Chapter Ten:
For days, Teaspoon's words hung over Jimmy like a cloud. He was right, of course. Jimmy knew that he would never intentionally hurt Lou, but that didn't mean it wouldn't happen. He had a pretty sorry track record on that front. This time, he would just have to do better. Guard his heart and hers and protect them both from repeating the mistakes in their past.
After dinner one night, Lou went to do the evening rounds in the barn while Jimmy stayed behind to wash dishes. When he was finished and Lou still hadn't come back, he set his apron aside and drifted out onto the porch to check on her.
He spotted her across the yard, sitting on the top rail of the corral fence watching Katy with her filly. The sun was just starting to set, giving the scene a warm glow. She must have sensed his presence, because she turned around and smiled.
He ambled over to stand beside her, placing his folded arms over the railing and digging the toe of his boot into the dirt. He smiled to himself as he watched the two horses moving together through the corral. Katy had taken to motherhood better than they could have hoped, and the foal was flourishing.
"It's high time that little filly had a name, don't you think?" Jimmy questioned.
"I've been tryin' to come up with one, but nothin' seems quite right."
They both watched as the little filly kicked up her heels exuberantly and pranced around next to her more subdued mother.
"How about Dancer." His suggestion just sort of tumbled out.
Lou mulled the name over quietly for a moment. "Dancer… I think I like it. It fits." Jimmy heard something almost wistful in her tone.
He climbed up on the railing to sit beside her, and she settled her shoulder against his arm. The color in the sky around them strengthened into a rich orange.
Jimmy's mind drifted back to another time when he and Lou had sat on this same corral fence together and watched a different mare frolic with her filly. He heard her sigh and wondered if her mind had gone to the same place.
He had been a lost boy then, trying to find his way to becoming a man. She had talked about family and about the future. His heart had ached with unspoken dreams. He remembered that being the first time he had ever wanted to kiss her. It had thrown him, because by then she had already well and truly belonged to Kid.
They both climbed down from the fence but neither of them seemed able to turn away from the scene in front of them. Lou rested her head again on his shoulder. He shifted slightly now, and she moved her head back to look up at him. Her face was softened and warmed by the glow of the sun.
Without really even thinking about it, he leaned down and placed his lips to hers. It started as an innocent kiss, feather light, but quickly deepened. He found that he had moved his hand to the base of her neck and entwined his fingers in her hair. Her hands had come up to rest flat on his chest, and she leaned into him as if she had suddenly become off balance. He found his head beginning to spin.
It was Jimmy who pulled away.
Lou's face was flushed, and she raised her fingers to her lips.
"Damn it. I've done it again." He spoke more to himself than to her. He went to turn away, but she grabbed him firmly by the shoulder and held him in place.
"James Hickok, don't you dare turn away from me. Don't you dare shut me out." There was steel in her voice. "You did this to me once before, and I'll be damned if I let you do it again. Do you hear me?"
He knew that she wasn't speaking of their estrangement over the war. Not now. He thought instantly back to their time transporting Elias Mills to Fort Kearney to hang. In the form of Elias, Jimmy had seen his future flash before him, and it had shaken him deeply. One night in the darkness, she had tried to offer him reassurance, to help him see a different way forward. He had been so touched by her tenderness, her generosity, that he had lost hold of his control. He had kissed her.
She hadn't belonged to him then, either.
That night was the greatest regret of his life. Somehow, he had never been sure whether it was the kiss he regretted or the way he had responded after. But here he was, playing the fool once again. Because she still wasn't his, and she never would be.
"Look at me, Lou. I just kissed my best friend's wife! I must be some sort of monster." The tension rising between them was palpable.
"I'm your best friend's widow, not his wife. There's a difference." He couldn't read her tone, and it threw him. "And I kissed you back."
There were tears starting in her eyes as she reached out and gently touched his cheek. The warmth of her gesture sent a shockwave through him. He was suddenly overrun by the old guilt and fear he thought he had shaken years ago.
He reacted in blind panic, shouting at her with more force than he had intended. "No, Lou! We can't do this. It ain't right!" He was trying to make her understand.
"I trusted you! Let you back in! And you're just going to run away? How dare you do this to me again!"
She shuddered out a sob and started to turn from him, but he grabbed her upper arm to stop her. Her momentum carried her around, and she collided forcefully with his chest.
"Kid would never forgive me for this!"
"Damn you! Don't you dare speak for him!" She wrenched her arm free of his grasp. "This is what he wanted!"
Jimmy was shocked into stillness by her statement. Before he could question her, she ran across the yard and slammed the bunkhouse door behind her.
Consumed by his own anger and confusion, he grabbed Sundance from her stall, mounted her bareback, and galloped out toward the setting sun.