Lou was relieved when the train finally stuttered to a stop at the Denver Station. Five days of constant traveling had given her too much time alone. And too much time to think.

Her heart ached at the mere thought of breaking up her marriage. Kid had become so much more to her than just a husband. He was her best friend, her lover, her life and she didn’t know how she would survive without him. Yet, at the same time, when she thought about his deliberate deception it was like a knife twisting in her back and the ache took on a whole new pain.

Lou heard Fallon’s voice, a wonderfully deep Irish lilt, before she could see her in the crush of disembarking passengers and those who waited to greet them. Suddenly, a hand gripped her elbow and she was pulled out of the path of a porter and into an embrace.

“Look at you! That babe’s not yet four months and you’ve already got your figure back, while here I am still big as a sack of potatoes.”

Lou couldn’t help but laugh at her friend’s ramblings. Fallon looked beautiful as always and the two years since they had last seen each other hadn’t changed her any. Feeling a flood of relief at being with a friend who was more like a sister, Lou let her emotions overtake her. Clutching Maddy to her chest, she collapsed into tears.

“Oh dear, Louise! You poor thing, let’s get you out of here.” Carrying Lou’s bag in one hand and pulling Lou along with the other, Fallon led her towards the waiting wagon.

Connor O’Shea saw the two women approach and climbed down to say hello. Before he could speak, his wife silenced him with her glare. He knew better than to question her when she was in her over-protective, mother role.

Holding his tongue, Connor waited until the women were settled and then headed out of town towards their home, the Double K Ranch. If what ever is going on has Louise this worked up, thought the hardy Irishman, I’d hate to see what it’s doing to the Kid.

Lou’s reunion with Fallon’s mother, Shannon Malone, was just as tearful. No matter how hard she tried, she could not regain control of her emotions. Sitting on the porch after a restless night’s sleep, Lou cradled Maddy and watched her surrogate family work with their extensive flock of sheep.

“Mighty impressive sight since you were here last, isn’t it, lass?”

Startled from her daydreams by the voice, Lou nearly sent the baby tumbling when she jumped from her chair. “Shannon, you scared me! I didn’t know you were still in the house. I figured you were in the barns.”

The wise, older woman eyed her suspiciously. “You just thought you were alone so you could have yourself another cry, now didn’t ya?”

Sitting back down in a manner that let Shannon know she wasn’t far off her mark, she pulled an identical rocker beside Lou’s and settled herself into it. She reached for the baby as if it were her own grandchild and patted Lou on the cheek. “Louise, all these tears are no good for you, you’ll make yourself sick and what will this beautiful little one do?”

Lou watched Maddy smiling happily as Shannon tickled her. “You know, we gave her the second name of Shannon because of you,” she said.

”’Tis very sweet of you and Kid for thinkin’ of me so. Madeline Shannon McCloud, ‘tis a strong name. She’s gonna break some hearts someday, just like your other two babes.”

“Probably so,” agreed Lou.

“So are you gonna tell me your troubles or are you goin’ ta make me guess them?”

“What troubles? I’m fine, really.”

“Well if that ain’t a barrel of malarkey! No one who’s fine travels for five days and then cries herself to sleep.”

Lou knew she couldn’t hide anything from Shannon. In actuality, she didn’t want to hide anything from her. That’s why she had traveled so far. She’d come to seek her and Fallon’s advice and be comforted by them. Standing up to pace the length of the porch, Lou told the whole sordid story, barely stopping for a breath, let alone any interjection from Shannon.

For her part, Shannon just sat and absorbed the information before speaking. “Louise, ‘tis not a marriage unless there are challenges. It’s how the two people in that marriage work together to overcome that challenge that makes it grow and last a lifetime. This boy, this child, that Kid fathered years before he met you, is your challenge. You can continue as you plan and dissolve your union or you can go home and work this out together. You two children have had it very easy over the last years. I doubt you’ve fought for more than an hour, let alone a whole day, in all the time you’ve been married.”

“We haven’t.” Lou replied. The calm that had settled over the couple the moment they were married amazed both Lou and the Kid on a daily basis, as well as the friends and family around them. During their secret romance and courtship, not a day went by that didn’t include a misunderstanding or some bickering, but the moment Teaspoon declared them man and wife all of that disappeared as if by magic.

“So, you’ve never had to work together to overcome something or solve a problem?”

“Well of course we have,” Lou stated in a hurt tone of voice. “We work together on the ranch. I help with the decisions.”

“I mean in your home, Louise. Not your work.”

Thinking long and hard, Lou could not recall a time when there was any serious threat or problem they had to overcome. They’d lived a perfect life for seven years.

