From Flame and Ash

by Paths Through Lavender Fields

A stormy night. An impassioned conversation that spills from the NWMP office into the deserted street outside. From the rubble of fire and ash, a love story rises like the Phoenix. When Elizabeth's heart finally begins to see with unclouded courage and honesty, there is only one heart that it fits like home. Will she be in time? A Fix-It Fic in the aftermath of the S8 finale.

10. To Keep You Safe

From Flame and Ash

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— Chapter 10 —

To Keep You Safe

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THE AFTERNOON sky was a bright, clear blue as far as the eye could see, the sun a pale ball of gold light streaming down around the mountains.

Nathan pulled Newton up, taking a moment to soak in the beauty of the landscape before him.

He enjoyed his rounds to the more far flung properties in the territory, trying to get out to them at least once a week, sometimes more if time permitted. The ranchers, farmers, and homesteaders who lived in these more remote areas had, in some ways, been quicker to accept him than the townsfolk in Hope Valley.

The Rolling K was the largest and most beautiful of the ranches in the territory, and its foreman, Gunner Christiansen, had long made him welcome. The ranch was one of Newton's favorite places to visit, probably as much because of the presence of a certain roan mare as it was because he could have all the clean oats and fresh water he wanted while he was there. The ranch hands spoiled him.

The lowing of the cattle reached him as they gradually drew nearer, approaching the barn from the rear, his eyes busy scanning the property for signs of anything unusual. He rode straight for the far side of the barn, where he knew water and a place in the shade would be readily available for his horse while he headed up to the main house to catch up with Gunner and see if anything needed his attention. Already, he could see a group of the ranch hands gathered on the porch and in front of them, someone who looked remarkably like . . .

Dr. Faith Carter?

"Whoa," he murmured, bringing Newton to a seamless halt in the shade of the big barn. Sliding off, he patted the horse's neck. "Good boy."

Leading him to a tall, thick stake driven into the ground, he wrapped the reins around it and moved around the front side of the barn, taking a hard look at two horses tied up there in a spot of shade. One was Dr. Carter's. The other he would recognize anywhere.

Sergeant.

He turned sharply on his heel, eyes scanning once more. He could see no obvious sign of Sergeant's rider anywhere, but on the ground were two sets of tracks, barely visible in the packed, dusty dirt.

One small set of adult footprints. And alongside them, another set of footprints, tiny, with six-inch strides.

Elizabeth. Jack.

He followed the tracks straight to the entrance of the barn.

. . . and there they were.

Almost thirty feet directly in front of him, mother and son stood looking up at the crowded hay loft above them, hand in hand, one in a trailing skirt, the other in a tiny pair of tan overalls.

Elizabeth's hair had been tied up, but several pieces had come undone, likely from her ride to the ranch, and now lay in graceful trails against her neck and shoulders. Two or three longer pieces wafted down her back, creating a look of artless, charming disarray against the delicate, feminine detailing of her white blouse. The rich blue of her skirt draped gracefully from a waist that was still too narrow, but with the dim light filtering into the cool, dark interior of the barn to fall in soft folds across mother and son as they stood with their backs to him, catching the burnished highlights in Elizabeth's hair and the cool tones in her son's as he stood with his hand trustingly wrapped in hers, they created such an inviting image that Nathan clenched his hands to keep from striding up behind them and pulling both into his arms.

Little Jack seemed to sense his presence for he shuffled his feet and fidgeted, then looked over his shoulder — straight at Nathan standing, tall and backlit by the sunlight, in the wide, open entrance to the barn.

Nathan saw the instant the boy recognized him for he went still as a statue, then came to life, turning his whole little body sideways, pulling on his mother's hand as he pointed at Nathan with one tiny index finger.

"'Tie," he said, then more insistently, finger jabbing the air for emphasis, "'Tie!"

Nathan started to smile at the little boy, his mind supplying what the youngster was trying to say — Mountie — but there was no time to think, only react, as the wood above Elizabeth seemed to groan and he glanced up swiftly, alarm bolting through him with a sharp jab, just in time to see an unevenly stacked hay bale that had been perched atop another at the edge of the loft begin a slow, ponderous roll off its lip.

Things seemed to shift into slow motion.

His mind went ice cold, tallying and calculating at the speed of light even as his muscles bunched and gathered with burning urgency, propelling him forward as the massive, round bulk of the hay bale began to plummet straight down toward the little boy and his mother.

He lunged fiercely for her, hands rough as they caught her shoulder, her waist, spinning her around, snatching up little Jack as he went, the force of his weight pushing Elizabeth careening backwards into the nearest stall door, her back crashing against it as the bale of falling hay exploded against the barn floor behind him — in the exact spot she had been standing mere seconds before.

Minuscule particles of hay rained down, dusting hair and shoulders with their earthy fragrance.

Elizabeth didn't wince, staring up at him with huge eyes, luminous with a light that washed into his like the cleansing of a new beginning. And she breathed a single word.

His name.

"NATHAN."

A bare whisper.

Delicate. Breathless. Yielding.

It shuddered to a stop what little breath remained in his heaving chest. His heartbeat slowed to a thick echo against his skull as time seemed to freeze around them . . .

The moment spiraled into a vortex of suspended reality.

Breathing. Heartbeats. Eyes.

Those were the only things that seemed alive in this moment — almost in a mirror image of another intense moment in their history, a moment along a pond-side, woodland trail with only God and nature as witnesses . . .

Slowly, awareness of the things around them began to filter through. He could see a tiny spot of hay caught in Elizabeth's eyelashes, the additional strands of hair now jostled loose and tumbling down around her face; hear the absolute silence of the barn around them. He could feel Jack's warm little body pressed against his chest, feel the second set of blue eyes staring up at him with stilled wonder.

What did this new tone in Elizabeth's voice hearken to? The way she whispered his name, it was almost as if —

No. Stop. He clamped down harshly on that line of thinking. Going down that road of hope would do him no good.

But he could not shake the way her voice had said his name; a wisp of breathed syllables shimmering, trembling like the drift of ethereal mist wafting above the surface of a sunrise lake.

Especially with those eyes of hers looking up at him like they were now. The blue luminous with wonder. Open. Breathless as her voice.

And on the air, a scent.

Elizabeth.

She smelled like rain-drenched roses after a storm.

And underneath, the barest hint of vanilla's warm fullness grounded and intoxicated as it drifted creamily, creating a layering of scent that was both feminine and inviting.

Nathan found himself leaning down to her, following the scent that pulled him in, when a breeze of awareness blew through him and he became sensible to the reality that he was nearly looming over her as she stood with her back against the stall door, staring up at him. He stiffened, pulling back.

"Are you alright?" His voice rasped the question with soft strain.

Silent, she nodded jerkily.

"Are you hurt anywhere?"

There was a tiny head shake. Than a taut silence.

And in that silence, she did something. Something he never imagined she would.

Her hand lifted in slow increments between them, rising to his face, where it hesitated as her eyes seemed to grow uncertain against his, then those slim fingers of hers were brushing against his skin as her fingertips whispered over a lock of hair that had spilled onto his forehead from the force of his momentum across the barn floor.

It was the softest, most delicate of touches, aching with the unspoken unknown . . . and then she was pulling back, a short length of hay captured between the tips of her fingers.

His eyes didn't move from hers as she released it. It fluttered to the ground between them, unnoticed.

She blinked slowly, dazedly.

Then Jack moved his hand from where it had been clutching Nathan's collar from the instant he had been yanked off the floor to the safety of Nathan's arms and placed it against his neck, palm softly cupping the column of Nathan's neck, creating a pudgy, somewhat sticky sensation of warmth against his skin, and Nathan . . . Nathan allowed himself to be distracted from the woman across from him, and broke their gaze to glance down at her son.

Jack's solemn little face was looking up at him, transfixed; clear eyes of light blue unwaveringly trained up at his features, fair hair rumpled from the whirlwind of their rescue.

'Tie. His little lips silently formed the word though not a sound escaped.

"Hi there, Jack," he said very softly. "My name is Nathan."

The boy's mouth worked, once, twice, three times, as he silently tested the new word. "'Tan," was what finally emitted from his lips as his gaze looked up trustingly.

'Tan. 'Tie. He'd take it.

There was a fierce heat in the center of his chest at the tiny tot's reaction to him and the distinct names he bestowed upon him. It had been so long since he'd held a little one this size in his arms. Allie hadn't been this small in many a year. In fact . . .

"This is the first time I've held Jack since his christening." The realization came off his tongue with slow words that draped, heavy and weighted, across the space between his heart and Elizabeth's.

Something fell apart in her eyes. And then, piece by fragile piece, came back together again.

"I know."

Her whisper was as raw and aching as the history between them.

Nathan froze.

I know.

