The Man of Her Dreams

by Bethany Hauck

  Suddenly a burst of lightning hit not too far away, lighting up the inside of the cave for just a split second; just enough to make Ham’s horse throw its head back and neigh loudly, then the thunder sounded, making the horse buck up on its hind legs. Flora didn’t think and ran over, trying to grab the reins and calm the animal down.

  “What are you doing?” Ham asked rushing over to her and grabbing the reins out of her hands, pulling Diabhal back down. “I told you to stay away from him. He could’ve killed you.”

  “The thunder and lightning spooked him,” she tried to explain.

  “He would have calmed on his own,” Ham said, stroking the horse’s muzzle and murmuring softly to him.

  “I know how to handle a damn horse; I could have calmed him myself,” Flora said, once again becoming angry.

  Ham said nothing as he focused on calming Diabhal down. Once the horse was calm, he walked to the middle of the cave and began to stack the wood he’d gathered. It wasn’t long until Ham had a small fire going.

  “Keep adding wood,” he finally said to Flora, “I’m going to go grab a few more loads of this while it’s still dry so we can keep the fire going as long as we need to. Who knows, we may have to stay here until tomorrow morning if this doesn’t pass soon.”

  Flora said nothing, but began to add the smaller branches to the fire. She would add the larger ones once there were enough coals so the fire wouldn’t go out. She heard Ham come into the cave behind her more than once and drop wood into the stack he was creating there.

  Ham was on his fourth trip. He knew there was already more wood than they would ever be able to use but he was angry and needed to keep busy. How stupid was Flora to go near his horse when he had already warned her not to? Didn’t she know that a war horse was trained to kill? He entered the cave once more and dropped the load of wood he’d carried there. As he was heading back out one last time, he grabbed his bow, if he was lucky he might be able to find a rabbit or two to cook over the fire.

  Ham walked quietly back to the area where he’d gathered the wood, looking for signs of rabbit. As he was about to enter the clearing, he couldn’t believe his luck, standing in the center of it was a small herd of red deer. Although it would be much more meat than they needed, he took aim and let an arrow fly; hitting a small buck in the side, piercing it’s lung and heart, dropping it immediately. He figured he’d gut it and take off the larger chunks of meat to be cooked immediately, whatever he and Flora didn’t use he’d take back to Gleann.

  He pulled out his knife and gutted the deer, once that was done he dragged it back towards the cave. Instead of lessening, the storm was getting worse as time went on, he couldn’t wait to get back to the fire and into some dry clothes. Just as he reached the mouth of the cave another bolt of lightning hit, the thunder was almost instantaneous. He heard Diabhal again screech in fear as he was about to enter. Walking in, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing, Diabhal was again up on his hind legs with Flora lying on the floor in front of him.

  He ran over and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her out of the way, none too gently. “I told you not to get too close to him,” he yelled at her as he once again grabbed the horse’s reins trying to calm him.

  “He was frightened,” she tried to explain, as she lifted herself up off the ground, “I just wanted to calm him a bit.”

  “Are you hurt?” he asked.

  “Nay,” she said, he could tell by the slight shake in her voice she’d been scared, “you arrived just in time.”

  “Thank god,” Ham said as he walked towards her, he again took her by the arm and pulled her towards the woodpile he had created. He propped his foot up on one of the largest pieces and pulled Flora over the top of his leg.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked him.

  “What someone should have done a long time ago,” he answered. He began bringing his hand down on top of Flora’s tunic covered bottom, alternating sides. Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack.

  “Ham, stop it,” she screamed as she struggled to get away.

  “Not until I feel like you’ve learned your lesson,” he stopped and replied, then continued again. Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack.

  “What lesson am I supposed to be learning?” she sassed back at him. “That you’re a brute?”

  “Nay,” he again stopped and said. “That when I tell you to do something for your own safety you need to listen.” This time when he started again, he moved to her thighs. Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack.

  Finally, Flora couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. “Please stop,” she cried. “I can’t take anymore.”

  It wasn’t until that moment that Ham noticed he was striking bare skin. Although the tunic she wore covered her arse, it had ridden up and exposed the skin on her thighs which was now a bright red color. “Where are your trews?” he asked her.

  “I didn’t have time to put any on yet,” she said. “You were back to fast, then with the storm and the horses and getting the fire going I forgot.”

  Ham pushed her off of his lap and onto her feet. “Go put some on,” he said to her, not wanting her to notice that his cock had become semi hard. He was having a hard time believing it himself.

