Love... James Butler Hickok was in love. It had come as quite a surprise to him when he had first realized what he was feeling. And he owed it all to one person...Louise McCloud. From the first moment he had laid eyes upon her, he had thought that there was something special about Lou. He had not known why he had thought that, since he had believed her to be a boy at the time...but the thought had stuck in his mind. It was only after he and the other riders had helped her rescue her younger brother and sister, that they had learned that Lou was short for Louise. From that day on...he was a goner. He had always found it easy to talk to Lou. Right from the start, he had found himself sharing thoughts and feelings with Lou that he had never shared with another soul...and knew that they were safe with her. When the whole fiasco of a relationship with Sarah had ended, it had been Lou who had told him that whenever he was ready to talk...she would listen. He had not thought that he could talk about that short romance of his, because he had felt like such a fool for not realizing what type of a woman Sarah was in the first place. Somehow, he had found the courage to talk and it was Lou he had shared his feelings with. The sharing of thoughts and feelings had become a mutual thing between him and Lou. She was with Kid then, and finding things between them growing increasingly more complicated in the process. She loved Kid, that was easy to see...but she did not like the way that love was being twisted around. Not that Kid was manipulating her into doing anything that she did not want to do. It was that he had such a set idea on how things between a man and woman should be, and since the two of them had begun 'riding double' he had taken on the notion that she should not live in the bunkhouse with the rest of them anymore. Or that she should not ride for the express and any number of assorted things... Jimmy had found himself hard pressed not to knock Kid into next week with the way he was behaving and making Lou feel. He knew though, that that would have been a bad move on his part to make, since Lou expected him to keep her thoughts and feelings sacred when she told them to him...just as he expected the same from her. He had been elated when they had broken things off...and Kid had begun to see someone else...until he had become witness to the very real pain Lou was going through... As time passed though...and he continued to offer Lou a shoulder to lean upon, a hand to hold and a heart to touch...love had blossomed between them one day and it had steadily increased as time went by. Lou and Kid made peace with each other, realizing that they were better off as friends and Kid had seemingly given his approval for Lou and Jimmy to be together. Not that they had needed it really, but Jimmy was glad that they were all still friends....Kid and Lou were his best friends after all and he would be nothing without either of them in his life. Now as he lay upon the grassy meadow where he and Lou had consummated their relationship, he found himself unable to deny the fact that he was in love...and it was the best feeling that he had ever experienced in his life. Drop me a note and let me know what you thought!