There was so much contained in her voice with just those two little words. He was searching her for what those contained realities were when another body abruptly entered the space they inhabited, intruding into this little bubble of time they had been encased inside ever since he'd spun them out of the way in a whirlwind of fear and action.

Something warm and living barrelled around them, pressing against their legs firmly. Nathan recognized the unusual welcome even before he glanced down and confirmed it with his eyes.

Scout, the ranch's herding dog and Newton's firm buddy, had come to say hello.

The dog circled them again, just a blurred streak of black and white, so tightly did she pivot around their ankles this time.

A gasp burst from Elizabeth's lips and she lurched forward, nearly tipping into Nathan in an attempt to avoid having her feet cut out from under her by the insistent animal. Nathan's hand shot out and caught her elbow, steadying her as he braced his booted feet apart, widening his stance to stabilize them as a unit.

"Easy," he murmured softly. "She means us no harm. She's just herding us."

His hand released her elbow.

He watched as she quivered an instant in response.

And he wondered.

There was something different in her. There was something in her eyes as she looked at him, something around the outskirts of her features, softening edges; something in the way she held herself. She was still too thin, too cool, her elbow almost bony under his hand, but yet, somehow . . . something had shifted. He could see it. Sense it.

Her lashes wavered as her eyes grew unfocused under the intensity of his and he knew in another life, another time, another them, he would have bent to her and, right then and there, with her little son secure in his arms between them, kissed her tremulous eyes until they lay soft and closed against her flushed cheeks.

But this wasn't that life.

This wasn't that time.

This wasn't that them.

Her eyes steadied, but just barely. Lashes lifted shakily.

And Nathan stepped back from her, though it felt as if someone was ripping pieces from his heart. His eyes tore away before hers did.

"Hey, Jack." He gently picked up one of the boy's hands, noticing how minuscule and light it was inside his, which were hardened from years of outdoor labor. "Should we make friends with the dog?"

Jack bounced enthusiastically on his arm, his small shoes digging into Nathan's gun belt, legs pushing up and down in a bobbing motion.

"'Oggie! F'ends!" he gurgled happily.

Nathan looked to Elizabeth for permission, only to find her eyes still on him, something questioning, uncertain and yet certain in them. His eyes probed inside hers, silently examining, looking for an explanation, and it seemed to jolt her, turning her head away with a little indrawn breath that nearly brought his heart to its knees.

But catching herself just as swiftly, she looked back at him, her face remarkably composed in contrast to the silent questing running rampant through her eyes, and she gave him a quick nod, a silent approval to his unspoken question.

It was with an effort that he kept his booted feet firmly where they were.

It was with an effort that he remembered what it was he was doing.

He led them outside into the sunlight, then held out a not-quite-steady hand to the still circling dog, who immediately approached and gave his outstretched hand a delicate sniff, then nosed her way along his forearm before pulling back and regarding him, tail sweeping back and forth in approval. He shifted Jack more securely against his chest and something went absolutely still inside him when the little boy looked up at him with eyes gone serious and placed one hand over his serge covered chest before his pudgy fingers curled trustingly around the fold of his lapel.

Right over his heart.

Just like his mother had.

The memory of her in his arms that moonlit night, and the reality of little Jack Thornton in them now, was enough to stagger his lungs and Nathan breathed quietly, deeply, forcing himself to focus, before dropping to his haunches, hunkering down to bring Jack closer to the dog's level.

Jack's other hand was still clasped inside his and he whistled very softly to the waiting dog as he lifted Jack's hand out toward the dog. As the dog came closer, he released his hold, letting Jack try it on his own. He could feel Elizabeth drawing nearer, her skirts entering his vision as they stopped a foot from him.

The contrast between the smooth fabric and vibrant blue color of her skirt against the rocky pebbles and brown soil imprinted on his eyes and he gave himself an internal shake, wondering if he was losing her mind. Who would notice such a thing? Why was he noticing such a thing? For the second time in as many minutes, he had to refocus his attention from the distraction of Elizabeth back to the task at hand.

"Let her sniff your hand, Jack," he advised softly. "It's how dogs make friends with us."

One hand still tightly holding onto his serge jacket, Jack slowly leaned forward, wobbling precariously on Nathan's arm before Nathan steadied him, a hand splayed protectively wide against the little boy's tummy. There was a little wriggle as Jack's body found a more secure perch sitting on Nathan's thigh, but his hand had never wavered from its position, outstretched toward the dog.

The dog, who had been waiting with an air of keen, intelligent patience, almost as if she could sense the scene hadn't been ready for her till now, approached calmly. She nosed Jack's hand, light as a feather, then pushed her head under Nathan's arm, laying it atop his thigh and pressed firmly against Jack, who, babbling softly with dawning delight, and face splitting with smiles, began to enthusiastically pet the dog's long, soft coat.

Nathan caught his hand with fingers that were gentle but firm. "Gentle, Jack, let's be gentle with her."

Jack looked up with big eyes, solemn with trust. "Gen'jo." Haltingly, he tried the word on for size.

"That's right; gentle. See? Like this." And Nathan showed him, stroking between the dog's attentive ears with a hand that was light.

Jack watched for a long minute, very serious, then reached out and and in perfect mimicry, began anew to pet the dog, his tentative hand moving side by side with Nathan's, stroking over and over again.

"That's it," Nathan encouraged him. "Good boy. You're doing it perfectly."

The boy's small pale hand was a stark contrast to his own large tanned one, both outspread against the black and white of the dog's soft coat.

Elizabeth lowered herself beside them in a distracting rustle of skirts and an even more distracting whiff of that soft fragrance that teased his senses. Obviously unaware of the effect she was having on him, she smiled at Jack and caught his cheek in a gentle kiss before turning her face up to Nathan.

"W-what —" she faltered at the look on his face, and his eyes followed the sudden, nervous motion of her fingers, repeatedly plucking at the dog's coat. "What are you d-doing out here . . . Nathan?"

There it was again. That odd, breathy tremor in her voice when she said his name that sharpened his narrowed eyes on her.

"Routine rounds," he answered slowly. "I get out here about once a week."

Her eyes changed at that. "Oh, of course," she murmured, turning her face away till all he could see was the curve of her ear and neck, exposed with her hair pulled up. "Silly me."

"Elizabeth . . . " Voice deepening, he ducked his head and peered at her, the sheer force of his gaze forcing her to look up again. His expression firmed. "There was nothing silly about you asking."

Pink tinged her pale cheeks.

"What about you and Faith?" he questioned her, dropping the previous topic. "What are you and Jack doing out here?"

"Faith had agreed to come up here and teach the ranch hands something more than "cowboy medicine", as Gunner puts it, and he invited Jack and I to accompany her." Her eyes shifted back toward the barn entrance. "Shouldn't we alert someone about what happened?"

"I will when I talk to Gunner. He's going to need to check the rest of those bales immediately. It looked like someone just stacked this one poorly and some slight shift in the barn sent it rolling, but next time someone might not be so lucky." Grave lines made inroads beside his mouth.

"I don't think luck had much to do with it," she said rawly. In her voice was a slow, new vulnerability.

It hung between them, loaded with implication, as Nathan studied her, his look as slow as her voice had been.

What then was she attributing it to?

Skill? Divine intervention?

It was with some difficulty that words seemed to issue forth from her mouth.

"I am . . . thankful that - that God had you in the right place today." Something washed through her eyes. "You saved our lives." Her voice became as soft as velvet. "Th-thank you, Nathan."

It had been a very long time since she had thanked him for anything.

There was a pause as he said nothing, just kept looking at her, taking her in, then giving the dog one last rub, he rose to his feet, careful to keep Jack balanced on his arm. Bending at the waist, he slipped a hand under her elbow, slowly pulling her to her full height where they stood facing each other.

"You're welcome." It was quiet and simple. He released her elbow, feeling the embroidered detailing in the fabric of her sleeve slide against his fingers as they withdrew.

The faint sound of boots cutting through grass caught his ear. He swiveled about, feeling Jack lay an arm along the top of his shoulder. He recognized the figure moving rapidly toward them instantly.

"I see you've found our guests," Gunner called out as the dog ran to meet him, the faintest limp the only sign of the leg injury that had brought him back into Faith's life.

"I have," Nathan responded noncommittally, but he was very aware of how Jack's arm clung across his shoulder and how his storm-and-rose-scented mother was looking toward them from barely a foot away.

Gunner reached them and the two men shared a brief handshake before Nathan tipped his head towards the barn.

"Something I need to show you in there," he said slowly. "Fallen hay bale almost crushed these two." His gaze pinpointed Elizabeth and Jack.

The flare of alarm and tightening of Gunner's features was instantaneous. "Tell me," he said tersely.

