"Christ Heather, where did ye learn to shoot like that?" Conner asked as she was cleaning his wounded arm. One of the men back there cut it with something and it did not look pretty.

"I didn't, but I am skilled in archery which helped with aiming, now hold still" she said as she began to sew his wound.

"Fuckkk me!" Conner cried out in pain.

"You will be ok in a minute" Heather said as she finished up the stitching. "There, all better" she said with a smirk.

"Aye, thanks" Conner said as he stood up and headed to the cabinet to grab a bottle of whiskey. He opened it and started drinking it. "Now I'll be ok" he smirked.

Heather giggled then turned to Murphy. "Are you wounded anywhere Murph?" she asked as she started to examine him for wounds.

"No, I'm fine" he replied, "just a few bruises and small cuts, nothing major" he took off his shirt to let her see.

"We can't thank ye enough fer what ye did back there" Conner said to her.

"You do not have to thank me, it is probably the least, or most in this case, that I can do for being able to crash at your place" she replied.

"Well at least let us take ye out to drink sometime, we'll pay for it all" Conner said as he put his arm around her, then handed the whiskey bottle to Murphy.

"Well" she thought, "alright, I could use a few drinks, will you two also talk about my brother more?"

Murphy took a long drink from the whiskey bottle then said, "Aye, we can do that, maybe recreate 'is memory for ye." He smiled.

Conner didn't answer because he seemed to be lost in Heather. His eyes would bounce from her eyes, to her hair, then her lips; he wondered what they felt like on his and then her body; she must take care of it. Her curves were in all the right places and…

"Earth to Conner" Murphy said, breaking Conner out of his trance.

"What?" Conner replied feeling his cheeks get warm when he realized he hadn't been paying attention to Murphy offering him back the bottle of whiskey.

"Ye ok? Ye looked lost" Murphy asked as he finally handed Conner the whiskey.

"I'm fine" he replied as he went to put the whiskey back in the cabinet. "Just tired is all, it's been a long night." He yawned and stretched "I'm going te go crash, night" he said as he left the kitchen.

"Aye, I guess I'll head te bed too" Murphy said. "Night Heather thanks once again" he said as he left the kitchen.

Heather stood there for moment thinking about what may have happened if she hadn't been there in that alley. Or wondered what would have happened if she wasn't as good with that gun as she was with a bow and arrow. Would the boys have been able to survive? Would they have freed themselves from the hold the men had them in? She realized just how much she cared about them and it didn't matter that she had just met them.

She stopped thinking about it because her head started to hurt from when she was knocked to the ground earlier. She walked to a cabinet, grabbed a glass of water and filled it, and then she walked to another, grabbed the bottle of pills, got a couple out and put the bottle back. She took the pills and brought the glass of water with her as she headed to bed.

It was morning again and Heather woke up feeling better, having slept off the headache she had last night. She looked at the time; 10:16am. She slept better than she did the other night, despite the life threatening event that went on. She sat up and stretched, then stood up and noticed the smell of bacon and eggs coming from the kitchen. She smiled and headed to the kitchen.

"How is your arm?" she asked Conner as she entered the kitchen.

"Aye, it's much better now, thanks fer taking care of it," he replied.

She nodded and took a seat. "Good morning Murph," she said to Murphy who was sitting across from her like yesterday.

"Mornin Heather." He said as he stretched in his seat. "Feel like drinking tonight?" he asked as he took a cigarette out of the pack he was holding and lit it.

"Tonight?" she asked. "Sure, why not?" she said as she smiled.

"We would have woken ye up earlier, but Conner said ye looked so peaceful and angelic that he didn't want to disturb ye." Murphy said with a smirk.

Conner threw a piece of scrambled egg at Murphy and turned back around before Heather could notice him blushing.

Murphy started laughing. "But it's true, that's what ye said!"

"Shut up Murph." Conner said as he was about to throw the spatula at his brother who was still laughing.

"Well, thank you for letting me sleep longer, I needed it." Heather said smiling.

"Aye," Conner replied.

Heather was in the bedroom wearing a towel around her body and another around her head wondering what she should wear to the bar. She didn't know if she should wear something nice like a dress or casual like jeans and a shirt. She searched through her clothes piecing together a few outfits and placing dresses against her while looking in the mirror. Finally she came upon her what we call a "little black dress" and decided that she would wear it. She took the dress and her make up back to the bathroom with her, surprised that none of the boys had seen her go back and forth from the bathroom to the bedroom and back.

The dress was on, her hair was fixed, and all she needed to do was put on some make up. She started putting on some black eye shadow until a knock at the door interrupted.

"Christ woman, what is taking ye so long?" came Murphy's voice.

"Murph, you know women take their time to get ready, now leave er alone." Conner hollered from the living room.

"I will be done in no more than 5 minutes Murphy, hold your horses." Heather said as she resumed putting make up on.

5 minutes later she went to put her make up back in the bedroom then walked into the living room.

"Told you, no more than 5 minutes" she smiled.

"Bout time." Murphy said.

Conner sat there on the couch wide eyed. He couldn't believe what he was seeing, she looked amazing. The way the dress fit her was perfect, or damn near it. Her hair was in pulled back with two curled ringlets hanging in the front.

"Wow," Conner finally spoke and blushed realizing he had said that out loud.

"Ready Conner?" she asked.

"Yea," he replied as he stood up. "Let's go get ye liquored up then, aye?" He smiled and put his arm around her.

She giggled and the three headed out of the door and to the bar.

thank you to all the readers and reviews so far. sorry this one is so short, but I was told a chapter is only as long as your idea for it.(bleeding epiphony :)

peace & love, veritas & aequitas

Heather