"Son of a bitch." The curse issued from Lew on another bone-rattling clap of thunder that shook the walls and floor of the saloon. The bottles and glassware clinked and clanked in telltale warning as glass hurricanes rattled against their metal lantern cages.

"Nothing's broken yet." Carwood reassured, not glancing up from his efforts to tally the night's take.

Lew looked around skeptically as another flash of lightning lit the place. "No one's luck holds out forever."

Lily exhaled a cloud of smoke on the answering, deafening rumble as she watched Carwood work through the numbers at the bar. "Would it make you feel better if we pull down all the bottles for the rest of the night?"

Lew didn't pause his movements wiping down the bar, but she saw the corner of his mouth tick up in recognition of her concern.

Impossibly, over the driving rain, a sigh sounded from the petite blond woman who stood behind Lily. "This weather's got me wanting a ghost story." Ginny said, her tone petulant as she stepped out of her heeled boots. "Does anybody want a ghost story?"

Alice, the lithe brunette next to Lily at the bar, couldn't hold back a gasp. "Not at all. I won't sleep a wink as it is if this keeps up."

"If only that theatre man had asked you to marry him yestereve." Elmira, a buxom brunette, teased as she stepped out of her own heeled boots next to Ginny. "Then maybe we wouldn't have to listen to you whining about the storms all night."

"I've no shame to admit it." Alice returned, a sting of offense in her tone. "I don't like the thunder. It's scary."

Lew reached behind the bar for the nearest bottle and a handful of glasses. "Have a drink, then. Calms the nerves. It'll put you right to sleep."

"Pour out four, Lew." Lily said with a smile before taking another drag on her cigarette. "We could all use it after a down night like tonight."

"Six." He corrected, looking slyly over his shoulder as he poured. "Come on, Lip. Don't make us drink alone here."

"You're hardly alone." Carwood said, his tone distracted even as he looked up with a placating smile. "And no, thank you."

"I admire that, Mr. Lipton." Ginny batted her eyes at him. "Drinkin' can turn the nicest of men into scoundrels. And I would just hate to see you go that way."

"Speaking of scoundrels," Elmira interjected, resting a hand against the swell of her backside, "I got a pinching so bad tonight, I'm like to have a bruise."

Alice giggled as Lew pushed the filled glasses forward. "Serves you right. With all that wiggling you were doing for that team of Wells Fargo drovers."

Another kaboom of thunder threatened to shake the saloon apart as Elmira and Ginny stepped up to the bar for their glasses.

"Well, it was such a slow night," Elmira started, "I had to do something to keep them here and keep them spending." She tipped the glass back, knocking the whiskey down in a smooth pull as Lily watched the other girls upend their glasses.

"Yulch." Alice grimaced on the finish, forehead wrinkled in disgust as she coughed. "I still can't make myself like whiskey."

"Well, it's not for everyone." Lily said, knocking her own glass back. The burn of the liquor mixed pleasantly with the lingering smoke on her taste buds.

"Which just leaves more for the rest of us." Lew teased, tipping his glass back. He licked his lips, setting the empty glass down and reaching for the sixth one. "You sure, Lip?"

"I'm sure."

"Well, if I thought you'd say yes, I wouldn't have asked." He raised the glass, downing the contents just as smoothly as the first. Lily couldn't help a small smile as she took another hit of smoke.

Over the years, she'd learned a lot about Lewis Nixon. The most obvious was his proclivity for drinking whiskey. Always whiskey, but bourbon specifically. She knew the saloon didn't stock bourbon for the patrons, so Lew had to slum it on the nights he worked the bar. But his personal flask, always topped with the good stuff, was never far out of reach.

"Goddammit." Elmira's curse over another clap of thunder brought her back to the soggy night. "These new boots have given me four blisters tonight. Shit, look – that's one about to burst."

"Ew," Ginny said, "at least once it does, the hurt goes away faster. Mine from two weeks ago are just about gone."

