The rest of the packing was finished and Jimmy wasn't sure what was happening between the two of them. There was a self satisfied air about Faith that was well earned he thought as he'd had a hard time getting his legs back under him when she had finished with him. But there almost seemed an embarrassment too. As if she knew how thin the walls were and that others had possibly heard her impassioned cries. It didn't seem to be just that though and he had half a mind she was embarrassed for him to have seen her that way.
There wasn't much to his things when all was said and done. A bag with clothes and a mochila from the old days that contained a few mementos he'd never quite been able to give up. They probably seemed like a silly assortment of items but each was worth more than an entire mine full of gold to him. There were a couple of pictures, fading but still recognizable, of the people he'd counted as family. There were also a handful of letters; two or three were from Emma after she and Sam had moved to Omaha. She had written to each of them and her letters were the reason he wanted so badly to learn to read well. She had still had such hope for him when she left and a few times he thought he might live up to that hope. Mostly he knew that if she got wind of his life and how it had gone so far, she would be horribly disappointed. He knew that stronger every time he reread the letters but it never stopped him from getting them out every so often and reading them over again. Jimmy guessed he was torturing himself but it seemed to him he deserved the torment. As he had placed the letters back into the old pouch that had once held letters and packages of all sorts, he looked across the room at the woman who had just placed so much trust in him and thought maybe he could earn Emma's hope and Faith's trust—truly be worthy of them—at the same time, two birds with one stone, one might say.
The other letters had come to him after the Express had ended. One or two from Lou writing about her life with Kid and then some from Rachel with little notes tagged on the end from Teaspoon. He had left and he knew that hurt Rachel and Teaspoon both. He could feel it in their words in paper as clearly as if they'd been spoken to him. But every letter ended with an invitation home. He now felt like he might someday be worthy of returning to that home but also wondered if it was too late. He didn't even know if they were still there anymore.
There were a few other odds and ends in the pouch as well. A book or two and a few things that represented for him the people who had meant the most to him, people who had called him brother and son when he didn't deserve either. He looked up having finished the task of loading the pouch to see Faith looking at him and then quickly down at her feet.
"Are you hungry?" he asked her realizing that between their mutual inabilities to sleep and his abrupt decision that they had not taken time to eat yet that day. He wasn't really all that hungry but he needed to think of her as well. She just looked up at him like the words had little meaning if any to her. "We haven't eaten today and the restaurant downstairs ain't half bad. I mean I know it might be awkward but if you're hungry or something…"
His voice trailed off as he thought of what it would be like for the good widow to walk into that restaurant with him after having been in his room for more than an hour. He could kick himself for not having thought this out better.
"I'm not really hungry," she said but then quickly added, "But if you are, we could…"
"I'm not actually. I just thought if you were…"
They both descended the stairs with Jimmy carrying his things and he was at once proud and heartsick at the way she held her head up as they walked through the lobby and down the street to the wagon. She shouldn't have to face such a thing but she was with a grace and a dignity he envied. Jimmy helped her onto the wagon and they set back toward her place. The most terrifying thought occurred to Jimmy but he waited until they were well clear of town before he pulled up on the reins bringing the wagon to a stop. The question he wanted to ask died on his lips and he just sat there looking lost for a while.
"Is something the matter?" Faith asked and then quickly found an answer herself, "You're having second thoughts."
"Do you understand what I did and why?" he asked.
"I'm not sure I understand the why part," she responded, "But I think I understand the rest. Though maybe I don't."
"When you told me about that dream it made me feel some pretty powerful feelings. I don't want to scare you. I don't want to make you cry; you've cried enough. I knew I could tell you I was safe and you might believe for a time but every time I left and went into town the fear would come back. I had to find a way to make you feel safe and the only thing I could think was to not have to leave you. Then I realized I don't want to leave you anymore either. You remember me telling you about my time with the Pony Express?" Faith nodded. "Well, Emma and Rachel and Lou and even Kid a couple times told me over and over that someday I would find someone, someone who loved me and not the legend and not what I could do for them or what they could use me for. I had given up and lived a life none of them would be proud of—hell it wasn't a life I was too proud of. I told myself I was but it wasn't really me talking. It was Bill. I just let him take over. He was all anyone ever wanted anyway. Jimmy Hickok was a nobody and a nothing. Well he was to everyone except the people I walked out on."
