Playing With Fire

by Ruth Staunton

  “He wouldn’t?” Nicky asked. The curiosity in his voice was painful, and Cade told himself, not for the first time, that he really needed to talk to Nicky about Gary more often. He tried; he knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that Nick needed to know his father, but even after all these years, talking about Gary was still painful, and a great many of the things the two of them had seen and done together in the war, no one ever needed to know about, least of all a child like Nicky.

  “Not for a minute,” Cade replied. “He’d have probably put you straight over his knee for a stunt like this.”

  Nicky startled against him, clearly surprised by that revelation. “Mama doesn’t believe in that,” he said quickly in a tone that made it clear he was used to that being the final word on the subject, his get out of jail free card. Cade, however, wasn’t playing. From this moment on, he intended to hold Nicky accountable to him as well as Gail, and it was time Nicky understood that.

  “No, she doesn’t,” Cade agreed, “but your daddy did and so do I. I’ve respected your Mama’s wishes on the subject until now, but if you keep this up, I will step in. This stops, and it stops now. If you take off like this and put yourself in danger again, I will spank you, even if I have to go through your mother to do it. Is that understood?”

  Nicky stiffened. Cade could almost feel the fundamental assumptions of the boy’s world rearranging themselves. Gail rarely held him accountable in any way at all and never with physical correction. Nicky clearly felt himself above that. When Nicky didn’t answer, Cade reached out and tapped the side of his thigh. Not hard, Cade seriously doubted Nicky even really felt it through his jeans, but it made his point. “Answer me, Nicholas.”

  “Yeah,” Nicky said grudgingly.

  Oh no, Cade thought, that wasn’t cutting it. He shifted Nicky to sit sideways in his lap and looked him in the eye. “What was that?”

  Nicky flushed and tried to look away, but Cade was having none of it. “Yes, sir,” Nicky said softly.

  Though Cade doubted he knew it, the relief in Nicky’s voice was palpable. Oh yes, the boy was clearly desperate for limits whether he knew it or not, and Cade intended to make sure he got them. “Good,” Cade went on. He ran a gentle hand over Nicky’s tousled curls, absently picking out bits of leaves and dried grass that they had picked up during his scramble through the brush. “Now, I’ll ask again. What happened this morning?”

  “I told Mama I didn’t want to go to stupid day camp today,” Nicky said. “I wanted to stay home and work on my fort in the backyard, but she made me go anyway.”

  “I see,” Cade said slowly. “So let me see if I can guess how the rest of this went. You decided you’d show her. She could make you go, but she couldn’t make you stay.” Nicky shrugged noncommittally, but the fierce blush creeping up his neck and over his face told Cade he’d hit the nail on the head. “Then, when you went out at recess, you saw your chance and you took off. Is that about the size of it?”

  Nicky shrugged again. “Maybe,” he muttered reluctantly.

  Cade caught his chin and held it, not allowing him to avoid his eyes. “No, I don’t think there was any maybe to it. I think that’s exactly how it went. Isn’t it, Nicholas?”

  Nicky swallowed hard, clearly uncomfortable. “Yes, sir,” he said finally, though the admission obviously pained him.

  Cade nodded. “I thought so. You put yourself in danger and scared your Mama and me and the camp staff half to death for no better reason than you were angry.” Nicky at least had the grace to look chastened. “That isn’t acceptable, Nicholas Matthew, and you know it. We’re going back to the camp, and you’re going to do just as you’re told. If you so much as put a toe out of line again, I’m going to get a phone call, and you will answer to me. Understood?” Nicky nodded, wide-eyed. Cade very much doubted he’d ever been held accountable in quite this way before, but that was going to change. “Secondly, you’re grounded. For the next week, you’re not to leave the house unless you’re going with your mom, coming to camp, or with me. There’ll be no playing outside with your friends or riding your bike, and I’ll be by tonight to talk to your mom about computer privileges and video games. If it were up to me, you wouldn’t get them either, and I may just take the videogame with me when I come, but your mom needs the computer.”

