Playing With Fire

by Ruth Staunton

  Guilt twisted in her belly. She’d never meant to hurt him. It was just Jason. The whole dancing and flirting was just what she and Jason did. It was what they had always done. She didn’t know any other way. It was supposed to be fun. She wrapped her arms around her waist, rocking slightly. God, how had it gotten to be such a mess? And what on earth was she supposed to do now?

  Even as the thought formed, she realized she knew the answer. She fumbled blindly in her pocket for her cell, entering Cade’s number from memory.

  He answered on the second ring. “Dawson.”

  “It’s me,” she said, unable to think of anything more coherent. “I need you to come back.

  “What’s wrong, Stace?” She heard the fear that shot through his voice. She was scaring him. No, dammit, that wasn’t what she was trying to do at all.

  “Nothing. I mean well, sort of, but not really wrong.” She broke off, repressing the urge to scream. This wasn’t coming out right at all. She took a deep breath and forced the words out. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it. I need you to… I mean I want you to…” She stopped, fighting down tears that were ridiculously close to the surface. Her voice was breaking, but she couldn’t stop it, no matter how much she hated it.

  Cade, thankfully, didn’t make her say it. “It’s ok,” he told her. His voice was pitched low and slow, soothing, the voice she imagined him using with crime victims. “I know. I’m turning around now. We’ll fix this.”

  It seemed like an eternity before she saw his headlights turn into the yard. She’d left the door open and he came straight in, removing his hat by long habit and opening his arms to her. She went to him. There was simply nothing else to do. She pressed her face into his chest, and he folded around her, rubbing strong circles on her back.

  “I didn’t mean it,” she said against his shirt.

  “I know,” he replied. He ran a hand through her hair and down her back. “Look at me.” The command was quiet, but she responded automatically. “I really do understand that now,” he went on, “but that doesn’t make it ok.” She tried to look away, but he caught her chin and refused to let her. “Do you have a hairbrush?” She took an instinctive step back, startled. He caught her and held her. “This is big, Stace. Do you?” She had no idea why, but she nodded. “Get it.”

  Her feet moved of their own volition. She wasn’t even consciously aware of what she was doing until she was standing in the bathroom, staring at brushes in a drawer. Did he seriously expect her to do this? What in the hell was she doing? Why was she even cooperating? The guilt in her gut twinged uncomfortably in answer, and her fingers closed around a brush and lifted it out before she could change her mind. It was an old one with a broad, flat back and soft bristles. She rarely used it since it generally made her hair stand on end like a puffed-up cat, but she supposed it would work well enough for this purpose. The thought was so bizarre Stacy couldn’t even believe her brain had even formed it. What was this, The Twilight Zone?

  The walk back to the living room seemed to be miles long yet be over impossibly quickly. Cade was sitting on the couch, elbows on his knees. When he saw her, he put a hand out, palm up, and gestured for the brush. Somehow Stacy managed to hand it over. “Thank you,” he said quietly. He took the brush and laid it on the seat beside him. Then, he caught her arm and pulled her to stand between his knees as though she were as small child. “Do we need to talk anymore about this?”

  “We don’t even need to do this,” Stacy replied, suddenly frantic to be anywhere but here.

  Cade ignored her, unbuttoning her jeans and pushing them to her knees with startling efficiency. “Are you clear on what this is for?” When she didn’t answer, he reached around and swatted her hard.

  “Yes,” she yelped, unable to stop her instinctive jump.

  “Tell me,” he said as calmly as if they were chatting over coffee, taking no notice of the fact that she was standing between his knees in nothing but a t shirt and underwear like a naughty four-year-old about to be spanked and put to bed.

  “I hurt you,” she said softly. She knew that wasn’t what he wanted, but it was first and foremost in her mind. “I danced and flirted with Justin, and I kissed him. It was,” she paused, searching for the right one and finally latching on to the one he’d used earlier, “disrespectful.”

  “It was,” Cade agreed, “but it wasn’t only disrespectful to me. “It was disrespectful to you too. You’re not that kind of person, and you deserve better.”

