A spring night was tickling the shutters of the windows behind the curtains, with a hint of rain’s humidity in the wind’s fingers when it tried to creep in as an unwanted guest.

Elin sat on the stool and watched her face from the mirror, while her hands rose up and unpinned the small bun in the nape of her neck. The hair fell down on a thin braid, and the silver-streaked brown hair unravelled itself in soft locks of cobwebs and silky waves, but her head bent down, her face got an inward look and she became distant. Her right hand travelled over her thigh and found it’s way on her long leg up to her hips, and returned back on the thigh, and she sighed.

Hoss took off his vest and folded it over a chair, and opened the buttons of his shirt. He frowned slightly, and saw the reflection of his worried ice blue look from the mirror. ”Are you hurt, Elin?”

Elin startled, pressed her hands together over her chest, and straightened her back. ”No, no. I’m fine.”

Hoss folded his shirt neatly on top of his vest, as he had been taught during the years they’d been married, and tucked back the cuffs of the pink undershirt. He took the few steps to cover the space between himself and his wife, and crossed his hands over her chest, pulling her tall figure close against him. She tried to fake she relaxed, but it didn’t feel right, her eyes and her shoulder blades were not as they should be.

After few moments her left hand rose and she put her fingers over his tanned hands, and a wistful smile guided her glance, lowering it to the deck of the dressing table. The wedding ring reflected the light of the lamp next to the mirror. ”I’m fine, I am,” she repeated.

”Yes, I see you’re fine,” Hoss said and combed her fine hair behind her ear, stroking the few locks at the forehead that didn’t stay behind the ear, ever. ”I’ve got eyes on my head, too, and they’re telling me I’ve got the finest wife ever.”

She lowered her head for a while, and then rose her hands to cover both of his hands laying on her shoulders, as if she wanted to pull him closer over her to comfort herself. Her gray eyes searched his face from the mirror, and she leaned more comfortably against him.

It was quite familiar; every few weeks, from a month to two months, she seemed to get moody and insecure, almost at the brink to tears for any reason. Irregularly regular, Hoss had learned to watch for it, even though he didn’t always have a cure for what was bothering her.

”Do you still think I… that I’m… that I can attract you?” she asked, afraid to say the word ‘beautiful’. Why did she choose the word attract, when all she did or all she had was enough to seduce? Hoss looked at the pale skin with faint golden freckles that were more faint than the dust from the gold-back ferns, and let her rest against his legs while her head pressed against his belly.

He felt the warmth of her hands when they held his arms over her shoulders, and imagined the feel of her long arms around him. He stroked her chest with his thumb that was free. ”You’re so pretty I don’t always know what made you choose me from all the men in the world.” And it was true.

She wasn’t satisfied, though, the furrowed brow and the tense neck didn’t appear convinced. ”But I am getting so… fat.” Her hands released their hold and travelled back to her legs, to her hips and they tested the width of her lower body.

Hoss lowered his own gaze to hide a smirk, and bent a little lower to rest his chin on her shoulder. She had probably visited the seamstress, a day or two ago, and flipped through the fashion pamphlets, once more. Mother of five, and secretly she looked at the pictures that made grown women resemble mere girls.

Hoss closed his arms under her breasts, where she resembled the firm and slim girl she had been some years ago, and buried his cheek in her hair. She had been developing this extra bulk that seemed to center upon her hips and her thighs, that was true, but nobody saw it under all the skirts and petticoats.

To be all honest, Hoss had never really thought his wife would have had vanity for such a thing that made her so very… well… womanly. ”You couldn’t be called fat by anyone, for all the grace that you carry yourself with,” he said, and put his own hand next to hers, over the nightgown that covered her thigh. ”The eyeballs that dared even think of the word ‘fat’ would burn to their holes,” he added.

He let his hand travel all the distance and the area of her thigh before he grabbed it and squeezed. Elin squeaked and squirmed, and grimaced at the tickling sensation while her eyes judged him. She looked hurt.

”You’re just teasing,” she accused, sulkily, and tried to escape his hold with little success. ”Let me go.”

Hoss grinned and pressed her against his chest. ”The day I realized you have a liking to me, I thought you’re too much good for me. And now you say you’re growing some layers to be even more of you,” he added, and pinched her backside so hard that she screamed. She tickled easily, Hoss knew, but she also wiggled funnily when she was pinched.

