“No family, Sheriff, and I wish you’d stop prying into my personal business.”
“I’m just doing my job, Miss Emily,” he insisted as he accepted a cup of coffee from Lucy. “Thanks, Lucy,” he said with a smile for the brunette.
“I think you need to stop asking so many questions, Mac,” Lucy told him firmly. “Emily is grieving right now and she doesn’t need you trying to boss her around.”
“Lucy, Doc Z must be losing his touch if you can be so sassy today. Do I need to tell him he needs to cut a switch?”
“You’d just better not!” Emily jumped to her feet to yell at him.
“Hey now, what is going on in here?” Henry asked as he joined them.
“He is being mean to Lucy!” Emily pointed her finger at Mac. “Make him leave!”
“Lucy?” Henry was not pleased.
“Never mind, Doc Z. Lucy is right. Emily is too upset right now to be questioned.” He got to his feet. “Well, did the new arrival at the Gibbs household cause a stir?”
“He sure did,” Henry grinned. “Gibbs is dancing and Lorene is happy, too. Poor kid is going to have five older sisters bossing him around all of his life.”
“You know as well as I do that Gibbs loves all those little girls of his, and he’d love this baby, too, no matter what.”
“I know that, and so does Lorene,” Henry agreed. He then looked at Emily and said quietly, “The undertaker has Dove all ready to be buried, Emily. He would like to have a small graveside service for him at two o’clock today. The Reverend has agreed to come.”
Emily felt tears sting her eyes. No one but her would grieve for Dove and it made her very sad. “Two o’clock will be fine.”
“I have another dress that is more suitable that you can use, Emily, and, I will go with you.”
“Unless I have an emergency, I’ll be there, too,” Henry added.
“I’ll be there, too.” Mac tried again. “Is there anyone who needs to be notified of Dove’s death?”
“No,” Emily whispered. “I think I will go back to the hotel now. I need to be alone.”
Mac offered to walk her back, and took her up to her room. Emily quietly shut the door in his face. He decided to respect her privacy, and went back to his office to work on the paper work that never seemed to get done. At one thirty, he started across the street to the hotel to escort Emily to the service, but found Doc Z sitting in the lobby. “Lucy is upstairs helping Emily get dressed. She’s been crying again. If she doesn’t calm down, I’ll have to sedate her again.”
“I don’t like the idea of her being alone, Doc Z.”
“You don’t have much say in the matter, Mac. She could very well be of age.”
“She has no one to look out for her, Henry. I can’t just turn my back on that.”
“You’ve got it bad, my friend.”
The women came downstairs then, and Mac offered Emily his arm. He half expected her to refuse, but it was soon obvious she needed someone to lean on. The service did not take long. The minister offered prayers, and when he asked if anyone would like to speak, Emily stepped forward and recited a poem she had obviously written for Dove. It was a sad little ceremony and Mac held Emily’s hand tightly as he offered her strength and comfort.
“What are your plans now, Emily?” Henry dared to ask when they arrived back at the hotel.
“I need to find a job,” she answered. “What is there to do in this town?”
“Not much of anything,” Lucy replied in disgust. “You’ll almost have to create a job for yourself, Emily. The men around this town won’t give a mere woman a chance! What sort of things can you do? Sew, perhaps? Cook? Take care of children?”
“I can use my gun!” Emily answered.
“You’d better not think of trying to get a job using your gun!” Mac was instantly furious.
“Sheriff, what I do is none of your business unless I break the law in some way!” she retorted.
Mac started to say something, but Henry chuckled and just shook his head. Mac threw up his hands in disgust and left the hotel.
Later that night as he was making his rounds, he heard running footsteps and then shots rang out, spraying the ground all around him. He drew his gun to fire, but another shot rang out, and Frank Bedloe fell from a doorway and onto the sidewalk. Mac turned to see who fired the shot that saved his life and was stunned to see Emily standing there with her Colt in her hand.
