a/n: This short story is a response to a challenge by catsimmie to 'fill in the blanks' between her upcoming story "Dress for Dancing" and its sequel "Consequences Be Damned", already at the Writers Ranch. In CBD, catsimmie wrote: "A few days after they buried Garth and Doritha, he had been feeling pretty low. The weather had been stormy and he wasn't able to go to the spot Lou had found him at only days before. Instead she had found him up in the loft of the barn when she returned from her run and held him as his self doubts began to surface. A simple kiss to push his fears and doubts out of his mind had led to more. They both regretted letting things go too far because just days earlier, when they decided to try and make things work between them, they had decided to go slow this time and concentrate more on their emotional relationship than the physical one. But then they got caught up in the moment that afternoon". Well catsimmie asked me to tell the story of what happened that afternoon, and here goes! A restless Kid had been cooped up all morning in the bunkhouse with the other riders. He had a task to do that he had been dreading, been putting off for days, and didn't want to do it in front of the other boys. The weather had been dark and stormy all day and showed no signs of letting up. He looked out the window as the hailstorm continued, chunks of ice as big as his fist hitting the roof with rattling thuds, thunder and lightning tearing the sky. The foul and forbidding weather did nothing to improve his mood. He pitied Lou, who likely was caught in it on her way back from her run, as the storm had come up without warning a few hours ago. He missed her too, since they had decided right after Garth and Doritha's funeral to admit they still were in love, and would try to work things out between them, but hadn't seen each other since that day. Gun-shy, they had agreed not to mention anything just yet to the other boys about it and to take things slower this time, but he longed to see her again. Finally Kid's pent up frustration and boredom got the better of him. He pulled on his hat and coat, turning up the collar. He then put the stationery and pen and ink he'd set out into a mochila and tucked it under his coat to protect it against the driving rain and hail outside. "I'm heading out to the barn to check on Katy. She might be spooked in this weather," he said to the others, who looked surprised at his preparations. "Okay Kid. But you won't catch me sticking my head outside in this. Likely one of those hailstones might knock you silly, be careful," Jimmy said, from the chair where he'd been sitting propped against the wall whittling idly the last few hours. Cody and Teaspoon were so engrossed in checkers that they simply nodded briefly to Kid as he left. Buck, reading in a corner, added, "Yeah, Kid, be careful, that hail is pretty brutal out there." Kid ran to the barn, slipping and sliding among the hailstones gathered on the ground. He hoped Lou would be okay riding in this, but was proud of himself that he had managed not to worry openly about her in front of the others. His tendency to be overprotective of her had bothered Lou terribly in the past. She had a dread for some reason he couldn't quite understand, of being perceived as weak or incompetent by the other riders, and it was important to her not to be singled out for special concern. So he was going to start out this time with her by working hard on that, keeping his natural concern for her to himself. Reaching the barn, he hung up his soaked hat and coat by the door and offered Katy a couple of sugar cubes he had slipped into the mochila with the paper and pen. Katy was perfectly content in her stall, despite the thunder and lightning, but was happy to see him. After talking to her for a few moments, he knew he couldn't put off his chore any longer, and went up the steps to the loft to do it. Settling into the corner near a window, he threw a blanket over his shoulders against the cold whistling through the timbers. Kid pulled out the paper and pen and reluctantly wrote two letters: one to Doritha's mother, the other to Garth's parents, letting them know what had happened to their children. He left out the details of Garth's dishonesty, sparing both Doritha's and Garth's families. As he wrote, he thought back about the parents of his two friends. Both Doritha's mother and Garth's parents had been wonderful friends and neighbors, almost like family to him as well. They had kindly included him and his mother in all kinds of family events, knowing that his mother, abandoned by his father, was struggling to make ends meet. He couldn't count the number of times they had been invited to eat meals at one of the two houses, but it was at least once a week at one or the other. It was a painful thing to put down in written words that his two childhood friends were now dead, before they had a chance to do much more than start their lives. The waste of it broke his heart, and he couldn't help imagining the agony that his letters would bring to the families he cared about almost as much as he had his own. Finishing the letters, he sat darkly gazing out the window. That was the last thing