True Grit - "With No Lodestar In Sight", Mattie/LaBoeuf, T
Title: With No Lodestar In Sight - 12/12
Author:
lindentree
Rating: T
Character(s): Mattie Ross/LaBoeuf, Rooster Cogburn
Word Count: 7,258
Summary: Five years after her adventure in the Choctaw Nation, Mattie Ross runs afoul of a fugitive. She soon finds herself in familiar company, if not familiar territory.
Notes: I didn't anticipate that it would take me months to finish this last chapter. I've been struggling with writer's block for the last six months, and this fic has been the primary victim of that. Thank you so, so much to all of you who have continued to send me encouraging messages over the last few months. Your continued interest has buoyed me up and pushed me to finish this fic. I can't thank you enough.
Thanks also to ishie, whose tireless cheerleading and hand-holding has been fundamental to the writing of this fic. ILU BB. <3
close to me always
Mattie returned home to Yell County. The fields were empty, the trees bare, and the sky like a steel grey canopy. She had been away from home only six weeks, yet in that time fall had departed and winter arrived to take its place.
It was soon apparent that although Mama was delighted to have her home, her adventure had put Little Frank's nose out of joint. He did not need to say a word; Mattie knew her brother well enough to see that he was sore about it. Not only because he held the sort of romantic ideas about guns and outlaws that all foolish young men have and was therefore envious of her adventures, but because in her absence, he had been expected to take responsibility for farm and family, and he resented her for it. It was several weeks before he graced her with anything more than a sullen grunt when asked a question.
Victoria, meanwhile, was giddy with excitement, and wanted to hear all about this Mr. LaBoeuf, whom she remembered only vaguely from his visit to Yell County years ago during his search for Tom Chaney. She asked Mattie many tiresome, silly questions about his looks and his temper, and what he said to Mattie when he asked her to be his wife. Victoria had her tell that story so many times that Mattie grew exhausted of it, and spoke sharply to her. Victoria had a tender disposition and was hurt, but Mattie could not bring herself to apologise. It would only encourage her to start in again.
Mattie had been home three days when she received a telegram. She and Little Frank were in town for supplies and Mr. Smalling, who managed the post office, near ran her down in the street to deliver it. She tucked it inside her coat and read it much later that night, when she was alone in her bedroom.
MATTIE
ARRIVED YSLETA
WEATHER IS FINE AND DRY
HAULING ROCKS FROM THE RIVER FOR THE HOUSE
WILL WRITE SOON
YOURS SGT LABOEUF
Mattie pored over the words with her eyes and her fingertips until she began to feel foolish for finding a piece of paper such a fascination. She folded the telegram in half and placed it inside the bible at her bedside before extinguishing her lamp. Lying back against her pillow, she saw a picture in her mind of LaBoeuf laying rocks out to make the foundation of the house. Their house.
Such a thing still seemed downright fanciful to her, but as the weeks passed and LaBoeuf began to send her letters telling her in great detail about the progress he made on the house, her fancy took shape as a real building of stone and whitewashed clapboard.
They wrote to one another as often as the speed of the postal service and their busy days would allow. Mama had Mattie and Victoria sewing from dawn to dusk all that winter, until Mattie was certain that she had enough sheets and curtains and dishtowels to outfit a whole brigade of young brides.
At Christmas, Mattie wrote Rooster a letter, informing him of her engagement and asking him to visit, and received a reply three months later. He said he always knew that LaBoeuf's ranting and raving about her "sauciness" could not be for nothing, and that he was glad "the stuffed-shirt dandy" had the starch to ask for her hand after all. Last of all he said that he was pleased she said yes, for the world did not need any more "cranky old maids" than it already had.
Mattie replied to say that she hoped he might come to Yell for the wedding, which would not be for some months yet, but she would let him know of the precise date when she was able. She received no reply.
There was a foreign restlessness in Mattie that she found difficult to abide. It was nearly intolerable through the long, dark months of winter when there was little work at hand to occupy her. At times she caught herself staring off at nothing, her mind exploring the regions of memory and far-off hopeful things which may never come to be.
