by April Hill
Luke didn’t say anything as he helped her up, and when she began to pull her skirt down, he turned away politely, murmuring something she couldn’t make out. She was mad, of course, but not in pain. Several spots on her backside felt hot, though, and stung. She was also regretting her lingerie choices, having just learned the hard way that ultra-sheer pantyhose and the kind of alluring undergarments that go for sixty-five dollars at Saks provide very little protection against pissed off cowboys wielding cooking implements.
But mostly, Abby was puzzled by what had happened. McLaughlin had clearly intended to punish her, and it certainly wasn’t her struggling and her hollow legal threats that discouraged him. So, why hadn’t he continued the whipping? And more importantly, why wasn’t she angrier than she was?
While Abby retreated to the bathroom to wash her face and change into a pair of jeans, Luke poured two big white mugs of coffee and set them on a table. He wasn’t sure what he was going to say when Abby returned, or even that she’d talk to him. Luke was almost as puzzled by what he had done–or not done–as Abby was.
Luke McLaughlin was forty-three years old, and a widower. By nature a peaceable man, he’d never before hit a woman in anger, and until he married his wife, Laura, he’d known quite a lot of women. Laura was strong-willed, argumentative, and fiercely independent, but he’d known on the first day they met that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. They’d had their share of quarrels, of course—quarrels that were sometimes long and painful and hard-fought—but he’d loved her with all his heart for fifteen years, and after she died, he hadn’t gone looking for anyone else.
There was something about Abigail Chadwick that interested him, though. Something just behind her brittle façade and smart-assed attitude. Something about her that seemed vulnerable, and hurt. Something that had made him want to stop the spanking, and to take her in his arms, instead.
But when she came out of the bathroom and sat down across from him, the vulnerability he thought he’d seen was gone again, replaced by her familiar sullen defiance and sarcasm.
“I meant to wish you a Merry Christmas before I left,” Luke said, realizing the moment the words left his mouth how stupid they sounded. “What I’m trying to say is I didn’t come here tonight to upset you, and sure as hell not to do what…”
“Please spare me another of your tedious, sanctimonious speeches,” she interrupted. “I’m sorry I came here, and I’ll be out of everyone’s hair as soon as I can arrange it. Tomorrow, hopefully. I’ve decided to call my father and ask him to restore my credit cards, or wire me enough money to get back to New York.”
“It’s none of my business,” Luke said quietly, “but will he agree to do that?”
Abby gave a small, bitter laugh. “Why not? He’s already gotten what he wanted. He didn’t want me to marry Edward, and I didn’t. Game over.” She glared at him across the table. “And you’re right. It’s none of your fucking business.”
“You know,” he said quietly, “I get the feeling you’re mixing me up with him. I’m not the enemy, Abby.”
“You’ll do,” she shot back. “At least he’s never hit me with a damned spoon.”
Luke chuckled. “That was sort of improvised.”
“My father would like you, actually,” she said, intending it as an insult. “He claims to like men who work hard for a living. He says they’re a dying breed.”
“There’s a lot of us still out there. Maybe he needs to look around a little more.”
“He told me once that what I needed was a man stronger-willed than I was.”
Luke laughed. “That’s not going to be easy.”
“When Edward…Edward is my most recent fiancé, by the way. Anyway, when Edward proposed, Dad sent me an email that said Edward was very well qualified for the position he was applying for. As my very own yes-man. When I dumped poor Edward, I gave Dad what he really wanted for Christmas.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Have I ever denied you anything?” she asked sweetly.
“What about you?” he asked. “What is it you want for Christmas? Besides seeing me run over by a team of reindeer, that is?”
Abby’s shoulders slumped, and he could see the anger in her face fading into something softer. “I stopped writing letters to Santa Claus a long time ago, Mr. McLaughlin,” she said glumly. “I used to ask to be happy, like happiness could just show up under the tree on Christmas morning, nicely gift-wrapped.” She sighed. “This year, I’m asking for the economy to pick up. And for world peace, of course.”
