"Do ya really think he means it, Mr. Dillon?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah, Chester, I think he means it."

"Well I'll be... I never would have guessed that the ol' rooster had it in him."

One of Dillon's eyebrows raised in amusement. "How's that, Chester?"

"Well, Mr. Dillon, you know how ol' Doc can be kinda...well, kinda..."

"Crusty?"

Chester sipped his beer and nodded. "Yeah, crusty."

"Well Chester, lurking somewhere beneath that salty exterior lies a pretty soft heart."

Chester grunted derisively, causing Matt to laugh. Kitty walked through the front door then, looking chilled to the bone, and without a coat. Matt set his beer down on the bar, and as she swished past him, he took her arm, concern tugging at his rugged features.

"Kitty?"

"Let me go, Matt."

His brow knitted together. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." She looked into his eyes, hers imploring him to comply. "Please let me go."

He watched her move quickly into the back office, and concern knotted his stomach.

Chester's voice belied confusion, "What's wrong with Miss Kitty?"

"I don't know, Chester." Matt took another sip of beer and set the mug on the bar. "But I'm going to find out. You take my rounds for me, will ya, and let me know if there's a problem."

"Sure thing, Mr. Dillon. I'll get to it right now."

Chester left the saloon, and Dillon walked through the door to the back office, closing it gently behind him.

"Kitty?"

Her heard the muffled sounds of weeping, and found her sitting at her desk, her head on her arms, crying. He tilted his hat back on his head, and sighed deeply, trying to think of something to say. After a moment, he put his hands gently on her shoulders.

"Kitty..."

When she didn't respond, he took her into his arms, lifting her out of the chair, and pulling her close.

His voice was soft with love, "What is it?" She shivered, and he rubbed his arms over her body. "You're so cold."

Kitty pressed into him, trying to sink into his warmth. Her voice sounded calmer than he expected, "I can't stand this feeling, Matt."

"What feeling?"

"Of being dismissed."

"This about Doc?" When she nodded her head against him, he continued, "I told you before, he wouldn't do that. Especially not to you."

"It's how it feels."

"Then you're overreacting."

She looked up at him then, but he saw no spite. "I don't mean to be."

"I know that." He rubbed his hands over her lower back as a lover would. "What happened?"

"I ran into them having supper at Delmonico's..."

"Doc and Cassie?"

"Yes."

When she didn't continue, Matt prompted, "And?"

"And I was pretty hard on him."

"I'll bet you caught him completely off-guard too, didn't you?"

"Seemed that way."

"You see, he doesn't think anything's changed."

"But it has, Matt."

He put his hands on her face. "Kitty, the only thing that's changed is the way you're treating him. I'll bet if you asked him about it, he'd tell you that."

"I'm not--" She paused for a long moment, then started again, "I'm not a good enough person, Matt."

He frowned at her. "That's not true, Kitty. It's not true at all." He looked deeply into her crystal blue eyes, and his eyes held hers. "You're just afraid. You're afraid of being hurt again, in the way that your father did. No one could blame you for that; Doc wouldn't."

She gently broke out of his embrace, and walked further into the room, her arms wrapped around herself. "Doc taking in a surrogate-daughter; I don't think I can handle this, Matt."

"Sure you can."

She turned back to face him sharply. "No, I can't. Doc's been more of a father to me in my life than my own, but he's no different. I've become old hat, comfortable...just 'good ol' Kitty.'"

Matt shook his head; he wasn't going to be able to reason with her. It would be up to Doc, if she gave him the opening. "Well, I don't agree with you, but it's pretty clear that I can't convince you." He kissed her forehead softly. "I wish you'd at least give him the chance to speak for himself though, instead of making up his mind for him."

She shook her head. "No. I can't do that." Tears filled her eyes. "I can't go through it again, Matt. When my father left me, it nearly destroyed me." She slammed a hand on her desk, anger once again asserting itself. "Damn I didn't want to trust Doc. I fought against trusting him. But he reeled me in, making me think I was important to him, only to find out it was convenient. It's my father all over again..."

He touched her shoulders lightly. "You can trust him, Kitty; Doc isn't your father."

She shook her head. "Matt...I'd really like to be alone right now."

He nodded, pulling his hands back. "Okay, Kitty. But if you need me..."