Nathan saw Elizabeth give the barn a quick look, then wrap her arms around herself as a subtle shudder ran through her. Gently, Nathan disentangled himself from Jack's grasp, transferring the little boy to her, filling her arms with something warm and alive, catching her eye as he did so.

"I need to go inspect the hay loft with Gunner," he said for her ears only. "Why don't you and Jack head up to the big house till we're finished, perhaps some shade and water would be rejuvenating."

Her eyes were fixed on his, but she nodded a little jerkily. Her voice, though, had a soft fullness to it as she agreed.

He watched her walk away and when he turned back to the waiting cowboy, he found Gunner watching him, a silent understanding emanating from him without a word passing between them.

—ooO0Ooo—

ELIZABETH WALKED back up the slight hill to the main house, feeling Jack's body in her arms, holding perfectly still against her shoulder as he peered behind them. His eyes, she knew without checking, were fixed on the man who smelled like leather and clean forest air.

She could still feel the brush of his serge against her as he had given Jack into her arms. Her elbow still radiated warmth where he had pulled her to her feet. Her shoulder and waist were still embedded with the feel of his rescuing hands, urgent and hard as he had roughly spun her out from under certain death.

She had been in sensory overload ever since.

The height and breadth of the man had been as a wave of power against her, impossible to ignore at that range.

How many years had it been since her hands had touched a man's hair?

Nathan's had been thick, its dark strands slipping between the sensitive tips of her fingers as she had plied the wayward piece of hay out of that lock of hair which had such a habit of falling onto the corner of his forehead. She had noticed that lock. Many times.

She reached the porch in time to hear Faith wrap up her demonstration to a round of scattered "Much obliged, ma'am" expressions of gratitude from the porchful of lanky cowhands, who began to disperse. Gunner's intervention earlier had been all that was needed; there was not a single comment to be heard this time about either her looks or Faith's, with several of the men touching their hats to her as they went by.

Faith had packed her supply bag and was coming down the steps towards her, readjusting the burgundy jacket she wore, its cool undertones keeping the color from overwhelming her fair hair and even fairer complexion. If anything, it made her skin glow — a fact that Elizabeth was quite certain Gunner's eyes hadn't missed.

"Where's Gunner?" were the first words out of the slim doctor's mouth, her eyes already over Elizabeth's shoulder, searching. "I saw him leave and head toward the barn, where I could have sworn I saw you and Jack with someone in a rather unmistakable shade of red . . . ? But then one of the men asked a question and when I was able to look again, he had disappeared." She lifted her hands in an eloquent gesture of ignorance.

"Yes, he and N-Nathan are in the barn looking at the hay loft." Why was she stumbling over his name? "Jack and I were in the barn when a huge hay bale rolled off and would have killed us if Nathan hadn't appeared out of thin air" — her hand fluttered like wind — "and grabbed me, throwing us out of the way."

Faith's eyes were wide and shocked. "Are you both alright? Do you want me to examine you?"

Elizabeth shook her head. "No, we're fine. There's not a scratch on us."

"Thanks to Nathan?" Faith's question sounded thoughtful.

Elizabeth just nodded. It wasn't a lie; she and Jack were fine. Nothing but hay pieces and Nathan's grasp had touched them. But what she she didn't say was that she could feel every vertebrae in her spine where her back had thudded against the stall door. Being little more than skin stretched over bone these days — despite her attempts to force herself to eat more — meant that her back was going to be sore and probably a little bruised.

It was a small price to pay for being alive.

Faith walked alongside her as they headed back down to the barn and their horses. "So," she side-eyed Elizabeth, "what's this about Nathan grabbing and throwing you—!?"

Elizabeth's feet stumbled beneath her at the question. The sole of her shoe rolled over a rock, throwing her off balance. It was with difficulty that she steadied herself, her mind filling with images; first, of Nathan righting her, hand under her elbow as she nearly tipped forward into him earlier; then flashes of his height towering over her, his cheekbones, his fierce eyes, and his strength as he spun her out of harms way in a whirling blur of power and force.

"It was a rather . . . urgent . . . rescue," she offered weakly, wishing there was a block of ice to bury her face in. She was thankful Faith couldn't see through her skull and into what — or rather, who — occupied her thoughts.

"Mmm, sounds like it." There was an unmistakable twinkle in Faith's expression and a discreet yet telltale sing-song in her voice. Then her face sobered. "But let's hope nothing like that happens ever again. It's frightening to think what could have happened to you two in the blink of an eye." She wrapped an arm around Elizabeth's waist in a fierce side-hug as they walked through the grass, blades tickling their ankles under their long skirts. "We owe Nathan."

Yes. She did. She wondered how she could ever repay him.

And if he would ever accept.

—ooO0Ooo—

"Dune?" Faith was querying Gunner as they stood outside the barn preparing to leave some minutes later.

He whistled and his buckskin detached from the herd and came to the fence, head held proudly.

"Dune," he confirmed. "As in sand dune. I thought it suited his coloring." He patted Dune's rump affectionately.

"It does," Faith was in agreement, holding her hand out as Dune pushed his head into it. She laughed with surprised delight and Gunner's chuckle crinkled his hazel eyes as he watched her reach up to stroke his horse.

"Alright, boy." He pretended to nudge the horse, who budged not an inch. "Doc's got to be getting back to town, so you need to step back from the lovin'."

A muffled choke of hilarity spontaneously burst from the lips of the doctor in question, and Elizabeth thought to herself that if Faith's smile grew any bigger, it would split her face in half at the seams. She glanced at Nathan. He, too, was observing the pair at the fence, and a small, perceptive smile crossed his face. His eyes were very gentle.

"Don't you listen to the mean cowboy, Dune," Faith was whispering rather loudly in Dune's ear as he obligingly lowered his head next to her lips. "You can get all the love you want from me."

The horse draped his head over her shoulder in response and Faith wilted against the fence in a peal of laughter that shook her petite frame. Her medical bag dropped, unheeded, into the dust at her feet.

"Grant!" Gunner looked back at them over his shoulder, obviously fighting to maintain a straight face. "We've got an insurrection on our hands here. Come give me a hand with these two rebels, will you? We can put them both in one cell together. You've got plenty of room, right?"

Nathan walked forward as if pretending to inspect the situation, and like a shadow by his side, Jack toddled right along with him, trying hard to keep up with his longer strides, all the while staying close to his leg, where he had planted himself ever since the ladies had rejoined the gentlemen at the barn.

"It seems to me," Nathan drawled, "that since this is your problem, Gunner, you should take the bigger of the two threats and I'll handle the lesser."

"The bigger threat?" Gunner pursed his lips, then turned to look down upon Faith. "That would be this one here, then."

Faith gasped in between laughter, and grabbing up her medical bag, wielded it like a wall to keep him at bay. "Don't you dare, Gunner Christiansen!"

He sobered, and Elizabeth nearly looked away at the gentleness that spread over his hitherto teasing features. It felt like an expression no one but two souls should be privy to.

"I never would, Doc," Gunner established with grave softness.

And deep inside Faith's eyes, the blue of her irises seemed to liquify at his tone.

A very small voice, clear as a bell, broke the moment.

"'O'sie!" Little Jack's rather insistent pointing at Dune made it clear he too wanted to meet this "horsie", this four-legged inducer of so much laughter.

A hand resting lightly on the boy's head — as much to keep him stable on his still-a-bit-wobbly little feet as to keep him from rushing the fence and potentially spooking the horse — Nathan walked him to the fence and then boosted him up in the air, holding him by the waist as the toddler proceeded to pat Dune with both hands, his hands light as air.

He looked back at Nathan. "Gen'jo," he informed him with such seriousness that Elizabeth had to look away from the scene yet again; this time because her eyes were stinging at her son's sheer innocence, at his ready responsiveness to the guidance of the man who held him so securely.

Gen'jo. Jack's version of gentle. He'd remembered — and wanted Nathan to know that he had.

"Good job, Jack," Nathan nodded his approval and the little boy's eyes glowed. "Now, how about we get your mother home; sound like a plan?"

Jack was quiet a minute, looking up at the Mountie, over at his waiting mother, then back at the horse. There were literal wheels turning in his careful expression. At last, he bobbed his head in assent and allowed himself to be set back on the ground, where he fisted a hand into Nathan's jodhpurs, clutching the dark blue fabric for balance as he moved side by side with the tall Mountie until they reached Sergeant, where he let go and stood to the side, watching as Nathan approached Elizabeth, who was standing by the horse's side trying to straighten her tumbled hair, and stooped over when he reached her.

Nathan cupped his hands for Elizabeth's heel and as she stepped her foot into the support his hands formed, grasping the pommel of the saddle with both her hands in preparation for being hoisted up, he looked at her, an unexpected grimness entering his voice.

