Unending thanks and appreciation to my betas, Glow and DK, for guidance and cheerleading. And to Ladybrit for her invaluable medical advice. I could not have written all those exciting, bloody scenes without her!

People like us,
We don't need that much
Just someone that starts,
Starts the spark in our bonfire hearts...

James Blunt

Growing Old With Kitty 2

by Lilyjack

Chapter 1

"Wedding News"

"You young ruffians! Do you think I'm a' payin' you boys to run around wrasslin' and churnin' up the dust?"

"Mr. Blessing?" Kitty tentatively called as she approached the porch, trying to draw his attention away from his rambunctious ranch hands who were whooping and hollering, spurs jangling, making boyish mischief in the empty corral across from the house.

He waved his arms at them when they finally looked up slack-jawed, mid-wrassle, caught red-handed. "Get back t' work before I fire ever last one of ya'!"

"Yessir..."

"Yes, Boss..."

"On our way, Mr. Blessing!"

"S-s-sorry, sir..."

Frank McWharter, Lionel Byrd, Cletus Hoke and Henry Small answered hurriedly, dusting themselves off with a surreptitious, playful kick at an undefended backside or two. Guffaws and chuckles filled the air as the four obediently loped off for the barn, retrieving lost hats, straightening bandanas, waving to Kitty over their shoulders.

Leland Blessing shook his grizzled head, but Kitty noticed the corners of his mouth were mutinously twitching. He groused, "Where's my new foreman? Shouldn't Matthew be the one crackin' the whip around here? I ain't seen him all afternoon as a matter of fact..."

She touched him lightly on his work-worn, blue-plaid cotton sleeve, memories of the scene by the creek when Matt Dillon poured out his heart to her and asked Kitty Russell to be his wife flooding over her. "Mr. Blessing, I've got somethin' to tell you."

"Oh, you do, do ya'?" From the porch, Blessing peered at her over his spectacles, marking his place in the thick book he'd been reading when he'd heard the boys making a ruckus out in the yard. "Well, come on in and tell me all about it, child." He held open the ranch house door and ushered her into the cool, quiet front room filled with shelves and shelves of books, two comfortable chairs facing the empty fireplace. He gestured for her to sit in the smaller, more feminine chair Kitty had always assumed to be his late wife's. Dropping heavily with a deep groan into his studded leather chair, he placed the well-worn leather-bound volume on a small side table next to the coal oil-burning lamp. Bracing his hands on his thighs, he looked at her expectantly with a mysterious little twinkle in his gray eyes. "Well, what ya' got to tell me?" he urged. The corners of his mouth were twitching again, and his face held a knowing look.

Suddenly feeling a bit shy at sharing her news, she busied herself smoothing her skirt in her lap. "Mr. Blessing, something tells me you already know what I'm about to tell you."

"Now, I just may have an inkling since Matthew came to me the other day, worried about whether he'd be able to support his best girl if he happened to marry her." A smile danced around the rancher's crinkled eyes. "I just don't know for certain how you may have answered my young foreman though." He leaned back and crossed his arms, waiting in happy bemusement for her reply.

She scooted forward in her chair, clasping her hands in her lap. "Oh, Mr. Blessing, I said 'yes!' You know I did!"

"Well, I figgered you would. But he was shore worried 'bout you tellin' him 'no.'"

"Why, I could never say no to Matt Dillon. I realize I've only been here a short time, Mr. Blessing, but..." Her voice trailed off when her eyes focused on the books stacked on shelves behind Blessing's chair, while her mind was somewhere back in Dodge City. "...but I've loved him for a very long time."

"Is that a fact? You're an old soul, I do believe, Kitty Russell. I think we probably have that in common." He gave her a conspiratorial smile. "You may not have known that young man for very long, but I think you know what's best. And once you find a love like that..."

Suddenly Leland Blessing's voice broke and he was forced to look down at his careworn, calloused hands, and Kitty knew he was thinking of his own Juliet, lost so many years ago but the wound still remained fresh in his heart. Leaning across, she clutched his fingers and he patted her hand, then finished in a strained voice, shaking his head, "Once you find a love like that, you gotta hang on and never let go, young lady. Never let go."

"Yes, Mr. Blessing." Patiently, she waited for him to regain his composure, and her heart ached for this gentle man with the gruff exterior who had missed out on having a family because of a terrible tragedy long ago. She murmured in a low voice, full of emotion, "I realize this chance I'm getting is once in a lifetime, and I've got to grab hold of it with both hands."

Leland Blessing cleared his throat noisily and added in a vibrant voice, trying to cheer the mood, "I do know that Matthew thinks you hang the moon, young lady. Why, I don't think that boy's gone on a bender in months. He ain't had no reason to since he's had you around. You've been good for him. I think he's wanting that family he lost when he was young. I believe you can give it to him."

Kitty blushed a little at the implication and smiled, placing her hands back in her lap. "Why, Mr. Blessing..." she said in a slightly scandalized tone.

"Aw, you two're young and healthy. You have your whole lives ahead of you! There's nothin' you could do that would make me happier than to settle down here on this ranch and have a passel o' young'uns."

Kitty couldn't help but beam at him. She was young. And she was healthy. And here was her chance to have a family with Matt Dillon, just like she'd always longed for. The life and the family that Marshal Dillon's badge had always gotten in the way of. "I'll do my best, sir." And then she laughed aloud.

"Speaking of a family, you two are welcome to stay in that little cabin for as long as you want, you hear me? There no use in..."

