Better Off Just Friends

Looking up, she caught young Teresa McCloud looking at her strangely, a mixture of confusion and guilt. "What is it, Teresa?" Lydia asked.

Teresa stood and brought her slate to the front of the class, as if to show the teacher what she had been doing. But, instead of reading the Mathematics Teresa should have been working on, there was a question written there.

Lydia fixed Teresa with a mock stare, then looked over at Suzanna Thompson. The fragile-looking blond glanced up at that moment and gave Lydia a beguiling look. Lydia had to smile and shake her head. She knew she had to rebuke this sort of behaviour at school, Teresa going over to Suzanna's solved her problem of closing school early. Jeremiah was old enough to understand what was going on, and Kid or Buck could always find something for him to do.

However, Lydia had to reprimand Teresa. "Young lady," she said, "I should not have to remind you to do your schoolwork. Don't let me catch you doing this again." While teaching, Lydia was careful to sound her g's, a habit which she tended to drop outside the school room.

Teresa hid a smile. This was the second time she had been caught out like this, and all Lydia said was "Don't let me catch you doing this again". She tilted her head to one side. "Please, Miss Mitchell," she cajoled, addressing Lydia as the schoolteacher, and not her friend. "Please let me?"

Lydia inclined her head towards Teresa's seat. "Sit down and finishes your work. I'll think about it." Sighing, Teresa complied. Lydia watched as Teresa and Suzanna conferred. She raised her eyebrows at them, and they quietly went back to work.

It wasn't long after Teresa's little escapade that Lydia decided to close the school for that day. The students were just way too restless to concentrate on anything, and Lydia was having trouble concentrating herself. After a few scuffles had broken out among some of the boys, Lydia dismissed them. Teresa fixed Lydia with a pleading stare. "Yes, Teresa," Lydia said, smiling. "You can go to Suzanna's. I'll tell Kid when I get home."

"You think Louise'll have had the baby by then?"

Lydia shrugged. "I don't know. Jeremiah," she called to the gingery headed boy who was trying to sneak out. "Could you stay behind for a moment, please?"

Jeremiah McCloud sighed, and shot his sister a murderous glance when she giggled. "What have I done, now?" he asked after the other children had left.

"Did I say you had done anything?" Lydia countered. Jeremiah gave her a dry look, so she decided not to tease him. "I want you to tell Kid where Teresa is, if he asks. Or tell Emily. I don't think it's fair to worry them now. I'm staying in town to do some marking, as Buck said he'd pick me up. You might want to tell them that too."

Jeremiah looked into her eyes, a worried look in his grey ones. "Do you think Louise will be alright?" he asked. "She almost died when the lost the other baby."

Lydia found she could not lie to the boy. "I don't know, Jeremiah," she said, wishing that he were a little older than 14. "The fact that she hasn't miscarried is in her favour, and, accordin' to the Doc., this labour is goin' better that Emily's did, and Emily is just fine now. But, I just..."

"Don't know." Jeremiah finished for her. "That's okay. Thanks, Lyd..." he broke off, catching the look in her eyes. "Miss Mitchell."

Lydia smiled. "I'll see you when I get home."

"See you." Jeremiah called, already out the door. He stopped short in the doorway, then ran out, yelling something incoherent. Curious and a little worried, Lydia stood and followed. When she reached the doorway, she saw Jeremiah enthusiastically talking to a soldier, familiar looking, yet a stranger. Seeing that Jeremiah seemed to know him, Lydia decided to saunter over there and introduce herself.

William F. Cody was tired. He had been riding all night, like he used to when he rode with the Pony Express, but he wasn't all that used to it now. He had been in Missouri, the previous month, scouting, when he ran into an old friend, Jimmy Hickok. They went to the nearest saloon for a drink, and Jimmy let it slip that Louise was having a baby. This was news to Cody, so as soon as he had some leave, he decided to ride to Nebraska and visit his old friends Kid and Lou.

He had figured on riding right through the town of Lone Tree Valley without stopping, but that was before he heard someone yelling his name. Turning in that direction, he saw Lou's younger brother, Jeremiah running full on out of the schoolhouse.

"Well, if it ain't Jeremiah McCloud," Cody grinned and dismounted as the boy came up to him. "How've ya been?"

"Great! Why didn't you tell us you were comin'?"

"Because I wanted to surprise you. Like I was surprised to find out that Lou was havin' a baby. Why didn't anybody say anything?"

"After what happened last time, Louise didn't want to say anything until it was born. Actually, she's havin' it right now, so..."

Lydia had approached them in time to hear Jeremiah's last words. "So you'd better run on home and tell Kid or Emily where Teresa is, so they don't worry," she prompted him. Jeremiah looked down and shuffled his feet in embarrassment.