Mattie was glad indeed when winter gave way to spring, and there was more work at hand than could be accomplished in a day. Her mind had precious little time to wander then.
In July, LaBoeuf wrote her to say that a spate of twisters and summer storms had done some damage to the house, but that he had quickly made up the difference and good progress was being made once again. The roof was as good as finished, and this accomplishment would provide him with an opportunity to rest, and to take the train to Arkansas to visit her, which he hoped she would not mind.
Mattie wrote back to him and said she would not mind it at all, but he only ought to come if he was certain that he could spare the time and the expense, which seemed frivolous to her. LaBoeuf responded to say that he was certainly coming, and he would arrive in the middle of August.
Mama had Mattie and Victoria clean the entire house from top to bottom. Theirs was always a well-kept place, and Mattie thought they had no reason to put up a false front for LaBoeuf, but by the end of their labours she had to own that the place had never looked better. Mattie was glad for LaBoeuf to see it thus, although her gladness stopped short of pride of course.
The day LaBoeuf was to arrive, Victoria brushed Mattie's hair out and pulled it back into a knot of plaits at the back of her head, and tucked Mattie's two silver-plated combs into the arrangement. Mama insisted on cleaning and pressing Mattie's best dress, which was two years old and made from dark cranberry jacquard-woven silk. Its high collar and one long sleeve made it heavy for the warm summer weather, but Mama would not be swayed. She also gave Mattie her favourite garnet earrings to wear. Once Victoria had laced her into her new whalebone corset and buttoned the dress for her, even Mattie thought the effect was handsome, although she did not say it.
Little Frank hitched their cart mule Jake to the wagon and drove into town in the middle of the afternoon to fetch LaBoeuf from the train station.
Mattie waited on the front porch, for it permitted a breeze and was therefore not as stifling as the parlour. She sat with her spine as straight as a fencepost, sweat pooling under her corset. She longed for a thunderstorm, or a light dress better suited to the heat, or better, a swim in the nearby fishing hole.
Two hours passed in this fashion with Mattie annoyed at the pressing heat and at her own idleness, for Mama would not allow her anywhere near the kitchen while she and Victoria cooked, for fear that she would soil her dress.
Finally, she spotted Jake's dark head come through the trees way down the road, doggedly pulling the cart behind him. Mattie stood and went to the porch railing, peering as the cart drew closer, the figures up on the bench becoming clear. Little Frank drove, and there beside him in all his outlandish Texas trappings sat LaBoeuf.
Mattie's heart leaped into her chest for joy at the sight of him, and she nearly gave way to the urge she felt to fly down the steps and run to him. But she held fast and stood stock still on the porch, her hand gripping the railing as she watched them approach.
Little Frank halted the cart in the yard, and LaBoeuf hopped off the bench with a ringing of spurs. Little Frank got down and began to lead Jake around to the barn but Mattie hardly noticed, so intent was she on LaBoeuf as he approached. He stopped at the bottom of the steps and removed his hat. Looking up at her, he nodded his head.
"Ma'am," he said.
Mattie frowned at him and was about to ask him if he had left his wits on the train when she heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to see her mother and Victoria standing behind her.
"Oh, Mr. LaBoeuf!" Mama exclaimed as he came up the stairs. "It is such a pleasure to see you again at last! I hope you are not altogether too exhausted from your long journey."
LaBoeuf took Mama's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it before doing the same for Victoria, who beamed.
"No, ma'am, I am not altogether too exhausted," he replied, smiling. "The journey is long but the trains are very comfortable nowadays." He turned and gave Mattie a cordial nod. "Mattie."
"Mr. LaBoeuf," she responded, nodding. Mama bade them all into the house then, saying that supper was just ready and so they might as well eat right away as the food on trains is never wholesome or satisfying and so Mr. LaBoeuf must have a powerful hunger.