"I know you said you didn't need me protecting you or Jack anymore, but I think today qualifies as an exception." He leaned close, holding her eyes dead-on with his as he lowered his voice further still. "But Elizabeth? Hear me on this." His whisper brushed her face with warmth. "I will never not protect you."

With that, he boosted her up in the saddle in a surge of power that had her startled lips parting in a soft gasp. An arm stretching along Sergeant's shoulders, he paused and looked up at her, the brilliance of the sun reflecting in his eyes, making them appear a blinding blue in his tanned face.

"Everyone needs protecting sometimes, Mrs. Thornton."

The way his voice rasped softly over her title made it sound more like an endearment between them than a formality and her pupils constricted in response, fingers scraping around reins and pommel.

Then he was gone from her side in the next instant, gently scooping up Jack, who had stood on the ground watching them with big, silent eyes, and effortlessly swung up into his saddle, where he settled the boy before him. Then he glanced over at Elizabeth.

"If this is alright with you . . . ?" He gestured at Jack, who was sitting quite still in front of him, craning his neck up and backwards to see him.

Mutely, she nodded, still trying to get her bearings.

He rattled her, this quiet, intelligent man, rattled the breath straight out of her lungs, and Rosemary was right; it had nothing to do with her deceased husband.

She would always love him, he was her first great love, but memories of him disintegrated into a thousand flying splinters whenever Nathan Grant strode into her life, tall boots eating up the ground with his long strides, shoulders tugging at the serge that covered them, and those eyes piercing straight through her like they had from the first moment she had met him that day in his office . . .

"Ride safely, ladies." Gunner was moving between the horses. He chucked a wry look in Nathan's direction. "Although I don't think that'll be a problem with your armed escort here riding alongside."

Nathan shook his head, a humored smile easing the set of his lips. "Christiansen, don't you have fences to mend, cattle that need checking on, a feed delivery to anticipate—?"

"Watch it, Grant, I already have a boss." Gunner's face was grinning at their obviously familiar banter, but it was his eyes that lit up when he looked again at Faith and raised a slow hand in farewell.

Nathan's bark of laughter at the foreman's retort accompanied them as they set out from the ranch and within minutes, the ranch lay well behind them.

Elizabeth's eyes rarely left the man who rode to the side and slightly to the front of her, giving her a birds-eye view of him, but even so, she didn't miss Faith glancing back over her shoulder at the ranch as they entered the line of trees that would eventually hide the ranch from sight.

Elizabeth peeked back, too.

Gunner was still standing by the barn, one arm draped along the top rung of the corral, booted foot propped up on the bottom rung, his head turned, watching after them.

She heard Faith give a little gasp, not unlike the one that had left her own lips moments before, and the doctor twisted her face forward again with a jerk, a flustered flush rushing over her porcelain cheeks.

"He may not have seen you," Elizabeth moved as close as she could to Faith to offer reassuringly, her attention momentarily distracted from the man at her side.

Faith shot her a look, and Elizabeth's smile turned rueful. "Alright, he probably did," she conceded, then dropped her tone even softer. "But for all he knows, you were turning back to look at a - a horse or a hawk or - or something."

There was a muffled sound from Nathan, but when she turned sharply to look at him, the profile presented to her was inscrutable, eyes turned straight ahead. He cantered at her side, her son settled firmly against him, one forearm braced around Jack's stomach to keep him secure. Jack held onto the arm in front of him with both hands, hair blowing off his face in the breeze, eyes bright and curious.

She knew Nathan had heard. But how?! They'd been nearly whispering.

"And anyway, I don't know why I looked back," Faith was speaking. "It was just a random impulse. Everyone gets those."

Elizabeth looked over at the doctor. "Mmm," she responded softly, her eyes speaking loudly. "Of course, Faith."

Faith seemed to want to protest more, but her shoulders slowly began to tilt forward in a gentle, surrendered slump.

"We're just friends," she said feebly. "And it's too soon." Her hands, reins and all, lifted in a gesture that was both helpless and frustrated. "Carson and I" — a shadow passed over her features — "haven't even been finished all that long."

Elizabeth looked down, focusing on the spot between Sergeant's attentive ears. She knew what Faith was feeling; the guilt, the resistance, the unsettling new. There was so much she could say, but when she did, she settled for a simple truth.

"I don't think there's any timeline on healing."

The two women looked at each other, a deeply unspoken understanding passing between them.

"There's no formula for grief." Elizabeth kept her voice turned away from Nathan, but she could tell by the absoluteness of his silence that he was listening to every word. "But, Faith . . . would Carson not want you to find love again; perhaps even a love that God shaped to perfectly fit half of your heart?"

Faith's delicate cheeks blanched and for a moment, Elizabeth felt her stomach drop, certain she had gone too far. Then, barely audible, Faith's voice was heard over the sound of horses in motion.

"Yes. He would." Limpid, her eyes met Elizabeth's. "He wrote and told me so."

God bless Carson. Kind as ever, even from afar.

"Well, friends or more, I like the man Gunner is," Elizabeth said with a quiet decisiveness, keeping to herself the opinion that the cowboy was clearly stirring an interest that was decidedly more than just friendship inside their doctor. "He's careful with you, Faith," she said meaningfully. Even out on the ranch, Gunner must somehow have heard about Carson. "He respects you, that's quite apparent. And he honors you in ways many wouldn't."

Little lights began to come to reluctant life inside Faith's eyes. "I know." Again, Elizabeth had to strain to hear her, her whisper was so soft.

A graceful swallow darted in front of them, swooping low. Faith's horse shied a tad and conversation died as she worked to settle and redirect the animal.

Elizabeth heard a soft exclamation emit from Nathan and returned her attention to him. Nathan had slowed Newton's canter and was looking down, an indecipherable expression on his face.

Jack was sound asleep, toppled over Nathan's forearm, his head resting on the pommel, one round cheek flattened against its surface, hair and limp arms jostling in gentle rhythm with the horse's gait.

Nathan must have felt her eyes on him for he spoke without taking his off the collapsed figure of her son in front of him. "One minute he was awake and alert, and the next . . . " He trailed off with a mild head shake, then looked up with a light in his eyes that she couldn't make out. "No naps make for sleepy toddlers, that I do remember."

She wanted to ask him, wanted to know what Allie had been like as a toddler, wanted to know what her favorite toy had been, wanted to know if he had carved it, wanted to know how on earth he handled being on Mountie assignments as a single man with a little one at home, but Allie was a raw subject, and with Faith listening . . .

She didn't ask, but the questions burned in her throat.

She transferred her gaze to her son, a much less dangerous target for her thoughts. Jack normally had a half-shy, half-fascinated reaction to the rangy lawman when he spotted Nathan's red serge around the streets and corners of their town. But to be so at ease that he fell asleep with him, to be so trusting that he had followed him like a shadow all afternoon . . .

"He can't be comfortable," Nathan said under his breath, and gently lifting Jack's head up, he looped the reins around the pommel instead. Newton, well trained as he was, kept going without a pause. Both hands now free, Nathan slowly lifted Jack's drowsing figure and settled him against his chest, cradling him to lay along the length of one forearm.

Elizabeth didn't know what was racing faster, her heart or her lungs.

The sight of her son asleep on the Mountie's arm . . . his little body limp in slumber, trustingly laying across his torso, a horizontal, overall-clad line of tan under Nathan's heart; blond hair a shock of contrast against the scarlet backdrop, little lips parted in the sleep known only to those dead to the world . . .

She didn't dare look at Faith, in terror of what the woman would read on her face.

But inside, there was a feeling of melting . . . dangerously close to the region that housed her heart.

A certain doctor might say it was her heart melting.

Jack now settled, Nathan released the reins from the pommel and expertly threaded them through his free hand, Newton responding to the lightest of touches. He looked over at her again and Elizabeth had to swallow to tamp down the overpowering urge to go to him. Yes, now. Across moving horses and impossibilities and Faith's watching eyes. Just go, somehow, to the man who held her son like that and looked at her like this.

"He'll probably be out for awhile, being held like that," Faith spoke up from the other side of Elizabeth, her eyes warm and approving as she looked at Nathan and his armful of little boy.

Elizabeth fought the traitorous muscles in her face, trying to smooth them into an expression that gave nothing away. By the changing expression in Faith's look, she hadn't succeeded.

"Whoa, whoa, boy." Out of nowhere, Nathan was bringing Newton to a halt, smoothly looping the reins around the pommel again, and reaching into a leather storage pouch while trying not to move Jack. "You ladies go on ahead. I'll catch up."

They stopped. They didn't budge. They most certainly did not go on ahead.

Nathan flashed them an ascertaining look, before bringing a pair of binoculars to his eyes and turned them on a spot around one of the foothills at the base of the mountains in the distance, exposed now by a broad, sweeping break in the trees.

