Jack was startled out of his dark reverie by the stage driver's shout.  He watched idly as the passengers alighted from the coach unable to forget the words his son had said.  Suddenly he felt so old, so worn and weary.  His hopes had been dashed in that one moment, his dreams of holding his grandchildren shattered.  It was like all the things he'd gone through--almost twelve years of prison, the self-hate and loathing, the aborted attempts to end his life, finally finding grace through the prison chaplain and the hard-learned lessons God had taught him about himself--all of it had been for nothing.

The sight of a familiar figure had his head snapping up in wary curiosity.  Jack watched as the lanky man with the blonde, slicked-back hair stepped from the stage.  He was dressed in a dark, travel-worn suit with the air of a man used to the luxuries of life.  The man cast a disdainful look at his surroundings before walking up the steps and into the hotel, leaving the driver to carry his bags inside.

Now what in heaven's name is Randolph Towns doing in this corner of the world, Jack thought curiously.  The last time he'd seen the slick lawyer had been at the back of the courtroom at his own hasty trial.  Big question is, what kind of business could Richard Boggs' private lawyer have here in Rock Creek?  Jack quickly made his way to his rooms, determined not to let this man from his darker days darken his future any more than it already was.  He'd have to keep an eye on the shyster while he was in town.

Kid and Lou exchanged a look as they walked into the bunkhouse for dinner and Lou unconsciously moved to disentangle her hand from Kid's.  However, Kid grabbed her hand again, refusing to let go.  After the moment they'd shared in Rachel's house that afternoon, Kid hadn't wanted to face the other riders until he'd gotten a better handle on his emotions.  So, he and Lou had gone for a long walk, just enjoying the closeness they shared out of sight of prying eyes.  Now, though, it was time to come back to the real world.

"Sorry, Rachel, we just went for a walk," Kid said softly, leading Lou over to sit at the table.

"Sure ya did," Jesse said from the opposite end of the table.  "More like dancin'."

"Jesse!" Noah hissed, smacking the boy's arm to get the point across.  "Probably wanted some time away from comments like that," he stated in response as Jesse rubbed at his sore arm.

Rachel sensed the tension in Kid and saw the glare he shot at the boy.  She lightly smacked Jesse on the back of the head to get his attention.  "Jesse James you apologize to Kid and Lou for actin' like Cody," she demanded.  "It isn't any of our business what they do.  I can't blame 'em for wantin' to get away from all your pryin' eyes and ears."

"Ow, that hurt, Rachel!" Jesse exclaimed.  When he saw the housekeeper standing over him with her hands on her hips, he knew there was no way he was gettin out of it.  He looked at the couple down the table sheepishly.  "Sorry, guys," he said.

Buck and Noah, who sat across the table from Kid and Lou, exchanged silent glances.  Something was up, they knew.  Kid was even quieter than usual, his face drawn and slightly pale.  He didn't even acknowledge Jesse's apology and everyone knew how hard it was for the boy to apologize.

"Anyone seen Jack?" Rachel asked as she finished getting the food out.  "I coulda sworn he was plannin' on stayin' for dinner when I talked to him."

Unconsciously, all eyes turned to Kid.  He could feel them staring at his bowed head and looked up with a glare.  "What!" he demanded in frustration.  It was bad enough that all his ruminations that afternoon had made him start feeling guilty for the way he'd treated the man, but to have the others look at him as if he'd done something wrong was galling. "What'd I do?  I ain't the man's keeper."

Lou could feel the anger beginning in him.  She shifted so that her right hand held his while her left ran up the inside of his arm to stroke away the tension she felt in his bicep.  "No one's said you were, Kid," she said in a calm, low voice.  "Rachel was just askin'."

Noah spoke up quickly.  "We didn't mean to accuse you of anythin'.  I guess we just looked at you because it' ain't no secret that you don't like the man," he said, bracing himself for an explosion.

"Then don't look at me like I'm the one in the wrong here," Kid growled.  "You all have no idea what's happened between that man and me so don't go judgin' how I act.  Can't I just not like someone?  I ain't perfect ya know!"

"Jack probably left town after that fight he had with Kid this afternoon."

All eyes turned first to Jesse and then to Kid.

