CHAPTER 8

Inside the bunkhouse, the boys were resting while they waited for lunch. It was strangely quiet considering they were all there, but it had been a long night and everyone was tired. Lou pulled some clothes out of her trunk. She thought about using her little hand mirror to check her appearance but decided against it, sure she wouldn't like what she saw. Still, she was lucky. Wicks had come for her but Kid and Jimmy had gotten it far worse. Of course, it could have gone the other way. She shuddered and sat back, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Ike thought Lou looked awfully despondent for someone who'd just been rescued. He wasn't sure she understood how scared they had all been for her, and how desperate to find her, especially the two men who he imagined she was worrying over now. Taking a seat next to her, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and was rewarded with a small smile. *Worrying about Jimmy and Kid?*

Kid has a fever* she signed back. "If something happens to either of them…* She just shook her head.

Now that you're home, they can relax and get better. It will be okay.*

"I hope so, Ike."

Cody ambled over and leaned against the wall next to her bunk. "Look on the bright side, Lou, at least they won't be able to pummel each other anytime soon." His attempt at levity earned him sour looks from the other two riders. Lou scooped up her clothes and stormed out. Ike waited till the door slammed behind her and slapped Cody upside the head. "What! We all know if this shit hadn't gone down when it did, they woulda been throwing fists days ago," he defended himself while rubbing the back of his head.

"I don't think that's exactly helpful to Lou right now," Noah told him.

At Rachel's she found Jimmy lightly snoring, still in his chair. Kid was shifting uncomfortably in his bed. She frowned as she watched him from the doorway, not knowing how to comfort him, or if she should.

"Can I get you some water, or maybe one of Rachel's sandwiches?"

"I'm not really hungry."

"You need to keep your strength up, Kid." Grabbing a rag and dousing it in the basin of water, she ran it over his forehead. "You gotta get this fever down." Kid smiled and eased back into his pillow, letting her take care of him. It almost made getting shot worth it.

Rachel popped in with a plate for Kid, and Lou left to try to change her clothes with her one good hand.

She slipped the sling off her arm and tentatively wiggled her fingers. They were stiff but she could feel them. Unbuttoning her shirt with her right hand, she wondered how long before she would be able to ride her routes again. She shrugged off the shirt she'd been wearing since this morning and started to pull on a fresh one. She didn't know what happened to the clothes she'd been in when Wicks grabbed her, but they were gone now. Buttoning with one hand turned out to be more challenging than unbuttoning.

"You need some help with that?" Jimmy asked from the doorway of Rachel's bedroom. She just let her hands fall to her sides, shirt hanging open on her small frame. As he started buttoning her up he joked that between the two of them they had three good hands and three good eyes.

"That's not funny."

"No, I guess not."

After her shirt was buttoned, she undid her pants and slipped them off, quickly pulling on a pair of long johns and then her pants. She turned to Jimmy to help button them up. "This is different." He smiled. "Usually trying to get these things off you." He cursed himself, thinking maybe that wasn't the best kind of talk for the current situation. But as he raised his head and met her eyes, he saw an amused smile tugging at her lips before she became suddenly serious.

"Jimmy, I need to tell you something." She took a seat on the end of Rachel's bed and waited for him to sit beside her. "About Wicks." He grabbed her good hand and let her collect her thoughts. "What I said about Charlotte getting me out before he could make me work for him was true. But not before he showed me what he meant. That night before I ran, he raped me." Jimmy swallowed hard. He had known what she was going to say but hearing the words turned his stomach. Not quite fifteen, she had said. "I pretended for so long like it never happened, so when Charlotte showed up…"

"She made you think about things you wanted to forget," he finished for her.

"I didn't want her here. I told her to stay in the hotel. She should have been here with us and…" she trailed off.

"You couldn't have known what was gonna happen. You didn't know about Wicks and the money until it was too late."

"I should have been a better friend to her, Jimmy. I owed her that."

"What happened ain't your fault. And no one can blame you for wanting to put all that behind you." His thumb stroked the back of her hand. "I hope this goes without saying but it don't change the way I feel about you either."

She never thought it would; she knew what kind of man Jimmy was. But hearing him say it was like a salve to her battered heart at the moment.