About twenty minutes into the climb, she moved her foot higher, found the foothold and shifted her weight. Her foot slipped. Suddenly she was hanging in midair, with no idea of where she was or what came next. Panic surged, but she ignored it. She hung on with her hands, scrambling with her feet until she found another hold. Cautiously, she centered herself on it, easing her weight off her hands and onto her legs again.

Her heart pounded in her chest. Sweat soaked her. She kept her eyes closed. When she’d caught her breath, she began moving up again.

Nick watched Izzy’s careful progress. He’d wondered if she would refuse to climb, but she hadn’t. Now she worked her way steadily to the top of the wall, her body moving easily as she remembered what she was supposed to be doing.

His gaze slipped over her bare arms. Something inside him tightened when he caught sight of the curve of her breast. She was wild enough to be appealing but not so crazy that she made him wary. In other circumstances, before everything had changed, he would be interested. As it was-he could look but not touch.

She took the last few feet easily and slapped the top of the wall.

“I made it,” she yelled.

He reached for the safety rope and lowered her to the ground.

“Next time you can take it at more than a crawl,” he told her.

She touched the floor and unhooked herself, then grinned at him. “Next time we’ll race and I’ll so kick your ass.”

“In your dreams.”

She laughed. “No, Nick. In yours.”

BY THE TIME they returned to the main house, Izzy was hungry enough to eat a water buffalo. Or at least pretty much anything that was served for dinner. At this point, she would even consider one of her sister Lexi’s über-healthy sticks and greens sandwiches on the pressed cardboard she called bread. But when they walked into the kitchen, the smells that surrounded her were rich and thick and filled with promise.