I'm sorry, I'm sorry everyone but I just couldn't let it all fall together perfectly right at the start…but I promise that things won't go awry for long!
Best Thing In the World 4: Leaving Dodge
After finishing his shave, Matt finished dressing, told Kitty he loved her and then headed back to the jail before Chester awoke. He had already been caught coming in early once by the other man and had to make up a cracker jack of a story about how he had risen early and taken a little walk. The good thing was that Chester seemed to believe it and accept it as truth. However, Kitty's question didn't leave his mind especially the one that almost caused him to cut his own neck with his razor. Could she be? Could Kitty be pregnant and hiding the fact from him? He didn't think that she would hide something like that from him but maybe she was scared and using her line of questioning to feel him out before coming out and telling him the truth. He'd have to be patient he supposed and just wait for her to come out on her own.
After Matt left that morning, Kitty got up and stripped the sheets from the bed. She had made the decision to go to New Orleans and she didn't want to waste any time in getting there. However she was going to have to come up with a story to tell to Matt so that he didn't get suspicious of her motives, especially after her stupid questions this morning.
She dressed and was just headed down to the livery to rent a buck board when she met Doc. "Oh good morning Kitty!" he said hailing her from the other side of the street.
He walked up along side her and quietly said to her, "How's our little mother this morning?"
Kitty gave him a smoldering look before replying. "I'm leaving Doc."
"Leaving! Why when I get my hands on that big bafoon of a Marshal, I'm gonna twist his ear." Doc said.
"No, this has nothing, well ok a little to do with Matt but the leaving is of my own choice." Kitty said defiantly.
"You didn't tell Matt did you." Doc said, knowing from the look on her face that she hadn't. "Do you think that's a good idea honey?" He took her by the arm and began to lead her towards his office.
Once there, he sat her down in his desk chair and gave her a stern look, making her feel like a small child who had gotten her hand caught in the proverbial cookie jar. "Kitty, you can't just run off like this and not tell Matt. Just what do you have planned anyway, young lady?"
Kitty looked at Doc and then down at the floor. "I just need to get way Doc. I need time to think, to sort out my own thoughts and feelings without Matt around muddlin' me up."
"Well don't you think you should at least tell him? I mean Kitty, if you take off, it's not going to be long and your going to showing and you won't be able to keep that little one a secret any longer. Besides what are you going to tell Matt?"
"I know Doc. I don't plan to be gone that long, maybe a month or so. I'm going to tell Matt that I'm going to my cousin Charlotte's in New Orleans, which is where I'll be."
Doc just shook his head, Kitty had her mind made up and nothing he said was going to change her mind at all. "Well let me drive you out to the depot then."
By that afternoon, Kitty had written a note to Matt, packed her things and she was now seated on the train waiting for it to depart. She had tears running down her face and she still wasn't sure if she was doing the right thing but she would sure enough know.
Matt let Kitty's question from that morning dog him all day and it was slowly affecting his mood. Looking at the clock he was that it was a quarter after four, the town was quiet and he decided that he would go over and see if he could ruin a game of soiltare for Kitty. She hated it when he would stand at her shoulder and tell her which plays to make and it was the main reason that he did it. That and the fact that she had a pretty neck and it always gave him a great view of that particular part of her anatomy.
Picking up his hat and buckling on his gun belt he walked across Front Street and stepped up to the batwing doors of the Long Branch. There he paused and scanned the empty bar room all for Sam who was busy wiping down glasses behind the bar. He stepped through the door and up to the bar before saying, "Afternoon Sam, is Kitty around?"
Sam looked up at him and then said, "Oh, hello Marshal. No, Miss Kitty, left on the train this afternoon. I thought you knew. Doctor Adams drove her out there."
Matt smiled at the bar keep and said, "Uh, no. I guess I didn't know that she was leaving. I'll-I'll just talk to Doc about it.
A few minutes later Matt was in Doc's office but the good doctor was no where to be found so he sat down at his desk and it was there that he found the note addressed to him. He knew it was from Kitty, he could tell just from the handwriting on the front. He slowly opened the envelope and was assaulted by the scent of Kitty's perfume. "Where in the world could she have gone?" he said out loud to himself.
