It took him seventy-three minutes to stand up and walk over to her. Nine dance partners. Ten songs.

The boy in the blue tie had asked her twice.

Seventy-three minutes of feeling his eyes on her. Not minding that they were.

She stopped when she felt him beside her. Her skirt fell against her legs. Swirled out when she turned to him.

She was panting. Still smiling. Her heart was pounding and she was alive. Brought to life like Wash was tonight.

His arms were folded across his chest, making the shoulders of his jacket strain. His sheep’s clothing was about to burst.

He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking around the room. “Ain’t one girl here purdy enough to dance with who ain’t already with someone.”

River looked over her shoulder to follow his eyes.

Kaylee was standing at the buffet table with Simon, laughing. They were eating strawberries.

She looked back at him.

He was looking at her now. “You’ve been with someone since you walked in the door. Got sick a’ waitin’ my turn.”

He cleared his throat.

She smiled.

Then she took his hand.

***

If there was one thing that Jayne knew how to do, it was to kill a man. If there were two, it was to kill a man and to…

Well, the third was how to dance.

Not that refined kind of shuffle-shuffle dance that they taught you in finishin’ school or wherever the doc had gone. Jayne’s dancin’ was the grab an’ swing kind. The fun kind. The kind that brought River up against him real nice an’ made her skirt swing out when she went away again. The kind that made a body feel like they was either flyin’ or fallin’ or both, but it was great either way.

He was pretty certain that more’n a few eyes were on the two of ‘em. Mal an’ Zoe had seen him dance before, but they was the only ones.

An’ he knew he didn’ exactly look like a twinkle toes.

Didn’ seem to surprise River, though. She kept up with him real nice, smilin’ an’ laughin’. She had taken out the comb that was holdin’ her hair back. The way she’d been dancin’, it woulda come out anyway. Her hair was wild an’ real tousled lookin’ an’ every time she came against Jayne he could smell it. It smelled like the soap they all used—clean an’ kinda spicy. But there was something different in the way she smelled. Sweet an’ wild an’… River-y.

Jayne wanted to grab a handful of it. Her hair. He wanted to clear off a table and put her on it and kiss her real hard, ‘till neither one of ‘em could breathe, an’ he was swallowed up in that sweet smell an’ her sweet mouth.

River was the kinda girl he’d kiss on the mouth.

She turned to him real suddenly. Lost her footing.

Jayne reached out and caught her around the waist before she fell. He pulled her against him without thinkin’ about it.

Their faces were close. Close enough that he could feel her breath on his lips.

Jayne looked at her for a bit. Then he pulled his face back. “Don’t you go fallin’.”

She had a dazed kind of look on her face. She reached a hand up to touch his face. But she didn’t. Her fingers just kinda hung there, close enough that they made his nerves jump.

Her voice was so quiet, he could barely hear her over the noise of the room.

“I think it’s too late for that.”

***

River wished that she could have stopped Simon from remembering her and rushing over at just that moment. She wished she could have finished it. But Simon came. And Jayne saw him coming. He righted her and stepped back and she felt lonely without his big arm around her waist.

“I’m fine.”

She said it even before Simon had asked.

“Well that’s a wonder, with the way you’ve been thrown around.” He put a protective hand on her shoulder and looked down at her eyes.

She looked up at him and shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

He was quiet for a minute. Then he smiled. Strange how he smiled when he got sad.

“I suppose that’s true.”

He slipped his arm around her shoulders and steered her away from the dance floor, toward a table where Kaylee was sitting. “Still, I think you should take it easy for a bit. I don’t think you’ve sat down since we got here. It’s a wonder you didn’t fall sooner.”

River wasn’t sure that she hadn’t.

She turned toward the dance floor. Jayne was gone.

***

It was real dark, but Jayne found what he was lookin’ for without havin’ to really try. He’d found it for the first time while he was walkin’ from the ship into town. It was the only place that was open this time of night.

The sign above the door was decorated with swirly writing-- The Lotus Pond.

The girls standing outside the door winked at him as he stepped inside.

The air was smoky, heavy with tobacco and perfume and sex. Girls were lounging in the front room, all but piled on top of each other. Creamy white legs were tangled with silky dark legs. Skirts and lace were all heaped together. Hair was tousled. Eyes were half-closed.

It looked like he had just walked in on the afterglow of an all-female orgy. Which was the idea, of course.

The fact that it was planned didn’t make it any less trouser-tightenin’.

A girl came through the beaded curtain in the back of the room. She looked about 40. A bit too old for Jayne’s first pick, but he wouldn’t a said no if she’d crawled into his bed. Especially not the way he was feelin'.

