Author's Note: This is an AU story based on the episode "Blood Money" when Lou is knocked unconscious by Lambert. In this story, I depart from canon at that point, and tried to imagine what might have happened if Lou DIDN'T get away in time, and what choices she might consider in response. The PG-13 version is posted at Writers Ranch.

PROLOGUE

(Dawn)

"She should've been here by now," Kid worried.

"Lou had to take the long way around. Maybe she got lost."

"We never should have left her there. Who decided it?" Kid demanded.

"She did, Kid. She knew the risks and she decided to take them. It was her decision to make."

Kid was becoming panicked, on the verge of turning back to town and look for her. The other riders looked at each other. Buck said, "Kid, running back into town now, when we don't even have a plan or know if she really is in trouble yet, well it doesn't make sense. We know how much you care about her, but - --"

"No you don't, Buck. I never even told her how much I loved her. I kept holding back for God knows what reason. And now because of me, she may be hurt or worse - -"

At that moment, a surrey carrying the town's doctor approached. At the sight of Kid, the doctor waved him down. Kid rode alongside the doctor's rig and shouted to him.

"What is it, Doc?"

"The whole town's buzzing about your jailbreak last night. Marshal Lambert arrested the new saloon girl, says she helped you break out."

"Lambert's got Lou?" Kid said, his heart in his throat. "Have you seen her? Is she okay?"

The doctor looked grave. "They called me in this morning to see her. That's why I'm on my way out of town, to try to find some help for her."

"Damn it, what are you saying? What's happened to Lou?" Kid shouted frantically, as the other riders looked on apprehensively.

CHAPTER ONE

(The night before)

Lou anxiously watched out the window as the boys rode off amid echoing gunfire. She was worried. The getaway was supposed to be cleaner than that. Hope the Kid didn't get caught in the crossfire, she thought. So far her part of this plan was going okay, thank goodness. She had been frightened to ask the Marshal up to the hotel room, knowing that something easily could go wrong on her end. Lambert was capable of anything, she knew; and she had a deathly fear of reliving her experience at Wicks' hands. But they had not been able to come up with any other way to save Kid; for him, she would risk even "that", she mused.

Abruptly, her stomach lurched as Lambert jerked the carpet out from under her and erupted from the tub where she had confined him, all in one violent, sudden movement. Despite his age and size, he was as fast as a rattlesnake and strong as an ox. She had time only to scream as he knocked the gun from her hand, and raised his fist over her to strike.

*****************

After failing to stop the riders from escaping with Kid from the jail, Lambert cursed himself for his stupidity in leaving his deputies in charge. "That girl back at the hotel. She'll tell us where they went," Lambert growled. He ran to the room where he left the saloon girl who called herself "Louise." He hadn't had time to tie her up, though he took her gun with him after beating her unconscious. Lambert hoped she was still there; he was relieved when he pushed in the door to see her, kneeling by the bed and groggily trying to stand to escape.

"Well hello, Louise. Not going anywhere, I hope? We got some business to attend to, you and me."

Lou felt the floor around her - - Lambert had taken her gun. He had two deputies by his side, and all three stood grinning at her, with their guns drawn. Her head dropped onto the bed in despair. There was no escape now, she knew. No escape until they killed her; his chilling words to her from earlier replayed in her head: You'll never live to see morning.

Lambert strode over and jerked her to her feet with a single motion of his arm, shocking Lou again with his strength. "But you know, in your case, I think I'll make an exception to the old rule, and put pleasure before business. Once I've got you loosened up a little, maybe you'll be willing to talk about where your friends went. If not, well, then it's my boys' lucky day, 'cause they'll get a turn, right boys?"

The other two snickered idiotically, as Lambert forced her onto the bed, pulling her dress up. Lou knew resisting three armed men was probably pointless and that no one in this terrorized town would come to her aid. Nonetheless, as Lambert unbuttoned his pants, still damp from the bathtub, her own terror overcame her and lent her almost inhuman strength. Her screams sounded like they were coming from an animal, from somewhere other than herself, and she fought back viciously with kicking, scratching, and flailing limbs.

Lambert and the deputies were taken aback at the force of the tiny girl's resistance. Lambert tried to hold on to her with both hands as she raked down the side of his face with her fingernails, leaving five bloody tracks, and bit and clawed at him like a cornered feral cat. She kicked at his exposed groin and landed a knee squarely. He bent with pain and she rocketed from the bed toward the open window, aware that the deputies were blocking the door. Pausing a fraction of a second, she weighed the risk of jumping from the second floor window against the option of submitting to their attacks. After the briefest hesitation, she made her choice. She jumped.

**********************

Lambert, still grimacing in pain, screamed to his deputies to get down to the street and catch the girl. He dragged himself to the window and looked out. Lou was staggering to her feet and limping to her horse, swinging on and spurring him. She thinks she's getting away, he thought furiously, and he trained his gun on the horse, an easier target in the dimly lit street than the small woman riding him. The horse went down with a screeching cry, but Lou refused to give up, taking off down the street toward the saloon at a limping run. In spite of himself, Lambert admired the girl's tenacity. She had to know there was nowhere she could run and hide from him, yet she clearly intended to put up all the fight she had in her.

Her heart hammering in her chest, Lou ran screaming, beating on doors as she limped down the street, begging someone to help her. The townsfolk, terrified, simply stared out their windows at her and refused to become involved. The deputies caught the injured, still shrieking girl and dragged her back toward the hotel. Lambert met them in the street. "Take her to the jail," he snarled. "You just bought yourself a whole lot more punishment, little girl. You're going to wish you had died in the fall out that window by the time I'm through with you."

They came back to the jail cell where Kid so recently had been trapped. Lambert ordered the deputies to chain Lou's arms and legs to the cot in the back. It took both men to accomplish it, though she was tiring, her voice hoarse from screaming. Advancing on her, Lambert unbuttoned his pants again. He stopped and stood over her a moment, looking down calmly at her violent struggling against her chains. "Louise," he said quietly. "This is your last chance. Tell me where your friends went and I won't touch you."

Lou cast around in her mind. She offered a lie, hoping to buy herself and her friends some time. "The… the Marshal back at our town, Marshal Hunter, was going to be meeting us if we didn't come back by now. We agreed that we'd meet him with some more deputies at Hanson's Cave," she whispered hoarsely, naming a location ten miles outside town in the opposite direction from their true meeting place. "You'd better not do anything to me, or you're going to be in trouble when Marshal Hunter gets here," she bluffed.

Lambert smirked. "I imagine he's not expected for a little while, though, or you all wouldn't have been so desperate to get Kid out tonight. I figure that gives me a little time." He turned to one of his deputies. "Get three or four men and ride out to Hanson's Cave and look for them. Get another two or three to come here and help stand guard in case they show back up here. I intend to stay here and continue guarding this prisoner." Turning back to Lou, he grinned as he ripped at her dress and knelt between her legs, which had been pulled apart and chained to the corners of the prison cot. Lou's mind flashed back four years to the last time a man had touched her this way, and she stiffened, bracing herself for what was about to happen, as Lambert lowered himself onto her and the remaining deputy stood by leering.

CHAPTER TWO

The doctor looked grim at Kid's question. "They woke me up around four in the morning to come into the jail to see to her. When they started questioning her about where you were, it seems she sent them on a wild goose chase out of town, and when Lambert found out she'd tricked him, and helped you get away…."

The doctor was pale. "She's in a lot of trouble, Kid. I don't know if they've killed her by now, but I don't think she can take much more punishment. I'm heading to Sweetwater to get the Marshal there. This has gone far enough."

Kid nodded, wordlessly. The doctor lifted the reins, then remembered something. "She asked me to find you in Sweetwater and tell you something if she died."

Tormented, Kid waited as the doctor continued. "She said to tell you she knew this could happen, and it was worth it to her even if she dies, as long as you live. She said that if she died I should tell you she loved you."

Kid caught his breath. He knew he loved Lou enough to die for her, but never realized she felt the same for him. He cursed himself for holding back, not telling and showing her how he felt before this. Now it might be too late.

"Lambert's going to pay this time," Kid said, turning his horse back toward town.

"Kid, wait," cautioned Jimmy. "We got to be careful - - he's still got Lou, we need a plan. Lambert's an experienced gunfighter, and you've never even called a man out before."

"If she's even alive, her only chance is if I go back there now, Jimmy. I'm the one he's after. There's no time for more plans. I may not have called a man out before, but I'd say it's high time I did."

****************

Kid rode angrily into town, dismounting in the middle of the street outside the jail. "Kid, you sure you don't want me to do this for ya?" Jimmy asked, quietly.

Kid shook his head. "This is my fight, Jimmy. But if he kills me, get Lou out, promise me?" Jimmy nodded, stepping to the side as Kid shouted, "Lambert! I'm callin' you out! Let the girl go, it's me you're after. Get out here and face me like a man."

It took a couple of minutes before Marshal Lambert languidly emerged from the jail, followed by a deputy half dragging, half carrying Lou from her cell. The riders all winced at her bruised face, but it was her expression, dead and empty and spiritless, that shocked them most, especially Kid, whose heart turned murderous at the sight. But the deputy had a gun jammed into her side, so Kid refrained from drawing his gun just yet.

"I'll kill you for this," Kid spat furiously.

Lambert chuckled. "You're welcome to try, Kid. Just thought she should be here to see you get mowed down and make everything she went through last night for nothing. Let's do this, shall we?"

Kid and Lambert faced each other down for a moment, before suddenly drawing their weapons. Lambert had stationed snipers on the rooftops, but as they aimed, Buck and Jimmy fired, killing them. Kid was faster on the draw, but his shot went high, landing on Lambert's shoulder and spinning him to the ground.

As Kid approached the helpless man on the ground, he trained his gun at point blank range at Lambert's head, fully prepared to commit murder, when Teaspoon, Ike, and Cody suddenly came riding into the middle of the street. The deputy holding Lou lifted his gun at Teaspoon, and Jimmy spun and killed him.

"Kid!" shouted Teaspoon at Kid, who stood with his gun held to Lambert's temple, glaring in rage at the man. "Put down your weapon, son, he ain't worth it." When Kid stood frozen, not lowering his weapon, Teaspoon advanced and snatched it away. "Son, that's enough. It's over, I'm taking him in. The judge will sort all this out."

Lou fainted into Kid's arms as the riders collected the deputies' bodies and arrested Lambert.

********************

Teaspoon and the others had suspected something was wrong and come to town to help, meeting the doctor on the road. When they heard his story, they had galloped into town at breakneck speed, arriving just in time.

Teaspoon and the riders arrested Lambert's only surviving deputy, who admitted to them that Lambert was the saloon girl's killer, and revealed the extent of Lou's ordeal in the jail cell. It was arranged that in exchange for the man's testimony, he would receive a lighter sentence himself. All the riders, especially Kid, were shocked and upset at what Lou had endured. Teaspoon's old face turned guilty and angry and sorrowful all at once. They all returned to the hotel room where Lou had locked herself in after the shootout. She had bathed and resumed her male disguise, was ready to return to the station, and flatly refused to see the doctor again when Kid gently suggested it. "I just want to get back home and forget this ever happened," she whispered evasively.

"Lou," Teaspoon muttered. "This is all my fault, for letting you stay on in the first place."

Kid glanced up from where he knelt beside Lou, startled. "Teaspoon, if I hadn't gotten into this mess, then this wouldn't have happened. If it's anybody's fault, it's mine."

Jimmy cut in. "The only person whose fault it is, is Lambert's, you two. No sense blaming yourselves for this."

"But I do blame myself," Teaspoon reiterated. "I made a mistake letting you keep working for the express, I see that now."

"Teaspoon!" Lou objected, tears coming into her eyes. "You don't mean that."

"I do, sweetheart. This could happen again any time you are out on a run, if someone finds out you're a girl. I can't have you running that risk anymore. I'm doing this for your own good."

The other riders objected. Cody spoke up, "Sounds like Lou held her own and then some, Teaspoon, and I don't think it's fair to punish her for it." The other riders agreed. Buck added, "If you fire Lou, you'll have to replace me too, Teaspoon. She shouldn't lose her job because of this, she didn't do anything wrong." Jimmy and Noah echoed Buck's statement.

"Dang it, boys, Lou, I ain't aiming to punish anybody. I just see now I can't risk it. These rules are there for a reason, and the fact is that Lou is in more danger because she's a girl, and I can't be responsible if something else happens."

