Mattie

by Jeanie P Johnson

  “How much more?” she asked.

  “Depends on what you gave Dusty,” he told her, and pressed his tongue against her lips, as he slowly licked across them. “You keep telling me all you did was kiss.”

  “I’m still a virgin. He told you that. Don’t you believe him?” she asked.

  “You saving that for me then?” he asked as he moved his mouth against her ear, and started to explore it with his tongue.

  “You keep that up and I might not wait until I’m eighteen,” she gasped.

  “I’d make you wait,” he said, “Not that I would enjoy waiting that long, I just don’t want Dusty to be your first.”

  “Don’t you think he can do it good enough?” she asked as his mouth wandered down her neck.

  “No,” he said flatly. “And even if he could, I wouldn’t let him.”

  “Is that stall over there still empty?” Mattie asked, nodding her head towards the stall he had taken her to the last time they were in the barn.

  “Yep,” he smiled.

  “You want to try that kissing test again?” she asked.

  “I was thinking about it.”

  “You’re not going to stop me if I feel like touching you, are you?”

  “I suspect you have touched Dusty a few times,” Matthew said, “The thought of it irks me though, you touching Dusty, I mean.”

  Mattie started laughing.

  “Funny, Dusty is more like you than you think. He wouldn‘t let me touch him either, and I couldn’t talk him into touching me,” she said, letting her hand stray down over him.

  “That makes me feel better,” he told her, “but I want you to know before anything happens. This is not fun and games, like with Dusty. I got deep feelings for you, Mattie. I want it to mean something.”

  “I’m not committing to you, Matthew. Not till I know for sure you are what I want.”

  “I already know for sure you are what I want,” Matthew insisted.

  “Well, Dusty wants me too, but that doesn’t mean I’m gonna just give into him either.”

  “Are Dusty and I gonna have to duke it out for you?”

  “You might call this duking it out for me,” she smiled.

  “You just want to compare us, is that it?”

  “No, I want to see how I feel when I am with you compared to him. I want to test your theory that when you have deep feelings for someone, it feels different. If it feels different with you, maybe I’d know.”

  “So this is sort of a test? Kinda like that test you yelled at me for?”

  “I yelled at you because you stopped. You wouldn’t let it flow. You wouldn’t let me find out how I felt when you touched me. You wouldn’t let me find out how I felt when I touch you. I know how I feel when Dusty kisses me, or I kiss him, so if you want me to…”

  Matthew straightened up and stood there for a moment looking sadly down at her.

  “You know, Mattie, I just realized something. I don’t want to be pitted against Dusty or compared with him. You want Dusty? That’s your choice. I just want you to know, if we ever do anything together, it is going to be from the heart. Not some test to see the difference in how you feel when you do it with me or with Dusty. You gotta feel it before we ever do it, Mattie, and then do it because you feel it.”

  He dropped his hands from her shoulders.

  “I guess this test is pretty much over. I don’t want to be just some other hands that touch you, so you can chalk up and tally the difference.”

  He took one long look at her and then walked out of the barn.

  Mattie stared after him. She could feel the tears starting to well up. He sure knew how to stomp on her heart, she thought. Only maybe she had done too much stomping on his heart, she chided herself. She probably deserved it, which made her feel even worse. She should just stick to loving horses, she told herself, and went into the stall, closed the door and curled up into a ball, letting the tears flow.

  “Hey, Sugar, now what?” Dusty said as he stood looking down at her. He knelt down beside her and took her into his arms.

  “Leave me alone, Dusty,” Mattie sobbed, as she pushed him away from her.

  “What did he do, Mattie? What did he say?”

  “Nothing that should concern you,” she said, jumping to her feet.

  “What are you going to do, Mattie?”

  “Whatever it is, it’s not going to include the Double D Ranch,” she hissed.

  “Now hold on, Mattie, don’t make any quick decisions you are going to regret.”

