“What?” asked Mandy with incredulity.
Whew, they were off the hook. Texanna relaxed physically losing the stiffness that had held her rigid. She turned to go quickly since he didn’t think there was a problem.
“Stop where you are, sweet thing.” God, it’s unnatural the way he just knew. He wasn’t even looking at her. She stopped because he told her to for the second time in a few moments.
“Oh, well, of course.” Mandy huffed. “It is nothing you haven’t seen before, you’re a man.”
Texanna released a moan, closed her eyes and leaned her head on the wall behind her. Colton coughed, causing Texanna to look up quick enough to see the slight upward twist of his lips and his eyes, filled with mirth, on her. He winked at Texanna causing her to sigh and slightly roll her eyes before she slid her back down the wall and dipped her head, meeting chin to chest.
Mandy didn’t always seem to catch on to things, as she ought. Texanna was confident that the blunder his cousin had made was the final nail in their coffin today. She was also quite sure, given how he was responding, that Marshal Colton McFadden was quite entertained. However, Texanna believed it was the least entertaining thing since this whole fiasco began.
Colton straightened up and seemed to have made a decision. He gripped his cousin’s upper arm. “Mandy Sue Coffey, I’m going to tell you this only one time.” The words he spoke no longer showed any amusement. “What you’re trying to see is for a man and woman privately, after they are married. Sitting and trying to catch a glimpse of a man is wrong outside of the state of matrimony. It will cause all kinds of trouble. You might even find yourself forced to marry someone you had no intention of being tied to if you aren’t careful.”
He turned his chastisement toward Texanna. “And you, Miss Texanna, are old enough to know better.” Her bowed head shot up as she slid back up the wall to stand, with her head slightly bowed, in front of the marshal. “Yes, sir, I know but I honestly didn’t have a clue what I was going to see until I looked in. I stepped back quickly and didn’t get a glimpse of anything untoward, but you’re right, I shouldn’t have looked at all.”
“So this wasn’t your idea?”
“What? No, absolutely not. I didn’t even know it was there until just a bit ago.” At his look of skepticism, she defiantly returned his look with her own challenging glare. “It’s the truth.”
He nodded as though he could divine that she was telling the truth, before turning to his cousin.
Mandy was obviously confused. “What are you looking at me for? What is the matter, Anna? Why are you looking so worried?”
Colton did not give Texanna time to respond as he turned to Mandy. “So this was your idea?”
“Well, yes, but, Colt, there was no harm, really. No one got hurt.”
“Yet, now you need to get yourself home and I’ll come by to attend to your disobedient bottom and have a talk with your mother. Mandy, on your way you can gather a switch or have your hairbrush ready when I get there. The one I got you for Christmas.”
Mandy’s cheeks reddened, and she covered her embarrassment with spite-filled words. “You’re such a prude.” She stomped a foot. “You are worse than an old spinster.” She stomped her foot again and if Texanna could have warned her friend she would have advised against any displays of childish behaviors. However, she couldn’t devise a way to do that because she was too busy wondering if Mandy would choose a switch or the hairbrush. Unfortunately, her friend sassed again with expected results. Texanna expected them anyway.
Colton smacked Mandy’s fanny. “Well, we will see about that. You get yourself home and wait for me. You hear?”
Mandy gasped. “Yes, I hear. I hear very well.”
That young woman twirled around and as she lifted her leg again, this time, to stomp off, she was assisted by another ball of fire across the seat of her borrowed trousers that sent her racing home without any further attitude. Texanna wondered what Mandy’s mother would say to this immodest example of her increasingly undisciplined daughter. Texanna had tried, as her friend, to rein Mandy in over the last few months, but it was working abysmally if this was the results of that restraining influence. Mandy was a friend of the highest quality and she did not want any harm to come to her.
Colt turned and stared intently at Texanna, his whole attention focused on her, but she couldn’t face him so she stared at her feet. She knew he was watching her because she took a small peek up at him before dropping her head quickly. She had that odd ache again low down and wondered at it. Then her nipples hardened even more. What was wrong with her? Colton was watching her, she was having a hard time breathing, and her girlie parts were throbbing. Heat flushed her face all the way to the top of her head, and she couldn’t risk him knowing her thoughts.
Texanna knew she was considered a cute little thing by most accounts she was made aware of, but she just was not attracting any respectable men. Men wanted a woman, not a sweet girl. The teenagers that wanted her were just that, boys, and she had no time for immature ruffians. Colton McFadden, however, was one beautiful example of God’s creation. He looked tanned like most men did and her pa said he was Indian, but he had those startling blue eyes that made a gal wonder what else he might be. She wondered if he might be interested in her if she put some effort into it.
What kind of woman would the marshal be looking for? If she dressed more like a woman and strolled past his office, with her hair in a loose bun, maybe have it slip out of its confines, on accident of course, just as she was within sight of him. Would that bring him out to talk to her and possibly admire her some? Maybe she could bring him lunch and share it with him. Her pa would never allow it, but she didn’t have to let him know.