Kid sat uncomfortably silent. He felt for Lou, and well knew how important her job was to her. Just the same, he was sick with worry and guilt over the ordeal she'd endured at the hands of Lambert and his deputies, and couldn't bring himself to argue with Teaspoon on her behalf. Lou flashed Kid an indignant look before, trembling, she addressed Teaspoon.

"I understand what you're saying, Teaspoon. But you've got it backwards. I'm safer doing my job, dressed as a man and with my guns, riding a fast horse, than I ever would be as a woman."

She paused painfully. "The truth is, I haven't dressed or acted like a woman in four years. Right before I stopped dressing like a girl, when I was almost thirteen years old, someone did the same thing to me that Lambert and his men did last night."

Kid's head snapped up again at this. Newly devastated, he cried out, "This … this happened to you before? But you were only a little girl, what kind of monster could-"

Downcast, Lou whispered, "There's lots of monsters like that out there, Kid, who just like hurting girls and women. That's why I turned into a boy, so it wouldn't happen again."

The riders glanced at each other, shocked at Lou's statement, which she almost seemed to mean literally.

"I let my guard down, took a risk for Kid, knowing all too well what could happen, believe me. But it doesn't have anything to do with my job. I've done my job as well as anybody else here, and I think I deserve a chance to keep doing it," she pleaded.

Teaspoon hesitated. "I don't rightly know, Lou." He paused again, as the riders all waited for his decision.

"I tell you what. You can't ride for a little while anyway, until you heal up some more. Let's get back to the station. I'll let you stay on to help with taking care of the horses, free up the others for more rides. We'll see, but I ain't making any promises I'll let you ride again. Fair enough?"

Teaspoon walked out, shaking his head sadly. As the door closed, Lou turned on the Kid.

"Thanks for nothing, Kid. How could you sit there listening and not stick up for me?"

Kid flushed. "I don't know but that Teaspoon's right, Lou. I don't think you should be running the risk of this happening again."

"Weren't you listening? I know damn well what I'm risking, and I'm telling you I'm safer on this job than I've ever been. And you know how much I need this job. A stock tender makes half the money a rider does. I can't afford that."

"Some things are more important than money."

"That's not for you to say. And is this the thanks I get for putting myself on the line to save you?" Kid went white to the lips. "I never asked you to do that, Lou. I'd rather Lambert killed me than have you take that kind of risk."

She looked disgusted. "Then you're a damn fool. Your life is worth more than that any day. And I suppose it's okay for you to die to protect me, but not for me to do the same for you?"

The other riders shifted uncomfortably. Noah tried to intervene, "Look, you two, you need to calm down, you're both upset, a lot has happened in the last few days. Teaspoon will come around, Lou, and anyways you shouldn't blame Kid for wanting to protect you after what you've been through."

Lou stood, unsteadily. "I don't want any protection." Her voice was catching in her throat. She looked across the room at a mirror at her hair, which she had let grow out somewhat since Teaspoon found out she was a girl. Walking across the room, she snatched Buck's knife from him and approached the mirror. Before all their shocked eyes, she used the blade to hack her hair close to her head, painfully short like it had been when she first came to the express.

"All I need is to keep this job, keep my disguise up. That's what's kept me safe all these years till now. That was my only mistake, forgetting that I need to hide, letting my guard down. I won't make it again," she sobbed as she sawed at her hair, before flinging the knife down and burying her newly shorn head in her hands.

Kid approached and gently touched her shoulder, trying to comfort her; to his dismay she stiffened and whirled on him. "Don't touch me!" she shrieked, as she brushed past him to run out the door.

CHAPTER THREE

Lou asked to move into the stationhouse with Rachel when they returned. Lou pointed out bitterly that she was not a rider now and she wanted to live in the main house with the other station staff, Rachel. Kid refused to feel hurt, as he sensed that something serious was behind her sudden insistence on moving out of the bunkhouse. Though not yet physically recovered from her injuries in the rape, Lou immediately started her new duties as full-time stock tender.

For the next several days, Lou avoided the other riders as much as possible, working feverishly in the barn and corral, eating little, and insisting on going to bed immediately after finishing the evening chores in the barn. A worried Rachel always saw a light under Lou's door when she went to bed later.

A week after they had returned home, Rachel woke suddenly and thought she could hear the young girl down the hall crying out. She sighed, worried; lighting a candle, she went to Lou's door and tapped on it. A crash inside startled her. Rachel tried to open the door but was surprised to find that Lou had locked it. "Lou? Are you okay?"

"Yes, I'm fine, Rachel. I just, just got surprised a little and dropped a glass. I'll clean it up."

"Honey, I'm worried about you. Can you let me in?"

Rachel was again surprised to hear what sounded like furniture being dragged away from the door. Lou, still fully dressed and wearing her guns, unlocked and opened the door and let Rachel in.

The room was flooded with light; Lou had brought in several lamps and had them burning brightly. Despite the summer heat, the window was shut and locked, leaving the room stifling hot. The bed was untouched. Rachel went to the window to open it and let in a breeze, but Lou, who had locked the door after Rachel and was shoving the dresser back in front of the door, snapped, "Leave it, Rachel!"

"I'm sorry, Lou," Rachel said slowly. "I just thought it is awfully hot in here, and you might do with some air."

Lou finished pulling the dresser in front of the door and turned, her face emotionless, toward her friend. "That window needs to stay shut and locked." Lou's eyes were turned toward her friend, but not meeting her gaze directly.

"But why? And why did you move the dresser?" Rachel noticed that as soon as Lou had finished moving the large piece of furniture, she had retreated to a hard-backed chair in the corner of the room, and was now sitting up in it stiffly, her hand clenching her gun in its holster. "Lou, why are you holding on to your gun like that?"

Lou's face and voice were flat, expressionless. "So I can get to it in a hurry if I need to."

"Don't you think you ought to get some sleep, Lou? It's almost dawn and you've been up since early this morning. You really should take tomorrow off and rest, you've been pushing yourself too hard." When Lou did not respond, Rachel took a nightgown from the dresser and held it out to Lou. "I'll clean up that glass you dropped, okay? Why don't you get ready for bed and -"

Lou drew back as if Rachel had slapped her. "I'm not wearing that. That's a girl's nightgown. I'm a boy, remember? And anyway I'm not going to sleep. I need to stay awake to protect myself."

Rachel was stunned, and stood holding the nightgown in her hands. "Lou, you … you're still a girl, and you're perfectly safe here."

"I'm not safe anywhere if I'm a girl. Lambert or even Wicks could come here and find me. I have to be ready."

Rachel was getting a little frightened for her friend, who sat, feet planted firmly on the ground, staring ahead tensely. She put the gown on the bed and started toward Lou. Kneeling beside her friend's chair, she looked up at Lou, who refused to meet her eyes. When Rachel reached out to touch Lou's arm, the girl flinched and rose, backing away. "Please don't touch me, Rachel," she said, pacing back and forth nervously.

Rachel followed, but wary of touching her friend again sat down instead on the old brass bed near where Lou stood. The movement caused the bed to creak loudly.

The sound shot through Lou like a bullet. Her eyes glazed over, as uncontrollably, her mind replayed the similar sounds made by the old metal prison cot for hours on end. Her breath caught and she panicked, reliving the nightmare, shaking violently and backing into the corner.

At a glance, Rachel knew what was happening; Lou was lost in her own world and reliving her torment over again. Rachel grasped an unseeing Lou by the shoulders and tried to speak soothingly to her, bring her back to reality, but the girl was beyond reaching. Rachel reached for Lou's gun and hid it in the dresser drawer before pushing the large, heavy dresser away from the door with difficulty. She had no idea how the smaller girl had done it so easily by herself. She did not want to leave Lou alone, but had no idea what to do. She ran down the stairs and out to the yard, to find Teaspoon and Kid to help as the sun rose over the horizon.

********************

When Kid and Teaspoon reached the room, Lou's waking nightmare had passed, and she was washing her face tiredly.

"Lou, Rachel told us what happened. Are you okay?" Kid ventured, frightened more by her blank, emotionless expression than by what Rachel had told the riders when she came into the bunkhouse.

Drying her face on a towel, she answered, "I'll be better when Rachel tells me what she did with my sidearm."

Rachel hesitated. She wasn't sure Lou was in the proper frame of mind to trust with a gun. Lou saw Rachel's eyes flicker toward the dresser, and she jerked open the drawer and retrieved her gun, placing it in her holster.

"If you'll all excuse me, I'd best get started on cleaning those stalls."

"Don't you have time for something to eat first, Lou?" Rachel asked timidly.

Lou shook her head and half ran out of the room, refusing to look directly at Teaspoon or Kid.

"She has hardly slept or eaten since she got home," Rachel murmured to Kid. "And she's jumpy as a cat."

Teaspoon shook his head. "I don't like the fact she's still having those wakin' nightmares either, especially if she insists on carrying her gun. Somebody could get hurt if they startle her in this frame of mind. Maybe we'd better get the doctor to come here to see her."

Gravely, Kid shook his head. "She'll have a fit if we do, I can tell you already, if we give away her disguise to anyone in town right now."

"Well what else can we do?" Rachel asked.

Teaspoon considered it. "I got a friend, Dr. Ned Clancy. Best doctor I ever knew. He's older, got a way with patients, maybe Lou won't be too spooked by him. Even if she won't let him examine her, we should ask him how to handle her for a while. It's a more'n a day's ride but I think he's the fella for the job. I'm sure he'd come if I sent for him."

"Should I head out and get him back here?"

Teaspoon nodded. "You take the next run tomorrow, Ned's office is on the tail end of that route." Teaspoon jotted the address and a note for Kid to take to Dr. Clancy, and Kid headed out.

CHAPTER FOUR

(three days later)

After permitting herself to sleep a couple of hours, Lou sat up in her bed in the stationhouse and felt the now familiar rush of nausea sweeping over her, again. For the third time in as many days, she walked, unsteadily, to the shady side of the barn and sank down beside it.

Still trembling, she looked out over the yard. Her worst fears were coming true, it seemed. Her cycle was late; she was getting sick all the time. Under the circumstances, this could only mean one thing, and the thought of it had her in despair.

The thought of pregnancy and childbirth horrified Lou in itself. Her own mother's strength had been sapped by the birth of her younger sister, and she'd never completely recovered. She knew that women died in childbirth or soon after all the time. Taking that risk to have a child you wanted was one thing. Taking it to have a child that had been forced on you was another thing entirely.

Worst of all, she was revolted at the possibility of having a child as a result of her night of torment. This was one danger she couldn't face down with a gun or a fast horse. Lou was frankly terrified, yet ashamed of her own uncharacteristic fear.

There were some choices, however limited, she well knew. Working even in the laundry in a whorehouse, she had learned that. The papers were full of advertisements for pills or tonics for "restoring female regularity"; also, she knew that some doctors and midwives would intervene for a fee, though new laws sweeping the country made it harder and harder for women to find someone willing to do so. Some of the girls at Wicks' house had performed frightening self-administered methods that made her cringe physically at the very thought. One of the girls had died as a result of attempting it, she recalled, shuddering at the memory.

Lou placed her hand over her stomach. She thought how strange it was that even while she sat doing nothing, her traitorous body was creating a new life. She thought wildly that she would rather die herself than face bringing a bastard child of one of her rapists into this unforgiving and judgmental world. She and the child would be scorned, even if it wasn't either her fault or the baby's this had happened. She knew, too, that once Teaspoon found out about this that she would never be allowed to ride again.

Forcing herself through her chores the rest of the morning, she watched bitterly as Kid returned from his run and handed off the mochila to Ike, who raced off on Lightning, her favorite horse. How she wished she was the one leaving, racing at a gallop, wind rushing past her, instead of Ike. She always felt safest and happiest on the back of a racing horse, and she had only been allowed to exercise the horses and help care for them since the disaster with Lambert. Teaspoon, still deeply upset at what had happened to her, always found a way to stall her when she tried to convince him to give her back her job as a rider. He hadn't actually hired a replacement yet, giving her a thin hope that he might change his mind, until now.

She finished the last of the stalls as Kid led Katy in to the barn, walking alongside Buck, Jimmy and Cody. She sighed, knowing that it was her job to groom Katy now. Though Kid was tired too after coming in from his ride, he looked at her gaunt face and tentatively spoke. "Lou, I don't mind taking care of Katy for you. You look pretty tired."

