She nearly jumped out of her skin when the cowboy spoke to her. Lord, but that dream didn’t help matters. Karen stared at him tiredly for the moment, blank eyes until she registered that he was offering help. She produced a bottle for Niamh and offered it to the man, sighing sleepily and looking as if that nap wasn’t enough. However, she made no complaints.

After a moment or two of him taking Niamh and the bottle, she began to sing in Gaelic to the little ones in a sweet voice that was strained with exhaustion. Karen was looking at Lorn without really looking at him. Really, it was another face she was seeing altogether smiling her way, and that was of her dead husband. No, that couldn’t be right, she thought and blinked away the vision, only to find the opposite of her dark cowboy; a light cowboy.

Tears tried to burn at the backs of her eyes and her voice cracked, but otherwise she seemed alright. Eventually, the song died down and then came the silence, and she was looking out the window, holding the now empty bottle that had been spit out at some point or another.