  “But Uncle Cade, that’s not fair!” Nicky protested. “I won’t have anything to do.”

  “If that’s a problem, I’m sure your mom or I can find you some chores to do,” Cade replied.

  “Mama doesn’t believe in those either,” Nicky grumbled.

  “Maybe not,” Cade conceded, “but I do. I’ll make you a list myself if I have to. You’re plenty old enough to do a lot around the house, and I’m sure your mama could use the help.” He set Nicky on his feet and stood himself, brushing the worst of the leaves and dirt from both of them. “Let’s go,” he said, “before the camp staff think I have kidnapped you or something. I’d hate to have to arrest myself.” He chuckled expecting Nicky to laugh along, but Nicky surprised him.

  “I wish you would,” Nicky muttered under his breath.

  Cade sighed. He really had to find a way to spend more time with Nicky. The child was clearly desperate for attention. Aloud he said, “No, you don’t. You wouldn’t like me nearly so much if I had you all to myself. I spank, remember?” Nicky made the appropriate agreeing noises, but to Cade’s mind, he didn’t seem convinced.

  Sometime later, having gotten Nicky settled with his appropriate group at the day camp and headed back to the office, Cade pulled out his phone and dialed Gail. “I found him,” he said by way of hello.

  Gail audibly breathed a sigh of relief. “Is he okay? Was he hurt? Did something happen?”

  “He’s fine,” Cade told her. “He’s back with his group at day camp. You can pick him up later as usual. Nothing happened other than him being pissed at you. This was nothing more than a temper tantrum.”

  Gail let out a long breath, this one weary and exasperated. “I just don’t know what to do with him,” she said.

  “Set some limits, for one,” Cade told her. “Stop letting him get away with murder and teach him there are consequences for his actions.”

  “I try,” she said, “but it’s hard. I see so much of Gary in him, and I hate to upset him. He’s already going through so much, not having a father.”

  “For crying out loud, Gail,” he said, finally letting years of frustration show through, “you have both got to get over that and stop using it as an excuse. I loved Gary too. He was my best friend, and there’s not a day of my life that I don’t miss him, but he’s gone.” He heard Gail’s breath catch, as it never failed to do every single time they talked about Gary. Even after all these years, her grief was incredibly strong. That was another reason Cade had never had this conversation before; it never failed to upset her. “Get it together, Martha Gail,” Cade snapped instinctively. “It’s time for you to be the adult.”

  Gail caught her breath, clearly shocked. “Dammit, Cade, just what do you think I’ve been doing all these years. I’m doing my best to put food on the table and do the best I can to make up for what he doesn’t have.”

  “I know you are, Gail,” Cade said, more gently this time, “but it’s time to stop thinking so much about what he doesn’t have and focus on what he does. He doesn’t have a father, but he does have a mother, and it’s time you acted like one. I know you’re providing for him physically. You give him everything he needs. Hell, you give him everything he wants, but he needs an authority figure too.”

  “That’s easy for you to say,” Gail said. “You’re a man; it’s different for you. It’s harder for a woman. I just don’t have that kind of natural authority.”

  Since Cade’s mother was more than twice his age and less than half the size but could still stop him in his tracks with a look, he wasn’t buying that argument for a minute. However, he also knew better than to beat a dead horse and having had this argument with Gail many times before,
he knew better than to voice his opinion on the subject. Instead, he said, “I can help with that, if you let me. I’ll set limits and consequences for him, and you know me well enough to know it won’t be all that different from what Gary would have done, but I need your cooperation. You’re going to have to enforce what I say. You can’t go against me, and you can’t undermine me. We have to be on the same page in this.”

  “Of course,” Gail said quickly. “I’m at the end of my rope, Cade. I just don’t know what to do.”

  “Not so fast,” Cade said. “If we agree to this, you’re going to have to back me up or at the very least, not go against me, whether you agree with me or not.”

  “You’re not hitting him, Cade,” Gail said, catching on.

  “I’d never hit him, Gail,” Cade replied, “but if he runs away again, I will spank him.”

