Sitting at a table near the side door of the Long Branch, Kitty felt more at home than she had anywhere else that morning. Sam's face had broken into a huge smile at the sight of her, and that had warmed her heart as much as Annie's embrace. She sipped at the coffee he had brought over to their table, in her familiar blue willow pot, and was further warmed by the tot of whiskey he'd clearly added. She had been paying more attention to her own reactions to the familiar room than to Annie's chatter until one word brought her up short.

"You're what?"

"We're going to get married," Annie repeated, glad to have captured Kitty's wandering attention. Her stream of prattle seemed to dry up with that statement, and she sat quiet her hands folded and her eyes on them under the long, observant stare Kitty directed on her.

What Kitty wanted most to ask was, "Are you sure?", but she didn't. She'd foreseen this action for some months – although she'd hoped maybe the pair would put it off. "When?" was the only thing she finally asked, and Annie let out a long breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.

"We thought Christmas day. We can hold the usual party here on Christmas Eve and then close the place for a day or two. I know the bars do a good business on Christmas, but we can afford to miss that trade this once." Annie's hazel eyes met Kitty's blue ones in a gaze that was a little hesitant, but her voice was very sure. "I want to be married at Kincaid." Kitty nodded slowly. That was certainly right. Matt had offered Annie a home at Kincaid, and to be married from her father's house was how things should be.

Kitty reached over to hold Annie's clasped hands. She had to say it at least once. "Annie, to my certain knowledge Sam is twenty years older than I am. That makes him thirty years older than you. Have you talked through what that's going to mean? Not now maybe, but… later?" She expected offence or even hostility, but Annie didn't take umbrage at the remark.

"We have." It took a few minutes of silence there in the unquiet room. Down at the far end of the bar Sam was laying out a tray of bread, and cheese, and pickles with a big bowl of boiled eggs sitting next to it. Two men were standing at the bar, talking while they drank their beer and munched at the free lunch. Cora sat at her table in front dealing a hand of blackjack to some men who might be drifters, or drummers, or clerks. The batwing doors had been fastened back against the wall, but one saloon door was open letting bright, chill sunshine draw a line across the floor.

"I do know what I want, Kitty," Annie said at last. "And this is it. Every day we wait, it's a day we miss. Sam… well at first he thought we should just live here together. He didn't want to 'tie me down'. He says he wants more for me than an old man and a rowdy saloon." Kitty rolled her eyes at that. She'd heard similar words all too often. "But this is where I want to be. This is what I want to do. Nothing lasts forever. I know that," she clutched at Kitty's hands, "I do know that no matter how young you think I am. But…" Annie looked piercingly into the older woman's eyes, "Why can't we have our time together? I know it won't be for the rest of my life, but I think maybe it will be the best of my life."

"Christmas is a fine time to be married, Annie. Kincaid is your home. It will always be your home as long as Matt and I are there. Do you want a big wedding?"

The sparkle came back to Annie's eyes as she shook her head, "No. Not very big. But I want my family there. Can we have that?"

"Now that's something you'll have to ask Matt. I'll speak for the house, but not for Matt's feelings about his family. Our last little adventure with his brother did not go well."

Annie brushed that off. "Not Uncle Rafe, no. But Ray and Web, and maybe maybe some of the girls. Rafe and the aunts, they wouldn't come if I invited them, but I think my cousins would, and they could bring Mark with them. And Louisa and Johnny – Denver's not that far." She hesitated, but only for a moment. "And Luke. I haven't seen Luke in ten years, Kitty, but he's finishing his work at the hospital in San Francisco this fall. I hadn't even told anybody else, but I wrote and asked him. He said he'll come. He never wanted to come near Dodge City, but he says he'll come for my wedding, no matter what."

There didn't seem to be any answer to that. Luke. And the father he apparently resembled but rejected. It would make for an interesting time. If anyone could hold that crew together it would be Annie.

"Don't you have any family, Kitty?" The question burst at Kitty out of the blue.

She shook her head slowly. "No." It was a slow word. "None that I claim, or that claim me. My father might still be alive." Those words were like stones, and Annie drew back a little just hearing them. "But I will never meet with him again. I wouldn't offer the man a drop of cool water in hell."

"No one else?"

This was not a subject Kitty cared to discuss. "No," she said again. "My mother died when I was young, not quite twelve, and her father, my grandfather, well, he was alive then, but he'd be very old if he were still alive now. And he never recognized my existence. I was an only child, and so was she."

"Did you never know her people? You came from New Orleans, I know, but surely you must have some kin there?"

"No one I know or who would care to know me, I'm afraid." Kitty replied. "My grandfather had a plantation north of the city, out along Lake Pontchartrain, but I was never there, at least not that I remember. My mother's people came from further up along the river. Baton Rouge? No, Natchez, I think. I never met them. Hattie would know."

"And who's Hattie?"

This lifted Kitty's lips in smiling remembrance. "She was a slavewoman my grandfather sent to live with us. He supported my mother. He never acknowledged her marriage, but he must have cared for her. After my father left her, he gave her a little house in town and enough money to live on. And Hattie. Hattie raised me. Her mother had come south with my grandmother from… well, from wherever, when she came to marry my grandfather. Hattie knew more about the family than the family knew themselves."

"Where is she now, Kitty?"

Those memories weren't as good. "I don't know. I saw her once, during those years I was working at the Golden Lily in New Orleans. War was over then, so she was free, and she seemed to be doing well. Said she was cooking at a boarding house and that her boys were with her. She had two boys. Cairo wasn't much more than a baby when my mother died, but Caleb, he was just a little younger than me. He helped around the house, ran errands, played with me when we were small. I don't know what happened to Hattie. I always meant to find out, after I got settled here in Dodge." She shrugged. "But I never did. Lucy might know. I could ask her. I need to write her anyway to let her know I'm married."

Annie popped to her feet with her hands briefly covering her mouth. "Oh, Kitty, I'm sorry! I should have given it to you right off! I've been collecting your mail. I opened most things because they looked like business for the Long Branch but there was a letter just a couple of days ago, a personal letter it looked like, from someone in New Orleans. I think the name was Lucy. I'll run get it now," she said turning and heading for the office.

Kitty sat quite still. She had been planning to write Lucy about her marriage. One of the carefully non-specific letters full of only good news and scenic descriptions of life on the prairie. Why would Lucy write me now, she wondered, it's not even close to Christmas? The answer was going to be more than she bargained for.