“Mister Cobb.” She smiled.

“Good memory.”

She tilted her head downward, all polite-like. “I do like to let our visitors know how much we appreciate having them back.” Her pretty lips were still smilin’. “Would you like to take a look around?” She looked up at him through dark eyelashes, her face still tipped downward. “See if there’s anything you’d like?” She swayed over to a little table and turned her back to Jayne, trailing her long fingers across the cover of the book lying there. She opened it slowly, so that Jayne could see her shoulder blades slide under the bare skin on her back.

Jayne’s pants were getting’ awful uncomfortable.

He ambled over to her, letting his hand graze her backside as he looked over her shoulder at the book.

She moved aside.

Jayne watched her from under lowered eyelids, then looked down at the book. He began turning the pages slowly, looking over the pictures on each page.

He stopped at one, staring hard at it.

She had long, dark hair. Pale skin. Big eyes.

He trailed his fingers over the picture.

“She’s one of our newest girls. Young.” She fingered the edge of the photograph, her hand brushing Jayne’s. “A dancer.”

Jayne closed the book. Opened it again toward the back, well past that dark-haired girl.

“Her.” He pointed at the picture.

“Same as last time.” She brushed her shoulder across his chest as she reached across him to close the book. She smiled up at him. “I love a man who knows what he wants.”

***

River hadn’t seen him for the rest of the night. Or the next morning, when everyone woke up from sleeping off their drinks and they packed the mule back up and headed back to town. Or when they’d gotten back to the hotel and everyone slunk back into their rooms to keep sleeping their drinks off.

She’d finally agreed to go to lunch with Kaylee and Simon after having spent two hours on the front porch waiting.

“I ain’t gonna be able to fit in the engine room after that.” Kaylee rubbed her stomach as they walked, obviously feeling no regrets about the huge meal they had just indulged in. “’Fraid I ain’t gonna be too desirable, neither, if you keep lettin’ me eat like that.” She nudged Simon with her shoulder.

Simon slipped his arm around her shoulder. “Impossible. Eat all you want. There will just be more of you to love.”

River turned to look at Simon. Kaylee was doing the same. He didn’t seem to have noticed what he had just said. Or maybe he did. Kaylee’s thoughts were blaring out at her so loudly just now that River could hardly catch anything from Simon.

Yellow. Little pink hearts.

Kaylee blushed and giggled as Simon burrowed his face into her hair.

River smiled. Love.

She looked in the window of the shop they were walking past. It was garbage. Handcrafted garbage for tourists. She smiled at a purple glass octopus.

Simon suddenly put his arm around her shoulder, too, pulling her against him. He kissed the top of her head. River smiled at his affection. He had never kissed her before she had gone away.

“My two favorite girls and a beautiful day. The sun is shining, the birds are singing,”

River heard no birds.

“And I don’t have to do anything or be with anyone I don’t want to.” He was looking in the window now, too. So was Kaylee. River could see them all in the reflection on the glass.

A little family. River turned away from the window and looked down the street.

“Jayne.” It came out as a whisper.

“No Jayne. Isn’t it wonderful?” Simon sounded more than a little pleased.

River turned to look at him. He was still smiling drowsily into the window, his hand rubbing Kaylee’s arm lazily.

“No, Jayne.” River slipped from under Simon’s arm. She could feel him look after her. Feel him tense when he saw the big bulk of man come out of a building down the street.

River moved quickly down the street, her feet kicking up little clouds of dust as she walked.

Was she skipping? She couldn’t remember.

She was closer to him, now, but he hadn’t noticed her yet. He was talking to a woman who was smiling at him. River smiled to herself. She could surprise him. Stand on her tiptoes and cover his eyes.

She was closer. Then she stopped.

Jayne was leaning against the wall, trapping the woman between him and the wood. She could have gotten out. He only had one hand pressed against the wall, next to her ear. He bent down and whispered something to her.

No, he wasn’t whispering, he was kissing. River could see the marks on her neck. And on his. Jayne lifted his hand and put it where he shouldn’t have.

The woman laughed and turned her face toward River.

Her face.

Her face wasn’t her own. She had stolen it. River knew that reddish hair. She had seen those eyes that wanted to turn up in the corners. That mouth. It was always smiling now. At her brother.

It was Kaylee’s face. Kaylee’s face, and not.

An eerie half-made counterfeit.

The woman noticed River and pushed Jayne away. He grunted and looked where she nodded to.

River never saw if he knew it was her. And she never heard. Her heart was pounding too loudly, echoing in her ears as she ran away.