Caitlin's Conspiracies

by Mariella Starr

  “There’s a lot more to it than that, and I don’t want anyone else to know. She could still be in danger,” Chase admitted.

  “She’s not a criminal, I know that much. I’ve always disapproved of that notion. The idea of protecting criminals for their testimonies against other supposed worse criminals has never made sense to me. Even if you dress up a rat, it’s still a rat. I suppose I’ve led a sheltered life. The only criminal I know is Willie Peterson,” Karen said with a laugh. “He stole two chickens from my Daddy when he was twelve years old and was taken to the woodshed for it. My Daddy never did think much of him, even after he became a lawyer and later a Congressman.”

  Chase laughed. “Proof solid that people never change, they only get better at hiding their faults.”

  “She’s very open about most things, but Caitlin hides part of what she is inside because she’s afraid of it,” Karen said, nodding toward Caitlin, who was swinging a horseshoe. “Maybe she’s afraid it won’t be reciprocated. She projects everything else that she is – her strengths, her intelligence – but she hides her vulnerabilities. She doesn’t want anyone to see that part of her. She has doubts, and it’s up to you to convince her that you’re the right man for her.”

  “I’m trying, Mom,” Chase admitted. “Caitlin has to accept me for who and what I am.”

  “Yes, she does. Loving a Bennett isn’t easy. It was hard for me. It was hard for your brother’s wives. If she’s never known love, it’s going to be difficult for her to recognize it,” Karen said. She kissed her third son on the cheek and got up to move around and speak to other family members.

  The barbecue didn’t end until well after the sun was down. There was the usual windup event of everyone pitching in on the clean up. Men broke down the foldable tables and chairs to put them back into storage and took care of trash clean up. The women wrapped up food and got bowls and platters back to their rightful owners. They divided and swapped leftover food and sometimes kids, when one cousin or another wanted to spend the night with a different relative. There were the time honored last goodbyes and hugs until the next event was planned, which would be at Thanksgiving if not sooner. Many a relative left with whispered words of assurance to Marc. They promised to visit again soon and assured him they were only a phone call away.

  As Chase left, he carried out a box of leftovers and stored it in the extended cab seat. Caitlin was lingering, maybe, he thought because she didn’t want to go home with him. He’d meant what he’d said. There would be a follow-up tonight. It would involve his hand on her bottom or her packing a bag. She stopped before she got into the truck, turned in a slow circle and seemed to be surveying the area of the barns and buildings carefully.

  “What’s up?” he asked when she climbed up into the truck seat.

  “This is the second time today that my Spidy sense has gone off.”

  Chase took her seriously and got out of the truck, pulling a pair of night vision binoculars out of a box of equipment behind the driver’s seat. He surveyed the area where she’d been looking. “Do you get the prickles up the back of your neck, or a sense that someone was watching you?” he demanded.

  “A sense that someone is watching,” Caitlin said her eyes continuing to scan.

  “Where were you when you felt it? Where do you think it’s coming from?” Chase asked.

  “Earlier, it was after we left the dog run, and again, now,” Caitlin said. “I couldn’t pin-point where it was coming from.”

  “Lock the doors and get down!”

  “No,” Caitlin warned. “Don’t go out there unarmed. It’s probably nothing; there have been tons of people around today, it could have been anyone looking at me, watching me. I was person they came to see. Let’s go. If we’re followed we should be able to spot them, there’s a full moon tonight.”

  “Both good points,” Chase said, getting back behind the wheel.

  They both watched, but no headlights followed them. Once they were back at Chase’s house, he got the box of food and handed it off to her before removing his box of equipment and locking up his truck - something he never did.

  “Are you really spooked, or is this a diversion?” Chase demanded once they were inside the house.

  “I’m not spooked yet, but I know that feeling,” Caitlin answered truthfully.

  “And you’ve learned to trust it,” Chase agreed. “I’m going to check the house and the parameters.”

  She nodded and followed him through the house, but he told her to stay inside when he went outside armed night goggles.