he would ever do for Doritha, his childhood sweetheart, or Garth, his friend and rival from back home. Like his parents and brother, and everything he remembered from his home, they were gone from his life forever. He felt pangs of the same loneliness and pain that he had when the couple were buried together a few days ago, but this time Lou wasn't here to comfort him, and his mind ran over and over the same dismal thoughts. He had given up his identity when he came out West. Now it seemed almost as if nobody was left who really knew him, who knew the person he had been just a few short years ago. He almost wasn't sure who that person was anymore, himself. Maybe that was his fault, since he had kept a large part of himself hidden away from his new friends, and even from the person he was closest to, the very woman who was the love of his life. Even though he knew he would have had to build a new life for himself anyway, now that his last link to his old self was shattered, he felt adrift and sorrowful. Just as a bolt of lightning followed immediately by a blast of thunder rattled the barn, the door flew open and a shivering Lou led her horse in the open doors. Eagerly, Kid called out to her from the loft. "Hey, you're back. Want some help with Molly?" he asked as he came down the ladder. The shivering girl scowled slightly and started to refuse, but then stopped herself. "Sure, Kid, I would like some help … this weather has me frozen half solid." Kid quickly helped her out of her soaked jacket and wrapped her in the blanket he had brought down from the loft. Lou looked at him affectionately. She knew he was only trying to help and she had promised to work on not jumping down his throat every time he did. She turned her face up for a kiss hello, their first since getting back together, and he gently pulled her to him. Their lips met and he stroked her cold face for a moment, both happily whispering the words they had longed to say to each other so many times over the last months when they had been such fools as to stay apart, "I love you." But Molly needed attention too. Reluctantly Kid pulled away from Lou's kiss, and she sat on the feedbin watching as he quickly tended to and watered the horse for her. She tried to get warm, but her icy clothes weren't helping, and Lou slid back down and pulled off her soaked, frozen pants, draping them over the door of Molly's stall. Pulling her boots back on, she hopped back up on the feedbin again to watch Kid tend to Molly. Lou couldn't help but notice that Kid looked a little pale and upset, though. She worried a moment that maybe he had changed his mind about getting back together, and she ventured, "Everything okay, Kid? You look a little upset today." Kid, blanketing Molly, looked at Lou hesitantly. "I was just working on the letters telling Garth and Doritha's families what happened to them." He looked down. "They're up in the loft. It was hard to write them. I'm not that good with words, you know." Lou thought about the letter he had written her not too long ago, telling her how much he still cared. "I don't know, Kid. I think you write pretty well, but do you want me to take a look for you?" Kid nodded, and the two went up the ladder together. Kid retrieved the letters and handed them to Lou, who opened up the blanket and gestured for him to sit with her under it as she read from the half light by the window. The rain and hail was still smashing down on the roof overhead, but their combined body heat under the blanket, and her comforting presence, made it a lot more cheerful than it had been just a few minutes ago. Lou read the letters, which were written in simple but moving language. By the end, she looked up with tears in her eyes. "Kid, these folks sound like wonderful people. I didn't know how much Garth and Doritha and their families meant to you. It must have been hard to leave all of them behind. You're lucky to have known them." Kid nodded sadly. "But they're just memories now." His eyes misted over. "They really knew me, Lou, knew me all through growing up. Now they're gone, Jed's gone, and my mother, and there's no connection for me to who I used to be." Lou saw how despondent Kid was, and quickly put her arms around him, holding him. He drew back a bit and looked into her face. She didn't know who he used to be in the past, it was true; but he saw his future there in her eyes. He pulled her closer again for a long, intimate kiss. The driving hail against the roof, the wind and thunder echoing outside, all made the loft seem like the only place in the world, the two of them the only people in that world. Neither of them wanted to break away, to go down the ladder and brave the ice and rain to sit in the bunkhouse with the others. They hadn't had a chance to be alone since the day they had decided to get back together, and they didn't want this magical moment to end just yet. They lingered, and Kid rolled her on to her back while gently rediscovering how it felt to lie holding her, their mouths joined together, his tongue slipping into and out of her mouth, their breath coming faster and more ragged. The rain had soaked through her jacket and her clothes were still wet underneath