By the time she'd woken from her nap, it was dark outside and the wind was howling through the pines around the cabin. The fire had died down but due to the nature and construction of the fireplace, it would radiate heat all night long if she didn't rebuild the fire. She took her time going through some stretching exercises she'd learned years ago to work on her mobility. She kept her right side flexible and very slowly put her left side through the motions within reason. When she felt less stiff, she hobbled with the help of the crutch over to the fireplace and with a little work, got several logs on the bed of coals and within moments, the wood had taken off and was burning merrily. She noticed a hook in front of the fireplace and smiled to herself. She hobbled off to the kitchen and got a can of soup open, thanking the creators of pull tab lids, and dumped it into a small pot with some extra water and stirred it up. Tucking the pot into the crook of her left elbow and the sling, she made her way back to the fireplace and hung up the little pot on the hook, leaving it to heat from the fire as she went around and lit a few oil lamps.

The radio was quiet though she did turn it up a little. She plugged in her laptop and opened it up. She had splurged part of her savings two years ago and got a top of the line laptop with memory, a satellite connection and other accessories. It was where she kept all of her music, kept up with the world and friends, as well as kept her documents and the like. She knew she'd not get a connection in this weather but she turned on some music and went through some files until she could smell the soup. She got up and stirred the soup, checking it with her finger and found it already hot. She pulled it off the hook and brought it over to the table where she sat it down on a drink coaster. She let it cool while she finished going through a few more files.

The sound of the wind howling past the windows and the music made her think of the ranch in Wyoming for the first time in years. She ate her soup as she thought back to those years long ago and it seemed like a million miles away. She began to nod off, causing her to realize that the soup was long gone and several hours had passed by. She closed down the laptop and put her dishes in the sink before heading to bed. It was going to be an interesting night.

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The storm was a big one. So far, they'd passed the record for amount of snow fallen within a certain time frame by a few inches. There was a system from the Pacific Ocean that was feeding moisture to it. It would start out as heavy rains in parts of California then gather speed and force as it crossed over to the Rocky Mountains where it would come up against the cold system that was out of the north and making a mess of things. The worst part was the system coming out of the south that was slowing the whole thing down so that it wasn't moving out of the area very quickly.

It had everything at a complete stop in town, at the resorts and people were being told to stay indoors and not chance going out in the storm unless it was an emergency. Even the casinos were running on a skeleton crew since there were very few willing to venture out in the storm to play cards. The Rangers had been busy for the first twelve hours of the storm but after getting people off of mountains, off the roads and checking to make sure a pair of wayward hikers were safely at an old cabin, had supplies to last a few days at least and were not in need of rescue.

They'd radioed up to Gunny a few times to check on her and the reply was always the same. She was fine, quite comfortable and they had her well stocked with wood and food that they could stop worrying. By the end of the second day of the storm, she had to admit that she was getting a little stir crazy. The quiet and rest was very relaxing to her and the knowledge that no one could get to her in this storm, keeping the outside world at bay. But Gunny had always been an active person and the inability to do much and the lack of things to do was making her bored beyond reason.

Cody was going a little stir crazy himself. Mark had looked at him funny when he'd come to the barn with a dazed look about him. Mark gave him a hard time about it all the way back to the station, wanting to know why he looked so … addelpatted … as he put it. Cody would only shake his head and say it was nothing and leave it at that. Mark had his suspicions but kept them to himself at the time. He wasn't the type to wear out his welcome by tormenting someone endlessly until they snapped, so he'd stopped as they'd reached the station.

That first twelve hours after the storm hit made Mark forget about the whole thing until he noticed Cody standing in front of the window, leaning against the frame with an arm, looking out over the snow covered parking lot and trees hanging heavy with it. He had a distant look to his face and as Mark folded in the game of poker he was playing with Izzy and Matt, he spoke up to the others, just loud enough to be heard by Cody. "If he stares out that window any longer, he'll go snow blind. Of course I think he was already blinded by love a few days ago…"

That got Matt's attention immediately as Cody turned slightly to look at Mark and Matt saw the bit of a blush to his cheeks. Izzy blinked and looked at Mark, "Huh? Cody doesn't have a girl…does he?" he said, looking confused.

Matt pursed his lips a little as Cody turned and looked back out the window, ignoring the others. Matt spoke up this time, "Oh I think he's pinning over someone with long reddish brown hair and gray-blue eyes…." Matt knew his brother well enough to see the slight tensing of the muscles in his shoulders and he knew he'd hit the mark.

Mark was watching as well, "You know, I think your right Matt. He had this most dazed look on his face when he came out to the barn up at the cabin, possibly a touch of a smile to his lips."

Izzy finally got it and tried his hardest to keep from laughing aloud at the poor kid's misfortune of being tormented by those two. He stepped in and shuffled the cards, "Let the poor guy be. We were playing Texas Hold-em, remember? I'm dealer this round…." And got them back on the game, leaving Cody to continue his wool gathering at the window.