Anna didn't return to the house after she stormed out of the barn. Hurt and embarrassed, she pulled her cap over her face, hiding her flushed red cheeks and eyes wet with tears, keeping her gaze to the ground. She didn't want to risk her father, Kai, or even Kristoff seeing her.

She stole away to the shed behind the house and made her way to the back end of it, where Hans had snuck in a cot early that summer. He'd told Kristoff that he put it there to steal quick naps during his breaks, but he hadn't fooled anyone. Overnight guests weren't allowed in the workers' quarters, so Hans would sneak girls into the shed. His quarters were easily visible from the main house so he'd tried to switch with Kristoff, but Kristoff couldn't stand him and refused to do him that favor.

The cot looked sturdy enough and was cushioned by a thin mattress. She plopped down on it and the springs creaked loudly beneath her. Anna curled to her side and buried her face in her hat. She could hear the radio playing from the house and the screen door creak open and closed several times. And she could still see Elsa's face, eyelids fluttering closed as the space emptied between them, and the pressure of those glossy lips, sparking against her own.

Anna could feel that aching feeling again, throbbing in the pit of her stomach. She squeezed her eyes shut tight and balled her fists, but nothing could will it away. Her lips, her mouth, her tongue, her hands, and then that cruel cold stare persisted with clarity in her thoughts.

A loud voice bellowed her name and she sprung up from the cot. Anna realized that she must have fallen asleep just as her mother called out for her again. Probably to help with dinner. She stole a quick glance of herself in a small cracked mirror. Much of the redness had gone from her face, and her eyes were hardly swollen enough to draw attention.

Slipping out of the shed, she peered through the back kitchen window of the house and saw Elsa talking with Anna's mother. Her expression was soft again, and she reminded Anna of that same girl she had lent her jacket to all those many summers ago. She frowned, her stare hardening as she wondered just which face was the true Elsa.

~X~

Her anger betrayed her.

Kristoff noticed it the moment she pushed through the screen door and stepped into the house. It hung over her head like a dark funnel cloud.

Elsa looked up as the door slapped shut behind Anna. She was standing in the kitchen beating a bowl of peeled and boiled potatoes into mush, while her aunt Jenn labored over the stove, humming along to some Reba McEntire song playing over the small countertop radio. She eyed her younger cousin and Anna stared back, her shoulders tensed and her jaw clenched even as she quickly averted her eyes from Elsa.

The look between them did not go unnoticed.

"What's wrong?" Kristoff mouthed silently. But she brushed past him toward the stairs without a word. He glanced over at Elsa to search for some kind of answer in her face, but she had already averted her eyes.

"Anna, I'm gonna need you to help set the table after you wash up," her mother called out just as Anna began to climb the stairs. She paused, her hand clenched tightly on the railing, and said nothing as she resume up the staircase, her dusty boots scuffing along each step.

It wasn't until Anna sat down on her bed and bent down to untie her boot laces that she noticed the dirt she'd tracked into her room. Clumps of dried mud clung to the black rubber soles of her work boots, and crumbled chunks of dirt and fine strands of hay covered the floor around her. A groan escaped her throat. She didn't have to follow the trail of dirt out the door way to know that she had tracked it through the house as well. Not only did she have to help set the table for dinner, Anna had just earned herself dish duty too.

She peel off her boots and socks, and carelessly let them drop onto the floor, spreading more dirt as it came undone from the crevices in her boots. Not that it mattered. She'd have to clean it all up anyway, and more dirt didn't change that.

The sound of the screen door downstairs, creaking open and slapping shut, resonated up the staircase and into the second floor. Anna knew that Kristoff had gone back to his room, probably to shower and dress for dinner as well.

He's so damned obvious, she wanted to scream, but rolled her eyes instead, unbuckling her belt and unbuttoning her pants, almost in one fell swoop, before letting them drop to the floor. He probably chickened out again.

