Cowboy Caveat

by Vanessa Brooks

  “Sure’nuff, and?”

  “I was bad-tempered with you.”

  “You were downright foul, Lucy. I was overlooking that until you slapped me! I won’t tolerate that; it was completely undeserved. This spanking, however, is much deserved, Lucinda May Campbell!”

  Lucy squirmed at the use of her full name; she simply hated ‘Lucinda.’

  As his wife wriggled over his lap, Ed felt his arousal surge against her hip. He silently groaned but quickly decided that he was having his delectable little wife as soon as he had punished her. He raised his hand and brought it down on her rump with a resounding smack! Her flesh quivered delightfully and Ed began to enjoy spanking his wife. She squirmed as the first few hand-falls peppered her bottom and she moaned as she adjusted to the sting. After a number of spanks Lucy’s hand flew back to protect her burning bottom but Ed quickly intercepted it and held it tight at her waist. She kicked her legs and Ed slapped her thighs hard. “Stop that now!” he ordered her. Lucy moaned, bucking as much as she was able, held as she was in such a tight position.

  “I don’t know what was spinning inside your pretty little head, darlin’, but it has to stop, you hear me, Lucinda?” Ed upped the ante and rained slaps all over his wife’s luscious, bouncing mounds. She cried out in protest at the severity of the spanking but Ed was not going to let up yet. “Lucy, answer me!” he demanded.

  “I’m sorry, Ed. I really do not know what came over me.....pleeese, enough already!” she pleaded.

  “I don’t think so, darlin’... you earned this one and you’re gonna take it...at least until I think you’re truly remorseful for your peevish behavior!” Ed swatted Lucy rapidly, igniting her already heated behind.

  “I am! I am! Please, Ed... No more, please...I am sorry...Oww!”

  Unbeknownst to Lucy, her husband couldn’t take much more either. He was so erect, it hurt; the sight of her reddened bottom quivering over his knee was exciting him to fever pitch. After a volley of well-placed spanks, he stopped, his hand resting on Lucy’s extremely warm bottom. Ed sat and waited for Lucy to speak. Lucy sobbed out her pretty apology in the desperate hope that her spanking was actually over.

  Hilda Campbell arrived at the top of her stairs, and as she made her way to her bedroom, she paused and cocked her head to one side, pursing her lips and listening. She knew her hearing wasn’t what it once was but surely she’d heard...yes, there it was again. She moved quietly to stand outside the yellow bedrooms door. There she could clearly hear the rhythmic smacks that denoted someone was getting a spanking, but Ed spanking Lucy?... No! Ed was far too besotted with his sweet little wife to spank her; she must surely be mistaken.

  Hilda carried on to her own room, reminiscing happily about her own marriage and in particular the early days when Mark had taken her in hand quite frequently and then made sweet passionate love to her afterward. She sighed. Oh, how she missed her now deceased husband. Old age was so cruel!

  CHAPTER 12

  Ed awoke at five thirty that afternoon, looked down at his cute wife and grinned to himself. Their lovemaking had been fierce, and he had never seen Lucy so wanton and aroused before. Lucy stirred and opened her lovely blue eyes, heat suffusing her face when she saw her husband grinning sinfully at her. She wondered what on earth had come over her behaving like she had towards Ed today. Then the thought popped into her head: Had she actually been trying to provoke a spanking? There was no doubt in Lucy’s mind that there was something not quite right with her....she kept thinking she really shouldn’t have been so aroused after Ed had spanked her.

  Lucy had discovered that she quite enjoyed the process of being naughty, then Ed coming over all firm and implacable. It excited her when he was so dominant and stern with her. She wasn’t keen on the actual spanking itself, oh no, especially when Ed was really disciplining her, but the effect on her libido was astonishing! She was obviously a very sick woman!

  As soon as Ed realized that Lucy was awake, he winked; she blushed and closed her eyes tight. Ed had realised that Lucy was embarrassed by the state of her arousal after she had been spanked and he decided to share something with her that the doctor had shared with him a week back.

  Ed had gone to see him to find out what his medical view was on spanking women, wanting to make sure he couldn’t harm Lucy if he punished her that way when he felt she needed it.

