**Kaylee references in here may be explained if you read an earlier post in the romance section called "Second Best- Prologue/Tease." That is all.**

Mal figured the mule would be a bit too conspicuous. Likely ta be remembered. Jayne didn’t have the foggiest where the horses came from. Figured they was probably borrowed.

He took the big buckskin. Zoe took the smaller black one. There was a butter-yellow one, too. Real weird color. They left it tied ta the tree by the ship, nibblin’ at a clump of grass.

They didn’t talk none on the way ta the house. Fine by Jayne. Zoe’d never really done anythin’ you’d call “openin’ up” ta him. They rarely traded small talk, even before Zoe’d got all clammed up.

Jayne matched his breath with the footsteps of the horse.

Two steps in, two steps out.

Been a long time since he’d been on a horse. Felt good.

Two steps in, two steps out.

Kaylee looked real pretty that mornin’—even if she was makin’ googly eyes at the doc. She’d taken a shower, now that they was dirt-side. Her hair was real shiny. Looked all soft. Skin, too.

He wondered what she smelled like close up. He hardly got a chance ta get close to her. Not close enough.

He needed a shower. It’d been a while, an’ he reckoned his aroma was headin’ past manful ta just plain wrong.

Plain. Plain Jayne.

He could use a sandwich. One with lots a meat. An’ cheese. Gorram, it’d been a long time since he’d had cheese. An’ that yella stuff mama’d bring out on real special occasions.

Yella. Yella paint. Half-naked Kaylee.

Better than a sandwich. Sweet and savory Kaylee between slices a… Jayne an’ the wall.

“Sounds like we’re getting’ close.”

Jayne let the visions of Kaylee slip away.

“Yep.”

They could hear the laughin’ an’ carousin’ long before they reached the house.

Actually, it was more than a house. It was like a compound—one big house in the middle of four or five little buildings.

“Quite the spread.”

They didn’t say nothin’ else until they were up