He took slow, deliberate aim at a spot he was certain the insurgent was occupying. Sure enough, seconds later, there was the faintest glint of light reflecting off metal. Cort smiled as he pulled the trigger.

There were no more rockets. Cort hadn’t seen the result of the shot, but he was pretty sure he’d wounded the enemy soldier. He put the rifle down and caught his breath.

“Nice shot,” another soldier said.

He smiled. “Thanks. I hate being bombed when I’m trying to sleep.”

“Tell me about it!”

The conversation, and his actions, had been real. But the dream suddenly morphed into a nightmare. There was a woman nearby. He couldn’t see her, but he heard her screams. She was begging someone to stop, to leave her alone. Cort searched for her, but all he could hear was her voice in the distance. “I’ll never marry!” she was sobbing. “No man will ever have power over me again!”

He wanted to tell the shadowy woman that unless she lived in a cave, someone would have power over her. A boss. A stubborn friend. Doctors. Lawyers. Power came and went. It never ended. But he couldn’t find her.

She was crying softly. “They said it would get better with time, but it doesn’t get better. It will never get better!”

“What will get better?” he asked.

“Life.”

He opened his eyes and the ceiling was above him. Bart’s ceiling. Bart’s house. He sat up in bed and drew up his knees so that he’d have a place to rest his forehead. The dream had seemed very real. The woman had sounded as if she were being tortured. He wondered why her voice sounded so familiar. He wondered who had hurt her.

Well, he reasoned, it was only a dream, after all. He lay back down and went back to sleep.

THEY WERE WORKING out on the ranch, branding calves, when one of Bart’s part-time cowboys rode up.

“There’s going to be a party for that friend of yours who writes,” the cowboy told Bart. “And get this—they’re going to have it at the Simpson mansion. How’s that for highbrow? When she was in school, the kids of the family who lived there used to throw rocks at her when she went by toward the school bus stop.”

“She’s had a hard life,” Bart agreed quietly. “It’s nice to see her getting some recognition, finally.”

“What sort of party is it?” Cort asked.

The cowboy chuckled. “The sort where anybody’s welcome,” he replied. “So I guess I’ll clean my boots and see if I can find a clean change of clothes, and I’ll present myself to the single ladies present!”

“Good luck with that, McAllister.” Bart grinned. “You’d do better to pin fifty-dollar bills to your shirt and go date-fishing at a mall. You are a disaster when it comes to women.”

“I noticed,” the cowboy sighed. “But then, miracles happen every day, they say. I’m waiting for mine with both hands outstretched!”