Spit and Grit Page 5

  When the meal is over, and we are getting ready to leave, Mr. Snider steps up.

  “I’ll take Mrs. Maxwell and Billy home,” he offers. “I am sure you two young people will want to spend some more time together. Granger can take you back after I return with the buggy,” he tells me and then helps Ma and Billy up, and steps up in the driver’s seat, while Granger, takes my arm and leads me down a path behind the house.

  “Why did you say I agreed to marry you?” I ask once we are out of hearing distance?

  “You saw how my brothers were. They would be flirting with you and begging you to consider them. There aren’t many good looking women out here of marrying age, ya know, or they would have been married a long time ago. There are just the fast women in town, and Ma and Pa would never approve of any of them as their daughters in law.”

  “You talk like I am just up for grabs, cause I am of marrying age,” I cry.

  “Well according to my brothers, you are. If truth be known, you are way past marrying age. They never even thought about you until they saw you yesterday. I think they discovered you weren’t as unappealing as they thought you to be,” he tells me truthfully.

  “That is so heartening,” I respond.

  “Listen, Mazy. If you don’t want to marry me, or anyone else, just consider this a reprieve. You have a whole year without my brothers hounding you and all you have to do is spend time with me to make it look like you really are considering me. At the end of the year, you can say you changed your mind, and then figure out how you are going to fight my brothers off,” he sort of chuckles.

  I look up at him and he looks down at me, lifting his finger and pushing some curls out of my eyes.

  “To tell you the truth, Mazy, I wouldn’t mind spending more time with you,” he says, bending a little closer.

  “I don’t think I can trust you,” I tell him.

  He knows me too well and has already taken advantage of that.

  “You can’t,” he whispers, “All the same, just pretend like you can,” he smiles

  Then Granger places his mouth over mine, pulling me against him. His mouth is devouring mine, and at first, I don’t know what to think or do. It feels so amazing, the way he moves his lips against mine, so I allow him to kiss me. When he lifts his head, he laughs.

  “I think we are going to get along just fine,” he tells me. “Just don’t be begging me to make love to you, or you will end up having to marry me,” he says softly.

  “Then you had better stop kissing me like that,” I respond.

  “Is that all it takes?” he asks, and he starts to kiss me again, but I push him away.

  “I told you not to think you can be kissing me all the time,” I remind him. “This is just supposed to be pretend, so don’t you forget it.”

  “All right, Mazy. Have it your way. At least now I have a year where you are gonna have to spend time with me, whether you like it or not,” he replies.

  “Why are you so determined to spend time with me?” I ask him.

  “I can’t forget that night when you begged me to make love to you,” he says. “I know you were half asleep, but if I can ever get you to beg me when you are awake, I would be one lucky man.”

  “I’m never going to do it, Granger,” I tell him. “That was a fluke, and you are never going to put your hands on me like that again.”

  “Then don’t kiss me back, when I am kissing you for show,” he tells me. “I think you’re lying to me and yourself, Mazy. You probably dream about the way I touched you that night, every time you are in your bed.”

  It angers me that he can practically read my mind, and I pull away from him.

  “Only because I’ve never been touched by a man like that before. However, rest assured, the next time that happens it will be with someone I am in love with. I will never be in love with you, Granger Snider. So just keep your hands to yourself when I am asleep, even if I am begging you, cause you will know I won’t mean it.”

  “I think I hear my Pa coming with the buggy,” Granger says. “It’s about time I took you home. You are getting on my nerves already.”

  “You just can’t stand it to have a woman turn you down,” I say.

  “You’re right.” he admits, “but I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. Prince charming could come to wake you from a trance and you would refuse his kiss.”

  “Trouble is, you are not prince charming,” I tell him, “even if you think you are. Maybe I should go out with one of your brothers after all,” I state.

  “Go ahead then,” he says. “I’ll call Butch right now!”

  He starts to walk away.

  “Don’t you dare,” I call after him and run up and grab his arm.

  “How are you gonna stop me?” he asks, as he keeps walking.

  I stand in front of him and push against his chest.

  “You sure know how to rail me to distraction,” I yell. “Why do you do that, Granger?”

  “Maybe that is what you like about me,” he growls. “You are always looking for a fight, miss spit, and grit.”

  He steps past me, “Butch,” he calls, and I jump in front of him and grab him by the neck putting my mouth over his. I start to push him backward into the shadows again. I feel desperate to stop him from spoiling everything, just because he is angry with me for not going along so easily and falling all over him like I want to marry him. When we reach the side of the barn, he pushes me up against it. His tongue begins to explore my mouth, which sort of shocks me, and his arm is pulling me hard against him, and I can barely breathe. I feel his mouth lower to the top of my breast, as he tastes my skin, sucking against it like he had done to my neck earlier. He reaches his hand away from my back, and grabs my hand, bringing it around to the front of him, placing my hand on him.

  “See what you are doing to me?” he mumbles. “Just looking at you excites me like that!” I can feel him surging up against my hand through the material of his trousers.

