by Paige Tyler
But a few moments later, Madoc was already trying to figure out what he could say to get her to stop crying. He tried to convince himself that it was just because he didn’t like the sounds of her sniffling, but in reality, Madoc admitted that he just didn’t like a seeing a pretty woman so upset.
So, what was he going to do? Take the cuffs off and let her go? Cursing himself for being so stupid, Madoc turned his attention back to the snow-covered stretch of highway before him and tried to ignore her crying. It stopped soon enough, but then a few minutes later, Shayna spoke, interrupting his concentration.
“Billings is a long drive,” she said in a tearful voice. “Couldn’t you at least take off these handcuffs until we get there? My hands are getting numb.”
He slanted her a hard look. “No.”
“I promise I won’t try to escape,” she added.
Madoc let out a harsh laugh. “I’ve heard that before.”
“That was when we were back in Flint Rock and there were lots of places to go,” she pointed out. “It’s not like I can jump out of the truck. Besides, where would I go out here in this snow? Even if I managed to get away from you, I’d probably end up freezing to death.” A pause, then, softly, “Please.”
Madoc clenched his jaw. He had no doubt that she was playing him. But he also knew that he had a real weakness for beautiful women. And Shayna Matthews was definitely beautiful. He tried to be reasonable. If his prisoner hadn’t been so dang sexy, would he even be considering taking the cuffs off? he asked himself. Probably not, he decided. But thirty seconds later, Madoc found himself slowing to a stop in the middle of the deserted highway, and putting the truck in park. Shutting off the engine, he pulled out the keys.
“Turn around,” he ordered Shayna.
She blinked, clearly surprised that he had agreed, but then scooted around on the seat so that her back was to him.
Inserting the key into the lock, he undid it, and then took off the cuffs. Rubbing her wrists, Shayna shifted around in her seat again to look at him.
“Thank you,” she said softly.
Madoc scowled at her, hoping he wasn’t going to regret this. If she thought that doe-eyed Bambi look of hers was going to have some sort of an effect on him, then she was wrong. It didn’t matter how damn sexy she looked in those black-rimmed glasses of hers. “Just don’t get it into your head to try escaping again,” he said gruffly.
“Because those spankings I gave you back at the boarding house won’t seem like anything compared to the one you’d get for making me chase you through this storm.”
At the mention of the spankings he’d given her, Shayna’s face colored and she quickly turned away. Thinking that the threat of another spanking should be enough to keep her from doing anything foolish, Madoc started the engine and slowly eased his SUV back up to speed on the snow-covered highway.
But even though he tried to focus on driving, he couldn’t get the image out of his mind of having Shayna over his knee. Even though he had been busy trying to subdue her at the time, he couldn’t help but notice how great her ass had looked in those tight jeans she was wearing. Just the thought was enough to make him hard.
Madoc caught himself before his thoughts could go any further. What the hell was he doing? Shayna Matthews might be hot, but she was still a fugitive, dammit! He had no business fantasizing about her. And he sure as hell had no business putting her over his knee for a spanking again!
He wasn’t even sure what had made him spank her in the first place. It certainly wasn’t the way he usually dealt with fugitives, that was for damn sure. But when she’d ended up over his knee during their tussle, giving her tight little ass a smack had seemed like the most natural thing in the world. And he had to admit that it had gotten her attention.
Madoc supposed he could just blame the whole thing on one of his former girlfriends. He had heard of other couples spanking, of course, but he hadn’t ever considered doing it until a girlfriend had told him that she liked it when a guy smacked her on the ass. He had been happy to oblige, and they had ended up doing it all the time.
Maybe that was why he had spanked Shayna Matthews, he thought. Because even though that other relationship had ended years ago, it just seemed natural to spank a sexy girl when she misbehaved.