She smiled weakly at Kid. Then a wave of nausea came over her unexpectedly. Humiliated, she turned away from the others, retching violently in the straw, though nothing came up from her empty stomach. Kid dropped beside her and held her head until she subsided, then wiped her face with his handkerchief, as Cody got her a drink of water from the pump outside. The other riders looked on, worried. Her persistent sickness had not escaped their notice, and they all had discussed their fear for their friend already.

"Lou," ventured Cody, handing her the dipper.

Lou could not look at them, and drank the water without answering.

"You're in trouble, aren't you?" Jimmy asked softly.

She nodded, then bent her head to cry in despair. The four men looked at her pityingly.

"What are you going to do?" Kid asked.

Lou looked ashamed. "I don't know, Kid. I'm scared, and I don't want this," she choked, unable to continue.

Cody pulled a newspaper from his pocket. "I know there's some folks that don't hold with it, Lou, but there's ways out of your trouble. Look at this," he said, opening the paper and handing it to her. Kid looked at the paper over Lou's shoulder.

"To the ladies - Mrs. Elva Jones, Midwife, can be consulted with the strictest confidence on complaints incidental to the female person. Her experience in the treatment of female irregularity is such that she can effect a complete cure. Ladies desiring such services will be accommodated with respectable room and board during such time," he read aloud.

Lou seemed uncertain. "I've heard of this… working at the whorehouse laundry… I'm not sure though… isn't it illegal?"

Cody shook his head. "When I thought you might be in trouble I asked around a bit. In most states, if you get to it before you can feel the baby is moving, it ain't illegal. Here in Wyoming Territory, anyway, there's no laws against it. If you go to that Mrs. Jones right away, maybe you can get out of this. You're not very far along. Under the circumstances, nobody would blame you."

Kid was miserable. He had been terrified of just this since the moment he knew Lou had been raped. Regardless of what the laws said, ordinarily he would not agree with a woman doing away with an unborn baby, even before the time of quickening. But … he looked at Lou's confused and pained face. His mind flashed back to the sight of her beaten, bruised face and body; the image of her being repeatedly violated just because she wanted to save him, rose up against his will and sickened him again. She had been through so much. How could it be right to force her to have a baby from that horrible experience, on top of everything else? His heart ached for the girl he loved so much, and the decision she had to make through no fault of her own. It seemed there was no right or fair answer however you looked at it.

Buck, however, looked like someone had slapped him in the face. "You're not seriously considering this, are you, Lou?"

Jimmy scowled at Buck. "It's none of your damn business what she decides to do."

Buck angrily answered. "It ain't right to kill a baby because its pa did something wrong. It's not the baby's fault how he came into the world. If my mother thought like that, I wouldn't be here now."

Jimmy turned angrily on Buck. "Listen, Buck, it ain't your place to tell Lou what she should or shouldn't do. She didn't ask for this and it's her decision, nobody else's. If you're her friend, why don't you act like it and quit judging her?"

Buck looked around at the others' faces in turn: Jimmy's furious scowl; Cody's look, clearly disapproving of Buck's reaction; and Lou and Kid's tormented and confused eyes. Buck thought again of his mother and saw for himself how she must have felt when she learned he was conceived, mirrored in Lou's stricken face. Buck turned his back on her and left the barn without another word.

Kid crept closer to Lou. "Lou, I… I'm not sure this is a good idea Cody's suggesting." Lou lifted her head barely perceptibly at Kid's words. "I think we should think about it some, before you decide. I promise I will do anything I can to help you."

"There's nothing you can do to help me, that's the problem," she wept. "I'm all alone, I thought what happened was over, and now this. I've fought for five years just to live, to try to keep a promise to my mother, to keep my family together. Now I've failed my mother, Tessa, Jeremiah. Don't you see how hard this will be for me? If I have the baby, do you know how people will look at me, at the baby? They'll treat me like a whore, the baby like a bastard. And we didn't do anything to deserve that."

"You're not alone, honey. We'll figure this out together, I won't let you be alone, I promise," Kid said kindly, rubbing her back gently.

"I don't know what to do. I know you don't agree with me trying to stop this. But I would rather kill myself than go through with it. I want to die, I can't face this! The nightmare won't ever end for me, a baby would be a living reminder every day the rest of my life. I will kill myself first," she sobbed.

Kid recognized the ring of ultimate despair in her voice. She meant it; she was driven beyond the breaking point. He knew somehow, instinctively, that she might well harm herself in this frame of mind. But he had other worries about what Cody had suggested as well.

Kid's voice was strange as he spoke to Lou quietly. "Lou, I can understand how you must feel about this, but it isn't just whether it's right or wrong, it's that I'm scared for you. This could be dangerous for you if you don't go about it the right way- - "

Something in Kid's voice made Lou suspicious. "How do you know that?"

"Somebody I know got really hurt when she went to a midwife to get rid of a baby. And now, well, she can't have another baby."

She felt queasy, but not from morning sickness now. "Somebody you know? Who was it, Kid? Was it … was it your baby?"

He was silent and ashamed, looking down.

"Tell me the truth, Kid."

"She was a girl back in Virginia, her name was Doritha. She and I, well, we were kind of childhood sweethearts, I guess. It was an accident, and she didn't want to go through with it. I tried to talk her out of it, but she wouldn't listen. She had money, and her parents expected her to marry money, and that couldn't happen if she had our baby. But she got really sick, Lou, she almost died, and I don't want anything else to happen to you. There's a doctor coming today from out of town that Teaspoon knows. Talk to him before you decide anything, please."

Jimmy and Cody exchanged surprised looks. They thought Kid was totally inexperienced, and this was unexpected. The two, recognizing that their presence was unnecessary in this painful discussion, quietly slipped out of the barn to wait outside.

Lou was briefly distracted from her own agony by this unwelcome piece of information. "Hold on a minute. You've … you've been in love with someone else before? You made a baby with her?" she demanded.

"It was a long time ago. We were just kids. It was a mistake; we thought we had feelings for each other but we were too young. It wasn't real, like what you and I have. "

Lou was quivering. "So how do you know you won't feel different about me too in a couple of years? If you're that fickle -"

Kid became defensive. "I'm not fickle. I was fourteen years old, Lou. It was puppy love, that's all. I've been careful, took things slow with you so I'd be sure this time, and I am sure. I know how I feel about you, and it's different, it's real."

"I wouldn't know, you've never even said what it is you feel."

Kid took her hands. "You must know I love you-"

She pulled her hands away. "I don't know anything about you, Kid. I don't know who you are if you could keep this from me," she started weeping again, overcome with disappointment that she was not Kid's first love as he was hers, and with her own overwhelming troubles.

"I didn't keep it from you any more than you kept your past from me," he started.

She stood up, enraged and miserable. "That's not the same thing. How can you compare what Wicks did to me, with what you did?" She started storming from the barn. Kid caught her by the shoulders.

"I'm sorry, Lou. I'm sorry I didn't tell you about Doritha before, or tell you that I love you sooner. I'm so sorry this is happening to you. But I'm not letting you out of my sight when you're feeling like this. I won't let anything else happen to you, you hear me?"

She struggled furiously, but he would not release her. Lou whined in agony as her mind filled yet again with painful images and sensations from the tiny jail cell. Desperate, she pulled her gun from its holster and trained it on her captor. Kid let go, as she backed away, wild-eyed.

"Don't you ever put your hands on me like that again," she warned. "Or I'll kill you, understand? Nobody is ever going to touch me against my will again and live, ever again, do you hear me, nobody, and that includes you," she ranted, sobbing and backing away. She bumped up against Katy, and turning, swung suddenly up onto her back.

Somehow Lou felt if she could ride fast enough, far enough, she could outrun her troubles. She rammed her heels into Katy's sides and took off at a gallop from the barn past Jimmy and Cody standing outside, as Dr. Clancy pulled up in his covered surrey.

************************

Dr. Clancy sprang down from his surrey. He was a tall, handsome bespectacled man in his early sixties. Thinking the small rider in male dress was an express rider leaving on a run, he called out, "So where's my patient, Kid?"

Kid, worried, said "That was her who just tore out of here, doc. She thinks she may have got with child from what happened, and she's real upset. I'd better go after her, I'm afraid of what she might do. Can you follow as best you can in that rig?"

The others joined them in seconds on horseback. Cody swung down to let Kid have his horse. "Better yet, let me ride along," Dr. Clancy said, as he gestured to Jimmy to climb down. Swinging up into his saddle with surprising nimbleness for a man his age, he spurred the horse and took off at a gallop after Kid.

They caught up with Katy first, riderless, standing tied by the Sweetwater riverbank. There was a high bridge over it, and a recent storm had left the river full, rushing past underneath. Kid's heart stopped briefly when he saw Lou sitting on the edge of the bridge, her arm wrapped around the railing, her legs dangling off the edge. She was staring blankly at the rushing water as if weighing the option of jumping.

He heard the man next to him gasp at the sight. "Mary Louise", the man breathed.

Kid barely turned. "Not Mary Louise, her name is Lou," he said quietly, "and I'd better get up there. She's in a dangerous state of mind right now."

Dr. Clancy nodded, cautioning, "No sudden moves, son," as he dismounted and followed the younger man onto the bridge, moving slowly toward her. He stood behind the couple as Kid sat down next to her. She instinctively clung tighter to the post, her eyes still fixed below.

"Lou, please let go and come onto the bank with me to talk."

She turned her head away. "It'd be better if I just ended everything, Kid. I can't turn off the memories," she cried. "I'm so confused, I don't know what to do, I just want to stop hurting."

Kid spoke softly, "You don't have to do it all today, honey. Let's take this one day at a time. You don't even know if it's really true yet. You're exhausted, sick. I brought a doctor for you to talk to," he said, gesturing to Dr. Clancy.

"And if you're anything like your ma, young lady, you'll never give up that easy," said Dr. Clancy, a catch in his voice. At the sound, Lou started and turned around to look at the older man. His heart broke at the sight of her still bruised, weeping face. He remembered seeing her mother that way, all too well. He swore this time would turn out differently.

Recognition dawned on her face, and she scrambled to her feet, stumbling to the man's outstretched arms. "Grandpa," she sobbed, as the man put his arms around her and bent his head over hers.

CHAPTER FIVE

Dr. Clancy explained that he had forbidden his daughter Mary Louise from marrying Lou's father Boggs, seeing him for the dangerous, unscrupulous man he was. He suspected Boggs of abusing his beloved daughter from the time they were courting. He later learned that Boggs forced himself on Mary Louise, and she had become pregnant. She had agreed to elope with him to give her baby, Louise, a name and a father.

The marriage had been a miserable one from the start. Boggs had run around with other women and was gone on "business" more than he was home, but that was a relief to poor Mary Louise. For a while after her marriage, she kept close with her parents, and small Louise had been lucky enough to spend a lot of special times with her grandparents. Dr. Clancy spoke warmly of the fishing and riding trips he had taken so often with his little tomboy granddaughter. But one day without warning, Mary Louise had disappeared along with her oldest daughter and son Jeremiah.

Kid looked questioningly at Lou, surprised that Dr. Clancy spoke so freely about the past, especially Lou's conception. But Lou seemed to know all about it and picked up the tale where her grandfather left off. Her father had come back in the middle of the night, packed them up, and forced them to leave St. Joe where they were living near the Clancys, to go to live with him miles away in an armed, barricaded fortress where he conducted his gunrunning business. "He wanted his son to be with him," Lou remarked. "When he was home and wasn't angry about something, he used to teach me shooting and riding and such. But pa really wanted a son, not a tomboy daughter."

Lou's sister Theresa followed into the world without the aid of a midwife or doctor, since an ever more paranoid Boggs would not allow one into his fortress. The labor and delivery, attended only by young Louise, was difficult, almost killing Mary Louise and sapping her strength permanently. Finally, Mary Louise had enough of Boggs' abuse, which had begun to turn on Lou and Jeremiah as well. Knowing she had to escape Boggs for her children's sake, Mary Louise took her first opportunity to run away with them.

"We took grandma's maiden name, McCloud. While she was still alive, Mama said she could never go back to you, Grandpa, I'm sorry… I think she was worried about our pa finding us. I looked for you when Mama died a year later, but you weren't in St. Joe anymore. I didn't know where you were living or how to find you. I had to go to an orphanage, no one knew where you were anymore. I ran off soon as I was big enough, and have been on my own for about five years."

Kid winced, thinking of what had happened to her when she was just a lonely little girl on her own, though she said nothing of it to her sad-eyed grandfather.

"Your Grandma had died, and I picked up stakes and moved my practice out of St. Joe, probably when you were about ten … Mary Louise had left years before with no word since then, and I had given up hope of ever seeing or hearing from her again. St. Joe had too many memories to stay, but I wish to God I had," Dr. Clancy said mournfully. "I must have just missed you and the younger ones."