  It all happens so fast, I don’t even realize what he is doing, as he pulls me into the barn with him. Granger pulls me down onto the straw, lying over me, his mouth searching my mouth in a way that astounds me, and even frightens me a little. When I feel his mouth on me like that, my heart speeds and I gasp at the feel of it. My hand is captured between our two bodies, still pressing firmly against him.

  I feel Granger push his hand up beneath my skirt, past my stocking tops and through the opening of my pantaloons. I feel startled, remembering my dream. There is an unexplainable longing, and he is adding fuel to the fire of that longing. I am gulping for air, as his mouth smothers me while his seeking hand strokes me into submission. I feel him moving against my captured hand. Our breath is leaping while our bodies strain for more, and then I feel that same rapture that I remember from my dream. I find myself crying out against his mouth. He knows what he has done as we lay there in strange confusion. I am feeling stunned, that I would allow him to do that, and a little frightened that I had actually encouraged it.

  “Crazy Mazy,” Granger breaths. “Why did you do that? Does this mean you are starting to love me just a little?”

  “I had to stop you from calling Butch,” Is the only excuse I can come up with. “And then everything started getting out of hand, and I didn’t know how to stop it.”

  “Mazy, Mazy. You know I would never let Butch or any of my brothers near you. You are way too innocent for them. I’ll forget this if you want. It’s not like you were letting me do it out of love.”

  “I’m ashamed I even let you,” I tell him. “I don’t know what got into me. I promise to go out with you if you just understand it is not because I want to marry you.”

  “Do you ever want to do this again?” he asks.

  “We shouldn’t have done it at all. Only you kept telling me how my tits are so small, and how I think I’m a man. Then you threatened to hand me over to your brother because I was getting on your nerves. At first, I was just trying to stop you from calling your brother, and t
hen you were doing all those things to me that you did when I was half asleep. I guess I was thinking I had to have that feeling again while I was awake and knew it was really happening,” I have to admit. “Just don’t get me all worried like that again. I might end up doing something worse!”

  “Man, if I thought it would bring this on, I would worry you to distraction,” he smiles, and he puts his mouth against mine.

  He kisses me gently and holds me against him as he starts to pull the straw out of my hair and off my dress. Finally, Granger pulls me to my feet.

  “I’ll come help you with the cows tomorrow and chop your wood for you. I know you’re Ma needs the extra help and there are plenty of hired hands here to do the work on this spread.”

  “You don’t have to,” I say.

  “I want to,” he tells me. “Why do you think I told everyone that we would wait a year? You can’t turn down my help now, Mazy. You need me whether you want to admit it or not.”

  I look at Granger and my opinion of him starts to rise.

  “I want to help you, Mazy, so you can have more time to be a woman again. You make a much prettier woman than a man,” he chuckles. “And you smell better as a woman too.”

  Granger leads me to the buggy and helps me up.

  “You may never love me, Mazy,” he says, as he sits down beside me, “but where I’m sitting right now, I think I’m beginning to love you.”

  “Don’t, Granger,” I say. “Don’t you dare tell me you love me. If you do, I’ll break it off right now. I am not going to be blamed for breaking your heart, at the end of this year, so don’t you dare even think those thoughts!”

  “You can’t stop me, Mazy,” he says, “but if you want, I’ll keep my mouth shut about it.”

  “Then you can’t kiss me anymore, or touch me the way you did tonight. I’m not going to be blamed for encouraging you to love me.”

  “Have it your way, Mazy. You will anyway,” he chuckles and he clicks his tong and slaps the reins against the horse’s backs.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Granger keeps his word and comes over every day, helping with the chores around the house. I busy myself doing other things because I do not want to spend any time alone with Granger. He has a way of looking at me that makes me know what he is thinking. Only he never says a word about loving me. He never tries to kiss me. He barely touches me, but he looks at me like it is breaking his heart because I won’t really marry him.

  There are times when he takes his shirt off to chop the wood, and I can see the sweat sliding down over the muscles of his body and I remember how his naked body felt against mine when we slept in that cot together. I wonder why I keep having those kind of thoughts about him? I think I am just shameless, and Granger has made me that way. It doesn’t make sense because I know I don’t love Granger, so why else would I be having those thoughts about him, if not because I just want to feel a man’s hands on me again?

  I think he has those thoughts about me as well because sometimes he looks at me the same way he looked at me when I was standing in the rain with no clothes on. I remember how he came to me and washed the mud out of my hair. Even so, we don’t talk about it. We seldom talk at all. I am just aware that he is there and Ma is all excited about us getting married. She keeps wanting to make plans for the wedding and wanting to start on a wedding dress and I keep having to make excuses why we should wait longer before we do it.

  Granger spends a lot of time with Billy and makes him wooden guns. He shows Billy how to rope a fence post and takes him for rides up on his horse. I start to realize that Granger is making my family fall in love with him so, when the time comes, I won’t want to back out of the marriage plans which really aren’t supposed to be marriage plans.

  The ranch is looking great. Granger has fixed up the house and patched the roof. He dug the garden and put up more fences for the cows. Every time I see him, he always has a smile on his face.