Chapter Two
“Mac!” Doc Z called out as he came running. “I heard the shots; are you all right?” Henry looked his friend over for any obvious signs of injury, and seeing none, he looked around until he saw the body lying on the sidewalk. He hurried over and knelt beside the man and searched for a pulse. “It’s Frank Bedloe, and he’s dead. Shot clean through the heart, Mac.” Henry looked at the Sheriff and followed his gaze to the redhead standing in the shadows. Emily was staring right back at Mac and if not for the fact he was kneeling beside a dead man, Henry would have smiled. He doubted that Mac even knew he was there.
“Emily,” Mac called out and opened his arms. Emily came running toward him and he hugged her close. “Emily, you saved my life!” Mac whispered, his voice raw. “Are you hurt?”
“No. He was going to shoot you in the back, Mac!” she cried out. “I couldn’t let him do that. I just drew and fired. I had to!” she explained.
“Oh honey, you shouldn’t have risked your own life like that. Bedloe would have killed you for shooting at him if you’d missed! He was a bad one!” He held her so tight, picturing her injured, and that gave him a terrible fright. “You make me crazy and all mixed up, Emily.”
“You barely know me!” she scoffed.
“What are you doing on the street at this time of night, young lady?” Mac asked in a scolding tone of voice, his whole demeanor suddenly changing.
“Whatever I want to do,” she replied, stepping away from him. “If I hadn’t been out here you would be dead, and best you remember that, Sheriff!” She turned on her booted heel and stomped away.
Mac followed. “Don’t you walk away when I am talking to you, little girl, or I’ll turn you over my knee again.”
“You got no right to do that, and if I don’t want to talk to you, then I don’t have to!”
“Damn fool girl!” Mac whispered. He saw Henry was there and said, “Doc, Emily just shot Frank Bedloe and saved my life. He is dead?”
“Yes,” Henry was aware that Mac had only just noticed him. “You go on after Emily and get her off the street before she finds more trouble. It appears she is just as difficult as my Lucy,” Henry commented with a grin.
“I’m going to set her tail on fire,” Mac promised, and then set off after the impossible redhead, anxious to keep her safe and throttle her at the same time.
Mac missed the chuckle that escaped Doc Z, who was enjoying watching his friend go through the same type of hell he’d endured when Lucinda came to town for the express purpose of killing him. Henry paddled Lucy on the stagecoach before they reached town, and it seemed he was spanking her every other moment until she finally realized he had not killed her brother. Now that was all in the past; Lucy was his wife and he loved her dearly. It was time that Mac met his match, and from the looks of it, the little redhead was putting him through the wringer, just as Lucy did with him. Henry’s money was on Mac, however, and hoped they would soon be in touch to tell him and Lucy that they were going to be married. Mac deserved happiness.
Mac raced after Emily, wondering where she was going in such a hurry. She wasn’t running, but by the time he caught up with her she was at the cemetery. Emily knelt beside Dove’s freshly covered grave. Mac came up behind her and took off his hat out of respect for the man who was clearly loved by the young woman.
“He was so good to me, Mac,” Emily whispered softly. “I keep thinking I will wake up and learn this was all just a bad dream.” She was quiet for a few moments, and then she said, “When Doc Z asked me all those questions about
Dove I realized that he’d been leading up to this for a long time. Neither of us had any idea that he was ill; if I’d known, I would have brought him in to town and to a doctor sooner. I feel like I let Dove down; I should have known that something was wrong! After the way he took care of me for three years, I should have been there for him.” She started crying then, and Mac pulled her to his feet and into his strong arms.
“Now you listen to me, young lady, things happen the way they do for a reason. You heard Doc Z say that there was nothing at all he could have done to save Dove if he’d been standing right beside him. You stop blaming yourself right now. I don’t imagine Dove would like that at all, now would he?”
“No, he sure wouldn’t,” she tearfully admitted. “He would look at me, shake his finger, and say, ‘Girl, don’t you be ridiculous!’ Dove was good to me, Mac, and he never asked anything in return. I know what dirty-minded folks thought, but that wasn’t true. Dove wasn’t like that with me. He protected me from them that would of done wrong by me. He said I was a lady, even if I wear britches and tote a gun.”
“Dove was right,” Mac stated with conviction.
“Being a lady doesn’t fill the belly,” she stated matter-of-factly. “I need a job. Lucy says there is nothing in town for a female… except the saloons.”
