Author's Note: The beginning of the end. I believe, at this point, that I will end this at (at the most) 15 chapters. That is, if my muse doesn't decide to throw in anything else to catch me off-guard. So this chapter puts me firmly over the halfway point. This chapter is the trigger for the change I'm making…

Shouts started ringing out in the street. Greetings. Good cheer.

Everyone else was living daily life.

Like nothing had happened.

Like they didn't care.

They really didn't care.

Nobody did.

That fact was becoming painfully clear. Myra couldn't understand it. How was it right that a man could die so alone?

No, Hank wasn't a great man.

Sometimes he wasn't even a good man.

But he wasn't evil.

There are so many things Hank could have done when she'd left. Things that would have been legal. Would have been his right as he held her contract – torn or not. Things that he didn't do.

Yes, he'd held a gun to her head. He wasn't going to shoot. He was trying to scare her. Trying to make her see his pain. Knowing she cared. That it could make her go back. That she never could shake him.

"Ahem." Horace cleared his throat, cutting through her melancholy thoughts.

Myra straightened, gathering her shawl about her. In total silence she rose and crossed the room. Not letting her gaze drift from Horace's. Pleading with her heart that he would see. Understand. This time he had to. He was the one person that knew at least part of her past with Hank.

"I don't understand." His words were the last she wanted to hear.

Hope drained from her soul, her eyes drifting toward Hank. Didn't anyone know that it was wrong to abandon any soul caught between life and death? Couldn't Horace, of all people, understand why she cared? Why she had to do this? "I guess I can't expect you to."

"I'll never forgive him. And you shouldn't either." There was hardness in Horace's eyes. One that she'd first seen when he'd purchased the gun. Hardness that she hadn't known his soul could possess.

She didn't like it. This wasn't Horace. It was just the lingering anger, fear. That excuse was getting harder to swallow. To believe. She thought she knew him. Could she have been so wrong? She had to try. Again. To make him see her heart. Like he had before. That's all he needed to see, "I gotta do what I feel."

"Everybody in town saw Hank try to kill you. Now you're at his side night and day? You're making me look like a fool!"

Why hadn't she seen it before? This selfish side of him? Couldn't he see that this wasn't about making him look like a fool? A man lay dying just a few feet away and all he cared about was what the town thought? Her heart clenched, he wasn't even trying to see it from her way. To ask her with an open heart why. "I'm sorry you see it that way."

Horace held her hands tight, tighter than felt necessary. There was little tenderness in his voice when the ultimatum came. "If you love me. You won't stay."

Her heart ripped in that moment. Was he really suggesting that she didn't love him? She'd given up everything for him. Literally. Left her clothes lying in the street. Her jewels. Everything.

Myra exhaled the breath she'd been holding, looking toward the bed. What difference did it make if she stayed? Hank was dying. It wasn't like she was choosing to go back to him. Back to the saloon. This was about something so much more than what direction her life took. This was about her soul. Doing what was right.

She had to make him see. Somehow. "I can't let a man die alone. I wouldn't be able to live with myself!" It was true. If she left now and Hank died. He would be alone.

It was clear he didn't understand. She couldn't watch the way Horace's face contorted into disgust. Disgust meant for her actions. He'd never looked at her like that, and it cut through her. She turned away, ready to return to Hank's side.

Horace grabbed her shoulder and turned her back toward him. Once again his face was filled with the pride he'd had when he'd put on that gun. He felt himself a bigger man now. She'd never expected to ever hear his next thoughts, "I can't let you."

Let her? She needed his permission? He didn't mean it that way. Right? "What?"

"I am ordering you not to go."

Myra felt the world crumble around her. He was ordering her. Ordering her.

Knowing what she'd given up?

The life she'd once led?

"If you tell me what to do and what not to do, you are no better than Hank! I won't live like that again!" She didn't know where the strength came from to say those words. When she felt like crumbling into a heap on the floor. No longer could she worry about hurting his feelings. She had to stand up for herself.

The way she'd thought he always would.

"I've never been my own person 'til now. Part of why I love you is because you let me be that. Horace, I have to make my own decisions." She'd pushed it all out in one breath. This was it. Either he'd understand, or he wouldn't. There was nothing else left to give him.

He had to understand.

"And this is one of them." She put as much force behind the words as she could, using the rest of her energy to fight off the tears. Her heart knew he didn't understand, it was clear on his face. Hope had left at his order to leave.

"If you do…then…" His voice trailed off. For a brief moment pain showed through. The heart of the man she'd fallen in love with was breaking. But the heart disappeared again behind hard eyes. "Then it's over for us."

The heady feelings of love she'd had, the hopes for their future, her image of the good and kind man Horace had been; all of it crumbled away. In shocking, painful clarity she saw Horace. Desperate for acceptance as she was. But his vision of acceptance meant something else.

A masquerade.

Acceptance not for who he was.

But who he was determined to be.

And who he was determined to be was not the man she'd fallen in love with.

Everything she'd believed Horace to be – every dream she'd had – was all a lie. A lie that wasn't meant to be one, but a lie.

Myra looked at Hank, still unmoving on the bed. Near death.

Her heart broke – she couldn't leave him. Not like this. Already she'd abandoned him once. There was no way she could abandon him in what could be the last hours of his life. Alone without a lick of support from no one.

She looked back at Horace and for a brief moment she hated him. For turning into everything she'd thought he wasn't. Then the hate disappeared into the pain of loss.

There was no more arguing.

No more discussion.

His heart wasn't open.

Maybe it never had been.

She turned away, walking back around the bed with purpose. Keeping her back straight and strong as she had when she'd left the saloon. Now was not the time to show her weakness. Her pain.

That would make it seem like she felt she was doing the wrong thing.

She knew in her heart this time she was right.

As right as she had been to walk out of the saloon.

And just as she had when she walked out of the saloon, she hid the depth of the pain she felt.

She positioned herself in the chair she'd so recently left, placing her hands in her lap. Not once did her gaze falter as Horace stared at her. Perhaps he thought she'd beg for the life he offered.

The life of looking plain.

Of blending in.

Of marriage.

Of acceptance.

But she didn't.

What she wanted was the freedom.

The freedom to choose.

No one would take that choice from her again.

Not even in the name of love.

In silence she sat until he turned and left the room.

Then she gave in. Letting the sorrow well up as she dropped her head to her hand.

She'd thought everything would be different.

So why did it now feel like it nothing had changed?