A Life Of 'Shine - Lem Fike

41

"Nora." She looked up from the shirt she had been mending, pausing her sewing so she didn't make any mistakes while her attention was divided.

She gasped when she noticed the two standing before her, standing up from the box with a bright smile.

"You guys were gone longer than you said you were." James and Harry shook their heads, moving to sit down around the box she had been on with small smiles.

"Yes well, we recently discovered camp had been moved and it took a couple of tries before someone eventually knew where you were." James answered. He reached into his own satchel before pulling out some money, presumably from their  bounty trip they had gone on.

"Shit, sorry. I knew I had forgotten to leave a note for you, just some things came up and I've been- busy."

Her brothers nodded, looking behind them as they noticed Kieran sitting near the horses, a saddle laid out over his lap. "How's he been?"

"Kieran? Well, healing nicely as he claims and doing the majority of Cripps' chores." She chuckled, looking back down at the old shirt as she resumed fixing up the hole in it.

"Anything interesting happen then, Nor?" Harry spoke up, leaning forward with his hands pressed together infront of him.

Nora was thinking back over the past week, nothing far too interesting had necessarily jumped out at her, as far as she was concerned it had been a regular week.

"Not that I can think of, been pretty normal." She answered, giving her brothers a small smile once she finished with the last few stitches. They nodded, taking her word for it.

Lem had gone out for a bit, heading as far as Blackwater and having grown used to him being around camp more often than not she didn't think to tell her brother's that he had joined them, forgetting that they had long gone before she even found him in that moonshine shack.

"No, no, no, no." Cripps marched forward, approaching the siblings after eavesdropping on their conversation, waving his arms around as he decided to cut in.

"Here's somethin' interesting for you, Fike's back." He spat, moving his hat from his head to use as a fan of sorts to calm him down in the heat. Nora winced, forgetting all about him.

"Yeah, so um..." She glanced over at the boys who each held individual expressions of their own, whether that be anger or annoyance they showed, she couldn't really tell.

"When did he return?" James asked, folding his arms over his chest. She shrugged, not bothering to play along with the silly interrogation.

"It don't matter, ya know James?"

"I saw how badly you took that break up, ain't seen you, Nora Morgan the very same person who broke out of Sisika, so- vulnerable I, I don't know how to explain it."

"I was upset for two days maybe? I got over it." She lied, shaking her head to dismiss any following words from the duo. "Besides, don't matter."

No longer wanting to continue this conversation, Nora decided to move away from the boys and to join Kieran. Even if he hadn't seen the confrontation he could tell from the look Nora had alone that she was visibly pissed off.

"W-What's wrong?"

"Brothers, being a pain in my ass."

"T-They mean w-well. W-Want what's b-b-best for you after all." He reasoned, gently patting her shoulder as a way to show comfort. She chuckled, reluctantly nodding along with a small sigh.

"Yeah, I know."

Kieran gently placed the saddle down on the ground, walking to stand in front of Nora with a smile, crouching down so he was now eye level with her.