  Ten minutes later, he was back, and he locked the front door behind him. “I couldn’t find any sign of anything. Do you still feel it?”

  She shook her head. “Where do we go from here, Chase?”

  He gave her a long and hard look. “That’s up to you, Cait. It’s time to decide. I love you, but I’m tired of everything being a battle of wills. You have to decide if you’re going to accept me as I am.”

  “I love you Chase,” Caitlin exclaimed. “But I don’t want to be treated like a child when I’m not a child.”

  “We keep going over the same ground. There are going to be times when I give a direct order. I’m ex-military - you’ll know an order when I bark it out—it will be obeyed. There will be times when I tell you to do or not do something, and I don’t expect an argument every single time. I’m not saying you can’t disagree with me. I expect we will argue about some things. But you’ve got to learn to trust me. You’re going to have to trust that I’m doing what I think is best for you. I have to consider your safety and your well-being. This is who I am and I’m not going to change. I don’t expect you to stop being who you are Caitlin. I respect and love who you are, but on this you only have two choices. Either you accept that I believe in domestic discipline and that you’ve more than earned a spanking or you pack!”

  “But …”

  Chase turned and walked down the hallway to the bedroom.

  Caitlin waited to see if he was coming back, but he didn’t, so she followed him. He stood by the bed, his arms crossed, holding an old-fashioned small oval wooden hairbrush in one hand.

  Caitlin’s eyes widened and she shook her head. “No. It hurts bad enough with your hand.”

  “You don’t get a choice,” Chase said sternly. “My hand or a hairbrush are the implements I feel comfortable using for discipline. It will be one or the other depending on what you’ve done and I make that decision. I told you discipline is accumulative, and I’ve let you off the hook several times now. Now, it’s time to settle up.”

  “Can’t we…”

  “No,” Chase interrupted. “No more discussions, no more trying to convince me to be different than I am. Either you accept this or we move on. It’s a decision you have to make and once it’s made there’s no going back.”

  Caitlin wasn’t a crier, but her chest now felt as if it were tightly bound. Her eyes were watering, and she knew it was time to make a decision. It now or never. Her brain was screaming “NO,” but her heart was about to break at the idea of walking away from Chase again. She took a deep breath and swiped at the tears. She was about to go against everything she’d believed. She was a strong, independent woman. Could she toss her independence away for a man - a dominant man that believed his will trumped hers, a man that believed in spanking a grown woman. She hadn’t thought so, but suddenly, she knew the answer. Hell yes, if that man was Chase and it meant a lifetime with him - a lifetime of his love and protection and never having to be alone again.

  “What do I do?” she asked her voice breaking.

  Now it was Chase’s turn to waver, but he knew he couldn’t. “Come to me Cait, I’ll take it from there.”

  Caitlin walked over to him. He kissed her on the forehead, hugged her to him, and his hands went to her jeans and he unsnapped, and unzipped them. She took a deep breath and pushed them down and stepped out of them.

  Chase took her hand, sat down on the bed, pulled her across his lap, and
pulled her panties down. Caitlin was already crying, and he hadn’t touched her yet. He rubbed his hand over that beautiful round bottom and picked up the hairbrush. This was crossing a major hurdle for her. He knew she’d hated the very idea of it. This was her accepting him as her partner, and accepting that he had the right to discipline her.

  The first whack of the back of the hairbrush was solid and painful.

  Caitlin screamed and tried to squirm off his lap, but he tightened his grip on her. Merciful heaven! She thought it had been painful when he’d spanked her with his hand. The hairbrush was ten times worse!

  “Thwack!

  The sound of the hairbrush and the pain were entirely different from getting a spanking from his hand. The pain was sharper, it stung and burned. Each strike seemed to hurt more than the last, and each thwack was following by her outcry of pain and sobs. Once that first blow had been delivered though, Chase got into the rhythm of the task at hand. She was being disciplined for the second drugging, for running out on him, for fighting and swearing and in general for being disagreeable and contrary brat for the better part of the last two weeks.

