Bryan had arranged with Brandon, one of the ranch hands, to take Molly out to the new house a couple of time to check on it and make sure everything was fine. She had caught him in town on errands and had asked him if that Saturday if he’d come and take her. Molly had another reason for going to the new house that had nothing to do with housekeeping. She needed to talk with Chris Larabee and somehow convince him to come back into town and see Lily. Molly worked for a while in the house before wiping her hands on a towel and walking outside. She walked down the path toward his house.

She knew he was there, she’d heard Buck Wilmington talk about it the night before. The last time she’d been there had been during the tornados that had ripped through the town. She walked with purpose, convincing herself that while he was angry with Lily, once he heard what Molly had to say he’d go back and everything would be fine. She reached the property and slowed her gait. Something felt not quite right.

She had expected him to be outside doing chores or something but it seemed as though no one had been there in some time. Maybe he wasn’t there after all. But she’d come this far; she at least had to try. She walked up to the door and hesitated only a moment before knocking lightly. The door hadn’t been closed all the way and pushed open slightly upon her knocking.

“Mr. Larabee?” Molly called through the crack. There was no answer. She pushed the door open a little more and peered inside. It was completely dark and the warm air that greeted her smelled like stale liquor. “Mr. Larabee are you here?” she called. She walked in the doorway. A figure was sitting on the bed, his head in his hands.

“Mr. Larabee?” she asked again her voice just above a whisper. She took note of the several liquor bottles that lay about the floor. The light coming in from the outside cast an odd light on the figure on the bed that Molly now recognized as Chris Larabee. He looked ragged. He hadn’t shaved in several days and had apparently not bathed in just as long. His black shirt was on but completely unbuttoned and his trousers were wrinkled. She wondered if he’d heard her come in. She pushed the door open more.

“What do you want Molly?” he gruffly asked, his voice deep and horse.

“Are you alright?” she asked, walking into the room. He stood up.

“Who told you to come here?” he asked her.

“No…no one did,” she stammered suddenly aware of just how alone with a man she’d always been afraid of she really was. “I came here to talk to you about Lily.”

“Lily?” he said the name as though he didn’t know who she was talking about.

“She isn’t getting better,” Molly explained. “She won’t eat, when she does sleep she cries for you. She’s had a horrible fever for days. Mr. Jackson said that she lost a lot of blood but that she should be getting stronger. She isn’t. It’s like she doesn’t even want to try. I came her to ask you, to beg you if I must to come back into town and see her. Maybe if she saw you, even for just a few moments it might help.”

“No,” Chris said simply.

“I don’t understand,” Molly said, trying not to seem dejected. She wasn’t about to give up yet.

“Go home, Molly,” he said to her, walking to the bed and reaching down to pick something up near it. It was a liquor bottle that he raised to his lips and took a long drink from.

“I’m not leaving,” Molly said, making her voice sound as strong willed as she could. “I’m not going until you agree to come back into town.” He didn’t answer her but to drink from the bottle again. “What do you think Sarah thinks of you right now?” she asked him, hoping the thought of his wife would bring him to his senses. He spun around at the mention of her name. “What do you suppose she’s imagining right now about you? Do you think she wants you to be miserable because she’s not here any longer? You have just as much right to be happy now as you did when she was here with you. What happened to Lily was horrible and you have every right to be angry but now she needs you and Sarah would want you to go to her wouldn’t she?”

“You don’t know anything about my wife,” Chris snarled at her. “You don’t know anything, you’re a little girl, Molly,” he said, stalking slowly toward her. Molly simply blinked at the comment. He continued to walk toward her. So much had happened in the past several days and he’d spent most of them drunk or drinking or sleeping it off. Buck had told him the same things he’d been telling himself and now here was this girl who hardly knew him telling him the same things.

“You’re a little girl who hides behind her father because she’s too afraid to face the world. Sarah was strong, she could stand on her own, she was someone you’ll never be.” He kept walking toward her. Molly refused her body to move backward even though her mind was telling her to get out of his way. It was pure stubbornness that didn’t let her move. She wouldn’t back down from this man. She’d come for Lily she’d see this through.