“And you are not setting foot in those places,” Mac told her flatly. “If I catch you in there, I’ll tan your hide for you.”
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do? You want to sign me on as your deputy?” she asked hopefully. “I can shoot as well as you do, if not better.”
“There is more to being a lawman than being able to handle a gun. And, you aren’t built for the job,” he added matter-of-factly.
“What do you mean?” her green eyes narrowed angrily.
“Part of dealing with men is treating them with respect as far as you can. You aren’t big enough to do that, Emily. You couldn’t break up a fight without pulling your gun, and when you do that, someone is liable to get hurt.”
“Okay. I get it.” There was only one job she could do, and she was pretty certain that Mac Forrester would not approve. “I’ll be leaving town in the morning, Sheriff. Thank you kindly for your help in seeing Dove buried.”
“Where do you plan to go, Emily?” Mac felt as though she’d sucker punched him in the gut.
“Not sure yet.”
“Emily, I don’t want you to ride out,” he admitted. “It’s a common enough experience, Sheriff. I have to earn a living somehow, and there is nothing available for me here. I got no choice but to leave town. I might be back someday, maybe even sooner than you expect me.” She gave him a smile and then headed back toward the hotel.
Mac followed her, tempted to stop her and shake her. He also wanted to spank her for running away from him earlier, but he did neither. He was too busy trying to think of a fool proof plan to stop her from leaving town in the morning. Even though he lay away all night, thinking, he couldn’t come up with one single way to prevent her from leaving… except marrying her, and he was pretty damn sure she would say ‘no’ if he asked, and he just wasn’t sure he was ready to do that!
So, Sheriff Mac Forrester watched glumly as the girl he knew only as Emily rode out of town without so much as looking back.
********************
“You are even more of a pain in the butt than normal, Mac Forrester!” Lucy Zabarski told him without preamble. “Look at you! You haven’t shaved in at least two weeks! You stink, too! You are drinking too much, and you are ignoring your sworn duty to this town.”
“Why don’t you just speak your mind, Lucy?” Mac drawled slowly.
“Very well, I will!” Lucy’s temper was at its best. “You have been acting like a fool ever since Emily left town. You are mooning over her, which is utterly ridiculous. If you care so much for her, then you need to go and find her and bring her back with a ring on her finger.”
“Butt out, Lucy.”
“The hell I will butt out, Mac Forrester! You are making everyone crazy with your ‘feel-sorry-for-me’ attitude! You are rude, insulting, and derelict in your duty. Now, either you pull yourself together or I am going to sock you in the nose!” she threatened.
The door to the jail opened and Doc Z walked inside, a smile on his face that did not quite meet his eyes. “I thought I might find you here, Mrs. Zabarski.” His blue eyes warned Lucy that she was in trouble. “Did I not tell you to mind your own business?”
“This is my business, Henry, and don’t you dare tell me it isn’t!”
“Lucy, we discussed this… several times… and you can just take yourself home and prepare yourself for a good spanking.”
Lucy looked at him in dismay, knowing full well her tall husband was very serious. “Henry, look at him!” she insisted.
“Lucy, unless you want me to embarrass you by taking you over my knee right here and now, you will get a move on your bustle.”
Lucy stomped her foot in outrage, but she quickly headed for the door to the Sheriff’s office, opened it and stepped through, and then slammed the door so hard that the glass shattered into a million pieces.
“I knew that was gonna happen someday,” Mac looked at the broken glass lying all over the floor without a bit of concern. “You owe the town for a window, Doc Z.”
“When are you going to snap out of this, Mac?” Henry demanded, taking up where Lucy left off.
“What can I do?”
“For one thing, you can take a bath and shave and get a haircut. The second thing you can do is send out some telegrams and see if anyone knows where Emily is at, and then you go after her and bring her home.”
“And if she doesn’t want to come?”
“You’ll think of something, Mac. Get cleaned up and come over for supper. I’m sure Lucy will be ready to apologize by then.”
“She’s a holy terror, Henry,” Mac said with feeling.
“She certainly is… and so is your Emily,” he added with a wicked grin.
