A Life Of 'Shine - Lem Fike

27

"Miss Morgan." His voice annoyed her, sickly and sweet at the same time. She was mad but knew she couldn't be for too long now, she did love him after all and being mad at Lem Fike for an extended period of time was out of the question.

"You were gone for five days, Lemuel. There was a shooting here the day you left and I have never been so worried about you, thought you had been killed or something."

"Didn't count on a shootout, or being gone for five days." Nora frowned, more to herself than anyone else. She put the book away too look at Lem standing in front of her.

"I'm not mad at you, not really. Just wanted a justifiable excuse to be mad." Lem hadn't said a word more, grasping hold of Nora's hand before pulling her to her feet from the bedroll she had been sleeping in. She took a moment to balance herself but this didn't matter as Lem had his arms around her waist for support.

"Lem are you-" She was unable to say anything more before being cut off with Lem's lips on hers. He was rough but at the same gentle as is always, but she didn't mind at all, rather enjoying the force behind the passion.

They remained like this for minutes, before having to pull away from lack of air. She wanted to resume the kiss but having been stood in the centre of camp that offered to little to no privacy she opted for pulling away from his embrace so not to be tempted.

"You're forgiven, for now."

"I plan to make it up to you later, a kiss simply will not do, dearest Nora." Offering one final wink, Lem walked away from the female.

She stood flustered, her face red and hot. If anyone were to walk by they would most definitely think her to be ill as they wouldn't not have seen the kiss before hand.

"He ain't been seen for a while now. I'm awfully worried about him." Mary-Beth was unmistakably talking about Kieran again, she worried about him like Nora worried for Lem. She would be a fool to not have seen the chemistry between them before his disappearance. Regardless of this, Nora knew better than most how much Mary-Beth cared for the ex O'Driscoll, Sadie being a close second and then Abigail being a third. If anything, Mary-Beth would be the only one to understand her worry as people experienced things differently.

"Just wish I could help him, or could have done something differently."

"There ain't anything else you could have done, just don't give up on hoping he'll be fine." Arthur tried his best to comfort her, but Nora could hear the uncertainty in his voice. From his advice alone and the tone of voice he clearly hadn't done this as often as the girls, but there was still meaning behind it and Nora was able to tell that he wanted to comfort and support Mary-Beth just as much as what she had done.

"¡Hola Nora!" Javier greeted as he approached, fishing rod and bucket in hand. She turned head to look at him with a smile on her face.

"Mornin'."

"I was just about to go fishing but seeing as you stood there with nothing to do as it appeared, I was wondering if you wanted to go fishing with me."

"Again? After what happened last time." To this Javier gave a simple chuckle, although Nora barely found their previous fishing trip amusing.

"It was an accident, querida and I've forgiven you for it anyway."

"I s'pose you were the type to forgive a girl for shooting you in the leg." She shook her head at the recollection, having got spooked by a fairly big fish like a child and resorting to shooting it out of reflex, this leading to missing the fish itself but shooting Javier's own leg as he moved infront of her to calm her down.