Caitlin grinned at him, noticing that he was naked too. “What did you have in mind?”
“How about joining the mile high club?” Chase suggested drawing her down on the mattress. “It will keep your mind preoccupied.”
Caitlin laughed. “Is that you being considerate or horny?”
“Both,” Chase laughed. “I think the mile-high club is getting a new member.”
* * * * *
“Val, baby, wake up,” Blake said.
“Mmmm… ” Valerie grumbled facedown into her pillow. “It’s Saturday, and I get to sleep in. I’ve worked really hard all week getting this place organized. I need more sleep.”
“It’s after ten, up, up, up,” Blake said giving her a shake.
She rolled over and gave him a tug into the bed. “How about in, in, in,” she cooed.
“Nothing I’d like better, but we’ve got company coming. Chase called. He’ll be here in about an hour. We’re going out to lunch. Come on, baby, I want you to meet my partner.”
Valerie rolled over again. “Ex-partner, you go, I’ll sleep in.”
“Up, you lazy, brat,” Blake said laughing. “Up or I’ll have to remember something that you’ve done so I can spank your lazy behind.” He gave her a light spank, and she sat up.
“I’m up, I’m up. Go away! No, I need to know where we’re going so I can dress appropriately.”
Blake groaned. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you that anything goes now? I’m thinking Lugeno’s.”
“Good pants, spiffy top and killer shoes,” Valerie said with a smile and a kiss. “I’ll be ready in thirty minutes.”
“That would be a first,” Blake said, but he said it with a smile. “If that’s true, maybe we do have time for…”
“No, no,” Valerie giggled. “I’m up and I have to get ready!”
By time the doorbell chimed Valerie still hadn’t come out of the bedroom, but Blake heard a shout from her. “I’m ready! I’m coming!”
He opened the door to Chase and Caitlin. Chase made the introductions since Blake hadn’t met Caitlin yet. He’d invited them in when they heard heels clicking on the tile floor.
“Caitlin!” Valerie screamed and ran across the room in her impossibly high heels and nearly knocked her friend over with an excited hug.
Caitlin hugged her friend back enthusiastically. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” Valerie squealed and she flashed her hand in front of Caitlin face. “I’m engaged! This is my honey!”
“Our surprise,” Chase said looking at his old partner.
Valerie batted her eyes at Blake. “You knew and you didn’t tell me!”
Blake laughed. “I thought you were going to miss her by sleeping all day.”
Valerie hooked her arm through Caitlin’s. “You two go do whatever men things you want to do. Go down to the macho-man cave and watch that monster sized flat screen. I’m spending some time with my girlfriend!”
While Valerie had a whispered conversation with Blake in the kitchen, Caitlin turned to Chase and kissed him. “Thank you. I never suspected.”
“It happened kind of quick for them,” Chase admitted. “They’ve been a couple for about six months now. She’s been moving in over the last couple of weeks.”
“Okay, girlfriend, we’re out of here. We’re going to go spend some girl time together, and we’ll be back for the guys before dinner time,” Valerie promised.
“Don’t forget us,” Blake warned his fiancé. He turned to Chase, “There’s a game on, let’s head down to the man cave.”
Caitlin followed Valerie out to the garage where she pointed to a small compact SUV.
“Whoa, what happened to the BMW?” Caitlin asked.
Valerie shrugged. “I couldn’t afford it, so I downsized.”
“Did you get an offer from a station in Salt Lake?” Caitlin asked.
Valerie shook her head. “No, I don’t have a full time job yet. I’m working a temp agency until I can find a job. I’ve got applications in at the airport for full-time, and on file at the local stations if an opening comes up. Blake wanted me here, so I moved here. Working as a temp is okay. I’m using those clerical skills my folks insisted I learn in high school, and I scored a four-week assignment right off the bat so that gives me time to keep looking for something fulltime. I like the people I work with now. I work for an event planning company - weddings, anniversaries, parties. It’s a change - no backbiting like at the TV station.