********************
“I thought I told you to prepare yourself for a good spanking, Mrs. Zabarski?” Henry said with a frown when he saw his wife putting food in a pan on the stove.
“I do not think I deserve a spanking!” she announced primly.
“Lucy, you never think you deserve a spanking,” he stated. “But, you are going to get one, and you’ve made it much worse by not doing as you were told.” He sat the pan off the stove, took her arm, and then pulled her into their bedroom. It did not take him long to take a seat on the bed and drag her down over his left thigh. His hand smacked against her skirt in the next second.
Lucy yelped at the pain and tried valiantly to wriggle free, but Henry was just too strong for her to make her escape. She kicked her legs scissor fashion, but all that earned her was two more hard smacks on her upper thighs! “Owwwww! Not there, Henry!” she wailed.
“Then pull up your skirts, wife, and take down your drawers so I have a bare bottom to spank.”
“I hate it when you make me do that!” she complained. His answer was to spank again… hard… on her sit spots. “Owwwww!” She knew the only way to gentle the spanks was to cooperate, as difficult as that was for her to do. She eased her skirts up to her waist, but lying down made it nearly impossible for her to tug down her drawers. “I can’t pull down my drawers like this, Henry,” she whispered in embarrassment.
“Untie them,” he ordered sternly, and she jumped at the impatience in his voice. He wanted to smile, but he didn’t. Lucy needed to learn to control her temper and to obey him when he told her not to do something. He felt her hand between them, and the waist of her drawers was suddenly loose. He pulled the garment down past her knees and looked at her creamy white bottom. “Now we’ll see if I can’t make you regret your behavior.” He started spanking then and was amazed at how quickly his wife’s cheeks turned pink.
“Henry, that is enough!” Lucy declared. “Please stop!”
“Stop? I’ve
barely started, Lucinda. You disobeyed me and tore a strip off of Mac after I warned you not to.”
“He needed a talking to,” she argued.
“It wasn’t your place to take the man to task,” he pointed out, continuing to spank her pretty bottom.
“Someone needed to do so.”
“Lucy, that someone did not need to be you,” Henry insisted, spanking harder. He made sure to include her tender sit spots and she squealed and kicked in response. Her skin was turning a bright shade of red and was starting to feel hot to the touch. It wouldn’t be long now before she was saying ‘sorry’ and meaning it.
Lucinda was nearly in tears, and she hated having to say she was sorry, but the spanking was never going to stop until she apologized for disobeying her husband. He was a strict man, but she knew he loved her. “I’m sorry, Henry! I’m sorry!” she finally burst into tears of remorse.
“You are going to apologize to Mac when he comes for supper tonight, hear me?”
“Yes! Yes, I will! Oh, please stop now! I’m so sore already!”
Henry did stop, but only to say, “You may stand up now and lie over the mattress, Lucy. There is the little matter of slamming the door at the jail and breaking the window to atone for, and the fact that you defied me and did not come in here and bare yourself for a spanking like you were told to do. When I tell you to prepare yourself for a spanking, you are to obey me.”
“I will the next time,” Lucy fervently promised. “Please don’t spank me anymore, Henry. I hurt too much already!”
“You know that when you earn extras they are always given, Lucy. Now obey me, or I’ll double what you have already earned.” The look on her face made him wish he could take her in his arms and reassure her, but he knew that Lucy needed for him to be firm. It was one way that he expressed his love for her, and after her loveless childhood, she needed loving discipline as much as she needed to be held and kissed. She needed security.
Lucy really did not wish to obey Henry, but she knew from past experiences that he wasn’t merely making an idle threat. He would double the punishment he already had in mind. She got into position, making sure her bottom was bared, and then closed her eyes as she listened to the unmistakable sound of Henry sliding his leather belt through the loops on his pants. She braced herself for the first painful snap of the belt on her bottom, but, as usual, Henry waited until she relaxed the muscles in her buttocks before he took the first swing. She cried out in pain as she felt the first welt rise on her delicate skin. On top of the spanking she already had, the belt was extremely painful. Another lick landed on her sit spot and she started crying in earnest. It hurt!
Emily Page 2
