A nightlight near Nina's bed lit the room enough for Hud to see Nina sleeping still in a cowgirl costume, still even in boots and prairie skirt and western shirt printed with yellow roses. A straw hat hung on the bedpost. Hud tugged on Nina's skirt and she woke peacefully, too peacefully, Hud thought. "You shouldn't be sleeping next to an open window," he whispered, and Nina sat up in bed and puckered her lips for a kiss. Hud kissed her, then said, "Any creep could come along. Aren't you afraid of creeps?"

"Oh, sure," Nina said, shrugging her shoulders.

"Let's go for a drive some place," Hud said. He opened the window and lifted the torn flap of the screen.

"OK," she said, standing up in the bed, "but first, don't you like my costume? We went to a party."

"It's nice," Hud said.

"I'm Opal Lowe," she said, and Hud was touched that she dressed up like Opal Lowe, his favorite country singer. He'd taken Nina to a county fair a few weeks before to see Opal singing in the open-air auditorium. ... Nina had loved it and had hummed along as Opal Lowe sang about her man's habits, of how he had liquored her up on Wild Turkey, lit her Old Golds, made her need him like water.

... Hud jotted a note in crayon: "I'll be back with her before sunlight, before you even read this," and left it atop the rumpled covers of the bed. Nina crawled onto his back, and they slipped through the torn window screen. He imagined never returning with her, imagined his picture next to her picture on fliers sent through the mail.

Excerpted from The Singing and Dancing Daughters of God © Copyright 2012 by Timothy Schaffert. Reprinted with permission by Unbridled Books. All rights reserved.