Lily stubbed out the end of her cigarette. "Just take care that they don't fester. Else, I'll have to get Doc Mul in here."

"Don't you dare." Ginny's tone sharpened. "That man causes more pain than healing."

"The healing happens after." Lew chided, taking away the dirty glasses and bottle. "And Lily'll do what she must to take care of you. That's what we pay her for."

"Among other things." Elmira stooped over to retrieve her boots. "I'm heading up. It'll take me a while to sleep with all this racket."

"Y'all should go on, too." Lily said with an encouraging smile to Alice and Ginny. "There'll likely be quite the rush tomorrow night."

A chorus of goodnights went up around the room as the three women took to the stairs. Despite Dick's general references to them as 'the girls', they were all somewhere in their early twenties. Hell Lily, herself, was twenty-five and felt positively old by comparison. But the last six years under Dick and Lew's care had easily been the best years of her life.

She didn't appreciate Elmira's parting dig, though. There was nothing untoward about what she was paid for here. She had been promised that she'd never have to suck cock or open her legs for money again, and that promise had yet to be broken.

Lew's gaze caught hers, a hint of melancholy lurking in his dark eyes beneath the casual charisma that he wore like a second skin. "Don't go yet, Lils." He said softly, swinging the open bottle back around, lining up two more glasses. "Knock back a few more with me. I'm behind for the night."

Skeptically, she watched him pour. With the slower saloon traffic, he'd had plenty of time to keep up and she'd seen him already indulge several times tonight.

"We had a decent take." Lip said quietly, closing up the lock box with a sigh and closing the ledger. "But I'm going to pack it in before the numbers on the page start swirling around. Don't have too much fun, now." He offered a smile in farewell, a knowing edge in his gaze as he looked between them before ascending the stairs.

She reached down to her full glass, picking it up as another flash of lightning lit the room, thunder booming in its wake. "What'll we drink to?"

"How about to Thor, the god of thunder."

She squinted at him in confusion. "Did you just make that up?"

"No." He laughed with a mocking edge. "That's Yale education at it's finest."

"Well…then, to Thor." Their glasses met with a clink before each downed the brown liquid. He moved to refill just as soon as her hand hit the bar top. "Again?" The warmth of the previous two drinks seeped through her limbs, making her sleepy in the early morning hour. Goodness, it had to be well past 2 am by now.

He looked up to her with a smile that attempted levity but looked more lonely than not. "Can't quit on me now."

She picked up her drink with a sad tilt of her lips, watching him knock his back without a toast before she gulped down the rough liquor. A fuzz grew in her head and she leveled him with a determined look as he hovered with the bottle. "No more, Lew. Come on. There are better things to do."

xxx

The first night she spent with Lew was an accident. He had simply been too deep in his cups to rightly remember which door lead to his room and he collapsed against the bed without realizing she was in it. But he was a good bedmate, sleeping peacefully and deeply. She didn't have the heart to wake him the following morning, but she marveled at the softness of his hair as she brushed it back with a kiss to his brow. When he did finally emerge from her room, eyes bloodshot but otherwise rested, no one said a word.

The second night, Dick was away and the others had retired, leaving her and Lew as the last two to come up the stairs. He invited her into his room for a nightcap. And no, not the bedtime garment. She had no reason not to be frank with him, and he seemed to find that pleasing and refreshing in equal measure as they sat against the headboard of his bed, passing a bottle between them. Next thing she knew, she woke up with her head against his shoulder, curled against him in the darkness. She still doesn't know if she woke him or if he was already awake, but when his lips touched hers, she knew it was the first time she actually wanted a man's kiss.

In fact, it was the first time she had honestly wanted any of it, and he coaxed her through all of it. Encouraged her to voice everything she felt. Encouraged her to be true and just feel. Encouraged her to let him so completely devour her without fear of cost or reciprocation. She had never genuinely clutched a man so close in pleasure as she did when Lew moved in her, her high-pitched moans stoking his urgent need.