Elin tried to stifle a nervous laughter and remain angry at him as she had decided to be angry. ”Stop kidding me, you ox-head,” she snarled, and frowned glumly at his little grin. He had seen a glint of laughter in her eyes, though.

”Don’t you worry, woman, I’m fond of every inch of you and there’s still a lot of space for some spare inches to come.” She didn’t believe it, but he tried to tell it as honest as he could.

Elin sneered and shifted on the chair. ”I’m like an old tree; I stop moving around and grow a new layer every year around my legs,” she complained, and looked frustrated when Hoss stood up.

”D’ya think I should cut them open and count how many years you have, in fact, lived?” He ruffled her hair and managed to make her show her tongue and grimace at him, but he could sense the giggle developing somewhere deep in her stomach, growing to be burst out when it was warmed up a little. Hoss looked at her seriously in the eyes, and thought of all the respect he had for Elin just for her height, her strong and tall figure, and how proud he was when he could walk next to her straight back that supported a pair of so tender, large hands. He waved his finger at her picture in the mirror. ”Don’t you start getting all silly just yet, when we ain’t been married for even a decade. You know there’s something special in those legs.”

Elin’s brow rose. ”What?”

Her gray eyes looked at him, expecting, hoping, innocent. Hoss swallowed a chuckle. ”They start to grow from you.”

She creased her nose and the pointy tip moved, but the grin lept from the face of Hoss to cover her pointy features, too. ”How can I mope when you spoil every try?” she asked, and the grin split her face and her teeth exposed to the laughter that trembled her throat.

Hoss rose his eyebrows and bit his lips together, greeting Elin through his reflection with a smug smile. ”Imagine, how hard it would be, if you had to move all those huge iron pots and pans if you were thin and puney as a cricket.”

Elin pushed her lower lip forward and pouted, with a cocked eyebrow. ”It’s all thanks to you and our hungry offspring that I need such a huge… ” she groped for the word, frowning slightly, ”artillery.” With satisfaction she observed the hearty chuckle Hoss gave to her choice of words. Artillery, indeed – the kitchen was her queendom, her pantry kept her infantry in order and her cavalry at hand.

Hoss squeezed her shoulders, and she turned around and pressed her cheek over his belly (that had grown, admittedly, under her close supervision and her art with baking sweet things). She giggled and wrapped her arms around his body. ”Besides, this is what I fell in love with you the first time I laid eyes on you,” she teased with bells of laughter hanging from her voice. Her other hand came to rub his belly while she snuggled her head against the pink shirt and giggled out louder, the echo of her throaty voice caressing Hoss’ ears. ”I saw this big man coming to my yard, and I thought immediately, ‘this man has to be wealthy, to have afforded to grow such a belly.’”

It was Hoss’ turn to disapprove her quote. He was merely chubby. In a cuddly way. ”Cut it out, will you?” he said and tried to catch her arms, but she was quicker in tickling his sides and poking his described bump that was too protuberant to evaporate just with a strong inhale. ”You listen to me, wife, you say that once again and I ain’t gonna vow on the consequences.” He caught her wrists, finally, and held them at the level of her chin, while she bit her lip and her laughing eyes looked straight at him.

”Don’t you believe me? I thought right away, that a man of that size will make my kids plump and fat and let everybody know how rich we must be.” She tried to pull her hands free, but he didn’t let go. ”Besides, I think a man should represent the skills of his wife, to show how well she cooks.” She grinned like a cat who licked cream, and her golden freckles shimmered gleefully. ”’Look,’ say the people, ‘there goes a man who spends his days with his wife and her cooking, and doesn’t run around the world in search of a better wife.’ That’s what they say.” She laughed again at his stupefied, baffled face, and cocked her head backward.

Hoss looked at her the convex arch of her nose and the cunning cheeks that squeezed the eyes more shut, the cunning wrinkles of laughter and tease framing her glittering eyes. ”Ailynn, you must be the most calculating woman on this earth,” he said, and let go of her before he turned around.

Hoss heard her get up, before her arms wrapped him from behind, before her hands squeezed him closer against her and her cheeck came to rest over his shoulder. ”You wouldn’t change an ounce of it, either,” she said and patted his chest and the pink cotton underwear he wore.

No, Hoss thought and patted her hand gently. Not for anything in the world.