II.

"D'ye like it here, Dulcey?"

"I think that's the third time you've asked me that," Dulcey teased with a little laugh as Galen McShane followed her into the kitchen.

He halted by the doorway and drew all his limbs inward, let a frown drift across his clean-shaven face. "'Tis different, to be sure. Rough-like…unrefined."

Dulcey's smile flirted with indulgence for the slender young man whom she counted as a friend – and a good and dear one at that. Galen was understandably overwhelmed. She'd felt the same way when she'd arrived in Cimarron. It was a far ways from old and settled – and refined – Providence to this flat, barren, dusty slab of earth upon which perched a roughhewn town. Upon first sight it had been plainly discouraging – then. But not now. Now she reveled in the space, the demonstrable lack of decorum, the grit of heart among those living here. Providence, she realized, had been stifling and rigid, condescending to those lacking wealth and social status. In Cimarron City money made less of a difference, and both men and women were appreciated for their hard work. You could talk to whomever you chose; see whomever you wanted to see. Do whatever you wanted as long as you didn't break the law. The only thing she really missed was the sight of water. It was certainly available, but there was no ocean or lake within easy view like Providence. Even the air there held the very scent of water. Here there was only the all-important Cimarron River, the boundary holding back the future, and it was located some ways from town.

"It's not Providence," Dulcey nodded, trying to keep her chide gentle. She peered back into the big dining room, all clean and swept, pride swelling in her. "But it's mine. I'm in charge. I don't report to anyone. I decide the schedule, the menu…"

"Cooking and cleaning and changing the linens," Galen reproved with a quick frown. "And on a grander scale than the Danforth house, too." He straightened, and then rested his weight on his right leg – the left was weaker, and he now limped. An accident, he'd said, falling off a ladder while trimming bushes, one that had also broken his hand; it was dark and somewhat misshapen but Dulcey was glad it was still useable. For Galen, use of his limbs was vital to his livelihood. Unless he had now changed his mind about his work – and source of income…

"It's somewhat the same kind of work," Dulcey conceded but refused to be annoyed. "But it's mine, Galen. I had so little back in that big house. Not even a life to call my own. No time for anything but work. Here I can do my own shopping, and watch the sun rise – or set. I can take some time to read if I want. I can be a part of this town, have friends and neighbors. I know so many people here – good people."

"And what of them?" he asked, gesturing toward the bar where a line of men stood drinking. "All those men wearing guns and ready to kill at a moment."

"It's not like that…"

"Isn't it?" He stepped over to her, concern etching his features. "Who keeps you safe, Dulcey?"

"There is law here, Galen." She moved to a cupboard, withdrew a stack of folded napkins for tomorrow's use. "Men follow it, the same as anywhere else." Especially here, she thought, with a U. S. Marshal headquartered right in town. And the violence, well, Cimarron flourished in spite of the gunfire.

"'Tis no place for ye," Galen told her, taking the linen from her.

"It sounds like you're asking me to go back," Dulcey observed, closing the cupboard door.

"Would you?" he asked, almost too eagerly.

"And give up all this?" She shook her head, and then hesitated a little. "You know I didn't like it, Galen, not after…" For a moment the dark memory crowded her, but she mentally forced it away. "And then when my mother died, some part of me died too. All of a sudden that place was in some ways too big – yet in another way not big enough. It choked me, being alone and without a future…"

She shook her head and let it go – she was still satisfied with her decision to leave, and was proud of the results of her hard work. The Inn was profitable and she was happy. Surely Galen could see that. "Are you going back?" she asked, changing the subject, however subtly.

Galen shrugged reflectively. "The further I go the less I see of a need for a good gardener. All me life I've done naught else. I thought perhaps 'twould change, but…"

"Maybe farther west," Dulcey suggested. "On the coast. San Francisco…"

"Right now," he said, his gaze coming back onto her and his smile spilling fresh warmth, " 'tis only so good to see a friendly face and hear a familiar voice full of kind words. Ah, Dulcey, I've missed you." Then he sighed heavily. "You should know…Mr. Emery passed on these three months past."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she declared with a little tug in her heart – Danforth House had been her home once, after all. And her employer had always been kind to the entire household staff. "Will his brother be taking over the shipping business then?"