"What is it?" She was concerned.

The answer was sparse. "Pinkertons." He shifted his hold on the binoculars, adjusting the focus.

"What are they doing out there?" Faith inserted.

Nathan was tight-lipped. "Hard to say." The binoculars came down and were replaced in their pouch. Nathan's legs gave Newton a silent command and the horse walked twenty feet forward to join them where they waited.

Elizabeth watched him, trying to read what little he let her see on his face.

Pinkertons brought up nothing but bad memories for her. She'd heard they were in the area from Rosemary after she'd had her run-in with them at a cabin in the woods, but had not yet laid eyes on a single one. They were around, though; she had overheard complaints of their boorish behavior whispered among the ladies who convened in the mercantile for gossip and a little shopping.

"Trouble?" she asked.

A short nod. "Of some sort," was his brief, grim answer.

And as they resumed their trip, Elizabeth swallowed hot disappointment that that was all he would share with her on the topic.

—ooO0Ooo—

THEY RODE three abreast up the street, people stopping to stare at the picture they made. The lean Mountie, his silhouette tall in the saddle. The now awakened little boy, son of the town's prior Mountie, sitting in front of the new bearer of red serge, both his little hands clutched around Nathan's uniform-covered arm, wrapped like a protective barrier around him. And the widow of the town's former Mountie, skirts trailing over her stirrups, looking at the man holding her son with eyes that resembled springtime after a long, bleak winter.

They stopped to drop Faith at the infirmary as she blew Jack a kiss and waved them off. They hadn't moved more than ten feet when they spotted Lucas Bouchard outside Ned Yost's mercantile, dressed in his usual attire of a dark three-piece suit, talking attentively to Katie Yost, whose quick, attractive features were serious.

From across the street, Fiona Miller stood by the drivers door of Lucas' parked car, her posture poised.

In her filmy marigold blouse with its tiny inserts of white around the neckline and sleek black skirt than ended at the top of her stylishly heeled shoes, she was as vibrant and beautiful as any fashion plate. Her discreet eyes quietly watched the pair across the road from her. And from the backseat of the car, Mike Hickam watched her watching them with eyes that darted back and forth in perplexed concern.

Nathan knew Elizabeth could see the tableau before them. They were looking straight at it.

She didn't say anything.

He held silent, waiting her out.

He had overheard two men, both employees at the oil field, talking about the tension they had seen simmering between Lucas and Fiona for over a week. He knew something was off between them; he had observed as much during the kitten rescue incident.

Elizabeth stirred in her saddle. "I wonder what Katie's doing back," she mused finally, seeming to deliberately ignore Lucas' presence in the scene.

From under the cover of his lashes, Nathan glanced over at her with searching eyes, his hand gently stroking Jack's little back. He wondered what she was thinking.

He had seen her storm, feral with a stalking fury, into the saloon at dusk, crossing the street dead in front of him, but she hadn't seen him; hadn't seemed to notice anything but her objective. Rumor whispered that she'd had a ferocious row with Bouchard that night — although, as of yet, no one seemed to know exactly what about. Normally, Nathan didn't heed rumors, but given the prelude he had seen with his own eyes and how the air itself had seemed to crackle with fury around her that night, he knew this was one rumor whose veracity was, at minimum, plausible.

He didn't know what he thought about her having a fight with Bouchard, so he had tamped down on his feelings and told himself to mind his own business.

"I haven't heard," he responded at length. "She arrived on the stage a few days ago."

. . . which put Katie Yost out of the running for being the cause of Lucas and Fiona's at least week-old tension.

Ahead, Katie was taking her leave of Lucas and walking down the street, her small-boned figure, clad in a crisp teal and white outfit nearly as sharp as Fiona's, was dainty on its feet as she moved in their direction. Her slightly pixie-ish features were thoughtful.

Lucas wasn't watching after her. His focus was honed on the woman waiting by his car and he seemed unaware of all else around him. But when he reached her, they spoke not a word and instead, Fiona began to move around the car, headed, it seemed, for the passenger door, while Lucas watched her across the roof of his car with an expression that was hooded.

Nathan studied Elizabeth as she watched the scene, but all he caught was the pinched set of implacable anger to her lips as she eyed the saloon owner before her face was swinging back to him and she was gently murmuring something about needing to be getting home, her face easing from the anger it had carried seconds before.

He started to tell her to get home safely and was making a move to hand Jack back to her when from the opposite end of the road came the familiar sounds of the first evening stagecoach arriving. But the sound wasn't normal tonight; it was off, a dead spot in the rhythmic noise the heavy coach made as its wheels rolled through the gravel and packed dirt of the road.

He and Elizabeth turned in their saddles simultaneously, Jack pulling at his arm as if to move it out of the way so he could see better.

The familiar, dusty outline of the stagecoach was making its way to the coach stop, but there was an odd, lurching momentum to it, jarring the luggage strapped high atop its roof. In the drivers seat were two men. The smaller he recognized as one of the regular stagecoach drivers, who was hollering over the noise of the coach for Kevin, the town blacksmith, who came running out of the smithy. The other man in the drivers seat was a stranger; a passenger by the looks of him.

Katie Yost had reached the covered platform that served as the town's coach stop by this point and reared back in alarm as the coach lumbered up to it, coming to a halt with one final jolt as the stranger leaped agilely down from the high coach seat, not needing to utilize the support of the front coach wheel to disembark.

Katie's heel seemed to get caught, whether in the hem of her skirt or on a warped plank of wood it was impossible to tell, and losing her balance, she tottered forward without warning, her figure pitching off the shallow platform into the street.

Built like a lumberjack and dressed like a lumber baron, the stranger, who had landed on his feet with his back to her, seemed to have a sixth sense that something was happening behind him and pivoted sharply — just in time to snatch her up, holding her upright against his side with one arm clamping around her waist.

Even from their silhouetted profiles, it was possible to see how they both stilled, her staring up at him and he down at her. She dangled in his grasp, her toes three inches off the ground, hands, white-knuckled with shock, clutching onto his arms.

As Kevin came running up to the side of the coach, the stranger shifted his hold, grasping Katie with his hands, and as easily as one would lift a thistledown, he swiftly deposited her on her feet, safe and sound on the platform, then turned and began to haul the nearest luggage pieces off the top of the coach, one after another.

Ned Yost, who had come hurrying out of his business at the commotion, wiping his hands on his white apron, stood at the top of the mercantile steps, watching the stranger's interaction with his daughter with a frown on his normally gentle face.

The coach driver joined Kevin at one of the back wheels and was gesticulating, pointing at a section of the axle underneath the coach. The blacksmith bent over to get a better look then straightened up, standing with his hands on his hips as he listened in his quiet way. The battered leather apron of his trade was strapped around his well-developed chest and waist, his loose white work shirt damp with perspiration from the heat of the forge, sleeves pushed up on his muscular forearms.

The coach door opened.

The blacksmith turned at the sound.

Out of the coach alighted a personage such as Hope Valley had never seen.

Amber eyes with a hint of an exotic slant where they tilted up at the corners looked out at them from beneath a thick fringe of straight black lashes. Eyebrows were an ebony swoop above them. Thick, shining black hair was wound at the base of her neck in a sleek design no one in their town had ever worn before, an exquisitely carved jade hairpin holding it in place while slender jade earrings dropped from her ear lobes. Flawless ivory skin. But a thin scar curved delicately along the length of one cheek, disappearing somewhere between her jaw and neck. She was dressed in the fashion of the day, but there was no mistaking the subtle, proud beauty of the Orient in the mystery of her aura.

Kevin looked at her very quietly, seeming not to hear the murmur that had arisen from those gathered, then slowly, deliberately, stretched up a steady hand to her, palm up.

"May I?" he asked simply, and even from where he was, Nathan could see the way the woman's eyes traced over the blacksmith's steadfast features before dropping to the hand before her.

It was a strong hand, big, somewhat battered from being used to earn a living every day with steel and fire, with the dirt of the working day still lingering in trace amounts. But something about it seemed to reassure instead of frighten her, and as she placed her hand in his, his fingers curled around hers, ever so slightly.

On her heels, a figure well known to them stepped down, holding in his hand a woman's hat.

Beside him, Nathan heard Elizabeth gasp a name. "Bill!"

And so it was. Their town judge was back.

The mysterious female turned and took the hat Bill handed to her, a contained expression answering his smile and the welcoming gesture of his arm as he indicated the town, only becoming a sight smile of her own once he bent and said something to her, his smile gentling.

Behind her, the blacksmith watched all this through quiet eyes.

As Lucas' car rolled slowly down the street toward the coach stop, Nathan and Elizabeth moved their horses off to the side, the move shifting them closer together, so close he felt the end of her skirt drift over the foot of his boot.