  “No, Cade,” Gail insisted. “I will not let you hit my child.”

  “Spanking is not hitting,” Cade began. “You make it sound like I’m going to punch him or something.”

  “It’s the same to me,” Gail muttered stubbornly.

  Cade sighed, knowing full well this was going nowhere. “Let’s just hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said. “For now, I’ve told Nicky he’s grounded. He’s not to go anywhere unless he’s with one of us or have any friends over. Can you deal with enforcing that?”

  “Yes, that sounds reasonable,” Gail replied.

  “That means you don’t give in and take him to his friend’s house because he’s begging you, and then try to justify it with some nonsense about him being with you,” Cade warned. “We have to be a united front on this.”

  “I know,” Gail told him. “I’m going to try.”

  “Fair enough,” Cade conceded. “He’s also not allowed to play his video game. I’m coming by tonight to pick it up. I’ll keep it at my house until the end of the week to remove the temptation.”

  “How is he supposed to entertain himself?” Gail asked. “Without his friends and his game he’ll be miserable.

  “He can do all the things that we did before we had video games,” Cade replied, “read, draw, play board games, play cards. He’ll survive; we did. And he’s not supposed to like it, that’s the point. It’s punishment. “

  “You’re not the one who’s going to have him around underfoot bored and miserable,” Gail said.

  “There’s an easy solution to that,” Cade told her. “Keep him busy enough with chores that he won’t have time to be bored. It worked well enough for my mother.”

  “I didn’t have Nicky just so he could be slave labor,” Gail snapped. “Caring for the household is my job, not his.”

  “My parents didn’t have kids just for slave labor either,” Cade answered sharply, “but they believed in teaching us responsibility. It is his home as much as yours, and I don’t see anything wrong with expecting him to contribute to keeping it up as well, but that’s up to you. I’m not going to argue. If you still think it’s a problem, we’ll talk about it tonight when I come by.” He said a quick goodbye and hung up. He climbed back in his truck, having walked back to where he parked it on the ditch while he was talking to Gail, and headed back to work. He was getting out of the truck at the Sheriff’s office when he realized the voice mail message indicator had come up on the display. He quickly dialed in his pass code and listened to the message.

  It was from Stacy. “Hey, Lawman,” she began, “I’m headed out for lunch and just wanted to know if you still wanted to meet me like you talked about last night. Call me.”

  Cade swore softly under his breath and punched in her number. “Hey, Stace,” he said when she answered, “I just got your message.”

  Stacy laughed. “It’s a little late now. I decided you had probably gotten busy and went ahead.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Cade told her. “I got tied up with Nicky.”

  “Nicky?” Stacy asked. She was clearly concerned, and he loved her for it. “What’s going on with Nicky? Is something wrong? Is he okay?”

  “He’s fine,” Cade replied. “He got mad with Gail this morning and decided to take off from the day camp. I found him in the woods and took him back.”

  “That boy,” Stacy said, hovering somewhere between amusement and exasperation. “I have to admit though it sounds exactly like something I would’ve done.”

  “Why am I not surprised,” Cade said, grinning. “You’re as much of a brat as he is, and you both need your butt blistered.”

  “Do not,” Stacy countered. “I’ve had quite enough of that for the moment, thank you.”

  “Are you okay?” Cade asked seriously.

  “As long as I’m standing,” Stacy replied. “I’m avoiding sitting at my desk like the plague. You didn’t have to be quite so thorough, you know.”

  “Yeah, I did,” Cade said, thoroughly unrepentant. “You make your choice, and you take your chances.”

  “Yeah, yeah, I think I got that part,” Stacy said, and he could almost see her rolling her eyes. “Since we missed lunch, you want to get dinner tonight?”

  Cade sighed. “As much as I would like to, I can’t. I promised Gail I’d come over and help with Nicky. He’s grounded and not at all happy about it, and Gail’s not much of a disciplinarian.”

  “No problem,” Stacy said, a great deal more easily than Cade had expected. “Linda wanted me to call her about trading recipes this week anyway. I’ll see if she wants to get together. You take care of Nicky.”