“By your silence, I’ll assume you could think of nothing?” asked Shannon, her eyebrow arched in a knowing manner.

Lou nodded her head, feeling very much like a chastised child.

“And you’re willing to toss this wonderful life away, like stale bread, because of this situation?”

“But Shannon, he lied to me! He’s lied for our whole marriage, mind you.”

“It doesn’t sound like he lied to you, Louise. It’s more like he kept a secret. Now, I’m not saying ‘tis any better, but it’s certainly no worse. You did the same to him, remember?”

“Why does everyone keep throwing that in my face? I know I was wrong for not telling him about Flynn, but eventually I did and I thought we learned from that experience.”

“I’m sure you both did, Louise. You wouldn’t have gotten this far without havin’ learned something. I’m sure Kid had his reasons for not telling you.”

“I’m sure he does too, but I don’t care to hear them. I just don’t know how I can trust him again after all this. How do I know he doesn’t have a dozen children scattered between Sweetwater and Virginia?”

“Now that’s nonsense! ‘Tis a good man you have there, one who made an error in judgment. He’s trying to right his wrong. Would you want him to do any different? He wouldn’t be the man you fell in love with then, would he? I’m sorry if you don’t like my advice, but I will not sit idly by and let you break up your family. You were given a second chance at love, at a true love. Don’t throw it away.”

Shannon rose from the chair and handed Lou the baby, who was just starting to wake from a nap. Placing her hands on either side of Lou’s face, she looked right into her eyes. “You may be as stubborn as an Irish potato farmer sometimes, but I think you’ll do the right thing.” With a quick kiss on Lou’s forehead, Shannon disappeared back into the house.

Jimmy reined his horse to a slow trot as he reached the edge of the PX Ranch. He smiled at the sight of the old windmill. It was a landmark that, in it’s time, was always there as a sign that they had made it through another run. It still gave him the satisfied feeling of being home every time he approached it.

Not wanting to rush the end of his time off, Jimmy let his mind wander back over the visit to his sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephews in Ft. Leavenworth, as well as his enjoyable stop in Abilene where he spent a few days, and nights, with Amanda O’Connell.

So relaxed by his trip, he refused to let even the rumblings of an approaching storm sour his mood. Taking notice of the cloud of dust his horse was kicking up, he said, “Actually, I hope we do get some rain,” aloud to no one, but his horse. “It’s still lookin’ mighty dry ‘round here.”

With one day left before he had to return to work as Teaspoon’s second deputy, Jimmy planned to do nothing but rest after his long ride. The calm of his morning was broken by the sounds of yelling coming from Kid and Lou’s house and then the strange sight of Mary Emma storming out the front door and down the steps, Kid following close behind.

“Mary Emma McCloud! Don’t you walk away from me! Get back in the house and finish your breakfast!” Kid bellowed.

Jimmy watched the little girl’s determined motions as she continued to walk away from her red-faced father. He wondered what had come over his normally mild-mannered niece. He had never seen her so disrespectful before.

“Mary Emma, you get back her right now!”

“NO!”

“What did you say to me?” Kid asked incredulously.

“I said, ‘No!’ I don’t wanna eat breakfast. I’m tired of flap jacks. I want eggs. And I’m tired of sharing my room with Sarah. She’s being a baby. And I don’t wanna go back to school. Mama said I didn’t have to go.”

Jimmy watched in amazement as Kid stopped in his tracks and set his hands on his hips while he waited for his daughter to turn back around. It was a scene so foreign to him that he didn’t know how to react. He finished hitching his horse outside the old bunkhouse, where he still made his home, and started across the yard to the fracas.

“Uncle Jimmy! You’re home!” Mary Emma spotted Jimmy as he made his way towards the McCloud home and instantly disinterested in her own temper tantrum, she ran into his outstretched arms.

“Hey there, lady bug. How’s my best girl? Got a kiss for me?”

Mary Emma kissed his cheek and settled herself into his arms as he picked her up and carried her to where his best friend was standing.

“Having a rough morning, Kid?” Jimmy asked as he shook Kid’s outstretched hand.

“You could say that,” the disheveled man replied. “They all seem to be rough lately.” The calm Kid thought he’d have when he first brought the girls back from Jenny and Buck’s had lasted barely two days before chaos began to rain down. He refused the help offered by Rachel, Jenny and Caroline Andrews and was determined to return peace and harmony to his home on his own.

“Lou under the weather?” Jimmy looked past Kid half expecting Lou to be on the porch laughing at the scene in the front yard.

“Mama’s not here, Uncle Jimmy.”

The tough lawman’s heart skipped a beat as he tried to decipher Mary Emma’s words.

