Thank you to NT for she is the Queen of finding things. She found where the lyrics are from

The song is by Dan Fogelberg, "There's a Place in the World for a Gamber"

There's a song in the heart of a woman
That only the truest love can release
There's a song in the heart of a woman
Set it free…oh set it free…
Set it free…oh set it free…

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"Oh God." Larabee seemed to crumble in front of him and seeing as neither man had released their grip on the other, they slid to the floor together. Slowly Ezra pulled away from Chris' grip and leaned back against the wall to steady himself. Both men were breathing heavily; the sounds of their gasps seemed to echo in the empty room.

"You're bleeding," Chris pointed out, his voice not much above a whisper.

"Yeah." Ezra moved slowly as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a silk handkerchief. He frowned at ruining such perfect material but pressed it against the bleeding cut anyway. He inhaled sharply, his eyes closing at the pain. When he opened them again Chris was staring at him intently, studying his left hand. It took a moment to realize that Larabee was looking at his ring.

"Tell me," the gunslinger stated, but Ezra could hear the underlying request…the please. It took him a minute to go there-to cross the barriers he'd painstakingly built around his memory, the defenses that kept him from living each day with crippling grief.

His chuckle contradicted his emotion and he shifted his legs out in front of him before taking a deep breath and starting. "She hated me." He smiled as Chris raised an eyebrow, but went on before he could ask. "First time we met she called me a 'good for nothing scoundrel' and slapped me."

Chris laughed softly as he moved beside the gambler, both men sitting now with their backs to the wall. It was easier to talk and listen without having to look at each other.

"She'd taken one look at me and my fancy clothes and fine airs and decided right then that she wanted nothing to do with me."

"And you?" Chris asked.

Ezra smiled. "Well, I was smitten by then of course. Her eyes were brown with flecks the color of copper and they matched her hair perfectly. When I looked into those eyes, even when she slapped me, I swear I could see the goodness of her soul." He paused and swallowed painfully, wishing suddenly that Chris hadn't smashed that bottle of whiskey. "I wore her down," he admitted almost sheepishly. "I think she finally agreed to have dinner with me just to get me to go away."

"What happened then?" Larabee's voice was low and thick.

"Well, I charmed her of course," Ezra grinned and glanced at his friend. "It was like a dream come true for me, as cliché-ish as that sounds, finding someone like that." His voice grew quieter as he went on. "Someone who wanted to know everything there was to know about me and for once in my life I wasn't afraid to share." He felt Chris shift awkwardly beside him but couldn't look this time. "She accepted all of it, all of me and it was like I'd finally found 'my' place."

"You get married then?" Chris asked.

Ezra smiled faintly and nodded, bringing his hand down from his forehead and looking at the wedding band. "She ordered this herself and was so excited when it arrived, she could barely keep from giving it to me right then." He ran a finger over the metal, remembering the day she'd placed it on his finger while vowing to be his 'from this day forth'. "I promised her I'd never take it off," he whispered brokenly.

The saloon was darker now, as the oil lamps began to dim. Chris wanted to know more, wanted to ask what had happened to the woman who had been Ezra's wife but he couldn't find his voice.

"I liked being married." Ezra finally broke the stillness. "That alone surprised me, shocked the hell out of mother."

Chris couldn't hold back a laugh at that.

"About four months after our wedding," Ezra breathed deeply and Chris recognized the signs that the hardest part to share was coming next. "Lydia realized that she was expecting."

Larabee closed his eyes, his head tilted back to rest against the wall as he listened.

"She was so excited…again," Ezra glanced at him. "You know how JD gets when he's worked up about something he deems important?"

Chris smiled, "yeah."

"Lydia was a lot like that…a lot."

Chris stared at Standish then, realizing that the man dealt inwardly with those similarities every day. As much as he looked at JD and saw the potential for what could have been with Adam, Ezra saw the same youthful exuberance that he'd once seen in his wife.

"She'd sing all the time to the baby, said she was positive he could hear her…us. She was determined it was a boy."

Chris nodded knowingly, "Sarah used to do the same. You were a father then?" He asked tentatively, unsure as to how to proceed.

Ezra shook his head, and Chris caught a glimpse of his watery green eyes as the Southerner answered. "Yes, and no…I don't know." He shrugged and explained. "Baby came early, a boy just like Lydia said. He lived an hour." Ezra's whisper broke.

"And Lydia?" Chris prodded gently, knowing that at this point the heart-wrenching story needed to be finished.

"She died later that day, doctor said she was just too frail and the labor too hard."

Chris groaned, able to remember his own fear and worry when it was time for Adam's birth.

"It was for the best I guess, that they went together," Ezra choked and stumbled on the words. "I don't know that Lydia would have been able to go on without him, she was strong but…"

"How long's it been?"

"Four years this September." Ezra's accent thickened as he struggled to control his voice. "They were my everything," he added wearily.

In the quiet of the deserted saloon, the two men sat, unmoving. Chris didn't ask how Standish had been able to move on without his family, he knew the man well enough to know that Ezra was a master at burying his hurts. Sobered by his friend's revelations, Chris couldn't figure out if he was actually thankful to have someone else to share his pain with or horrified,
or both.

Caught in his own memories Ezra hadn't realized his cut had started to bleed again until Chris took the bloody silk rag from his hand and pressed his own clean cotton bandana in it's place. Larabee picked up Ezra's hand and held it and the cloth against the wound until Ezra blinked with awareness and began to tend to the cut himself. Their eyes met a moment and an unspoken understanding passed between them before they looked away again and simply sat together in the growing darkness.

tbc...