  When he is working, if I bring him a cool drink of lemon aid or ice tea, he takes it from my hand and looks down into my eyes and says, “Thank you, Mazy love.”

  He calls me Mazy love all the time and whenever he says that I feel sad and angry all at the same time. I know he is trying to suck me in. He is trying to weaken my will. He’s trying to get me to fall in love with him, without even touching me. And the more he tries to get me to love him, the more I seem to want to fight against it. I don’t even know why I want to fight against it except that I do. And I realize that I don’t want to love Granger because everyone else wants me to. It is like I don’t have a say in it at all. Ma wants me to marry him, and now Billy wants me to marry him. Of course, Granger wants me to marry him too. I feel like I am being pushed into it, just like Granger pushed me into touching him in the cave. I feel like everyone is trying to trick me into marrying Granger and I won’t know if I want him to touch me because it feels so dang good or because I love him? I won’t know if I am marrying him because it will make Ma and Billy happy or because it will make me happy? And since I said from the beginning I wasn’t going to marry him, I feel like I have to stick to my guns no matter what.

  Anytime Granger tries to get me to do something with him, other than just being around to help out, I remind him this is all pretending. I don’t want him spending money on me or giving me presents. I can’t stop him from coming around, I tell him, but when the year is up, he won’t even be able to do that anymore. I don’t want to give him any hope because I don’t want to break his heart in the end like I told him when he said he thought he was starting to love me. I don’t want him starting to love me, and I don’t want to start loving him either.

  When I am near him though, there is this draw that I have to fight against because I believe it just has to do with a man touching a woman and that must be what I really want from him. It has nothing to do with love. Granger said himself that men and women like to kiss even if they don’t love each other. I suppose it goes for the other kind of touching as well, only I will never let Granger close enough to me again for him to touch me like that.

  Then suddenly, everything changes when Pa’s second cousin by marriage shows up. He tells us that he has just learned of Pa’s death. His mother, who was always fond of Pa, insisted that he come out and see how we are getting on, and to offer any help if we need it. He comes from back east and Granger says how can he be of any help, seeing as how he doesn’t know the first thing about a cow.

  Cousin Marvin shows up in his buggy on a Sunday afternoon as we are all sitting out on the porch relaxing and drinking lemon aid. Granger is reading to Billy about Billy the kid, from a ten-cent novel, since he has the same name as Billy and was a famous outlaw. Ma and I are sitting on the swinging couch listening. When Marvin pulls up in his buggy, I sit up, noticing his impeccable good looks. When he introduces himself, his eastern accent falls on my ears so pleasantly, that I could sit and listen to him talk all day and never tire of it.

  He comes and kisses both Ma’s and my hand, causing my heart to speed up when he looks down into my eyes with his deep green eyes. All I can do is just stare at him and try to keep my heart from beating right out of my chest. I realize suddenly that this is the kind of man I could easily fall in love with, and I am glad I am dressed in a dress. The year is almost up for Granger and Ma has been pressing me about the wedding. I have been telling Granger that we have to tell her that we never really planned to get married and this has all been pretending. As usual, Granger has been holding back. I know it’s because he wants me to give in and he thinks my Ma will end up talking some sense into me.

  Marvin has perfect manners. He has been to college and seems to know a little something about everything, except for cows, Granger is always pointing out. However, I am sick of cows and sweat and hard work. As far as I am concerned, Marvin doesn’t have to know about cows if he has money. He can hire someone to work the ranch, I think. Even Granger could have done that, but I had no intention of ever marrying Granger so I didn’t think about it.
When Marvin comes into my life, my whole perspective about men changes.

  I don’t want Marvin to think that I have promised to marry Granger so I take Ma aside before she can say anything to him about Granger and me, and tell her about the fact that the only reason I said I would marry Granger, was to keep the Snider boys from thinking I was available. I tell her that even though Granger is a nice person and has been a big help to us, I never intended to marry him, and he knew it. Since we had agreed that at the end of the year we would break up, a little sooner would not hurt anything. I make her promise not to tell Marvin I was promised to Granger.

  Ma looks disappointed and a little angry that I would deceive both her and Granger’s parents, but then agrees it is my life. She agrees I should be in love with the man I decide to marry because she had loved Pa. She told me she wanted me to be as happy in marriage as she and Pa had been.

  Ma says that Marvin can use the extra room to stay in and he is welcome to stay as long as he pleases. He seems delighted, and he gives a quick glance at me as he tells Ma that he is glad he came. He insists to let him know if there is anything that she needs. He is prepared to help us out in any way necessary.

  Being a cousin by marriage means that Marvin really isn’t related by blood to me. His mother was my father’s cousin because she married my father’s blood cousin. However, Marvin was from a second marriage, after my father’s real cousin died. Since her children by her first husband were related to us, Marvin was considered a cousin as well.

  Heartlessly, I take Granger aside, as Marvin takes his belongings up to the room that Ma says he can use, and tell him he doesn’t have to come back anymore. Cousin Marvin has come to help us out. I tell him since had no intentions of marrying Granger anyway, it was better if we ended the charade. I let him know, though, I appreciated everything he had done for us, even though I never asked him to do those things.