Cowboy, Stay with Me

Chapter Forty-One: The Big Problem

It was a Saturday afternoon and while Lucy and Travis were home, Sean had to work. Travis went down for a nap during the heat of the day and Lucy sprawled out on the sofa to watch TV with a cold glass of ice tea. She had several fans aimed directly at her because Sean hadn't installed the air conditioners yet.

What Oklahoma lacked in mean winters it made up for with scorching summers that dragged on into the autumn months.

At this time of day there wasn't much good on the television and Lucy ended up dozing off to the news. Reports of heavy gang activity in Oklahoma City was the main topic and perhaps it was because of this that she found herself lost in a mire of dark and troublesome dreams.

###

Sean and Lucy rode side by side on their horses.

It was late afternoon and sunlight streamed in upon them from the west, bathing them in a warm, golden glow. It was a peaceful, magical kind of moment caught forever in time.

Lucy sat serenely upon a much younger Hopalong Cassidy while Sean reclined lazily back on Titan.

They pulled up alongside each other as they gained the crest of a small hill overlooking the pasture where the bison grazed.

It was a picturesque and serene valley that sprawled out before them. The ground dropped away into the notorious little canyon itself not far from there.

They held hands for a while as they admired the view and let the wind play with their clothes and hair.

"What do you want to be when you grow up?" She remembered him asking her as they sat there upon horseback.

"I wanna be a school teacher!" She had proclaimed proudly. "Of course, you know that already, silly. The question is, what do you wanna be?"

"I wanna be a US Marshal." Sean had told her quietly.

She had turned to gaze at him then as his hand had slid slowly out of hers.

She had felt him literally slipping away from her in that moment; that moment when she saw the true extent of the ambition shining in his dark eyes.

He had spoken of his plan to go to the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center in Georgia and perhaps even serve in the military overseas. He wanted to protect and serve. He craved the thrill of danger and the stern responsibility of upholding justice, of carrying and potentially using a firearm. Things that she couldn't even imagine doing in her wildest dreams.

Their goals were so completely opposite it was like the universe was playing a bad joke on them.

Who were they fooling?

Sean's one burning ambition was to be a US Marshal. Lucy's biggest dream contained a family of her own; a big one, where everyone was loved, and safe, and happy.

They had ridden off into the sunset together that night, but deep down they had both known that they weren't headed in the same direction.

What the future held for them was nothing but heartbreak.

###

Lucy started violently awake.

Bleary-eyed, she looked wildly around the room. It took her a moment to get her bearings; being in a fairly new place and all.

Her heartrate slowed back down as she realized that she was currently safe inside the house that she now shared with Sean and her newly adopted son.