Allie stood inside the stage office and let memories flood her senses.

'You're in luck, doll. Great valley is where I was headed too. I figure we might as well go together.' Jack's deep teasing voice said. He flashed her his mischievous smile that deepened his boyish dimples and his bright blue eyes sparkled with amusement.

"You okay, Allie?" Lily asked snapping Allie out of her memory. Allie looked over at her older sister who was currently doing all she could to keep five year old Sarah from running around the crowded stage office and nodded.

"It's just been a while since I was in here is all." she replied.

"Sarah, I will tell your daddy if you don't behave." Lily scolded and the chubby girl stopped moving so quickly that her thick dark curls swung into her face. She looked up at Lily and smiled guiltily.

"Sorry, mommy." Lily couldn't help but smile back and she patted her daughters head. Then she looked at her sister.

"Bringing back memories?" she asked gently. Allie shook her head and smoothed out her black skirt.

"No." she replied quickly. Lily nodded and said nothing else.

"Are you sad, Aunt Allie?" Sarah asked grabbing her hand with her chubby little fingers. Allie pushed aside thoughts of Jack and smiled.

"I'm a little sad, sweetie." she replied honestly.

"Well I'll have to fix that somehow won't I?" Gavin's voice said gently as she felt his lips press against the back of her hair. Allie smiled a real smile and turned around.

"I am already feeling better." she said. "Did you and Hawke have a good lunch?" she asked as she looked over at Hawke who was standing next to Lily and Sarah and looking very out of place and irritated in the crowded stage office. She couldn't help but feel aggravated as many people made it a point to move away from the tall man. She wished people wouldn't judge him by his appearance because Hawke was the single best man that she knew.

"He is rather intimidating." Gavin whispered in her ear as he noticed her agitation and she rolled her eyes and glared at him.

"He is a good man." she snapped doing her best to keep from cursing and make her voice sound proper. Gavin was not the type of man to appreciate her normal way of speaking. Gavin smiled and nodded quickly.

"Yes I know. As a matter of fact he is a very good man and I have a question to ask you before you leave town."

"What?" Allie asked. Gavin let out a nervous breath and grabbed her hands in his.

"Allie, I know that we have not been able to spend much time together but I have fallen head over heels in love with you in the last two years. I would be the proudest man alive if you would do me the honor of becoming my wife." Gavin pulled a small gold band with a single round cut diamond from his pocket and got to his knee as he looked up at her with hope in his green eyes.

Allie's eyes widened as she stuttered several times before clamping her mouth shut. Marriage! Allie had not thought about marriage since she had been fourteen. Marriage to Gavin? She had not thought about that at all. Gavin was a good man and she liked him but was it love? She had no idea.

"Um.. I uh… I don't know." she said finally and Gavin's face fell as he stood up. He released her hands and cleared his throat as he adjusted his suit collar.

"That was not the enthusiastic answer I was hoping for." he said with a fake little laugh, hoping to hide his disappointment. Allie quickly grabbed his hand and smiled reassuringly despite the swirling storm of emotions in her head.

"I didn't say no. I just need some time to think is all." Allie said forgetting about speaking proper for the moment. Gavin nodded and held the ring up with a shaking hand.

"I understand, Allie. I have to go to New York for a banking conference and I'll be gone about three months. When I come back the bank in Great Valley should be complete and ready to open and I'll be moving there to run it. Maybe you'll come to a decision by then."

"Of course." Allie nodded. "Thank you for being so nice about this."

"I said I love you and I meant it." Gavin replied before pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead. Allie waited for butterflies or tingles but felt none. She smiled as he pulled away to hide her disappointment and he placed the ring in her palm.

"When I get to Great Valley I would love to see you waiting for me with that ring on your finger." Allie nodded and was relieved when she was saved from replying by the man behind the counter.

"The stage for Great Valley is loading folks." Lily reached to grab her and Allie's trunk but Hawke shook his head and beat her to it.

"You will not be carrying it." he said matter of factly. "Not with my son inside you." Lily laid her hand on her still flat belly and smiled.

"I have to be going now." Allie said to Gavin. Gavin nodded and kissed her head again.

"I will see you in about three months, darling. I will miss you every single day we are apart." he said, his green eyes looking deep into hers as Hawke, Lily and Sarah walked out of the office and toward the waiting stage.

"And I will miss you." Allie replied, though truthfully all she wanted to do at the moment was get away from him. Emotions and thoughts were swirling in her head and she needed to be able to sort through them. Allie's mind filled with fear and uncertainty when he lowered his mouth toward hers.

Gavin had never tried to kiss her before and she had never kissed anyone other than Jack. And she wasn't sure she was ready to kiss Gavin now. She saw Gavin's shoulders droop when she turned her head at the last moment but like the gentleman that he was he kissed her cheek tenderly and smiled warmly.

"I love you, Allie." he said. Allie's teeth bit down on her lips so hard she knew she would be tasting blood soon and she nodded.

"I must be going." she replied and she turned quickly and practically ran to the stage.

She saw Gavin standing on the boardwalk waving as the stage pulled away and she waved back. Once he was out of sight she clenched her fist and punched Hawke hard in the arm.

"Ow." Hawke said as he rubbed his arm and looked over at her. "Do not hit me." he growled. Allie was not scared of the anger in his eyes and she pointed her finger up at him.

"You should have warned me." she exclaimed. Hawke shook his head.

"He asked at lunch and came right to you. I could not have warned you."

"You should have thought of something. You are the great Hawke Owen ya know." Hawke smiled.

"I thought about murder. That would have kept him from asking."

"Hush!" Lily snapped as she handed Sarah her favorite doll with a soft body and real porcelain face.

Allie looked down at the ring shining in her hand and sighed as she stuck it into her skirt pocket.

