ikissdhimbck | OOM sorta: Rooms, back door, stables, in the morning.

She ducks her head and laughs, a few blonde curls falling in her face.

"For accuracy's sake, right?" she asks, smile in her voice.

"Wouldn't do for me t'be getting myself a reputation, now."

Doc's grinning, as he nods his head back towards the walk to head back for the stables. There are a few horses already out in some of the paddocks (some of the stallions that even he doesn't touch in their own areas) and he's making mental notes of who should go where.

"Wouldn't want that," she clucks, with eyes that could look right through you. She follows the incline of his head.

With Doc carrying her empty pale, she absently tucks her hands into her pockets, for lack of anything else to do.

"Maybe I'll git started on it tonight. Lesse... you don't captain a spaceship. You don't play music. You don't... spin cloth."

She turns so she's walking backwards, smirking at him as she thinks.

"You don't race perfectly respectable young ladies back up the path to the stables..."

"I don't know how to knit," he continues, for her. "And I ain't a very good cook..."

Doc shifts the buckets to one hand and smirks a little.

"And I certainly don't race perfectly respectable young ladies back up the path..."

A beat, a step, and then he grins.

"But I will give friends a two step head start before I beat them there." A wink. "Because I'm a gentleman."

There's something in his grin that makes her own smile grow, and she bites at her lip for fear of it splitting her face.

Katherine's all about fairness and equality, here.

"And because you're a gentleman," she begins, a singsong quality to her voice. "I'm sure you'll agree to buying your competition dinner, when you lose."

(However, she's also not opposed to taking a cheat when offered to her.)

There are perhaps three more quiet steps as she smirks at him, eyes glinting, before she laughs, turning on her heel and bolting up the path, arms swinging free from her coat pockets.

"I would buy you dinner regardless, and you know it!"

This is hollered at her as he gives her that one-two (three-four-five) step headstart before he bolts after her. Halfway to the stable he ditches the buckets near the fenceline and really goes for her.

She'll win, of course

This time.

She knows it.

She's laughing the whole run, which might not do for optimum speed, but she really doesn't care if he catches her. When she hears the buckets clattering behind her, she even does the unthinkable for anyone wanting to win a race.

She looks back, over her shoulder.

If she can just make it to the door before he catches up, she'll be happy.

Also, the victor.

:D

When she turns around to glance behind her, Doc laughs (it's a somewhat wicked and evil laugh) and then sprints the handful of yards to close the gap and catch her...

"Oh no you don't!"

Before she can touch the wall, Doc lunges the last step to hook his arm around her waist and spin her, catching her in his arms as he turns. His right side slams into the wall with his momentum carrying him forward (it would hurt if he wasn't laughing so hard) and she ends up pressed against his chest.

"You," he laughs, as he then sets her back down. "Are faster than you look!"

She knows she's sunk when she hears that laugh. Suddenly, his voice is in her ear and his arm is on her waist, and she yelps through her laughter as that wall disappears from in front of her fingertips.

She clutches his arms as they spin, laughing too hard to keep her eyes open to the scenery streaking past her vision, before they slam into that wall.

She's still clutching his arms, chest heaving as she struggles to catch her breath amidst her giggles. She tilts her head back against his chest to look up at him, cheeks rosy from the cold and the exertion and the utter joy, a broad grin on her face. Her hair is a little messy from the wind.

"'I may be little, but I am mighty,'" she quotes, breathing hard. Her blue eyes are bright. "Can give the best a run fer their money, when the heels come off."

"So you can," he breathes, his own chest rising and falling at a rapid pace, heart pounding hard against his ribs. With a little bit of effort, he matches his lungs to hers, and closes his eyes, and tips his head back against the wall. "So you can. You don't get a head start next time," he tells her.

After another few minutes, he looks down at her again. His arms are still snug around her, but he moves one hand to tuck some of her hair behind one of her ears, adjust that scarf around her neck a bit.

"Y'almost had me, there," he tells her. Impressed.

Doc grins.

"But I'm still buyin' dinner, later."

She giggles at the retraction of his 'friends get a two-step head start' statement, shaking her head. "Won't need it," she taunts.

She closes her eyes briefly when his hand moves lightly over her skin, catching his wrist and pulling his arm around her, letting his hand rest at her throat. It's an awkward embrace, her head resting against his breast, as she looks up at him.

"S'only fair," she murmurs softly, expending great effort to calm her aching lungs. "I did buy lunch, after all."

There's a contented little smile on her face.

"You did."

Doc allows his hand to linger on his throat. It's an odd place for him to leave it - there's so much power that can be had by holding someone by the throat, and he can think of the times he's held men by the grasp, usually pinned to the wall or to the earth, sometimes with iron and bullets ready and waiting in his other hand - but he does. She trusts him.

He could hurt her, but he would never dare.

His fingers brush gently over that scarf, as his eyes focus back into the present and the situation at the moment. She trusts him.

After a moment, he adds the words, quiet, as his gloved thumb brushes against her jaw. "Thank you."

She savors the touch, keeping her eyes focused on him. She can tell by the tone of his voice that there's more going through his mind than simple appreciation for a packed lunch.

