John and his men rode into the quiet North Dakota town. Their horses hooves splashing in the wet mud as the fog swirled around them. The streets were deserted this early in the morning and the horses snorts and blows were the only sounds.

"Tell me again what we're doing back here?" Brian asked his pa.

"I feel bad thinking about my sons body going unclaimed." John replied. "Boys you go ahead and head over to the saloon and get ya some drinks." he said to the other men. They nodded and rode down the road while John and Brian stopped at the jail and hitched their horses to the post.

"Why do you feel bad? It's his own damn fault we had to put those bullets in him."

"He's still my boy." John said matter of factly. "That and we left in such a hurry we didn't take that fancy revolver of his or nothing. I'd like to get my hands on that."

"Pa, he's been dead for almost three months. What the hell ya gonna do dig him up and take his gun?"

"Sure will. Just gotta find out which of those unnamed graves out in that cemetery is his." Brian nodded even though he thought his pa was going through an awful lot of trouble for one gun. He wondered if there was more to this than his pa was telling him. John was well known for getting 'feelings' about things and he wondered if his pa had some kind of feeling about Jack.

"Let's go talk to the sheriff." John said stepping up on the porch of the jail. He knocked on the door and a big bellied sheriff with red cheeks and a thick gray mustache opened the door.

"Can I help you men?" he asked looking behind them at the quiet street.

"I was hoping to talk to you about the stage that got hit a couple of months ago. I heard about it a while back and I'm worried because my son was supposed to have been on that stage and I haven't heard from him." the sheriff nodded and moved aside so the men could come into the jail. He sat down behind the desk and John took a seat across from him while Brian stood at the door and kept an eye out the tiny window at the top of it.

"We did have a stage hit outside of town almost three months ago." The sheriff said folding his hands over his giant stomach.

"Were there any survivors?" John asked, doing his best to sound like a concerned father. The sheriff shook his head sadly.

"No. Not a one. They killed both drivers and all of the passengers. But all eight of those bodies were claimed and identified except for one. He wasn't a passenger or a driver." John did the math in his head quickly and realized something was not adding up. Two drivers, plus five passengers, plus Becket, plus Jack should have been nine.But the sheriff had just said there had only been eight bodies.

"What did he look like?" John asked and this time he did not have to fake the concern.

"I don't think he was your son. He was a middle aged guy. Short and kinda fat. He got caught in a rather compromising situation it looked like to me. His pants were hanging around his ankles." the sheriff whispered the last part and then he chuckled as he picked at the strained button on the front of his blue shirt.

"No my boy was tall and lean with blond hair and blue eyes." John replied. He saw Brian shifting his feet and looking very worried over by the door. John stood up.

"There wasn't nobody fitting that description. Maybe he wasn't there and he'll be showing up any time now and easing your worry. Sometimes kids put us parents through all kinds of hell." John nodded in agreement.

"Yeah they sure do." he said. He shook the sheriff's hand and walked over to the door. "Thanks for your help sheriff. We'll be going now." John and Brian walked out of the jail and grabbed their horses by the reins to lead them to the saloon and meet the other men.

"What the hell is going on, pa? Jack should have been dead."

"Jack has to be dead." John replied. "We shot him five times. He probably crawled into the woods and nobody found his body."

"I don't know pa. You know as well as I do that boy has nine lives. What if we didn't kill him? What if he's gonna come gunning for us? He'll hunt us down and kill every damn one of us."

"Shut up, Brian. If he lived through what we did then he would have been in bad damn shape and he wouldn't have made it without help. All we gotta do is search the surrounding homesteads and cabins and we're sure to find him or someone who knows where the hell he went." John said. He understood Brian's fear and he was feeling some himself.

Jack was damn good with a gun and he could move as silently as a damn shadow. John was scared of his youngest son. He had given Jack a million reasons to want him dead and he knew if anyone could get the job done it was that boy.

"I don't like this, pa. Until we find Jack I'm gonna be waiting constantly for that bullet to come slamming into my back."

"Me too." John said with a nod. "Me too."

888

Jack slammed his fist into the trunk of a pine tree and then he laid his forehead against the rough bark and called himself one hundreds kinds of a fool.

"Why in the hell did I lose my temper like that?" he asked the giant tree. He had hoped it would offer him some guidance but of course it didn't. He had done a lot of things in his life that he regretted but his biggest regret was, and always would be, hurting Allie. He had no right to get upset with her for moving on with another man. He had slept with other women. He thought about the two women he had used to try to ease the pain he'd felt during that first year with his pa and brother.

He had been a prisoner and he had just wanted to find a way to ease the pain. He had been desperate for any kind of comfort. The whores had not been able to give him that and he had not been with any woman since. Hell he couldn't remember their names or what they looked like anymore. They had only been a replacement. An unworthy replacement for the woman he had lost.

He told himself that he needed to be happy for Allie. But Gavin? Surely she could find someone better than Gavin. He would try to change her. He would take her to the city, put her in fancy dresses. He wouldn't let her shoot guns or get her hands dirty in a garden. There would be servants, maids and cooks to do all the dirty work and Allie would be miserable. But the man she married was her own choice to make.

Jack stood straight and started the long walk back to the cabin. He had no right to try to stand in Allie's way or give her doubts about her love for her fiance. He had hurt her and he had walked away from her all those years ago. He didn't deserve her anymore than he deserved any happiness.. Not after all the things he had done.

888

Gavin dropped Allie off at home that evening and started back toward town with his mind racing. He had learned in the last two days that the Allie from the letters and the Allie that had visited him several times in Helena and had come and visited him in town in the past while he'd been in Great Valley, and the Allie he was now seeing were two different Allie's.

He thought of his rich fancy mother and the large mansion that she and his father lived in and the lifestyle that Gavin and his wife were meant to carry on and he just could not picture this new Allie fitting into that life. But he loved Allie. Her soft brown eyes and dark hair. The way her face lit up when she smiled and the pride he felt when walking with her beside him. Of course he would not have been proud to have been seen with her the way she had looked this morning. Covered in dirt and holding a gun!

Then there was the way she looked at this Jack guy. Gavin could not compete with a man like Jack. Gavin might have money and sophistication but the thing he loved most about Allie was that she had never cared about any of that and so he knew those things did not matter to her.

But Gavin couldn't just tell her that he had changed his mind about marrying her. He was plenty old enough and his parents expected him to get married. His mother was already planning the wedding and he couldn't let her down. Once Allie was his wife he could move her into the city and away from that cabin and once she saw how blessed the life of the wife of a rich man was she would forget all about Jack, guns and her boyish ways.

Gavin left his cart at the livery and then walked down the road to the bank. He went into his office to get some paperwork done and was irritated by the knock on his door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"There is a young woman here who wants to talk to you about starting an account." his secretary Peggy said.

"Send her in." Gavin called from his desk. The door opened and Gavin's jaw dropped at the sight of the tall voluptuous blond that walked through the door. Her blue satin dress hugged all her curves and her blond hair was pulled up high on her head with small ringlets hanging loose around her face.

She smiled and held out a gloved hand and he stood and took it in his.

"Hello, Mr. Henderson. My name is Alice Cooper and I wanted to look into setting up an account. My parents passed away recently and left me quite a bit of money and I don't feel safe keeping it on the estate."

"Of course, Miss Cooper. Have a seat and I'll see what I can do for you." Gavin was sure he was looking at an angel as she sat across the desk from him.

"Please, Mr. Henderson, call me Alice. I heard Miss Cooper too many times while I was in that boarding school back east." Gavin nodded.

"Then by all means call me Gavin."