He had been trying to ask Elsa out all summer. Kristoff hadn't told Anna as much, but it was easy to guess from his desperate attempts at small talk whenever Elsa was in the same room. He'd been obsessed with her cousin for longer than Anna had known him, always prattling on about her. Her silky platinum hair, the way she swayed her hips whenever she walked and flicked her hair over her shoulder. The way she -

"I just don't get what you see in her," Anna had admitted to Kristoff just months after they first became friends, cutting him off before he started in on some long-winded observation on the adorable way she ate her food. There had been no way she was going to relive something that nauseating.

"You just don't understand," Kristoff had told her. "It's everything she does. She doesn't just enter a room, she commands it. Guys and girls can't help but notice her, and for that moment, it's like time stops. A girl is something special if she can do a thing like that."

It irritated her. Elsa barely looked his way, and she was special. But Anna clung to his every word and she was barely a girl.

In the months since she'd started attending Aarondale High School, Anna had not been able to penetrate her cousin's cold exterior. As polite as Elsa was, she remained this persistent enigma, and except for Jane, she didn't seem to allow anyone else inside. Even well after Elsa graduated she maintained that distance, and Anna couldn't see how Kristoff could claim to like someone who barely glanced in his direction.

There had been rumors about Elsa being involved with some of the hot and elite guys at their school. Everyone knew that Hans Isles had a major thing for her, and she'd been connected to Flynn Ryder and Will Turner on more than a few occasions, but she never had anything long term with a guy.

Anna stepped out of her pants and tossed them into a pile of dirty laundry in the corner of her room. She was undoing the last button of her top when she heard someone clear their throat. She looked up.

It was Elsa.

She stood at the open doorway of Anna's room, her silvery blond hair sunlit by the orange light brimming through the hallway window. Elsa's eyes were unflinching as she stared at Anna, not cold like they'd been before, but impersonal. Like someone accustomed to concealing her expressions.

Elsa's eyes darted down past Anna's shoulders and past her hips, and Anna was suddenly quite self-conscious at her state of undress. Her panties were plain and white, the kind that sold in a five pack, and her bra was just as unimpressive; no wires, no lace, just cups and straps. Unnerved, she wanted to close up her shirt and pull on her pants, but somehow she felt that doing so would make her even more vulnerable in her cousin's eyes. So she swallowed her nerves, stared back and waited, catching a small flicker in Elsa's eyes before her cousin tore her gaze away.

"Aunt Jenn's asking for you," Elsa informed her. "She wants you to hurry up so you can help her chop."

But the last thing Anna wanted to do at that moment was stand side by side with her cousin in that tiny kitchen, especially feeling as she did.

"I can't," she replied. "I'm taking a shower. Tell my mom I can't help tonight, but I'll take my turn tomorrow."

"Okay," Elsa said slowly. "Then I guess I'll set the table for you this time."

Anna expected her to leave, but Elsa stood there as if waiting for Anna to speak again. Another beat, and she was planning to ask her what she wanted when Elsa finally spoke.

"Sweep up the dirt on the stairs. We shouldn't have to clean up your messes," and with that she walked off leaving Anna with a scowl on her face as she crossed the room and closed her bedroom door. She didn't slam it closed, but she gave it enough force to mirror the irritation that she felt festering inside.

~X~

Her hair was still damp when she made it downstairs for dinner. Everyone was already seated at the dinner table, their plates brimming with food, but their mouths busy with conversation. Kristoff was making moon eyes at Elsa, and sucking up to her by telling her how amazing her mash potatoes were. And Anna's parents and Kai were going on about the Aarondale Rodeo events they'd entered.

"…there's just no way around it," her father was saying. "We'll probably have to pull out this year."

"The breakaway and the calf roping events are a loss," Kai added. "We had Merida and Hans lined up for those, but he quit, and the girl's competing for our rival this year. We can't use you, Robert. Your hand hasn't healed enough to take his place. And Jenn, here, hasn't completed in ages."

At the other side of the table, Kristoff was looking at Elsa like she was the most fascinating creature he'd ever come across.

"Jane will probably come up next weekend," Elsa was explaining. "She's busy helping Zan move his things into our place."