"That was a private conversation between Travis and me and you Jesse James ain't got no call stickin' your nose in where it don't belong yet again!" Kid shouted angrily.  How much had Jesse heard?  More importantly, how much had he understood?  Kid felt suddenly like the life he had created for himself was threatening to collapse.  He stood quickly, wrenching himself from Lou's grasp.

"Kid,..." she tried.

"Suddenly I ain't too hungry anymore," Kid said in a tight voice.

Rachel had had it.  "Kid, you sit yourself back down at this table right now, boy," she said threateningly.  "You and I are gonna have a little chat and I think we need to refresh everyone's memories about the rules 'round here."

Kid's eyes engaged in a battle of wills with Rachel's hazel ones.  Finally after several moments of nervous tension, Kid sighed and capitulated, plopping himself back down on the bench.

Lou swallowed hard as she watched Kid walling up his heart again and shutting her out.  In a matter of five minutes, it seemed like the revelatory afternoon had never happened and he was back to shutting her out of parts of his life.  She reached for his hand beneath the table, but he jerked it away, his eyes staring holes into the table top.  He wouldn't look at her when she tried to meet his eyes and Lou felt her heart drop into her stomach like a lead weight.  Unconsciously, she curled in on herself a little, her shoulders hunching as she crossed her arms over her chest.  She focused on the table top in front of her as Rachel began to lecture on fighting.  Soon though, she couldn't take the palpable tension in Kid's frame any longer, couldn't stand his rejection.  Just when she thought she'd go mad, Louise stood quickly with a mumbled excuse and dashed out the door away from the source of her frustration.

"Lou!" Kid called after her, startled out of his sullenness by her movement.  He moved to follow her but was restrained by Rachel's hands on his shoulders, pushing him back into his seat.

"You set that backside o' yours back on that bench this minute, young man, and let her be for once," the housekeeper said in her no-nonsense voice.  "I'm not finished with you yet.  First of all, there's no fightin' at this station.  Second of all, we don't run off guests despite how we feel about them or what they've done in our pasts."  She said this with a pointed look at Kid.  She sighed and shook her head.  "I thought you of all people understood that."

I thought I could depend on you, he read unspoken in Rachel's eyes.  Kid looked down at the table upon hearing the disappointment in her voice and felt worse than before.  The boys hadn't meant any harm and he knew that somewhere inside him.  Somehow, he'd hurt Lou yet again, and now Rachel couldn't depend on him to be his normal stabilizing self.  He didn't know who he was anymore.  "You're right, Rachel," he said softly.  "I don't know what got into me this afternoon.  Ain't no excuse for the way I been actin'."

Buck's eyes met Kid's and he smiled in reassurance.  He could tell that there was something serious going on between Kid and Jack.  It was something about Kid's mysterious past.  All the riders could sympathize with Kid's defensive actions, knowing that their own pasts held all sorts of shadows and secrets.  "Don't be too hard on yourself, Kid," he said.  "Ya just had a couple o' bad days.  It happens, even to you."

Jesse looked up from his plate, his blue eyes sad and his face wearing that sheepish look Lou called hound-dog eyes which made him look so innocent.  "Guess I gone and done it again, ain't I?"

"'Guess I went and did it again,' Jesse," Rachel corrected with a smile.  She ruffled his hair as she passed behind him.  "Guess, we know who's been daydreamin' during grammar again."

Noah chuckled.  "Betcha that ain't the only class he daydreams through," he said under his breath.

Louise dodged an amorous couple in the alley she walked down.  The couple had nearly collided with her in their hurry to be alone.  After they'd disappeared into the darkness, Lou slumped against the building behind her in defeat.  Ever since she and Kid had shared those moments in Rachel's house that afternoon, she'd been struggling with her own memories of the past, memories of her own father.  The combination of pre-wedding excitement, the tension between Kid and Jack, Kid's revelation, and her own resurfacing memories were taking its toll on Lou in weariness.  She lifted her head from her hands and looked around.  It was then that she realized she was standing in the alley next to Jack's rooms.

"Excuse me."