Besides, the men, it seemed, couldn’t get around the fact that she was painfully petite. Having babies, well, was important to cattlemen, and she didn’t look like those big hipped women common to the area. Colt was a big man. Not heavy but powerfully built and typically tall enough to take notice of when he came into view. He would breed big babies. Texanna was shocked that she had that stray thought when she was looking at some serious standing time after he got through talking with her pa, which she was sure he would want to do. They all did. That is if she decided to stay to take that whipping.
The sheriff had needed to speak to her father when she was caught looking into the saloon through the back door just to satisfy her curiosity about what went on behind those swinging gates. The stable owner talked to him because she spent too much time distracting the boys in there by asking questions and slipping forbidden treats to the mares. Last week, she was there just to see the new puppies, not distract the boys from their work, but neither saw it that way. It was as though her existence in the stables bothered them even when she didn’t even talk to them.
The other week she had knocked over a display in the mercantile. No one seemed to care that she was trying to stop two little hellions with an absent mother from tearing the place down all by themselves. Even the preacher thought poorly of her improper behavior during the last social. She had thought just yesterday that if she got into any more trouble, she might just take off for some other place. Men did it all the time. Yeah, but since she was a woman, traveling alone was a harebrained idea. She looked and thought that at least she had these trousers she could wear. But it was only as a last resort.
“Well, I guess I’m going to have to take a ride out to your daddy’s place and have a talk with him.”
Her head shot up and her eyes met his briefly. “I guess. But, Mr. McFadden, Colton,” she risked calling him by his first name and it felt right. “Do you think you might be able to just… um… forget it this once?” She looked up despondently biting her lip and then licking the spot.
“Well, I wish I could honey but I already have Mandy waiting for her whipping. If I don’t do my duty by both of you, I wouldn’t be fair. I pride myself on being a just man. You need to get home, and I’ll come by after I deal with Mandy. Maybe it won�
��t be so bad once he finds out that you didn’t know what you would be looking at and didn’t get a look at anything.”
“That would be a miracle,” she mumbled. “Miracles don’t happen in my life.”
“What do you mean?” he asked with concern.
She shrugged. “Well, I’ve been getting into some trouble rather often these days or, at least, I’ve gotten more than my share of punishments. My pa isn’t going to care that I didn’t have any idea what was behind that wall. He’d ask why anyone would do anything they didn’t know what it was first. Then he’s going to take strips off my hide like he promised if I get into trouble one more time. That is if I stay around to let him.”
“I see. Maybe he forgot or his anger of past experiences has lessened some.”
She gave him a look of derision. “It was last week that he said it. He remembers what day of the week I got my first tooth. When I climbed out the window for the first time, and the exact day of the week, month and year that my mother left. He’s not inclined to forget something this big.”
Texanna could tell that Colton was a bit stunned to hear all she said in that sentence and its deliverance.
“I see what you mean. I’m sorry, but I kind of agree with him. You should have asked. You know Mandy; she’s not one to think things through.”
She kicked the dirt to punctuate her frustration. “I know. I was just trying to keep her out of trouble and then fell under her charm again.”
They were silent for a moment and then she jerked her head up showing her lip being worried by her teeth and said, “Hey, would you just take care of it?”
“Take care of what?”
“My whipping. Please, Colton?”
“Oh, no, that’s not my place. That is your daddy’s place.”
“Not if he doesn’t know about it. That is perfect. Please, oh please. You would be staying true to your fairness principles and I’ll live to see another day.”
Colton groaned.
Chapter Two
Her eyes pleaded with him. He always wondered about the color of Texanna’s eyes. It was hard to tell what shade those eyes were really, but they were kind of like what you saw in some babies. It was like a dust storm, swirling and easy to get lost in. He pulled himself out of the abyss and looked at her expression. Tears were gathering in her eyes. She was very beautiful with that glorious hair that was slipping out from under her hat and her well-proportioned body. She was slight in overall build but that innocently mischievous look on her face could do him in. Her plight tugged at his heart. Damn.
“Honey, if I strapped you, you wouldn’t be able to sit for a month of Sundays,” he said hoping to discourage her request. The impropriety of it all could ruin her. He spanked on the bare, and she wasn’t his to spank. He allowed his mind to drift again at what a privilege that would be if she were his. He thought he could settle down with this honeycomb, bees and all.
“There would, at least, come a day that I would have the potential eventuality of sitting again. There would be no hope with my pa. I’m worried he might send me to my aunt’s in St. Louis if I keep getting in hot water. I spent the summer with her when I was fourteen, the year my brother Ben left. Pa thought that I might want to stay there with her instead of staying home with just him.”
She sighed and shrugged her shoulders. “I was a little excited until I got there and I don’t think I went two days without that woman bringing out her crop or my hairbrush. She kept a switch on the side bureau and when she wore it out, she would send me for another. I know why her daughter married as soon as she could. I was never so glad to get home. You know, I think that woman liked smacking me.”
She took a breath before she spoke in a bewildered tone, “The thing is, I don’t see what I’m doing, most of the time, that is so wrong.”