"Amazing," he gushed over whatever else it was that Elsa had told him before Anna had walked in. "If I had a nice place in the city like you, or an empty mansion on the other side of town, this is probably the last place you'd find me."

He smiled widely, but Elsa looked uneasy, and it was clear that she didn't like where Kristoff was leading the conversation. But it gave Anna pause as she realized for the very first time that Elsa didn't have any noteworthy reason to stay at their farm like she did back when she was a kid. Before she went off to college it made sense for her to stay with them; a minor girl left alone in a big house without her folks just seemed to be asking for trouble. But once she went away for school and got her own place?

Anna quietly slipped into the empty seat across from Elsa, nervously stealing a glance her way before she reached across the table for the potatoes. Her mother looked in her direction and gave a disapproving shake of her head.

"You should have dried your hair first, Anna. You don't tie up wet hair," her mother said as Anna plopped a large scoop of mash potatoes on her plate.

She set down the serving spoon and self-consciously smoothed her hands over her bangs. Her hair was fixed into messy braids that had left wet spots on her shirt. Pressed for time, she hadn't even bothered to run a hairbrush through it.

"My hair dryer broke," Anna replied meekly, well aware that Kristoff and Elsa were watching her now. Kristoff looked like he wanted to bust a gut laughing, his chest trembling as he bit back his laughter. But Elsa — Anna had no idea what Elsa was thinking behind those crisp azure eyes.

"Then you should have left it alone," her mother lectured. "You'll get sick if you don't let your hair dry out properly."

"I'll be fine," she insisted, hoping her mother would leave it alone. It was bad enough that Elsa was still gazing at her with an expression that Anna just couldn't decrypt, but the bundle of nerves in the pit of her stomach only seemed to intensify with the duration of her stare.

"No, you need to take out those braids."

"But, ma—"

"Take 'em out."

With a heavy and shuddering sigh, Anna slowly untied and unbraided her hair. Had it still been completely wet it would have simply draped limply over her shoulders, but the outer layer had already begun to dry so it expanded into puffy waves over the inner wet layer. Kristoff snorted loudly, and bolted out of his chair, disappearing into the kitchen, and within a heartbeat he could be heard exploding into a fit of hysterical laughter.

All eyes were on her now. Elsa was now hunched over her food, her head hung down and her eyes darting between Anna's hair and her mostly untouched dinner. She had her hand over her mouth, but Anna had not missed the desperate way Elsa had pursed her lips tightly together as she struggled to downturn the corners of her mouth. Even her father and Kai had paused and stared, and Anna wondered if she wished it hard enough, would it be possible to will herself to disappear into the wallpaper on the wall behind her.

Kristoff's cackle from the kitchen was the only sound that swelled throughout the house, and after a long stern pause her mother finally broke into a laugh, quickly followed by everyone else at the table.

"I'm sorry, baby," her mother said between teary laughter. "I think we can make an exception this one time. Go ahead and tie it back up."

Anna nodded and pushed out of her chair, making her way to the kitchen. Kristoff stood leaning against the island counter, his laugher settling down, only to burst into a second wind when he saw her come in. Anna grit her teeth and slammed her fist into his stomach, sending him doubling over, groaning and laughing all at once.

"You're not helping," Anna muttered, and Kristoff wiped the tears from his eyes as his laughter finally died off.

"Let's just call us even, then," he replied, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

She tried hitting him again, but this time he was ready for her, and easily blocked her fist. But Anna was already expecting he would and quickly wrapped her other arm around his neck and pulled him down into a chokehold. That's when they heard her clear her throat.

Kristoff and Anna turned to find Elsa in the kitchen with them, staring wide eyed and tight-lipped with her arms crossed over her chest. Anna quickly let go, and Kristoff made a not-so-nonchalant attempted to comb back his ruffled hair with his fingers.

"E-Elsa," he stuttered. "Is there something I cou-"

"Uncle Robert is asking for you, Kristoff," Elsa announced before Kristoff could finish, her unexpressive stare quickly dissolving any attempts on his part to be charming.

