“Good for you,” Dulcie said, excited for her friend. Renada had always talked about doing something like this when she had the time. Their boutiques had kept them so busy she’d never gotten the chance. Now there was nothing keeping her from it.

“It’s funny,” Dulcie said as they walked out of the restaurant together. “I got the feeling from the lawyer that there was something unusual about this inheritance.”

“Unusual how?”

“Something he couldn’t talk about. Or wouldn’t.”

“A secret?” Renada said on an excited breath. “Maybe this land is worth a small fortune. Or Lewis and Clark left their names carved in the stones on the property.”

Dulcie laughed. “Don’t get your hopes up. I’m sure it’s just a piece of property that is so inconsequential that it skipped my parents’ minds.”

“A hundred and sixty acres in Montana inconsequential?” Renada scoffed. “Still, it does seem odd since you’ve never heard of this Laura Beaumont. So when are you going to Montana?”

“Right away, I guess,” Dulcie said, feeling as if this was a decision that had been taken out of her hands a long time ago.

A hot, dry wind whispered in the curtains as the weather vane on the barn turned restlessly, groaning and creaking.

The air in the house was so hot it hurt to breathe. The parched land outside the old farmhouse with its ochre dried grasses seemed to ache for a drink in the undulating heat waves that moved across the prairie as far as the eye could see.

Like the land, she’d forgotten the smell of rain, the feel of it soaking into her skin. She thirsted for the sound of raindrops on the roof, the splash of mud puddles as a pickup drove past.

She lay naked on the bed in the upstairs bedroom, the hot wind moving over her lush body, leaving it glistening with perspiration. Too young and ripe to be widowed, she ached for more than a cool breeze to caress her flesh.

The noise of the whirling fan across the room covered the creak of the slow, deliberate footsteps on the stairs. While she didn’t hear anyone, she must have felt a change in the air that told her she was no longer alone in the house.

“Is that you, sweetie?” she asked without expending the energy it would take to open her eyes. “I thought you’d gone down to the creek with your little friend.”

No answer.

A chill skittered over her, dimpling her flawless skin. Her eyes flew open in alarm as if she heard the blade cutting through the oppressive heat.

The first stab of the knife stole her breath. She tried to sit up, but the next blow knocked her back. The attacks came more quickly now, metal to flesh to bone, burning deep as blood pooled on the clean white sheets, the blood as hot as the breathless air around her.