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Matt Dillon shoved open the front doors of the Long Branch,
striding in with a blast of frigid air and swirling snowflakes. The raucous pounding of the piano keys
stopped, partygoers froze, crystal punch cups or beer mugs hung in mid-air,
mouths gaped at the sight he made.
Realizing he’d startled everyone with his appearance, the marshal of
Dodge City tugged his frozen scarf off his ruddy face and scrubbed the icicles
out of his brows and hair, exclaiming, “Did I miss the party?”
A hearty shout went up in the room as he was recognized at
last, folks rushing over to pound him on the back, shake his hand and wish him
a very Merry Christmas indeed, as he tried to see beyond the crowd, tried in
vain to spot her. Amidst the friendly
ruckus, he somehow managed to remove his hat, gloves and overcoat which some
young cowhand eagerly took from the legendary lawman to hang up close to the
stove to dry. Someone else thoughtfully
placed a well-earned glass of good whiskey into his cold hands.
And when the crowd finally parted, Matt Dillon’s eyes rested
at last on his best girl, of some, what...?
How many years? Could it be that
long they’d been together? Kitty Russell
was sittin’ pretty as a picture in a flaming red dress that made his breath
catch in his throat, right next to a grinning Doc and Festus, a tiny crooked
smile on her lips and a look in her blue, blue eyes that said it all.
Kitty wouldn’t make a fuss, jumping up and gushing over him
like a lotta women would. But he knew
just how she felt. Her expression spoke
volumes to him without saying a word.
The look in her eyes did more to warm up the shivering lawman than the
heat of the stove or the whiskey that was burning a fiery path down his raw
throat at that instant.
His eyes steadily on his lady in red, the marshal
absent-mindedly handed off his half-empty shotglass to an unsuspecting Louie
Pheeters who happened to totter by at that moment, vociferously singing a
Christmas carol monumentally off-key.
Louie curiously watched Marshal Dillon walk away without a word, then
shrugged and tossed the rest of the marshal’s drink back. Resuming his song with renewed vigor, a
well-oiled Louie made his precarious way to the bar where he threw an arm
companionably around a grinning Sam Noonan’s shoulders.
Free at last of distractions, Matt strode purposefully
toward Kitty’s table, thumbs resting lazily in his gun belt. She greeted him in a low voice with a gentle
smile, “Welcome home, Matt.”
Doc and Festus stood and shook his hand vigorously as he
gave a broad grin. He pulled out a chair
next to Kitty and hitched up his pants legs to settle in comfortably, close
enough so that his knee barely brushed against hers.
Doc smacked the table with one hand, exclaiming, “Glad you
could make it, Matt!” as Sam delivered a double shot of good Kentucky bourbon
to the marshal, and he downed it gratefully in one swallow.
“You’re
glad?” Matt blew out an enormous
breath. “It’s terrible out there. I know I look a little trail worn, Kitty, but
I didn’t have time to get gussied up in my Sunday best.”
She threw her head back and laughed merrily, and the
comforting, happy sound settled in his empty belly, laying there alongside the
whiskey where they both warmed him to the core.
“That’s alright, Matt,” she murmured to him with a little lift of her
brow. “I’ll take you just the way you
are.”
She patted his arm amiably, but her touch was electric and
sent a shiver down his spine that had nothing to do with the weather
outside. How many years? he thought wryly, and her touch still does that to me. He chuckled to himself.
“What?” she asked curiously, her fingers absently threading
through a loose curl at her ear. She
murmured her thanks to one of her girls who delivered a round of generously
spiked eggnog to everyone at the table.
“Nuthin’...” he smiled, but in his lop-sided grin she
recognized her answer, and thought maybe he’d tell her more later when she got
him alone upstairs.
She smothered her own knowing smile, instead asking, “Anyone
care to make a toast?”
The piano player launched into a particularly thunderous
chorus of Jingle Bells, to which half the crowd enthusiastically joined in with
varying degrees of ability. Doc cleared
his throat and volunteered loudly, “I will...”
Lifting his glass, Doc spoke with a genuine smile reflected in his eyes,
“To good friends and good health...
Merry Christmas!”
Matt took a long draw from his cup and wiped away the milky
mustache on his upper lip, grinning like a kid.
Kitty eyed him closely, asking, “Matt, how long has it been since you’ve
eaten? I hope you’re not drinkin’ all
that liquor on an empty stomach.”
“Kitty, I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.”
“Oh boy,” she sighed, grabbing the nearest saloon girl and
asking her to fetch Matt a plate of food.
“We’ll get you fixed up in a jiffy, Marshal Dillon.”
Doc grinned, “Yeah, gotta feed a growing boy.” Festus cackled gleefully in appreciation.
“Aw, Doc,” Matt grimaced at him. “Why don’t you pick on somebody your own
size?”
“Well, that wouldn’t be you, that’s for sure,” Doc chuckled
good-naturedly at his old friend, giving his own ear a quick tug. Kitty just shook her head at the bunch of
them.