Kid sat stunned by Lou's story. She noticed his look and said softly, "I know what you're thinking. How can I consider getting rid of my baby when my birth wasn't much different? The thing is, Kid, I'm not sure I'm as strong as my ma." She choked, "I lived through it once, you see. I saw what Mama's life was like because of me. I know she loved me, loved all of us. But what if I can't handle it like she did? What if I'm more like my pa… he was always angry at all of us," she sobbed.

"I … I'm afraid if I have the baby, I'll hate it. I'll turn into my pa, maybe, hurt the baby... I'm considering killing it now, aren't I? What will I feel for a baby created this way, once it's born? I can't do it, Kid, I'm not strong enough. It's not fair to the baby to be born hated for no fault of its own, by its own mother." Her face went white again and she turned, becoming sick again in the grass.

Dr. Clancy noted the gentleness in the young man as he held her shoulders and face while she vomited tiredly. She turned and rested against his shoulder weakly. Kid, overcome, had silent tears running down his face.

Dr. Clancy was torn with uncertainty as well; his profession and his religion pulled him in one direction; but at the same time, he could see that his young granddaughter needed his support and understanding under these very unusual circumstances. He agreed with Kid that the undernourished, sleep-deprived young woman was in danger of hurting herself. Dr. Clancy considered that the procedure could possibly be ethically justified in the case of rape and to prevent Louise from taking a desperate step. He knew above all that the important thing was to keep Louise from doing anything rash at this time.

"Louise, all I can say is that from what Kid has told me, you're in no frame of mind to make any decisions. There's still time to think about what you want to do, and it may be that you aren't even pregnant. It hasn't been very long; you may just be late or skipped a cycle. If it turns out you are, then there are ways that are safer than others if you decide against having the baby, but you need to get your strength back, first. I've all but retired from my practice; I'll get a place here in Sweetwater, send for Theresa and Jeremiah, and you can come stay with us while I get you healed up and strong over the next few weeks. Would you like that, Pixie?" he asked, using his old nickname for her.

Louise looked up, her tear-streaked face filled with gratitude. "I'd … I'd love that, Grandpa."

"And no matter what you decide, I'll help you, and I have a feeling this young fellow will too, am I right?"

Kid nodded, whispering, "I love you no matter what you choose," into her hair and picking her up in his arms to carry her to Katy and ride home.

*********************

Dr. Clancy returned to the station with Kid and Lou. Rachel suggested that Dr. Clancy stay in the stationhouse with his three grandchildren for the time being until he was able to find a suitable house to buy. Dr. Clancy sent word to the orphanage through Kid. Kid was expected to return with the children within a day or two by stagecoach.

As Teaspoon had said, Lou's grandfather was a well-trained and expert doctor. He put Lou on bed rest, giving her medication that helped her sleep. Under its influence, the exhausted girl slept for nearly two days straight, waking ravenously hungry and with no traces of her earlier nausea. Dr. Clancy concluded that the nausea she had initially was not early morning sickness, when several of the other riders came down with the same ailment. Still, he was concerned about the absence of Lou's regular cycle, which continued. For the time being, it could not be confirmed whether she was pregnant or not, he advised his granddaughter, but she took little comfort in this hope. She prepared herself for the worst, and as each day continued without the return of her cycle, she was more convinced that it was true.

CHAPTER SIX

Lou sat up in bed, a little weak from her long sleep. She was leafing through a magazine absently when Cody appeared and tapped at the open door. "Hey, Lou, so it's true, you're back in the land of the living! I hear you're pretty hungry, so I brought you my breakfast." He held out a plate of grits and ham with one hand. "Rachel is making more for me," he said.

Lou was surprised. "That'll take a while, won't it? You must be hungry too. Why don't we share?"

Cody produced two forks. "I was hoping you'd say that," he answered. Lou smothered a smile, and gestured next to her on the big brass bed.

It was Cody's turn to be surprised. "You want me to sit there?" he asked hesitantly.

"Why not? Come on over, there's no table in here and these grits are getting cold."

Cody hopped up on top of the covers, and the two dug into the grits set on Lou's lap.

"How you feelin' today, Lou?" he asked softly after a few minutes of silent munching.

She looked down. "The same," she mumbled. "Still nothing."

"What's your grandpa say? How soon will you know for sure?"

"If my … you know… comes back, then we'll know I'm not. Otherwise, it's hard to tell for sure for another couple months."

Cody put down his fork, looking for once too upset to eat.

"I'm real sorry this happened to you, Lou. We all are. You think any more about that ad I showed you? Don't let what Buck said upset you. It's a sight easier to tell someone else what they should do when it ain't happening to you. He spoke out of turn."

Lou smiled at Cody weakly. "It's a big decision, that's for sure, I'm still hoping not to have to make it. There's time to see what happens for a bit. I appreciate your not judging me about it. A lot of people would."

"My pa always said, never judge a man until you've walked a mile in his shoes. I don't reckon Buck or me or any of us fellas are ever going to walk in the shoes you have to, so we got no call to judge what you do."

Lou looked up at Cody, surprised. "You know, that's the first time I ever heard you mention your family, Cody. Come to think of it, you always manage to change the subject when the boys start talking about family. How come?"

Cody shrugged, his normally merry blue eyes evasive. "Not much to tell. Pa died a long time ago. I left home to make my own way, help my mother out. She's back in Kansas, I see her when I ride through there."

"No brothers or sisters?"

Unwillingly, Cody said, "Had a brother once, Paul. He died fallin' off a horse." He looked down. "Ma ain't really been right since then. She lives with a sister, who looks out for her."

"What happened to your pa?" Lou figured now that Cody's tongue was finally loosened, she might get a whole story out of him.

Cody looked over at her. "Lots of questions today, I see," he said, not angrily but a little sadly. "Nobody ever seemed to be interested before this."

"I know, Cody. I'm sorry."

"He was an abolitionist. Gave a speech about it one day, and the crowd didn't think he had the right to an opinion, so, they dragged him into the street, beat him up and somebody stabbed him."

Lou gasped. "You must have been so upset when you heard."

"I was there."

Lou was stunned at Cody's statement. "You saw it?" she mumbled.

"Well, he didn't die that day. I managed to drag him to the house. But he left home after that, couldn't stay in one place long. Whenever he tried to come back, folks would plot against him. He died when I was eleven from the aftereffects of the stabbing. That's when I went on my own, started working as a scout, different jobs. Wanted to go west and look for gold, but got this job on the way there. So here I am."

She couldn't believe that happy-go-lucky Cody had been through so much. "How… how do you manage to be so happy all the time, with all you've had to go through?" she asked seriously. "What's your secret?"

He looked ahead and was silent for a long moment. "I got some bad days too, Lou, but mostly I try to remember the things I got going for me, the fact that as long as there's another day, there's another chance for things to get better. I don't know, I just don't want to let them win."

"Who?"

"Folks like Lambert, like that fella who stabbed my pa. Folks who don't care who they hurt. We have to fight back and keep living life, or they win."

Lou stared into Cody's light blue eyes and nodded thoughtfully. He leaned over and hugged her gingerly. She didn't shrug him away, and even leaned against his shoulder a minute.

After a moment, Cody gathered up the forks and empty plate.

"Reckon I'd better get out of here before you compromise my reputation. Anyways, Kid could come back any minute and he might not like catching us in bed together."

Lou laughed, swatting at him. "Not to worry, you old philosopher."

As he reached the door, she called out to him.

"Yeah, Lou?"

She looked at him with shining eyes. "I don't aim to let them win either."

Cody grinned back, approvingly. "I know you won't, Lou. You're more of a fighter than that."

CHAPTER SEVEN

Jeremiah and Theresa stepped off the stage at the Sweetwater station with Kid, where Lou ran to them and threw her arms around them. "Hello, Sugarbears," she said, turning to introduce their grandfather. "Here's our grandpa. We're all going to be a family finally."

The other riders stood by, happy at the sight of a smiling, healthier looking Lou reunited with her family. Theresa hugged her sister and grandfather, but Jeremiah stood by a bit stiffly. The whole ride from St. Joe, he had been aloof to Kid, whom he still blamed for his father's death months before, and he missed the orphanage which had been his home for several years. He looked critically at Lou's still boyish clothes.

"You're still pretending to be a boy? But Kid said you quit riding a while ago. And why are we still living at the Express station?"

Lou looked uncomfortable. "Because when Grandpa found me, we wanted to get you here with us as soon as possible, Jeremiah. And I am still working for the Express, just as a stock tender, not a rider for now."

"Why?" demanded the boy, suspiciously.

Rachel stepped forward and gently suggested that they bring the children's few possessions into the stationhouse. Dr. Clancy, eager to get to know his two youngest grandchildren, picked up their small bags and gestured to them to follow him back to the house. Lou and Kid followed behind slowly.

Sitting on the stationhouse porch next to Kid, Lou was shaking. "Theresa was happy to see me, at least," she said weakly.

"Jeremiah will come around, Lou."

"Will he? He's confused enough now. What will he do when he finds out about my baby?"

"What did you say?" Jeremiah was standing at the door to the stationhouse, furiously.

"You're going to have a baby? But you're not married."

Lou stood up unsteadily, supported by Kid.

Jeremiah looked angrily at Kid. "You did this, didn't you? First you kill my father, then you get my sister in trouble -"

Lou interrupted in defense of Kid. "That's enough, Jeremiah! Kid didn't - - "

Jeremiah, self-pitying, continued talking over his sister. "And it's bad enough I'm going to have to go to a new school, I'm going to have to explain to all the kids I meet why my sister lived in a bunkhouse with a lot of men, dressed as a boy, and is having a baby with no husband? That'll be a great start, coming to school as the town whore's brother."

Kid angrily cut Jeremiah off. "Your sister said that's enough. You got no call to talk like that to her, and I'll take you to the woodshed myself if I hear you do it again."

"You can't tell me what to do. You ain't my pa, you ain't even my sister's husband. Killing my pa and taking my sister to bed don't give you the right to tell me what to do."

"Your pa gave me no choice, Jeremiah."

Jeremiah stormed into the stationhouse again, and Lou trembled beside Kid. "Kid, I never thought about how this would affect Jeremiah and Theresa. Maybe… maybe I need to go away and have the baby someplace else, let Jeremiah and Theresa have a normal life here with Grandpa, or maybe I should do what Cody- -"

She stopped, closing her eyes. "It's so hard to know what to do, Kid. Why is this happening to me? What did I do to deserve this?" she asked, turning to Kid and for the first time since her attack, slipped her arms around his neck. Kid, who had ached to hold her a thousand times, clung to her, stroking her hair. "Nothing, Lou, you don't deserve any of this." She rested her head on his shoulder, and they stood that way for several moments before Lou lifted her head up to kiss Kid's lips tentatively. He kissed her back, but was careful not to push or rush her. To his surprise, she actually slipped the tip of her tongue into his mouth for a moment, then pulled away and dropped her head back on his chest.

"I forgot to tell you something a while ago, Kid, I was kind of in a bad way that day."

"What is it," he murmured into her hair.

"I love you too."

************************

Jeremiah sat sulking at the kitchen table in Rachel's house when Lou came in with Kid. She dropped into a chair across from him and looked down at her hands for a moment. Kid stood by the door, protectively.

Lou bent and looked up into Jeremiah's eyes before speaking. "You're getting to be a big boy, Jeremiah. You know quite a bit more than I thought you did. Some pretty grown up words you used out there, I reckon."

"I'm not a stupid little kid, if that's what you mean. I know what's going on here, what you've been doing."

Lou sighed. She hated to tell this part, but there was little choice. She couldn't bear to have Kid unfairly accused of not taking responsibility for her and the baby. "No, Jeremiah, you don't. If you know how babies get made, I expect you might know that sometimes… sometimes men will force themselves on a woman against her will…"

Jeremiah's head snapped up, and his sharp eyes took in the faded bruises on her face and the still angry ones on her wrists. "Is that how you got those marks?" As Lou nodded sadly, Jeremiah leapt up angrily and started toward Kid. "Did you do this to her?" he shouted, advancing on the Kid, who was twice his size, as if to attack. Lou jumped up and held Jeremiah's arm. "No, Jeremiah, of course he didn't. Kid would never, ever hurt me. It was someone else."

"No, Kid wouldn't hurt you, just kill your father, I suppose," Jeremiah said, dropping back into the chair, confused and hurt.