Faith tried her hardest to hold back the tears and she would have too if her emotions pertained to herself but they did not. Seeing this man she had come to love open up to her, expose this hurt and how he'd been so shoved aside his whole life and only searched for acceptance and then the price it came at; she was powerless to hold her feelings in check. She could feel first one tear and then another slide silently down her cheek as she reached for his hand. She looked at this man who she knew could be rough and fearsome, although she had never once seen that side of him, looking very much a frightened child she wasn't sure he'd ever had the freedom to be. She wanted to wrap him in her arms and let his fears be safe with her. She had loved Aaron but he was not nearly the complex or tortured soul that Jimmy was. He was just a boy who came into her father's store and stole her heart with his beautiful eyes. Jimmy had lived pain and want and sadness and hardships she only knew tiny glimpses of. He had even become those things for a time. She turned his hand over in hers studying every vein and line on it, running her fingers over the calluses, memorizing it like one might a map. Her eyes rose to his when he spoke again and the fear in them nearly broke her heart.
"I thought I had lost who I'd been entirely and sometimes I even did a decent job of telling myself that it was for the best too. Then I caught sight of you on the street that day. I told myself I only noticed you because you're so pretty but it wasn't Bill that took note of your beauty, it was Jimmy. And it wasn't just your beauty I saw, it was your strength. It was so like Emma. I've been searching for something for a while and not knowing what it was. I saw you and all at once I was ashamed of my life. I thought of what she'd say if she knew how I was living and I thought for a moment that if I could talk to you, if I could do something to help you that in some strange way it would be giving back to her for all she'd given me. I need you to know and believe when I say that I didn't talk to you to work my way into your bed or lure you into mine. I made a decision this morning holding you in my arms with you crying about being scared for me and I know it's what I want. I know it like I've never known anything else but all of a sudden it occurs to me to ask what you want. I set out of town and thought that I was going home but I'm still not sure I have one. I guess I know if you don't want me that I can try the only other one I've known and see if anyone would still have me there. But that wasn't what I set out to do today. I assumed things I maybe should have talked to you about. It's bad enough that I took you to that room today and so many people saw you with me and now I'm talking about living in your house and we ain't married or nothing, though I'd surely like to marry you, Faith. I really would."
He was starting to babble at this point and was grateful when Faith lifted a hand and held her index finger to his lips. His eyes had been looking beyond her the whole time he was speaking as if afraid to even try to gauge what was possibly written on her face. Her simple gesture of stopping his words brought his eyes to her face and to study her hazel eyes looking for clues. There were tears and he first thought the worst but there was a smile as well and then she spoke.
"Was that a proposal, Mr. Hickok?" she asked and when he failed to respond she continued. "Because if it is I think I shall accept. As for the living arrangements, I could have you sleep in the barn like you have been but I don't think after today and what others might have heard or seen that anyone would believe it. I guess I don't care about propriety anymore. I've lost too much and I understand how when we find the people who mean something to us we have to hold them tight and pay no mind to those who are lucky enough to not understand how easily our lives can empty. Let them judge what they don't understand. They'll never know how lucky they are to have that moral high ground over people like us."
Jimmy sat shocked at her words and sat processing them for a while. He had proposed, hadn't he? That alone terrified him but then she had accepted so maybe it was alright he had uttered the words. The rest sort of went into a blur except the blush that crossed her face when she spoke of their earlier activities. She wasn't embarrassed that others had heard them; somehow he was certain of this. But she was embarrassed all the same.
"About earlier," he began and saw that blush take over her cheeks once again. "Thank you. There was a whole lot of healing in what you did."
She looked surprised like he would think ill of her.
"Now I don't know how you knew those things or to do them and you can keep your secrets if you like but I'm telling you that you can take the reins anytime it strikes your fancy to do it."
She still looked almost ashamed of herself so he leaned over and whispered in her ear.
"I'm going to guess some of that you learned when you was married but I wonder if you know that two can play that game," he smiled at the look of shock on her face. He had guessed as much. "As for anything else, women get needs the same as men and if you're feeling a need, I'd rather you not keep it to yourself."
Faith pondered his words as he snapped the reins and started them movin toward home once again. Home. She hadn't actually thought of it as that since Adam had died. It had been a place to sleep, or not sleep as was more often the case, and to eat and work but not a home. Homes contain love and laughter and even tears but they are shared tears and not lonely mournful ones. This house was finally to be a home once again.
Jimmy helped Faith down from the wagon once they had arrived home and then went to take care of the horse while Faith went in to start supper. He made it three steps before he turned and walked over to her. Placing his hands on her shoulders he turned her to face him and kissed her. It was not the blistering kisses of their earlier lovemaking. It was a simple kiss but it was enough to tell her how he never wanted to part from her without their lips meeting. Even if they were only to be yards apart. When they parted he smiled that loopy little boy smile at her and went back to tend to the horse. Faith stood a moment longer in the yard and brought her fingers slowly to her lips. All that they had shared and done together to that point and somehow it felt like their first kiss. In a way she supposed it was.