As the car went by them, he caught a flash of Bouchard's face as it briefly turned toward them, then his gaze moved beyond the businessman and his attention was captured by Fiona, who was staring through the windshield at the stagecoach with a look of arrested shock, her figure frozen against the seat back.

He followed her line of vision, noting Bouchard was now doing the same, and found Fiona's gaze was locked on the male stranger from the coach, who had paused in unloading the luggage to give each of the horses a quick rub and a pat, disregarding the dust it added to the thin layer already covering his finely cut clothes from the ride; clothes that fit his brawny height with the perfection of detail that bespoke the finest of tailors.

She looked like she had seen a ghost.

Lucas' face tightened, and he stepped on the gas. The car started past the coach, the male stranger lifted his head curiously to glance at the cause of the motorized noise, his assessing gaze sweeping the car from back bumper to front . . . and then he moved forward, his mouth opening as if to speak, his eyes on the front passenger seat. But the car swept by the coach and he was left looking after it, taking another quick step in its wake as if to follow it before turning back to the luggage unloading. His face now bore a set frown upon it, his arms working as though automated.

Katie Yost had observed it all and after a moment, walked off slowly down the street, a troubled look now marring her countenance. She never saw how the stranger paused in his task to glance, long and watchfully, after her.

"Nathan!" Bill had caught sight of him and was approaching at a brisk pace.

Nathan urged Newton forward to meet his friend, leaning forward to shake hands, careful not to crunch Jack in the process.

Bill's eyes took in the sight of him, high in the saddle with the little boy cradled in front of him, then moved to Elizabeth, sitting quietly in her saddle beside him. There were a thousand questions in the swift look and Nathan knew he'd be facing the firing squad of Bill's interrogation before long. With anyone else it might have bothered him, but with Bill, it was different. The motive wasn't nosiness, but concern born from staunch friendship.

"Welcome back," he greeted the judge. "You've been missed."

The other man tugged at one of Jack's small feet, exchanging smiles with the little boy. He glanced up at Nathan. "I'm sorry that last phone call got cut off; I intended to tell you of my travel plans, but I figured you probably heard enough to get the general idea that I was heading back."

"How was San Francisco, Bill?" Elizabeth asked, gently rubbing Sergeant's neck.

He paused, rubbed his nose. "Interesting," he answered, then gesticulated over his shoulder. "I didn't come back alone as you can see."

Nathan glanced down at Bill, his eyes silently questioning.

"No, no, nothing like that." Bill's thick brows roped together in a stern frown. "She's less than half my age."

"That wouldn't stop most men," Elizabeth said quietly.

"I guess I'm not most men then." There was a warmth under the gruffness that kept it from being offensive.

"I guess not." Elizabeth and Bill smiled at each other.

"And the man?" Nathan probed.

"Don't know him." Bill's shoulders lifted in an eloquent shrug. "He's been very close-lipped. Doesn't even have any luggage tags with an address to say where he's from. He's been traveling with us since San Fransisco, but it's a city with a populace from a thousand destinations, on their way to a thousand destinations. He could be from anywhere, but he sounds American. Possibly even Californian."

Nathan murmured an acknowledgement, his eyes following the man in question who was carefully settling several bags at the feet of the mysterious beauty. "You saw that little moment just now?"

Bill didn't bother asking which moment. They both knew. "I did. Might be worth keeping our eye on, but I don't think this fellow is a ruffian. And I have a feeling Bouchard will step in where anything concerning Miss Miller's safety is concerned." There was a subtle dryness to his tone.

Jack fussed, squirming in the saddle. Nathan held up a rein for him, careful to keep discreet control of it, and the little boy grabbed onto it, all fussiness soothed by the new distraction.

"Are we boring him?" Bill inquired with a laugh.

Elizabeth laughed, a softness in it that was new to Nathan's ears. "No, I don't think so," she answered, and something in her voice caused his neck to turn in her direction, only to find her looking at him with that change again so visible in her eyes that it was all he could do not to reach out and drag her to his side and demand to know why she was suddenly looking at him like this.

Bill would just have to deal with the drama.

The man in question cleared his throat rather loudly, his gaze carefully on his boots as if they had suddenly become the most interesting thing on the planet. "Ahem, well, actually, I'm, ah, trying to find a place to stay for the lady that came with me." He looked up then, but cautiously, as if unsure what he might be interrupting between them this time. "Either of you have any ideas? I'd like to avoid the saloon. She wouldn't be comfortable there."

"Long term or short term?" Nathan inquired, switching the reins in Jack's hands to keep him occupied.

There was a hesitation before Bill admitted: "I don't know."

"How about the rooms over Dottie's Dress Shop? They're empty."

"Good idea," Elizabeth was nodding thoughtfully. "I can go get the keys right now. If you could just keep an eye on Jack . . . ?"

Nathan nodded, brushing a strand of white-blond hair off the little boy's forehead, and a smile seeped through her eyes as she watched them.

"I'll be right back then." And off she went, Sergeant's rapid hoofbeats beating a pattern against the ground.

Bill eyed Nathan silently. Nathan eyed him right back. Finally, Bill broke into a rueful smile. "It looks like we both have a lot of catching up to do."

Nathan leaned back a little, stretching out an ache in his back. "Mhmm," he agreed noncommittally.

A movement beyond them pulled his vision away and he saw that the female newcomer had slipped closer to them on feet of silence, a suitcase in each hand, but was holding back, her whole figure screaming of reserve. Bill followed his gaze.

"Come," Bill invited, holding a hand towards her. "Let me introduce you to my friend, who also happens to be the law around here, so if you meet with any trouble, this is the man to go to." He waved back and forth between them. "Mei, meet Nathan Grant. Nathan, this is Mei Li."

Nathan nodded his head at her, unsmiling. He had the oddest feeling that a smile might have caused her to withdraw even more. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that. Your first name is Mei?"

He was careful to mask his surprise when her mouth opened and she spoke.

"When I asked Father Zepeda to baptize me in California, I took the name Rose," she said in clear but low tones, her English nearly unaccented. Her chin lifted. "I go by Mei Rose Li now."

Bill was nearly gaping at her, his jaw slack with shock. "That's more than all the words she spoke the entire trip up here put together!" he muttered under his breath.

Hmm.

"Well, welcome to Hope Valley, Miss Li," Nathan said and watched as she simply nodded in return, her silence falling over her again.

With fortuitous timing, hoofbeats resounded in the air and Sergeant appeared, coming towards them at a trot. Elizabeth held up the key as she came closer.

"Here you are." She pulled up alongside Mei Rose and to Nathan's surprise, handed the key directly to her. "There's a lovely set of comfortable rooms above the dress shop there" — she pointed and the beautiful eyes of the striking newcomer followed — "fully furnished and just waiting to be someone's new home."

Mei Rose took the key as if it were made of gold — and Nathan saw what Elizabeth had done. In giving her the key directly, instead of through Bill, she was giving the power of choice and autonomy to their reticent new resident.

From up the road, the blacksmith slid out from where he'd been on his back under the coach inspecting the damage and rolled to his feet in a small cloud of gravel and dust, fingers tunneling tumbled hair back and off his forehead as he looked down the road. When he spotted Mei Rose, he grew very still, a breeze gently billowing his shirt around him.

Mei Rose's dulcet tones lifted through the air again, and again, Nathan's saw Bill's face go slack with shock at it.

"Thank you, Mrs.—?"

Elizabeth hesitated; a hesitation that had a furrow forming in Nathan's forehead.

"Thornton," she finally answered. "Elizabeth Thornton."

Then she did something that caused his heart to still.

"My husband is deceased," she told the newcomer with blunt calmness.

What was this?

Elizabeth never led with that information.

It was as if she was now letting people know, right from the start, that she was no longer a married woman . . . and did not wish to be thought of that way, like she were still being held in reserve for a dead man.

Bill's head swiveled toward him and Nathan caught his eye, seeing the exclamation marks in his friend's expression. Bill raised a significant eyebrow, but Nathan kept still, not certain what this new turn in Elizabeth meant.

Elizabeth wasn't done.

She pointed again, this time towards Jack. "And this is my son Jack, named in memory of his father." Her eyes lifted and met Nathan's, even as her mouth spoke words to Mei Rose. "Have you met Nathan?"

Not a word about him being the man sent to fill her late husband's post.

Not a word about him being a Mountie.

Just "Nathan".

—ooO0Ooo—

Watching Elizabeth usher Mei Rose into the dress shop moments later, Jack now back in her arms, Nathan still felt as though someone had taken a pick-axe to his breathing.

"Well." Bill's voice was heavy as he came to stand next to Nathan. "That was . . . changed."

"Quite."

That was all he said.

"We should talk." Bill's voice was no less firm for its quietness.