What are you doing with Chase? I know he was on your protection detail. No. Don’t answer that. It’s probably something I’m not supposed to know about—security and all that stuff. Oh, but honey, when that man got out of the hospital he was livid! I wouldn’t want to have that man hunting me down! Is it safe for you now? Blake explained a little bit of what happened with the Rigoltees and the trial and you being in WITSEC. We all saw in the news when they got killed. There was some kind of gang or mafia war going on. So, does that make it safe for you to come home now?”
“Home isn’t in the States anymore,” Caitlin said evading most of her friend’s questions as Valerie pulled into the mall parking lot.
“I’m only looking today, not buying,” Valerie said. “Still, we can have fun looking.”
Caitlin laughed and was amazed when her friend really didn’t make a single purchase. Caitlin made several, as she considered what she’d packed and thought she might as well add a few new things. Caitlin rarely went shopping, having gotten out of the habit of appearing in crowded areas. They left the mall and Valerie drove to a small bar where they ordered drinks and decided to split a sandwich.
“So, tell me how you and Blake met?” Caitlin asked. “Give me all the dirt, and dirty.”
Valerie laughed. “Honey, it was like two trains colliding.” She slapped her hands together. “He came to question me about you, wanted to know if I had any idea where you’d go. I didn’t because, girlfriend, you never told me anything about being in the…” She looked around to make sure no one was listening. “Well, you know. Anyway, I took one look at that man and decided I was keeping him! It was like that guy you told me about, the one that got away. We were in bed two hours after we met, and we stayed there for a days. He is pure perfection.”
“He must be if you gave up your job in Reno. You loved that job,” Caitlin said.
Valerie shrugged and looked down at her drink. “I love Blake more.”
“Okay, straight up,” Caitlin said. “What does he get bad points on, no man is perfect.”
Valerie bit down on her lower lip and took another sip of her drink. She looked around again and leaned toward her friend. “Have you ever heard of domestic discipline?”
“Yes,” Caitlin admitted cautiously. “I’ve done some research on it recently.”
Valerie leaned closer. “You know my family is real religious, right? My Daddy believes in being the head of his house, and he believes in domestic discipline. I always thought that was so unfair to Momma, my Daddy taking her off to their bedroom and walloping her if she did something he didn’t approve of her doing. I wanted so much to get away from that when I left Kayhill. As it turns out, Blake believes in domestic discipline too, and it doesn’t have anything to do with his religion. He believes that he’s the man in the relationship and he is in charge and that’s all there is to it.”
“Has he hurt you?” Caitlin demanded.
“No, he’s spanked me a couple of times when we got into arguments over my finances. He also doesn’t believe in using credit cards. He’s got this thing about being responsible. If you can’t pay for it, you don’t need it—that’s his motto.”
“That doesn’t sound like you at all,” Caitlin said. “You never have any cash on you. You always used a credit card!”
“Not anymore!” Valerie said making a face. “You’re looking at the new Valerie.”
“I liked the old Valerie. There wasn’t anything wrong with her.”
“Actually, there was,
” Valerie admitted. “I owe a lot of credit card debt. I was constantly spending more than I made. Once I got away from that little bitty town, where the only things I’d ever owned came from Wal-Mart or the Goodwill, I went a little crazy. I loved buying pretty clothes and shoes and my BMW, all of which I really couldn’t afford.”
“I thought you got a clothing allowance from the station,” Caitlin said. “For all the clothes you wore on-air.”
Valerie shook her head. “I lied about and I’m sorry. I made everyone believe my job was so fabulous, but really… I was one of the little people. Only the top talent gets clothing allowances, not someone who does little segment pieces. I convinced myself that I was going to get a major network job, get a big bonus and pay off my debts. Only it never happened. I told myself I was going to be the next Oprah, only a skinny version of her. I kept spending and charging, and getting deeper and deeper into debt. I’ve interviewed for other networks, but I never got any offers. Then I met Blake and everything changed. He’s more important than any job. He caught on real fast that I was living way beyond what I was earning. We had a big discussion about it and then we had a big fight about it. After that, I couldn’t sit down for a couple of days.”