Madoc had to force thoughts of spanking from his mind, as he realized how heavy the snow had started coming down. There were already six or eight inches on the highway, and with no other cars out, it was getting hard to see exactly where the road was. Maybe that old sheriff had been right, he thought. Maybe he should have stayed in town. Madoc had to admit that driving to Billings in this weather hadn’t been the brightest decision he’d ever made. Well, it was too late to change his mind now. But at least he could put chains on the tires. That would definitely help.
Guiding the SUV onto the shoulder, he turned off the engine.
“Why are we stopping?” Shayna asked.
“I have to put on tire chains. Stay put,” he told her, and then added, “And don’t try anything.”
Taking the keys out of the ignition, he grabbed his gloves from the back seat and got out of the truck. Going around to the back of the SUV, he opened the lift gate and took out the tire chains before closing it again. Going back around to the front, he gave Shayna a glance to find her huddled in the front seat watching him. He knew that the truck would get cold quickly without the heater going, but there was no way he was going to leave it running while he put on the tire chains.
It took him at least a half hour to untangle all four sets of chains and get them positioned on the ground in front of the tires. It wasn’t that difficult, but by the time Madoc had finished, he was not only freezing, but also covered in snow. And he still to drive the truck forward onto the chains, and then tighten everything up, which was going to take at least another fifteen minutes. Deciding to drive to Billings definitely had to be on his top-ten list of stupid decisions, he thought to himself. They’d be lucky if they didn’t end up in a ditch!
Swearing under his breath, Madoc brushed the snow from his jacket with his gloved hands as he walked back around to the driver’s side. The windows were so frosted up and covered with snow that he couldn’t even see inside. He had to brush quite a bit of snow off before he could even open the door. He yanked it open and was just climbing inside when he noticed that the passenger seat was empty. Shit, he thought.
Though Shayna had been planning to escape all along, she was surprised when the opportunity had presented itself so soon after the Marshal had arrested her. But knowing that she might not get another chance, she’d taken it. The Marshal had been so focused on the tire chains that he hadn’t even noticed when she’d slipped out of the truck, quietly closed the door, and disappeared into the wooded area along the highway. Of course, he would discover that she had run soon enough, and when he did, he would immediately come after her. That thought made her quicken her step.
Once she had gotten away, her strategy had become simple. She would go back the way they had come, staying to the wooded area, but still traveling parallel to the highway until she got back to Flint Rock. It might take awhile, but once there, she would implement her original getaway plan and hitch a ride with a trucker. But in her hurry to get away from the Marshal, Shayna had gone deeper into the forest than she’d intended and before she knew it, she was lost. Too afraid to retrace her steps for fear of running into the Marshal, she pushed ahead. The highway had to be somewhere close, she told herself.
It was snowing even harder than it had been when they had left Flint Rock, the wind blowing the snow sideways even in the depths of the forest. Wishing she had gloves, Shayna stuck her hands in pockets in an effort to warm them up, but it didn’t help. Having grown up in Colorado, she should be used to this type of weather, but she was frozen to the core. It didn’t help that she had tripped over a fallen tree and landed face first in a pile of deep snow in her haste to get away, or that she’d slipped a little while after that and fallen on
her butt. Now, her clothes were full of snow and soaking wet.
Sure that she had been walking for hours, she took her hands out of her pockets just long enough to push up the sleeve of her coat so that she could see her watch. She was surprised to discover that it had barely been thirty minutes since she’d slipped out of the Marshal’s SUV. How could she have gotten herself so lost in that amount of time? At this rate, she’d freeze to death before she ever got back to Flint Rock.
Shayna stood where she was for a moment, wondering if she should continue in the same direction she’d been heading for the past half hour in the hopes that she would eventually get to Flint Rock, or if she should retrace her steps back to the Marshal’s SUV. As much as she didn’t want to go back the way she’d come, she liked the idea of dying of hypothermia even less, which could happen if she didn’t get someplace warm, and soon.
Her mind made up, Shayna started back the way she had come, but within a dozen feet, she realized that her tracks had been completely covered by the falling snow. Tears welled in her eyes and she resolutely blinked them back. What was she going to do now?