She turned, and pressed her lips onto his for a moment. "Thanks cowboy." She looked into his shimmering blue eyes. "You're the one man that I really can trust."

He leaned down and kissed her once more. "Yes, but I'm not the only one."

Without another word, Matt turned and walked out of the room, closing the door behind him. Kitty stared after him for a moment, contemplating his words: if only she could believe in them.

Doc opened the door for Cassie, and she walked into the office. He closed the door, lit a lantern, set Kitty's coat that he had taken from Delmonico's down on a chair, and rubbed his hands together.

"Gosh but it's cold in here..."

Cassie watched him light a fire in the stove, and he turned to take her coat off. He hung the coat up on the rack, but remained in his.

"Aren't you going to take your coat off, Doc?"

"Not just yet, honey. Now, I want you to go on to bed, and I'll be back in a little while."

A frown spread across her face. "Where are you going?"

"I want to take Kitty's coat back to her."

"Can't it wait until morning?"

He shook his head. "No, this really can't."

Cassie didn't pick up on the double meaning. "How long will you be gone?"

He smiled gently at her. "Not that long. Now you do as I say, go to bed, and get some rest. I'll lock the door, so you don't have to worry, all right?"

She nodded, and sighed deeply. "If you say so."

"I do." He kissed her forehead sweetly, and turned her toward the door to the back room. "Off you go!"

Cassie went into the room, closing the door behind her. Doc picked up Kitty's coat, walked out the door, and locked it from the outside. He slipped the key into his pocket and headed down the stairs. The snowfall was picking up, and he shivered inside his coat. Kitty's outburst earlier set his mind thinking back on everything that had transpired over the past several days, and the pieces of her behavior were beginning to fit a pattern. Adams shook his head: he loved Kitty more than any man could outside of Matt. It made his heart sick to realize that her paternal insecurity had caused her to question that love. He sighed deeply. Knowing Kitty's past as well as he did, he should have seen it coming; her relationship with her father had touched everything in her life. He should have seen it coming, but he had selfishly been caught up in his own joy at the opportunity to shower love on a young girl who had been mistreated so dreadfully.

But Kitty was more fragile than people believed; and it was the very fact that she had let him view her inner vulnerability that was causing her to fear his abandonment. Doc shook his head. The human psyche was so much more complex than the human anatomy, and far more difficult to diagnose and treat. Doc felt anger in that moment toward Kitty's father; the man had been given a wonderful gift, a daughter who loved him and would have been devoted to him. But he had thrown her away for a con artist who married him for the money she thought he possessed, and who didn't want the competition of his daughter's affection. It was ironic: Mr. Russell was as much of a con artist as his new wife, both having married the other for money that neither of them possessed. And the one who had been hurt the most was the child he left behind.

The wind picked up and whipped through his coat as regret filled him. Death had cheated him out of his family; out of raising the daughter he had loved more than anything in life. His heart had been nothing more than a crushed shell until he met Kitty. He had needed her as much as she had needed him; perhaps more, for there was nothing so hollow as a man with no one to love. The thought of Kitty being ripped from his life made his heart skip a beat; and he realized the same could be said of Cassie. Doc needed both of them, and there was more than enough room and enough love. Kitty would understand that with time, and with his reassurance that no one could ever take the place she occupied in his heart.

When Doc entered the Longbranch, the solemn quiet struck him. There weren't many men there, and a cursory glance around the room told him that Kitty wasn't either. He walked over to the bar.

"What can I getcha Doc?"

"Oh, nothing, Clem, thanks. Listen, I just stopped by to see Kitty fer a minute. Is she around?"

He shook his head. "'Fraid not, Doc. She already went to bed, and asked not to be disturbed." The bartender noted the profound disappointment on the doctor's face. "Something I can help ya with, Doc?"

Doc's voice was soft, "Oh no, no thanks, Clem." He handed the bartender the coat over the bar. "Here...she left this over at Delmonico's tonight, I wanted to make sure to bring it by."

"Sure, thanks Doc."

The old man nodded, and started to turn away, when he added, "Tell her...tell her I'm sorry I missed her."

Clem could hear an emptiness in the old man's voice that landed hard in his stomach. "Sure I will Doc. Are ya certain there ain't nothin' I can do?"

Doc smiled sadly. "No Clem, but thanks fer askin'...Good night."