"Sugarbear, you were there. You know that wasn't Kid's fault. I know that's hard for you to accept, but you know it. He was protecting me, us."

Jeremiah dropped his head on his hand to cover the tears that were starting to squeeze out unwillingly. "If he's such a big hero, then why didn't he protect you from that man who hurt you and made you have a baby?"

At Jeremiah's words Kid looked newly stricken, agonized. Lou saw it and her heart broke for Kid. "Jeremiah, there wasn't anything he could have done. It's no one's fault except for the man who did this," she said, as much for Kid's benefit as Jeremiah's. She put her arm around Jeremiah.

"Tell the truth, Sugarbear. You're angry because you've been uprooted, brought to a strange place, and have to start all over someplace where you don't know anybody but me and Theresa, isn't that the main problem?"

Jeremiah looked guilty a moment, then muttered, "Well, you're not making it any easier for us to start over here. Isn't … isn't there anything the doctors can do to stop it?"

Lou was shocked anew at her younger brother's sophistication. "It's still early. I'm not even sure it's true yet. But do you think I should punish a baby for no fault of its own, just so you won't be embarrassed at school?" she asked, gently as possible.

"It's not just me who'll be embarrassed, Louise. You won't be able to hold your head up in decent company once you start showing. You know that. You say you don't want to punish a baby, but aren't you the one being punished for no fault of your own if you go ahead with this? And the baby won't have an easy time either. You think that's right?"

Lou sat forlornly, unsure under the cold logic of her young brother's words. "I … I don't know, Jeremiah," she whispered, thinking back again to her childhood; to the muffled screams she would hear from her parents' bedroom some nights when pa was home; to the bruises on her mother's face and arms in the mornings. Ma had married her abuser, she was so afraid of the scandal of illegitimacy, and it had taken years of abuse before Ma decided that life on their own was preferable. Lou knew well enough that Jeremiah was right about how hard it would be to face people pregnant and unmarried, or for a baby with no father.

"Sometimes you just have a hard choice to make, you have to choose the lesser of two evils, I guess. And at least there will be a baby to love from this evil," Lou said haltingly.

Kid looked at Lou in wonder. Lou hadn't said much about her plans as yet, and he hadn't been sure what she would decide about her pregnancy. It seemed she was leaning toward going through with it. He was proud of her courage, but still conflicted too. Even with his convictions, he could see what Jeremiah meant. Lou would be punished, terribly, by what someone else had forced on her if she chose to have the baby.

For his part, Jeremiah looked skeptical. "You'd be a hell of a lot better off if you did what makes sense, Louise, and got on with your own life. You've worked and suffered for years for us, I know that without you telling me much, just from figuring it out. It's time you had your own turn to have some happiness, don't you think?"

"Jeremiah, I … I haven't decided for sure, and it's still early days. I may not have to. Let's not talk about this anymore, and please don't say anything to Theresa about this at all for now, okay?" Jeremiah nodded reluctantly.

Lou spoke softly again. "I will say, though, if it's true and I decide to go through with it, I'll … I'll go off somewhere to have the baby so it won't shame you and Grandpa and Theresa. Okay?"

Kid looked alarmed at her mention of leaving Sweetwater but said nothing for the time being. He was relieved that at least Jeremiah had calmed down somewhat and was less hostile toward him and Lou. Jeremiah even hugged his sister and promised to try not to be any more trouble to her. Turning to Kid, he gruffly said, "Sorry for blaming you for my sister. I didn't know." Kid nodded and reached out to shake Jeremiah's outstretched hand. "And… and I know it wasn't your fault that my Pa had to get killed. I know he brought it on himself, I just …" he trailed off.

Kid huskily said, "Thanks Jeremiah. I appreciate your saying that. I know a little how you feel, from my pa and brother. You always wish they could have been different, but you can't change how it really was. But it … it doesn't make it easier when you lose them, that they weren't …. always as good as they should have been to you and your family. I know how that is too."

Jeremiah nodded and quickly walked out the back way, head down to hide his newly forming tears. Lou reached out and took Kid's hand and pressed it in thanks.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Buck rode in to the station and saw Lou and Kid sitting on the stationhouse steps braiding straw wisps. Kid was holding one end of the long rope of straw, Lou the other, as they twisted them together, adding more straw, and twisting again. They seemed at peace, even happy as they performed the routine chore. Buck wondered how things had turned out for Lou, whom he had not seen since the day her grandfather came. Slowly, he approached the steps, nodding.

Kid looked back a little coldly, not returning the greeting. Lou looked up and smiled uncertainly. "How was your ride, Buck?"

"Okay, I guess."

"Rachel left some lemonade up here, if you want some. You look thirsty."

Buck slowly went up on the porch and poured a drink. Sitting down on the top step above Lou and Kid, he looked down at his hands awkwardly.

After a long pause, Buck asked, "How are you, Lou? You look a lot better."

"I am a lot better now than I was."

Buck looked hopeful. "Everything better then?"

Lou shifted uneasily. "If you mean, am I pregnant, I don't know for sure yet."

"Thanks for your concern, though, Buck," said Kid a little bitterly. "Better late than never, I guess."

"Kid," admonished Lou.

"That's okay, Lou. I deserved that."

"No, you didn't. You're entitled to your opinion, Buck."

Buck shook his head. "No I'm not. Not about this. It ain't any of my business, and I should have just been a better friend to you. I'm sorry."

Lou shook her head. "A good friend doesn't just say whatever you want to hear. A good friend says what he really feels. I don't blame you."

Continuing on the wisp with Kid, who sat by silently, she remarked, "We ain't so different, you and me. I know what you meant about your mother. Mine was sort of the same, but… Mama didn't get away from my pa, she married him and had two more kids, kept on taking whatever punishment he felt like handing out. All trying to do the right thing by me and my brother and sister, I suppose. Looking back, I can't rightly say she made the right decision, about staying with him anyway."

She tucked the ends under the wisp that Kid held, and let go. Kid laid the wisp on the pile and the two wordlessly started another one.

"I can't say I wish I hadn't been born, or my brother or sister. I know Mama wouldn't wish us away, either. But I'm sure she wished her life turned out different. It wasn't easy for any of us, living like we did."

Lou glanced up. "And I know you've had a hard time, too, on account of what your father did, living half in one world, half in another, with no man to call your father. It can't have been easy for your mother, or for you."

Buck shook his head, numbly. "No, it wasn't. She would have had a lot better time if I'd never come along, if she'd been able to marry and have children the usual way. Those children would have had things a lot easier than I did, too." His eyes were downcast. "Of all people, I should have understood what you were facing."

Finishing the last wisp, Lou stood up, brushed off the bits of hay that had fallen into her lap, and stuck her hand out. "No hard feelings?"

Buck took her hand, and softly echoed, "No hard feelings…"

CHAPTER NINE

Kid and Lou were sitting at the bunkhouse table a few afternoons later, when Jimmy came in at the door with news.

"Lou, glad you're here. I thought you'd want to know. I heard out on my run, Lambert was convicted of murdering that saloon girl, and he's sentenced to hang."

"When, Jimmy?" Lou asked quietly.

"Day after tomorrow."

Lou looked somber. "There's time for me to get there then."

"But why would you want to go through that Lou? Why force yourself to see him again?" Kid protested.

"I can figure it, Kid. She wants to see him die, who could blame her for wanting to see him suffer like he made her suffer?" Jimmy said grimly. "I would, that's for sure."

Lou shook her head softly. "That isn't it, Jimmy. I don't care about revenge. It don't change anything."

"Then why?" persisted Kid.

"Because if I see him again, face him, and see him die, then I won't have to be afraid of him any more. It will be over," she struggled to explain. Lou's cycle still had not returned. Though Dr. Clancy reminded her that there was no way to confirm it for sure until several months had passed, Lou knew instinctively that she was pregnant. She had recovered remarkably under Dr. Clancy's care from her initial shock after the rape but still was skittish at times, thinking she saw Lambert in the street, or occasionally having nightmares about him. She needed to put him to rest, she thought.

"Now, I still jump at every shadow, thinking he might have escaped, might come after me and the baby some day," she said softly.

Kid nodded reluctantly. He knew that Lambert still haunted her, though to a lesser degree than immediately after the rape. If she felt this was important to close the chapter, then he would stand by her. He didn't know if he could contain himself from shooting Lambert down before the hanging, as he would give anything to be the one to punish him. Lou might not care about revenge, but he still burned for it. But the most important thing was to be there for Lou.

*********************

Lou and Kid stood among the crowd gathered for Lambert's hanging. Lou looked pale and drawn again. She hadn't slept at all the night before, and neither had Kid.

They had made camp near town the night before, because the hanging was scheduled for dawn. Lou had been suddenly terror stricken when Kid had left the campsite briefly to gather some wood for a fire. He had returned to find her curled up, hand on her gun, with glazed over eyes and heaving breath, panicking wildly. She had asked to sleep with him holding her in his bedroll, where she wept silently into his chest all night, jumping nervously at every sound. Kid had stayed awake all night holding her, worried that the progress she had made up to now was lost.

Now, he clasped her hand as they waited close to the platform with the gathering throng of townsfolk, for Lambert to be brought to the gallows. "Are you sure you want to see this, Lou?" he mumbled to her low. She nodded, clinging to his hand like a frightened child. Some onlookers looked curiously at them, not sure what to make of the odd pair, but Kid was beyond caring about that.

"I'm here, honey," he whispered to her, looking intently into her eyes to lend her some support and strength.

"I know," she managed to answer, just as Lambert was led from the jail toward the gallows. Her mind reeled suddenly at the sight of him, and for a moment she turned and hid her face in Kid's shoulder. Kid put his arms around her, glaring over her head at the man who had hurt her so badly.

Lou somehow forced herself to turn in Kid's arms and face back toward Lambert, who caught sight of the two and made eye contact briefly with Lou. She stared back coldly, determined he wouldn't see her cry. He hadn't made her cry that night, and he would never see her cry, she thought, finally feeling the rise of anger in place of fear.

Lou felt Kid's trembling behind her, felt one of his hands move from around her shoulders toward his gun. She reached back and stilled his hand. "No, Kid. Let the law handle it. Otherwise they'll arrest you and take you away, and I need you, please?" she said, turning her head to look at him. She was shocked at the anger and hatred in his normally gentle face as he looked over her head at Lambert. But he bent his head down to hers and nodded at her pleading face. She turned back and saw Lambert ascending the stairs. To their surprise, Lambert's arrogance crumbled and he began weeping and begging, and had to be dragged to the noose.

Lou was amazed to see her tormentor, who had seemed so strong and powerful, and who had become larger than life in her nightmares, reduced to a quivering, cowardly mass mere feet away from her. He was not some all-powerful monster - - only a man, and a cowardly one at that. She reflected with slight pride, that he had needed his deputies and a gun to subdue her. Even though she had believed she would die that night, she wasn't broken like he was, and she was going to survive. Some of her confidence in herself, destroyed by his attack, was creeping back. The condemned man's eyes stayed locked on Kid and Lou in the front row of the crowd waiting to see him die, and she continued to stare him down in return.

Lou had never willingly attended a hanging, as some folks did for entertainment's sake, it seemed. Never having seen a man actually hang, she was stunned when the platform gave way with a crash and Lambert dropped, his neck snapping audibly and his bladder emptying on impact. He swung a few feet away from her with a blackened face, protruding tongue, and soaked pants. Lou stared into his bulging eyes, and instinctively her hand went to her abdomen, as she thought, sickened, that this man might have fathered her child. What if … what if the baby is like his father, she thought for the first time, frightened. With all her worries, she had never thought of that, only of an innocent little baby; but what if he grew up to be like this horrible man? Kid, seeing her shocked face, whispered to her, "He can never hurt you again, Lou, he's gone." She turned and slipped her arms around Kid, who held her tight.

CHAPTER TEN

Kid and Lou rode back slowly toward Sweetwater, both lost in thought and in no hurry to get back to the station. A couple of hours later, as they passed a larger town, Lou slowed even further. "Kid, wait a minute," she called.

She was gazing toward the town uncertainly. "What is it, Lou?"

Lou turned toward him, shyly. "I… just thought that with Jeremiah and Theresa starting school soon, and, and everything, that maybe I should start dressing like a girl. There's a lot of shops in this town, and I have some money. I saved a lot for Jeremiah and Theresa."

She blushed. "Oh, you don't want to waste time shopping. Let's go home," she stammered awkwardly.