“You’re nothing, Molly you’re a teacher here because they didn’t have any choice. You don’t belong here, you never have and you never will so go home, Molly, go back to your island and hide. No one will ever even know you’re gone.” He finished standing what seemed like inches from her. Molly simply starred at him, tears shinning in her eyes. Every doubt she’d ever had about herself this man had just spoken out loud as though he knew her soul. What was worse was that she had always feared everything he’d said was true and it cut at her. He turned from her and picked up one of the fuller bottles, his rage only peaking. ‘Lily, you’ve come for Lily,’ she reminded herself.

“You need to come back to her,” Molly said, doing her best to keep her voice steady. “What happened wasn’t anyone’s fault and there’s been a world full of hurt because of it. Now you’re adding to it because you’d rather be a stubborn selfish man…” before Molly could finish her thought Chris turned, and before Molly could react, hurled the bottle at the wall right next to where she was standing.

Molly screamed and turned her body from the shattering glass and liquid that now lay everywhere. Stunned she turned back toward Chris who had a look about him as though he were possessed. Molly’s only reaction was to turn and run out the door. She ran, blinded by tears back up the path toward her father’s house. She had failed Lily and that thought tore at her worse than what Chris Larabee had just said to her. Molly went to the back of the house to the swing her uncle had put up. She sat down in it and burred her face in her hands and cried.

Vin Tanner had heard that Chris was at his place in the hills. He thought he’d take a ride out there to see if his friend needed anything. He knew that Chris should go back to town but Vin also didn’t want to pry or push. He rode slowly enjoying the quiet of the place and the peace that came through him. He preferred to be in the open whenever possible, rather than in a cooped up town.

A movement off to the side caught his site and he stopped his horse. It was a person, a woman running toward the hills near the Gallagher property. Vin took out his spyglass and saw the frantic figure of Molly Gallagher make her way to her father’s house. Something was wrong. Vin rode toward her and watched as she made her way to the back of the house and sit heavily down on a swing. The sounds of her sobs reached him and he wondered what could have happened to her to make her so upset. He quietly walked up to her. He couldn’t remember a time he’d last seen someone this upset.

“Molly?” he said softly to her, not wanting to startle her. He did just the same, at the sound of his voice she jumped from her spot on the swing. Fear crossed her features for just a moment until recognition of the person in front of her sunk in.

“Mr. Tanner…Vin…” she stammered, quickly wiping her tear-streaked face with the back of her hand. Vin took a step toward her.

“What happened? Are you alright?” he asked her.

“I’m fine…”she stumbled over the lie. Vin took another step to her.

“What happened?” he asked again, his tone suggesting he knew better. Molly bit the bottom of her lip. Tears were threatening again. Vin then realized the direction she was coming from. The only thing that could have been of any interest to her on foot in that area was Larabee’s house. “You went to Chris’s, didn’t you?” he said to her. Molly only nodded and sat back down on the swing looking much like a child that had been caught doing something wrong.

“He won’t come back,” she said to him. “I don’t understand.” Vin moved up to stand next to her at the swing. “I went for Lily. I wanted him to know just how bad she’s been. I thought maybe if he heard it…he’s right, I don’t know anything about him or his wife and perhaps I shouldn’t have said what I did but he had no right to say what he did even if it is true,” Molly finished. Vin knew all too well what Chris angry and half drunk was like to an armed man, he could only imagine what had happened between them.

“What’d he say?” Vin asked her. Molly looked down at her hands.

“He told me I was a child. He said that I didn’t belong here and that they only had me teaching because they had no other choice. He said if I left tomorrow no one would even know I was gone,” she said, tears chocking her words. Vin knew that wasn’t the end of it.

“Then what happened?” he said to her.

“He had a liquor bottle, I just wanted him to go to Lily, just for a moment so she’d get well,” Molly said as though she needed to justify what had happened.

“What’d he do with the bottle, Molly?” Vin asked her.

“He threw…he threw it at me. Maybe, maybe it wasn’t at me and I hadn’t any right to do what I did…” Vin cut her off by kneeling in front of her.