  The good doctor had been keen to inform Ed that a spanking drew the blood down to a woman’s loins and therefore improved their enjoyment of conjugal activities. He assured Ed that she would come to no harm from a good hand spanking and had even gone so far as to expound his theory that a woman had been designed with such a padded bottom for the sole purpose of such punishment!

  Ed drew his wife into the crook of his arm and began to fill her in on the doctor’s point of view. Lucy became very still as she listened, her eyes growing rounder and rounder, and a slow, shy smile lighting up her pretty face.

  * * * * *

  Dinner was at seven sharp. Ed and Lucy were the first downstairs, or so they thought until Hilda Campbell appeared from her small parlor, formally dressed in a deep blue silk dress sporting a large bustle on the back. She was accompanied by a prominent-looking man with longish white hair. He was dressed in a maroon velvet jacket, a snowy white shirt with a black ribbon tied at his neck, and black trousers with a black velvet stripe up the side of each leg. Ed felt rather underdressed beside this dapper old gentleman.

  “May I introduce my grandson Edward and his wife, Lucinda? Edward, Lucinda, this is my friend Judge James Richardson. I have explained the whole story to the judge and he thinks that despite Amy’s stupidity in all of this, he may be able to help us,” Hilda told them as she led them all through into the dining room.

  * * * * *

  Rick Cook was concerned about the three bodies stored in the barn. He and Elmer had sewn them into individual shrouds made from some tough canvass that Elmer kept out back for roof repairs. The heat was accelerating the decomposing process and the flies weren’t helping too much either. Elmer had a rough wooden cart that would hold the bodies and he could use the stage coach horses to pull it. There was only room for two on the wooden seat and Rick knew that Ethan Walker would object mightily to him taking his wife into custody. But after everything they had told him, it was something that he had no choice over; he was a lawman.

  The following morning, he hid outside and waited until Ethan came out to use the privy. Then Rick ran over silently and nimbly and locked the man inside, using the drop bar on the outside. To say Ethan was furious would be an understatement. Rick left the hollering Mr. Walker kicking the solid wooden door and went inside to Ethan’s and Amy’s bedroom, where he slipped his handcuffs onto a sleepy and dishevelled Amy whilst pulling her upright.

  Millie, woken upon hearing the banging and hollering from the privy outside, got out of her bed, and saw Rick Cook clip handcuffs on Amy. She screamed in outrage, which bought Luca running in, followed by Elmer and Carmella. Each scooped up a child before taking them back into their bedroom, where there they sat down on the bed, holding Millie and Luca in tight hugs to stop them from interfering with the Ranger. Rick Cook grabbed hold of a dress and boots for Amy from the chair beside the bed before dragging her, resisting and spitting with fury, out to the packed and prepared cart. He clicked his tongue at the horses and they were off.

  It took Ethan a full ten minutes to kick down the privy door, and when he did, he ran after them, chasing the cart, which was just about out of sight. After a while, he realized the futility of running farther and gave up the chase. He snatched off his hat and flung it to the ground, swore colorfully under his breath and ran a hand distractedly through his hair. “God-damnit!” What the hell was he supposed to do now?

  Amy was incandescent with rage. She tried unsuccessfully to launch herself sideways and off the cart, but Rick Cook simply grabbed her arm and held on, warning her that she could break her arm or a leg if she succeeded in falling off the cart. Aft
er an hour or so of listening to Amy’s abuse and foul mouth, he stopped the cart and tied her handcuffs with a rope around the middle of them and then tied the other end to the bench. He then took a clean kerchief and stuffed it into her mouth. “When you’re ready to have a civil tongue in your head, lady, I’ll take the gag out. You don’t need to be afeared, Mrs. Walker, I have a very powerful friend in Dallas who can help with your predicament, but I’m a Ranger, ma’am, and I gotta bring you in. I’m honor-bound to, y’see?”

  Amy did not see and mumbled, “Bastard!” furiously through the cloth in her mouth. She was also now trying to shriek and it was coming out muffled and wrong. Rick grinned; he had a pretty good idea of what she was saying. He planned to stop as soon as Amy had calmed down so that she could relieve herself, take a drink of water and get herself dressed. He decided to pause the journey briefly at Mountain Creek for fresh water and to rest the horses before they continued onto Dallas, which, hopefully, they would reach by nightfall.