He said he honestly couldn't believe it. Even as the lay afterwards in the early morning hour, passing the previously abandoned bottle, and she told him the truth. How she was taught to prepare her body to receive a man's without any help; how her madam told her that sex would always hurt if she hadn't readied herself. That men were never to be depended upon for any pleasure.

The next day, she wasn't out of bed the until well after noon.

But from that night on, she never really knew what she would get with Lew when he knocked on her door in the late night hour. His moods were so variable. Sometimes, it was light and he could make her giggle like none other as his silver tongue worked to make her melt. Other times, he'd lost himself in self-loathing melancholy at the bottom of a bottle and he was just looking for something to take him out of his head.

And sometimes, she thinks that he doesn't even see her at all. He would hold her so tender, rocking gently against her, eyes shut tight as he panted against her neck. It must be what making love feels like, she guesses. For the better part of a year, she wondered who he was thinking about - who he loved.

But then she saw it. Both Dick and Lew were stooped over the bar top, looking at something on the surface. All she could see were their curved backs and the barely-there press of their shoulders. Suddenly, Dick raised his head and turned towards Lew with a little smile, pride in his expression. Lew raised his head - and for all the world, the tension in the room spiked. He only had to lean in to feel Dick's lips against his own, and something in their shared gaze felt so raw. Instead, he finally broke to look back at the bar top, raising a hand to fold whatever was laid out. He slid the paper over in front of Dick, moving his hand to Dick's shoulder in a farewell squeeze as he pocketed the paper and moved for the door.

It was almost another month before Lew knocked on her door and she had the chance to ask. At first, she worried that she'd ruined everything by guessing wrong and upsetting him. But then, his defenses fell away and three vulnerable words slipped out.

Yes. It is.

She made a promise to him then and there - that he could always come to her. It's better than drinking himself to an early grave over it. That even though it may never be socially acceptable, she knows it's real. That she would never judge him for what he says, what he feels.

Or if he moans the wrong name.


"Will Mr. Winters let you plant a garden yet?" Mrs. McClure asked with a kind smile as Lily handed over the collection of coins. She was one of the few women in the community that hadn't outright dismissed Lily as an irredeemable painted lady. Of course, that had been further helped when Dick became an upstanding member of the Bluewater Church.

"He would like if we had a garden. I did try a couple years ago – before I started coming to you – but it didn't take."

"That's a shame." Mrs. McClure nodded politely. "Though, I suppose I shouldn't push it too far – I do appreciate your business."

"Yes, ma'am. I wouldn't go anywhere else for vegetables." Lily matched the polite nod, hefting the basket of squash, tomatoes and peppers. "Thank you. And I know that Mr. Winters thanks you, too."

"Yes, Miss Martin. He thanks me at the Sunday services. Always such a gentleman."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You know that you are always invited to attend services with him. Miss Alice Sampson always behaves very decorously during the service when she accompanies him."

"Thank you for the invitation. I'll be sure to speak with Mr. Winters about it."

"I hope that you do."

She nodded politely, hefting the basket again. "I mustn't keep you. Thank you again, Mrs. McClure."

The older woman waved her off modestly and she started down the small path from the McClures that lead back to the main part of town. The carpenter and his wife lived on the edge of Bluewater near a creek that always trickled peacefully. It was really a nice setting that stirred up a envious pang whenever she visited. What would life be like to be married and so well settled? A respected pillar of the community? She had spent her whole life on the fringes, but how did one go about trying to better themselves?

By attending Sunday services? Was that the measure of quality in this town? Was that why Mr. Winters was more highly spoken of than Mr. Nixon, despite them both owning the Easy Saloon?

A gust of wind caught the bottom of her skirt and her stray curls as she rounded the corner back onto the main street. At least the breeze this morning was fresh, bringing a crisp sharpness from up the valley. She'd gone off and left every window open in the backroom kitchen to let as much of the cool air in. Without it, the heat of the afternoon sun would be unbearable. Hopefully, she would be able to get back in time to enjoy the cool kitchen as she prepared the bread for dinner. But there was one last stop to make.