  “My tunic is wet now because of you,” she said. “I don’t have another either.” He looked up, and sure enough, her tunic was wet and slightly see through. Had he ever noticed how large her breasts were before?

  “Stop staring at me like that,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” he told her, “I just never noticed some things about you before.”

  Flora walked over to her bag and pulled out her trews, pulling them up over her arse and thighs made her wince. “I better not be too sore to ride tomorrow,” she said to him.

  “Maybe you should have listened then,” he scolded again. “I need to get some dry clothes on myself.”

  Ham went into the shadows at the back of the cave, he and his brothers had been to this cave many times as they had grown up. He knew that through a narrow opening in the back a trickle of clean water flowed. At least if they were stuck here. they would have food and water for the next day. Once he was dry, he joined Flora by the fire. She had pulled two of the larger pieces of wood over for them to sit against. She was busy working some long sticks into the ground to hang her wet clothing next to the fire. He grabbed a few pieces himself and did the same.

  “What is that?” Ham asked, pointing to the strips of cloth she used to bind her breasts that were hung up to dry.

  “That’s personal,” she said to him.

  “What’s personal about some cloth?” he asked.

  “Ham,” she said. “You don’t need to know everything about me now. I need that for personal reasons.”

  Ham again looked at her large breasts and began to realize what they were used for. “I don’t know why you’d need to hide them,” he said, grinning at her.

  “You try riding a horse without them being bound,” she said grinning back, her face turning a bright red. Ham decided to quit teasing her. It had been the first time they had even halfway joked with each other, and he didn’t want to ruin the moment.

  “I’ll start cutting up the deer. You think you can cook us some of the meat?” he asked.

  “I do know how to cook,” she said, once again slightly offended. She sat down on the log and quickly jumped back up rubbing her arse.

  “I was scared you were going to get hurt,” he quickly explained. “You deserved that spanking.”

  “No one deserves to be spanked,” Flora shot back.

  “Tell that to Jacqueline next time you see her,” he laughed and said.

  “Connor would never do that to her,” Flora said. “He loves her.”

  “That’s why he does it,” Ham explained, getting up and walking over to the deer. He pulled his knife and cut a large piece of
meat off the hind end, bringing it back to Flora. “You sure you know how to cook that?”

  “I’ve been taking care of myself since my Mither died,” she answered. “Who do you think has cooked for me all these years?”

  Ham shrugged and went back to the deer. As he skinned it he thought about what Flora had said. Her Mither had died when she was barely more than a little girl. At first, he knew she had gone to live with one of the families in the village. It wasn’t long though until she was given a cottage of her own next to Ina, the Gleann healer.

  “Why were you left alone so young?” he asked as he sat down next to her.

  “What do you care?” she asked.

  “I never thought about it before,” he answered truthfully. “I just remembered now that you live by yourself in a cottage next to Ina, and have for a long time.”

  “My parents never had any close friends, neither of them grew up at Gleann. So when they both died, no one really wanted me,” she said sadly. “Ina was the first to really take an interest in me after my Mither died and not try to change me.”

  “Why didn’t you just live with her?” he asked.

  “Did you ever see the inside of Ina’s cottage?” she asked, laughing softly, thinking about the healer’s cottage.

  “Nay. I’ve only been on the outside.” he answered.

  “It’s so cluttered there wouldn’t be room for more than one person to live there. But Ina talked to the laird once she knew I had an interest in learning about healing. It was agreed I could live in the empty cottage next to hers, and she would look out for me. Laird McCabe agreed that she could train me to become a healer so I could take over for her one day,” Flora said to him.

  “Why didn’t I know this?” he asked. “I know I’ve been away for a few years, but it seems everyone else knew.”

  “You’ve been avoiding me for years,” she shrugged and said. “It’s not like you ever tried to get to know anything about me.”

  “You chased me for years,” he said. “I think you forget, I was young too, Flora. When you were two and ten, I was only nine and ten and dreaming of becoming a great knight, and every time I turned around there you were.”

  “That’s over now, it was just a silly girl crush,” she answered. “You don’t have to worry about it anymore, for now on when you turn around; you won’t see me. I’ve learned I don’t really like you very much anyway.”

  “You don’t really know me either,” he said, a little offended.

  “You didn’t know me either, but it didn’t stop you from avoiding me,” she answered matter of factly.

