CHAPTER 3

Days after the incident in the brothel, Louise was still combing the papers for any story on the grisly death of three women. There wasn't so much as a mention of them. He probably paid to have it cleaned up and the entire thing neatly swept under the rug. She wondered about them. Who were they? What events in life led them to this fate? Was there even anyone to miss them now that they were gone? She realized she could ask the same questions about herself. Who was she before Alex snatched her up? Did someone, somewhere still think of that person? Was she missed?

She pushed the papers aside and leaned back in her chair. From this cafe, she had a clear view of the harbor. Jack had lessons in the morning, but he promised that he would meet her here for lunch.

"Hey there." He flashed her a smile as he took a seat across from her.

She studied him from across the table. Light hair, windswept and salty, clear green eyes set in a jovial face that belied the intense nature of the man before her.

"How were your lessons?" she asked.

"Ah, Nathan. He's entirely disinterested in sailing but his father wants him to learn a practical skill, build character, all that. And you? What have you been doing with yourself today?" Louise gestured to the pile of newspapers.

They ordered lunch, chowder with hot rolls and butter, and talked as they ate. Jack told her that his lessons usually wound down by late fall and he would be looking for other work. He had a friend working at one of the large hotels in the City who was going to put in a good word for him. Of course, with his boat put away for the winter, he would have to secure an apartment as well. He omitted that he worried what this would mean for their liaison. The Plain Jane was his, and it was private. A boarding house would not permit the same liberty and he would most likely be forced to sign a contract agreeing to abstain from disreputable behavior on the premises. He would definitely not be allowed to entertain married women in his sleeping quarters.

After they ate, they walked through the Common and he pointed out the places he used to play as a child as well as the historical landmarks. Before his mother left, their family would picnic here on Sundays after church. "Our next lunch can be a picnic," he told her.

She paid apt attention to his stories and anecdotes as they wandered. He made her laugh and she realized that she only ever laughed in his company. After they had circled the park, she pulled him closer and told him they should head back to the boat, reminding him she would have to be home in a few hours.

"Unless you just stayed the night." She only shook her head, not taking him seriously. "He knows. He obviously doesn't care. What's one night?"

"He allows it. That doesn't mean he doesn't care. And there are rules."

"Such as?"

"Such as, I'll be home before dark."

He knew not to push further. But his mind had been doing funny things lately, entertaining fantasies of the two of them running away together on The Plain Jane, building a love nest somewhere, free from Louise's husband and his rules.

Once below deck, Jack stripped Louise of her clothes and they fell into bed immediately. One of his hands squeezed her thigh while the other searched for her breasts, brushing over them to rest lightly on her neck. He pulled on her leg, spreading her wider. He couldn't get enough of her, the feel of her, her taste, her scent. He needed it now. He stood and unfastened his pants, pulling himself free. He turned Louise onto her stomach and trailed his hands down the sides of her back until he was cupping her ass. He moved his hands to her hips, positioning himself to take her from behind. His tip grazed her opening.

"Is this, okay?".

"Yes. God Jack, yes!"

Her slit was slick and hot. She was insanely tight. Experimentally he bucked his hips and watched her slide back and forth on his shaft. He grabbed her waist and used the push and pull slowly at first to get the rhythm. She was moaning and grinding against him. Emboldened by her reaction, Jack went harder. He pressed her into the mattress and his weight held her down as he thrust. His lips pressed against her neck and she tensed for a second but he only kissed her there. He whispered his love in her ear as he took her this way. Louise let him hold her, let him control the pace. The room filled with the sound of their heavy breathing and their murmured affections as they moved together.

Jimmy was good and drunk. Well, not so much good but very much drunk. He had been for the past several months. Ever since she disappeared off the face of the earth. Ever since Lightning came galloping back to the station without her and his heart had dropped to his stomach. Their endless searching turned up nothing and he couldn't bring himself to stay at the bunkhouse. He'd taken to camping out in the prairie, sometimes under their tree, the place where she had shared her deepest fears and secrets. The place she first kissed him.

He'd tried to keep up riding for the Express for a while. But he'd become unreliable, following false leads that took him days off course, getting black-out drunk just so he could maybe catch a few hours of sleep without the nightmares. Money could be made playing poker or doing odd jobs, occupations that better suited him these days. He traveled the Express routes over and over, searching and questioning. He always found himself back in Sweetwater, unable to abandon the home they had shared together. It was the one place he knew she would return, if she could.