  The hairbrush thwacked against her bottom again and again, and with each blow, she cried out and begged him to stop. Chase didn’t blister her, but he turned her bottom bright red, making sure every part of her bottom was attended to evenly. When Caitlin was sobbing uncontrollably, he tossed the brush aside and went after her ass with the palm of his hand, concentrating deliberately on her sit spot. He felt vindicated when the job was completed. He wanted the message to get through this time. He wouldn’t allow to her to try to put distance between them again. He wouldn’t tolerate her not listening and if the last two spanking hadn’t left an impression on her, this one would. He was sure of that.

  Caitlin cried herself to sleep. When she woke up the next morning, she realized that she’d slept through the night without tossing about and waking up at every single noise in the night. That had been her normal sleep pattern for years. She hid her fears well during in the daylight hours. At night, though the terror always came back. She also realized that Chase was lying wide-awake beside her. Unsure of what she would say to him, she tried to sit up but sucked in her breath and rolled back on her stomach.

  Chase pulled her over onto his chest and stroked her shoulders. “Angry?”

  “I don’t know,” Caitlin admitted.

  “Cait, you’ve been on your own a long time, and I know you have trust issues,” Chase began.

  “I trust you,” she interrupted.

  “Do you? Do you trust that I’m telling the truth when I say I love you? Do you trust me enough to know that I will do what is best for you, above what is easy?”

  “I like easy,” Caitlin murmured.

  He chuckled. “Easy is letting you get away with behaving badly. Easy is ignoring what I believe needs to be corrected. I’m not going to be easy to live with because of my beliefs, I know that.”

  Caitlin gave a sigh and rubbed her bottom. “I made that decision last night and I’m paying for it this morning. Even if I accept this macho crap of yours, do you think that means I’m going to be any easier to live with? I’m opinionated and stubborn. I know I can be wrong sometimes, but I’ll always think my way is the best way until proven wrong.”

  Chase laughed. “That’s all right as long as you realize that if I disagree, I don’t have to prove you wrong. I can settle things in a faster and more direct manner.”

  “I had to take charge and I got used to denying the part of me that needed someone. I got used to the idea that I would always be alone because I was a fugitive.”

  “You weren’t a fugitive. You didn’t do anything wrong,” Chase said mildly.

  “No, I didn’t, but I was still a fugitive. I tried to do what was right. I did believe it was the right thing to do. I thought that if you did the right thing, everything was supposed to work out, but it didn’t. I was the one on the run. I was the one hiding, pretending to be someone I wasn’t. The bad guy changed his ten thousand dollar Italian designer suit for a prison one. His organization kept right on destroying people. It was all for nothing in the end, and I was the one on the run. I had to become tougher and learn to deal with it.”

  “I’m so sorry for that. Probably knowing what I know today, I would have advised you not to testify,” Chase said softly.

  Caitlin smiled. “No, you wouldn’t. You still believe that in the ultimate battle, good will triumph over evil. I hope it does, but I’m not depending on it. I have to depend on using my wits and my skills to out run and out maneuver them.”

  “You don’t have to do it alone anymore. You won’t have to do it alone again, Cait. I know you’ve had to toughen up a bit over the last years to survive, but you don’t have to try to hide the loving person that’s inside you. Love may not conquer all but it sure helps make the battle worth it.”

  “Hmmm…” was all the answer he got and Chase looked down and grinned realizing that she was drifting off to sleep again. He gave her a shake.

  “Come, on sweetheart, we’ve got to get up. I promised my Dad I’d be there this morning. The wrangler he hired is coming today to work with Satan.”

  “It’s Sunday.” Caitlin protested. “I’m staying right here, lying on my stomach all day!”

  “No, you’re not,” Chase said grinning. “I’m not leaving you by yourself. You have to go because my Gran offered to give you a quilting lesson today.”

  Caitlin burrowed into her pillow. “I can’t sew! Tell her I’m sick, or tell her the truth - that you beat me up and I can’t move!”

  “I did not beat you up, and I’m not lying to my eighty-nine year old grandmother. Come on Cait, or I might be tempted to give you a repeat performance,” Chase teased.