Colton coughed his chuckle. He wanted to ask more questions, but they had been out there too long as it was. He didn’t like the way the men coming in and out of the saloon were looking at Texanna. He was going to start swinging soon. Her hair had begun to fall out of its confines so she had taken her hat off and let it all tumble down. All that glorious auburn mane to draw men’s eyes to her and that cock hardening body with rounded hips and perfectly sized breasts and that rounded bottom. Inwardly groaning, he decided he might as well give in. If he was spanking one, he might as well spank two. On top of that, Texanna was old enough to be able to consent to it. He wondered about her consent to other things like kissing.
He longed to taste those lips, bite them where she was biting them. He’d like to taste a few other places as well. Colton was not the prude his cousin had labeled him. He’d visited Miss Jonquil’s a time or two in the past among other places. That had been to scratch an itch. What he wanted with Texanna was so much more. What he wanted to share with her, he never wanted another man to share with her. Her kisses were his, her woman’s treasures were his, and her little sighs were for him. And his seed was for her. Shocked at the last thought, he shook his head to get rid of the thought.
“Well, I have to take care of Mandy first. I imagine she has stewed just about enough to practically beg me to get it over with quickly. I’m going to sit you in my office. The sheriff is gone for another couple of days. You wait for me. If you don’t change your mind and are still there when I get back, then I’ll take care of your punishment. I’m not going to be lenient because you didn’t know. Next time you ask some questions. Don’t get yourself in a fix so you find you’re caught doing things like spying on a man in his birthday suit. You understand me?”
“Yes, sir. I will. I mean, I won’t. I mean, thank you.”
“Well, you might better hold those appreciations for when you have had your tail lit on fire. Now let’s get you situated.”
***
She sat in that jail for quite a while. She thought it would be just a fifteen-minute wait, but he had been gone more than half an hour, and she began to feel some apprehension about her choice. Maybe it would be better if she didn’t stay and just take her chances with her pa. If she didn’t have his dinner when he was done working, then she would catch it anyway and all of this would be for nothing. The more she thought about it, the more anxious she became and looked around for a piece of scrap paper to write on. She had the desk drawer gaping when she heard the door open.
She looked up and stared at him while she was digging in his private things. The thought didn’t click right away, that she should stop. She was mesmerized by his eyes in his darker face, like a farmer’s tanned face. From her position, sitting in his desk chair, he looked much larger and then, of course, she had her hand rummaging in his desk. That probably didn’t look so good either. Suddenly, her tummy churned.
“Um, I was looking for some kind of paper.”
“Huh. Why?” His look of expectation caught her attention, and she thought how good looking he really was. Astonishingly, he had listened to her each time she had responded, today. He was taking her answers into account, something she was not used to experiencing. She looked down at the gaping drawer and then shoved it closed, hard; pushing back from it like it was a viper.
“Why? Oh, you took longer than I thought, and I can’t stay gone all day. I mean, I have to start supper.”
He nodded his head. “I thought so, that is why I tried to hurry but some things just take the time they take. Ready?”
“Is everything all right? With Mandy, I mean.”
“Yep, she’s just fine. She’ll be standing for dinner but not much more than that. I would like to think that she will consider the consequence first next time, but I don’t hold out much hope.”
He locked the door and then pulled the shades and pulled out the straight-backed chair. She expected him to sit in it, but he motioned her to the-hands-on-chair position. Her look of consternation must have triggered his next words for he answered her unspoken question.
“You don’t need to drop your drawers, but I’ll be pulling down your trousers.”
He
at rushed her cheeks, burned them. Should she tell him? Oh, Lord, how did she get herself into these messes? She was about to go from the frying pan right into the fire, literally. What would he say? She was so nervous she needed to relieve herself but she didn’t dare ask. She lifted her feet a few times, as she tried to stop the jumping in her stomach. She bit her lip and then licked it.
“Oh, well, um. Okay.”
“I can see there is already a problem. I can just as easily take you on home. I would prefer that anyway.”
“No. It’s just that. Oh, never mind.”
“You’re sure?”
“I am.” She put words to action and leaned over to grasp the seat of the chair with her hands. She thought she might better hold tight to the piece of furniture to help her keep her position. Her pa hated it when she stood up in the middle of a whipping.
She peeked over toward Colton. She watched him take off his gun belt and worried he would use it to punish her but relaxed when she saw him take off another one he had looped through his pants.
“Eyes down.”
“Yes, sir.”
She worried what his reaction would be when he found out. Oh well, there was nothing she could do about it now. On the other hand, there wasn’t anything that she would do about it either. She had committed and she needed to see it through. She reassured herself that it was the best thing for her. She felt him come up behind her and then the breeze hit her exposed skin as the trousers came down. There was an audible intake of breath.
“What the hell?”
She jumped straight up forgetting to hold position; her hands flying back to cover her exposed bottom. She watched as he frantically tried to find the nonexistent drawers and when it was obvious there was none, he swore again.
Taming Texanna Page 3