As the windmill came into view, he thought back to the last time he'd been here. He'd left angry. They were giving up. His family wanted to give up on one of their own. For almost two weeks, he refused to face them. Kid shadowed him for days, until he became too unbearable even for his best friend. A part of him, a small part, understood their desire to move forward. But when he thought about actually trying to move past her, it felt all wrong.

Louise took Alexander's hand as she stepped down from the carriage. He had promised her a surprise and as she looked at the building before her, she actually smiled. It was the public library. With over 70,000 books, it dwarfed the collection they had at home. He pulled her closer and they walked inside together.

He watched her peruse aisle after aisle, carefully selecting books from the many choices displayed upon the shelves. Her curiosity captivated him. The slightest quickening of her pulse caused him to salivate.

Back inside the carriage, he tore at her bodice and sunk his teeth into her breast. He lingered there, inhaling her scent, so infused with life. He knew from her moaning what his bites did to her, how it roused her lust for him. She grumbled when he pulled away and he laughed.

With blinding speed he freed himself from his pants, ripped her undergarment aside, hefted her onto him, and took her right there in the carriage. She held tight to him, her hips rolling frantically, orgasms coming in succession, her cries unarrested.

When they returned home, he made her tea while she changed into her nightgown. They sat close together on the couch and she rested her head on his arm as he read aloud from Frankenstein. In these moments, Louise was completely content. Thoughts of Jack, freedom, her unknown past, were only as tangible as spiders' webs - easily swept aside and forgotten. Her focus was absorbed by Alex's voice and the pulses of tranquil pleasure that she felt in her own body. After a bit, her eyes closed. Alex put the book down, and carried her to bed.

October 1861

The Pony Express had reached its end. Though he hadn't been riding with the others for a while now, Jimmy felt the loss sharpley. Truthfully he was scared. Losing Lou had shattered him, but he'd always had the anchor of home to return to, to remind himself of what had been and what still was - their family. Without that, he thought he might lose himself completely to the emptiness.

Cody had joined the Union Army as a scout, which came as no surprise to anyone. He'd been pushing Jimmy to enlist as well. He watched Cody pack his things and tried to imagine himself in one of those clean blue uniforms. Of course Teaspoon had been urging them all to stay clear of this war, especially Kid who seemed like he had one foot planted in Virginia already. Things had been tense around the station and he had come to blows with Kid on occasion. How anyone could choose to fight on the side of slavery was beyond him, and it didn't sit well with the other riders either. Kid and Noah didn't speak and the southerner had turned inside himself more and more. Jimmy couldn't help but think that if Lou were here, she could talk sense into him, that it would all be different. Almost every thought he had ended with her.

Not knowing what else to do with himself, Jimmy decided to meet up with Teaspoon, Buck, and Ike at the marshal's office. Ike and Buck were planning on buying the old Express property and turning it into a horse ranch. No bank would invest with a mute and an Indian but fortunately, their mentor was more than happy to help as a silent partner. Life was moving on whether Jimmy moved with it, or not.

The weather was unusually warm for fall, as if summer had decided to make a repeat appearance, and Jimmy could feel his shirt sticking to his skin as he made his way to the jail. Through the open door he could hear the argument that had become repetitive as of late.

"...fighting for a cause that would put your friend in chains…" It was Teaspoon speaking and that surprised him as the old Texan had been choosing to stay out of this particular debate for the most part. "I had to reconcile it myself, son. I'm not one for putting Washington in charge of us all, but I can't find no cause that justifies enslaving others."

Jimmy knew that Teaspoon had thought of siding with the south at one time, but he also wasn't surprised to see him staying out of the fight. He'd seen too much violence in his life. Hell, in all their short lives, they'd seen too much of it.

"You don't understand," Kid rebutted. "Virginia is home. I need to defend it. It ain't about slavery."

"Explain that to the slaves." He heard Buck interject. "Besides I thought home was where your family is."

"This hasn't felt like the same family for months and you know it."

That was maybe the one thing Kid said that Jimmy could agree with.

"She wouldn't want you to leave and you know it," Jimmy stated, walking through the open doorway. He held his hand up to silence Kid's retort. "And before you say it, she'd be pissed at me for leaving too." They all fell silent, memories of Lou overtaking them for a moment. Jimmy realized something in that moment. "Buck's right. She'd want her family together, always." Whether she was out there lost somehow, or if she had moved on from this world, the best way he could honor her was to make the choices she would have made for him. "You still got that deputy job, Teaspoon?"

The old man looked up at Jimmy, eyes sparkling with hope.