Telling herself she couldn’t just stand there, or she really would die of hypothermia, Shayna began to trudge through the snow in the direction she hoped led to the Marshal’s SUV. After another thirty minutes of walking, however, she was just about to give up and head in another direction when she stumbled out of the trees and into a clearing.
Shayna blinked, wondering if the small cabin in front of her were a hallucination. What would a cabin be doing out there in the middle of nowhere? Did people hallucinate when they went into hypothermia? she wondered. She didn’t know, and right then, she was too cold to really care. If she were just imagining the cabin, maybe she could pretend to get warm if she went inside. Shivering, she eagerly hurried through the snow to the cabin.
Not bothering to consider whether it was occupied or not, Shayna automatically grabbed the doorknob and gave it a turn, only to frown when she realized the door was locked. That was actually good, she thought. If the door was locked, then that probably meant the cabin was real and not a hallucination. Balling her other hand into a fist, she banged loudly on the door.
“Hello?” she called. “Is anyone in there?”
When she didn’t get an answer, Shayna leaned forward to look through the window in the door. Though she couldn’t see much inside the darkened cabin, she could see enough to know that it was empty. She chewed on her lower lip, wondering if she should break into the cabin or not, but then told herself that she had no choice. It was either that or freeze to death.
Taking a step back, she looked around for something she could use to break the window. Spotting the stack of logs on the porch beside the door, she quickly picked one up and, gripping it as tightly as she could in her numb fingers, she smashed it against the glass. Dropping the log back onto the porch, she carefully reached her arm through the opening and unlocked the door. Pushing it open, she went inside, and then closed it behind her.
She felt warmer already, Shayna thought. Grateful that she had finally found shelter from the storm, she leaned back against the door for a moment and took in her surroundings. It was sparsely furnished, with a small bed against one wall, a table and chairs, and a row of tiny cabinets with a countertop beneath them. But it was the pot-belly stove on the opposite side of the room that caught her attention. Thank God, she thought. A fire was exactly what she needed. She was so cold that she could barely keep her teeth from chattering.
Eager to get a fire going, Shayna stumbled over to the stove. She almost cried with happiness when she spied the big box of matches on the shelf behind the stove. Though there were no logs, there was a box with smaller pieces of wood, as well as stacks of old newspapers she could use to get the fire going. Once she did, she would go back out to the porch for some logs. The thought of going back out into the snow again made her shiver even more and she had to fight to control the shaking that threatened to overwhelm her. Telling herself that she would be warm soon enough, she bent over to open the door of the stove. There was a pile of old ash right in the middle that would have to be moved before she could start a fire. Picking up the small fire poker from where it rested against the wall, she was just about to use it to scrape out the charred bits of wood when the door to the cabin burst open.
Startled by both the noise and the gust of freezing cold wind that swept into the cabin, Shayna whirled around to find the Marshal standing in the doorway. He was covered in snow and looked even madder than when she had tried to hit him with the bookend back at the boarding house. She took a step back, her hand tightening reflexively on the poker.
He advanced on her, his eyes narrowing. “Put down the poker,” he ordered.
He probably didn’t realize her hand was so numb that she was lucky she could hold onto the poker at all, Shayna thought. Gripping it with both hands, she shook her head. “Can’t you just go back to Denver and forget you ever saw me?” she pleaded.
The Marshal took another step toward her. “You know I can’t do that,” he said.
“Can’t?” she demanded. “Or won’t?”
“Same thing. Either way, you’re going back to jail,” he reasoned, taking another step toward her. “Now, put down the poker. You’re already in enough trouble as it is. Do you really want to add assaulting a Federal Marshal to your list of crimes?”
As he spoke, the Marshal took another step toward her. But though Shayna gripped the poker even more tightly, she knew deep down that she would never be able to hit him with it, even if she weren’t almost frozen in place.
