Like a great many people, Lou loved the summer. But where others loved the patterns that the shimmering heat wrought on the distant landscape or the simple joy of feeling a cool twilight breeze on their skin after a day of blistering heat, she had other reasons. Not that she didn't appreciate these things. She did. These and many more, but summer's heat brought with it what had been at first, an irritating lack of sleep. It hadn't taken long for Lou to discover the more than pleasant surprise it held for a girl in her unique position.

Today had been their first real, scorching day of unrelenting heat. The temperature had been building steadily for weeks. A subtle increase each day that had not passed unnoticed by the residents of Sweetwater. They held their collective breaths, waiting, anticipating when the full brunt of heat would be unleashed upon their heads. Some with dread and some with joyful anticipation. There was a shared sense of 'knowing' when people rose from their beds on that particular morning. They just knew that spring had moved on and summer had arrived.

The sun had been brutal that first day. It burned in the cerulean sky and sent its rays to pierce the skin. It seemed intent on searing a body's flesh from its bones. The birds only chirped in the dawn and the twilight. The riders had spent the day searching for work that kept them in the shade. After the sun finally put away its face from the sky, the heat lingered on. The baked earth radiated its stored warmth up into the scorched air. That night, the bunkhouse was suffocatingly hot.

Lou had tossed and turned for the first hour or so, then realised despondently that it was hopeless. She would not find sleep tonight. She thought maybe a change would help so she picked up her pillow and threw it angrily to the foot of her bunk and tried sleeping up that end. It didn't help and in fact, made it worse because now she had the moonlight on her face. The moon was radiant against the black, cloudless sky. Its gentle light reached soft fingers across the land and they crept quietly into the bunkhouse from the open door and the window. She grumped to herself. Cross that after such a long day she could not find sleep when the others had. From her new angle she had a clear view of all her bunkmates as they slumbered. Her petulance faded quickly when she realised that she did indeed have a very good view of all of them.

In the hotly oppressive atmosphere of the bunkhouse, they'd all of them pushed their sheets off most of their bodies and were treating Lou to an unencumbered vista of naked male flesh that made her mouth water. She knew she should be ashamed of herself, but what was a girl to do when she just couldn't sleep. 'It's the least they can do for me,' she explained to herself as a flare of envy that they could find rest and she couldn't, turned her petulant again.

She cast an annoyed glance across to Cody's softly snoring form. He was well into his sleep cycle. Cody always looked serious when he was asleep. A small frown creased his brow under his sweat dampened hair. Something must have been tickling his nose in his dreams as he continually brushed at it with his hand. Abruptly he gave a sort of 'grumph' sound then threw himself on his side. Lou's gaze lingered on Cody's back. Pressure marks from the mattress formed patterns that were the only mark on his smooth white skin. He curled his body and every bone in his spine was shown in sharp relief. 'For someone who eats like he does, he ain't got a spare bit of fat on him,' Lou observed. 

Cody wriggled in his sleep again and his sheet fell back to reveal a pair of well-defined, china-white cheeks. Lou nearly giggled out loud as the urge to take a bite out of the perfect peach of Cody's butt took her by surprise. 'Well, why not? I like a peach pie as well as the next girl,' she reflected. 'Of course, most girls and certainly no proper lady, would be caught dead sleeping in a room full of naked men.' Guiltily she did a quick cast about the room to check that no-one was watching her, watching them. 'Wouldn't that give them a scare?' She thought. 'Cody thinks every girl is going to fall down at his feet. I wonder what he'd do if he caught 'Lou' drooling over that delicious butt of his?' She mused. 

A blush spread across her cheeks as she recalled how she'd hurriedly hid her eyes when she'd realised that the boys had no intention of keeping anything on while they fought for sleep in the stifling heat of the room. Her cheeks reddened further when she thought of Kid standing there in all his glory while he asked her how she could sleep wearing the heavy calico shirt. He thought Lou was the strangest boy he'd ever met. They all did. 'Well, they're right,' Lou admitted to herself. The oddest and the least friendly. Jimmy had looked positively affronted when Lou had refused to join the boys for a cooling dip in the water hole. Considering what was on display now, Lou was sorry she hadn't sneaked out to the Waterhouse and watched them all in the bright light of day. The moon was bright, but she felt she might be missing out on some of the more interesting details, and wondered how she might get a closer look. She thumped her pillow in frustration and had a bright idea. She grabbed her pillow and threw it on the floor next to the single bunk that held Buck. 

'Oh dear, my pillow has fallen on the floor. I'd better go get it,' she chuckled to herself.

Lou carefully lowered herself from her bunk and found her legs were shaking. Her stomach had that sick, excited feeling like she'd eaten a lead brick. The anticipation of the close up look she was going to get made her breath come in gasps. The fear of being caught was exhilarating. Her feet felt three times their normal size, and although she made no sound, she was sure Teaspoon could hear her heart thumping in her chest all the way to the tack room. 