Cody looked at the vision before him with wonder. At that moment, she seemed to be everything he'd envisioned his perfect woman to be. Her hair colour was ambiguous, neither red nor brown, but a mixture of both. The colour of her eyes was the same, neither green nor blue, but a mixture of both. She's neither short nor tall, skinny nor plump. She seemed to be the midway of everything, totally indistinct; yet she was the most memorable lady Cody had ever met. Then she spoke, her voice clear, with just a faint trace of a Southern accent, as if she had spent some time in the south.

He put an arm around Jeremiah's shoulders. "Tell me," he said. "Just who is this charmin' young lady?"

Jeremiah squirmed, and wiggled his way out from under Cody's arm. "Cody, this is Lydia Mitchell. She's the school ma'rm, and she's an old friend of Buck's, so she boards with us on the ranch."

Cody took Lydia's right hand in his and kissed it. "Delighted to meet you. I'm William F. Cody."

"Ah," Lydia said, realisation hitting her. "The infamous Billy Cody. I was wonderin' when I'd get to meet you."

"You were?" Cody was momentarily taken aback.

"Yeah, Kid, Buck and Lou have told me a lot about you."

"Uh oh," Cody sighed, then grinned again. "Why don't we go somewhere and talk. You can give me a chance to defend myself." His grin widened, when Lydia had to smile.

Jeremiah watched this little exchange with a puzzled look on his face. "Well, I'd better get goin'. You comin', Cody?"

"Not just yet, Jeremiah, unless I'm escortin' this fine lady home."

"Sorry, but I need to do some markin', and I'm gettin' a lift. But don't let me stop you from goin' back to the pXp. I suspect Kid'll be happy to see you."

"Oh, no, I don't want to bother him while he's worried about Lou. I'll just stay and keep you company, if you don't mind, of course."

"Why would I mind?" Lydia asked coquettishly.

Watching the two of them, Jeremiah decided that adults were strange. "See you's later," he said, walking off. He heard Lydia call the same greeting after him, but from Cody, there was silence, Jeremiah figured he was too busy flirting with Lydia. He smirked to himself. Just wait until Buck came along.

For her part, Lydia knew exactly what Cody was doing. If there was one thing that Ladies College in Baltimore taught her, it was how to innocently flirt with the men. From everything she had heard about him, she knew that William F. Cody figured that he was well nigh irresistible to the ladies; so she decided to give him a taste of his own medicine, nipping it in the bud when it got too serious. Besides, it would be fun to flirt with someone other than Buck, and she wasn't even sure how he felt anymore.

"So, Miss Mitchell" Cody began, following Lydia back into the schoolhouse.

"Please," Lydia broke in. "Call me Lydia."

"Okay, Lydia. What brings a nice young lady like you to teach in a little western town like this?"

Lydia shrugged. "Adventure, partly. I came back out West to look for an old friend. I ran into Buck, Lone Tree needed a teacher, so I decided to stay on."

"What about you're old friend?"

Lydia looked down. "He died, almost a year before I came back."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for anything that might cause you pain." This was unusually serious for Cody. He gently reached out and caressed the side of her face.

Lydia backed away without being too obvious about it, This was getting entirely too serious for her. Whatever happened to the innocent flirting that was supposed to happen? She needed to do something about this. "So," she mimicked him. "What brings you out west, Mr. Cody? Or should I call you Billy?"

"Billy's fine," Cody replied. "William's better."

Lydia looked at him for a moment, then shook her head. "No, Billy suits you better than William does. So, you didn't answer my question."

"No, I didn't," Cody agreed, good naturedly. "Adventure, I guess, same as you. And, like you, I found work out here. You know, I think we're two of a kind."

Lydia had to fight a grin at that one. "Do you?" she asked innocently.

Cody nodded. "Maybe we belong together."

"Oh, I wouldn't go that far just yet."

"Why not?"

"Well, I hardly know you. It wouldn't be fair to say that we belong together if I hardly know you."

"You know what the others have said about me."

"True, but didn't you say that I had to give you a chance to defend yourself against what they said about you. So, I am givin' you that chance."

"Oh, but I need to know what they've said about me. After all, I can't defend against what I do not know."

Oh very smooth, Lydia thought. "I'm sure you can imagine what they've said," she replied demurely. "After all, you did live with them for 18 months."

"True, and yes, I can imagine all sorts of things they might've said. Some of which I don't want to even mention, unless I knew that you had heard them too. So," Cody leaned in toward Lydia, a big smile on his face and a twinkle in his very blue eyes, "you're gonna have to spill the beans."

Lydia grinned impishly, and shook her head. "A lady never tells." She backed away, and darted across the room as if she were expecting pursuit, giggling. Her laughter was contagious; even Cody started laughing as he shook his head at her antics. He felt strangely at ease with this young lady, and realised that he was rapidly falling for her. She was someone whom he could both love and have as a buddy; someone who seemed to share his sense of humour, which he found extremely rare.

