The clouds were gathering on the horizon. Huge, thunderheads boiling upward in the west, black with the promise of ranges and tinged with the greenish threat of hail too. It was up to me to get the cows in from the pasture. I slid off the fence rail with sudden purpose but was distracted by the swish of my skirts around my ankles. 

My skirts. How strange that I should notice them like this? They were a part of me, and yet they felt so heavy around my hips, like the hems were weighted down. I glanced down to find that the reason was I had dragged them through the mud. I did not remember this, but that didn't concern me now. 

A gusting wind picked up, sharp enough to send my braid swinging. The clouds were closer now - much closer than they should have been. Time seemed to be speeding up, but when I tried to move, it was as if I was knee deep in heavy snow. I could barely move my feet.

It was my skirts. My mud-caked skirts were dragging me down, so heavy I had to sink to my knees. Panic choked my throat closed as the first boom of thunder sounded over my head and I looked up in horror as the spooked cows started racing to the barn for safety. Their sharp hooves bit the earth, I could feel the vibrations under my hands. I pushed up. I tried to move. I needed to get out of the way before they trampled me, but my skirts - my skirts were so heavy. I couldn't move out of the way of the stampede bearing down on me. I was going to be crushed and the thunder was so loud that no matter how loud I cried out, no one could hear me scream. But I screamed anyway. I screamed, and I screamed as the thunder boomed overhead and - 

I screamed and suddenly I was no longer there in the pastures that ringed the Chosen compound anymore. I was in my bed, with the sheets twisted tightly around my legs.

I kicked them free in a blind panic and that's when I heard the rumble of thunder that had made its way into my dreams. 

My nightmare.

I kicked the blankets straight onto the floor and only then - with my legs free and unencumbered - did my heart rate start to slow. "Beau?" My voice was sleep-thickened, and my throat was raw. "Are you here?"

The house was silent and the space next to me was cold. I rolled over to look for his shoes by the bed but was halted by a slice of pain knifing through my head. I blinked and dug the heel of my hand into my eyeball. "What the hell?" 

And that's when I saw the glass of water and three white aspirin on my bedside table. 

So he had been here. I reached for the water and guzzled it, suddenly parched, then remembered at the last moment to save a few sips to swallow down with the pills. Then I let my head flop back down onto the pillow. 

I had gotten drunk yesterday. Why? Because I had seen Rebecca - the memory came back with such clarity that doubled over, curling into the fetal position as I clutched my belly. My sister had seen me with Beau. I blinked at the empty water glass. Anger was heating my blood, anger at Rebecca and the rest of the Chosen. My family. Who'd cut me off. What did they care if I was acting secular now? I was happy, happier than I'd been in a long time. Happy because I had a man who took me home and tucked me in and left me water and aspirin for when I woke up hurting after seeing the people who, once upon a time, had warned me not to trust people like him. Musicians were evil, rock musicians were Satan's envoys to earth, but when I was with Beau, I felt closer to heaven than I'd ever felt wearing the skirts of a Chosen woman. He was nothing like I had been taught he was. He was wholly himself and what he was, was a wonderful man. I didn't belong to the Chosen anymore.

I wanted to belong to him. 

I reached for my phone, so eager to hear his voice that I didn't even sit up. 

He picked up on the first ring. "Hey."

"Hey." The last bits of my headache vanished as soon as I heard his voice. I rolled back onto my pillow again and smiled up at the ceiling. "I missed you this morning."

"I missed you too." He sounded like he had just woken up too. "How are you feeling?"

"The water helped. The aspirin helped more."

"Are you okay?" He wasn't just asking about my headache, I could tell. 

The remnants of my dream were still swimming in my head. The horror of the oncoming stampede, my complete inability to move when the danger was bearing down on me. I squeezed my eyes shut. "I'll be all right. If I can see you soon.”

"You can." I loved the slow honey in his voice. The ache for him - the one that never quite died away - clenched my core and held tight. "And besides," he added playfully. "We have to rehearse for open mic." 