"What for?" she whispers, her other hand moving along the arm still at her waist. When she leaves the hem of his cuff, she hits skin before his glove begins, her tender fingers slipping beneath the material. She wishes she had her own gloves off, to feel the reassurance of skin on skin.

"Trustin' me."

Doc is in no hurry to have her move. Nobody is up or around this early anyway, and even if they were, nobody would care since they're on the far side of the stables from the bar.

"Most folk don't, given my reputation, or the fact that I'm some no-name fella comin' into town on nothin' but a horse, bag and a bedroll to my name."

She ain't most people. She matters more than they do.

Her eyes quietly search him out, and she takes a long, deep breath as she searches for her words, nodding her head gently.

"A lot has happened," she says, softly, the hand at her throat slowly moving from his wrist.

"But you bein' honest means a lot," she continues, as that hand creeps up the back of his neck and into his hair. "Means an awful lot. You tellin' me the truth."

They've still got a ways to go, but they're getting there.

"I told you I was gonna."

And he's kept that promise. Doc's not stupid when it comes to things that matter this much, at least not twice.

Her gloves are cold and it gives him a chill when she grazes the back of his neck, but he doesn't mind it all that much. The hand on her throat slides up to her jaw, and then he leans down and presses his lips gently against hers, lingering, hovering a moment.

"I keep my promises."

Be them good or bad.

And then he leans in and kisses her.

A shiver skates down her spine.

She returns the kiss, his words echoing in her ears.

'I keep my promises.'

That gloved hand tightens in the hair at the back of his neck, her still uneven breathing catching in her throat as she kisses him back, lips gently insistent, fingertips moving against the skin of his hand.

She's in no particular hurry to break the kiss this time.

His cheeks and nose are cold with the temperature of the air and from the race to the spot where they are now, but the rest of his body is warm, with her pressed against his chest and his arm wrapped around her middle.

Doc doesn't deepen the kiss (not much, anyway) but he takes his time in kissing her as properly as one can (which in the case of their time and upbringing, there's no chance in Hell of this ever being proper but that's beside the point) when he's at this angle.

He's in no hurry to break that kiss either.

It's his taste on her lips, and his breath across her face, and the cold breeze that keeps gusting up from time to time--the way his arm shifts around her middle--that sends a chill ripping through her body.

She pulls back from the kiss, giving herself a minute to savor it, though the insistent prickle of every tiny hair on her body standing on end is screaming at her.

She shifts in his embrace, turning to face him, her arms snaking around his middle as she draws him close to her body.

"We should probably get the horses turned out," she whispers against his chest, breathing in the sweet scent of hay and feed and him. But she doesn't move.

Not until she tips her head back again, and reclaims his lips.

Which Doc lets her do without hesitation.

The horses can wait a minute longer before getting their chance to play in the open, their chance in the cold mid-morning air.

"We should."

But he's in no hurry, and makes no effort at all to move, once they do break that kiss. Doc just leans his forehead against hers, gently, the long strands of his hair falling forward.

"M'thinkin' hirin' you was the smartest thing I ever done."

She can't help but laugh at that, her smile bright as her hands come to rest on either side of his face.

"You're probably right," she whispers, nuzzling him gently.

"Though, you might do well to 'hire me' as your barber once again, Outlaw."

She reaches into that mess of blonde hair, and tugs playfully.

He arches a playful eyebrow at her.

"And what would you say if I told you that this outlaw likes his hair long durin' the winter, hmm?"

Doc moves his hands to rest gently at either side of her waist, on top of that coat (though he wants to slip them under that coat so bad he can hardly stand it) and his touch light as a feather.

"It ain't like I'm t'tying it back, yet."

"I'd say you--"

Her voice catches when his hands come to rest at her hips, and she longs to feel the touch of his thumbs at her ribcage.

"--I'd say you're startin' to look like a ruffian again," she murmurs, her face pink. She chuckles softly.

"Though it does give me more to pull my hands through..."

Her arms loop around his neck while she's speaking, and she pulls the glove from one hand carefully, tucking at each finger before tugging off the leather. She repeats the action with her other hand. And when the gloves are off, she pulls one hand up into his blonde mess, slowly and tauntingly, the fingers of her other hand (still grasping gloves) threading into the hair at the nape of his neck, to keep his head steady.

"Now that just ain't fair, your hands all tucked in there like that..."

That's perfectly logical reasoning.

Doc shifts his hands and pushes the edges of her coat open just a bit as he slips his hands to her sides beneath that fabric, and he settles his hands there, still light, but much warmer, now.

"That, however, is more like it."

There's a hint of a spark in his eyes, what with her arms looped around his neck like so. He bites gently at his lower lip, pondering something with his eyes as he searches out her face. Just thinking, not moving just yet.

Her stomach jumps at the contact, and he might be able to feel the slight tremble of her body beneath his touch.

"Ain't f-fair, you robbin' a lady of her victory, either," she breathes, eyes shyly, but unfalteringly, meeting his gaze.

She searches him out right back.

"Whatcha thinkin'?" she whispers.

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