by Maren Smith
Ettie burst into tears all over again.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“All right, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” Vance fed two of the last six logs they had into the stove to keep the chill away while he was gone, then closed the grate and brushed off his hands. He donned his coat, zipping and buttoning himself into both layers. “The temperature’s dropping again. It looks like we’re going to get hit with more snow. So hopefully, the other cabins won’t be far.”
Wrapped up once more in the bearskin rugs, where Vance had laid her down and even lain beside her, simply holding her for a good hour once she’d stopped crying, Ettie watched him get ready. She wasn’t smiling, but he couldn’t for the life of him think of when he’d seen another woman look more relaxed. Of course, the way she had looked that morning came close, when she’d been lying naked in his arms, curled up beside him where she had been all night for warmth. Hot on the heels of that thought came the only image he hadn’t seen, one of Ettie lying on her back beneath him, her face still flushed, her sassy mouth swollen from his kisses and the flush of orgasm still bright upon her face and breasts. She’d be relaxed then, too. He’d make sure of that. Oh yes. All night, every night; he’d make damn sure of that.
He came to the makeshift bed of rugs, dropping to one knee beside her. Her blue eyes followed him, but she still didn’t smile. He touched her cheek, a soft caress with the backs of two fingers. “Are you okay?”
Faintly, she nodded.
“Give me a smile,” he coaxed.
Even more faintly, she shook her head.
He stroked her cheek again. This didn’t look like subspace to him. He wasn’t sure what this was, but his instinct was telling him to crawl back into bed beside her and hold her until she didn’t need it anymore. The coolness inside the cabin, despite the efforts of the woodstove and the dwindling wood in the woodbin was telling him something more urgent. If he didn’t find more fuel for the fire, he’d be breaking down the chairs to get them through the night, and even then there was still a chance they might freeze.
He really wished she’d smile, but she didn’t. So, he smiled brightly enough for the both of them, cupped the back of her neck so she couldn’t pull away (not that she tried), and dropped low enough to press a kiss to her forehead. The need to follow that with a taste of her lips made his chest hurt.
“I’ll be back,” he said again, breathing in the scent of her hair instead.
He got up and walked to the door. He was out on the porch with the door almost closed behind him when she softly answered, “Bring back McDonalds.”
He gave her another smile. “I’ll get right on that.” Then he shut the door, leaving her inside where it was at least warm.
Warmer, anyway. It couldn’t be later than noon, but already the temperature outside was dropping. Not that it had warmed up, really, but everywhere he stepped, the top layer of snow crunched like ice. He was fortunate. Although in some places the drifts were as deep as his waist, the incredible winds last night had swept paths between dense sections of the trees so he only sank in knee deep. Welcome to Colorado, he thought. God, he missed California.
Cold as it was, the exertion of alternating between trudging knee-deep and wading through an ocean of hip-high whiteness left Vance sticky with sweat by the time the cabin he shared with Ettie disappeared into the trees behind him. There was a second cabin, though. If forced to guess, although the difficulty of all this snow made the distance seem more like miles than feet, it could only have been a few hundred yards away at most. It also had a lean-to for storing wood and, just as back at his own cabin, some previous camper had abandoned his left-over firewood within it. Most was freely gathered deadfall, aged by time and dry to the touch. In a few pieces, he could still see drops of frozen sap. Those would smoke like hell, but they would also burn and, for a while at least, it would keep both Ettie and himself warm.
Unlike his cabin, this one had faced into the storm. He had to shovel his way up onto the porch with a piece of kindling, and when he finally found the door, it was frozen shut. He had to put his shoulder to it, twice, before he managed to muscle it open. Unfortunately, the woodbin was all but swept clean. In the stove, however, he found two slightly charred log ends. He took them and put them in the lean-to with the rest, but he didn’t gather them up just yet. Maybe there was another cabin another few hundred yards through the trees. And another after that. Maybe even another after that. If there was more wood, he had to find it.
He continued on, but the trees here weren’t as dense and the snow was deeper. By the time he spotted the next cabin, his pants were soaked, his skin and toes felt frozen, and a new layer of snow was falling. Worse, there was no wood to be found anywhere either in the lean-to or in the cabin. The sky was also darkening. He was losing daylight.
Damn.
Unsure if the government took dire survival circumstances into consideration when it came to levying fines or jail time into cases of wanton destruction of Federal property, Vance broke the legs off the table, destroyed all four chairs, stole the bearskin off the wall (only one in this cabin) and every scrap of burnable molding off the door and windows. He loaded up his arms, both there and at the second cabin. It had been wishful thinking there might be enough for two trips.
Going back through all that snow was definitely easier than coming had been. He took the same path, walking the swath he’d already cut through the deep drifts, but he was still panting and still sweating by the time he reached their porch. Seeing that thin stream of smoke wafting up from the chimney pipe was like a burst of fresh energy. It carried him up the steps and helped him kick the snow off his pants and boots.
“Hey, sweetie, I’m home!” he called, pushing through the door. It startled him to discover he was talking to an empty house. Being as there was no indoor plumbing, he figured Ettie must be out watering a bush somewhere.