Lou whirled around to face the strange man at the end of the alley who'd spoken.  He was well-dressed and totally out of his element in the small dusty western town.  She immediately straightened, her stance widening and becoming more masculine.  Good goin' Lou, she berated herself.  Here you are in a dark alley all alone with some strange man talking to you.  Probably some dandy outlaw.  At the thought her hand strayed a little closer to her holster.  "Saloon's down the street, Mister," she replied gruffly, disguising her voice and pulling her hat a little lower.

"I'm not lookin' for the saloon...son," the man answered.  "I was wonderin' if you could help me locate someone."

She didn't like the hesitation in his voice before he said "son."  Okay, somehow he knows or suspects you're a girl, she thought immediately more wary of the man.

"You see, I'm Randolph Towns of Sheffield, Towns and Hart, the lawfirm based outta Washington," he said continuing, smiling politely.  "I'm trying to find Louise Boggs, eldest daughter of Mr. Richard Boggs.  I have some business with her you see and I was wondering if you would, ah, know where I might find her."  Towns watched the "boy" for any signs of the masquerade.  If Boggs hadn't told him about Louise's disguise he never would've found her.  Now it was just a matter of getting her to reveal herself.

"Boggs is dead!" Lou spat.  "I'm sorry but I don't know a Louise Boggs.  Now if you'll excuse me?"  She moved to pass the lawyer when all of a sudden he reached out for her, grabbing her wrist, his grip stronger than she'd ever imagined it would be.  "What the hell are you doin'?  Let go of me!"

Seeing the petite girl in the light, Towns saw nothing of Boggs in his eldest child, however, there was no denying who her mother had been.  The large brown eyes and auburn hair, the petite features, were all Mary Louise McCloud's.  "You are fiesty," he chuckled as she struggled against him.

"Let her go, Towns!"

They turned as one toward the voice and Randolph Towns' enviable marble control cracked more than a little at the sight before him.  "Miss Boggs and I have business to attend to, Travis," he said in a low voice.  "Stay out of it."

Jack stepped down from the sidewalk and into the alley.  He'd been drawn to the sound of scuffling and had looked out one of the smaller windows in his rooms only to find a very familiar feminine shape struggling against that of a man.  Rushing down to the alley he'd been almost sick with anger to find that Towns had already found Louise.  "I said let her go," Jack reiterated in a hard voice.

"Or what, Travis?  You'll shoot me with that pistol you're so handy with?"  towns laughed in the man's direction.  "I would've thought twelve years as a guest in one of the government's finest penal establishments would have cured you of that particular nasty habit."

"This ain't Virginia, Towns.  You ain't got your fine planters' association and good ol' boy network to dig you outta the holes you get yourself into out here.  Marshal Hunter's a good, honest man.  You cross the line out here and there won't be any politicians you can bribe to frame innocent men for crimes they didn't commit."

When Towns didn't respond, Jack strode forward quickly and grasped the lawyer's hand in an iron grip, digging his thumb and forefinger deep into the soft flesh between the man's own thumb and forefinger.  Towns actually gasped as the unspeakable sensation radiated up his arm.  Unwillingly he was forced to drop his hold on the girl as the sensation turned to pain and numbness.

Lou watched in mute fascination and wonder as the two men confronted each other.  There was more to this story than they were telling that was for sure.  These two know each other, she thought, but how?

"You come near her again," Jack growled, "and I'll lose my religion.  Only this time, I won't be too drunk to hit you."  He released the man's hand and wrapped an arm around Lou's shoulders.  "Come on, sweetheart, let's get you away from this riff-raff."  They began to leave the alley quietly, Lou so shaken by the whole encounter that she didn't care if anyone saw them.

"Wait!" Towns called after them, rubbing his hand gently.  "I came about the will.  It names her as one of Boggs' beneficiaries.  You are a very rich woman, Louise Boggs."

At this, Lou turned on the man in a rage, her pistol clearing as she slammed him against the wall of the building behind him in a flurry of adrenaline.  She cocked the pistol directly under the lawyer's chin.  "For the last time, I'm not Louise Boggs.  My name's McCloud and I sure as hell wouldn't want anything from that bastard even if I were his daughter understand?"

