“I’ve never been more serious, and I’m getting impatient here.”
Dusty grinned, and pulled her head to his, bringing her lips against his, and crushing them under his kiss. It was like a damn had broken from within him and he didn’t have to hold back. He didn’t have to just kiss her and try not to think about how his heart was calling out to her. He could show her how he really felt from the moment he pulled that tee shirt off of her in the shower. Only it started way before that, he just didn’t know it because he thought she was a boy.
Dusty had turned her against the mattress, as he began showering kisses on her, in the same way, she had done to him. “It’ll hurt a little, Mattie. You know that, don’t you.”
“No,” she said honestly.
“But not for long. I will try to make it as easy as I can on you.”
“I trust you,” she told him.
“After that, it will never hurt again. Then it will only feel good.”
“I love that you are so honest with me,” Mattie laughed.
“And I you, Mattie. I love you. I loved you from the beginning, but I knew Matthew wanted you and you seemed to want Matthew as well.”
“But you never told me, Dusty. You never insisted I marry you. You never said I couldn’t love Matthew. Matthew had a jealous love, but you have a giving love and I was too stupid to see it.”
“You’re gonna break Matthew’s heart. You know that, Mattie.”
“You don’t care if I go to him and break your heart?”
“Of course I care. I don’t want it. But I do want what will make you happy. I don’t want you doing this or loving me, just because I offered to help you and gave you a pup and a place to stay. If it is really Matthew you love, then you had better go to him right now because if I start really letting myself love you, Mattie, I won’t know how to stop.”
“I don’t ever want you to stop, Dusty.”
“Then, darlin’, its going to take all night to show you how much I love you, and then the rest of my life, to continue to show you.”
“Are you asking me to marry you, Dusty?” she asked.
“In so many words, Mattie. In so many words. In fact, if you marry me, I don’t think anyone can say anything about you being under-age if we got your father’s consent.”
“He’d give it or I would threaten to turn him in for trying to have sex with me,” she told him.
“Ok, then. I’m not going to take away your virginity tonight. Tomorrow, we are driving over to where you live, get your daddy’s permission for you to marry me, in writing, and then if anyone even cocks an eyebrow, they won’t be able to do a thing about it.”
“If you’re not going to do it with me and go all the way, I’ll settle for everything but…” Mattie told him.
“I’m all yours darlin’,” he said as he pulled her to him. “You are calling all the shots tonight.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Mattie! Where in the hell have you been, girl? I’ve been worried sick about you!”
“I went to Montana, Daddy. This here is Dusty. He’s a friend of mine.”
“So what were you doing in Montana?” her daddy questioned, looking worriedly between the two.
“I was wrangling horses, daddy.”
“Why’d you leave like that without saying anything to me? The school called and wanted to know why you weren’t in school. I told them you were visiting a sick aunt. I was going to call the police next if you didn’t come back.”
“You don’t remember anything, do you daddy?” she asked.
“Remember what, Mattie? I came home, went to bed and when I woke up the next morning you were gone. Just left a little note saying not to worry. What was that all about, Mattie?”
Dusty watched as the two talked. They were still standing on the front porch and from the looks of the yard littered with empty bottles and beer cans, he would hate to see what the inside of the house looked like, he thought.
“Daddy, you never remembered all those times you hurt mama, neither cause you were so drunk, it was wiped from your memory, or you just chose to forget it.”
“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he gasped.
“No, but what you did do, was worse than hurting me, daddy. You were trying to have sex with me.”
“Mattie! How can you say that? I would never touch you like that. Never!”
“Well, never happened that night, Daddy, and so I took off.”
“You can’t be serious, Mattie. I would never hurt you. You know that.”
“Yeah, that’s what you told me while you were groping me, and sticking your mouth all over me. I wasn’t drunk, daddy, you were. That’s why I remember everything that happened, and you don’t.”
“Why are you making this up, Mattie? I love you girl, you must know that.”
“Well, the way you were showing it to me, wasn’t quite proper, daddy.”
“If I did anything wrong, I’m sorry, Mattie. It will never happen again. You need to finish school. You only have a couple of months until you graduate.”
“I don’t want to graduate, Daddy. I never liked school. I know horses and I am going to be partners here with Dusty in a horse ranch in Montana. Dusty wants to marry me, Daddy, but we need your permission first. Or we will just have to wait until I am eighteen.”
“You can’t wait that long?”
“Well, we could wait, but I am staying at Dusty’s ranch, and it would be better if we had a note of permission from you. I don’t want Dusty getting in trouble because I am under-age and all. Seeing as how you tried your hand at me, I figured you would be willing to give your permission.”
“Mattie, whatever I did, I didn’t do it on purpose, or knowingly. You can’t hold it against me like that.”
“I’m not holding it against you, daddy. I am just telling you that I need a note of permission to be with Dusty until we get married. Even if you hadn’t done anything, I would want that note.”
“You can’t leave, Mattie. I need you here.”
“I don’t want to be here, daddy,” she said forcefully.