  “I’ve already made plenty of decisions I regret, so what difference would a few more make?” she flung at him as she stormed out of the stall, then through the barn door.

  “Damn it, Mattie…”

  Dusty was on her tail as he followed her into the bunkhouse. He found her cramming things into her backpack. She took the skirt and blouse off and tossed them on the bed.

  “Do me a favor, Dusty, and give those things back to Daniel for me,” she threw over her shoulder as she pulled on her jeans, and a tee shirt and denim jacket.

  “Don’t do this, Mattie. I’ll talk to Matthew.”

  “Won’t change anything.”

  She jerked open the door and whistled for Apache, then headed to the tack room for her saddle.

  Dusty left her saddling her horse and headed for the house.

  “Matthew, get your ass out here,” he called.

  Matthew came to the door.

  “What’s the matter?” he asked as he came out on the front porch.

  “Get down here right now!” Dusty demanded.

  “For what?” Matthew said as he came down into the yard.

  He had never seen Dusty as angry as he was at that moment.

  “I may get canned for this,” Dusty said, and then he hauled off and slugged Matthew. “I don’t know what you said to Mattie,” Dusty said before Matthew had a chance to swing back, “but you just lost yourself the best little horse wrangler, this side of paradise.

  He jerked his head over to where Mattie had saddled up Apache and was mounting up.

  “You sure know how to hurt that girl. I told you that you would spook her off, so congratulations!”

  “Mattie!” Matthew yelled, but Mattie was galloping past him.

  “Nice knowing you boys,” she called. “I’ll miss you Dusty.”

  Then she was heading for the gate. Matthew jumped in his truck and tore after her, getting to the gate before she could open it.

  “Where you going, Mattie?” he asked as he barred her path.

  “Somewhere where you’re not,” she hissed.

  “Mattie, don’t do this on account of me,” he begged.

  “You know, now that I think of it, I made a mess of trying to pass myself off as a boy and even a worse one of pretending I was a girl. My daddy sure screwed me up, raising me like a boy, and then not clueing me in on what being a girl was all about. Other than that sex lesson he tried to teach me, I doubt I even knew I was a girl. Thanks, Matthew, for setting me straight and making me understand what I knew all along.”

  “What Mattie? What are you talking about?”

  “Horses are the only things worth loving in this world. They don’t go around stomping on your heart the way men do. If a horse is going to stomp on you, he sort of gives you a warning, and you know he’s out to kill you, but a stomped heart seems to come unexpected and makes you die slowly. Now, are you going to let me through this gate, or am I going to have to make Apache jump it?”

  “I haven’t paid you yet, Mattie. Don’t go off halfcocked with no money in your pockets. Here…”

  He reached into his pocket and brought out a wad of bills.

  “At least let me pay you.”

  Mattie reached down and took the money from his hands. As their fingers touched, he held onto her fingers for a moment before she pulled them free. She looked at the bills in her hand. “This is too much,” she said.

  “You’re worth three times that amount,” Matthew ins
isted, “so don’t you dare balk at it, Mattie.”

  Mattie frowned and then stuffed the bills in her pocket.

  “Thanks,” is all she said.

  “Mattie please don’t do this.”

  “You’re through telling me what I should do or not do, Matthew. Hell, I can’t even love you without you trying to give me permission to! And then telling me how I’m supposed to go about it. Good thing I didn’t agree to marry you cause we would just be scratching each other’s eyes out! Open the gate, Matthew and let me out of here, or I swear…”

  Matthew slowly unlatched the gate.

  “I don’t want you to leave, Mattie. I love you.”

  “You just loved yourself the wrong girl, Matthew. You’ll get over it. I know I will.”

  She gave Apache a nudge with her heels, guided him through the gate, and then spurred him into a gallop. She couldn’t get away fast enough or far enough, she thought, as she felt Apache rise and fall under her, eating up the road before him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dusty came up alongside Matthew, as they watched Mattie riding away. “Guess you really blew it,” Dusty said. “You know that girl is so much in love with you, she doesn’t know what to do with herself. Why do you think she was throwing herself at me, Matthew?”