He put the wood in the woodbin, shook out the bearskin and checked the fire in the stove. As he made up their ‘bed’, his empty stomach rumbled. Sadly, he hadn’t seen even a hint of wildlife on the way back. Tempted as he was to head back out and search the lean-to for more squirrels, Ettie probably wouldn’t appreciate interruptions while attending her most basic biological needs, so he sat down at the table to wait.
And wait.
He’d be the first to admit without a working watch he was horrible at judging just how much time was passing, he was pretty sure it was taking way too long if going to the bathroom was all she was doing. His imagination began to play tricks on him. What if she was out digging through the snow in search of more wood? She could be sprawled under a tree because she tripped, fell, twisted or maybe even broken her leg.
He went back outside and stood a moment on the porch, searching the underbrush with his eyes first, following all the wading trails they had thus far made in previous trips out to the bushes, not to mention out to the lean-to. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Ettie!”
A flutter of cloth tied to the far right corner post of the porch caught his eye. He had to have walked right past it on his way inside. It hung right at head-level. He might even have dodged its flapping tail. It looked familiar—white and blue striped, fine-knit, like a sweater.
Like Ettie’s sweater, in fact. Cut into a thin strip and tied to the post up near the rafter beams. Stepping down off the porch, he followed their path through the snow out toward the lean-to, except that just as he reached the back corner of the cabin, fresh footsteps branched off from the main path, wading out the way they had originally come the night before. Back towards the creek and his truck. And there in the trees was another strip of fluttering blue and white striped cloth, hanging from the end of a branch. The falling snow was trying hard to cover it from view, but the wind was picking up and was just strong enough to keep the snow from hiding it.
He ducked that one too, following the path of previous footsteps. The sky was definitely darkening and the wind was picking up, pushing snow in to fill up the
trench Ettie’s passing had cut along the creek. Given another hour, not only would they lose their daylight, but they might just lose their path.
Wind rushed the trees, forcing the massive evergreens to bow and drop heavy mounds of snow from their overladen branches. It was going to be another bad night. One punctuated by whistling gusts so cold that the air bit clear through the layers of his clothes.
Vance cupped his hands around his mouth, “Ettie!”
He picked up the pace, his thighs burning both from the cold and the strain of slogging through snow this deep. He found two more strips of cloth, securely tied at eye-height to the very tips of evergreen branches roughly twenty or so steps apart all the way back to his truck. It couldn’t have been more than a few hundred yards from the cabin. He had no idea he was this close to where he’d gone into the water. All he could see of his truck was a heap of oddly shaped snow on the side that had faced into the storm and the top four inches of blue-painted cab and windows. At the very edge of the bank, Ettie had planted a forked branch and a thin strip of cut sweater was tied to the end like an explorer’s flag.
“Ettie!” he yelled, the sheer coldness of the air burning the back of his throat and deep into his chest.
“Here!”
Vance snapped around just as Ettie waded into view through the trees. He caught her arm once she got close enough. She was just as wet and sweaty as he was, and she had to be just as cold. She had pulled her arms into her sleeves and had the collar up. When he touched her back, he could feel her shaking. He put himself between her and the wind, sheltering her as best he could until they reached the cabin.
“I can’t believe how cold it is!” she gasped, stumbling through the door into the relative warmth inside. “I can’t believe how fast the path was disappearing, either! I wish I had my glasses. I can’t see a thing! Where is all this snow coming from?”
“God!” Vance snapped, shutting the door hard between them and the storm building outside. “Are you out of your mind?”
Ettie whipped around, looking at him in surprise. That surprise became irritation almost faster than he could blink. “Not last I checked, why?”
“You were supposed to stay here. What were you doing out there?”
“I went back to the road! Ego check: A woman can do something useful in desperate situations other than sit on her ass and wait for some pig-headed man to rescue her! Anyone who comes looking for us is going to be looking on the road. All they have to do is blink and they’ll miss where we went off. The snow has covered our tracks and covered the truck. We could be here all winter if we don’t find some way to signal where we are!”
“So you cut your shirt into strips and hung them from the trees to make a trail they could follow back to us?”
Fists on her hips, she squared off against him. “You’re darn right I did!”
“Well, that was brilliant.” He wasn’t being sarcastic either. He meant that.
Surprised all over again, Ettie snapped her mouth shut, blinked twice, and said, “Really?”
“I wish I’d thought of it,” he admitted.
She threw her hands up. “Then why are you yelling at me?”
“Because we’re in this together. Because you left without telling me where you were going.”
“You weren’t here! Who was there to tell?”
“You could have left a note.”
“In what?” She threw her hands out, gesturing all around them. “What am I supposed to do? Write it in charcoal on the wall?”
“If you had to! Or, you could have waited until I got back and we could have gone together!”
“It was going to snow. You said that yourself!” But even as she said it, a look of uncertainty cut through both her confusion and her irritation.
