She glanced back toward The Lodge, her gaze traveling up to the observation tower she had also seen the day before. Her eyesight was very good, and she could make out a man and woman standing up there, looking down at her.

"This way, Madison."

She looked back toward the gardens to see a smiling little girl beckoning. Feeling suddenly happy, Madison waved gaily to the couple up in the tower and then followed this new friend toward the path leading off into the Zen Garden.

"Is she yours?" Diana asked as the little girl waved up at them and then raced off with her dog toward one of the garden paths.

"No, I've never seen her before." Quentin frowned slightly, adding, "Haven't seen any other kids here, in fact, since I got here yesterday. I hope someone's keeping an eye on her. This isn't the safest place for children."

"Isn't it? Why?"

He returned his attention to Diana and smiled, neither of which was difficult. "Oh... streams and ponds, horses, snakes from the mountains. That sort of thing."

It was her turn to frown just a little, those very green eyes of hers direct and thoughtful. "I get the feeling that's not really what you meant, though."

Quentin was hardly in the habit of confiding in strangers, so he was surprised by his impulse to confide in this one. He was unusually drawn to her. There was something about Diana Brisco, something in those green eyes or the vulnerable curve of her mouth.

She was striking rather than pretty, with the coppery hair and very fair skin of a true redhead, paired with those unusual green eyes. Her features otherwise were ordinary, though her face held the sharpened look of someone under stress of some kind. And though the fashion magazines would have called her slender, Quentin thought she was too thin by a good ten or fifteen pounds.

She wasn't his type at all, yet from the instant he had heard her voice and turned his head to see her come into the tower, he had been conscious of the strangest feeling. It was why he had offered to shake hands with her, though that was far more a business or professional gesture than one between strangers meeting casually at a resort.