the blanket. The shirt was clinging to her damply. Though she was warm, pressed against him, he could feel the tips of her breasts hardening against his chest in his embrace, even as he could feel his own desire building as they kissed. Lou sensed Kid getting hard against her leg through her longjohn bottoms, but her mind was dizzy with rediscovered love and happiness at their being back together, and so she didn't pull away and regain control of the situation. She didn't want to just yet. They would stop soon, she thought dimly, but she didn't protest when she felt his hand slipping under her wet shirt and sliding up to her breast. Her skin was wet, and he ran his hand over her, holding his hand cupped over her breast and squeezing gently as he moaned a little into her mouth. Her heart raced and she squealed as he gently caught her nipple between his fingers, pinching and stroking it softly the way he had learned she liked. When he touched her that way she felt herself grow warmer and wetter and more aching between her legs; her own hand started wandering, slipping open the top of his pants and into them, stroking him teasingly. Kid moaned again when she touched him, and opened his pants the rest of the way to grant her hand more access. As she guided his erection out of his pants and it came to rest against her, she rubbed it against the fabric of the longjohns between her legs. Shuddering with pleasure, he rolled on top of her and began to grind his arousal against her, as their kisses intensified. The slow, teasing motion of his hardness rubbing against her in just the right spot, with the fabric of her underwear rubbing loosely between them heightening the feel, sent Lou over the edge unexpectedly. She lurched against Kid suddenly, arching her back and screaming his name. She yanked down the back of his pants and pulled his bare bottom towards herself to sustain the friction exactly where he was applying it, all the while panting and sobbing his name and begging him not to stop. He was overcome with his own arousal at the sight of her sudden orgasm. Incapable of rational thought at that moment, he rapidly slipped her long john bottoms down and over her boots, wrapped her legs around him, and penetrated her. Kid plunged into her rapidly and desperately, groaning and gasping, lost in their passion; one of Lou's small boots braced itself against the nearby wall and the other against the floor as she shoved her hips against him in time with his thrusts. Their eyes met, and he gasped, "I missed you so much," as his own orgasm approached. Lou managed hoarsely to whisper back, "me too", as she climaxed a second time, weeping and panting wildly. Through half-shut eyes, she watched Kid's face while he came, and shut her eyes as she felt his hot wet release inside her. After they lay dazed together for a moment, Lou suddenly pushed Kid up and away, scrambling for her long john bottoms and pulling them back on. Kid buttoned his pants and awkwardly spoke. "Lou? Are . . . are you angry?" She shook her head no, but without looking at him, and started toward the ladder. "Best get dressed and get back to the bunkhouse is all," she mumbled, redfaced. He stopped her. "Lou." She looked back at Kid, but not into his eyes directly. He turned her shamed face up with his hand to look into his eyes, pulling her to sit next to him in the straw. "I know we agreed to take things slower this time for a good reason. I guess we have to be more careful, stop a lot sooner before we lose our heads. I'm sorry, honey. Let's not let this get us off track, okay? I love you so much, I want more than anything to build something that will last this time. Forgive me?" She smiled through the tears in her eyes. "There's nothing to forgive, Kid, we both got carried away. I guess I forgot how easy it is to get carried away when I'm with you." "I know all too well what you mean," he said ruefully, reaching out and picking straw from her hair. "It's the same for me, probably more so . . . I can't resist you, you know," he said huskily. He swallowed, and continued more steadily. "But fixing our problems so we can make it work between us, is the most important thing. This part, well, it never needed fixing, but it may have made other things harder, more confusing for us," he noted, indicating over his shoulder toward the rumpled blanket and strewn hay. Lou nodded absently. She was trying to think, now that her own reasoning had returned, of when her last cycle was. She realized with some nervousness that it had last started just about two weeks ago. How could I have been so crazy as to let him come inside me? she thought, frightened. She wasn't sure things were going to work out or not yet, though she knew she loved Kid with all her heart and wanted to try her best this time. The last thing they needed was the pressure of a baby on top of trying to repair their romance. Kid watched Lou's face, sadly. She's sorry we did it, he thought. Please don't let this ruin things between us again, he prayed silently. He tentatively stroked her arm and the two sat, guilt-ridden, her head resting on his shoulder, as the storm raged on outside. Back to you catsimmie! Email Ellie TYR EXPRESSions Home