Mattie eyed LaBoeuf as they went inside. She hardly expected him to dash up the front steps and sweep her into his arms like the romantic hero in some trash novel. She would not have wanted that. But to have scarcely a greeting for her at all seemed peculiar. Perhaps he was wary of being too familiar with her in the presence of her mother. Yet he had not shied away when they were all together in Texarkana. So what reason for his aloofness?
All through supper he seemed to avoid her eyes, conversing mostly with Mama about how busy he had been with his new bail bond work in Ysleta. Mattie could not figure him. Ignoring her entirely seemed beyond the requirements of cordiality, and needlessly prudish even for LaBoeuf. Why would he not look at her? Had something happened? Had he changed his mind? Had he come here to tell her that he had been mistaken, and did not want to marry her after all?
Mattie hardly swallowed a bite, so anxious was she, and so intent on silently cursing him did she become.
After the meal, Mama suggested - with a sly smile in Mattie's direction - that they take a walk so LaBoeuf might see the cotton fields in bloom. They did so, walking across the barnyard without speaking, as the dusky twilight descended around them.
The silence between them lasted so long that Mattie felt acute agony begin to tear at some place deep in her breast. It became hard to draw a breath, and her eyes stung. She did not know what to think of this awkwardness between them, nor did she know what she might have done to cause it, nor what she might do to repair it. It bewildered her entirely.
They walked up the path that went past the barn, towards the paddocks where the horses grazed in the cool summer gloaming. As they passed the rear door to the barn, LaBoeuf paused and looked back at the house. Suddenly he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him into the barn, and before she knew what was happening, he had tumbled her back into a heap of hay which Little Frank had pitched down from the hayloft that morning. LaBoeuf lay right on top of her, and his hat was tipped back on his head so that he looked a complete fool. He grinned that smug grin of his, and Mattie wanted to smack him.
"Hidy," he said and, without waiting for her reply, dropped his head and kissed her soundly on the mouth, his whiskers scratching her.
"You are a scoundrel!" she scolded the moment he paused long enough for her to catch her breath. "You had me thinking... Well, never mind what you had me thinking! I ought to box your ears."
"I apologise," he replied, not looking the least bit sorry. "Would it help you know that I think you look very lovely tonight?"
Mattie glowered at him. She had never known him to be playful or deliberately silly in this way, and she found it rather alarming.
"I have missed you," he said. "Your letters were a source of great delight to me, but as they contained more news of the well-being of your crops and your ledger, and less of the degree of your longing for my company, I must say they do not compare to being at your side."
Embarrassed, Mattie could feel her cheeks redden, and she frowned and let her gaze slide away from his.
"Ah! I did not know whether any delicate feminine modesty lived in you, but there is my answer."
Mattie's frown deepened. "It is not 'delicate feminine modesty.' I am merely suspicious of grandiose flattery."
"Is it grandiose flattery to say that I missed you? You grow stingier with your sugar all the time. But you will simply have to accept that on occasion I will like to say that I enjoy your company and am very fond of you." He regarded her expectantly, a smile quirking his mouth. "Have you no similar endearment for me, or has my behaviour today shut me out of your affections indefinitely?"
"Your behaviour today has made me wonder whether I ought to commit you to an asylum for the mentally deranged rather than marry you," Mattie sniffed.
"Ah, but I see that marriage is still a card on the table. That is a great relief to me," LaBoeuf replied. He leaned his weight off of her, propping himself up on one elbow. "How do you do, Miss Mattie Modesty?"
Mattie shifted, trying to put some space between them. The closeness of him after so many months apart was making her feel rather silly. "I do very fine, when I am not being harangued by presumptuous popinjays with sawdust for brains."
LaBoeuf smiled at her. It seemed her sharp words no longer affected him, or that they had some opposite, unintended effect. He lifted his free hand and brushed his thumb against her eyebrow before resting it beneath her eye and cupping her cheek in his palm.
"When I say I missed you, it is not flattery. It is God's honest truth," he said. "But I see you are put out that I did not favour you with my attention the moment I arrived. May I attempt to make amends for this transgression?"