“You’re kind of on the young side to be giving up,” he suggested softly.
“Young?” she growled. “Everybody I know is already happily married. Some of them two or three times.”
Luke chuckled. “Happily married two or three times? Isn’t that what’s called an oxymoron?”
“Four syllables in one word!” she exclaimed. “And in Latin, yet. I am so impressed!”
Luke grinned. “I’ve been known to read a book or two, when I’m not giving women I’ve never met Christmas presents they don’t want.”
Abby shot him a look of pure malice. “A lump of coal would have been sufficient.”
He smiled. “Maybe, but my Grandma used to say that the best Christmas is where you get two kinds of presents. Something you really want, and something you really need. For us kids, what we always needed was underwear, and a new pair of Sears and Roebuck shoes.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “I think I saw this episode of Little House on the Prairie, thank you.”
“Anyway,” he went on, ignoring the sarcasm. “In a way, that’s what happened here, tonight. I figured you’ve already got more shoes and underwear than you’ll ever wear out, so, after thinking on it for a while, I decided what you needed more’n anything else was a lesson in good manners.”
“A subject on which you are an expert, of course,” she snapped.
“Expert? No, but I know it’s wrong to treat people like you did Maydeen. Especially when they’re just tryin’ to help you out. And I know to say please and thank you when folks like Wilma go out of their way to make me feel at home, especially when it’s plain as the nose on your face that they haven’t got that much to spare.”
“And what do you want for Christmas,” she inquired caustically. “I was thinking maybe a cup of hot coffee in your lap?”
He thought for a moment. “Nope, that’s not it. Original, though. The truth is, I’ve already got most of what I want or need in life, so I’m pretty easy to shop for. I’ll just be happy not to fall out of a hayloft, this year, and break another leg. You sure you don’t need anything? Besides what I already gave you, that is?”
Abby glared at him, but said nothing. Finally, she broke the uncomfortable silence by getting up from the table. “If you’ll excuse me for a minute, I need the bathroom.”
Luke watched as she walked toward the rear of the dinner, and started to plan what he was going to say when she returned. He nursed his cup of coffee for a few moments, and glanced at his watch. The bank would open in six hours. And Abby Chadwick would be on her way back to New York.
Seconds later, he heard a familiar rumble. Somebody’s old work truck passing by, he thought. A truck with a bad muffler.
By the time he leapt up from the booth and threw open the front door, Luke’s battered pickup was roaring away down Main Street in the pouring rain, with Abby Chadwick at the wheel.
Abby’s daring getaway out the diner’s bathroom window hadn’t come without a price. She’d ripped a cashmere cardigan and lost her left shoe in a puddle while stumbling up the alley. And though she wasn’t exactly sure where or even why she was running away, it had definitely seemed like a brilliant idea at the time. Ten minutes later, when the truck skidded on a wet curve and careened off the road into an irrigation ditch filled with icy water, the idea began to lose its luster.
She emerged from the drainage ditch dazed but unhurt, and drenched to the skin. From w
hat she could see in the cold moonlight, the old pickup didn’t look much worse than it had before it slid into the ditch, but her original plan––to get to the X-rated motel—was no longer feasible. Abby knew she’d be lucky not to end up in some hick jail, but she’d shown Luke McLaughlin that he couldn’t humiliate her and get away with it.
Now, all she had to do was stay out of his reach.
In the distance, across a broad, muddy field, she could see a small farmhouse, with its lights on. She pulled her suitcase from the pickup, threw away her drowned right shoe, and started slogging through the mud, barefoot and shivering.
* * * *
Abby spent the remainder of the night with Homer and Maude Dickerson, an elderly couple who raised hogs and goats. Maude had two old mongrel dogs that had fleas, and all of them slept with Abby that night, on the twin bed in the Dickerson’s back bedroom. She hadn’t provided her real name, of course, even to the dogs, and she hadn’t mentioned the truck in the ditch to the Dickersons, whose hospitality was so generous she felt bad about lying to them. It couldn’t be helped, though, and with any luck, she could call New York in the morning, get a ride into town to collect her money, and be on her way out of fucking Texas before Santa arrived in town. And before Luke McLaughlin found her.