Squinting an eye at Doc, Festus interjected, “Well, my
cousin Hildegard might give old Matthew a run fer his money. Why, I tell you she had the biggest...”
“Oh heavens,” Doc blustered, “here we go again!”
“Again?” Matt asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard him talk about somebody named Hildegard
before. I think I’d remember that.”
Kitty leaned closer to explain to Matt their earlier
discussion regarding Festus’s relations.
And suddenly the room grew still and quiet.
Matt looked around curiously, searching for the source of
the quietus and watched Festus’s eyes grow wide while Doc hid a smile with a
swipe at his mustache. Then everyone
around them erupted in whistles and catcalls as Matt and Kitty finally detected
Louie Pheeters standing unsteadily behind their chairs. The inebriated little man grinned from ear to
ear, a large sprig of green with white berries in the trembling hand he was
holding above their heads. Mistletoe.
Kitty’s eyes sparkled mischievously at him as she wondered
just what her flustered marshal would do.
She shrugged her shoulders helplessly.
“Don’t look at me!” she laughed.
“It wasn’t my idea. Festus shot
it down out of a tree this evenin’ before he came to the party.”
Festus hurriedly examined the scuffs on his boots when Matt
threw a long-suffering stare his way.
Kitty continued matter-of-factly, “I bet I’ve had to kiss
nearly every gent in the Long Branch tonight.”
A chorus of enthusiastic shouts and glasses rose up at that instant, proof
of her words, and Matt couldn’t help but laugh as they pointed with glee to
their own jaws or foreheads, where pale, smeared crimson lip prints lay. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it
until now. He figured he’d just had eyes
for one thing since he walked in.
Matt looked across the table at Doc and Festus, each cagily
giving the other the eye, which told him they’d gotten their fair share of
Kitty’s kisses as well. He should’ve
noticed those red smudges on their cheeks matched the color of Kitty’s painted
lips. Those old rascals.
Matt gave an enormous sigh, rising to his full, impressive
height, and for an instant, Kitty was afraid he might head for the hills. But instead, he looked down at her and
reached for her hand. She stood
uncertainly before him, gazing back into his crystal clear blue eyes, and for
once, she didn’t know what on earth her man was thinking. Was he going to let her kiss him on the cheek
right there in front of everybody? That’d be the day, she thought
drily.
You could’ve heard a pin drop, with everyone wondering what
ol’ Marshal Dillon would do. Then he
smiled his crooked little smile, and Kitty could see a tiny bit of that liquid
courage he’d been drinking licking through his veins, so she played her
advantage and leaned in quick to give him a harmless peck on the cheek, just
like she’d given all the other boys.
But Matt Dillon had other plans. She gave a small gasp when his powerful arms
determinedly enveloped her, sliding over that softly gleaming crimson silk dress
he’d so admired when he walked in. He
gently bent her back as his lips captured hers in a passionate kiss that took
her breath clean away. She melted into
his embrace, her knees weakening and her mind whirling at the thought that
Marshal Dillon was kissing the daylights out of her right there in the Long
Branch in front of everyone, claiming Kitty Russell as his own, for everyone to
see. The very idea made her dizzy and
finally she surrendered willingly, kissing him back hungrily, slipping her arms
around his neck and threading her fingers through his hair until gleeful shouts
and whistles erupted from the Long Branch crowd, cheering on the marshal and
his fine-looking woman, whose longtime love affair everyone knew was the worst
kept secret in all of Kansas.
Kitty was positively breathless when he finally released
her, and she couldn’t believe it but she felt herself actually blushing as she
gazed into his eyes with all those people watching them. But he just beamed at her, although she
noticed his own ears were turning pinker by the moment. Matt held her cheek in his palm for just an
instant before he kissed her hand like a gentleman.
“Matt...” she murmured wonderingly, but she didn’t have a
chance to say anything more, not that she knew what she should say, because at
that moment Sam, who might’ve had an even bigger grin on his face than the
marshal himself, struck a rousing chord on his fiddle to signal that the
dancing was about to commence. Tables
and chairs were noisily pulled aside, and the marshal rather bashfully asked
his girl to dance.
He wasn’t quite sure himself of what to think of this thing
he’d gone and done, a bit rashly truth be told, but he gradually relaxed as men
shook his hand and pounded on his back again encouragingly. After a couple of dances with her cowboy,
Kitty insistently pulled him back to his seat and made him eat before he passed
out from sheer hunger.
“It’s about time...” was all Doc would say about things, but
he hugged Kitty tight, his face flushing, too, when she kissed him on the cheek
for the second time that night, this time without benefit of mistletoe. Then he took her for a whirl around the dance
floor as well.
Festus, at a complete loss for words for possibly the first
time in his entire life, just sat quietly, nursing his eggnog and contemplating
recent significant developments within his close circle of confidants,
wondering when in tarnation all this funny business had begun...
TBC, in Chapter 3...if
you’d like the celebration to continue upstairs in Kitty’s bedroom. If you’re not into steamy M/K romances, you
can consider this The End.
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