Mattie shrugged and looked away, uninterested in his foolishness. LaBoeuf turned her face back towards his and leaned down, pressing a kiss to her cheekbone, her forehead, and her nose, before kissing her lips. He lingered there for some time, sliding an arm under her shoulders to pull her very close. When finally his embrace loosened, Mattie blinked and let her head fall back into the hay. She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat.
LaBoeuf leaned his forehead against hers. "Tell me you did miss me," he said, his voice low and gruff.
"I did miss you," Mattie whispered. She did not look away from his gaze, although she felt some strange urge to glance to the side, or cover her face. "I should like to have you this close to me always."
LaBoeuf closed his eyes, a pained expression crossing his face. He sighed raggedly. "Mattie, I have something to confess to you."
Mattie watched him closely, a measure of her earlier anxiety returning. She swallowed. "What is it? Tell me."
"I promised you and your mother I would have that house finished by the end of the summer so that we could be married and I could take you back with me," he said, looking away from her.
"Yes, I remember, of course."
"The house will not be finished by the end of summer, Mattie," he replied.
"Oh," Mattie breathed. Disappointment choked her. She had hoped it would be finished in the next month, so that they might be married and be settled enough to have Christmas in their new home. But she felt certain that he had done his utmost, and so she did not want to offend him by showing her feelings.
"But the trouble is that I cannot wait for that damned house to be finished," he said, clasping her hand in his.
"Mr. LaBoeuf!" she scolded, appalled at his language. "I would like for the house to be finished, too, but there is hardly a need for that kind of-"
"Mattie, marry me tomorrow. Or the day after, if you prefer. But marry me and come home with me on that train next Tuesday."
"Well!" Mattie said. "That is -"
"Do you think your mother would object? I will speak to her. I will assure her that my room is a very fine one in a respectable boarding house, and that our house will be completed with the utmost haste, and -"
"Mr. LaBoeuf, you are the one who made the stipulation that our house be completed before we could marry. My mother will be overjoyed, I am certain, to see me married immediately."
"Do you object?" he asked earnestly. "I understand if you do not wish to marry and go to live in a boarding house and not have all of your things around you, but-"
"I would marry you if you had only the clothes on your back and an empty shanty on the bald prairie. However, I will deny these words should you ever repeat them to anyone."
LaBoeuf smiled at her, looking exceedingly pleased. "Now, why is it back to 'Mr. LaBoeuf' when in your letters you felt free to call me Emery?"
Mattie stared at him, finding herself without the means to respond. She gaped for a moment, and then swallowed, collecting herself. "Well," she said, "in my letters I found I was at liberty to - that is, it is rather different when I am looking right at you."
LaBoeuf's smile grew wider. "I would kiss you again, but then I fear I would want to keep you here for much longer than your mother would think appropriate."
He got to his feet then, and Mattie felt rather foolish, left lying on her back in a heap of hay. LaBoeuf reached out his hand and took hers, drawing her to her feet.
Mattie stood still as LaBoeuf brushed off the back of her skirt and picked every bit of hay from her hair.
"Your mother is a good sport," he said, "but I expect even she would not like to know that we have been in this pile of hay, here."
"Putting it that way makes the thing sound as though you have taken liberties with me, when in truth you have enjoyed very few," Mattie replied.
LaBoeuf guffawed. "That is the truth, and if your mother suspects anything, that is what I will tell her. She knows you well, so she will believe me."
Mattie felt herself blush, and said nothing, a smile playing about her mouth. When LaBoeuf was satisfied that she looked presentable once again, he took her hand in his.
"Tell me truly - do you mind it if we marry now and return to Texas, to an unfinished house?"
"Have I said that I mind it?" Mattie asked.
"You have not," LaBoeuf replied.
"And have you ever known me to lie, or to play false to protect a man's pride?"
LaBoeuf's whiskers twitched, and he shook his head. "That I have certainly not known you to do."
"Well," Mattie said, "there you are. You need not worry on it a moment longer."
"Shall we go see what your mother thinks of it, then?"
Mattie did not reply. She merely squeezed his hand, and they walked back to the house together with hands clasped, the gloaming deepening into night all around them.