She stepped onto the boardwalk, spying a familiar figure exit the freight office. A most dashing, if stern, familiar figure. Tall and rangy, with a stiff posture to boot that only added to his height. He must have paid an early morning visit to the bathhouse as his hair was neatly coiffed under his hat, his jaw cleanly shaven, and his shirt looked fresh. But lord a'mercy, the sight of Ron Speirs in the morning light was such a sight for sore eyes.

She couldn't help her warm smile and the fluttering race of her heart as he walked over. "Good morning, Mr. Speirs. Welcome back." It was one thing to be on familiar terms with the men of Easy within the walls of the saloon, but it was another thing entirely to be so familiar out in the street.

He tipped his head in greeting. "Good morning, Miss Martin." He looked to the laden basket in her hand. "What are you about this morning?"

"I've just finished at Mrs. McClure's for vegetables, and have one last stop to make." She offered a polite smile, glancing around the street self-consciously. "What of yourself?"

"The livery. The manager was already asleep when I arrived this morning."

"This morning," she teased with a light air, "on around 2 am, you mean."

His brow raised ever so subtly. "Apologies if I woke you coming up the stairs."

She couldn't keep the coy smile from her face. His movements had indeed woken her up – but only once he was in the common room next to hers. She didn't understand how Lip and Roe had slept through his heavy bootfalls and the thunk of the headboard against the wall as he'd finally settled into bed. None of it had done anything to lull her back to sleep, instead fueling her mind with thoughts for what tonight could bring.

"No apologies needed." She took a small step, pleased to see him match it and slowly fall into step alongside her. "I trust you had a good stop at the fright office."

"Good enough, yes. Mr. Lipton had a couple of letters he wished to post."

She tilted her head curiously. "Where is Mr. Lipton? I heard that you both set out from the saloon early this morning."

"We did, but we ran into someone unexpected."

"Oh?"

"Yes. So, I left him pitching woo to the school teacher."

She giggled softly. "That is sweet. I do hope that he asks her for at least one dance at the upcoming Fourth of July Festival." She didn't really expect Ron to echo the sentiment, but the scowl on his face was slightly surprising. "You…you don't approve?"

"I have no inclinations on how Mr. Lipton chooses to conduct his personal affairs, so long as they don't make me a privy third-party."

"Oh, come now. Don't you believe in love stories?"

He cocked a wry eyebrow. "Do you?"

"Yes, I want to." She forced herself to look ahead. "It's such a wonderful thought to think that love is a real thing. And if Mr. Lipton thinks he can find that with Miss Cartwright, then I think it's grand." She'd known very little of love in the years since her father's death, and the thought that she could one day share such feelings with a man was indeed an exciting thought. Especially if she could share them with the man who currently walked beside her.

"Love can be a powerful force," he conceded. "It's felled some of the most powerful men in history."

"Like Napoleon?" She looked over, seeking confirmation in the profile of his face and finding none. "Oh, no. Not like Napoleon."

"No, not like Napoleon."

"Oh, who was it…," she trailed off, trying to run through all the various names that she'd heard from him over the years. "Tertius? No, not him – he lopped off heads. Oh! It was the one who married the Egyptian queen."

"Marc Antony never married Cleopatra."

"But they had multiple children and he divorced his roman wife so he could be with her."

"Among other things."

For being intensely private about himself, he was remarkably free with sharing the stories of others from the annals of history. It was something she had always enjoyed when he was of a mind – listening to the sound of his voice recounting a tale of glory and woe from someone of an age past. There were so many stories - hell, she marveled he could remember them all. He seemed to have a particular penchant for the stories of the Roman Empire, and for the life of her, she couldn't keep half the names straight. Especially when every ruler was named Caesar. How confusing.

She stepped off the boardwalk to cross the alleyway. "Are you on shift tonight?"

"I haven't spoken with Mr. Winters yet. Mr. Lipton thinks it likely I'll be sent back out."