  “I suppose you are going to clue me in?”

  “She’s so damn scared of not being enough of a woman for you. I think she was using me, so she would know how to please a man when the right man came along. I think she had you in mind, Matthew, but you are so blind. I think this is the shortest lived romance in history!”

  “I don’t think you know what you are talking about, Dusty. How can her playing around with you, prove she loves me?”

  “Cause she wasn’t making love to me, Matthew. She was learning the difference between a man and a woman. It was like we were kissing cousins or something. It wasn’t anything more than curiosity on her part.”

  “If she loves me so much, then why is she taking off? I told her I loved her, for Christ’s sake, and that didn’t even faze her. She told me I was loving the wrong woman.”

  “I don’t know what you said to her in the barn, Matthew, but whatever it was, it made her give up hope. She didn’t want you lecturing her or telling her that she was going to marry you. You just let your damn pride get in the way cause she wouldn’t play the game your way. Maybe you should have played it her way, Matthew. You should have embraced who she was, let her have her way with you a little, stop trying to make her act like the kind of woman that bores us all. She’s not like other girls, and that is what attracts us all to her, Matthew. Her daddy kept her corralled at a horse ranch. She never had friends or a social life. She doesn’t even know how to behave around men because she has been treated like a boy all her life, until her daddy suddenly discovered she was a girl and wanted to use her. So what did you expect, Matthew?”

  “I don’t know, Dusty. I sure as hell, just don’t know. Only I wasn’t going to let her try and compare me with you. You talk about loving her for who she is, however, the shoe fits both ways. If she really loved me, she wouldn’t have to compare my kisses with your kisses, and then demand more so she could make up her mind!”

  He turned and got in his truck, turned it around and drove it back to the house. His world was falling apart because of a curly-headed imp of a girl that he knew, despite her claims that he should, he just would never get over. He just didn’t know what he was going to do about it at the moment, though?

  When Daniel saw Matthew getting out of his truck he knew something was wrong, the moment he saw the look in his son’s eyes.

  “I take it Mattie did something to get you in this mood?” he guessed.

  “She left, Dad and it’s my fault. I just don’t know how to handle that girl. She drives me crazy and then I end up saying something to her to piss her off.”

  “Guess we just lost the best horse wrangler we ever had here,” Daniel said. “Wonder where she plans to go?”

  “Beats me. I’m through trying to figure her out. Dusty knows her better than I do.”

  “Give her time to grow up a little bit. If she sticks around here any place, she will be easy to track down. That horse of hers alone is something people won’t forget and you know she will have to try and get work at a ranch. How is she going to take care of that horse unless she has a place to keep it and food to feed it? I’ll contact all the ranchers in this area in case she shows up at their place. Doesn’t matter if she pretends to be a boy again or tries her hand at getting a job as a girl. The horse will be what to watch out for.”

  “I just hate to think of her trying to make it on her own,” Matthew said.

  “She made it on her own here, didn’t she? Hell, she could probably put on a one-man horse show and make money doing that if she wanted to.”

  “Yeah, she should run away and join the circus,” Matthew said sarcastically.

  “Dusty could track her down for us. She likes the boy.”

  “Dusty probably deserves her more than I do. He really seems to understand her.”

  “You don’t have to understand someone in order to love them, but it sure helps to get along with them,” Daniel grinned. “Come on in the house, son. No use pouting about it. We should just start calling ranchers and ask them to keep an eye out for her and let us know if they see her.”

  “I guess that is the best thing to do for now,” Matthew said, following his father into the house.

  Dusty headed for his truck. He figured Mattie hadn’t gotten too far down the road and he could catch up with her pretty quick. Matthew had gone into his house with his father and it was a sure thing, he wasn’t going to chase Mattie down. No matter how good looking Matthew was, he just didn’t know enough about women to make a dent in anything, Dusty realized about his boss.