I had forgotten about our plan. That blissful moment turned ugly when Rebecca had spotted us. I swallowed down the bitter bile that flooded my mouth, but my nightmare was still nipping around the edges of my consciousness. Rebecca's ugly words were still ringing in my ears. "Of course," I said to drown them out. "You want to rehearse, huh? That's how you want to spend our time together."

His chuckle melted the ice in my veins. "We can do a lot of things together, I'll pick you up soon?"

"Yes." I exhaled and hung up, then stared at the ceiling. When the nightmare demanded I remember it, I sat up and then pushed out of bed. The act of moving seemed to be enough to keep ahead of the stampede, and while I'd been hampered by my skirts in the dream, in real-life, I could still move freely.

Right?

I'd taken a quick shower and was just pinning my hair up to the nape of my neck in order to let what little breeze there was in the humid soup of the morning play about my neck when I heard the distinct sound of Beau's car on the gravel of my driveway. 

Just the sound of it. That was all it took, and my body almost vibrated with the need to see him, to be held by him. 

To be loved by him. 

I closed my eyes, but it was still right there. The word. Four letters. It hadn't quite taken form yet, but I could feel it. What this was.

I loved him. 

"Shit," I muttered. 

And then grinned.

I flew out of the house so fast that my braid came unpinned and uncoiled down my back. I didn't care, especially not when Beau caught me mid-leap and spun me around, then wrapped my braid in his fist so he could guide me to kiss him deeper. 

"Good morning," he murmured against my lips as I smiled and kissed him again. "Wanna hear something funny?"

"What's that?" There was an outside world, I was fairly sure of it, but the only thing I cared to notice was the way his hazel eyes looked green today. 

"It felt weird waking up without you in my arms." He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. "I don't want to do that again. Do you?"

My heart felt like it was too big for my chest. Like someone had inflated it like a balloon. "No." I smiled at the idea. "I think we should never do that again."

Beau opened his mouth to agree with me. At least that's what he probably meant to do before he was interrupted.

"Hey there!" another voice rang out. "You coming?"

I blinked in confusion and Beau sighed. "I'm sorry. They insisted on coming."

I looked over at the car to see Claire's bright smiling face and Finn's gloomy one. "Oh." The balloon in my chest deflated so fast I sagged inward. "Okay, sure."

"I'm really sorry," Beau whispered, tucking my hair back again. "But maybe you can let me make it up to you later?"

I inflated again. "Sounds like a plan." I followed him around the side of his car and grinned when he opened the door for me. "What's the plan?"

"They got the house!" Claire interrupted before either of the brothers could speak. She grabbed my shoulder, shaking me with her excitement. "It was my idea the way they ended up working it out. See, it's like a rent-to-own thing—"

"I'll let Claire do the talking," Beau sighed under her chatter, making me giggle. He backed the car out of the driveway as Claire went on explaining that the owner agreed to a closing date a few months from now, with the guys renting it until that time. "They've still got to put down a deposit, which I told them was pretty stupid since they're going to be the owners in the end, so what damages are they putting down a security for—"

"Remind me whose house this is going to be?" Finn asked the heavens with a mighty eyeroll. 

Claire smacked him. "You needed me." She wagged her finger under his nose. "I understand how things are done in Crown Creek. You all left so you have no idea."

A weird tension hung in the air. I glanced at Beau who may have shaken his head imperceptibly, or maybe he hadn't at all. I turned and looked out the window, eager to see the house the brothers had decided on. I planned on spending a lot of time there. 

Beau reached out and squeezed my hand, then lifted it to his lips. "You okay?" he asked. I blinked at him, confused until I realized which road we had turned down. 

I sucked air in through my teeth before I could collect myself. "I'm fine."

"You want me to turn around? We can take the long way."

I glanced back at Finn and Claire. They were both listening intently. Finn seemed confused, but Claire's sharp eyes saw everything. Including how my hands twisted in my lap. I consciously set them down. "No. It's fine."

We dipped down the slight hill that led into the broad valley. The valley I knew by heart.