“She went to Auntie Fallon’s in Denver.”

Jimmy breathed an audible sigh of relief. A multitude of horrifying scenarios had already started to play through his mind. He gave Kid a puzzled look. “Was this planned, or a sudden trip?”

Kid didn’t want to get into the true reason for Lou’s departure while standing in his yard. “You could call it sudden.”

“She left because of Jackson,” Mary Emma supplied in the honest manner of a child.

“She what!” Jimmy’s mind immediately went to visions of Lou running off with another man. A thought that was so horrible, he had to shake his head to clear the notion. “Who’s Jackson?”

Mary Emma answered before Kid could stop her. “Our new brother.”

As Jimmy tried to process the shocking information, two children walked out of the open front door. The image of the boy standing next to young Sarah had his mind reeling. He instantly thought back to a picture Kid used to keep on the wall by his bunk during their days with the Express, the same one that sat in his and Lou’s room now. It was a photograph of Kid with his older brother, Jed. In the picture Kid was about ten years old. Looking at the boy on the porch, Jimmy thought the picture had come to life. The boy was the spitting image of his father.

Kid turned and followed Jimmy’s gaze. Seeing his other two children together on the front steps, Kid knew his best friend had instantly figured out the boy’s parentage. “Mary Emma, why don’t you take Sarah and Jackson over to Grandma Rachel and ask her for some eggs. I’ll bet you she’ll even cook them for you if you ask her nicely.” He was just too weary to fight her any longer.

The two old friends watched the girls scamper to the next house, still in their bedclothes. Jackson shuffled along behind then, seeming to be in no rush to get there.

Kid didn’t know where to begin. He felt like he owed his friend an explanation, but then why would Jimmy listen to him when his own wife wouldn’t. “He just sort of found me,” Kid offered. Yet, even to his own ears it sounded weak.

“You don’t owe me no explanations, Kid. I’m the last person in the world who should be judging people for stuff in their past.”

Jimmy and Kid had long ago settled their differences and reconciled the fact that they lived by different codes. It didn’t matter to either of them. In the end, they were still closer than blood brothers.

“Just seems like I should say something. There’s been a whole lot of nothing said all week.” Kid dragged his hands through his hair. It was an action that he found himself doing more frequently and he had even begun to look down at his hands to see if he was actually pulling any hair out.

“Lou took off for Denver because of this?” Jimmy asked cautiously.

“Took Maddy and left before I could get back from settling this mess in town. She’s been gone about a week now.”

“So she didn’t give you a chance to explain?” Jimmy felt his anger towards Lou growing and it caught him off guard. He never got angry with Lou. They were confidants. They were closer than best friends. And deep in his heart, Lou would always be his first love. “How could she do that? After all the two of you’ve been through?”

“Wish I could answer that, Jimmy. If I could, I’d have my wife back here by now. Instead, I’m battling three children - two who are restless and as stubborn as their mother and one who I barely know. I know Lou’s waiting for me to run after her and fix this, but I can’t. I won’t.”

Stunned by his friend’s admission, Jimmy couldn’t even look at the Kid. “What do you mean by that?”

“I love Lou. I’ve loved her from the start. There’s never been a day when I didn’t love her and when I wouldn’t do anything I could for her, except today. I can’t do this anymore. I gave her a chance to hear me out. She chose not to listen. If she wants to run away from me and our family then, fine. Let her. I’m too tired to do this anymore.”

Kid’s voice broke on his last words forcing Jimmy to turn and face him. What he found was a man, with tears running down his cheeks and a look of pain and anguish on his face so despairing that for a brief moment, Jimmy thought he might actually hate Lou for bringing his friend to such a low point. Yet, at the same time he knew Kid hadn’t meant a word he’d said - he wanted Lou back. He needed Lou back.

When the sobs began, Jimmy started to steer Kid towards the house. “Let’s go inside. You don’t want the girls to see you like this.”

“I know, I know,” sniffed Kid. He took a deep breath of morning air and struggled to compose himself. “Really, I’m alright,” he said shrugging Jimmy’s hand from his shoulder. “You don’t have to worry ‘bout me.”

“What kind of friend would I be if I didn’t worry,” Jimmy smiled. “Besides, what else do I have to do with my last day off?”

Kid’s eyes shot up, finally comprehending that Jimmy was home from his leave in Kansas. “Did you have a good trip?”

“Certainly less eventful than it was here, I’d say.”

Kid snickered. “You can say that again.”

Sitting down at the kitchen tabled as Kid poured him a hot cup of coffee, Jimmy tried to decide if he wanted to ask more about the boy. Before he could put his words into a question, he heard the front door open and then watched as Teaspoon and Buck wandered into the large kitchen.