  It was going to take time with Mattie and she had a couple of months to go before she was actually free to be her own person. However, if he could help it, he wasn’t going to let her get too far away. He saw her up ahead. She was riding slowly now, so it didn’t take much time to come up alongside her.

  “Hey Mattie,” he called out of his window, “can we talk? I got a proposition for you.”

  “Guess I can’t stop you from talking,” she said in a low voice.

  Dusty pulled the truck over and climbed out. His sandy hair blew across his forehead and he impatiently pushed it out of his face and tucked it under his hat.

  “Come on down, Mattie,” he insisted.

  Mattie looked at him. He could see she had been crying, but he said nothing. Finally, she swung down from Apache’s back.

  “Look, Mattie. I don’t want you getting hurt any more than I can help it, and I know I can’t do much, but you don’t have any place to go. If you start working on some other ranch you are going to have every yahoo in the country panting after your ass. I know you can keep them in line, but that takes a lot of energy, Mattie. And besides that, you are under-age. So I got this idea…”

  “What Idea?” Mattie wanted to know.

  “Well, remember when I was telling you about wanting to get my dad’s old place back up and running again?”

  “Yeah, you said it was going to take several years.”

  “That’s right, but I was just thinking, I know this little Appaloosa mare that is for sale. I think I have enough saved up to get her and still have enough to keep her in feed during the winter when there isn’t enough pasture to keep her going. And you have that big stud there. I got a house I don’t have time to take care of properly, so I was thinking, we could go in as partners. You could breed your stud with my mare and keep them both at my place. You stay there and take care of things for me, and as I can afford it, I’ll add a horse here and there and we can build it up slowly. I know where I can get some mustangs cheep that you can train and then we can sell them and triple our money. Once we build up more stock, we could start an Appaloosa ranch. There ain’t any in this neck of the woods yet. So what do you s
ay, Mattie?”

  Mattie stood staring at him. “You know, Dusty, sometimes I think I love you!” she said, throwing her arms around his neck. “But I will only do it on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “That you don’t tell Matthew. I don’t want him knowing where I am. If the other boys want to come out to your place to see me, that is okay, but you have to make them promise not to tell Matthew.”

  “Mattie, you know Matthew loves you, and from where I am standing, I know you love him too. So what is all this cat and mouse game you are playing?”

  “He doesn’t trust me, Dusty. He thinks I’m trying to compare him with you, and then pick the better man. I just want to find out how I feel when I am with him. I know how I feel when I am not with him. Downright miserable. But just touching someone naked does not make a person feel love for anyone. It’s why you are touching them naked that counts. I made the mistake of telling Matthew I wanted to find out if kissing someone you have deep feelings for, really is different from kissing someone you just like, and he thought I wanted to compare the two of you.”

  “Well, you are teasing the hell out of him, Mattie. He’s going crazy loving you and you go off and sleep with me naked. He doesn’t think you are serious about him.”

  “You know it is funny about how men think they have to be all sexually experienced, and then find them some little no account girl that’s never even seen a dick, let alone touched one. It’s like they have to be all experienced to show the stupid virgin all the wonders of what they can do to her body. I read all those romance novels where the sweet virgin is swept off her feet because, the experienced man, who has slept around most of his life, knows what he’s doing when he touches her. Well, that is just plumb unfair. If a man can go around getting all the experience he wants until he finds that little virgin, why can’t a woman do the same thing? It is a double standard, and while Matthew admits he’s had a few women under his belt, if he knows I’m doing the same thing, it just infuriates him. He claims those women don’t mean anything to him, but then accuses me of comparing him with who else I have been with. Seeing as how it has just been you, Dusty, I don’t have too much to compare him with. But heck, he is comparing me to all the women he has ever known. He claims I am not like any of them, and that is why he likes me better. Well, it can work the other way around as well,” Mattie insisted.