“You don’t understand. I’m dying, Mattie. My liver is giving out.”
“You brought it on yourself by drinking so much,” she told him bitterly.
“But you can’t leave me on my own. There is no one to take care of me. I won’t last much longer. When I am gone, everything will be yours. You can get the ranch back up if you want. You don’t have to go with Dusty to have a ranch. I have a big life insurance policy and it is all your’s when I die. It will be enough to get the ranch going again.”
“I don’t want your life insurance policy, daddy,” Mattie said with a stony face, trying to hold back her tears. “Besides I love Dusty. I want to be with him.”
“You can go with him once I am dead. Sell the ranch, and take the life insurance policy, then you can put it towards the ranch you say you are going in partners with.”
“You’re making me choose, daddy. You’re making me choose between you and the man I love.”
“You haven’t known him long enough to know if you love him, Mattie. You’ve only been gone for two weeks.”
“I know how I feel, Daddy,” Mattie insisted.
“You just going to leave me to die on my own then? Once I am gone you can spend the rest of your life with Dusty if you want. And by then, you will know for sure if it is love or just infatuation.”
Mattie looked from Dusty to her daddy.
“Maybe he’s right, Mattie,” Dusty whispered. “If you stay here, at least you will have a roof over your head. You can finish school. I won’t worry about you too much and I will come see you when I can. If you let him die on his own, it will haunt you, Mattie. No matter what he did, it will still haunt you.”
“I will only stay if you stop drinking, daddy, cause if you try and touch me, I’m just going to take off again.”
“I promise, Mattie,” he said.
“What about Apache, and my pup?” Mattie asked Dusty.
>
“I’ll bring them here. I’ll load up Apache, and bring the pup too. Next weekend. I’ll give you my cell phone number so we can keep in touch. It’s the right thing to do, Mattie, and by the time we can be together again, you won’t be a minor any longer. Then we won’t need any note from your daddy.”
He turned towards her daddy.
“How long does the doctor give you?” he asked.
“Not long. Not more than six months, he said.”
“That’s too long to be away from you,” Mattie told Dusty.
“Oh, you’d be surprised how fast six months can go by. When you stop to think about it, it is a short time when you are told that is all the time you got to live.”
“Can’t you afford to give me six months of your time, Mattie?”
Her father looked pleading at Mattie’s face.
“You know I love you, daddy. I don’t want you to die on your own. It’s just that…” she didn’t finish.
“Don’t worry, Mattie, our plans can wait for a while,” Dusty put in, patting her shoulder.
He hated to let her go, now that she had convinced him that she loved him. What if in six months she changed her mind? However, it would be cruel to ignore her father when he was about to die.
“All right then, daddy. You can have your way. You better be telling me the truth though, cause if you are lying to me, I will leave you flat, and even when you do die, I won’t bother coming to your funeral.”
“Thanks, Mattie. I knew I could count on you,” he said, giving her a hug.
Mattie’s father went back into the house and Mattie followed Dusty to his truck.
“I don’t want to stay here,” Mattie said, a tear rolling down her cheek. “He could be lying. I could never trust him. He lied when he sold my horse that was Apache’s foal. Said he was just taking her to the vet to get checked up and then he sold her so he could buy more beer. I don’t trust him, Dusty.”
“Then talk to the doctor and find out,” Dusty suggested. “If he is lying, I’ll come and get you.”
“Okay. I’ll do that. Take good care of Apache and that pup for me.”
“You haven’t even named that pup,” Dusty realized.
“Call him Hope. You were giving me hope when you gave me that pup and I will just have to hang onto that hope, I guess.”
“I love you, Mattie. Don’t forget that,” Dusty said, bending his head down to hers and capturing her lips with his.
“I love you too, Dusty. Tell the boys hi for me, will you?”
“What about Matthew? What do you want me to tell him?”
“That I went back to my daddy, cause he’s dying.”
“Should I tell him about us?”
“Maybe we should wait to see what happens first. Maybe by the time we can get married, he will have gotten over me by then.”
“You could be right. I just won’t say anything. I’ll tell him I gave you a ride home and will take your horse to you next weekend.”
“See you next weekend then,” she said and hugged his neck.
Dusty took a piece of paper off of the dash of the truck and scribbled on it with a pen.
“Here’s my number,” he said, putting the slip of paper in her hand. “I’ll miss you, Mattie. I think everyone will.”
“I’ll miss them all too, and especially you, Dusty. You taught me what real love is and I’m counting on you to come back and get me as soon as this is all over.”
“I will darlin’. I will.”
Then he was climbing up in his truck driving away, as Mattie stood in the middle of the road that led away from their small ranch, with tears streaking her face. She stood, clutching the slip of paper in her hand as she watched the brake lights come on, just before he turned off on the main road and disappeared out of sight.
Mattie spent three days cleaning up the house and then the yard, throwing out all the empty liquor bottles and beer cans. She hunted down all his bottles that he kept hidden, knowing all the places he liked to hide his poison and threw them out as well. Then she called the school and told them that her daddy was dying and she couldn’t finish out the year because she had to take care of him. Next, she made an appointment with the family doctor, to see just how serious her daddy really was.