"You're really not gonna tell me are you?" Lydia shook her head again, so Cody sighed and changed the subject. "You know, it's strange..."

"Not me, I hope," Lydia cut in.

"No, no," he hastened to assure her. "I mean, I've just met you, and yet I feel as if I can tell you anything."

"Really. You haven't told me much so far, Billy."

"Hey, you're the one holdin' out on me, remember?"

"I told you, a lady..."

"Never tells, I gotcha. So what do you want to know?"

Lydia grinned again. "Everything. I want to see if what Louise, Kid and Buck have told me is true."

"That could take a while." Cody took a deep breath, "Well I was born in Iowa, my parents had eight children altogether. Out of all that, I only had two brothers. I grew up with five sisters." He shook his head.

"Oh you poor thing," Lydia said sarcastically. "Girls aren't so bad."

"They are when you have a lot of sisters and only two brothers!" Cody defended himself, speaking lightly, so as not to offend Lydia. Anyway Sam, one of my little brothers, he was killed in an accident a few years back."

"Oh I'm so sorry."

"Thanks. Anyway, when my parents died I made my way west, driftin' though jobs until Teaspoon hired me as an Express rider."

"So you came west to look for work—not to avoid your sisters."

Cody gave her a wry look. "Very funny. Shortly before the Express finished, I signed on with Captain Erbach as an Army scout. My father was an Abolitionist, and he was killed by pro-slavers. I couldn't do anything about it then, but maybe I can stop it from happenin' to someone else."

"Very noble."

"Thank you. I like readin'..."

"Dime novels." Lydia injected.

"You heard about that?"

She nodded. "I also heard about how you like to write. You're quite a writer, even if you say things that aren't quite true."

"How'd you come to read that stuff anyway? After the fuss they made over it, I thought they'd thrown then away."

"Buck kept his copy. Figured it could be put to good use someday."

"Yeah, to torture me. So," Cody decided to change the subject again, "why don't you tell me a bit about yourself. Remember, I told you, so it's your turn to spill the beans."

"Fair's fair." Lydia said. "But I'm not gonna tell you what they said about you, so don't even think about it. I was born in Colorado Territory, only it wasn't Colorado Territory back then. My father started a cattle ranch near Bent's Fort, to supply meat for the soldiers. My mother was killed during the Mexican War in 1848.

"During the gold rush in the late 50's, Papa's ranch doubled, and he had to hire more hands. That's when I met Buck and Ike."

"Buck and Ike. As in Buck Cross and Ike McSwain, the same ones I rode with?"

She nodded. "The same. Papa had remarried by then, and I didn't like Wendy, my stepmother; so I helped out more, spendin' time with Buck and Ike, learnin' the sign language." Lydia looked away, wondering if she should tell Cody what had happened, Would he understand? The conversation had turned serious, but not the way she had feared.

She decided to take the plunge. "I fell for Ike pretty hard. My father decided that that was not the sort of behaviour a young lady should show, so he sent me to a Ladies College in Baltimore. I got a teachin' licence, and taught in Baltimore for a while. When Papa died last January, I decided to come back out west..."

"To look for Ike," Cody finished for her. "Only when you met Buck, you found that he had passed on. I daresay you met Emily."

Lydia nodded. "Things were tense between us for a while, but they're better now."

"And you never went back to Colorado?"

"Briefly, in July. I had a message from Papa's lawyer about the ranch, how part of it's mine to support me or be sold if needs be. Wendy didn't welcome me, so I didn't stay long. She'd just had a baby, and was upset that he wouldn't inherit the entire ranch."

"So you have a little brother?"

"Half-brother. His name's Bryce. He's cute but I wasn't allowed to have much to do with him. Maybe I'll go back someday, but with Wendy there...I don't know."

"So how come you're livin' out at the pXp instead of here in town?"

"Well, Jeremiah did say I was an old friend of Buck's."

"Yeah, but there's more to it than that, isn't there?" As Lydia looked away, realisation slowly dawned on Cody. There was a certain light in her eyes whenever she mentioned Buck, a sadness in her voice. She liked Buck Cross. Maybe even loved him. Remembering how she called him 'infamous Billy Cody' he somehow knew that she had been deliberately flirting with him the way he liked to flirt with girls. For a brief moment, he was hurt—no one liked to be used in that way. But he found that he could not hate her for it. He doubted she was ever going to lead him on further than the brief flirtation; and if her heart belonged to another, then they were better off as just friends rather than he try and convince her to go out with him. This type of maturity was rare in Cody, but not altogether new.

"You like Buck, don't you?" Cody asked.

Lydia flushed, then looked sheepishly back at him. "How did you know?"

"Despite what the others may have said about me, I ain't stupid."

"Your grammar might say otherwise, but I'll concede the point."