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” Cade said softly. Stacy might be a handful, but at the moment, he was very grateful that she was also incredibly open-hearted. More than a few of his past relationships had ended over his relationship with Gail and Nicky, but Stacy didn’t seem the least threatened by it, a fact for which he was supremely thankful.

  “For what?” Stacy asked. “Not demanding you spend every free moment with me? As much as I enjoy being with you, we’re both adults. We both have lives. Nicky’s just a little boy, and you’re the closest thing he has to a father, of course he’s going to need you sometimes.”

  “I’m glad you understand,” Cade told her.

  “It just gives me an excuse to hang out with Linda,” Stacy said. “Now, get off the phone so I can call Linda and see how much trouble we can get into tonight. While the cat’s away the mice will play and all that, you know.”

  Cade guffawed with surprised laughter. “One minute you’re complaining that it hurts to sit and the next you’re talking about getting in trouble. You’re going to be the death of me yet, girl. I’ll tell Linda to give you a call when I get back to the station. Have fun tonight.”

  ***

  Much to Stacy’s surprise, she did have fun. It shouldn’t have been a surprise, really. She liked to cook, and she and Linda had hit it off very quickly on the night of the party. They had talked several times since then, and in a way, she supposed they were starting to become friends. That was what surprised Stacy the most. She was a party girl. She’d never really mingled with the middle class ‘professional’ set. At least, not since she was old enough to get away from her parents’ world, and never by choice. She’d very happily relocated, both literally and physically, to the other side of the tracks and made her own way in the world. She’d studiously avoided anyone she considered to be from that world. Until now.

  So much had changed in the short time she’d known Cade. It might not look like it from the outside. After all, she still did pretty much the same things, except that she wasn’t hanging out at the bar nearly as much as she used to. She didn’t have time to. She spent most of her evenings with Cade. They didn’t always do much. Often they sat around in her living room doing nothing more than eating dinner or watching television. A couple times a week, they went to Nicky’s baseball games. It wasn’t so much that they did anything special, more that he was always there. Somehow, he’d become a constant presence in her life. It was hard now to remember what her life had been like without him in it, though she knew per
fectly well that if anyone had told her in her life before Cade that she’d be spending the evening trading recipes like a typical housewife and then coming home to curl up on her sofa and nurse a still shockingly sore backside, she’d have sworn they’d lost their mind. She’d never seen herself being this ordinary and especially not liking it. She’d certainly never seen herself letting some man spank her, much less asking for it, yet she had. There was no denying that. He hadn’t forced it on her at all. She had chosen this. What’s more, even though the choice still confused her to no end, she knew it was the right one. It hurt like hell, but the emotional pain of hurting Cade was so much worse.

  Stacy shifted, restless, punching irritably at the pillow she’d brought out from her bedroom. That was a new feeling. She had always been a love them and leave them type. It wasn’t so much that she didn’t care about how the men she dated felt but that she avoided the messy emotional stuff. Her past relationships weren’t that sort of relationship, and she’d never wanted them to be. Cade was different. He mattered.

  She sighed, alternately wishing he would call and cursing herself for the wishing. How wimpy was she? Cade was busy; she understood. Nicky was a nine-year-old boy, and he clearly needed Cade right now. She’d meant it when she said she understood. She didn’t begrudge either of them the time; she honestly didn’t, but, dammit, she missed Cade.

  Chapter 10

  The feeling didn’t go away when the hours turned into days and the days stretched into weeks. If anything, it got stronger. She missed him, dammit. Even as Stacy cursed herself for being a silly sentimental fool, she missed him. It wasn’t as if she never saw him. They talked or texted almost every day and had lunch together as often as either could manage, but he wasn’t there, not really. He was so busy. If he wasn’t at work, he was with Nicky. The little boy seemed to be constantly in some kind of trouble or fighting with his mother. She knew he needed Cade, and she didn’t begrudge them the time. She wasn’t jealous of a nine-year-old - really she wasn’t - but she missed Cade.