"Not exactly. Mr. Franklin, he'd be back…it's been mostly left to him."

The memory loomed back up over her. Franklin Danforth, Mr. Emery's only son, now master of the house… Franklin Danforth, returned from his Grand Tour of Europe to take his father's place. Though he would never be the man his father was – never…

"Is that why you left?" she asked Galen softly.

"Partly," he admitted. His dark eyes clouded quickly, and deep anguish tore through his gaze.

"Galen." Dulcey touched his arm with concern. "What is it?"

"Marry me," he blurted out.

"What?" Dulcey almost laughed but then caught herself. His look hadn't changed; he was completely serious. "Galen…no – I-" she stuttered. No, not marriage, she didn't like him in that way – she didn't love him. Not him…

He seized her hand. "We'll go to San Francisco. I'll find work. You can open another place. Better than this one. It used to be special 'tween us…"

"No." Dulcey firmly drew her hand away and stepped out of reach, fumbled with the ties of her apron and drew it off. "I – that's not what I want."

"We always talked about it." Galen stepped around so he could face her. "Remember our dreams? Remember what we said to each other?"

"A lot has changed," Dulcey told him gently, slipping around to hang the apron up on a wall peg. "There's been months and many, many miles…"

"It can be changed back."

"No…"

"It can," he insisted. He took her hand again, his black eyes searching hers. "Do you not love the beauty of Providence more? What is this place but dust and dreariness – it's grayed your heart."

"No, you don't understand," Dulcey insisted, trying to stay her growing irritation at his insistence. "I lived there, Galen, but it wasn't really my home. I just existed there. I don't have anything to go back there for. Nothing there was truly mine."

"I was…"

"Galen…" she protested softly and once again withdrew her hand from his grasp. Her gaze traveled back out over the room, her heart wrangling inside of her at the sudden, heaped-upon attention.

Galen folded his arms, a realization glinting in his eyes. "There's someone else."

"No." Yes, there's someone else…but I can't tell you… "I like it here, Galen," Dulcey told him. The Wayfarer's was my father's, and because of that it's special to me. And I've friends…"

Movement out of the corner of her eye made her pause. Jim, swinging back through the front doors, skirting the bar patrons as he headed toward his office, his gaze traveling about and finding her. He paused and went for a smile that promptly slid off as Galen stepped into place behind her.

"Him?" Galen's envious tone cut across her. "Is he your friend?"

"Yes," Dulcey nodded. Yes, that…and more.

Her hand stole to the necklace about her neck, fingers brushing the smooth moonstone – his gift to her. Jim stood silently watching, assessing, noticing everything in that way of his. Jim, oddly restrained toward her since Galen's arrival, though Dulcey knew he had to be curious. After all they were…well, they had a relationship, however unspoken between them.

"He's the law," stated Galen.

"Yes," Dulcey nodded without turning around.

"A man without a future."

"Galen, what a thing to say," Dulcey rebuked, bringing her stare back, feeling the heat sweep her cheeks. She moved out of the doorway to the work table and began to count the plates stacked there.

"Come with me, please, Dulcey," Galen tried again, the plead in his voice matching the one in his gaze. "To someplace better."

Dulcey sighed. Seeing Galen step through the doorway of the Inn this morning had completely surprised her, but his presence comforted her in a way she hadn't felt since she'd first stepped off the train here. Yet never had she expected him to bring a proposal of matrimony with his visit. They'd been close but not that…intimate. They had once spent evenings talking of their dreams and their futures, but now it seemed like a lifetime ago – and somewhat childish. This was a rough and unrefined country, and it tempered dreams. Providence was a city already some two hundred years old, but it hadn't offered her anything more than one room and eighteen hour workdays. Cimarron City, on the other hand, had given her a future, and it had given her Jim…

"Dulcey…"

Galen was looking expectantly at her, waiting for her to answer. Dulcey had never known him to be so persistent. He seemed almost driven, as if there a clock ticking away the time on him down to a dire result.

