Chapter 11 – Kittens

Weeks after the shooting, I was still struggling with my reaction to the incident that night in the saloon. For the first time in ages, I began having dreams again, and my nerves were on edge more often than not. Doralice did everything she could to help me come to terms with what had happened, but even her loving attention had little effect. None of my feelings made any sense. Roberts was nowhere near the first man I'd had to kill, and the fact that it was self-defense seemed to make no difference.

It got to makin' me so crazy that I finally had to do something about it. One afternoon I took a walk to Simon Petry's office, hopin' to find him without patients. I was in luck, and we sat and kicked everything around for a while before I brought up the reaction I was having.

"Has this been going on since the shooting?" Simon asked.

"Yeah. Every time I think I've put it behind me, somethin' happens, and it starts rattlin' around in my head all over again."

"You know there was nothing you could have done to prevent it, don't you? Roberts was just plain looking for trouble, and you and Doralice were his targets." Simon stopped for a minute before continuing. "Did you know him?"

"Nope, never even saw him in the saloon."

"Know anybody else that works out at the Bar S?"

I gave that one some thought. "I've met Stan Winston, but that's about all." Stan owned the ranch. He'd come into Maude's about a week after the burial and we talked for quite a while. Roberts had been in some minor scrapes with one or two of the other hands, and Winston hoped that being out with the herd for a while would settle things down. Obviously that hadn't happened.

"I kept lookin' for another way out, Simon, but I just couldn't find one. Then Doralice walked out of her office, and I knew . . . "

"How it was going to end?" Simon asked.

"More or less."

"He had no intention of letting you live, no matter what you did." Simon was right, but that still didn't make me feel any better. "And once you were eliminated . . . "

I knew what would have happened then, too. And I shuddered to think what he would have done to Doralice. I did what I had to do, and it was the only thing I could do.

"You have nothing to feel guilty about, Bart. Dale Roberts was responsible for his own death. Besides your own life, you had a wife to protect."

Maybe that was it, what was bothering me about this whole thing. I had a wife to protect. There was somebody besides Bart Maverick in the world that I was responsible for, and it was my job to keep her safe. I'd promised to do that when I married her, and I had to think about her first, from now on.

It was a big job I'd taken on, and I was just now beginning to realize it. I held another person's life in my hands, a person that I loved more than anything, and I'd come real close to losing her. I couldn't let that happen, no matter what I had to do. For the rest of my life.

"You alright?" I heard Simon ask.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think I might be. Thanks, Simon, for listening. I gotta go."

We shook hands, and I hurried down to the saloon. Doralice had gone in early this afternoon and was busy with paperwork when I got there. I didn't let that stop me . . . I closed her office door behind me and pulled her up out of her chair and into my arms. "I love you," I murmured into her ear. "And I promise to always protect you." I kissed her then, over and over, and she kissed me back.

"You always have," came her answer. "And I know you always will."

XXXXXXXX

The haze of guilt and doubt that had been plaguing me began to lift, and it wasn't long before I felt like myself again. Another fall came and went and we started to head towards winter, and everything settled back down into a pleasant routine. The new batch of chickens grew and thrived, and the only thing we were missing was a chick of our own.

Bret and Ginny were stuck in San Francisco and couldn't make it home for Christmas, and Cristian was trying a big case in Houston. Maude, of course, was with him, but we closed the saloon the same days she had last year and prepared to join Pappy, Ben and Lily Mae out at the mansion for Christmas Eve. It was not to be, as all three turned up at the last minute with terrible colds, and the decision was made to stay home.

Actually, it was kinda nice to be alone on Christmas Eve. Doralice, of course, had done her usual decorating and I'd managed to find us a tree, a little smaller than last year but just as pretty. Miss Lucy was all grown up and had her first litter of kittens, four in all, two girls and two boys. One of the boys looked just like his mama, and the other one was solid brown; the girls were both calicoes. Their eyes had just opened, and little tiny meows could be heard everywhere.

On our second Christmas I got up early and made coffee, but when I took a cup of it to my wife, she took one whiff and turned green. "I wonder if you've caught a cold from Lily Mae?" I asked her. She'd been out to visit with Lily one day earlier in the week, and I thought she'd probably brought it back with her. Doralice gave me an odd smile and shook her head.

"I don't think so," she replied, but said nothing further.

"How about some tea instead?"

"That would be delightful." Once the tea was made I brought her a cup and her Christmas present, and she waited to unwrap it until she'd finished the tea. It was a gold bracelet with a heart dangling from it that matched her necklace, and she put it on right away. "It's so beautiful," she told me as she kissed my cheek, and looked at me rather shyly. "I couldn't wrap yours."

"Goodness, what did you do, buy me a horse?" I kind of chuckled.

"Well, no, but I think you may have this as long as a horse." We were on the settee in the front room, with a fire in the fireplace and little meows filling the air. She snuggled closer to me before continuing. "Remember when I went out to see Lily Mae? There was a reason for the visit."

"A specific reason?"

"A very specific reason."

I was perplexed, yet curious. "Are you gonna tell me or are you gonna make me guess?"

"I don't think you could guess this. I hope you like it." She kinda smiled at me before whispering, "We're going to have a baby."

TBC