She edged her way over to the pillow that had so conveniently landed right next to Buck's bed and mentally crossed all her fingers. Buck was a light sleeper and if she woke anyone, it would be him. She intended to keep an eye on him in case he stirred but found herself distracted. Lou marveled at the clarity of Buck's smooth, sun-kissed skin. Like all of them, he was covered in a light sheen of sweat and Lou wondered what it would be like to run her tongue over that glorious skin and lick the sweat from his body. She fancied that he'd taste of the earth. She was surprised at herself and decided that she better get her mind onto other things.

Somewhere in his sleep, Buck sighed then he flipped himself over to lie on his back. His sheet fell at Lou's feet. The raven wings of his hair covered his face as he slept so she couldn't tell if he was having a good or bad dream. But Lou didn't care. She took in the full view of his naked body starting at his lightly muscled chest, over his ribs that were just visible as he breathed, then down to the light trail of dark hair that marched downwards from his navel, and down further still. 'Oh Buck, there's nothing 'half-bred' about you,' she thought appreciatively. 

He was not as solid in the body as the others. His muscles were just as defined but he had a lithe build. It was as though nature had given him this shape to try and slip through life unnoticed by those who would seek to ridicule him for his mixed heritage. Lou frowned at that thought. She'd been frightened of his fierceness when they'd first met, but now she understood him better and she liked him a lot. She'd be willing to trust her back to Buck in any fight and in turn, defend him against any detractor.

Not wishing to push her luck, and thinking she'd better get something in her hands before she reached out and grabbed something she had no business getting hold of, she carefully bent down and picked up the pillow. She bit her lip as she thought about how close she was standing to a completely naked male, then turned around to get a look at what else was on offer. Cody hadn't moved anymore and despite Lou trying mentally to get him to turn over and show her what he was made of, he simply refused to budge. 'Damn you Cody. Just when I want you to show off,' she thought disappointedly.

Realising that no further insights were likely to be forthcoming from Cody, she looked at Jimmy as he slumbered. He was the oldest of them, but he looked very young as he slept. The hard arrogance that he wore in the waking hours was gone. His mouth was slightly parted and the tip of his tongue rested against his top lip. He lay on his back with his head resting on the upper part of the arm that was flung up on the pillow. Just like Cody, Jimmy's dark hair was slick with sweat. It was plastered against the side of his face but curiously not to his neck. Lou liked Jimmy's neck and had to resist the urge to lean in and nuzzle against it. His chest rose and fell in the rhythm of deep sleep. Sweat glistened on every curve of him and enhanced the sharp definition of his tendons and muscles as his upper body moved. Every angle of the man screamed 'power'.

Lou didn't realise that she'd sighed out loud as she was watched Jimmy sleep. She was so mesmerised by the sight of him that she missed at first what he was up to. Over the last few weeks, she'd been fascinated by Jimmy's hands. They were so large, yet so agile. He had long sinuous fingers that were well shaped. So many men had blunt, thick fingers, but not Jimmy. Only in her most private thoughts did Louise admit that she'd had deeply erotic dreams about what those hands could do to her. Where those fingers could probe and stroke. She swallowed hard then her eyes followed his arm down to find that Jimmy was evidently having a very good dream. He groaned slightly and Lou's eyes went very round as she realised that his hand was moving vigorously up and down on whatever was making that impressive bulge under the sheet.

A quick glance at Jimmy's face showed he was licking his lips that now held a very big smile. His hand increased its speed and the sheet started to slip. Lou felt poised on a precipice and she didn't know whether to let herself fall or run back from the edge. Time seemed to slow as she simultaneously willed the sheet to stay where it was, as well as to fall off. A bubble of slightly hysterical laughter started in her belly as she realised what she'd see if the sheet fell and she stayed where she was. 

She reminded herself that she had to work with Jimmy and that if she were to have any hope of being able to look him in the face again, she'd better get herself back to her own bed and try to block out what was shortly going to happen if Jimmy kept rubbing himself like that.

Tearing her eyes away she sternly sent herself back to bed, pausing only to note for all his going on about her and her shirt, Kid was tangled up in his sheet to the point that he was barely visible. Jimmy started to groan a little louder and Lou had to fight to stifle the nervous giggle that threatened to give her away. She clambered back into her bunk and hid her face under the covers. She stuffed her fingers in her ears so she couldn't hear Jimmy having a good time with himself in his sleep, and tried to concentrate on being annoyed that Ike was out on a run. She'd had enough glimpses of him without his shirt on to feel deprived at not having a good look at him in the not so silent watches of the night. 

'Oh well, there's always tomorrow night, and the night after that, and the night after that,' Lou smirked. 'Oh yes, I just love summer!'