Nathan made a swift decision. "I need to get back to Allie. Why don't you come with me? I'm going to pick her up at Opal's, swing by my place to get some supplies, and head out to the new property. We were going to do some work on it before dark, then cook some steaks over a fire."

"I'd like that."

He could see the smile on Bill's face. "It's settled then. Let me just close up the office here and we can be off."

Bill matched his strides. "I'll come with you."

They were closing in on the door of the NWMP office when Nathan's arm suddenly shot out and slammed across his friend's chest, stopping him in his tracks. He jerked his head, indicating the bottom of the closed door. Though the curtains were drawn over the darkened windows, a narrow slat of light — so vague as to be indiscernible to the untrained eye — showed from underneath the door.

Bill nodded once, curtly. Guns drawn, they crept toward the door. Nathan threw it open, leading inside, Bill right behind him, weapons pointed, every sense alert.

"Hello, boys," the figure seated in Nathan's chair drawled dryly. Her — for a woman so it was — own weapon lay on the desk in front of her.

The barrel of Nathan's pistol lowered fractionally.

It was the mysterious, split-skirt wearing woman who had been watching him from the coach stop not many days back.

And just like that day, he again sensed no threat in her. Her finely-boned features seemed almost amused and her eyes were not on him, but on the armed judge beside him.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Bill's finger go white around the trigger.

"AJ," Bill said in a surly voice, a growl low in its undertones.

Nathan watched the proceedings, intrigued. "You two know each other?"

"We've done work together in the past." Bill tossed out his free arm, gun not wavering from where he had it trained on the fair-haired woman. "Nathan, meet AJ Foster, accountant turned criminal, and as wily a woman as ever breathed."

The woman leveled a cool stare at the grizzled ex-lawman. "I've paid my dues, Judge. I've done my time. That life is behind me now. If you can change your life and occupation, so can I."

Ignoring Bill's scoff, she extended a hand and a frank gaze to Nathan. "And you must be Jack Thornton's replacement." Any sting from her words was wiped out by the warm, genuine smile that followed as she shook hands as forthrightly as any man. "It's nice to meet you, Constable . . . ?"

"Grant. Nathan Grant," Bill inserted, as if becoming aware that he'd only half introduced them.

Nathan holstered his service revolver without qualm and took her hand. Delicate. Calloused. Exactly as he expected. Her handshake matched her appearance. She was beautiful. Almost too beautiful for the somewhat rough appearance of the clothes she wore.

He and Bill had much to talk about, indeed.

"What are you doing here, AJ?" Bill had holstered his own weapon, somewhat reluctantly, and took a stalking half-step toward the woman, who faced him without fear, something nearing curiosity in her look.

She flashed a badge, coming from somewhere inside the black leather vest she wore buttoned over a worn shirt, open at the neck, a blue scarf the color of her eyes tied in the small opening it created. "I'm a Pinkerton now. And I've been sent here to investigate the crew of Pinkertons running around this area. Headquarters smells something rotten with their so called assignment up here. I'm to get to the bottom of it. And I'd like your help." She proffered a piece of paper, again whipped out from somewhere. "This is for you, Constable Grant."

Bill and Nathan both reached for it, shifting close together to read it in the light from the lantern lit on the wall. It was exactly what this unusual woman said it was; a witnessed letter from Pinkerton headquarters addressed to the guardians and enforcers of the law in and around Hope Valley, complete with the detective agency's embossed seal. If they were able to help Agent AJ Foster with her mission, their cooperation had to be secret. If there were any indication that she was working with local law enforcement, her cover with Spurlock's crew of Pinkertons would be blown.

That explained her lying in wait for them in a near-dark office with drawn curtains.

Bill looked up from the letter. "And what, pray tell, is your cover exactly, Agent Foster?"

She took the letter from Nathan, rolled it into a thin tube, and dipping the tip into the flame of the oil lantern, waited in silence until it had burned to ash.

"Agent Spurlock is a wild card and has been reprimanded more than once. We've been watching him. His cousin, whom you may recall from local history here, Judge Avery, was also a Pinkerton and is currently serving a very long sentence in prison. So when he gathered together a crew of some of our agents with reputations for rather unsavory methods to form a security detail for a client in Canada, naturally, some sat up and took notice."

"Wyman Walden?" Nathan asked sharply.

"One and the same," she confirmed. "Ostensibly, they're here to assist Walden with setting up operations for a factory he's proposed building and providing security for any and all of his needs related to that. As you know, we don't just do "detective work", we also provide private security and asset protection for clients. In fact, that's our main focus these days."

"And you're here to . . . ?" Bill prompted again, more acerbic than before.

Nathan gave him a look. "What he means is — what does Spurlock's gang think your purpose is in coming here?"

"I'm a security specialist, sent by HQ to assist with the project — a move somewhat common by HQ for teams in the field whose progress has been slower than expected, but it's still aroused suspicion and ire, so I have to move slowly to establish trust. I'm keeping my eyes wide open though." She paced on silent footsteps back and forth in front of his desk, then stopped. "I'll be in touch as soon as I have something, but it may be awhile."

"Be careful," Nathan advised her. "I haven't heard the history of the last Agent Spurlock in these parts—"

"I'll fill you in later," Bill murmured.

Nathan nodded then continued. "—but it sounds like they might be a rather nasty bunch, so stay alert. I've got my eye on them and will dig a bit deeper on these men. I saw them again today, this time way out by the Rolling K, at the base of a foothill there. I couldn't get close enough to be sure, but through the binoculars it looked like they were milling about pointing here and there while another bunch loosely patrolled the perimeter. There was a pile of some kind of equipment or tools laying in a large pile. Who knows, another ten minutes and I may have been able to see more clearly what they were doing."

"Probably for the best you didn't get too close. We don't want to tip them off that they're being investigated. There's no proof of any wrongdoing yet," AJ cautioned him. "Headquarters is suspicious, though, and so am I." Her smile was droll. "Then again, I also just plain don't like Spurlock or Walden."

"How will you get in touch?" Nathan wanted to know.

Her eyes laughed. "In ways like this." She gestured at the moment they stood in. "Dark of night, back door, in-disguise kind of thing. You don't have a guard dog, I hope?"

Nathan opened his mouth to answer her when a ferociously tiny meow rent the air and the sound of claws angrily scratching against wood filled the room.

"What in the world—?!" Bill spun around toward the noise.

Crouching down in front of the wooden crate he'd made, Nathan unlatched the small, hinged door and a very angry, snowy-white kitten appeared instantly, looking like a puff of cotton on four legs. He held out his arm and she walked up it until she reached his elbow, at which point she seemed to decide his chest looked like a better surface to ascend to her destination.

She made her way up his torso with tiny, razor sharp claws and a long, plaintively outraged lecture of meows until she reached his shoulder where, with one last angry cry directed at him, she curled herself in a ball no bigger than a child's fist and butted her soft head up against his neck, where she rubbed once, then nestled in closer as baby-sized purrs began to rumble from her.

"Well, I'll be," Bill whispered, staring in disbelief at the machinations of the tiny white fluff ball of outraged anger that had decided her cuddle home was a Mountie's shoulder. And neck.

Nathan lifted his hands in a simple shrug. "She doesn't like being left alone this long."

He smothered a chuckle at the expression his explanation created on his friend's face.

"Well! She certainly didn't like me like that." AJ walked around behind him and he let her, though as a law enforcement officer, that was something he was normally wary of. She eyed the kitten. "She hissed and glared at me the entire time I was waiting for you."

Bill speared her with an sour look. "She has good taste then."

Slender arms crossed over a vest-covered chest. "Well, go on then, Bill — you try. Let's see how she likes you."

Bill examined the contentedly purring kitten with a considering gaze until she turned her head and baleful eyes surveyed him. "Maybe another time," he muttered.

The woman's little laugh was amused, but there was no bite to it. "Sure, Judge. Scared you off, has she?"

Bill glowered at her. "Don't you have someplace to be, Agent?"

"I do indeed — my supper table." She pulled her kerchief up around the bottom of her face and doused the oil lamp without warning, plunging the room into darkness. "Good night, boys."

The door opened and she melted away, hat pulled low over her face.

—ooO0Ooo—

"Do we have any reason to think this Spurlock would desire to harm Elizabeth or Jack?"

Nathan was intent and leaning forward as he asked the question, having just listened to Bill's tale of the other male Spurlock's history in Hope Valley.

Bill waggled his hand. "Nothing immediate, although being the sweetheart of a family that they are, I suppose anything is possible. He hasn't made a move toward her so far despite having plenty of time to do so. He seems quite focused on Walden's goings-on. I don't think Elizabeth has even laid eyes on the man yet." He gave Nathan a look. "Let's not create a problem where one may very well not exist."