Kitty ceased any further discussion by throwing her arms around Leland Blessing's sunburnt neck and squeezing him for all she was worth. The old rancher was beginning to feel like the father she'd never really had.

"Whoa there, young lady!" he protested loudly, but he wrapped his beefy arms around her and patted her back gingerly at first. Then he surrendered, hugging her right back just as tightly, and it felt good and right. Kitty Russell sure did feel like the daughter he'd never known.

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Kitty emerged from the cool interior of the ranch house into the blazing heat of the afternoon, squinting into the sun. She heard her name being called from across the way. Shading her eyes, she saw Matt Dillon leaning lazily in the door of the barn, booted foot propped behind him, hat tipped forward and a stalk of hay hanging out of his mouth. She waved happily at him and then he beckoned to her silently with an arm, slowly straightening and putting his hands in his pockets as he watched her duck between the roughhewn boards of the gate to cut through the dusty corral. She could barely contain her grin as she approached him. "I told him, Matt."

Again, he beckoned wordlessly, this time with a sideways bob of his head on his sun-browned neck, and he walked backwards into the barn, pulling her gently by her fingertips. He backed into an empty horse stall filled with fresh hay piled high, carefully leaning the pitchfork he'd been using against the side of the stall. He pushed his hat back on his forehead with an index finger and then placed his hands on her shoulders. "So what'd he say, pretty little miss?"

The way he was looking at her made her mouth go dry. Those clear blue eyes of his were twinkling, raking over her face and figure languidly. She swallowed hard. "He was very happy for us, Matt."

He reached down and laced his warm fingers though hers. "Yeah? And what else did he say?" He pulled her a little closer to him until they were standing nearly toe to toe and she had to lean her head back to look into his searching eyes.

She swallowed again, hard. "He said..." She tucked a few stray red curls nervously behind her ear. "He said he'd like nothing better than for us to settle down on this ranch..."

"Uh-huh?" He touched one of those stray curls, rubbing the silky strands between his fingertips.

"...and have a passel of young'uns."

"Young'uns? He said that to you?" He chuckled softly and stroked the back of his fingers over one tender, rapidly flushing cheek.

"Yep. And he said we can live in the little cabin, too, Matt."

"He did, did he? You surely are a persuasive girl." He slowly slid a hand around to the small of her back, insistently rubbing that spot until her belly burned low and slow. He murmured, "So you and me are going to make babies in the old cabin, are we?"

He grinned mischievously when her face flushed even more. "Oh, Matt. "

"I like that idea, honey." He leaned down and kissed her temple, his late afternoon whiskers brushing roughly against her cheek. Then he whispered ardently in her ear, "I can't wait to be married to you, Kitty Russell." His words and underlying meaning deliciously raised gooseflesh on her arms and brought a secret smile to her lips.

She slid her hands up across his chest, over his broad shoulders and then finally around his neck, tilting her head back with her lips parted. Her sultry, heavy-lidded eyes beckoned to him. "I can't wait, either, Matt. I can't wait too awful much longer."

He dipped his head low and suckled her bottom lip gently, languorously, long and sweet while her eyes fluttered closed in sheer delight. Where had he learned to kiss like that? It made her whole body thrum.

He backed her up against the wall of the stall, threading his fingers through her hair as his voice rumbled low in his throat, "Let's get married as soon as we can. That okay with you?" She could feel his words pulsing in her chest, she was pressed so closely to him.

She sighed, "Oh, you bet it is, Cowboy..." She gave herself over to his kiss again, making soft sounds of pleasure that made his toes curl inside his dusty boots. Their arms wrapped urgently round one another, their kiss deepening as they sank slowly to the sweet, earthy-smelling hay at their feet. Their lips slid hotly together, their breathless murmurs mingling.

Kitty felt Matt's big hand sliding warmly down her side, over her hip to her thigh.

He whispered against her lips, "So soft... So sweet, Kitty..."

In response, she arched her back, pressing her aching body closer to his. "Matt..." she urged.

And two voices suddenly sounded from the corral. Cletus and Lionel, heading straight for the barn. "I didn't say you were stupid, Cletus. I just said you were actin' that way."

"Well, what'd you wanna go and hurt my feelins fer like that anyways, Lionel? I thought you was my friend."

The voices entered the barn as Matt and Kitty scrambled, brushing hay from their clothing. "Stay here," he hissed. "And stay low."

Matt grabbed the pitchfork, briskly striding out of the stall. "Where you boys been? I been lookin' all over for ya!"

Lionel's jaw dropped. "You have? Why we've just been over to the..."

Matt interrupted with an authoritative voice, "Now I want you two to come with me. I've got some calves over at the..."

Cletus protested, "But Mr. Blessing said he wanted us to..."

"I know, I know, we'll do that next, but first, let's go over to the back pasture. I want you to help me with something." Matt set the pitchfork down, dusting his hands together, trying his darndest to look like a busy ranch foreman. "Then we'll come back here and do what Mr. Blessing told ya'. Alright boys?"

Matt gave them no time to argue. Widely smiling, he stepped between them, wrapping his long arms around their shoulders, and hustled them out the door with a lingering backward glance to the silent horse stall, where a little bit of red hair and two luminous blue eyes peeked out. He said loudly with a wink over his shoulder, "Wonder what Kitty will cook for us for supper, boys?"

Kitty bit her fingernail and smiled, listening to Cletus and Lionel waxing rhapsodic over the joys of fluffy biscuits with crunchy bottoms and speckledy gravy, waiting patiently to make her getaway. Nope, she couldn't wait to be married to Matt Dillon.

tbc

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