What had made him look directly toward her? And why had his eyes seem so ancient and wise? When he backed away from the lake, he shook his head up and down, gave her one more unfathomable look, and then turned and loped away with an agility she’d never have believed of such a huge, amazing beast.

A thrill went through Isabel. She clicked back to glance through the pictures she’d captured of him. The bison had stepped directly into the shaft of light. Morning dew speckled the big bull’s coat so that through Isabel’s lens he appeared to be swathed in diamonds and mist. And he’d nodded at her. As if he were approving the photo shoot. And as he turned and left, her first thought was that every single human male in existence would give anything for that package he was carrying.

Isabel sat up and laughed aloud with delight, relieved beyond measure that the beauty and peace of this ancient land had begun to do exactly what she’d hoped when she’d discussed this book idea with her agent—it had begun to sooth her soul and help reground her creativity in something more bearable than death and destruction.

Impulsively Isabel kicked off her hiking boots and pulled off her socks. She rolled up her jeans and, still holding her camera, stepped carefully into the crystalline water. Isabel sucked air and gasped at the initial chill, but after a few slow steps, her feet got used to the temperature of the stream, and she made her way to the shaft of sunlight that had so recently framed the bison. When she got to the light, Isabel turned her face up, bathing in the morning’s radiance while the cool water washed over her feet and ankles.

There was something about this place that touched her. Maybe it was just the drastic contrast between the calm freedom of the prairie—green, lush and clean—and the war-ravaged Middle East, where everything her eyes had focused on had been dry and burned and in a nightmare of conflict.