"No, I'd like to go. I have till tomorrow to get back for the schedule, there's no rush. Maybe I could take you out to lunch someplace nice after." Kid looked hopefully at Lou, thinking that a little pleasure excursion might help cheer her spirits after the sleepless night and brutal early morning.

Lou nodded, smiling a little finally. She was nervous about resuming her female identity, but knew it was time. She didn't need to hide anymore.

*************************

The dress shop owner nearly drooled when she learned that Lou needed an entire wardrobe from the foundations up. She fussed over Lou, carrying armloads of dresses and undergarments and skirts. Kid, who was directed to a seat in the corner, found himself holding various items that were thrust into his hands for safekeeping. He was baffled at the ladies' underclothes. Surreptitiously looking at a pair of pantalettes, he observed that they had nothing at the crotch but an open seam. He called to the store owner, "There's something wrong with these, ma'am," and was met with gales of laughter from the salesgirls. "That's how they're made, you big silly," a buxom salesgirl named Sally flirted, stopping short when Lou stuck her head from behind the curtain of the dressing room and gave her a murderous look.

Mrs. James, the shop owner, defused the situation by smiling at Kid kindly. "There's no reason a young gentleman would know that, girls. Sally, you get back in the storeroom and get Miss McCloud that switch that we got in last week," she directed the flirtatious salesgirl firmly.

Coming behind the curtain, Mrs. James spoke quietly to Lou. "Now, Miss McCloud, you'll forgive me for saying so, but I suppose you were ill and lost your hair recently, isn't that so? And you're better now?"

"I'm … I'm a lot better than I was, ma'am."

Mrs. James nodded. "Well, as you know, a lady's hair is her crowning glory. To finish your outfit, you might consider this," she said, pulling an elaborately braided ladies' chignon hairpiece from the box Sally handed her. "A young lady came in and sold this to me just last week. The moment I saw you I thought it was a perfect match."

Lou looked at it strangely. It did look just like her hair, she thought wonderingly. She turned it over and saw that it had a tiny label from a St. Joe shop, the same one where she sold her hair years ago after cutting it off the first time. The hair worker had included the date the piece was made, and it was only a few weeks after she sold her hair to that shop. She felt tears forming as she thought, it must be mine.

Mrs. James took the hairpiece from her hands and showed the now crying girl how to attach it to the back of her head with hairpins. Dampening her fingers with water from a nearby pitcher and basin, she arranged the hair at Lou's temples and the sides of her face into soft ringlets. "Now, don't cry, dearie. You look lovely," said the kind shopkeeper, who was becoming teary herself at the sight. She didn't know if this young girl could afford such a fine hairpiece, but she knew that she would let it go at cost in this case. Mrs. James sighed, knowing this was why she would never be a rich woman. Brightening, she brought Lou out from behind the curtain and steered her to a mirror.

Watching from the corner, Kid was amazed at the change in her, with her new pale pink dress scattered with darker pink flowers, and especially the new womanly hair style. She stood silently, looking at herself in the mirror, transformed from a scruffy boy to a beautiful young woman. She looked at him, with a few tears still dropping from her eyes. "Look, Kid. I'm a girl again," she whispered, as he came forward and leaned his head against hers, speechless.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

The pair rode up to the station together, Lou in full female garb. She allowed Kid to help her get down from the horse in her full skirt, and the riders and Rachel called out to them in amazement.

"Look how pretty you look," Rachel said, as the riders stood by, automatically removing their hats before their old bunkmate, who looked like a new person suddenly.

"Oh, this old thing?" Lou laughed. "I was just going to muck out the stalls, and threw this on."

Teaspoon and Dr. Clancy, who had been up on the porch smoking cigars, came down exclaiming at her new appearance. "Mighty pretty little granddaughter we have, wouldn't you say, Ned?" Teaspoon said admiringly.

"That we do, Teaspoon," Dr. Clancy agreed.

Kid looked proudly down at his girl, and had an idea. "Boys, are y'all still going to that dance in town tonight?" They all nodded.

He turned to Lou. "Would you do me the honor of coming with me to the dance, Louise?"

Lou paused. Once she appeared at the dance, her charade was over for good. But now that she was reunited with her family, she needed to get on with her real life, she thought. That old part of her life, always hiding, was over. She nodded shyly in consent.

*****************

Lou found that her dance card was so full that she had to split her dances among partners, though Kid cut in at every opportunity to reclaim her. Finally, Kid could not share her anymore, and asked her to come with him out on the sidewalk for some fresh air. Holding her hand, he drew her into a shadowy corner of the hall's porch for a tender kiss. As they stood in the shadows clinging together, they were barely aware that some of the younger ladies of the town had come out on the porch to gossip.

Unaware of the couple in the corner, the girls were giggling noisily when Lou heard her own name.

"Did you see that little tramp "Louise", is it?"

Kid felt Lou freeze in his arms, as the jealous voice continued.

"Can you imagine her having the nerve to show up here tonight. She's nothing but a little bunkhouse whore. She's been living out there with all those men all this time right under everyone's noses."

One of the other girls protested. "Cora, now that isn't kind to say, and it's not very ladylike to use that word either. She seems nice enough."

"I'm sure she's very nice to all the boys in the bunkhouse," snickered the third girl. "Don't be such a ninny, Margaret. There's something really wrong about that girl. I don't have any idea what Kid sees in her, but he didn't stop staring at her all night," she finished.

The one called Margaret spoke up stoutly. "I think that's the truth of it, Penny. You two don't like her because you're used to being the belles of the ball. And you've both had your eye on Kid since he came to work at the Express station. You're jealous."

"Jealous, am I? Of what, some no-name tramp? Don't be ridiculous," sniped Penny.

Lou dropped her head on Kid's shoulder in humiliation as the girls returned to the dance.

Kid stroked her back gently. "Lou, that one girl was right. They're jealous of you."

"What will they say about me in a few months, when they know I'm expecting, if they call me those names now for no reason?" Lou whispered.

"The Lou I know wouldn't care what anybody else said, as long as she knew the truth."

She drew back, shaking her head. "That's fine when it's just me who had to put up with it. Now it's me, Grandpa, Jeremiah, Tessa, you."

After a slight pause, she added, "And my baby. I do care."

CHAPTER TWELVE

About two months after Lou's ordeal with Lambert, Kid came calling at her grandfather's new house, as he had every moment he wasn't working, and the two sat companionably on her front porch. He watched the swaying of her skirt above her tiny shoes as they rocked together on the porch swing quietly, Lou nestled against him. Finally, after a little idle chatter, Lou broached the subject of Doritha and Kid's baby, something they had avoided discussing up to now.

"Kid, I'm sorry I lit into you like I did about that. You can't help what happened before you met me. I guess I just wished I was your first love. You're mine you know."

"You're my first real love, Lou."

She shushed him. "It don't matter who your first love was, Kid," she said, eyes shining up at him as they continued swinging. "Just who your last one is."

He looked down at her, her face turned up to his as she leaned against his shoulder comfortably. "You are, Lou, you know that."

"Say it," she commanded.

"I love you, and I always will, I promise," he said obediently.

She beamed at him for a moment, then her eyes clouded. "You're not just saying that because you're afraid I'm going to crack up again, are you?"

Kid rolled his eyes. "Lou, of course not."

She seemed doubtful. "But what … what if it turns out I am pregnant? What will folks think of you if you keep coming around here? "

He looked down at her. "You've decided to keep the baby, then?"

Lou fidgeted with the buttons on his shirt nervously. To his surprise, she pulled a box of pills, labeled "Mrs. Costello's Lunar Pills", from her skirt pocket. "I got these from a girlfriend, Charlotte, in St. Joe. She said in her letter that if I want to use them, I have to decide in the next few weeks or it'll be too late."

They both looked at the pills. Kid couldn't help but think how much easier their life together would be if she decided to take them. This was different somehow from what Doritha had done…. Lou had sacrificed herself for someone else. Lou hadn't willingly done anything to create this terrible situation.

Lou decisively shoved the pills back in her pocket. "I keep thinking about my ma, Buck's ma. They both loved us, even if we weren't wanted at the beginning. I'm feeling stronger now, with Grandpa and you helping me. I think about what Mama believed… what the nuns taught me in school. I guess I believe it too, but it was hard when I first found out to remember that. Now, I'm stronger… I feel like I can do it… and that if I don't, I won't be able to live with it. Can you understand that?" she asked, the sound of suppressed tears in her voice.

He was silent a minute. Kid found himself in awe of her suddenly. After her initial reaction, immediately after her ordeal, somehow she had steeled herself and was facing this dreadful problem with more bravery than he had seen in any person he'd ever known. He thought back to Doritha, who made another choice, and considered what would certainly have happened if Doritha had chosen as Lou was now doing. He would have married Doritha; he never would have known Lou or had a chance to learn what real love was with her. Now he loved Lou so much that wanted to be a father to a child who wasn't even his; he knew he would love any child of Lou's as if it were his own.

She misunderstood his lengthy contemplative silence. "I see. I can't blame you, Kid. But if you feel that way, then it's best if you go now," she said, moving to stand.

He quickly held her down to the swing by her waist, and went down on one bended knee before her, fumbling for the ring he had put in his pocket this morning planning to ask her. "I'm not going anywhere, Lou. Not ever if I can help it. Whatever's ahead, baby or no baby, we'll face it together."

He took her hand. "Louise McCloud, will you marry - -"

Lou cut him off with a nod, leaning in to kiss him passionately. "Yes," she whispered joyfully, as he swung her in his arms

***************************

Dr. Clancy had not been able to give up his practice entirely, missing the patients and practice of medicine too much. He set up shop part time in the building next to the Marshal's office. He and Teaspoon spent their spare time out on one of the two porches in fine weather, chatting amiably and playing game after game of checkers. The pair were seated there when Kid came nervously up, hat in hand, and addressed Dr. Clancy.

"Dr. Clancy, sir? I … I was wondering if I could have a talk with you, sir. I have a question to ask you. It's kind of important."

Teaspoon and Dr. Clancy looked at each other, amused. "Sounds like you'll have to come back for your whupping in this game later, Ned."

"I'm not finished yet, Teaspoon. Hands off that board, now," Dr. Clancy joked with his friend.

Dr. Clancy brought a still nervous Kid into his office and gestured to him to sit down. "If you don't mind, sir, I would rather stand," Kid said.

"Is it okay if I sit down, though?" Dr. Clancy asked, highly amused, as he took a seat behind an oak desk, and lit a cigar he took from his drawer. He offered one to Kid, who nervously refused it.

"I came here to ask you something."

"Yes, you mentioned that outside. Let me guess. This is about my granddaughter, I suppose?"

Kid's clear, honest blue eyes looked straight into the doctor's. "Yes, sir. I'm in love with your granddaughter and we want to be married. I came to ask you for your blessing."

Dr. Clancy looked at Kid intently. "You're marrying her because she's in trouble, Kid?"

Kid shook his head vehemently. "No sir. Because I want to. If it turned out tomorrow there won't be any baby, I would still want to marry her as soon as possible."

Dr. Clancy looked down, moved. Gruffly, he said, "Well, when my father asked my grandfather for my mother's hand back in Ireland, he said 'Sure, she's big enough and ugly enough to make up her own mind.'" He smiled. "I'd say Louise is big enough and pretty enough to know her own mind too. And I approve, on one condition."

"What is it, sir?"

"Just take care of my little Pixie, son. Promise me that. She'll need your strength to get her through what she's decided to do. I'm proud of her, but it won't be easy. You'll have to be strong too, for the two of you to make a go of it."

"I promise, sir."

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Kid and Lou had decided to marry as soon as possible. They knew how they felt and wanted to be married no matter what happened with Lou's pregnancy. Lou worried briefly that Kid was marrying her out of obligation, and asked him if he was sure. She was thrilled when he reassured her truthfully that he was marrying her for love, not obligation or pity.

Kid and Lou arranged to buy a farm from a widow near the station, with their savings from the Express and a wedding gift from her grandfather. Within a week of Kid's proposal, the wedding was arranged as well. Dr. Clancy insisted on giving his granddaughter the church wedding he had not been able to give his only daughter. So, the entire express family traveled to St. Joseph to see Kid and Lou married in the brick building on Fifth and Felix where years before, Dr. Clancy had been one of the first members of the St. Joseph parish.

Lou and Rachel were shopping for last minute items in St. Joe on the day before the wedding, when they passed a ladies' tea room. "Louise, are you hungry? It's past noon." Lou agreed and they entered the restaurant together.