  * * * * *

  Millie was distraught and it took an hour for Ethan to quiet her down. He felt sorry for the kid; she was so distressed. Finally, she calmed down, and Ethan left her to Carmella’s kindly ministrations whilst he and Elmer took a walk out back. Elmer explained what Rick Cook had told him about his plan to help Amy by taking her to a friend, some hot shot lawyer type living in Dallas. He would also wire the stage company about the overturned stage. He had promised Elmer to either return himself to collect Ethan and the children or he would send someone else to fetch them. There was nothing to be done about it so Ethan simply had to sit tight and make the best of things. The only other beasts at the staging post were a mule and a couple of goats, Elmer’s dog and a pig.

  The dog turned out to be a bitch and an absolute godsend when it decided to whelp half a dozen pups in the middle of Millie’s bed during lunch time. Millie was so enraptured by the event it distracted her from what had happened to her sister. She and Luca stayed with the pups until nightfall, totally absorbed with these sweet new lives.

  * * * * *

  Halfway through dinner, Rose appeared and announced that there was a man come to see the judge most urgently and could he spare him ten minutes of his time? The judge grumbled and made his apologies to Hilda Campbell, wiped his mouth and followed Rose out into the hall. Ed and Lucy stopped eating, unashamedly eavesdropping but hearing nothing but the murmur of male voices.

  After a few minutes, the front door slammed and reopened a moment or two later, followed by the sounds of an altercation in the hallway, punctuated by a shrill female voice. Then the dining room door was slammed back against the wall and a dishevelled Amy burst inside, followed by a strange man none of them knew. Ed jumped up and went towards Amy as she hurled herself across the room and into her brother’s arms, where she promptly burst into tears.

  “Amy, what is going on and who is this man? You there, what have you done to my sister!”

  Rick Cook was surprised that these folks knew Amy, for she had said not one word about recognizing the house in Park Lane when they had pulled up outside it.

  The judge hurried in behind the Ranger, and holding his hands up for calm, he explained who Rick Cook was and what he was doing with Amy in tow. He explained that Rick had tried his house first and had been directed to Park Lane by his housekeeper. Hilda called to Rose who was hovering in the doorway watching the drama unfold with wide eyes. “Rose, please fetch another couple of plates for Amy and this, er... gentleman.” Rose bobbed and scurried off.

  Amy twisted in Ed’s arms where she had been standing, sheltered, with her head buried in his chest. “No, I’ll not eat at the same table as that sonofabitch, Grandma!”

  “Amelia, dear, that will do! This man is a Texas Ranger who is after all only doing his job. Now come here, you naughty girl and kiss your grandmother!”

  Ed pushed Amy toward the head of the table where their grandmother sat. Amy kissed Hilda’s cheek. Her grandmother reached up and cupped Amy’s face, studying her closely, “You look terrible, darling. A hot meal and then a bath and bed for you, I think. You have been a very foolish girl, Amelia Campbell, and I am most displeased with you. Go and sit down and eat now, but tomorrow morning I wish to have a serious discussion about your behavior to date.”

  “Yes Grandma, but I’m Mrs. Walker now,” Amy answered meekly and sat down as she’d been told.

  Rick Cook looked on in amazement at this termagant that had fought him every step of the way since they had left the staging post that morning. She was now behaving like a lamb and obeying the old dame at the head of the table. Rick shook his head in disbelief.

  “Well, well, congratulations, my dear. I assume your husband is not with you? No? Well I expect you to explain everything to me when we have eaten our dinner. Rose?”

  Rose arrived with two steaming plates full of meat pie and gravy, which she set down in front of the antagonists.

  “There are potatoes and greens on the table, so please just help yourselves,” Hilda told them.

  For the next quarter of an hour, there was nothing but the sound of knives and forks clearing plates around the table. Lucy caught Amy’s eye and mouthed to her “Are you alright?”

  Amy had nodded an affirmative, but Lucy’s next question could not be answered with a straightforward nod. “Where are Ethan and Millie?” Amy nodded and shrugged but her actions only worried Lucy more than they reassured her. Lucy might moan about her brother Ethan, but she loved him dearly.

