A storm's rolling over the property out back. The light finally tucks tail and runs from the late evening sky, leaving nothing but bruised darkness and the occasional crack of lightning in its wake. It's so easy to take the nice days for granted, but Bar has seasons like the rest of the wide worlds, and the warming weather calls for the brooding malaise of one season relinquishing its crown to another.

It reminds Kate of Texas, and distracts her from her chores. She'd usually be back in the bar by this hour, but constantly she stops and watches the clouds roll in, and the wind cut through the grass like invisible predators giving chase. She thinks about home -- not the sad little room she's currently staying in, and not even her old house in Green Lake, but her home, her daddy's ranch just outside of Heyser. She can almost remember the lace curtains against her forearms as she'd sit in her window, watching storms roll over the desert like dirty cotton blankets, the smell of the desert and the livestock and the rain breezing by her face, catching in her hair. There'd be a ruckus downstairs, the boys gathered in the parlor after a day working the fields, drinking brandy and playing cards.

She snaps herself from her reverie and turns at last, locking up the stables and battening down the hatches so the stock will stay warm and dry. She shoves her hat down on her head and plows through the wind, her footsteps sure and purposeful, arrogant, challenging -- as though she's daring the storm to hold her back.

She's not even past the forge when she thinks she hears a sound and turns, eyes scanning the darkness, making out the blue-edged shape of a body against a tree. She frowns.













Footfalls are lost to the sound of thunder, even when recognition dawns with horrifying surety and her cautious steps break into a panicked run.