Her father came through, as Abby knew he would. Calls and arrangements were made, and within two hours, her credit had been restored. With that settled, Homer drove her into town and waited in the car while she collected seven hundred dollars for travel money. The only bad news was that the limousine arranged for her wouldn’t be able to get there until very early the following morning––the day before Christmas. The good news was that Maude already had a fragrant pork roast in the oven for that night’s supper. With blueberry pie and homemade vanilla ice-cream for dessert. Abby’s childhood favorites.
They had all finished supper and were sitting in the living room watching The Fugitive when Abby’s plans began to fall apart. The volume on Homer and Maude’s ancient, thirteen inch TV was loud enough to be audible in the next county, so when someone knocked on the front door, no one heard it, at first. Finally, Homer got up and went into the hallway to see who could be dropping by so late, at eight-thirty on a cold winter’s night.
Abby was aware that Homer was talking to a neighbor, but when Luke walked into the room, she knew instantly that he hadn’t come on a neighborly visit. While Homer was still trying to interest their neighbor in watching The Fugitive with them, and having a cup of Maudie’s special eggnog, Luke pulled Abby up from the couch, dragged her across his hip like a sack of hog feed, and started for the back door.
“You just got here, Luke, boy,” Homer called after him. “Where you off to, now?”
“That shed out back, Homer,” Luke asked grimly. “Spring house, or woodshed?”
“Just a danged old tool shed,” Homer replied, grinning as he began to understand the situation. “I reckon you’ll find what you need, though, if you’re lookin’ to set fire to the little lady’s backside. There’s a bin full of shingles and scrap wood that oughta do a right good job. I used to roast Maudie’s rump with one of ‘em, back when she was younger, and earned herself a real barn burner.”
“Shingles, eh?” Luke inquired.
“Yep. Good, long ones, too. Cut ‘em myself. Thick as your palm, and a whole lot easier on it, if you get my meanin’. Never could see the use in hurtin’ yourself more than the lady you’ve got over your knee with her drawers down.”
“I take your point, Homer. The lady’s a howler, though. You might want to close that back window.”
“Don’t worry about it. There’s nobody close-by, and Maudie and me are half deaf, anyway. You just take your time, and make a good job of it. From what you told me, that’s one little lady who’s gonna need her butt blistered, regular-like. Better to straighten things out before the two of you get serious.”
“Serious!” Abby shrieked, from her extremely uncomfortable position over Luke’s hip. “Are you out of your fucking mind? I wouldn’t have anything to do with this arrogant bastard if he were the last man on earth!”
Homer shook his head. “After the shingles, you might want to go on and give her a couple dozen licks with a belt. A woman who cusses like she does can be a real chore to live with.”
Luke grinned. “Yeah, that’s been bothering me, too.” He reached down and gave Abby’s bottom one swift, very hard smack. “I’ll give my belt a try. After I’ve broken three or four shingles, across her backside, that is.”
The next few minutes seemed to Abby to take place in slow motion. Luke walked the short distance across the yard and opened the door to the small wooden shed, with her still draped under his arm. She had stopped punching him, since he’d repaid every punch with a sharp crack across the taut seat of her jeans, and as cold as that part of her was, each smack had hurt worse than the one that preceded it. By the time he set her on her feet in the shed, Abby’s rear end was already stinging.
Because of the weather, Abby had dressed in several layers of clothing, and since she fought like a tiger, the stripping down that ensued took a while. She got loose once, and almost made it to the door before Luke grabbed her around the waist, shoved her over a rickety wooden sawhorse, and yanked her jeans down her thighs and completely off. In the end, despite Abby’s twisting and kicking, she was no match for his strength, or his determination. She found herself sprawled over the unsteady contraption, wearing nothing but a long sleeved Yankees sweat shirt and lavender lace panties. And a pair of Homer’s woolen socks. Heavy, gray knit socks that came almost to her knees. The only parts of Abby that was remotely warm were her feet, and when she complained about the cold, Luke grinned.