The room was crowded with lady shoppers that afternoon. They were directed to a table for four where a pretty, well-dressed young woman with long blonde ringlets sat alone, sipping a cup of tea while glancing at the contents of a small box. Lou saw that the box contained a set of miniature doll furniture.

"Mrs. Maxwell? Would you mind if these ladies joined you? There's no other table available."

Young Mrs. Maxwell smiled politely and gestured to the seats welcomingly. "Y'all have a seat, of course."

"Thank you, Mrs. Maxwell. I'm Louise McCloud and this is my friend Mrs. Dunne."

"It's a pleasure, Miss McCloud, Mrs. Dunne."

As the tea was brought to the table, the three chatted amiably. Lou and Rachel admired the exquisitely crafted doll furniture Mrs. Maxwell showed them. "I'm sure your little girl will love it," Rachel enthused. Mrs. Maxwell shook her head. "These are for my collection, Mrs. Dunne, I have no children." Changing the subject, Mrs. Maxwell asked what brought them to St. Joe and was politely interested in Lou's wedding plans. "What's your fiance like?"

"Oh, Kid is … well, he's very special," Lou said softly.

The other girl's face turned pale at the name. "Did you say Kid?"

"Yes, that's what everyone calls him. I know it's - -"

Mrs. Maxwell, her voice strained, interrupted, "Is he from Manassas, Virginia?"

Lou looked curiously at her. "Yes, he is. How did you know? Are you from there too?"

"Yes, I knew him once. I was Doritha Simmons then."

*********************

Lou's face fell briefly, and Doritha could see at a glance that Lou knew some of the truth, though she wondered how much Kid had told her. "Kid's mentioned me?"

Lou nodded, her cheeks flushing with embarrassment as she looked at Kid's first lover. Doritha was the picture of graceful elegance, tall, refined, and wearing fancy clothes that obviously had been made for her. Lou always felt she looked like an awkward child playing dress-up whenever she put on women's clothes. She thought gratefully that Kid seemed to think she was beautiful at least.

"I see he's told you quite a bit."

Lou nodded again. "I know all of it, Mrs. Maxwell."

Now it was Doritha's turn to look embarrassed. "I guess you mustn't think very much of me, then, if you know all that happened. Maybe you'd care to hear my side of it?"

Rachel put her hand on Lou's arm. "Maybe we'd better go, Louise, and find someplace else to have lunch?"

Lou pressed her friend's hand appreciatively but addressed Doritha. "You don't owe me any explanations, Mrs. Maxwell, and it was all a long time ago. You're married now, Kid and I will be married tomorrow, there's no reason to, unless you want to."

"It's just that, I hope you won't judge me too harshly, is all. I was just fifteen, Kid was still fourteen. We … got carried away back behind the overseer's cabin one day. You can't imagine what it's like to have a few minutes of poor judgment about to ruin your life. Unless you've stood in my shoes, you just can't imagine what it's like to face a choice like I had to," Doritha said plaintively.

Rachel's mouth twitched with irritation. How dare this pampered idiot speak this way to Lou, who'd faced a thousand times worse, she thought angrily.

Lou looked pityingly at Doritha. "You were afraid that you'd lose your social standing if you went through with it? And… and now you've paid a high price, haven't you?"

Doritha's eyes were filled with tears. "Yes. I was afraid, and even with how it turned out I wouldn't choose any differently. I … I just couldn't face the consequences. I didn't see why my whole life and everything my parents planned for me should have to be ruined, because of a single bad decision like that. I'm … I'm glad you understand that, Louise. Kid couldn't, you know."

Lou looked down at the cup before her, thinking. Doritha had chosen differently than she had, but all the same how could she judge her? Doritha had grown up in privilege. She had more to lose than Lou ever had, who'd already lost her parents and had to make her own way in the world for years. Lou knew she was strong enough to bear it, from everything she'd already been through. But Doritha would have been reduced from being the young mistress of a slaveowners' plantation to the wife of a boy farmer, having to work for the first time, for mere survival. Most likely, her parents had pressured her as well to do what was expected. No, she couldn't judge Doritha unless she stood in her shoes, she reflected, thinking of Cody's words.

Lou guiltily thought that worst of all, if Doritha had gone through with her pregnancy, Kid would be struggling to support her and their child in Virginia now. Then Lou would never have met him herself. She tried to shake that thought, remembering that Kid's first child had been destroyed by that decision as well. Lou wished sadly with all her heart that she was carrying Kid's first baby now. For a moment, she also felt unreasonably as if Doritha had stolen both Kid's innocence and his first child, which should have been given to Lou herself. But there was no turning back time, and she comforted herself with the thought that once this baby was born, she would give Kid sons and daughters of his own. Doritha had only Kid's past, not his future.

Doritha looked at Lou, thinking wistfully that it was clear Kid was marrying for true love, unlike herself. This dainty little vision of a girl was obviously madly in love with Kid, and she had no doubt Kid felt the same. Doritha thought forlornly of the marriage of convenience she had entered into with Garth, but knew that it could be no other way for her. People in her class didn't marry for love.

Then Doritha's eyes rested a moment on one of the packages Rachel had placed on the empty chair at the head of the table. The one on top was from a store selling baby's dresses; though Lou had protested it was much too early, Rachel had insisted on buying the baby's first dress in a fancy shop. "Are you expecting, Louise?" she blurted.

Rachel looked furious, but Lou saw the pain in Doritha's eyes. Knowing that Doritha could never have another child, and how much it must hurt her to believe Kid was moving on and having children as if nothing had happened, Lou found that she pitied this woman all the more.

"I'm… I'm sorry, Louise. That was unspeakably rude of me, please forgive me," she choked.

"That's okay," Lou mumbled.

Doritha stood, and hurriedly picked up the check from the table. "Let me get this, ladies." At Lou's protest, Doritha smiled weakly and laid her coins on the table. "Just, please take care of Kid, will you Louise?"

Lou nodded, pressing Doritha's hand as she left. Her eyes full of tears, Doritha added, "I hope he knows how lucky he is to have found someone like you."

Rachel turned to Lou after Doritha was out of earshot. "Honestly, Lou, how could you be so polite to her after everything you've suffered compared to her?"

"I can afford to be generous, Rachel. What's happened to me isn't her fault. Anyway, she lost Kid, her baby, and all the babies she could have had. What does she have left to show for it? Her possessions, her little dolls and her memories. That's all she'll ever have, either. I wouldn't trade places with her for anything."

***********************

It was the night before his wedding, and Kid was sitting alone nervously in a hotel room in St. Joe. Kid wished he had someone to talk to but was reluctant to bother the others in their rooms so late at night.

The door opened and Jimmy came in, dusty and tired from his last run into St. Joe just before the wedding. It had been planned this way to cut down on the disruption of the schedule, but Jimmy was exhausted. He toppled into bed with barely a nod to Kid.

"Jimmy?"

Jimmy just wanted to sleep, after coming in from a long and eventful run. He ignored his friend at first.

"Jimmy?" said Kid, a little louder this time.

"You got a question, Kid or do you just like saying my name?"

"It's about Lou."

Jimmy sat up, interested. "That's different. What is it?"

Kid sat silent for another moment. Jimmy was mystified. Kid had already asked him to be the best man, and he had accepted. What could he be about to ask that had anything to do with Lou?

Jimmy impatiently clapped a hand on Kid's shoulder. "So, Kid, out with it. What's the problem?"

Kid paused. He had never really had a father or older brother he could talk to about the facts of life. He considered Jimmy the older brother he wished he had. "I just want to know, what do I do now? I mean, tomorrow night," muttered Kid, embarrassed.

Jimmy looked at Kid in surprise. "I thought you knew all about that, Kid. What about your girlfriend back in Virginia? You figured it out that time, didn't you?"

Kid squirmed. "Not really."

"But she got pregnant, with your baby. She didn't get that way by herself, did she?"

"Of course not. But it was one time, years ago, and…" Kid trailed off.

Jimmy thought he understood. "Well, Kid, in my experience things just tend to happen naturally."

"I ain't you Jimmy."

The older boy nodded sagely, conceding this was true.

"All the same, Kid, it'll probably come back to you when the moment arrives."

"The thing is, with Doritha, I was pretty drunk… we'd snitched some bourbon out of her daddy's cabinet and were drinking it before."

Jimmy was again surprised. "Kid, I didn't know you were such a little rapscallion," he said, chuckling.

Kid frowned sheepishly. "And the thing is, it took about five minutes and was terrible for both of us."

Jimmy somehow managed to force himself to stop laughing; he knew this was serious to the Kid. "Well, Kid, you're older now. Don't go by your first time, you were only a kid then." He grinned a little. "Let me rephrase that…"

"It isn't just that, either, Jimmy. I'm worried, with all Lou's been through, about hurting her or scaring her. I feel so much for her, want her so much, but what if it reminds her of Lambert or Wicks? It hasn't been all that long since what happened. Remember when she had those waking nightmares whenever anybody would touch her?"

Jimmy was all sympathy now, and not certain of what advice to give. "She hasn't had any of those since her grandpa started taking care of her, though. I think she's better, moved past things."

"What if they come back?" Kid asked, his fear evident in his voice.

Jimmy considered it. "I don't think they will, Kid, if you take it slow and gentle with her, and I know you will. Anyway, tomorrow will be different for her, just like it will be different for you from the first time."

"How can you be so sure?" Kid worried.

Jimmy smiled indulgently at his younger "brother." "Because this time you'll both be doing it willingly, for the right reasons and with somebody you really love."

Kid sat staring ahead, thinking about Jimmy's words. He knew without doubt that he hadn't really loved Doritha, what he'd felt then was puppy love and raging glands. He and Lou ironically had been very passionate, close to succumbing to their desires before Lambert had attacked her. Kid had been casting about for a way to get her alone, to express those physical feelings around that time, but it had never happened. That all seemed so long ago, though it was really only a few short months.

Since the nightmare with Lambert and its aftermath, the physical side of their romance had changed. In part because of her ordeal, but also because she was living with her grandfather, their courtship had become more conventional. He had called for her at her grandfather's home, brought her flowers, taken her to some events in town, and behaved exactly as a proper Southern gentleman suitor should. They had only shared some chaste embraces and kisses while Grandpa's back was turned, and the runaway train their physical relationship had been on beforehand, had basically been thrown into reverse.

Despite that, or somehow because of it, they had gotten so close emotionally, sharing their deepest secrets and thoughts. The love they felt for each other after all this was so strong, he knew they would survive anything.

Jimmy grinned. "But, to be on the safe side, let me give you some pointers." Kid reddened as Jimmy took some paper from a drawer in the hotel room's desk, and started busily drawing a picture, complete with numerous captions and arrows. For Lou's sake, Kid swallowed his sense of dignity and listened attentively.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The next morning, Kid seemed calmer, waiting at the altar with Jimmy standing beside him for moral support in the Catholic chapel as the small organ in the back played the wedding hymn the priest had selected, "Love Divine All Loves Excelling", and little Theresa entered the church scattering wildflowers in the aisle. Rachel followed, smiling broadly at the boys and Teaspoon gathered in the front pews with Jeremiah.

Finally, Lou entered the doors on her grandfather's arm, in a simple white silk gown with wildflowers in her hair, gazing ahead at Kid intently. She carried a large bouquet of flowers low on her belly, self-conscious about her figure. But Kid thought he had never seen anything so beautiful, and all his doubts vanished into thin air as she approached him.

Dr. Clancy kissed Lou on the cheek, whispering, "I love you Pixie", before she joined hands with her groom before the priest. He stood back, satisfied that his little girl, this time, would be all right.

****************

Kid carried his new bride over the threshold of their hotel room. They had slipped away from the reception a little early. Kid set her down gently by the bed and stood gazing at her.

Lou looked up at her husband's blue eyes, normally so clear and bright, like a summer sky. She saw that tonight, they were cloudy and worried. She felt his hands, gripping hers tightly, trembling, and watched him biting his lip awkwardly. They were standing close enough that she could feel, from his ragged breathing and the hardness pressed up against her abdomen, the evidence of how much he wanted her. But he kept standing there unmoving.

Lou thought she understood it. She heard how some of the boys sometimes talked about women in the bunkhouse. Before they knew she was a girl, they had been quite explicit about how many times they supposedly made the women they took to bed "come" as they put it, about the various amazing and acrobatic sexual stunts they claimed to have performed. She knew that the boys probably were exaggerating or outright lying, trying to outdo each other's tall tales, but that by any measure Kid was comparatively very inexperienced, and probably worried about pleasing her. Even more, she was sure that after what had happened to her a couple of months ago, he had the added burden of his fear of frightening or hurting her.