“Your finances are your business.”
“They become his business when we get married,” Valerie said. “We’re heading in that direction real fast. My bad spending habits do affect him. He wanted me to move in with him, so he figured out this plan to correct the problem. He paid off my debt, but I have to live within a budget. Honestly, it’s the only issue that we have that drives him crazy. I’ve screwed up a couple of times and that hasn’t been fun, believe me. Other than Blake believing in spanking, he’s wonderful.”
“You can live with idea that he thinks he has a right to discipline you?” Caitlin whispered.
Valerie nodded. “It’s a small price to pay when I know Blake loves me so much. He only does it to teach me a lesson, to make me understand that I need to become a better person, a more responsible person. Living with Blake has made me understand my parents a lot better. You know my Momma and Daddy, they’re totally happy together and have been for over thirty years.”
“I’ve heard of marriages like that, I’ve even read some of the blogs out on the Internet, but I don’t see how a woman can submit to that, to allowing herself to be treated like that.”
“Blake loves me,” Valerie said. “A relationship is about trust and I trust Blake to do what’s best for me. Maybe I can understand this easier than you can because I grew up with it. It’s domestic discipline, not domestic abuse. Sometimes it’s a little hard to see the difference. Even I had a hard time seeing the difference when Blake took his belt to me once.”
“What!” Caitlin voice was outraged and loud.
“Shush,” Valerie whispered.
“That’s abuse! Brutal abuse,” Caitlin whispered.
“No, it wasn’t!” Valerie whispered back. “I screwed up really, really bad. He’d already spanked me over it! He took it a step further because I wasn’t modifying my behavior, and he only hit me ten times, only enough so I’d know that he meant business, and if he had to do it again it would be worse.”
Caitlin looked at her friend with concern. “It sounds like brainwashing to me.”
“I’m not being brainwashed,” Valerie said firmly. “I know what I’m doing, Caitlin. I love Blake and I know he loves me. I see his love every day and every day it grows deeper. He’s a kind man, and he’s a strict man. He only wants what is best for the both of us. My spending problems have the potential of breaking us up if I don’t change them. It’s an addiction, and I have to get it under control. I don’t want to lose him over stupid things likes shoes and purses, and clothes that I don’t need. Do you know I have a whole room at his house filled with my clothes and accessories? Even I didn’t realize how much I had until I got all that stuff organized in one place. It’s embarrassing to admit that I was that much out of control. I have duplicates of some things with the tags still on them. All I had to see was word ‘Sale,’ and I was off and running whether I needed it or not.
I’m living in Blake’s house, and I don’t pay a dime to live there - no utilities, no food, no entertainment expenses - he even put me on his phone plan. I’m driving a car that I can afford to buy gas for, and yes, it belongs to him. Every cent I earn is going to pay off my credit cards. Blake is doing everything for me, and all he asks is that I live by the rules he’s set down to get me out of a financial mess that I made all by myself. Please Caitlin, try to understand. Blake’s one of the good guys. He isn’t one of the jerks that want a one-night stand. He wants us to have a future together. I knew Blake was right for me the moment I laid eyes on him. We have to go back and have dinner with Chase and Blake tonight. Please don’t go back with an attitude against Blake.
“I won’t,” Caitlin promised. “Val, if you need financial help, I can help you.”
“No. I can’t take anything from you. It’s my mess. It’s grow-up time for me, and time for me to stop trying to be a diva that I can’t afford to be. I got into this trouble all by myself. I’ll get myself out of it with Blake’s help. I have his total support, and he understands how hard it is for me because I love pretty things.”
Caitlin nodded. Her friend had always acted like a diva even when she’d lived in a tiny town of two hundred. It was only after her move to Reno that Valerie had started buying designer brands. Maybe she was ready to settle down. Maybe Valerie could accept a relationship that included domestic discipline and be happy like her parents obviously were. Caitlin was spending an awful lot of time trying to figure out if she could accept a relationship based on the same criteria?