"I'm happy here, Galen," Dulcey told him softly. She picked up the bucket of dirty wash water and headed for the back door. He quickly took it from her, opened the door and tossed the water into the darkness; she heard the sharp splash as it hit the ground.

He set the bucket down on the floor and took a breath, tall and slim in the light spilling through the doorway. "'Tis a pretty evening," he commented, tipping his head up, his tone lightening to the one she had always known. "Have you never seen such stars in the sky? Strewn like diamonds they are, just waiting to be strung into a necklace and placed upon a pretty lady." He turned and smiled almost shyly at her, "You, for instance, far prettier than even the goddess Diana…"

Dulcey could not help but smile back. Dear Galen - he was a man who took joy in the beauty of life around him. There were precious few men of the same sort out here. Dreams were too often flattened by grueling work and harsh weather. Most folks could only muster up quiet modesty. And until the Outlet opened, dreams lay stacked alongside the river, slowly sinking into the muddy water's edge.

Even Jim would never even cast a glance to the evening heavens, let alone ponder it aloud in so many words. Jim was…earthy, practical, and not given to errant thoughts of poetic notions. His world was the one he currently occupied, and his future was only an arm's length away. Did he even believe in Heaven? Dulcey wondered, glancing skyward.

Beside her Galen bobbed his head and shuffled his feet. "I'm truly sorry, Dulcey. It must be the good of seeing you again that's stirred me heart and put these ideas onto me tongue. 'Twas not my intention to pain you." But again that strange sadness swept him.

"Is there something wrong?" Dulcey prodded. "Maybe I can help…"

Galen's smile hollowed but he shook his head. "Nothing that can't be set aright soon enough."

"If you've trouble…"

He patted her hand, his fingers cold, his smile fading, the look in his eyes raw and despairing in the lamplight. "Ah, you've no idea what you've asked me. It's just – oh, Dulcey – my sweet…"

And then his breath was easing over her and his lips came onto hers and held, trembling and soft, asking for something that was more than friendship but not yet love. And for a suspended moment Dulcey felt herself responding to his rush of unsteady emotion, and wanted to take away his anguish, and then she was touching him, and he was enfolding her into an embrace-

No!

No, she could not kiss Galen. She could not – Jim…

"I'm sorry," she protested, breaking off even as shame knifed her. No, what had she done? She and Jim…

He stepped back, hands clenching and unclenching in time to his breaths. "My words stand true," he whispered unapologetically. "Even if you've another with his eye on you. I'll marry you right now – anytime. Just say the word and I'll be yours."

"I'm – flattered," Dulcey managed. "I really am." She picked up the empty wash bucket. "But I…"

"Dulcey, I – there's something-"

"Galen, I don't think…"

"You need to know," he stuttered out, his voice breaking. "It's – he's…O Lord, Dulcey, forgive me-"

But then he jumped through the doorway and tore into the deep darkness of the alley, boot steps clumping quickly away.

"Galen – wait! What's wrong?" Dulcey called after him.

"Dulcey!"

Oh, not now, she inwardly moaned at Jim's call. She took a breath, forced the flush from her face. By the time she turned Jim had already stepped far into the kitchen on that noiseless footfall of his.

"Yes, Jim?" she answered, wondering if her face held any obvious traces of that kiss.

He had a coffee cup in his hand and set it down onto the work table with a bang; his startled gaze frowned after it, as if he hadn't expected it the noise. "I want to talk to you," he began slowly – almost guiltily – raising his gaze to her, "about your friend."

