Captive Hearts 13

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The next evening, Matt sat in a chair near the fire while Kitty reclined on the couch and Carolyn made herself busy in another part of the house. Emma Rose was sitting in his lap happily kicking her feet, a smile lighting her face as she gazed at the man that held her.

Kitty watched the two silently, her heart bursting. She had thought never to be able to see such a sight. "She must really like you." She observed. "She'd usually set up a fuss when a man would hold her back at…" her voice faded at the unwanted memory.

Matt looked over at her sadly. "What you must've gone through." He thought.

Kitty looked over at Matt and understood the expression on his face. Even after a year she hadn't lost the ability to read him. But she had no desire to discuss her captivity as of yet. "Well, I'm tired, Matt." She said as she slowly started to get up. "I think it's time I took Emma and we went to bed."

"I'll take Emma," Carolyn said coming into the room and crossing over to Matt. "You help her." She tossed her head towards Kitty.

"Oh, no." Kitty protested. "I'm fine. I can.." She paused at a twinge in her middle.

Matt stood quickly and stepped to her side. Swinging her up into his arms, he headed towards the bedroom.

"I can walk, you know." Kitty said with the faintest touch of amusement.

"Not around me, you can't." Matt smiled down at her, as he sat her down on the side of the bed.

Kitty smiled back for a moment before ducking her head. "Well, you won't always be around." She said without thinking of how that sounded to Matt. However when she looked up she realized how her words had hit him. "I'm sorry, Matt. I didn't mean it like that. I meant…"

"It's alright, Kitty." He smiled as he took her hand. "I know what you meant. And you're right. But I'm planning on making some changes in that area."

Kitty stared wordlessly at him, not certain as to how to respond. Surely he wasn't saying….. No, she decided. Matt would never quit his job and marry her. She wouldn't ask him to. But still…..

"You lie back down there and get some rest now." He said. "I'll just be in the other room if you need me."

Kitty nodded as she lay back against the pillows and watched him turn and leave, uncertain for the first time since she'd known him, exactly what he was thinking.

Carolyn came over and gently placed the now sleepy baby in the bed beside her mother. "She's just about out." She said softly. "If she stirs you call me. You're still recovering and I don't want you getting up any more than necessary."

Kitty grinned at her. "You been taking lessons from Doc?"

Carolyn returned the grin. "I have a feeling there's a great deal I could learn from that gentleman. Now go to sleep. I'll be out in the living room with the Marshal."

Matt had just placed a few more logs on the fire and was stoking it when Carolyn came in. "I've got some coffee on the stove, Marshal. Like a cup?"

"Thanks." Matt nodded.

Matt watched her as she poured his cup and handed it to him. Curiosity got the better of him. "How'd you end up out here, Miss Horton?"

Carolyn glanced over at him as she poured herself a cup of the steaming liquid. "Call me Carolyn. And do you mean out in the west or in the hands of Dawson?"

"Both I guess." He shrugged.

"Two years ago, I was on my way to Pueblo to take a position as a school teacher." She answered matter of factly. "My abduction was pretty much like Kitty's. I was on a stage Dawson's men held up. They killed the driver, took the cash and kidnapped me. Needless to say I never made to Pueblo. Which reminds me, I wonder if you would send a wire for me back to Boston. I have a brother there, or at least I did. I had promised to wire him when I got to Pueblo. I guess I'm a little late."

"Sure," Matt agreed. "Just give me his name and information. I'll do it tomorrow." He noticed for the first time a tinge of actual emotion when she mentioned her brother.

"Thank you." She said. "You know while I was in that camp, he was the one person I thought the most of. We were the only family either of us had. There were days it was only thinking of him that got me through."

Matt glanced at the bedroom door, thinking again of what both women must've gone through. "Must not've been easy." He remarked studying the floor beneath him.

Carolyn looked up sharply from her coffee. "Being a captive is never easy, Marshal." She answered. "We did what we had to do each day to survive. Different reasons for each of us, I suppose, but the results were the same."

"Different reasons?"

"Kitty and I are strong women, Marshal. We take what circumstances we are given and either turn them to our advantage or, at the very least, survive them. But there are times you don't want to survive them. Times it's too difficult. There were several women that felt that way and they died in that camp. There were some like me that adopted as hard a shell as possible so that nothing penetrated, good or bad.

As strong as Kitty is, she could've been one of those women that didn't make it."

Matt looked up. "Kitty would never…"

"Kill herself?" Carolyn gave a short derisive laugh. "Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know. I do know that she went through more hell than any of us. Dawson claimed her from the moment she stepped foot in that camp. And the women Dawson claimed, were not the lucky ones. He hurt her, Marshal, in many ways. He did things to her that…"

Carolyn looked down taking another drink of her coffee before continuing. "I'm not certain I would've survived, Marshal, had I to endure as much as she did. But she had a baby to think about, your baby. And she would do anything for that child. Anything. She fought when she could, but all too often she couldn't."

Matt sat back and dropped his gaze again as the full impact of what Carolyn was saying hit him with the force of a tornado. "Oh, God." he moaned quietly.

"There was no God in that camp, Marshal, only the devil himself in the form of Wade Dawson." She spoke sharply, almost angrily.

But Carolyn's tone softened as she saw the affect her words had on the big man across from her. "I don't know if Kitty will ever tell you everything she went through there. I'm not sure if she could, or if you could stand to hear it. But you do need to understand how difficult it was for her. And you need to be there for her from now on. Emma gave her a reason to survive while we were in that camp, simply because she knew she was that baby's only real chance. But now Emma has you and Doc and others. Kitty no longer has her daughter's safety as her reason for living. She needs something else, Marshal. She needs you."

Matt nodded as he rose and placed the cup on the small table in front of him. "She'll have me, Carolyn." He sighed. "If she still wants me. She'll have me."

As Matt crossed the room and entered the bedroom where Kitty was, Carolyn sighed with a soft smile. "She'll have you, Marshal, because she never stopped wanting you."

TBC