Rocky Mountain Reunion. Tina Radcliffe

explain,” he answered. “But it’s nothing that a little prayer won’t fix.”

      Claire frowned slightly and cocked her head, her amber eyes clear. “Do you pray about everything?”

      “I try to.” He turned and fully faced his daughter. “Do you pray, Claire?”

      “I guess.” She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

      “That’s good, because God is the best daddy either of us has. He won’t ever let us down. Today I am definitely going to need His help. And if today is one of those ‘sometimes’ for you, I’d like a few prayers, as well.”

      She blinked and studied him, as though digesting his words, and then offered him a small nod.

      The gesture comforted him as he signaled and got back on the road.

      After driving a quarter mile farther he turned right. He saw the house long before the GPS device announced their arrival. This was the house Anne had talked about all the time when they were together. The home she was raised in as an orphan by her aunt. He’d recognize the cookie-cutter-trimmed Victorian from her descriptions. Architecturally he could appreciate the amazing structure with its period corbels, fish-scale shingles and cedar shakes.

      Matt regretted that he hadn’t actually looked at the house before this, instead relying only on the geographic maps to plan the construction.

      Would he have changed his mind and found another way to the lake if he’d seen how unique it was? If he’d known it was Anne’s home?

      He’d never know for sure. “That’s her house?” Claire breathed.

      “Looks like it is.”

      “It sort of looks like a castle,” she said, talkative for the first time ever.

      “What makes you think that?”

      “Look at that pointy room there with the long windows.”

      “A turret.”

      “Turret,” she repeated. “That’s a room where a princess lives. Like Rapunzel.”

      “A princess,” Matt murmured. He shook his head, trying to see the big house from his daughter’s eyes.

      “I never thought about it that way, Claire. But I can see you’re absolutely right.”

      Yeah, it was a castle with a princess inside. A dark-haired princess with chocolate-brown eyes who apparently had no clue that her castle was under siege.