“Thought I saw your horse tied out there, Jimmy! How was Kansas?” Buck asked, slapping his friend on the back and sliding into a chair.

“Good. Celinda’s kids are getting big. They grow so much between visits, I hardly recognize them every time I go back.”

“Shouldn’t wait so long between visits, son.” Teaspoon settled himself at the head of the table as Kid placed a steaming mug in front of him. “Speakin’ of visits, how’s my girl?”

“Sends her best,” Jimmy replied evasively. He didn’t want to get into the nature of his and Amanda O’Connell’s relationship with the man who was practically her father.

“You two ought to just go ahead and get married already,” commented Kid.

“Like you’re one to be shoutin’ the virtues of marriage right now, Kid.”

Both Teaspoon and Buck stopped mid-sip and turned to glare at Jimmy for his very Cody-like comment. Jimmy shrugged his shoulders and threw up his hands in gesture as if to say “what?”

“He knows, you two. No need to sit there trying to send him hidden messages to fill him in. He got here in time to hear mine and Mary Emma’s morning chat.”

“Is that what you call it these days?” joked Teaspoon. “Rachel and I heard so much squawking comin’ from over here, we thought for sure that some of the chickens had gotten loose again.”

“Real funny, Teaspoon.” Kid lowered himself into the chair at the other end of the table. Elbows on the scarred wood, he propped his head up with his hands.

“You want to tell us about it, Kid?” Teaspoon knew if he talked about it, he would feel better.

“About what, Teaspoon? My long lost son showed up, Lou left me and I can’t take care of my own children! There, are you satisfied?”

“Kid, we’re not asking to poke fun at you, we’re just trying to understand. We want to help if we can.” Teaspoon hated to see any of the people he loved suffering.

“I wish I could explain. If I could make you understand, then maybe I would understand myself.”

“Why didn’t you ever tell us, Kid? It wouldn’t have changed anything.”

Kid looked at Buck appreciatively. “I just didn’t know what to say. Still don’t really.”

“Why don’t you just start at the beginning,” Teaspoon offered gently.

It didn’t take as long as he thought it would. Even with the added information he had gathered from his short time with Miss Crane, Kid knew little of Jackson’s childhood. He kept to the facts, following the twelve year old time line and ended with telling Jimmy about the boy’s appearance on his doorstep, just over a week ago.

“So you didn’t know she was with child?”

“Never, Teaspoon. Not until I found the letter she hid in my bunk. And by then, it was too late - she was already dead. She mentioned where he was, but the people who had him moved and I never could find him.”

“And the guardian, she just found you?” Jimmy was still trying to make sense of the whole story.

“She’s been lookin’ for a while, but then she just showed up like it was nothing,” Kid replied. “No warning. Lou answered the door and that was it.”

The three men at the table looked at each other. The situation was a hard one. Fortified with more details, they all silently agreed that they understood Lou’s motivation, if not her actions. The only thing that remained was what to do for their friends now.

“What’re your plans now, son? It’s obvious the boy is stayin’. And to be honest, I’d do the same thing if it were me. You’re doing a good thing, by taking him in.”

“Thank you, Teaspoon. You’re thoughts on this mean a lot to me.” Kid as well as the rest of the riders had matured under Teaspoon’s wisdom, guidance and approval during their years as Pony Express employees. Those who were still around still learned from him and respected his wisdom. His approval was not given, nor taken, lightly.

Kid continued. “Other than taking him in, I don’t rightly know. Like I told Jimmy earlier, I love Lou, but I just don’t feel like I can leave here and chase her down. At least not right now. If she wants me and our life together, she’s gonna have to come home to me.” An ominous rumble of thunder from the approaching storm punctuated his decree.

“Now Kid, we all know how stubborn she is. When Lou gets a notion in her head, she’s like a dog with a stick. She never let’s up.” Teaspoon truly feared that Lou might be so determined to make Kid suffer that she would continue to stay away. “You remember the last time y’all had big troubles, she was half-way gone before you stopped her.”

Kid remembered the sight of Lou packing to leave the Rock Creek station all too well. “Teaspoon, even if I went to Denver for her I doubt she’d come home with me.”

“Kid, she’ll be back,” stated Buck.

“I wish I could be as confident as you, Buck. If she had taken Mary Emma and Sarah with her I would say she was never coming back, but since they’re here, I think she will. What will happen then, I can’t say.”

Silence filled the room as the thoughts of all the men turned to the same place. Nobody knew when Lou would come home and when she did if her family would ever be the same.

Chapter Eight