Continued...
Author:
lindentree
Rating: T
Character(s): Mattie Ross/LaBoeuf, Rooster Cogburn
Word Count: 7,258
Summary: Five years after her adventure in the Choctaw Nation, Mattie Ross runs afoul of a fugitive. She soon finds herself in familiar company, if not familiar territory.
Notes: I didn't anticipate that it would take me months to finish this last chapter. I've been struggling with writer's block for the last six months, and this fic has been the primary victim of that. Thank you so, so much to all of you who have continued to send me encouraging messages over the last few months. Your continued interest has buoyed me up and pushed me to finish this fic. I can't thank you enough.
Thanks also to ishie, whose tireless cheerleading and hand-holding has been fundamental to the writing of this fic. ILU BB. <3
close to me always
Mattie returned home to Yell County. The fields were empty, the trees bare, and the sky like a steel grey canopy. She had been away from home only six weeks, yet in that time fall had departed and winter arrived to take its place.
It was soon apparent that although Mama was delighted to have her home, her adventure had put Little Frank's nose out of joint. He did not need to say a word; Mattie knew her brother well enough to see that he was sore about it. Not only because he held the sort of romantic ideas about guns and outlaws that all foolish young men have and was therefore envious of her adventures, but because in her absence, he had been expected to take responsibility for farm and family, and he resented her for it. It was several weeks before he graced her with anything more than a sullen grunt when asked a question.
Victoria, meanwhile, was giddy with excitement, and wanted to hear all about this Mr. LaBoeuf, whom she remembered only vaguely from his visit to Yell County years ago during his search for Tom Chaney. She asked Mattie many tiresome, silly questions about his looks and his temper, and what he said to Mattie when he asked her to be his wife. Victoria had her tell that story so many times that Mattie grew exhausted of it, and spoke sharply to her. Victoria had a tender disposition and was hurt, but Mattie could not bring herself to apologise. It would only encourage her to start in again.
Mattie had been home three days when she received a telegram. She and Little Frank were in town for supplies and Mr. Smalling, who managed the post office, near ran her down in the street to deliver it. She tucked it inside her coat and read it much later that night, when she was alone in her bedroom.
MATTIE
ARRIVED YSLETA
WEATHER IS FINE AND DRY
HAULING ROCKS FROM THE RIVER FOR THE HOUSE
WILL WRITE SOON
YOURS SGT LABOEUF
Mattie pored over the words with her eyes and her fingertips until she began to feel foolish for finding a piece of paper such a fascination. She folded the telegram in half and placed it inside the bible at her bedside before extinguishing her lamp. Lying back against her pillow, she saw a picture in her mind of LaBoeuf laying rocks out to make the foundation of the house. Their house.
Such a thing still seemed downright fanciful to her, but as the weeks passed and LaBoeuf began to send her letters telling her in great detail about the progress he made on the house, her fancy took shape as a real building of stone and whitewashed clapboard.
They wrote to one another as often as the speed of the postal service and their busy days would allow. Mama had Mattie and Victoria sewing from dawn to dusk all that winter, until Mattie was certain that she had enough sheets and curtains and dishtowels to outfit a whole brigade of young brides.
At Christmas, Mattie wrote Rooster a letter, informing him of her engagement and asking him to visit, and received a reply three months later. He said he always knew that LaBoeuf's ranting and raving about her "sauciness" could not be for nothing, and that he was glad "the stuffed-shirt dandy" had the starch to ask for her hand after all. Last of all he said that he was pleased she said yes, for the world did not need any more "cranky old maids" than it already had.
Mattie replied to say that she hoped he might come to Yell for the wedding, which would not be for some months yet, but she would let him know of the precise date when she was able. She received no reply.
There was a foreign restlessness in Mattie that she found difficult to abide. It was nearly intolerable through the long, dark months of winter when there was little work at hand to occupy her. At times she caught herself staring off at nothing, her mind exploring the regions of memory and far-off hopeful things which may never come to be.
