She heard Jimmy’s footsteps pause outside the stall for a moment, as if he was listening, and then continued on out of the livery. Several moments of agonizing silence followed as Lou waited for Jimmy and whoever else was with him, lead their horses down the row of stalls and settle them into stalls for the night before leaving the livery. As soon as she was alone again in the livery, Lou unlocked the stall door and crept out. Using the row of stalls as a guide she made her way to the front of the livery and located her saddle. Trying to be quiet and carry the saddle back to Lightning’s stall wasn’t an easy task, but Lou managed. Within just a few minutes she was leading a saddled Lightning out of the livery.
Jimmy had just about decided to give up his surveillance of the livery and head back to the hotel, when he heard the livery doors open. Puzzled as to who could have slipped past him, Jimmy edged closer to the end of the wall and poked his head around the corner. He was just in time to see a familiar petite form in men’s clothing emerge from within the livery leading a black stallion. He waited until Lou had fastened the livery doors closed and was preparing to mount Lightning before he stepped out into the shadows toward her.
Lou started violently as a tall form stepped out of the shadows and directly into her path. Her hand immediately went for her gun, but Jimmy’s was already out and in his hands before hers cleared its holster completely. Lou’s hand froze on the butt of her gun as her eyes flew first to the twin barrels of the pearl handled Colts and then up into the face of the person who held them.
Jimmy couldn’t help grinning down at Lou as she raised her head up to look him in the face. Her brown eyes widened slightly as she recognized him, then narrowed. He watched silently as Lou’s shoulders straightened, her chin lifted and a hard expression crossed over her beautiful face. It was an expression he had seem many times before as they had faced outlaws or a band of renegade Indians, but had never thought the day would come when she would direct the look at him.
Both riders remained motionless and silent for several moments as they studied each other. Jimmy stared into Lou’s angry, defiant face and couldn’t help feeling relieved at having found her so soon and apparently unharmed. Still, there was something else hidden in the depths of her beautiful eyes besides anger, that puzzled him. It was a blend of three emotions he didn’t see very often in Lou’s eyes…fear…desperation…and the last a fierce protectiveness? Seeing them made him even more determined to find out the real reason Lou had left Rock Creek.
Lou met Jimmy’s gray eyes with a deceptive calm that belied her inner turmoil. Anger, sadness, fear, and desperation swirled around within her at such breakneck speed that it made her head swim dizzily. Her stomach convulsed suddenly as the child she carried reacted to the turbulent emotions she was feeling. Pain shot through her stomach, followed immediately by a wave of nausea that made Lou swallow quickly and sweat break out across her forehead. As she fought against the tide of dizziness and nausea, Lou tried to think of something she could say or do to get rid of Jimmy before she started getting sick.
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