  Yes, I am, Stacy thought, I’m a party girl. Before she could voice the thought, Cade tipped her over his knee, hooked a finger in her panties and tugging them south to join her jeans. The shock of being bared caught her by surprise. She normally wasn’t at all modest but horrible embarrassment burned through her. She squirmed, but Cade’s hand slammed into her bottom and the protest died in her throat. For a moment, she was both shocked and grateful that he wasn’t using the brush, but as the sting built to new heights, all thoughts of embarrassment, hairbrushes or anything else fled. Her whole world seemed to center on the incredible fire in her butt. She twisted and kicked, begging and pleading and yelling. Cade remained steady as a stone, and the spanking never even paused. The spanking seemed to go on forever. Finally, Cade stopped. Stacy went limp. Her behind was on fire. He hadn’t spanked her that hard before. A moment later, her relief dissolved when he picked up the brush and tapped it against the center of her already sore bottom.

  “No, no, no,” she wailed, twisting and shaking her head frantically. She knew she sounded like a frenzied toddler on the verge of a tantrum, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t take any more. It hurt too much.

  Cade ignored her. He simply tugged her closer, holding her with an arm across her back and a hand grabbing her hip. He shifted position, hooking a leg over her legs to hold them in place. That simple motion hit Stacy’s gut like a bucket of ice water. Oh, God, this was gonna be bad. As if to confirm the thought, Cade brought the brush down flat and hard on the low part of her bottom. It tore a sound from her she couldn’t control, half yell, and half strangled cry. The onslaught that followed reduced her to a sobbing mess, limp and helpless, completely incapable of coherent thought.

  She had no idea when it actually stopped. She was far too lost in her own misery. Eventually, she became aware of Cade rubbing her back and talking softly above her. She couldn’t make out the words yet, but the tone was comforting. Her breathing began to slow and her sobs settled into soft crying and sniffles as the burn in her butt shifted from a scorching fire to a dull throb. Cade must have noticed the change because he very gently pulled her panties up and over her very sore bottom. Stacy hissed and whimpered but withstood it. With the same gentle care, he lifted her and turned her to sit on his lap. The movement hurt, but when he wrapped his arms around her and began to rock slightly, Stacy rapidly decided she didn’t care.

  “I’m sorry,” she said over and over through her tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I know you are, sweetheart,” Cade said quietly, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “It’s ok. We took care of it. But if it’s all the same to you, let’s not do this again. It’s no fun for either of us, and I’d rather not have to repeat it.”

  “No kidding,” Stacy said wryly, vividly aware of her torched backside. “Don’t worry. I’m never doing that again. At this point, I couldn’t care less if I ever saw Jason Gilbert again.”

  Cade lifted her face toward his. “This wasn’t about Jason,” he said seriously. “This was about us, about respecting each other and our relationship.”

  I know,” Stacy assured him, “but he still isn’t one of my favorite people right now.”

  Cade held her gaze for a long moment, searching her face. Whatever he saw there must have satisfied him because he didn’t press further. “Fair enough,” he said and bent to kiss her again.

  Stacy gave a deep, shuddering sigh and dropped back against him. She felt horrible. Her butt throbbed. Her nose was stuffed; her eyes were sore
; her throat ached, and her face was stiff and blotchy from crying. This had been one of the most wrenching experiences of her life, and she’d be perfectly happy to go to her grave without ever going through anything like it again. At the same time, she was strangely calm, albeit also utterly exhausted. The gut-twisting guilt was completely gone, and were it not for being so terribly sore, she’d be perfectly content to stay here cuddled up against Cade. It was really nice. In fact, she might not ever move again.

  A yawn broke through on the heels of that thought, and Cade nudged her to her feet. “Go to bed, sweetheart. You’re exhausted.” Stacy couldn’t argue. She moved to collect the jeans she had long since kicked off, bundling them under her arm to toss in the laundry on the way to bed. Cade went to the door, and she crossed over to say goodnight and see him out. He pulled her into a one-armed hug and kissed her again. “Sleep well. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Stay,” Stacy said on impulse.

  Cade gave her a gentle smile. “Honey, you’re dead on your feet and vulnerable as hell right now. As much as I’d like to spend the night with you, that’s the very last thing you need.”

