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What It Takes...
by faust
Adam had a sense of déjà vu as she turned up at the branding site. He would never forget how Melinda had ridden up and then fainted when he'd pressed the hot iron at a calf's hide: partly because her violent reaction to the smell of burnt hair and skin and the terrified animal's cry had taken him by surprise, partly because it had also filled him with some sort of guilty satisfaction that he'd been proved right.
He'd also been proved right when Melinda had tried to kiss him. Well, she actually had succeeded in kissing him, taking him by surprise—again—so that he'd kissed her back for a short moment. Yes, it had proved him right in that Melinda hadn't loved Joe, despite everything Joe had been made to believe. And it had also left him feeling guilty.
Guilty that he secretly had felt flattered that the girl had preferred him. Guilty that he hadn't anticipated what was going to happen and that he'd not prevented it. Guilty enough to just grab Hoss and make an escape to Tucson, allegedly to look for a new strain of beef.
When he'd come back, weeks later, Melinda had been nothing but a fading memory, a lingering scent of violets and bad fortune in the guestroom, and the traces of a new, sad maturity in Joe's face.
Adam cast a glance to where Hoss was welcoming their unexpected visitor. He was sure she would not faint, not from an unpleasant smell or the sight of a distressed animal. Other than Melinda, she'd grown up on the country side, and even though she surely never had participated in actual farm work, he knew her to be curious enough to have watched all work practises at some time.
Laying the hot iron down as he saw her coming over to the fire, he drew a deep breath and got up, taking her stretched-out hand. "Mylady, what brings you out here?"
She looked less peaky than she had in the past days, and her eyes were sparkling. "I'm sorry, I didn't want to interrupt your work. But I couldn't wait for tonight to give you this."
It was a small parcel, wrapped in brown paper and tied with a hemp twine. It was too light for a book, to light even for some of the home made biscuits she loved to slip him at any odd instance.
Inside, he found two tiny, white shoes. Baby shoes.
Baby shoes.
A dizzying thought overcame him. "Mylady…?"
"You're not going to faint on me, are you?"
Her face was close, very close, he clung to her for a short moment, inhaling her scent of honey and Juliet, fighting back his grip on reality.
"Adam?"
"I'm all right, I'm all right."
"Then why don't you...just kiss me?"
And he did just that.
Baby shoes... He was a lucky man, indeed.
ooOoo
Our strength grows out of our weaknesses. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson