With a Little Luck

Chapter 2

Thursday, February 13

Sam Noonan folded his apron and laid it behind the bar. "Goodnight, Miss Kitty," he said as he headed toward the door.

"Goodnight, Sam," she returned warmly. "I'll see you tomorrow."

Kitty peeked over the batwing doors and briefly scanned the street. She was expecting company, but she didn't see him just yet. She pulled the outside doors shut to indicate they were closed for business and plopped down in a chair. It had been a long night and her feet were tired.

She could hardly wait to see him. He had stopped by earlier in the evening during rounds, but that didn't really count. She couldn't hold him then, or smell his scent, or feel his rugged face nuzzling hers. She'd had to settle for a heart melting smile and a thinly veiled promise to come back and "check on things" later.

Of course, she had also seen him last night. But not nearly as much of him as she had planned. At least it had only taken him a couple of hours to find his prisoner, who was now safely back in jail. She hoped.

They would make up for it tonight. Kitty smiled as she thought about the holiday delight in her drawer upstairs, still waiting to be initiated. She tingled with anticipation. Perhaps their little interruption, annoying as it was, would make the coming activities that much more satisfying. She was in a silver lining kind of mood right now.

Three short knocks interrupted her happy little daydream—it was his knock. She jumped up and eagerly opened the door, finding one very tall lawman wearing a fresh set of clothes and that same heart melting smile. He was clearly as ready for the occasion as she was.

"I'm sorry, we're closed," she teased in a sultry voice that she knew drove him wild.

Matt struggled to keep a straight face. "I understand that, Miss, but I'm afraid we have an emergency situation here. I'm going to need you to open up and do something of utmost importance."

"Do what?" she asked innocently.

"The Marshal," he replied seriously.

She couldn't stifle her laughter, playfully grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him into the saloon. She had barely gotten the doors closed again before he grabbed her from behind and twirled her around, catching her as she fell into his embrace.

He lightly pressed his lips to hers, working his way from short, shallow kisses to a final deep, lingering one.

"I have a surprise for you upstairs," she whispered when they came up for air.

"Mmm, I like the sound of that," he said, placing another light kiss on her neck before effortlessly lifting her into his arms and carrying her up to the bedroom.

He laid her on the bed before quickly unhooking his gun belt and kicking off his boots. Gently crawling on top of her, he straddled her with his long legs, supporting his considerable weight on his elbows. Making love to someone half your size was a delicate dance, one he had perfected from years of practice with Kitty Russell.

He kissed her again, and again, until the constriction on his growing excitement became too distracting to continue. To hell with foreplay, he thought, it's been over two weeks. He took her hand and guided it to his belt, which she unbuckled with one quick, expertly executed tug. As her fingers worked their way down, he slid a hand under her back and began fumbling blindly with the buttons. So many buttons, which stubbornly clung inside the small loops of her dress.

"Having problems, Cowboy?" she asked amusingly.

"You could say that," he replied dryly.

She sat up and turned around, allowing him to continue working as he mumbled something about women's clothing. After finally releasing the last button, she hopped out of bed and walked over to the dresser.

"Where are you going?" he asked impatiently.

"I told you, I have a present for you," she replied. "I know it's not Valentine's Day yet, but I didn't think you would mind getting it early."

"I don't mind as long as I get it soon," he replied with a raised eyebrow.

She opened the top drawer and quickly pulled out a small item before hurrying to the washroom. "I'll be right back," she promised.

Matt sighed. Knowing Kitty, this was going to be worth the wait. But getting there was beginning to feel like torture. He decided that he should be equally prepared when she returned, and the rest of his clothes went the way of his boots. He lay expectantly under the covers when he heard the washroom door open.

The vision that greeted him left him temporarily speechless. She had let her hair down, and it cascaded around her shoulders and past her bust line, which was clearly designed to be the main attraction in this cornucopia of red satin and black lace. It hugged her shapely form, barely covering her hips. He was looking at his own personal, succulent Valentine treat, ready to be opened and savored.

"Do you like it?" she asked, full well knowing the answer.

"I love it," he managed to croak. He reached for her hand and pulled her onto the bed with him. "And I love you," he whispered, gently pushing one of the lace straps off her shoulder and placing a soft kiss where it had been.

Kitty arched her back as he worked his way down, gingerly unwrapping his gift until it was fully exposed. She fell back on the bed and he was on top of her once again.

Suddenly, she pushed him back and shot upright. "What was that?" she asked frantically.

"What?" he replied, confused and slightly annoyed.

"Shh!" she ordered. "I hear something."

They sat motionless, listening silently. There was a faint noise coming from downstairs. Kitty crept out of bed, grabbing the scant nighty to hold in front of her body as she cracked the door open and stuck her head out in the hallway.

The noise grew louder. Someone was knocking on the outside door, over and over. "Mister Dillon! Mister Dillon!"

Kitty closed the door and turned to her lover, one hand on her hip and the other still holding the sliver of material barely covering her front. "It's Chester," she said gloomily. "You'd better go see what he wants."

Matt angrily kicked the sheet off the bed, looking as though he was trying to kill it. He jerked his underwear off the floor and began to hastily redress himself.

"So help me, Kitty," he said through gritted teeth, "unless this is the rapture, or the entire town is on fire, I'm going to shoot him."

"Oh, Matt" she chided, trying to sound disapproving. Truthfully, she had the same urge.

Matt grabbed his gun belt and made his way down the stairs. Had it been almost anyone but Chester, he wouldn't have so visibly opened a locked door from the inside of Kitty Russell's saloon well after closing. But given the obvious fact that Chester knew exactly where to find him at this hour, there was no sense in playing games.

He flung open the door and glared at his assistant. "What is it, Chester?"

"Oh, thank goodness I found you, Mister Dillon," Chester exclaimed. He started to go on but was temporarily distracted by his boss's appearance. His hair was disheveled, his shirt was hanging out and unevenly buttoned, and he had red smudges on his face.

"I, uh…" Chester tried to continue, but he was too flustered. He didn't know what he had expected, but somehow it wasn't this. He knew that Miss Kitty was the Marshal's woman alright, but that fact had never smacked him in the face quite like this before.

"You have two seconds to tell me why you're here, and it had better be good" Matt warned.

"Yes Sir, Mister Dillon, it is," Chester promised. "Mr. Pritchard's waitin' for you at the jail. There's been a robbery!"

John Pritchard was temporarily filling in at the bank while his brother Randall recovered from a carriage accident. John Pritchard was more the farmer type than the banker type like his brother, but it was only for a couple of weeks and there was no one else to do it on such short notice.

Matt reluctantly agreed that a bank robbery was good enough reason to drag him away from his evening's pleasure. "OK, let's go," he said, cursing this unknown criminal under his breath as he headed out the door.

"Um. Mister Dillon?" Chester said uncomfortably.

"What?" Matt replied.

"You might wanna…well, tidy up a bit before we go back to the jail." He nodded toward Matt's shirt. Matt looked down, seeing the crooked buttons on the loose shirt and realizing that the rest of him probably didn't look much more professional. Well this is embarrassing, he thought to himself.

"Right," he said, trying to sound casual. "You go on ahead, I'll be there in a minute." He went back inside to look for a mirror.

GSGSGSGSGSGSGSGS

Marshal Dillon arrived at the jail looking sufficiently businesslike. John Pritchard was pacing back and forth as Chester looked on nervously. Pritchard had a well-earned reputation as an ill-tempered curmudgeon, and he could be quite intimidating.

"Tell me what happened, Mr. Pritchard," Matt began. "How much did they get? Did you see anything?" He wasn't quite sure how the man even knew the bank had been broken into at that hour.

"Of course I didn't see anything," he snapped. "I was asleep like decent people ought to be that time of night before the ruckus woke me up."

"What ruckus?" Matt asked, confused. Mr. Pritchard didn't live close enough to the bank that he would have heard anything going on there.

"My dogs," he replied nastily. "They were barking up a storm, and they only do that when somebody trespasses on my property. So I grabbed my shotgun and went outside, and sure enough, my pig was gone. That's a prize winning pig, Marshal!"

"Your pig?" Matt asked incredulously.

"I know who did it too," he continued. "It was that no good neighbor of mine. He's been threatening to get even with me ever since he accused my dogs of killing his chickens. Which they did NOT."

Matt was well aware of his recent feud with his equally ornery neighbor, Dub Greer. Between the two of them, they had made sure the whole town knew about it.

Matt shot a look at Chester, who was fumbling with a stack of papers and pretending not to hear the conversation. He took a deep breath before summing up the situation.

"So you're telling me that you came here this time of night to report a missing pig," he said in an eerily calm voice, one Chester knew all too well—it was his "I have to force myself not to hurt you" voice.

"A stolen pig!" Pritchard corrected. "You remember how that old coot tried to have me arrested when he found those scrawny chickens of his dead. Hell, they probably killed themselves so they wouldn't have to look at him anymore. I guarantee you, Marshal, if you go to his place right now you'll find my pig. Do it! He's a thief!"

"I'm not waking anyone up at this hour over a pig. I'll check into it tomorrow," Matt replied firmly.

"Well, I wish I could tell people when I felt like doing my job," he huffed. "I thought you got paid to enforce the law."

"I said I would check into it tomorrow. Go home, Mr. Pritchard. NOW," Matt demanded.

John Pritchard slapped his hat on his head and stormed out of the office, slamming the door behind him. Silence hung in the air until Chester decided he'd better say something.

"Well, ain't that funny," he chuckled awkwardly. "I could've swore when he came in here and said he'd been robbed that he was talkin' about the bank."

"Hilarious," Matt replied without a hint of a smile. "I can't stop laughing."

Chester quickly slipped out of the room to change into his night clothes. Matt sat down and rubbed his temples. What should he do now? Go back to Kitty's? She was probably still up. She might even be gift wrapped again.

He closed his eyes and replayed her seductive sashay from the washroom in his head. God, that was sexy. He imagined her climbing into bed with him, mentally picking up where they had left off. He could smell her, taste her, as she writhed beneath him, her creamy skin soaking up his kisses as she breathlessly called to him,… "Mister Dillon!"

Matt's eyes flew open, startled by his fractured fantasy. What the hell? he muttered to himself. He had a ravishing lady in red waiting for him a few hundred feet away, and what did he see when he closed his eyes? A gimpy assistant yelling his name.

It was too late, the mood was ruined. They could try again, but it wouldn't be good. The woman he loved deserved consuming, passionate, Be-My-Valentine sex, and all he could offer at the moment was angry, I'd-better-not-see-his-face-here-again sex.

Tomorrow, he thought. Tomorrow is Valentine's Day, and I'm going to make it up to her. Right after I find that pig…

TBC