  “I’m not asking you for sex,” Stacy replied, rather shocked to realize it was true. “I just don’t want to be alone.” Cade regarded her silently for a long moment. Stacy raked a hand through her hair. “Never mind, I shouldn’t have said anything. You’ve got work.”

  “Stop,” Cade said. The command was quiet, but she stilled instantly. “It’s fine,” he continued. “I just need to be up early enough to go home and change. Go on and change. I’ll get settled out here.”

  “You don’t have to sleep on the couch,” Stacy protested. “Come in with me.” At Cade’s arched eyebrow, she rolled her eyes. “We’re both adults, and I trust you. It’ll be fine.” When he still looked doubtful, she added, “Please.”

  Cade sighed but nodded and followed her back to her bedroom. Stacy grabbed a clean nightshirt and headed back down to the bathroom. When she reappeared a moment later, sliding carefully under the blankets and turning quickly onto her stomach, Cade took his own turn for nightly ablutions. Returning quickly, he sat down on the side of the bed to remove his boots then lay down atop the covers. Turning to face Stacy, he splayed a hand on her back, rubbing gently, and together, they slept.

  Chapter 9

  Stacy was still on Cade’s mind when his cell phone rang at work sometime around midmorning the following day. He’d slipped away early that morning, leaving her still sleeping, sprawled boneless across the mattress on her stomach, wild curls tumbling over her face. He’d brushed back her hair and dropped a gentle kiss on her lips, but she hadn’t even stirred. Last night had been wrenching. He’d hated every second of it, but he also believed it was absolutely necessary. They needed to be on the same page about what was appropriate, respectful behavior. He only hoped Stacy would still see that this morning and not hate him for it. He answered the phone on autopilot, mind still mostly on Stacy, but the voice on the other end of the line instantly grabbed his full and undivided attention.

  “Cade, thank God,” Gail, his best friend’s widow and Nicky’s mother, said, breathless and clearly on the verge of hysteria, “it’s Nicky. He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” Cade echoed. A wave of terror hit him with the strength of a punch, but he shoved it down, forcing himself to reach for the professional calm he’d honed through years on the force. “What do you mean, gone? It’s not even lunch time yet. He’s at the school.” The Arts and Recreation council ran a day camp at the local elementary school during the summer. Nicky attended while his mother worked shifts at a local department store part-time to supplement the money they got from his dad’s military benefits.

  “The camp director just called,” Gail went on. “He didn’t come in from recess. They think he’s run off.”

  “He did WHAT?” He was already moving toward the door, half his mind on missing child protocol, and the other half consumed with sheer terror. He’d worked a few missing child cases in Alexandria, runaways and custody disputes mostly, but this was different. This was Nicky, whom he loved like his own.

  “He ran off,” Gail repeated, and he could hear the tears in her voice. “Some of the other kids said he slipped through the fence and into the woods behind the school.”

  Cade’s racing heart slowed a bit at that. If they had seen him go then this was more likely a fit of temper or rebellion than a true runaway attempt, or worse yet, a kidnapping. “I’m on my way there now,” he told Gail, getting into his truck and turning toward the school. He heard Gail breathe a shuddering sigh of relief. “I’ll let you know when I’ve got him.” He disconnected and focused on the road.

  What had the boy gotten into now? This wasn’t the first time Nicky had gotten mad about something and run off. Lately, it seemed like every time he turned around the phone was ringing, and Gail was telling him about something Nicky had done. The boy was rebelling in every way he could think of. “Well, Gare,” he said aloud, seeing his late best friend clearly in his mind’s eye. “What are we going to do with him now?” There wasn’t a day of his life since that Iraqi IED had taken Gary’s life that he hadn’t missed his best friend, with his easy humor and unflappable nature, but in moments like this it was all the more acute. He knew, too, that missing Gary was a great deal of Nicky’s problem too. Nicky had only been a toddler when Gary was killed. From what Cade had gathered over the years, Nicky had very few real memories of Gary; yet the loss had clearly left a gaping hole, a hole that became more and more apparent the older Nicky got. Cade had tried his best to fill the gap. He spent as much time with Nicky as he could. Granted, that time had been a bit more limited since he’d been spending time with Stacy, but he still helped with Nicky’s baseball team and went to his school functions. He knew that didn’t come close to filling the hole Gary’s death had left in Nicky’s life, but he tried. Maybe it wasn’t enough, but even if he was just a poor second, this rebellious streak of Nicky’s had to stop, and it had to stop now. Nicky was the center of Gail’s world, her only living link to Gary. She doted on him, and to Cade’s way of thinking, spoiled him horribly, but it was time for somebody to put a foot down. If they continued to let this go, Nicky was going to wind up getting himself hurt or worse. In truth, it was Gail’s place, but if she couldn’t do it, he would have to. Gary would expect him to.