"Yes," he mumbled. "I should probably go, then." He socked Anna playfully before he sauntered off, ignoring Anna's pleading eyes, silently begging him to stay. Kristoff turned back just before he pushed open the swing door to the dining room, completely out of Elsa's line of sight, and mouthed, 'Be nice!' to Anna before he slipped away.

Anna shifted uncomfortably. She wasn't sure whether she was angry or nervous around Elsa. It seemed that with every slight shift in the wind her mood flitted from one to the next, like a pinball slapped endlessly between pins, without hope of a "game over". One moment she couldn't bear the sight of her, and in the next she just wanted to talk to her and figure her out. And right now she just needed to understand.

But how do I talk to her? Where do I even start?

Both stared wordlessly at each other. The sharpness in Elsa's eyes had softened and the tension in her body had eased. Anna found it a little easier to breath around her, but the words still eluded her.

Just say something.

She licked her dry lips and opened her mouth to speak, but as she did so Elsa brushed past her and grabbed a plate of foil-wrapped corn from the countertop. She hadn't managed to voice more than a mangled "I", but Elsa's back was already turned to her and starting back toward the dining room.

"E-Elsa, wait!" Anna choked out, lunging forward and taking hold of Elsa's wrist. But she pulled harder than intended and the plate tipped in Elsa's hands, sending foils of corn flying across the kitchen floor. Everything appeared to happen in slow motion to Anna, even when the plastic plate slipped from Elsa's hands and clanked and bobbled in circles on the floor tiles.

Instead of sputtering with apologies and scrambling to pick up the corn like she normally would, Anna couldn't seem to move. She stood behind Elsa, pressed behind her like a glove and her hand remained fixed around her slender wrist. Elsa hadn't moved either.

It struck her how small Elsa was. Slender hips and a waistline that put Anna to shame. Wrists so petite that Anna's hand easily circled closed around them. And she was soft, quite the opposite to Anna's rough hands. They were about the same height though, Elsa being only slightly taller, but it couldn't have been more than an inch in difference. That she smelled quite nice was of no surprise to Anna, it was sweet and flowery, but nothing like the overpowering perfumes her mother wore on special occasions. And she could still smell the hay off her hair and clothes, like breathing in summer in a well of spring.

Elsa's back fit nicely against Anna's chest and her skin felt velvety smooth. Perhaps that would explain what happened next. With her fingers still enclosed around Elsa's wrist, Anna slowly slid her hand over her cousin's, expanding her rough and scratched fingers around the contours of that delicate hand; her palm and fingers exploring and caressing Elsa's exquisitely soft skin. Lined up as they were, she noticed how similar in size their hands were, and yet the contrast was night and day.

Elsa gasped softly, and Anna froze before sheepishly pulling her hand away and stumbling several steps back. She considered what to say; slip of the hand? Bad joke? Payback for earlier? But nothing could explain the breathlessness she felt or the drumming in her chest, and she was certain that anything that came out of her mouth would sound like a lie.

She braced herself for Elsa's cold words and haughty stare, but her cousin said nothing. Keeping her back to Anna, Elsa grabbed a cloth from the counter before she crouched down and picked up the fallen plate, and quickly dusted it off. It was when Elsa reached for the first foil of corn that Anna scrambled over to help her. And that's when she noticed her face.

Elsa's cheeks were flushed brightly and she looked quite flustered. She'd never seen that expression on her face before; not that she could recall. As the two of them silently picked up the corn, Elsa avoided Anna's eyes, and Anna was suddenly quite embarrassed for acting as she did, whatever her unspoken motives may have been.

"About what just happened," Anna started to say as they stood up. "I know it looked like I was trying to pay you back-for earlier. And I just, just wanted you to know-"

"It's okay," Elsa cut her off.

"But it's really not. I-"

"I'm sorry."

The last thing Anna expected was an apology. She didn't know what to say, her tongue had quite suddenly turned to mush in her mouth, and she felt like that tongue-tied freshman girl from all those many years ago.

"I shouldn't have laughed," Elsa explained. "I didn't mean to embarrass you. We shouldn't have embarrassed you."

"Oh."

So not about the kiss.