  They had all finished their main course and Rick Cook was explaining what had occurred since he had met up with Ethan and Amy on the stagecoach. There was another interruption from Rose and not the one expected- the serving of the peach pie planned for dessert - but rather, Rose, clutching a telegram, announcing that it was for Edward. Ed read the wire and blanched. He pushed back his chair, stood up and spoke directly to the Ranger. “This is from Max, my ranch foreman. Henderson has taken my little brother Tyler hostage and is demanding that I sell our father’s homestead and land to him! I have to leave right now!”

  It was the judge who answered Ed, “Now see hear, boy, that is a crime and the Ranger here will gather some men and ride over to this Henderson’s place to get the boy back. Won’t you, Ranger Cook.”

  Rick nodded assent and stood up himself, saying, “You don’t have to worry -- we Rangers will take it from here on in.”

  “I am still riding with you once we git there, Cook,” Ed said as he glowered stubbornly.

  “Well then, let’s git going, shall we? We got a train to catch.” Rick glanced around at the women, “Ladies,” he said, tipping his hat as he turned to leave with Ed hot on his heels.

  There was a lull in conversation after the sudden exit of Ed and Rick Cook. Then Hilda took control and ushered everyone into the parlor, where shortly afterward, Amy brought them all up to speed with her most recent adventures.

  CHAPTER 13

  Ethan, accompanied by Elmer and his mule, had walked the couple of miles back to where the fallen stagecoach lay undisturbed. Elmer had his mule saddled with a couple of Mexicans carrying baskets to hold all the belongings that would be of use to them. They had collected most of the things left behind after they had walked to the stage outpost. The two men had not long returned when Luca shouted from outside “Hey there’s a big coach coming Mister Ethan!”

  Ethan ran out to see, followed close behind by Millie. Sure enough, there was a large, old-fashioned covered coach arriving. Millie ran forward, shouting a greeting, while Ethan yelled a sharp warning to her to remain with him, which she completely ignored. The carriage door opened and Lucy jumped out and ran to Ethan, hugging her brother with relief. He seemed none the worse for wear, thank God!

  Millie was helping an indomitable old lady down from the coach and Ethan guessed rightly that this was Amy’s grandmother, whom he had only met a few times in the past, generally at Christmas time.

  He disentangled his sister and walked over to greet her, holding out hi
s hand formally. Hilda looked at the handsome young man standing before her. She had always liked Ethan Walker, Lucy’s brother, and was thrilled that her granddaughter Amelia had married him. “Mr. Walker, I am your grandmother-in-law now, or so I hear, so come and give me a hug, my dear.”

  Ethan, quick off the mark, asked her, “So is Amy safe and well then?” as he obediently hugged Hilda.

  “Yes, under house arrest at my home with a good friend of mine, Judge James Richardson, keeping his beady eye on your wilful young wife. You will need to take her in hand. Ethan my dear, you simply cannot allow her to get into this sort of mess!”

  Ethan gave her a grin, and his hazel eyes twinkled down at Hilda until she felt quite weak at the knees! “Now don’t you fret none, ma’am, ’cause I have that side of things fully under control. There is no way my wife will ever be embroiled in this type of escapade again; I can assure you of that!”

  “Well, I am very relieved to hear it, for I am not sure how much more drama this old heart of mine can take!”

  Lucy, who had wandered over and heard what Hilda had just said, rolled her eyes and laughed. “Fibber, you’ve had more fun in the last twenty four hours than in the whole of your life, I’ve no doubt!”

  Hilda fixed her with a beady eye and raised her eyebrow. “I do assure you that is not so, Lucy my dear. I needed to be taken in hand by my dear husband, Mark, on a number of occasions when I was a young woman and my escapades make Amy’s look like child’s play!”

  Millie looked at her grandmother with new admiration and said, “Grandma, won’t you tell me all about it on the way back to your house?”

  Hilda looked rather shocked; she had forgotten that Millie was listening. “Um... I think not, Millie. Perhaps when you are older, you and I can have a little chat.”

  “Oh, Grandma, sometimes you are just so, so English!”