The ominous clouds were still gathered on the horizon, but overhead, the sun pierced through the gray in shafts of light all around us. Lighting the places I knew best. 

We were driving past the Chosen compound. "Slow down," I asked Beau.

He hesitated, but then did what I asked, slowing and pulling over to the shoulder. Gravel crunched under the wheels as I looked at the place that had been my home for twenty years. 

"I don't..." I cleared my throat around the catch in it. I didn't want to get upset. I wasn't upset. "It's weird looking at it from this angle."

"Why?" Claire was pasted against her window, staring at the buildings like she could see through the walls. 

"There's a back entrance. Down by the creek. It goes through the pastures and it keeps the eyes off us." It was strange how easily I slipped into the patterns of Chosen speech, even after two years away. I pointed. "See down that way, the gray building? That's the main meeting house, I guess you'd call it the church maybe? That's where most everything happens in the community. There's a reason it's the farthest from the road." If I closed my eyes, I could perfectly picture the dusty road down to the meeting house, but I couldn't see it from here. I was on the outside, looking in. Which was strange, but wasn't that how I felt in the secular world too?

Where did I belong?

"What about the houses up here?" Claire pointed at the cluster of tired looking but still proud houses barely visible through the trees. 

"That one," I pointed and held my finger steady, so they couldn't see it trembling. "That's my family's. See the broken window by the cellar? My brother Jesse did that with a rock. I guess they still haven't gotten the money together to fix it." A strange tug pulled at my heart. I should send the money, I thought, out of nowhere. I cleared my throat. "All the houses are together like this because we're - they're"—I corrected when Finn looked at me—"a community. I could go to any house and ask for a snack or join meals." I was starting to smile in spite of myself. "I never really did, because I was a homebody, but my sister Rebecca—"

"The one I met?" Beau asked. He sounded like he was trying to keep careful control of his voice.

"Yeah, she's always been like that." Now I was grinning. "She's the polar opposite of me. Sometimes I envied her, and then I felt bad about it and tried even harder to be good to her." I shook my head. "She doesn't make it easy." I leaned up against the glass. I knew it was silly to try to spot people from the road. Keeping out of sight of secular eyes was one of the first things any Chosen child was taught. We could walk into their world and observe them, but we never let them see us when we were in ours. But unlike secular eyes, mine knew where to look. I searched the rooftops for scrambling children, then down around the roots of the conifers for kids collecting pine cones. I watched the backs of the houses for women doing the home-gardening and getting the wash from the lines. But there was no one out. A sudden memory hit me, and I glanced at the clock in the car. 

Noon. Of course. It was time for the breaking of bread. Everyone would be down at the meeting house. My cheeks heated. How could I have forgotten?

A faint sound caught my attention. I looked up to see that Beau, Claire, and Finn had all been watching me. I blinked. How long had I been staring longingly out the window? 

"It looks like a really nice place to grow up," Claire said, tactfully interrupting the awkward silence. 

I lifted my chin. "It was." For some reason, I felt close to tears. 

"Must be weird," Finn piped up. 

I licked my lips. I'd purposefully avoided coming down this road, but now that I had, I was glad. I was here in the car with them, but I didn't belong here. But I didn't belong there either. "A little," I finally said. 

Beau exhaled sharply and then suddenly his hand was in my hair. With fire in his eyes, he pulled me to him, pressing his forehead to mine for one moment before slanting his mouth down to mine.

I inhaled sharply as the tears that had been threatening to fall suddenly burned away. A small sound escaped my mouth, but he swallowed it with his sudden, desperate onslaught. My hands trembled as they moved to cup his face, but once my fingers found his skin, they stilled. Even as my heart rate sped up, a kind of peace washed through me. Maybe I had no idea where I belonged, but when I was with Beau, it didn't seem to matter. 

Maybe I belonged with him. 

"Ah..." Claire coughed from the back seat. I reluctantly pulled back from Beau and shot her an apologetic grin.

"Let's go," Beau said, pulling away. I glanced in the side mirror, wanting to see the compound behind me, but we'd kicked up so much dust that it was blocked from my view.