AN: Thank you to all those who have reviewed and are now following this story! I am going to be going out of town for a couple of weeks this upcoming Saturday. I will hopefully have time to write upcoming chapters if not post them. I promise that when I come back and have a chance, I will post them.

Disclaimer: all characters belong to Tamora Pierce!

It had taken half of the morning to regain some form of order amongst the Own. While they had been on the road most of that time, Dom's squad had been more than slightly paranoid that a group of riders would go by and discover their situation. After all, what the men of the Own did amongst themselves and were comfortable with did not always transfer over to when others who had not traveled with them were around. But luck was with them, and they passed no other riders.

After almost two hours of riding, the other men had stopped laughing out right when they saw the men. And by the third hour, everything was back to normal. The men had even started to talk to both Dom and Kel again.

"So Lady Kel, was there any of us men that you had been wishing to see?" a man from Dom's squad named Riley asked. "I'm sure the sergeant did you a favor if you had." He wiggled his eyebrows.

Kel just laughed and shook her head. "I'm sorry Riley, but I don't fancy any of you poor bare men." She cast her eyes meaningfully over to Dom. "I think I prefer my men in dresses."

The men around her laughed at Riley's deflated look and Dom's blush.

"Well then Kel, if ya don't mind me askin', if none of us poor blokes fit ya fancy, then who has claimed that honor, aside from that young noble ya courted a few years ago. Ya still sweet on him, I haven't seen him around." Wolset asked.

Kel frowned, "I actually haven't seen Cleon since he married. And even then I don't think I ever truly fancied him, it was more than a relief when he called it off after I was knighted."

The men's interests were fully on alert to try to gather more information from Kel's on her former crushes.

"So then, if you never truly fancied that young man, who did you ever fancy?" one of them asked.

"Well, when I was on the Islands, I did have a crush on one of the boys there. It never would have worked out though, he was one of the Emperor's sons, and they would never have allowed us to court, even if he liked me back." Kel told the men knowing they would find it difficult to trace just which one of the Emperor's many sons had caught her interest.

"So, you never had a crush on the Crown Prince? I know he was often with your circle of friends." Dom almost looked worried that he would have to compete with not just one, but two royals for his lady's heart.

"Roald?" Kel laughed, "No, he was always nice, but I never did fall for him. Actually, the only one of my page friends I fancied was…" Kel stopped, blushing and almost looking horrified at what she was about to confess.

"Ya might as well tell us my lady; we are now dogs with the smell o' a bone we want to get. If ya don't tell us, we might just do somethin' rash ta get it out." Wolset sent her an evil grin.

Kel looked down at Peachblossom's neck. Keeping her eyes fixed on one of the sparrows riding his mane, she blushed more, whishing she still had her mask that seemed to have abandoned her years before. "Dom's cousin, Sir Nealan. I used to love it when he came to me to make sure he was presentable before serving at banquets, it was the only time I actually indulged in running my hands through his hair."

When Kel peaked at the men, she could see looks of shock, whatever they had expected it was not that. Looking at Dom, she noticed he was grinning like an idiot. "What has you looking so pleased?" Kel asked him, not keeping out the irritation from her voice.

"I'm just wondering if your crush was around the same time as the crush he had on you. He never told you, but he sent me a few poems he wrote for you, and told me he had to try not to either kiss you or faint when you would straighten his hair. He even confessed that he would leave it a mess before reporting to you just so you could do that. I always keep this one poem in particular in my belt purse." Dom took out an old looking piece of paper and cleared his throat before he read:

"Hazel eyes burning bright

Defeating Joren with her might

Her body radiates with a power

Yet she sits looking like a flower

Oh my dearest Keladry

Let my mind be free

For I pine every night

For those hazel eyes so bright"

The men and Kel laughed. Dom just folded the paper and put it back where he had it hidden. Looking up at Kel he informed her, "He sent that to me about a month or so before you joined us men in the Own as my Lord's squire."

Kel laughed, "I did have a crush on him then, but by the time I saw him again, several months later, my crush was actually gone." Kel sighed, "I have always felt that I was fickle when it came to crushes."

"Kennan took over you heart I take it?" Dom couldn't help but wonder what had stopped her crush on the Meathead.