"Where's the usually suspicious Bill Avery?" Nathan smiled before the humor dropped from his face. "Still, I don't think it would hurt to check on her more often."

"Of course not." Bill was in agreement. "I can help with that, easily."

"So." Nathan set his mug of beer down on the arm of the wooden outdoor chairs he'd made for the new home and looked over at Bill. "Tell me about Mei Rose and how she ended up coming to Hope Valley with you."

"Funny story, that." Bill reflectively tapped his finger on the rim of his mug. "I seem to have inadvertently inherited her."

It was 1916. One didn't inherit human beings. So Nathan waited for the rest of the explanation.

The rest of the story came slowly. Nora had rescued Mei Rose from a terrible situation of undisclosed origin, afterwards setting her up as her secretary. When Nora died, the rest of her small household staff found other jobs, but the nearly silent Mei Rose had refused to go, staying by Bill's side with the quiet tenacity of a shadow. When he purchased not one, but two tickets to Hope Valley had been the first time he'd seen so much as a glimmer of a smile from her.

"And the scar?" Nathan asked quietly, using the toe of his boot to push a dying ember back into the fire they sat around.

Bill's head shook gravely. "A mystery. From her past, I assume. She hasn't said and I haven't asked."

"Hmm . . . " Nathan frowned slightly. "Hopefully, Hope Valley will prove to be healing for her. But she's going to need employment. Unless she has some hidden fortune we don't know about."

Bill guffawed, then looked thoughtful. "Honestly, I don't know. She might, but with how little she shares, we would never know. But she might want to stay occupied, at least until she decides what she wants to do with her future. And I was actually considering the fact that she might need a job on our journey up here. I think I'm going to offer her a position as my legal assistant."

Nathan's head tilted. "Oh?"

Bill ticked off on his fingers. "She's intelligent. She's quiet. She's educated. And I'm out of the office much of the day anyway; she'll have plenty of time alone to bone up on all the law books."

"Sounds like a good fit for her," he approved.

"We'll see," was the judge's answer, delivered in his usual laconic way. Then, more seriously: "About Elizabeth . . . "

With a slow exhale, Nathan leaned back, relaxing his head against the high, sloped back of the chair, legs stretched out towards the warmth of the crackling fire, his eyes trained up at the stars shining so brightly in the clear night sky above. Perched atop his thigh, the itty-bitty kitten curled herself even more tightly into a ball, both eyes closed as she slept contentedly.

"It's . . . hard . . . to say, Bill." When at length he spoke, it was slowly and coming from a quiet place in his mind. "We were together today because I ran into her out at the Rolling K on my visit there and decided to head back with them. As for her altered manner . . . only Elizabeth has that answer. Something has changed, I can see it. I just don't know what."

Bill's look was searching across the feet that separated them. "Don't you?"

Silence reigned, with not a thing to disturb the quiet except the pop of the burning wood as sparks sprayed up only to die a swift death in the cool evening air.

Nathan spoke and it was raw. "I can't trust that."

Bill said nothing, studying him, but there was a sorrow on his face.

Nathan's voice graveled lower. "Until she says the words, until her own lips tell me, Bill, I cannot" — he stopped, closed his eyes briefly, opened them — "I cannot embark on hope."

Bill looked into the fire, his eyes reflecting the flicker of the flames. "But something has changed in her towards you."

It wasn't a question. They had both seen as much for themselves. It was the what and the why of the change that were in question.

Both men went quiet, in the way men do. In the way friends do. Too much uncertainty, not enough facts. And so the men held silent and waited on the future.

Nathan rolled his head towards his friend, feeling the wood slats he'd spent hours sanding and polishing smooth press against his scalp. "About Nora . . . " He mirrored Bill's earlier words, then let them drift off as he waited.

Bill sat up slowly, tucking his long legs under him. "You know . . . we think we've made peace with life, we think we've got it all figured out . . . " Absently, his finger rubbed a worn spot on his trouser leg. "Nothing like a funeral to put our ego in its place. They shake up our priorities, have us wishing we'd done certain things differently."

There was a pain in his eyes when he met Nathan's attentive gaze. "Looking at my wife lying in that coffin was hard — one of the hardest things I've ever done . . . life is so very, very short. We should do everything in our power to make ours worthy to offer to our Creator when we meet Him."

Nathan lifted his beer mug and the two men shared a silent toast to the sentiment.

Clearing his throat, Bill said gruffly, as if ashamed of showing so much emotion, "And I was right about that lawyer fella. Pompous suit. But he could read a will intelligibly enough."

"And?" Nathan prompted him.

Bill shrugged. "A house. Furnishings. Some fine art. Her financial assets. A book collection." He shook his head. "It's amazing what our earthly lives boil down to. Both the tangibles and the intangibles."

Then he went quiet and Nathan sensed that his friend had shared all he was going to.

But as it turned out, there was one last thing Bill still had left to tell him that night about his trip . . .

Nora Avery, it seemed, had left her estranged husband a California gold mine.

---

—ooO0Ooo—

---

Author's Note: Hello, hello! It's been too long! But coming in at almost 15K words (!), this massive chapter holds the new record for my longest N&E chapter, so that has to make up for something! ;-) Hopefully, I've given you guys plenty to tide you over till the next chapter. Part of me (inspired by a friend) wants to write an N&E Christmas one-shot or brief story, set in their future, but I'm afraid to take on any more writing projects! :D So, how is everyone? Belated Happy Thanksgiving wishes to all my fellow Americans! (I missed Canadian Thanksgiving; my apologies to my Canadian readers.)

As promised, we saw the barn rescue through Nathan's eyes in this chapter. I like showing certain scenes from both their POV's as it really opens the scene up. And I finally got to write Nathan-Little Jack scenes! (Can someone puh-leeze petition Fanfic to get us emojis?! I am in serious need of LOTS of heart emojis to frame that N-LJ sentence with! ;) Speaking of the children: * Part of me regressing Allie & Jack's ages means that Nathan got Allie younger than he did on That Show. Here, I have it that he got her at 2, hence references in this chapter to him having her as a toddler. I rather like the image of Nathan and toddler Allie! :)

Nathan & his Lizbeth: She is both "thrown" and yet steadier (both in life and towards Nathan) after Rosemary's stern talk with her in the last chapter. Nathan, being no dummy — and with senses honed by training and experience — notices the change in her instantly, but is hesitant to trust them or his instinct about them.

Several new arrivals in town this chapter . . . any guesses who the male stranger might be; the one who shared a meet-cute moment with Katie (and then a brief moment with Fiona — which Lucas was none too pleased about) . . . ?

Several new potential pairings introduced that I'm thoroughly excited to present to you! I'm LOVING writing Mei Rose & blacksmith Kevin (even more than I thought I would)! AJ & Bill promise to be a VERY non-dull "older" couple (see italicized note below about them), and the new gentleman in town . . . well, ahem! Can't say anything more on him — yet! ;p I'm very curious how the new characters and pairings "hit" with you guys, so you'll have to let me know what you think as we go along. I'd love that.

One of the (MANY) things I disliked about That Show That Shall Not Be Named was how they really didn't give Nathan friends per se, especially HV residents. In this story, I'm remedying that situation. The man will have friends. Real friends —and plural!

Speaking of friends: A friend and I were having a discussion about how having a picture in our mind ahead of time of what a character looks like can help with visualization as we read. I told her that my version of Gunner's character looks like the cowboy character in the 2014 Hallmark movie "One Starry Christmas". (If you google the name of the movie, screenshots from it that include him will pop right up.) She said his visual would be neat to have in her head when reading him from now on; so in case anyone wondered what my Gunner looks like, there ya go! ;)

Heartie Observer: You guessed right; the "shady" lady who arrived on the coach in Ch. 8 was indeed AJ Foster! (Just a heads-up to all so there's no confusion: In my story, Bill & AJ were never romantically involved in the past. So there won't be any references to any kind of a *romantic* past.)

Looking for more Nathan Grant content? He arrived in my story Neither Diamond Sunbursts Or Marble Halls (yes, a blatant Anne of Green Gables reference, hehe!) towards the end of Ch. 8: "Catch Me, Love, Before I Fall" in a scene written from his POV, and has an even bigger role throughout all of Ch. 9: "The Eyes of a Mountie", including but not limited to: an outdoor shaving scene, some lighthearted teasing, much astute observing through those beautiful eyes of his, an inadvertent revealing of his feelings for Elizabeth, prepping for action/an impending attack/trouble . . . and more. ;) Now that I've updated this story, I need to work on the next chapter for that story . . . stuff's about to start going down! :D (For those who like Mountie Kinslow in Brookfield, his love interest and love story will begin in that story in Ch. 10: "Brookfield's Mountie and The Runaway Bride". . . now uploaded and ready to read ;)

XOXO,
Paths Through Lavender Fields