Mattie sat patiently in the reception room of the doctor’s office, reading magazines until she was finally told she could go in.
“What brings you here, Mattie?” Dr. Bell, asked, “Do you need a checkup for school sports or something?”
“No, I came to see about my daddy,” she told him.
“What about your daddy?” he asked, as he looked over at her on the other side of his desk.
“Well, he told me he was dying of liver disease and said he was given six months to live. I just wanted to find out how serious it really was.”
“I haven’t seen your daddy in my office for several months. The last time I saw him, his liver was weak and I told him he needed to stop drinking, but I never said he was going to die in six months.”
“I don’t suppose he’s been seeing any other doctor, has he?”
“If he has, they would be sending to me for his files and I never had a request for his files.”
“I see. So how weak is his liver?” she asked. “I mean, if he didn’t stop drinking, how long would you give him?”
“More than six months, I think. A few years at least. Just depends on how much drinking he does.”
“Thanks for your time Dr. Bell. Do I owe you any money for this?”
“No. You just wanted to talk to me about your daddy’s health, I can’t charge you for that.
Mattie left the clinic feeling stunned. She knew her daddy had been lying to keep her there. She hadn’t talked to Dusty since he left. When she called him, he hadn’t picked up. After leaving him several messages, which he did not return, she figured something must have happened to his cell phone, and she had not thought to give him her own phone number until she left him messages to return her calls. She tried his number again but was told that his message box was full. He must have lost his cell phone, she thought and hadn’t got a new one yet.
He was supposed to come back with her horse and dog, so maybe, if he couldn’t find his phone, he was just going to come out, like he promised. However, when he did not show up that weekend, Mattie started to worry. Finally, out of desperation, she decided to look up the number of Double D Ranch and see if Dusty was around anyplace close by, so she could talk to him.
“Hello, Double D Ranch.”
It was Daniel answering the phone.
“Hi, Daniel, this is Mattie.”
“Mattie! How are you? You getting by okay?”
“Yeah. Did Dusty tell you I was back at my daddy’s place?”
There was a long silence.
“That’s why he was in Idaho,” Daniel said at last.
“Yeah, he took me back and was going to bring my horse out this weekend. Only I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since he left me here. He never showed up, so I thought I would call you to see if he is anywhere close by, so I can talk to him. I don’t think he has my phone number, or I’m sure he would have called me by now.”
“Mattie, I’m sorry, but Dusty was in an automobile accident. It happened in Idaho. We couldn’t figure out what he was doing there.”
“Is he all right? Is he in the hospital or something?”
Mattie caught her breath and started shaking.
“No, Mattie…he was killed. It was a drunk driver that hit him head-on.”
“No!” Mattie screamed. “No, it’s not true! Tell me it’s not true, Daniel.”
“The funeral is tomorrow, Mattie, if you want to come.”
“Has anyone been to his place? My horse is there and a pup, that we left there.”
“I don’t think so, I’ll send someone out there right away. We will bring the horse and pup to the Double D. Are you going to come out here, Mattie? You want me to send someone to pick you up?”
&
nbsp; Mattie was crying and she could barely talk.
“He can’t be dead,” she kept saying.
“I’ll send Matthew out to get you. What’s your address?”
She could barely get the numbers out.
“What time will he be here?” she asked.
“I’ll send him right now. He should get there by this evening. I’m sorry to have to tell you about Dusty. I know how much you liked Dusty. We all will miss him.”
Mattie hung up the phone.
“Damn you daddy!” she screamed.
“You calling me?” her father asked as he came through the door.
“You son of a bitch! You aren’t going to die anytime soon! I talked to the doctor, you no good drunk! But Dusty, the man I loved, was killed on his way home from here. I’ll never spend the rest of my life with him the way you said, daddy, and you kept me from him!”
“You could have died with him,” he told her.
“I don’t care! I would have rather died with him than have to stay here with a lying, sex offender. Matthew is coming to pick me up tonight so I can go to the funeral tomorrow. This is the last you are going to see of my hide, daddy. You hear? I’m never coming back again! I bet you don’t even have a life insurance policy! You never had enough money to pay for one!”
“The ranch will be your’s when I’m gone, though,” her father attempted to say.
“I don’t want your damn ranch! There is nothing but bad memories connected to it!”
Mattie stormed out and went into her bedroom, and packed a suitcase of everything that meant anything to her, along with the clothes she would need. Her dreams of owning an Appaloosa ranch with Dusty had been dashed. Only she knew the pain she felt, had nothing to do with the ranch. It had everything to do with Dusty. She would never get to show him how much she loved him, she sobbed.
Mattie was waiting on her front porch when Matthew drove up. He got out and took her suitcase, putting it in the back of the truck and then opened the door for her to get in. He didn’t say anything to her. He barely looked at her. She sat staring straight ahead.
Mattie Page 13