Jimmy thought while he was in the barn and even once he was done he sat and thought some more. The times he had actually tried for a life like this in his youth and here he was a man who had completely given up on a life that anyone would ever want and there it came hitting him upside the head. As far as he knew, Emma and Sam were still in Omaha. Perhaps he should write a letter. Some details he'd leave out but he'd write a short note and tell her he'd found someone, that she was right and there was someone for him after all. There was no need to tell her how he'd lived up until this point. Hell enough of his life had been in the papers that she probably knew most of it anyway. The things she would say to him if he was in front of her could probably scare the stripes off a snake but if she knew that he had found a little of his old self and even found a good woman, not some whore or fleeting encounter but really a nice, good woman, then she might forgive him for all the time he spent living such an empty and terrible life. He was brought from his thoughts by Faith's voice.
"Jimmy! Supper's ready!"
He pushed himself off of the bale of hay he'd been sitting on and headed to his new life as maybe a respectable family man.
They ate and spoke of simple subjects. For a while Jimmy began to wonder if this had been a mistake, if he had changed something that was better off not being changed. Then Faith dared to take the conversation to a deeper level.
"So the Pony Express was your only family?" she asked propping her chin in her hand while her elbow rested next to her plate. "What happened to your real family, the one you were born to, I mean? Surely you were born at some point."
"Of course I was born. Ma died when I was still young. My father threw himself into the cause—he was an abolitionist—and that got him killed. I left before his body was in the ground. I got a couple sisters left but I ain't seen either one of them in too long to think on. The older of 'em, Celinda, we sort of patched things up at one point but I know I've abandoned her again. The younger one I haven't seen or talked to or heard from since I left home. I shouldn't have left them in the first place and I know that now."
"You still weren't very old when your father died, were you?"
"Old enough to know better," he said looking into his coffee.
"Knowing something like that doesn't come without teaching and it sounds like you didn't have anyone to teach you."
"I guess not," he admitted, "Not until Teaspoon and you needed some sort of college education or something to understand most of what came out of his mouth."
Faith giggled a little at him and her eyes twinkled.
"So you found a father after all."
"I did," he said, "Though I'm not sure if he'd still consider me a son."
Her hand left her chin and she wrapped her fingers around his hand, "Parents don't stop loving their children because they grow up or change or even because they do things we don't agree with. They just don't."
"But he ain't no blood to me."
"I hardly think that matters, Jimmy," she said softly.
He blinked at her in an effort to understand her words and to hold back the tears that had suddenly come to his eyes. It was one thing to attach a word like father to Teaspoon because he doled out fatherly advice but to call him a parent and suggest that the man loved him was something Jimmy hadn't ever allowed. Celinda loved him once but then she was probably back to being angry. She probably had more children that he didn't even know about and had never seen. His mother had loved him, he knew but he was never sure about his father. To think that a man who had no blood ties to him cared for him as a father always should have, as he had longed for, was more than he could comprehend. He couldn't speak because he couldn't trust his voice to not betray his emotions. The emotions he couldn't even sort all out. He was awash with happiness at knowing that he had been loved but then also the guilt of knowing how he had treated that love and even the sadness of knowing that he no longer deserved it if it was indeed still out there for him.
Faith held his hand tighter and then raised it to her face kissing each finger before hugging his hand tightly to her cheek.
She held it there a moment longer and then released him and stood to clear the dishes and prepare the water for cleaning them. Jimmy stood too and carried his dishes to her before she could come to gather them and then grabbed a towel to dry as she washed. They worked in silence but it didn't feel uncomfortable. It was actually nice to not need words and to just work alongside each other. Once the dishes were clean and put away, they went on the porch to sit on the swing for a while before heading to bed.
Jimmy quickly undressed and sat up on the bed watching Faith remove her dress for the second time that day. It had every bit the effect on him that it had earlier. She slid her nightgown over her head and sat at her dressing table to brush out her long hair before twisting it into one long braid. He loved her hair loose but he understood why she worked it into that plait. He watched her stand and walk to the bed and then he rose onto his knees on the mattress and moved to her. He put his hands on her hips and bunched the fabric of her nightgown under his fingers lifting it to expose her and then lifted the garment the rest of the way off of her, revealing her body to him. His need visible and twitching in anticipation.
"You are so beautiful," he whispered with reverence, "Every inch of you."
Oh sweet harmonious domesticity...it makes me happy to see him like this...well aside from his lingering sadness. But he'll get over that in time, I'm sure.-J