  Caitlin opened her eyes for the sole purpose of rolling them and rolled out of bed with a yelp. She headed for the bathroom, took a long hot shower, found the tube of pain ointment, and rubbed it on her butt gently before tucking it in her pocket. She gave a sigh as she inspected her very tender bottom. The way she was going, she would have to buy the ointment in the super-sized tubes.

  They enjoyed a huge Sunday morning breakfast, courtesy of Chase’s cooking skills. Although Chase thought it was hilarious, Caitlin actually sat at the kitchen table on her bed pillow and carried it to the truck with her.

  “If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it isn’t working,” Chase warned her with a grin.

  “You should feel guilty! I’m trying to sit down without screaming,” she retorted.

  Chase gave her a sidelong look as he drove down the lane. “If the need should arise again for a repeat of this lesson, there will be no ointments or pillows allowed.”

  “That’s cruel,” Caitlin complained giving him a sharp look. “As it is, I’m going to have a hard time today pretending that I’m not in pain.”

  “It may be embarrassing but it’s a fact of life in our family.”

  Caitlin did her eye roll again. “You’re all weird.”

  He laughed. “You’re one of us now.”

  She gave that some thought as they traveled the distance to the main house. It was true. From the moment she’d been introduced to Chase’s family, they’d accepted that she was one of them. At times, she got a weird feeling of expectation from his family members. She thought they were expecting an announcement. Their attitudes were ‘where’ve you been all this time’ even though they’d never met her before. It was definitely weird that they’d accepted a total stranger into their midst without any reservations.

  Chase headed off to the barns, while Caitlin went inside the house and greeted the women back from church services. Karen went straight back to her room to rest, and Gran took Caitlin to her apartment for her sewing lesson.

  Caitlin knew she was a disappointment to Chase’s grandmother, Celia, and wondered why she volunteered for this torture to start with. She’d never sewed anything in her life. If she wanted to put in a hem, she fused it with an iron and a li
ttle package of glue tape. If she needed to replace a button, she had a neat little gizmo that put it on with a plastic fastener. The only thing she got from needles was pricks in her fingertips as she kept stabbing herself.

  With a shake of her head and a lament of what young ladies weren’t being taught now-a-days, Celia dismissed her before she could do any real damage to the quilt.

  Caitlin took her exit gratefully and headed out to sit on the front porch swing. Thankfully, it had an overstuffed cushion on the seat. She sat quietly and vaguely watched the activity that was taking place in one of the corrals. It was nice to have a lazy Sunday afternoon.

  Cathy came out onto the porch with a huge bowl full of apples and sat down in a chair. They sat in companionable silence for a few minutes, Caitlin gently swinging, Cathy peeling her apples.

  “Range loves apple pie, both my boys do too,” Cathy said amiably breaking the silence. “I’ve been married for twenty-two years to Range. Contrary to what you believe Caitlin, I’m not a Stepford wife.”

  Caitlin flushed. “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t …”

  Cathy waved off the apology. “Range and I have known each other most of our lives. Living in the same small town, we knew each other from church, and from elementary school on. In high school, we dated once, and before the evening was over, he told me I was a spoiled brat that was badly in need of a spanking. I probably was, but at sixteen, I certainly didn’t want to hear it from him. I went off to college and he stayed. He worked on the Sassy Sal and took a part-time job as a deputy. Seven years later, I was a brand new lawyer, gung-ho and pretty full of myself. I came back to my hometown to visit my parents, showing off a lot in spiffy clothes and my fancy sports car. It was used, but that’s all I could afford. I ran into Range again, and we didn’t hit it off any better the second time around. It seemed like every time I turned around I was running into him, and he was either scolding or yelling at me. He ticketed me for driving too fast. He scolded me for not wearing a seatbelt. He threatened that he was going to write me a ticket if I didn’t get better tires on my car. Range Bennett did nothing but infuriate me. He wasn’t impressed by my degree or my job or by me in particular.