  He kept that thought on the forefront of his mind as he pulled to a stop along the edge of a drainage ditch that ran next to the elementary school. He called in and asked Linda to let the camp staff know he was on scene and had a pretty good idea where Nicky had gone. Then, he climbed down the ditch and skirted around the fence. The weak spot in the fence had come loose again. The metal chain-link had been rolled easily back from the post. It wasn’t a large hole, but it was certainly plenty of room for a boy Nicky’s size to slip through. He made a mental note to call the Board of Education again about having that replaced. He’d been recommending it for months now, but the board, mostly men who came of age in the 50s, kept insisting that patching it was good enough. As much as he wanted to throttle Nicky for this particular stunt, maybe now that a child had actually slipped out, he could convince them that their shoddy repair job was insufficient.

  The trail leading from the playground into the small wooded area was barely more than a rut in the dirt and grass, but with his military and police training Cade found it easily enough. He moved carefully, quietly, silently thankful for the Marine Corps training that had taught him the stealth. He knew Nicky was in here somewhere. The wooded area wasn’t very large, and a nine-year-old boy wasn’t exactly a difficult target, but he didn’t want to alert the boy to his presence too soon and end up in a chase through rough terrain. He kept to the path moving quickly, and before long, he picked up the sounds of Nicky, or what he assumed was Nicky since it was clearly something too large for the small animals that typically inhabited an area like this, moving through the foliage just off the edge of the path. He followed the s
ounds until he was close enough to see the boy’s outline clearly through the bushes before he called out, “Nick.”

  Nicky started and broke into a run. Cade circled around and stepped neatly into his path without a word. Nicky pivoted and would have run again, but Cade caught him around the waist and held him fast. Nicky bucked and twisted like a wild thing, screeching and kicking. “Get off me!” he demanded. “Let me go!”

  Cade ignored him. “Settle down,” he commanded quietly. Eventually the struggle of holding the boy upright became too much so Cade down on the ground, capturing Nicky’s legs with his own and holding tight until the worst of Nicky’s struggles had subsided. “Want to tell me what all this was about?” he asked softly in the silence that followed.

  “No,” Nicky muttered morosely.

  “Can’t help if I don’t know what’s wrong,” Cade told him. “Did something happen?”

  “No,” Nicky replied.

  “Then why are you here instead of back there in day camp where you belong?” Cade asked.

  “It’s stupid,” Nicky spat defiantly. “I hate it there. I’m not going back, and you can’t make me.”

  The comment was so clearly from the little boy Nicky truly was and so completely opposite of the independent person Nicky thought himself to be that Cade had to bite back a smile. The attitude wasn’t funny in the slightest, and he meant to put a stop to it quickly, but the blatant contrast was amusing.

  “Actually,” he said to the top of Nicky’s head, “I can. Your mom left you in the custody of the camp staff; that means right now they’re your guardians, and I’m well within my rights as a law enforcement officer to return you to them. More than that, I’m your godfather. Do you know what that means?”

  Nicky shook his head. He was still stiff and bristling but no longer actively fighting.

  “That means your dad trusted me to take care of you if anything happened to him,” Cade replied. “It means he expected me to be there for you like he would have been, and to teach you like he would have, and I promise you, buddy, he would’ve expected you to behave yourself and stay where you’re supposed to be. He would have insisted on it, and he wouldn’t have put up with any nonsense like running off either.”