"So soon?" The note of sadness in her voice showed on her face as she glanced over at him. She had really hoped that he would be around for a while.

"You know what we do. And why."

Her heart sank as she knew he was right. Solving the problems of others was seldom convenient. And really, she ought to be ashamed of herself. Getting her hopes up at the expense of others' continued misfortune when he was no more beholden to her than anyone else.

"No, I understand." She said at length. "It's just that I think you deserve to be spoiled a little more between jobs – with a roof over your head, a real bed. Hot food daily."

"Those will just have to be my rewards for a job completed." That answer didn't surprise her. He had only ever shown himself to be pragmatic.

"As always." She offered a soft smile, stopping outside the inconspicuous building with the small sign that read 'Doctor's Services'.

His eyes pinched with curious concern. "Are you unwell?"

"No, I'm quite well, thank you. I just need to resupply herbs."

"I see." The corner of his mouth ticked up in what she knew to be the closest thing she would get to a smile as he inclined his head. "Good day, Miss Martin. I will see you later."

"Yes. Thank you for the company, Mr. Speirs." She nodded in farewell before he turned and continued on down the boardwalk.

She wondered if playing nice and formal in the streets bothered him. Surely, he had to see all the pleasantries and formal addresses as a waste of time. But if he did, he never showed it. In fact, he adopted it rather smoothly. Not as smoothly as Lew, who wore his silver spoon eastern upbringing with proper charisma for all to see. But it still made her wonder at Ron Speirs' upbringing.

The door to Dr. Mulberry's office opened with its usual squeaky hinge, admitting the smell of cloves and burning cedar. She called out a greeting, watching as the older gentleman came around the corner of his office into the main room.

"Good morning, Miss Martin." His voice was rough with age but pleasant enough. "Can I help you?"

"Yes, sir. I need to buy some more herbs."

The man's mouth upturned with disapproval. "Why don't you girls just get married? Then you wouldn't need this stuff and could conceive naturally. The way God intended you to."

She fought back a sigh, instead choosing not to respond. It was a discussion that she'd had multiple times with Dr. Mulberry over the years. He never failed to hide his personal disapproval over their presence in the saloon, or make it known that he only tended to the girls at the direct request of Mr. Winters.

He moved for his shelf of stores, pulling down a large jar. "How about you, hmm? You still regularly with your moons?"

"Yes."

"No unusual discharge or swelling?"

"No." She couldn't help but bristle at the questions. Before him, no one had ever pried so much into her bodily wellness. Not even in her former place of employ with so many men inside her daily. And now that it wasn't even a weekly occurrence? Well, she knew the humors of her own body better than he did.

Mulberry sighed again, another condescending sound, but he pushed the two small satchels forward. "Here. Pennyroyal and cohosh. Steeped in hot water every day will help you."

"Thank you." She already knew the instructions. He gave them to her every time she came in to resupply. "How much do I owe you?"

He waved a wrinkled hand dismissively. "I'll take it out of Mr. Winters' line of credit. He ought to see what all he's buying with his money."

"I'm sure he's already aware." She kept the words polite, but there was a bite to her tone and pinched smile as she stepped up to gather the satchels. "I'll let him know to expect it."

The doctor nodded, startling to shuffle out from behind the counter. "Another thing – that Ginny's tooth. Has she complained of any more discomfort?"

"I haven't heard of any. But she does wince when she eats, even though she tires to hide it."

Mulberry sighed, nodding his head as if he already knew the answer. "That tooth needs to be extracted. It's only going to pain her worse and risk infecting the rest of her teeth."

"I know you told her that on your last visit, but she still hasn't agreed to it."

"She's only making it worse for herself."

"She's afraid," Lily simply said. "She knows it'll hurt more in the short run, even though it'll be less hurt in the long run. And that's enough to stop her from agreeing." She fixed Mulberry with a wary gaze. "But if you think it's serious enough, I can take it up with Mr. Winters."

"It's serious."