It was getting chillier by the day, the trees losing their leaves, branches laid bare. Louise shivered and moved closer to Jack in the tiny bed of the cabin. As she watched her lover sleeping, she thought about the previous hours. When she'd pulled him out and taken him in her mouth for the first time, it surprised him. At first she worried what he may think of her but she only hesitated a second and then she was on her knees before him pulling him out and sucking him into her mouth. She wanted to taste him. She'd never done this with a real man, well not that she remembered.

He mumbled something when he released into her. What had it been? So fucking beautiful. After, he undressed her, kissing each inch of her skin as it was exposed. By the time all her layers had been removed, he was hard again. He wasted no time and plunged into her, sliding into the hilt she was so wet. Louise liked watching him lose control. She liked the way he gripped her tightly, forgetting to be gentle as he took her.

Her revelry was broken when Jack stirred, opening his eyes. It was dim in the boat's cabin but a shaft of sunlight cut through the room. Jack reached out and stroked her cheek distractedly while he stretched. Louise watched his muscles flex as he moved. He was handsome and strong and she felt safe with him.

She carefully extricated herself from his grasp and tiptoed the short distance from the bed to the dresser. Pulling on her knee high stockings and one of Jack's wool sweaters for warmth, she grabbed her sketchbook, sat at the desk, and drew. Her dream had been the same, but different too. There was no blood, only flying across the prairie on horseback with her mysterious companion.

"That's a sight I could get used to waking up to." Jack stretched as he spoke. The image of Louise at his desk, in his oversized sweater, her slender legs exposed. It did things to him. She only smiled coyly. "You know I fell in love with you because of that look." She blushed. "Don't be embarrassed. You were beautiful. When we first went sailing. You were inquisitive and unafraid," he paused, "I never wanted anything so badly. I never loved someone, not like this."

She had no memory of loving or being loved by anyone. There was only Alex. Alex made her want him. He made her hate herself. He made her want to die. Jack only ever gave. He only ever loved her, protected her. He made life good. "I feel the same," she told him, looking up from her drawing.

He quickly rose from the bed and was at her side, kneeling naked before her. "Then come away with me. You don't have to stay with him, Louise. We could be together, like this, always."

"It's impossible Jack." She pulled her hands free from his grasp.

"Only because you choose to stay. You choose him."

"He would find us and he would kill you. It's that simple," she answered him coolly, turning her attention back to her sketching. "So yes, I choose that you remain alive."

He knew that she was upset and that pushing her further would only make her act more distant. She never showed her fear outwardly but he knew she feared her husband. She would never leave him.

Cara wasn't certain what she was looking for, but she thought she might find it in Mr. Grayson's study. Louise had left to see that sailor boy of hers. She'd followed her to the harbor and from that day forward, she'd been sure that the missus was getting a lot more than sailing lessons from the handsome young man.

She pushed open the heavy door that led into the large study. The rest of the house reminded her of Louise, but the study felt masculine and ancient. It was furnished with a myriad of antiques and modern looking items. She'd imagined that Grayson was some sort of collector and that the contents of this room alone must be worth more than the other houses she cleaned. Whenever she came into this room, she was extra careful around the breakables. She scanned the familiar surroundings looking for anything that may have passed her notice the other times he'd been here. All the walls were lined with shelves and contained tattered books in different languages and trinkets that looked like they'd been collected from all over the world. There was a large desk in the middle of the room, in front of the bay window which had been painted black and covered with thick, decorative curtains. Oil lamps in every corner helped to illuminate the room.

The desk was the most obvious choice and she inspected that first. She tried the drawers expecting to find them locked but everything opened easily, as if he didn't expect anyone would dare to violate this space. There were deeds, many of them, to estates all over the world. She dug deeper into the other drawers and found several worn leather journals. She pulled them out, one after the other. Each one looked older than the last, as if he'd stacked them in reverse chronological order. She opened the one on top.

Cara shook as she did her best to clean the desk and it's contents. She rubbed leather oil into the bindings of the journals and wiped down every surface. She hoped it was enough. Would her human scent be on his things?

There was a darkness about this home and now she knew that he was that darkness. From the books she gleaned that Grayson had lived many lives over. The journals focused on his search for a mate, a woman who would have the constitution to withstand some transformation that he kept referring to. From what she could decipher, Grayson had undergone this change a long time ago. He had been a man once, but now he was something else, an unholy thing. Much of it she did not understand, but she knew that Louise was just the last of many women who he'd caused to suffer in his effort to pass on the evil.

Before closing the door to the study she felt for the small paper she had tucked into her pocket. It read, Louise McCloud, Sweetwater Nebraska, Pony Express.