s friends huddled close, wanting to get in on one of your packages from home.”
“I’m glad,” she said, though her features were wreathed in sadness.
He could give her this much. To let her know that her efforts had been appreciated by more than just her brother. “Touches of home are really cherished when they’re hard to come by. I can tell you all of the hot chocolate and instant coffees and dry foods you sent made