"I love your mom, she's amazing. And I'm sure she didn't mean to put you on that spot like that," Elsa went on. "My mother is never direct like that. She just gets mean and passive aggressive, making snide remarks and masking them with well-intended concern."

Elsa rolled her eyes and chuckled at her last remark, but the laugh was forced, and Anna got her first real glimpse of her perfect cousin. And she wasn't perfect at all. She wasn't the flawlessly self-assured goddess on a pedestal that everyone made her out to be.

And for some reason that made her pulse beat faster.

~X~

They hasn't said much after that. Anna had re-braided her hair and returned to dinner, only half listening as Kai and her parents agreed to have Kristoff take over for Han's events in the Aarondale rodeo. She stole glances at Elsa, never realizing that when she wasn't looking, Elsa was stealing glances in her direction as well.

"What's going on between you two?" Kristoff pried days later as they gathered their gear in the stables. "Don't think that I didn't notice those death rays you were shooting at her with your eyes the other day."

"You're imagining things."

"Come on," Kristoff pressed on, grabbing her by the hips. "This is me you're talking to, Anna. Just what did you say to her?"

"It's nothing."

"You say that, but it doesn't feel like nothing. Elsa's been pretty weird too."

Anna groaned loudly and slapped his hands away.

"Then go and ask Elsa, and stop nagging me, woman!" She draped rope over her shoulder and pulled her cap on over her head as she walked off, leaving him behind.

Kristoff glowered at Anna and securely tucked the horse saddle under his arm before he trotted after her.

"Woman," he muttered loud enough for her to hear. "You really need to stop calling me that."

Without looking back, Anna replied in a voice loud enough to be heard all the way to the house, "Not while you keep getting your panties in a bunch."

They practiced for several hours every day of that week. Kristoff wasn't as good as Hans was with calf roping. He had excellent form and aim with the rope, but he just couldn't nail the leg knots. Half of the time he couldn't keep the calf down, and when he did succeed he was either too slow, or the knots gave way and the calf was back up on its feet before he made it back to his horse. He was averaging eleven seconds.

On the third day of practice Kai and Anna's mother joined them. Kristoff had the calf on the ground and was struggling to get the rope around its legs when Anna's mother nudged him aside.

"Watch closely," she instructed and briskly looped the rope around the first leg and then the other two before securing the knot.

"You make it look so easy, Jenn," Kristoff remarked, looking embarrassed.

She undid the knot and the calf bucked up to its feet and trotted to the water bin.

"The problem is in the takedown," Jenn explained as she stood and dusted off the knees of her jeans. "You need to do it quick, in one fell swoop. Less stress on the calf, and easier on you."

Jenn turned to her daughter and called her over.

"Yes, Ma'am?"

"I want you to run it through one time for him." Jenn handed Anna the rope and Anna took it without question, removing her cap and tucking it into her back pocket.

Once Anna was saddled on the horse and in position she readied her lasso, then Kai signaled and released another calf from the corral. There wasn't a trace of doubt or apprehension in her eyes when she bolted on her horse after him, swinging the rope on high. Almost within a blink of an eye, she released, lassoed, and dismounted, and was rushing like wildfire toward the calf. Her hands were ready when she reached him and, taking him by his neck and belly, lifted and smoothly plopped him on his side. It all occurred in a series of steps but Anna made it look like one fluid motion when she bound the calf's front right leg to the hind legs and knotted them off.

"Six point eight seconds," Jenn called out as she clicked on the stop watch.

If Anna's mother made it look easy, Anna made it look effortless.

Kristoff rubbed the back of his neck, and Anna realized that he was probably mortified. They'd been friends for too long for her not to see that.

"Don't feel too bad," she told him, patting him on the shoulder. "I've been doing this for a lot longer. I started competing in the junior rodeo when I was six, remember? It was sheep and goats back then, but the principles were the same."

"I just don't get why I have to do it when you're clearly so much better," Kristoff grumbled.

"It's the men's competition, stupid. And besides, I already told all of you last year that I wouldn't be competing anymore."