Cody gave her another wry look, then continued. "There was something in your voice when you mention Buck, it ain't hard to tell."

Lydia smiled. "You're quite observant, Billy."

"Yeah, well, I wasn't that observant when it came to Lou, that's how I could tell with you."

"Well, that's big of you to admit," she said not unkindy.

"How does Buck feel?"

"I don't know."

"What do you mean?"

Lydia told Cody about what happened when she first came to Lone Tree Valley. How she had felt when she found out that Ike was dead, how she had started to fall for Buck soon afterwards. "I was so confused. I didn't want to admit how I felt for fear he wouldn't believe me. I wasn't sure how anyone could believe me. When I finally, accidentally told Buck, I asked him for some time to grieve, to try and sort out exactly how I felt."

"What'd Buck say to that?"

"He was supportive, and he's taken me out on picnic, a few times, courtin' me...you know. But he hasn't said much about it lately. How'd we get on this subject, anyway?"

"I asked. I figured out that you were just flirtin' with me, that you never meant anything by it."

Lydia cringed at being found out. "I'm sorry, I never meant to hurt you. I was just tryin' to beat you at your own game, so to speak. I hope you aren't mad at me, though I wouldn't blame you if you were."

"No, I'm not mad. I was for a minute there, but somehow, I can't stay mad at you. You know, you're pretty good at flirtin'."

"Thank you. If there's one good thing that Ladies College teaches you, it's how to flirt and catch yourself a husband. I needed to put it to good use. I don't need to act like that with Buck."

"No, you wouldn't." Cody sighed. "Just my luck, I find a woman who'd be perfect for me, and her heart belongs to someone else."

"Don't worry, Billy, you'll find someone. If my heart didn't belong to someone else, as you put it, I'd probably fall for you."

Buck chose that moment to enter the school house. He had heard what Lydia had just said, but missed what was said before that. He cleared his throat, and spoke up. "Hey, Cody, didn't expect to find you here."

Lydia and Cody looked up in surprise. "Hey, Buck," Cody said congenially.

"Um, I'm not quite ready, Buck, I'll be a few minutes. I just need to gather my things."

"I'll wait in the wagon," Buck said, a shade coldly, and left.

Cody turned to Lydia. "You didn't get much markin' done."

"That doesn't matter, I can do it at home. It looks like I'll need to talk to Buck first, though. I don't know how much he overheard, but it obviously hurt him."

"Let me," Cody said, hopping down off the desk he'd been sitting on.

"Thanks, Billy, but it's not your problem."

"No, but I can be the solution. I know what Buck's probably thinkin' anyway."

"You're amazin'," Lydia smiled. "I don't know that many guys who would back off and even talk to their rivals like that. Thank you."

"Yeah, well, we're too much alike. We're probably better off just friends. Buck's a lucky man to have you, and I'm just gonna tell him that. Just remember," Cody added, lightening the mood. "I won't forget that you said I was amazin'."

"You keep that up and I'll take it back," she giggled as he saluted and ducked out of the door.

Cody caught up with Buck as the other man was just climbing up onto the wagon. "Now, Buck I know what you're thinkin'..." he began.

"Do you?" Buck cut him off sharply. "Did you think before flirtin' with her? Do you have any idea what she's been through?"

"Yes, I do, actually," Cody informed his friend. "Lydia told me all about it. Yes, we were flirtin', both of us. But Lydia knew what I was like, thanks to you guys, and she was only beatin' me at my own game. As soon as I found out that she likes you, I backed off."

"Yeah, right," Buck muttered sarcastically

"It's true. Look, I know she told you she needed time," Cody continued. "But I think she's made her decision. Why don't you go in there and talk to her?"

Buck hesitated for a moment, then climbed down. "Thanks, Cody."

Buck found Lydia putting the last of her things in her basket. "Hey," he said softly. Lydia looked up at him, silent for a moment, then turned her attention back to her packing. "I'm sorry for leavin' like that before," Buck finally spoke up, crossing the room to her.

Lydia looked up again and smiled. "I'm sorry, too"

"What for? Cody told me what you were doin'. I'm shouldn't have doubted your feelin's."

"Buck, there's no way you could've known how I felt. We haven't spoken about it since I asked you for some time."

"And now?"

"My feelin's haven't changed, Buck. I needed time to sort them out, and to grieve for Ike; but I still love you, Buck. I have all along. I just needed to be sure."

Buck took her face in his hands and tenderly kissed her, deepening the kiss after a moment. "I'm sorry if I hurt you," Lydia said when they came up for air.

"That doesn't matter now. As long as you haven't fallen for Cody..."

Lydia shook her head. "Not while my heart belongs to you." They kissed for a moment longer, then Lydia reluctantly drew back. "We shouldn't be doin' this here. What would the town say about the teacher behaving this way?"

"You're right, we'd better go."