Harry on the Prairie

Chapter 35

AUTHOR'S NOTE: A little surprise for all ya'll who've been stickin' with me, despite how dang slow I am...

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*****

Oh, darlin' -
there's somethin' happy
and there's somethin' sad
'bout wantin' somebody oh-so bad.

I wear my love, darlin'
without shame,
I'd be proud if you
would wear my name.

Little girl, I wanna marry you.
Oh yea, little girl, I wanna marry you.
Yes, I do.
Little girl, I wanna marry you.
—Bruce Springsteen

*****

FRANKIE:

"Why on earth would you wanna keep that?"

The hint of a blush pinkens his cheeks. "Because you wrote that you loved me."

Now it's my cheeks that are doing the pinkening.

"Do you mean it?" Still sittin' on the mattress, curls wet and unruly, mud smudges on his flushed cheeks, green eyes await the answer I feel floodin' through me.

"Yes." I'm breathless and from exactly what, I don't know. "Yes, Harry. I do."

*****

HARRY:

I am so damn happy that I could shit and fall back in it if I weren't already sittin' like an idiot who'd just tumbled ass over teakettle onto a mattress in the middle of the root cellar.

"What did you say?" I clamber to my unsteady feet, runnin' my hands over my limbs to make sure I didn't break nothin', all the while my eyes on Frankie.

"About what?"

Taking a step closer, I ask again. "What did you just say to me?"

"I said, 'yes.' I said 'yes I did.'" She's keepin' a mighty straight face. This here little missy could possibly rob me blind if we were in a poker game.

"I want you to say it full out, Frankie," I command. Maybe she just wrote it down cause she thought she'd never see me again.

"Say what full out?"

For fuck's sake. I've half a mind to take her over my knee, but that'd just bring my boner full-mast and who knows how long we could be stuck down here before I can get some privacy to rub one out.

A couple more steps on my part and she's backed up against the work table. "Don't act like you don't know — you wrote it in the note, Frankie."

"I remember what I wrote, Harry." She stalls, castin' her eyes downward. "Well . . . are you gonna say it too?" Ah, I see. She don't wanna say it first in case I don't return the sentiment.

"Do you want me to say it?" I tease, her eyes meet mine once again. "You do, don't ya?" Talk about being stuck between a rock and a hard place, Frankie's got my boner against her belly and her backside up against the work table.

"Quit playin', Harry. Of course I want you to say it." Outta the blue, I lift her up real quick and set her atop the table, she gasps and struggles to get back on her feet, but I'm not done yet.

"I might say it. But I got a question first." Frankie rolls her eyes at me. "Seriously, Frankie." With two fingers under her chin, I tilt her face up so I can see her eyes, tender, yet willful. "That guy in the wagon that I beat up — is he anyone to you?"

Frankie's beautiful skin loses a hint of it's color, "No, Harry. I'd seen him in Hunter's Glen - just in passin'. I don't know him personally or anything like that."

"You weren't runnin' off to be with him?" I brush her hair back from her face, and push my hips against her. My mouth aches to be on hers.

"I don't want to be with anyone but you, Harry," she breathes.

"Ya mean it? Ya ain't gonna go runnin' off half-cocked again? Tryin' to get away if I try to marry ya? Cause I was fit to be tied when I got back from huntin' to find you gone. I don't wanna feel like that ever again, Frankie."

She looks at me, her creekwater eyes brimmin' with tears.

I press my lips to her temple, to her cheek, and then her ear, breathin' in a combined scent of Frankie and rainwater. My tongue swipes her earlobe, and she whispers my name.

"I love you, Miss Frances Tomlinson."

There. I'd said it. It felt good to say it. So good, I want to say it again. So I do.

"I love you. I love you. I love you." I whisper it along the tiny hairs of her hairline between kisses, and then cover her mouth with mine.