Mattie was glad indeed when winter gave way to spring, and there was more work at hand than could be accomplished in a day. Her mind had precious little time to wander then.
In July, LaBoeuf wrote her to say that a spate of twisters and summer storms had done some damage to the house, but that he had quickly made up the difference and good progress was being made once again. The roof was as good as finished, and this accomplishment would provide him with an opportunity to rest, and to take the train to Arkansas to visit her, which he hoped she would not mind.
Mattie wrote back to him and said she would not mind it at all, but he only ought to come if he was certain that he could spare the time and the expense, which seemed frivolous to her. LaBoeuf responded to say that he was certainly coming, and he would arrive in the middle of August.
Mama had Mattie and Victoria clean the entire house from top to bottom. Theirs was always a well-kept place, and Mattie thought they had no reason to put up a false front for LaBoeuf, but by the end of their labours she had to own that the place had never looked better. Mattie was glad for LaBoeuf to see it thus, although her gladness stopped short of pride of course.
The day LaBoeuf was to arrive, Victoria brushed Mattie's hair out and pulled it back into a knot of plaits at the back of her head, and tucked Mattie's two silver-plated combs into the arrangement. Mama insisted on cleaning and pressing Mattie's best dress, which was two years old and made from dark cranberry jacquard-woven silk. Its high collar and one long sleeve made it heavy for the warm summer weather, but Mama would not be swayed. She also gave Mattie her favourite garnet earrings to wear. Once Victoria had laced her into her new whalebone corset and buttoned the dress for her, even Mattie thought the effect was handsome, although she did not say it.
Little Frank hitched their cart mule Jake to the wagon and drove into town in the middle of the afternoon to fetch LaBoeuf from the train station.
Mattie waited on the front porch, for it permitted a breeze and was therefore not as stifling as the parlour. She sat with her spine as straight as a fencepost, sweat pooling under her corset. She longed for a thunderstorm, or a light dress better suited to the heat, or better, a swim in the nearby fishing hole.
Two hours passed in this fashion with Mattie annoyed at the pressing heat and at her own idleness, for Mama would not allow her anywhere near the kitchen while she and Victoria cooked, for fear that she would soil her dress.
Finally, she spotted Jake's dark head come through the trees way down the road, doggedly pulling the cart behind him. Mattie stood and went to the porch railing, peering as the cart drew closer, the figures up on the bench becoming clear. Little Frank drove, and there beside him in all his outlandish Texas trappings sat LaBoeuf.
Mattie's heart leaped into her chest for joy at the sight of him, and she nearly gave way to the urge she felt to fly down the steps and run to him. But she held fast and stood stock still on the porch, her hand gripping the railing as she watched them approach.
Little Frank halted the cart in the yard, and LaBoeuf hopped off the bench with a ringing of spurs. Little Frank got down and began to lead Jake around to the barn but Mattie hardly noticed, so intent was she on LaBoeuf as he approached. He stopped at the bottom of the steps and removed his hat. Looking up at her, he nodded his head.
"Ma'am," he said.
Mattie frowned at him and was about to ask him if he had left his wits on the train when she heard a sharp intake of breath and turned to see her mother and Victoria standing behind her.
"Oh, Mr. LaBoeuf!" Mama exclaimed as he came up the stairs. "It is such a pleasure to see you again at last! I hope you are not altogether too exhausted from your long journey."
LaBoeuf took Mama's hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it before doing the same for Victoria, who beamed.
"No, ma'am, I am not altogether too exhausted," he replied, smiling. "The journey is long but the trains are very comfortable nowadays." He turned and gave Mattie a cordial nod. "Mattie."
"Mr. LaBoeuf," she responded, nodding. Mama bade them all into the house then, saying that supper was just ready and so they might as well eat right away as the food on trains is never wholesome or satisfying and so Mr. LaBoeuf must have a powerful hunger.
Mattie eyed LaBoeuf as they went inside. She hardly expected him to dash up the front steps and sweep her into his arms like the romantic hero in some trash novel. She would not have wanted that. But to have scarcely a greeting for her at all seemed peculiar. Perhaps he was wary of being too familiar with her in the presence of her mother. Yet he had not shied away when they were all together in Texarkana. So what reason for his aloofness?