“That’s right.” Vance stepped closer, not trying to intimidate but to press the point home. “I did tell you it was going to snow, and you knew it was going to happen before you left. You knew it, and you left anyway. You did it deliberately, knowing I didn’t know you were leaving or where to look for you, in weather conditions that could have got either one of us killed. The idea—” He held up a staying finger, but she wasn’t arguing. Her eyes were big and the look on her face said clearly not only was she listening, but that she might even think he was right. That softened him a little. Not a lot, but a little. “The idea was a good one and I’m glad you thought of it. But the way you went about it, that’s what’s going to get you spanked.”
Twin spots of color touched her cheeks, but she didn’t even try to argue.
He gave her a moment to absorb what he’d said, then added, “Tell me now that you don’t consent, Ettie, because that’s the only way you’re going to get out of this without a hot butt.”
He thought he saw her shiver. Otherwise, she didn’t move.
“This isn’t going to be fun,” he told her. “I’m going to take your pants and your panties off, and I’m going to spank you until I’m convinced that the reason for it is one you’ll never forget.”
Those twin spots of color got brighter.
“Say you don’t consent,” Vance said again, the last warning he intended to give. He took his coat off, unbuttoned his wrist cuffs, and then rolled them up. He took his time, wanting to give her plenty of time to gather her wits, but Ettie only looked at him, that strange expression on her face seemingly lost somewhere between apprehension, reluctance…and longing.
“I wish I hadn’t switched you earlier,” he said. “Are you sore?”
“Is that what you’re going to spank me with?” she asked, sounding very small. “The switches?”
“No, I’m going to use my hand. I only ever use my hand when it has to be real like this.”
That look on her face got even stranger. If anything, he’d have sworn the longing and apprehension both intensified, and the reluctance faded.
“I’m okay,” she said, her soft voice quavering.
He couldn’t help but admire her bravado. Yeah, she was okay. And when he was done, she’d be okay again, but in the space between now and that distant then, she was about to be anything but.
He almost caressed her hair, but stopped himself just in time. He took hold of her arm instead, and because the time for backing out had passed, he let his grip above her elbow tell her there would be no further reprieve. Not that she asked for one. She stumbled a little over her own feet, but she followed him, letting him lead her to the nearest chair. He pulled it away from the stove, turned it around, and thunked it down in the middle of the floor to give them both plenty of room. His arm was only so long. He wasn’t in any danger of bumping into anything, but the room was just small enough that she might. He wanted to make sure the only injury she sustained was the one he delivered to her bottom. He didn’t want her accidentally kicking the stove or banging her head or hands on the table. Both a very real possibility. Though she’d held herself admirably still during even the worst of her switching, this time he wasn’t going to be gentle.
Sitting, he pulled her to stand between his knees. Her legs stiffened only once, just before she took that half step that brought her to stand directly before him. Her breathing quickened when he unfastened her jeans. He’d already done this once before today, but he still felt that tiny electric thrill when the backs of his fingers made brushing contact with the smooth, unblemished skin of her belly. Pulling her jeans down revealed the perfect symmetry of her belly button, the curve of her hips, the thin strip of white and pink cotton panties. Boy cut. Cute as hell. It only seemed to amplify her feminine curves, and it inspired in him the most incredible desire to lean in and kiss her navel, or the swell of her hips where they rounded out from her waist and down to her thighs.
In the years since he’d moved to Corbin’s Bend, he couldn’t count the number of times he’d done this. Every single one of those women had been beautiful in her own way. Like Venia Varner, stately, graceful, fifty-years-old if she was a day and yet she hardly looked to be in her forties. Be
rnie, sharp witted and quick to laugh. Shy, quiet Irene, who thought those few extra pounds made her too big to go across his knee, but how quickly he had proved her wrong.
Ettie was just like them in many ways, but she was also nothing like them. What he had done with Venia, Bernie and Irene, to name just a few, had been fun. Satisfying in their own way, and yet it was only right now, with Ettie’s soft hips cupped between his hands, and her blue eyes watching him, anxious with anticipation and uncertainty, that he felt a deeper sense of satisfaction. More than anything he’d yet felt with anyone else.
He kept his gaze locked with hers while he hooked his thumbs in the elastic of her underwear and pulled them down. She caught a shaky breath when he gave his thigh a pat, but only uttered the softest whimper before lowering herself into position over his lap. Her pretty bottom was an inverted heart of soft, pale flesh, lined pink in two places where the final stroke of the switches had struck the most passionately. She had been so responsive during that spanking. But this wasn’t going to be like that had been and passion wasn’t what he was trying to evoke, from either one of them.
“Are you mad at me?” she asked, when his hand came to rest on the curve where her bottom met her thigh.
“No, I’m not.”
She braced her hands on the floor. She started to reach for him, as if needing to touch his knee, but then changed her mind. For the longest time, that’s how they stayed: her, in position; him, reluctant to start.
“What’s wrong?” she finally asked.
He’d never had this problem with any of the other women he’d spanked. Except maybe one. Her name had been Lisa and he’d dated her for thirteen months. Hell, if she hadn’t decided she wanted something different, he would have married her. But that had been a whole lifetime ago, before he’d moved to Corbin’s Bend.
“I really don’t want to do this,” he told her honestly.
She tried to get up then, but his arm across her back put a stop to that.