A/N: This is the fourth in a series of stories inspired by Dustin Lynch's song, Cowboys and Angels. It takes place during Till Death Do Us Part, Part One.


Jesse was doing his best to stay away from the Pony Express station. It seemed almost everyone was in a foul mood. Cody was angry with Rachel and Teaspoon and Rachel and Teaspoon were angry with Cody. Buck and Noah weren't a barrel of laughs either, but those two never were. Kid and Jimmy were still gone on a run and Lou was a bundle of nerves. Jesse didn't see what the big deal was really. So what if war was reaching them. It was about time. War breaking out and being able to fight for the cause was all Jesse could think about. His brother, Frank, was coming for him soon. He could feel it. Then he would leave this place behind. Jesse never wanted to be in Rock Creek in the first place. Though the people tried, he could never think of any of them as family. That wasn't to say he wouldn't miss them when he left. He would miss Teaspoon, Rachel, and the riders, Noah included, but he would probably miss Lou the most of all.

Lou had been the first one to reach out to him here and while trying to take her horse, he discovered Lou was a girl. She fought back and didn't take any gruff from him. That made Lou the coolest person in the world, at least to him anyway. Jesse didn't get all excited by proper girls. You couldn't go fishing with them, you could ride horses with them, you couldn't do a lot of things with them without them being afraid they would get dirty. That's what he liked most about Lou. She wasn't afraid to get dirty and she knew how to shoot a gun.

If anyone were to ask him if he had ever been in love, Jesse would say, yes. He would always consider Lou to be his very first love. The moment she took care of him after Mike Stalder accidentally shot him, he felt it. Why, he even tried to woo her. He blushed to think of the letter that Teaspoon helped him write. It was more embarrassing now than it was then. Really the only thing he learned from the experience is not to follow Lou's advice. She was the one who encouraged him to tell the girl he liked how he felt about her. Of course Lou didn't know the girl was her, but her advice was terrible no matter what. Maybe when he was older, her advice would make more sense.

Jesse didn't understand why everyone was making such a fuss about Kid and Lou getting married. The war and the cause were worth getting worked up about, not getting married. Maybe he felt that way because he was young, or maybe it was just because the war was getting so close to them. Jesse couldn't understand why Kid wasn't more worked up about the cause, but then he kind of understood. Lou was quite a woman.