All through supper he seemed to avoid her eyes, conversing mostly with Mama about how busy he had been with his new bail bond work in Ysleta. Mattie could not figure him. Ignoring her entirely seemed beyond the requirements of cordiality, and needlessly prudish even for LaBoeuf. Why would he not look at her? Had something happened? Had he changed his mind? Had he come here to tell her that he had been mistaken, and did not want to marry her after all?
Mattie hardly swallowed a bite, so anxious was she, and so intent on silently cursing him did she become.
After the meal, Mama suggested - with a sly smile in Mattie's direction - that they take a walk so LaBoeuf might see the cotton fields in bloom. They did so, walking across the barnyard without speaking, as the dusky twilight descended around them.
The silence between them lasted so long that Mattie felt acute agony begin to tear at some place deep in her breast. It became hard to draw a breath, and her eyes stung. She did not know what to think of this awkwardness between them, nor did she know what she might have done to cause it, nor what she might do to repair it. It bewildered her entirely.
They walked up the path that went past the barn, towards the paddocks where the horses grazed in the cool summer gloaming. As they passed the rear door to the barn, LaBoeuf paused and looked back at the house. Suddenly he grabbed her hand and pulled her after him into the barn, and before she knew what was happening, he had tumbled her back into a heap of hay which Little Frank had pitched down from the hayloft that morning. LaBoeuf lay right on top of her, and his hat was tipped back on his head so that he looked a complete fool. He grinned that smug grin of his, and Mattie wanted to smack him.
"Hidy," he said and, without waiting for her reply, dropped his head and kissed her soundly on the mouth, his whiskers scratching her.
"You are a scoundrel!" she scolded the moment he paused long enough for her to catch her breath. "You had me thinking... Well, never mind what you had me thinking! I ought to box your ears."
"I apologise," he replied, not looking the least bit sorry. "Would it help you know that I think you look very lovely tonight?"
Mattie glowered at him. She had never known him to be playful or deliberately silly in this way, and she found it rather alarming.
"I have missed you," he said. "Your letters were a source of great delight to me, but as they contained more news of the well-being of your crops and your ledger, and less of the degree of your longing for my company, I must say they do not compare to being at your side."
Embarrassed, Mattie could feel her cheeks redden, and she frowned and let her gaze slide away from his.
"Ah! I did not know whether any delicate feminine modesty lived in you, but there is my answer."
Mattie's frown deepened. "It is not 'delicate feminine modesty.' I am merely suspicious of grandiose flattery."
"Is it grandiose flattery to say that I missed you? You grow stingier with your sugar all the time. But you will simply have to accept that on occasion I will like to say that I enjoy your company and am very fond of you." He regarded her expectantly, a smile quirking his mouth. "Have you no similar endearment for me, or has my behaviour today shut me out of your affections indefinitely?"
"Your behaviour today has made me wonder whether I ought to commit you to an asylum for the mentally deranged rather than marry you," Mattie sniffed.
"Ah, but I see that marriage is still a card on the table. That is a great relief to me," LaBoeuf replied. He leaned his weight off of her, propping himself up on one elbow. "How do you do, Miss Mattie Modesty?"
Mattie shifted, trying to put some space between them. The closeness of him after so many months apart was making her feel rather silly. "I do very fine, when I am not being harangued by presumptuous popinjays with sawdust for brains."
LaBoeuf smiled at her. It seemed her sharp words no longer affected him, or that they had some opposite, unintended effect. He lifted his free hand and brushed his thumb against her eyebrow before resting it beneath her eye and cupping her cheek in his palm.
"When I say I missed you, it is not flattery. It is God's honest truth," he said. "But I see you are put out that I did not favour you with my attention the moment I arrived. May I attempt to make amends for this transgression?"