The old doctor turned and walked away. "Good night, Doc."

The snow was falling much harder by the time Doc slipped the key into the locked door of his office. He quietly stepped in, closing the door behind him. He pulled off his coat and hat, hanging them on the coat rack, and he walked further into the room. Momentarily, the door to the back room opened, and Cassie, in a nightgown and robe, padded in.

"Cassie...you're supposed to be in bed, honey."

"I know. I couldn't sleep."

"Ya couldn't?" She shook her head, and looked to him like a little girl afraid of the dark. "Well, why couldn'tcha?"

She ran to him then, throwing her arms around him, snuggling her face into the soft flesh of his neck. He put his arms around her, patting her back.

"Here now, what's the matter?"

Her voice was small, "I was scared..."

"Ya were?" She nodded, and he continued, "What scared ya?"

She looked up at him then, her big pale blue eyes carrying the innocence of a child. "You weren't here."

"Well now, honey, you're gonna have to get used to some of that. They'll be nights when I'm gonna have to go out on calls ya know..."

"Can't I go with you?"

He shook his head, a slight smile lighting his lips. "No, sweetheart." He brushed her hair back sweetly with his hand. "You're still a growing girl; you need to sleep nights, not traipse around the prairie with an ol' country doctor."

"I'm not a little girl, Doc..."

Cassie stared into his endless depths of caring pale blue, and having envisioned the moment over and over, wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing herself into him. Before Doc had a chance to gently push her away, she covered his mouth with hers, kissing him ardently. As delicately as he could, he extricated himself from her embrace, smiling kindly at her. A frown started to crease her forehead, and he put his arm around her and led her to the chair next to his desk.

"I wanna talk to you a fer a minute, Cassie..." He sat down in his desk chair, and reached out to take her hand in his, softly rubbing the top of it with his thumb. "There are a lot of different kinds of love, honey. There's the love a man has for a woman when he's courtin' her; the love a man has for his brother; and there's the love a father has for a daughter. Now you've been cheated out of that last one a little because your father died when you were a small girl, and Dell Stevenson ain't no kinda man to give it to you. And when a young girl hasn't been shown a lot of love, it's real easy for her to mistake one kind fer another."

Cassie slammed her eyes shut against his words, and gently, Doc brushed his fingers over her cheek until she looked at him again.

"I know this is hard for a girl your age, but I also know that someday you'll meet a young man and you'll fall head over heels in love with him."

"But I love you, Doc."

"I know ya do, sweetheart. But whether ya know it or not, ya love me like you did your real Pa. It's just been a lot of years, and now you're developin' a young woman's emotions, and you've sorta confused it with another kind of love." Tears began to fill her eyes, and he pulled her over into his lap, wrapping his arms around her like a father would a small girl, pressing her head down onto his chest. "A very long time ago, there was another little girl I loved an awful lot who was taken from me; but I'd sure like it if you'd just...well if you'd just sorta adopt me..."

She cried into his chest, "It's because Miss Kitty doesn't like me, isn't it?"

"Oh honey, that's not true. Where'd ya get an idea like that?"

"She seemed real mad when she left Delmonico's tonight..."

"That had nothing to do with you, sweetheart. Kitty's' just a little upset at me right now, that's all. It's nothin' fer you to worry about."

But instead of being comforted, Cassie began to sob into him, gripping his neck tightly with her arms. He pat her back softly, shushing her tenderly. After several minutes, she calmed slightly.

"She's gonna make you send me back to him, isn't she?"

"Is that what you think?"

She nodded. "I thought if I could make you a good wife, I wouldn't ever have to go back there again..."

The desperation in her voice made his heart sick, and he pulled her closer. "Cassie, unless you want to, you don't ever have to go back to Dell Stevenson - and you don't have to marry an old man to do it. You can stay here with me, if that's what you want; I'd love nothin' more than to have a daughter to dote on..."

She looked into his eyes then, the tears streaming down her face, dripping onto his shirt. "Do you mean it?"

"You bet I do."

She grabbed his neck in a tight hug. "Oh Doc...I love you!"

He rubbed her back softly. "Now I want you to get to bed. You should have been asleep a long time ago."

The little girl in her emerged once again. "Will you sing to me?"

"I sure will, sweetheart."

Cassie stood up, and pulling Doc by the hand, headed toward her room.