“He didn’t have the right,” he said to her. Anger filled him but damned if he’d let her see it after all that had happened to her. He stood up in front of her, putting his hands on her arms and lifting her to stand with him. “You ain’t a child, Molly,” he said to her. Emotions of his own were making his voice deeper than normal. “And those kids, they think you’re something special.”

He paused for a moment as he looked down at her. He had thought about her on a night not long ago and his thoughts had taken shape much like they usually did, in a poem. He never imagined he’d dare share it with her but he wanted her to know what he thought of her, as though his opinion of her were the most important in the world.

“Before me stands a woman, but she is not what they see, to them she is a fragile branch. In my eyes strong like a tree. A soul gentle as the afternoon breeze.” Her dark eyes shone with tears again but Vin knew they were of a different sort. He reveled in being this close to her, how sweet she smelled how beautiful she was. She was everything he had wanted before the price on his head and for the first time since he dared himself to want all that again.

Before he could stop himself to think better of the outcome of his actions, Vin bent his head down and put his lips to Molly’s. Her breath came in a gasp of surprise as his mouth connected with her’s, not soft but not crushing. He felt her hands come to his arms and she grabbed hold of him to steady herself. He could tell she was unsure as she returned the kiss and he made himself break apart from her. Her eyes held a range of emotionsthat Vin didn’t want to bring on her, confusion, unsure ness and a little bit of fear. He brushed his finger down her face like he had at the saloon.

“I’m sorry,” he said to her. Molly shook her head at him.

“Don’t say that,” she said to him in nearly a whisper. She had never been kissed like that. The feelings that swept over her in that moment were like those in her dream of him and before she knew what she was doing she was trying to return the kiss. It was at that point that he’d broken from her. Maybe she’d done something wrong?

But the way he looked at her didn’t seem that way. She wanted to say more to him. The poem he’d said to her she knew without asking he wrote. She couldn’t imagine anyone ever seeing her in that way. Vin’s self control was breaking apart. He didn’t want to leave Molly but knew better than to stay especially after what just happened. The sound of a wagon approaching confirmed his thoughts. There wasn’t another horse around so she couldn’t have ridden here. He turned and recognized the diver as one of the men from the ranch.

“I should go,” he said to her. She only nodded. He wanted to tell her he was leaving for her own good but somehow he didn’t think she’d understand. He bent down again and pressed his lips to her forehead and lingered for a moment before walking to his horse. Molly watched him go and put a hand up to her mouth. The feel of his on it still remained and the poem still rang in her ears. She watched Vin ride off before noticing that Brandon was back for her. Molly smoothed down the front of her dress before walking to the front of the house to be taken back to town.

Molly went just like she had for the past several nights to the saloon to see Lily. Her heart was heavy as she went this time and she wondered how she could face her friend knowing that she had failed to bring the one person back that she knew could make a difference in Lily’s condition. The saloon was busy but there was a buzz underneath it all about Lily and what was wrong with her.

Molly had heard gossip throughout town and had done her best not to pay it any mind. She also knew that several parents of children at the school had been talking about how they didn’t think it was right for her to be spending so much time there. It was Mrs. Travis that had done her best to convince them that Molly helping to care for an “ill” Lily meant nothing as far as her teaching was concerned. It had seemed to quell them but the gossip still flew. This was on Molly’s mind as she went down the back stairs to the kitchen to make herself some tea. It was late and Molly knew she should be home sleeping but she couldn’t bring herself to leave. The kitchen door opened and Molly turned to see Cheyenne. She gave her a tired smile.

“You are still here,” Cheyenne stated to her. Molly nodded.

“Yes, I will leave in a while. I thought I’d have some tea and sit with Lily a bit longer before going home,” she said to her.

“Do not stay long,” Cheyenne said to her. “And do not leave alone. JD is at watch just outside, have him walk you home,” she said to her. Molly nodded.

“I will,” she said to her. Cheyenne waited a moment before leaving. Molly let out a sigh and sat wearily at the table with the cup of tea in front of her. She lay her head down on her arms promising to only shut her eyes for a moment to rest them before going back up to Lily. Before she could manage another thought, sleep claimed her.