Startled for a second at the tiny woman's vehemence, Jack quickly moved to her.  He placed his hands gently on her shoulders, pulling her away from Towns.  "Lou, let the man go.  Let 'im go, darlin'," he soothed.  "Let's go.  I'm sure Kid's worried sick about you, honey."

Slowly, Lou allowed herself to be led away, not caring where they went.
 

"So you're still drinking," Lou said quietly, the disappointment and worry evident in her voice.

He turned from the hearth quickly, a haunted look crossing his features for a moment.  "No, I'm not drinking.  The cider's mine, the brandy was left here by my friend Thomas," Jack clarified.  He busied himself with dusting off the mantel nervously.  This was not the way he wanted things to come out at all.  "Kid told you, didn't he?"

Lou could almost feel the man's fear and embarassment from across the room where she sat curled in a dilapidated armchair.  "He told me you're his father, told me his side of it.  I'd be willing to hear yours.  Like why you haven't told Kid where you were all these years," she said.

Jack snorted derisively, his despair filling him again.  "My son doesn't want to know the truth, he made that perfectly clear this afternoon."

"But he does Jack!" Lou protested.  She rose from the chair, disgarding the afghan that had been around her shoulders.  In a matter of minutes, she'd forgotten all about her own preoccupation with her past in favor of trying to understand the relationship between the two men.  Lou had no idea why a reconciliation between Kid and his father was so important to her, but she was willing to do anything, even incur Kid's wrath to see it come to pass.  She crossed to Jack and placed a gentle hand on his shoulder, startled at the tension she felt there.  "He wants to know what happened.  He's been dying to know ever since you disappeared, but he'll never admit it because it would mean admitting that he still cares.  We talked about it this afternoon after you left and he told me that the only way he could stop waiting for you, stop hating what had happened was by not caring.  You leaving changed his life and not necessarily for the better, Jack.  You owe him at least the truth.  He's your son for God's sake!"

For a moment, he thought he heard Annie speaking to him.  Maybe in some way she was speaking to him--speaking through his son's fiancee.  Jack Travis looked down at the small woman standing before him.  The love she felt for his son was a living breathing thing, he'd seen that.  Maybe she was Kid's compensation for the hardships he'd gone through.  Jack had messed up his famiily's lives horribly all those years ago.  He knew that, he'd lived with the burden of his guilt all these years.  But God had provided for at least one of his boys, brought Kid through the pain and into a good life.  His son had become everything Jack had prayed he'd become: a strong, moral man, a brave man, a hard worker, and he knew Kid would prove a wonderful husband and father.  You couldn't be a father to him then, but it's not too late, Jack, he told himself.  You can still become a part of Kid's life, but it has to be on his terms.  Even if he were a friend to his son, at least he would be part of his life in some way.  He'd have a chance to atone for his past.

"You're right," he whispered.  "I owe him the truth.  He may not listen but at least I can try to make him understand that even with the bastard I was all those years ago, I never left my family willingly."  Jack cast a curious gaze over Lou's soft smile.  "Tell me somethin', sweetheart.  Why's this so important to you?  I mean why are you willing to risk angering the man you love for an old man you hardly know."

"Jack, you're not old, just weathered as Teaspoon says," she teased nervously.  When he continued to look at her expectantly, she lowered her head, her hair swinging forward to hide her face as she thought.  Why was it so important to her?  Why did she feel this driving urge to see this through, to see Kid and Jack at least speaking?

After a moment Louise raised her head, her eyes glistening slightly, her voice tight as she replied, "Because I'd give anything to have the same chance with my own father, to know he loved me even a little."

"But he did, Louise.  In his own way, your pa loved you.  He talked about you all the time," Jack insisted, the look on her face wrenching his father's heart in two.  "I should know."

Lou looked up startled.  "How?  How should you know?  You don't know anythin' about my father!" she said harshly.

Jack closed his eyes, realizing that his heart had spoken out of turn again, revealing knowledge that was never meant for the hearer.  Might as well tell her, Jack.  You've already got her askin' questions and she'll never give up until you tell her the whole thing.  Nervously, he rubbed at the back of his neck.  "I know a lot about your father, Louise Boggs, because I was his partner and his best friend until he framed me for murder."
 

Chapter 7