Chapter 49

"Louise?!"

"I'm up here, Rachel!"

Lou had surprised Rachel this morning when she said she wanted to go out to the new house for the day. Rachel had instantly agreed to accompany her, not wanting her to be alone with just her thoughts. After Jimmy and Teaspoon had left yesterday afternoon, Lou had spent the rest of that day either sleeping or staring out the window of her bedroom. Once they had gotten to the house, Rachel had given Lou a bunch of simple chores to do to keep her busy while she stayed in the kitchen baking until it was time to fix supper for them. As she was setting the meal on the table, she suddenly realized she had no idea where Lou had gotten to.

Hearing Lou's muffled voice coming from upstairs, Rachel climbed the stairs and after looking in the master bedroom, she found Lou in the empty room next to it. She stood in the doorway as she looked at the young woman staring intently out the window, tracing the window panes with her finger.

"What are you doing in here?"

"Dreamin'," Lou answered, not turning around.

"What do you mean by that?" Rachel asked as she came into the room.

Lou finally turned around and faced Rachel. "Nothin'," she said, giving a slight grin. "It's funny but all that Kid and I did here together was clean this place up, yet I feel closer to him here than at the way station."

"That's because this is the home he bought you."

"You know, when Kid brought me here for the first time to show me the house, he pointed out what would be our room then brought me in here. He said he would like this to be the bedroom of our first born. Then he laughed about how we would probably be so overprotective that we'd wanna just keep the baby in our room for as long as we could."

"That was before he even knew I was expecting," Lou said, automatically touching her stomach. "What if he never gets to see the baby?" Lou closed her eyes for a moment and looked away as soon as she’d said her worst fear out loud. Her voice had sounded so far away, so lonely and sad that she almost hadn’t recognized it as her own.

"Louise, I don't want to hear you talking that way. It sounds like you're giving up and I've never known you to be a quitter about anything," Rachel said, putting her hands on Lou's arms so she would look at her. "What happened to that woman who was speaking so confidently to Jimmy just before he left?"

"Her dreams started takin' over last night ... or maybe they were nightmares, I don't know," Lou said, rubbing her temples. Thoughts she'd been trying to avoid had invaded her mind and all she wanted to do was make them vanish. But nothing seemed to be working. "It just gets harder with each hour that passes. What if Jimmy's right? He said Kid was hurt so bad."

Rachel pulled Lou's hands down from her face and squeezed them between her own. “I know it does. There’s nothing worse than waiting. All you can do is be prepared for whatever comes your way. You know, Louise, even though I wanted you to accept the reality of what happened to Kid, it in no way meant I wanted you to give up hope. We’re all praying for him and there’s nothing wrong in hoping that Jimmy’s eyes were playing tricks on him and that it was not as bad as it looked.”

Lou nodded her head. Her talk with Jimmy had been her awakening; she’d been able to admit her fears and hopes after that, even if it hurt to say them out loud. "I know. I do keep hoping that. And I am aware of how a situation can look one way yet wind up ending another way; I also know Kid’s a fighter and all that stuff but sometimes things are out of our control." She walked to the window and looked out over the open land once more. She could envision all of Kid's grand plans for the horse ranch he hoped to start. It was his way of doing something he loved while providing for her and for the new family they had already started.

"Why don't you put your thoughts aside for a while and come down to supper? I bet it'll make you feel better. Maybe we could even start working on those curtains you wanted to make for the kitchen windows," Rachel suggested.

Lou nodded. "Sounds good, I'll be right there." She watched Rachel leave the room then turned to the window one last time. "Come home to me, Kid, I'm waitin' on ya," she said, looking down the road in the direction Kid would be coming from.

She turned away just a second too soon as a cloud of dust began to rise on the road that led to the McCloud home.