Chapter 8
The evening spent with Valerie and Blake went well. Caitlin had to agree that on the surface, Blake seemed to be a nice, professional, upstanding man who was obviously in love with Valerie. For her friend’s sake, she was willing to accept that Valerie considered Blake her true love. She couldn’t stop the involuntary glances to his belt, and she gave a mental shudder.
She never brought up Chase’s identical predilections to domestic discipline to Valerie, and wondered why she didn’t. She was a little confused herself. How could she forgive Chase for spanking her, and he’d done it twice! But she couldn’t forgive Blake for doing the same thing to Valerie. She also didn’t explain to Valerie that Chase was the man from her past, or why they were together. Her friend assumed it was some kind of a security issue, and she didn’t correct her.
The day of reuniting with friends over, she and Chase headed back to the airport. It was only a four-hour flight, so Chase broke one of the pills in half and Caitlin swallowed it. He held her painfully gripping hands during the takeoff and watched to make sure she was going to be able to handle the flight. As soon as they’d reached cruising altitude, she unsnapped her seatbelt and went straight back to the sleeping compartment.
Chase watched her go and checked a few minutes later find her curled up asleep. Something was bothering her, had been bothering her all evening, but he didn’t want to bring it up because of the stress she’d be under for the rest of their flight. It was better for her to sleep away her tension. He covered her up and went into the cockpit. This shorter flight didn’t require a co-pilot. He knew the pilot would let him get some hours logged into his flight logbook. He was still ninety-two hours from having enough hours to apply for his commercial license.
After landing at the airport and getting Chase’s pickup out of long-term parking, they headed out to spend the rest of the night at a hotel. The next morning they were on the road early. Thirty minutes later, he pulled off the highway and into a small roadside café. Caitlin gave him look of inquiry, and glanced down at the large coffee cup in the cup holder. It was still steaming.
“I need breakfast,” Chase said as he led her into café and settled into a booth in the corner. He picked up a plastic-coated menu and handed one to Caitlin. She put it back. When the waitress ca
me over, he gave his order and ordered a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of coffee for Caitlin when she declined to order.
“If I wanted breakfast I would have ordered it,” Caitlin snapped.
“If your stomach is upset from the Valium yesterday you need to get something solid in it,” Chase said. “If you’re angry about something else, you need to tell me what it is.”
“I’m not angry,” Caitlin snapped but she looked at him and made a face. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’m worried about something else. I didn’t mean to take it out on you.”
“Meeting my parents and family or something about Val and Blake?” Chase guessed.
“Both,” she admitted. “Can you give me a little more time to work it out in my head?”
“No,” Chase said honestly. “You’ve been stewing about something since last evening, so I have to guess this is about Val and Blake. You slept on the plane, but you only slept a couple of hours last night at the hotel. I’m attuned to you. If you’re awake so am I. If something is bothering you, we need to talk about it.”
They accepted their meals and thanked the waitress. Caitlin took a bite of the oatmeal and stuck her tongue out. “This is so gross!”
Chase laughed. “So, order some real food.” She pushed the oatmeal away, so he signaled the waitress. “An order of blueberry pancakes, with a side of bacon.”
Caitlin gave him a look of irritation, but he only grinned.
“Talk,” he ordered.
“How well do you know Blake?” she asked.
“He’s been my partner for eight years. We work well as a team. I trust him completely. He’s a straight up kind of guy, even if he does root for the Seahawks and the Redskins and not the Cowboys.”
Caitlin went to speak, but she waited until the waitress had unloaded her tray for the second time. “He hits Valerie,” Caitlin whispered.
“He believes in domestic discipline. I knew that,” Chase said snagging one of her strips of bacon. “So do I. Specifically in my case, I believe in spanking. You’re going to have to accept it.”
Caitlin's Conspiracies Page 9