“I guess that’s my cue to say you’re about to get a whole lot warmer,” he suggested.
“Are you enjoying yourself?” she asked acidly.
“As a matter of fact, I am. I’m pretty sure you’re not havin’ a great time, but the real question is, are you going to take it like a lady, or not?”
“What do you think, jerk?” she shot back.
Luke sighed. “I figured. So, maybe I’d better tell you the rules. If you take what you’ve got coming, and stop trying to kick me in the balls, like you’re doing now, we’ll make this short, and fast. I won’t lie to you, though. It’s gonna hurt like blazes. Like when you were a kid, and plopped down butt naked on a metal chair on the hottest day in August. You won’t sit easy for a couple of days, and you’ll hate my guts the whole time. And that’s fair, but if you get nasty about it, we’ll do it all over again. And if that happens, the walloping you’re about to get is gonna seem like a damned picnic. You got that?”
The rough-cut cedar shingles were more than a foot long, and when broken in half, maybe four inches across—the ideal size, as it turned out, to leave a wide, scalding swath across both of Abby’s chilled “cheeks.” While Luke was rummaging through the bin, searching for just the right shingle, he had kept one hand strategically placed on her lower back, so when the first tremendous thwack arrived, she wasn’t expecting it. Abby had vowed to herself not to make a single sound, this time. Her intent was to deny him the satisfaction of hearing her howl, but her noble resolve vanished with the very first blow. The coarse wooden shingle landed with a resounding splat across the lower part of her rear end, and in that agonizing instant, Abby abandoned her vow of silence and emitted a long, drawn out howl of pain. And if she’d expected her second spanking to be mild, or to end quickly, like her first one, Abby was about to be grievously disappointed.
She lost count somewhere in the mid-thirties, at about the same time gave up any pretense at dignity or modesty. She would have to be satisfied, she thought miserably, with not falling off the damned sawhorse on her head and humiliating herself further. Convinced that every square inch of her from mid butt to mid-thigh had already been set aflame, she was horrified to discover that the evening had just begun. Behind her, Luke McLaughlin was unbuckling his belt. The same wide, tooled leathe
r belt she had admired that first day, at the bus stop. A fine example of the leatherworker’s craft, she had thought. Evocative of the old west, yet tasteful, and surprisingly contemporary in its simple design and skilled execution.
The first swat of the belt burned like fire, leaving Abby convinced that she would be left with raw welts on her butt as wide as her hand. Inside the Dickerson house, Homer grinned to himself, and lowered the back window.
There were ten, probably, and when it was over, Abby lay across the wooden sawhorse like a rag doll, desperate to reach back and rub her buttocks, but too afraid to risk it. How many times had she heard a character in a book or story assure another character that he/she was about to be whipped and/or spanked until he/she was unable to sit down for a full week? And how many times had she scoffed at that estimate? Ridiculous, right? But now, with her own thoroughly spanked hindquarters on fire, Abby was convinced that a full recovery would require at least twice that long.
* * * *
As they started back to the diner in Luke’s car (the one she hadn’t driven into a ditch) Abby was grateful that hadn’t made her face the Dickersons, again. He’d put her in the front seat, then gone back to the house to get her things. Oddly, she wasn’t mad at him, but simply relieved that it was over…or would be, when the limousine arrived, in the morning. For a few minutes, neither of them spoke, until he suddenly pulled off the road, and stopped the car.
“I need to tell you something,” he said quietly. “I called your father, back at Homer’s place. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it, but I told him to cancel that car he was sending from El Paso.”
“You did what?” she cried.
“I can’t let you leave, after … after all that’s happened. We need to talk, first.”
“Talk about what?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is I don’t want you to drive away from here believing that what happened was just a lousy thing that happened to you on your way to Las Vegas. We both know it was more than that. I want you to come home with me, tonight, so we can talk.”