Kel shook her head, but she was not about to tell these men about her crush on Dom. "No, Cleon came a bit after that, I didn't even start liking him as anything more than a friend until he kissed me for Midwinter's luck. The man who took my heart from Neal has held it for years, even my fling with Cleon couldn't dive him out of my mind." Kel blushed; she knew she had given away more than she had wished.

Try as the men might though, they could get no more out of Kel as to who it was that Kel had fancied all these years. While all of them knew that Kel and Dom had gone on a date, the men just thought it was her being polite. After all, how could they have missed her being soft on their sergeant all these years?

Dom just looked pleased. He had no idea that he had held onto Kel's heart for that long. It was just about as long as she had grabbed his. He had sat back and let her have her relationship with Kennan thinking that he was the one who truly held her heart. But now knowing the truth, Dom just wanted even more to share his first kiss with Kel, after all, haven't they waited long enough for the moment to arrive?

The men's good spirits had only lasted until around noon. While they had been riding through the desert trying to pry into Kel's love life, and then their normal banter, none of them realized how pink they were becoming.

It wasn't until Lord Raoul called a halt for lunch that anyone noticed.

Kel and Dom happened to be right behind his men as they dismounted, and the sight that awaited them made them fall into fits of laughter. While their backs, chests, front of their legs and arms were a nice angry red, the men had very white bums and back of the legs.

"Oh dear Mithros Keladry! I think I have become blinded by Wolset's bare ass!" Dom then proceeded to shade his eyes and cover Kel's.

At his rather loud announcement, the men in front of them became the focus of attention just as they had been that morning when they returned to camp, except this time their blushes were lost in the sun burns they now sported.

After Raoul had controlled his laughter, he called for the healers to apply soothing creams onto the men who were in obvious pain. He then called Kel and Dom to him.

"Well done you two. I don't think either of you expected them to burn to a crisp?" At their shaking heads, Raoul laughed once more. "Remind me to stay on your good sides; I would hate to have to go around looking like them."

By the time they had moved back onto the road, all the men had been covered in cream and were a tad more cheerful, now while they rode and became burnt, the men, and lady around them became drenched in sweat as their clothes and sun baked them alive. It seemed that they were the lucky ones after all.

It took Dom and Kel a couple more days to organize the next step in their two pronged prank on the men. They had been in debate about how to best pull it off.

"Are you sure this will work?" Kel questioned Dom three days later. They were helping to load the wagons.

Dom nodded as she handed him more of the men's supplies. She had been very careful as to what she had been handing him, not wanting to hand him one of his preselected men's tents and bed rolls.

"Kel my sweet, have you so little faith in your dear sergeant? I have pulled this particular prank on my dear Meathead. I just need to pack the wagon high enough, and then place the tents we're to "loose" in just a way so that when the wagon moves forward, they will just roll out. And then with us on wagon detail, we can very conveniently be blind, and not have noticed that they had fallen out. I promise you, this will work."

Still looking doubtful, Kel began to hand him the belongings of his men. "If you are sure, I guess I should trust you. But tell me, when did you pull this on Neal?"

Dom laughed, "Well, I was visiting my Queenscove relatives; it was when I was just a teenager. We decided that it would be fun for us to take a trip to Goldenlake, what with their friendship with my Lord's family. I was in charge of packing our things away. Well, I was really annoyed at Meathead so I thought I would just leave his stuff behind, but Uncle Baird kept an eye on me, so I tried this, and it worked!" Dom hopped out of the wagon.

"Of course, what I hadn't expected was that the Meathead would have to share my tent and bedroll." Dom shuddered at the memory. "He kept cuddling up to me at night; I ended up kicking him out when he tried to kiss my neck."

Kel burst out laughing. "You have been kissed and snuggled by Neal?"

Upon hearing this, several of the men seemed to relax; they had thought that the two were up to something. But upon hearing this new tid bit of information Wolset spoke up "Were ya wearin' a nice dress Dom?"

Dom just shook his head as he mounted up.

When they rode out a moment later, no one besides Kel and Dom noticed four tents fall out of the wagon.

AN: Please review as I am gone!