He unfolded the paper and read the words that Kitty had written. Calmed he was glad to read that she had just went to her cousin Charlottes to do a little shopping and to help her prepare for her baby. There that word was again, baby. Just what was she hiding from him? Kitty had never said anything before about her cousin having a baby, he was sure of it, and her previous shopping trips she was always gone for a week or two, not a whole month and even if her cousin was having a baby it certainly wouldn't take a whole month to prepare for it, yet again Matt thought to himself, hadn't one of Kitty's cousins just had a baby a couple of months ago? Something was going on, Matt was sure of it, he just wished that Kitty was around to answer some question.
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Two days later Kitty arrived at her cousin's grand home in New Orleans and it made her think that she was glad that she didn't own something so large. When she bought a home for herself and her baby it wasn't going to be grand, it was going to be homey. Kitty smiled at the thought, too bad it would be a month before she could even begin to look, that was unless she cut her trip short and went back to Dodge right away.
After a fitful nights rest, Kitty went down stairs to be joyfully greeted again by her cousin Charlotte. "Oh Kitty, it is so good to see you again!" the other woman said, a huge smile on her face.
"It's good to see you too Charlotte." Kitty said returning the hug. Then looking about she said, "Where are the children?"
"Oh they're still sleeping. The nanny will get them up later." Charlotte said.
"Nanny?" Kitty asked. "I thought you were going to do most of the raising of your own children."
"I do, but with the new business that Ian and I are starting it is hard for me to be both places at once. Now, enough about me, tell me what's going on in Dodge." Charlotte said placing a cup of tea in front of Kitty and a cup of coffee in front of herself. At Kitty's questioning look at the tea, she said, "It's better for the baby and it will help with the sickness."
"How did you know about the sickness?" Kitty asked, awed at her cousins ability to know what was going on with just a look at her.
"Honey, I've had two babies, I know a thing or two about how you feel right now." Charlotte said.
Kitty smiled at her cousin. "So how did you tell Ian?"
"So back to what's going on in Dodge. How's that Marshal of yours?"
"Fine I guess." Kitty said, trying to dismiss her cousins questions about Dodge quickly.
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Well I haven't seen him since I left." Kitty said. She hadn't told her cousin that Matt didn't know what was going on. But something must have given her away because her cousin cornered her with her next question.
"Kitty, didn't you tell Matt?"
If there was anyone in the world that Kitty couldn't lie to it was Charlotte and now was no different than any other time. "No."
"Don't you think he deserves to know?" Charlotte asked, taking a sip of her coffee.
"I'm sure he does but I don't think that he is going to be happy." Kitty said, taking a sip of the retched tea. She longed for a cup of coffee.
"What says that he won't be happy? Children are a beautiful thing Kitty." Charlotte said, reaching over and patting Kitty on the hand.
"Because he loves his job and his badge and if he finds out about this baby then he'll have to give them up to take care of me and the-the baby." Kitty said, tears beginning to flow.
"How do you know all this?" Charlotte asked.
Kitty told her cousin the story about asking Matt the questions the morning she left all the while crying and taking small sips of the awful tea that her cousin had placed before her.
When she finished telling the story Charlotte looked at her, square in the eye, "Kitty, you have got to go back to Dodge."
"No! I can't! I will not be the reason for Matt giving up what he loves."
"Well it certainly sounds like he is willing to give it up if the need arises."
"Well he thought I was being hypothetical!" Kitty nearly screamed. Then lying her head down she began to cry again. She had never cried so much in her life but it just seemed that the tears wouldn't stop falling. What was she doing, just what was she doing?
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Back in Dodge, Matt was in a foul mood. When Doc came back he was tight lipped and wouldn't tell Matt a thing about why Kitty had left in such an all fired hurry to go to New Orleans. "Why can't ya tell me Doc!?"
"It isn't my place Matt, it's Kitty's." Doc said. He hated to see the young marshal so torn up inside but it was Kitty's place to tell him what was going on not his.
Leaving Doc's office after not finding many answers, Matt left and forlornly walked back to his office. Just what on earth was going on? What was Kitty hiding from him and what did it have to do with all the questions she had asked that morning.