She'd told them last summer that her heart just wasn't in it anymore, but more than that she found the whole thing to be pretty cruel. Not that she would ever tell her father that.

Kristoff nodded, resigned to his post.

Looking over his shoulder, Anna noticed Elsa sitting up on the corral fence next to Kai. She hasn't seen her arrive, and wondered how long she'd been up there watching them. Kai was telling her something but Elsa look distracted as she looked in Anna and Kristoff's direction. Their eyes met and Anna felt a wave of heat spread over her ears and up her neck. She tore her eyes away, but not for long before she was drawn back to them, tucking a stray strand of her hair behind her ears as she shyly looked back.

There was something inviting in Elsa's face, like it was aglow with warm light. Her expression hadn't changed much from before, and yet the flecks in her eyes glinted brightly. Something of a paradox, Elsa was spring incarnate in an icy tundra.

"You can't tell me nothing's going on," Kristoff leaned in and whispered. A chill crawled up her back, but looking into his eyes, Anna could clearly see that his suspicions were nowhere near the truth. Although, in truth, Anna herself did not know what was going on either.

"Don't be a busy body," she whispered back before hurrying over to untie the calf.

The young animal sprung up to its feet and Anna tenderly rubbed the wavy tuft of hair on his head and quickly dusted him. She could already hear her mother resume her instruction with Kristoff

"Sorry, little Olaf," Anna softly told the calf before patting him on the rear and ushering him back into the Corral, next to where Elsa now stood, still watching her.

Does she ever not look beautiful?

"I'll be right back," Anna called out to her mother, as she walked past Elsa, catching a trace of her scent. "I need to get some water."

But her mother was busy with her lesson, and barely managed a nod in acknowledgment.

Anna jogged back to the stables, straight to water cooler, and served herself in one of the clean tin cups on the table. At least they were clean enough. She took a long gulp and rinsed her hands with the water that remained in the cup, rubbing her wet hands together and pressing them against her hot cheeks. Anna was so focused on cooling herself down that she didn't hear Elsa follow her into the stables and didn't realize she was there with her until she pulled her hands from her face.

When Anna looked up at her it surprised to find the corners of Elsa's mouth slightly turned upwards, it was so subtle, and yet it was like an explosion of sunlight on her face.

"T-The cup's aren't very clean," she sputtered, imagining that her cousin had also come looking for water. But she didn't appear interested in anything but Anna.

"I heard you competed," Elsa said. "But this is the first time I've ever seen you perform. You're quite good."

Anna nodded slowly.

"My father used to brag about you," she went on. "I think he was always a little envious that your dad got his 'little cowboy' with you. They were always so competitive with each other as boys."

Anna waited for the punchline, wondering if perhaps this was another 'farmer girl' joke, but Elsa's warm expression never changed.

"The twins in our family have always been pretty competitive," Anna replied timidly. "Do you remember the bo—"

"—bowling party for Uncle Adam and Uncle Eric?" Elsa finished for her.

"The holes in the ceiling," they said in unison this time, and Anna felt her tension slip away, feeling quite normal around her cousin for once.

You say that but…

"You have a little something on your face," Elsa said as she leaned forward, slowly reaching her hand to Anna's face. Her fingers cupped around Anna's cheek as her thumb tenderly rubbed a small spot along her cheekbone, and her touch sent a spark down Anna's spine.

…it doesn't feel like nothing.

Elsa took a step closer, completely inside Anna's personal space now. The soft rhythmic sound of her breathing, the cool touch of her hand, the electrifying hue of her eyes, and her sweet perfume captivated her senses. Anna was surrounded by spring.

"I think it's dirt," Elsa murmured taking her own thumb against her mouth and licking it wet. And Anna remembered what her mouth tasted like and how her lips throbbed as her cousin nipped and suckled. Hot, and wet, and aching.

Elsa pressed her wet thumb against the small patch of dried dirt on Anna face, and delicately rubbed it off. When she pulled her hand away, Anna's heart was already climbing up her chest.

You can't tell me nothing's going on.

Author's Note: I lied. This is not the last chapter after all. lol.