Here it comes, Dulcey thought with a quick flare of irritation that helped to rid her of her own lingering misdeed. The you-don't-know-what-you're-doing speech. The you're-too-young-you'll-get-hurt argument. But he cared, she knew. . She just wished he'd sound more like a friend and less of a father when he did so. Then again, he was a friend; a close one, sometimes too close and yet so often not close enough. It was uneven between them, like their relationship…

Was he jealous?

"Galen? What about him?" Dulcey thought of edging out of the range of his long reach, lest he detect the still-erratic beating of her traitorous heart. Then again, it wasn't Galen that invaded her dreams each night…

What does he want?" Jim asked in a quiet tone didn't quite mask his suspicion. But she knew it was his first measure of comparison of a man – and the work of his badge.

"He's visiting," Dulcey shrugged. "He's passing through…" Except that he kissed me – and I let him…but not again.

"To where?" Jim asked.

"West, I believe," she answered, wondering when he was going to get to his point – what had him hesitating so? "He mentioned San Francisco…" Well, she had first suggested it, but Galen hadn't exactly refuted it.

Jim nodded, brought up a hand to run a finger along the edge of the table, and shifted his weight, debating with himself. Struggling, Dulcey realized, with the responsibility of the badge covering his heart, or perhaps it was the other way around. "Do you like him?" he finally asked.

Not in the way you think, she thought, even though her heart began to pound all over again. She'd let Galen kiss her, and now Jim was standing before her, wondering if the younger man was a threat to either the law or to his own heart…

"He's a friend, Jim," she told him. "That's all. We knew each other well back in Providence. We often – confided in each other. Despite all those photographs I once showed you, it wasn't an easy life. Just perhaps more – established. So when we had a few moments together we'd talk – about the future…"

"Well, if you do like him…" he started.

Tell me not to like him, she silently implored him. Tell me what you truly feel. Tell me how it is between us and I will wait – forever. I know the job comes first, but let me in past that. Let me in, Jim, don't push me away. Please. Tell me that you-

"I've got to head to the settlement and then McQueen's ranch tomorrow," he stated. "Not sure I'll be back for any lunch."

"All right," she nodded and edged around him toward the stairway, her heart drooping just a little at the abrupt change of subject, though it was customary that he tell her his whereabouts.

"Will you be all right here?" he asked, and his gaze ran around the room as if looking for a sign of Galen's return.

No, he wasn't jealous, she realized with a jab somewhere inside her. He was suspicious.

"I expect I'll manage, Mister Crown," she returned in a voice she hadn't expected to be so frosty. So she tried to gentle it by adding, "Though if you're too late you'll miss out on my popular pie for dessert."

His response was only a half-flicker of a smile. He took a step toward her, his hand brushing over the badge on his vest as if trying to dull the shine.

"About McShane," he began again. "I just want you to know…"

What? What are you trying to say? Dulcey whirled and faced him full on. "Jim, he is only a friend," she let off with emerging exasperation. "And I would appreciate it if you would not see anything more to it than that." And it's you in my dreams, not him…

"I'm only trying to tell you-" he started but she cut him off.

"What, Jim?" she cut him off, aggravated by his reticence. Jim Crown, the door-slamming blusterer, and he couldn't get anything more past his lips other than a bunch of stammering. "Please say it and get it over with! Has he a criminal background? Is he a thief, or a horse stealer? Has he rustled cattle? Or has he come to hurt my feelings because he's – he's shiftless and lazy and whatever else you've categorized him as? That's it, isn't it?" as his flinch told her she was close to guessing his concern. It was the same old thing – he thought every man was a lurker, or an attacker-in-waiting, a no-good, lowdown liar, ready to dupe her. "Well, I am not a child, nor am I an empty-headed female, Marshal Crown," Dulcey ground out. "I can well take care of myself. So if you have something to say then say it; otherwise, leave me alone to do my work!"

Impulsively he took her hand, his hazel-eyed gaze locking fast onto her. "Be careful," he said. "Just – be careful."

And then he walked away.