If only I could tell him without embarrassing him, that none of that should worry him. Lou was sure that nothing that happened between her and Kid could ever remind her of the hate and rage filled men whose violent touch she endured before. And he didn't need to worry about performing any fancy moves, none of that mattered. She loved him and only wanted to be close to him, and they would learn how together, starting tonight.

Lou made the first move, whispering to him to unbutton her dress for her. She turned and with shaking fingers, he unhooked the dozens of tiny buttons down the back of her dress. She shrugged the dress off and stepped out of it, laying it carefully across a chair. She unfastened the hoop cage and petticoat, setting them by the door. Sitting on the edge of the bed, wearing only her lacy corset and split pantalettes like those that had astonished the Kid so in the shop weeks before, Lou leaned over to remove her shoes and, her own voice trembling now, suggested he get undressed as well.

Lou sat idly and watched him as he undressed self-consciously in the corner, his back turned to her. He took off shoes and socks, then his jacket and shirt. There was a soft light from the kerosene lamp on the dresser that shone on his broad shoulders, narrowing to a v-shape at his waist. Lou felt her heart racing even faster as she gazed on this beautiful man who was all hers forever. He paused after taking off his belt and looked at her a little uncertainly.

"Keep going," she directed him, still sitting on the edge of the bed waiting for him.

He slid his remaining clothing down and laid it across a chair, looking shyly back at her, naked and vulnerable halfway across the room. She could see his discomfort as well as his obvious arousal, and unable to speak, she gestured to him to kneel by the bed where she sat.

When he silently obeyed, kneeling between her legs and looking up at her with passion-filled, but worried eyes, Lou took his face in her hands and stroked it tenderly. He ran his hands over her legs, rubbing the thin, lace-trimmed fabric up and down as he did so. His eyes ran over her hungrily, and one hand crept around her waist to loosen the strings on her corset for her. As he leaned forward, she felt his erection against her leg and caught her breath. He stopped nervously, but Lou reassured him by kissing him on the mouth, running her tongue lightly along his lips. Kid opened his mouth to hers, and pulled her hips toward him, looking surprised when his erection made direct contact with her groin through the split seam. "Sorry, I forgot about how these things work again," he mumbled, clearly mortified and worried that she would think he was rushing things too fast. She smiled encouragingly and squirmed herself against him, making him groan as his hands continued to struggle with the complicated hooks and strings of her corset, finally freeing her and slipping the corset from between them.

"I'll be gentle, I promise," he murmured hoarsely, tracing his fingers along the side of her exposed breast. "I'll stop whenever you ask -"

She shushed him. "I trust you, Kid, and I want this as much as you do," she assured him, pressed up against him skin to skin. Her heart was racing so, she knew he could feel her heartbeat in his chest even as she could feel his. He lifted her slightly and laid her back on the bed.

Lying next to her and kissing her softly, he moved to unbutton the waistband of her pantalettes, and she shyly stilled his hand. "I'm… I'm worried about what I look like," she admitted timidly. When he looked baffled, she indicated, "My stomach."

Kid looked down puzzled at her flat abdomen. He thought if anything it was still muscular from her hard work up until two months ago, though maybe a little fuller. "I can't see anything, honey," he said. "But there's no rush, we have all the time in the world." Leaning down, he kissed her again, slowly, running his tongue into her mouth softly. They stayed locked in an embrace, just kissing deeply, for long minutes, before she felt his hands start to wander to her breasts. Her heart was beating rapidly as he fondled her, stroking the crease under her breast and then running his fingers gently over her nipples until they were hardened against his chest. She arched against him, then suddenly shoved him away and slid down him to guide his erection into her mouth impulsively. He moaned and stopped her, pulling her back up to him on the bed.

"Did I hurt you-" she murmured, worried. She was relieved when he said, with difficulty, "No, the opposite. Let me do things to you first, please? I want to bring you with me, so let's not get ahead of things, okay baby?" She smiled at him, "Kid, I want to please you too, you know."

"You are," he whispered huskily, dropping his head to her breast and sucking and licking at her nipple, while his hand worked downward to her wet opening through her underwear. "But when you do that, I can't even think straight." He sucked her nipple into his mouth, pushing her hand away from his penis with one of his hands, and slipping a finger into her with the other. Remembering Jimmy's advice the night before, he quickly found where she wanted to be touched, without even knowing it herself, forcing her to gasp and arch her back on the bed. As he lowered his mouth between her legs, sucking and licking as he thrust his fingers gently into her, she writhed with pleasure.

Lou suddenly grew uninhibited, pulling at her waistband frantically. "Help me take it off," she whispered hoarsely, and the remaining garment fluttered to the floor moments later. He rubbed his face against her thighs as he continued to move his fingers, then his tongue inside her over and over. She was panting and calling his name; he finally couldn't hold himself back any more and moved up her body, trailing kisses up her belly, between her breasts, along her neck, while keeping up the rhythm of his fingers inside her. Lying on top of her, Kid was almost in pain from waiting so long to enter her. He looked down at her eyes, and bent to nuzzle her cheek. "Are you ready for me?" he asked, quietly, rubbing himself against her all the while, praying the answer would be yes. She was curling her legs around his waist and rubbing back against him, one hand clutching at his backside and the other resting on his chest, stroking around his nipple with her knuckles.

"Are you joking?" she gasped. "What the hell are you waiting for?" He smiled a little and guided himself part-way into her, pulling out a little, then entering fully.

She looked up at his face as he slipped into her. His eyes closed in ecstasy as he thrust into her deeply, but gently and slowly. She rocked her hips up against his thrusts, holding onto his buttocks to pull him as close as possible. He shifted his weight as his thrusts picked up in speed, and she panted in renewed pleasure as the pressure increased over the spot Kid had focused on earlier.

As they continued, a pressure built up in her, increasing and peaking suddenly with a force that shocked her. She felt her moisture increasing, a hot electric feeling radiating from where Kid was joined to her, through her whole body. Things got blurry and she found herself weeping and writhing, groaning against her Kid and rapidly thrusting upwards in time with him. The feelings building in her crashed and as she climaxed, she heard a voice that sounded like hers letting out a scream, as Kid's body stiffened and he came, moaning, into her.

When she recovered, she felt the dampness from both of them trickling from between her legs, and heard Kid's voice, worried, next to her. "Lou? It's okay, honey, it's just me, I'm here - -"

She looked at him, glistening with both their sweat. "Well who else would be here?" she said, puzzled.

"Are you okay?"

"Of course, couldn't you tell?" She stopped, suddenly, at Kid's worried face. "Did you think -"

He looked downcast. "You were crying and hitting me," he said forlornly. "I must have hurt you."

She grinned at his innocence. "Kid, you didn't hurt me, believe me. You were wonderful. I was just a little excited, is all. Well, a lot excited. I'm sorry I hit you, I didn't know I was doing that."

She noted that telling him that he had brought her to climax was arousing him all over again. His face was pleased as a kid in a candy store at her announcement. Her Kid, she thought affectionately and amusedly, as she straddled him, and took him inside her yet again, closing her eyes and reveling in their union.

********************

After the reception was over, Jimmy sat up alone reading in the hotel room he had shared with Kid the night before. He would have preferred going to sleep, but the noise from the room behind him prevented that. Seemed as if the lack of control Kid had at fourteen was no longer a problem, as the noises had been going on for a pretty respectable period of time. From the sounds of things, they are getting pretty close, though, Jimmy thought idly, and then maybe he could get some sleep. Strange how two people who were ordinarily so quiet could get so noisy when they felt like it.

Jimmy knew he was right about them being close, when Lou's cries and Kid's answering moans picked up suddenly in intensity, followed by a final mutual outburst and then silence. Good for you, Kid, he thought, nodding. I'm proud of ya. Maybe now some of the rest of us in this hotel can get some rest.

He swung out of bed and turned out the lamp on the dresser, returning to the bed tiredly. A few minutes after he closed his eyes, they popped open again as the thumping and clanging of the bed, and the outcries from the couple, started up again. Fer the love of Pete, you two, enough's enough, Jimmy thought irritably, folding a pillow and covering his head with it as the sounds continued off and on until dawn.

*************************

As the dawn broke and the room filled with a hazy light, Kid lay awake in bed watching Lou sleep. He was exhausted but thrilled that the night had been everything he'd dreamed it could be, for both of them. Jimmy had been right; it was different with someone you loved, a lot different. He shifted uncomfortably, noting with some amusement that his tiny new wife, while about half his size, was taking up two thirds of the bed, sleeping as soundly as if she were in a coma.

Kid looked at Lou's naked body splayed spread-eagled over the bed curiously. She'd been self conscious last night at first, insisting that she was beginning to show. He looked her over now that she was down for the count. Kid had read Dr. Clancy's textbooks on pregnancy and learned some of the telltale signs. Glancing at her, he thought idly that she had few of them yet. Her belly was barely rounded; in fact, it was only because she'd been so painfully thin before that anyone could even consider her stomach to be swollen at all now, and to be honest he was not sure he could see what she was talking about. Her breasts were totally unchanged from how they had looked when he had stolen glances at them months ago, before she was hurt, during their hurried, frantic petting in the barn or by the pond. Her nausea had long since passed. Looking at her now, it was hard to believe that a child grew inside her. Careful not to wake her, he gently laid a hand over her belly. It has only been a little over two months, I suppose she'll be changing a lot over the next few months.

Lou's eyes popped open and she saw him holding his hand over her belly. Embarrassed, she leaned over the edge of bed to find her underthings, but he stopped her. "You never have to hide anything from me, Lou. You're beautiful."

"Even … even carrying someone else's baby?" she said, a little sadly, rolling on her side to face him.

Kid looked at her intently, stroking her hip with his palm. "Lou, can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

His eyes were unreadable as he went on, slowly. "It's just that when I asked you to marry me, I was also asking to be your baby's father. I hope you can come to think of me that way, and not call our baby someone else's."

Lou choked back tears at his statement. "I didn't know you felt that way, Kid. I'll never say that to you or anyone again, I promise. You're the father in all the ways that matter."

Kid pulled her close, and prayed that he would always feel that way. A small part of him worried, if the baby was like Lambert somehow, how would he feel? He hoped desperately for the strength to be a good father to the little soul growing inside his wife, no matter what happened. He rolled on top of her and kissed her deeply yet again, and the action flowed into making love as the dawn burst fully into the room.

EPILOGUE

Kid walked up the steps of his new home at noon, planning to go in and make himself something to eat before going back to work in the fields on his brand-new farm. He was surprised to see his wife sitting low on the porch swing with her legs curled up and a sulky expression on her face. She normally was busy at work in the house or garden or stable, with a cheerful, bright face and a kiss for him, but today she barely glanced up at him. He was even more surprised to see a large layer cake set by her side on a table beside the swing, half eaten, and a fork in her hand.

"Um, Lou?"

She looked up, irritably, and answered through a mouthful of cake. "What?"

"I thought you were taking that cake with you to Mrs. Pauling's church ladies' lunch this afternoon."

"What if I was? I don't feel like going now, is that okay?" she snapped, shoveling another forkful of cake in.

"Did you fix something for lunch if you're not going to the church, then?"

"You're looking at it." She was a little green now, and pushed the cake plate away. "And if you're so hungry you can have the rest of it."

"Well, I guess I can make myself a sandwich - -" he started, heading toward the door and opening it, about to step in.

She sat up furiously. "No you won't. You'll only mess up my kitchen, and I just finished cleaning it. And how many times have I asked you to wipe your boots before you go in when you've been out in the field?"

Kid wiped his boots deliberately, muttering under his breath. "Boy somebody around here sure got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning."

"What did you say?" she snapped.

Annoyed at her foul attitude, Kid turned to give her a piece of his mind, when he noticed that she was clutching at her belly with a strange expression. Jumping up, she ran from the porch, dropping the remains of the cake upside down on the floor on her way to the outhouse.

Worried, Kid followed her, standing outside the door of the outhouse awkwardly. "Lou? You okay in there?"

He could hear her muffled weeping. "Lou? What is it?"

"I'm fine Kid. Everything is fine. I'm really sorry I've been so grumpy to you today, but I'm glad about the reason."

She emerged, weeping and laughing all at once. "It's … it's that time of the month," she sniffled, as he realized what she meant and caught her up in his arms, and they sank to the ground in a passionate and grateful embrace.





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