"What am I gonna do?" she asked as she slumped back in the seat. Lily smiled and patted her knee.

"You'll figure it out Allie." she said. Allie had her doubts but did not voice them out loud. She laid her head back and closed her eyes even though the sun was shining much too brightly on her face to get any sleep.

888

Jack had no idea how he had made it in but Heaven was amazing. Heaven was a small cozy cabin in the middle of the woods. Lily was standing at the counter in the early morning sunlight, wearing her favorite light blue blouse and brown skirt while cooking eggs and singing quietly. Hawke was sitting at the table looking every bit a savage with baby Sarah in his arms and love in his eyes as he watched his wife.

Jack was sitting on the sofa and Allie was beside him. His beautiful Allie. With her sun goldened skin, full cheeks, bright brown eyes and soft lips. Her dark hair was hanging loose like it always had in the mornings and it was laying in gentle curls over her shoulders and down her back.

She was laughing at Janna who was tugging on the skirt of her pink calico dress and the sound was the best sound Jack had heard in five long years.

People were right about heaven. It was home. Allie looked over at him and laid her soft hand gently on his cheek.

"I love you, doll." he said feeling emotion rising in his chest. Her hand felt like silk against his rough cheek. She opened her mouth to speak and he couldn't wait to hear her voice again..

"Wake up." Jack moved away from her as confusion filled him. Since when did Allie sound like a mean old man?

"Wake up, kid. You've been out for days, you need to eat something." Jack's eyes flew open and as pain flooded his senses he realized that his idea of Heaven had been nothing but a dream. His eyes widened when he saw a dirty old face mere inches from his own.

"Who the hell are you and where the hell am I?" Jack demanded though his voice came out as barely more than a cracked whisper and the coughing fit that followed brought tears of pain to his eyes. His entire body hurt and his chest filled with pain every time he took a breath.

"My name's Felix Coots." The man replied as he lifted Jack's head and held a glass of cool water to his lips. Jack took several long sips. "And you are in my home in the Dakotas. North Dakota if you want to get technical."

Jack looked at the short, thin man as he stood up and walked across the small one room cabin to stir something that smelled like broth in a large pot above the fire. The cabin was small and warm. The walls were old and scarred. There were two small rocking chairs in front of the fireplace, a tiny round table with two chairs sat in the corner of the room and Jack was lying on a straw mattress bed on the other side. There were no windows and the door was shut tight so it was impossible to tell what time of day it was.

Felix came back over with a bowl of broth and a spoon. Jack looked at the man's heavily wrinkled face covered in a thick red beard and mustache. He had thinning red hair that was wild and messy atop his head and he was wearing thick furs and skins for clothes. He gave Jack a nearly toothless grin and held up the bowl.

"Time for supper." he said. Jack's pride had him wanting to feed himself but his body refused to work so he let Felix feed him several large spoonfulls of the bland broth.

"Sorry if it don't taste all that great. Penelope, that's my wife, she always did all the cooking 'round here but she passed away three months, two weeks and five days ago. Since then the foods kinda gone downhill."

"Sorry bout your wife." Jack said shaking his head when Felix tried to give him another spoonful of broth. Felix shrugged and sat the bowl down on the side table.

"How did I get here?" Jack asked looking underneath the blanket he was covered with to find himself wearing only his underwear. His body was covered in bandages and there was a splint on his left leg.

"I found ya. You were damn lucky if you ask me. The rest of them poor folks the outlaws had a go at didn't make it." Jack nodded and closed his eyes. Clearly Felix though he'd been on that coach and he wasn't going to tell the old man any different.

"Are you a doctor?" Jack asked. Felix laughed loudly and Jack smelled the alcohol on his breath.

"Heck no. Not me. I'm just an old trapper. But I've been patching up myself and my critters for the last sixty two years. I ain't never seen nobody beat up as bad as you though."

"Was it bad?" Jack asked though he already knew the answer. He let out a long breath to fight off the nausea as another wave of pain washed over him.

"Real bad." Felix said with a nod. "Ya took a bullet in your leg and broke the bone. Another bullet hit your lung. Two bullets went into your sides but they came out the back and luckily didn't hit none of the important stuff and then you had another bullet that went through your shoulder… Course it didn't look like it was the first one to go through that shoulder. Damn kid but I ain't never seen nobody with more scars than you've got. You must have pissed somebody off mighty bad!" Jack nodded.

"Yeah you could say that." he said and then he groaned as the pain in his chest grew stronger.

"I ain't got nothing for pain kid and I didn't want to leave you to go get nothing.. You've been laying there for almost a week fighting off one hell of a fever. You're lucky your brain still works cuz I've heard of men whose brains quit working right after fevers like that."

"My brain hasn't ever worked right." Jack replied managing a small smile. Felix laughed and slapped himself on the thigh as he sat down in a chair at the small table.

"Naw mine ain't either I reckon." he said. "I got some whiskey that'll help with the pain if you want me to get you a glass." Jack shook his head, wincing when that movement caused it to start throbbing.

"No. I don't drink." he replied.

"Don't drink?" Felix asked with disbelief. "What kind of man don't drink?" Jack was getting tired and his head was starting to feel fuzzy as his eyelids grew heavy.

"I got drunk when I was younger and did something real stupid. I haven't been much of a drinker since." he said though his voice was growing weaker.

"I heard that. Sometimes life teaches us lessons the hard way." Felix said with a nod. "Well get ya some rest then, kid, and I'll head into town and get some medicine from the doc." he said standing up. Jack watched him walk out the door and felt the cold wind blast threw the door before Felix closed it.

He relaxed against the warm bed and closed his eyes, praying that maybe, just maybe, he could visit heaven for a few more hours.