Mattie shrugged and looked away, uninterested in his foolishness. LaBoeuf turned her face back towards his and leaned down, pressing a kiss to her cheekbone, her forehead, and her nose, before kissing her lips. He lingered there for some time, sliding an arm under her shoulders to pull her very close. When finally his embrace loosened, Mattie blinked and let her head fall back into the hay. She swallowed hard around the lump in her throat.
LaBoeuf leaned his forehead against hers. "Tell me you did miss me," he said, his voice low and gruff.
"I did miss you," Mattie whispered. She did not look away from his gaze, although she felt some strange urge to glance to the side, or cover her face. "I should like to have you this close to me always."
LaBoeuf closed his eyes, a pained expression crossing his face. He sighed raggedly. "Mattie, I have something to confess to you."
Mattie watched him closely, a measure of her earlier anxiety returning. She swallowed. "What is it? Tell me."
"I promised you and your mother I would have that house finished by the end of the summer so that we could be married and I could take you back with me," he said, looking away from her.
"Yes, I remember, of course."
"The house will not be finished by the end of summer, Mattie," he replied.
"Oh," Mattie breathed. Disappointment choked her. She had hoped it would be finished in the next month, so that they might be married and be settled enough to have Christmas in their new home. But she felt certain that he had done his utmost, and so she did not want to offend him by showing her feelings.
"But the trouble is that I cannot wait for that damned house to be finished," he said, clasping her hand in his.
"Mr. LaBoeuf!" she scolded, appalled at his language. "I would like for the house to be finished, too, but there is hardly a need for that kind of-"
"Mattie, marry me tomorrow. Or the day after, if you prefer. But marry me and come home with me on that train next Tuesday."
"Well!" Mattie said. "That is -"
"Do you think your mother would object? I will speak to her. I will assure her that my room is a very fine one in a respectable boarding house, and that our house will be completed with the utmost haste, and -"
"Mr. LaBoeuf, you are the one who made the stipulation that our house be completed before we could marry. My mother will be overjoyed, I am certain, to see me married immediately."
"Do you object?" he asked earnestly. "I understand if you do not wish to marry and go to live in a boarding house and not have all of your things around you, but-"
"I would marry you if you had only the clothes on your back and an empty shanty on the bald prairie. However, I will deny these words should you ever repeat them to anyone."
LaBoeuf smiled at her, looking exceedingly pleased. "Now, why is it back to 'Mr. LaBoeuf' when in your letters you felt free to call me Emery?"
Mattie stared at him, finding herself without the means to respond. She gaped for a moment, and then swallowed, collecting herself. "Well," she said, "in my letters I found I was at liberty to - that is, it is rather different when I am looking right at you."
LaBoeuf's smile grew wider. "I would kiss you again, but then I fear I would want to keep you here for much longer than your mother would think appropriate."
He got to his feet then, and Mattie felt rather foolish, left lying on her back in a heap of hay. LaBoeuf reached out his hand and took hers, drawing her to her feet.
Mattie stood still as LaBoeuf brushed off the back of her skirt and picked every bit of hay from her hair.
"Your mother is a good sport," he said, "but I expect even she would not like to know that we have been in this pile of hay, here."
"Putting it that way makes the thing sound as though you have taken liberties with me, when in truth you have enjoyed very few," Mattie replied.
LaBoeuf guffawed. "That is the truth, and if your mother suspects anything, that is what I will tell her. She knows you well, so she will believe me."
Mattie felt herself blush, and said nothing, a smile playing about her mouth. When LaBoeuf was satisfied that she looked presentable once again, he took her hand in his.
"Tell me truly - do you mind it if we marry now and return to Texas, to an unfinished house?"
"Have I said that I mind it?" Mattie asked.
"You have not," LaBoeuf replied.
"And have you ever known me to lie, or to play false to protect a man's pride?"
LaBoeuf's whiskers twitched, and he shook his head. "That I have certainly not known you to do."
"Well," Mattie said, "there you are. You need not worry on it a moment longer."
"Shall we go see what your mother thinks of it, then?"
Mattie did not reply. She merely squeezed his hand, and they walked back to the house together with hands clasped, the gloaming deepening into night all around them.
Continued...