Which was why it was almost ridiculously easy for him to take it away from her a moment later. Though she tried desperately to hold onto it, he wrestled the poker from her grasp within seconds and tossed it onto the floor. The next thing she knew, she was face-down over the small table. Damn him, he was going to spank her again! Then again, as frozen as her butt was, she probably wouldn’t even feel it, she thought.
“You were already in for one hell of a spanking for making me chase you through the snow,” he growled. “But after that little episode with the poker, you’ll be lucky if you can sit down by the time I’m done.”
Shayna glared at him over her shoulder. “I should have hit you with the damn thing, you bastard!”
Behind her, Madoc ground his jaw. If there was ever a woman that needed a good, hard spanking, it was Shayna Matthews, he thought. And this time, he wasn’t stopping until he was sure that all the fight was out of her.
Running off into the snow had to be the dumbest thing anyone had even done.
Lifting his hand, he brought it down on her shapely, jean-clad ass in a series of quick, sharp smacks, only to abruptly stop after a dozen or so spanks.
“My God, you’re soaking wet!” he exclaimed. “What the hell did you do, go for a swim somewhere?”
The look she gave him this time wasn’t nearly as defiant as before. “I t-tripped and f-fell,” she stammered, and he realized that her teeth chattering.
Madoc stared at her in disbelief. Tripped and fell? It looked like she had been rolling around in the snow for an hour! He’d been so angry before that he hadn’t noticed, but her lips were blue and she was shivering uncontrollably, he realized. Why the hell hadn’t she said something to him before? Because she had been more interested in whacking him with the fire poker, he reminded himself wryly.
Even though Shayna really did deserve a spanking, Madoc wasn’t about to give her one while she was on the verge of hypothermia. As furious as he was with her for trying to escape, he definitely didn’t want her to freeze to death, especially now that he had her back in custody again. He would have to get her warmed up, and fast!
The spanking forgotten for the moment, Madoc took Shayna’s arm and gently pulled her to her feet. “We need to get you out of these wet clothes before you freeze to death,” he told her.
Without waiting for a reply, Madoc unzipped Shayna’s coat and tugged it off her shoul
ders. She was so cold and exhausted that she didn’t even bother to resist, but simply stood there. That only made him more worried. All the fire that had shone in her eyes as she’d tried to hold him at bay with the poker was gone now. Tossing the wet coat onto a chair, he turned back and slid his hands beneath the hem of her shirt.
Shayna’s head jerked up in surprise. “What are you doing!” she said, trying to push his hands away.
Madoc paused, but didn’t take his hands away. “I’m trying to get you out of these wet clothes and into bed before you freeze to death,” he explained. “Now stop being such a pain and let me help you.”
She looked at him in confusion, but after a moment, she slowly nodded her head.
Madoc wasted no more time getting the rest of Shayna’s wet clothes off. Lifting her shirt over her head, he tossed it on top of her coat, and then quickly went to work on her jeans. As he unbuttoned them, however, he couldn’t help but notice how round and perfect her breasts were beneath the sexy lace bra she wore, or the way his body responded to the sight. Stop it! he chided himself. Now was not the time to be ogling his prisoner. She was standing there freezing to death, for heaven’s sake! But even as he told himself that, he knew he would have to be a monk not to see how hot she was, especially when those long, shapely legs of hers came into view as he pulled off her sodden jeans. Even flushed pink and covered in gooseflesh, they looked great.
Trying hard not to look at his half-naked prisoner, Madoc led her over to the bed, sat her down, and wrapped the blanket around her shivering form.
“I’m going to make a fire,” he said.
Going over to the pot-belly stove, Madoc grabbed several pieces of newspaper from the stack and, crumpling them up, shoved them inside along with some kindling. Reaching for the box of long-handled matches on the shelf above the stove, he lit one and held the flame to the newspaper. Needing to go outside for some logs now that he’d gotten the fire going, he closed the door to the stove and turned to head for the door, only to pause in mid-step when he caught sight of Shayna.