  Ham just shrugged, what she was saying was true. “I don’t know, Flora; maybe if you had tried to act more like a lass, I would have tried to get to know you.”

  “Then you wouldn’t have gotten to know me,” she said standing up and putting her arms out, “this is the real me. I wear tunics and trews, I pull my hair back without fancy braids or ribbons, and sometimes I cuss.”

  “Can we try to be friends?” he asked. “I can live with all that, except for the cussing. Young women don’t cuss.”

  Before Flora had a chance to answer a large crash sounded from in front of the cave. Ham jumped up and ran to his horse as Diabhal again reared up, upsetting Flora’s horse in the process.

  “What do you think that was?” Flora asked as she grabbed the reins of her own mount, calming the mare down.

  Ham walked over to the cave opening. “Damn it,” he yelled out,” slapping his leg.

  “What’s wrong,” she asked.

  “We aren’t going anywhere for awhile,” he said, “A tree just fell in front of the cave opening, we’re trapped.”

  “What do you mean trapped?” she asked walking over to the opening. The tree that had fallen had to be very old. The trunk covered almost the entire cave entrance. A person may have been able to squeeze out the opening and make their way through the limbs, but there was no possible way they were going to be able to get the horses out.

  “What do we do now?” she asked.

  “Wait,” he answered. “We’ve got food and water, someone from Gleann will eventually notice that we didn’t show up. Don’t worry; my brothers will come looking for us.”

  “How long do you think that will take?”

  “Days,” he sighed and said, walking back to the fire.

  Chapter 4 Rescued at Last

  “Where are you going?” Flora asked the next morning.

  “To see if I can find some long grasses for the horses. We only have two days of oats at the most for them,” Ham answered.

  “I wish there was a place to clean up,” Flora said, making Ham chuckle. “What’s so funny?”

  “You never struck me as the type to be worried about bathing,” he said.

  “You sure know how to insult someone,” Flora said.

  “How is that an insult?” he asked.

  “Just because I wear trews and don’t do my hair up fancy doesn’t mean I’m dirty,” she told him, “I bathe daily.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “I apologize. If you go into the back corner of the cave, you’ll find a small opening. If you squeeze through, you’ll find a small stream. The water is cold but clean.” Flora just nodded at him before he turned and left.

  It took some effort, but Ham was able to squeeze through the branches of the large tree that had fallen across the cave opening. Once he was outside, he began to scan the landscape, wondering what would be the best way to go to find food for the horses. As he walked, he thought about what Flora had said. She was right; he had made assumptions about her over the years because of her appearance. What he was surprised to find out, was now that he was getting to know her, he actually liked her. She was smart and funny, and even the bit of sass she showed intrigued him.

  Flora grabbed her dirty tunic from the day before as soon as Ham had left. She made her way back to the spring where she was able to use it as a cloth and wash most of the grim off her body. She worked quickly and got her clothes back on as quick as possible.

  It wasn’t long until Flora heard Ham return, working his way back through the tree branches and into the cave. In his arms were enough long grasses to keep the horses fed for the entire day.

  “Do you think someone will be looking for us yet?” Flora asked him.

  “I doubt it,” he answered. “Jacqueline and Connor probably won’t get to Gleann until tomorrow at the earliest.”

  “Ina is going to be so upset with me,” Flora said, her eyes filling with tears.

  “It’s not your fault that you didn’t make it back on time. With that storm yesterday she wouldn’t have been able to travel yet anyways,” Ham assured her.

  “I just hate to disappoint her,” Flora said. “Besides your sister, she’s the only person who ever accepted me for who I am.”

  “I think I’m beginning to see how wrong I was for not doing that,” Ham said. “I’m sure others will too, in time.”

  “It doesn’t matter,” Flora told him. “I quit letting it bother me a while ago.” Ham could see that she was serious. He knew it was crazy, but he wished he would have noticed her back in the days when she followed him around so adoringly.

  **********

  “It’s been three days,” Flora said angrily. “I’m tired of deer meat, I’m tired of tending this fire, I’m tired of not being able to bathe, and I’m tired of the smell of those horses in here.”

  “Do you think complaining is going to help?” Ham asked. “Instead you should be thankful for the meat, the fire and the horses who will get us home once we’re free.”

  “You know what else I’m sick of?” Flora said, not waiting for a reply she answered, “you and your ‘it will all be alright’ attitude.”

  “I’m getting a bit tired of your attitude myself,” Ham told her. “At least I’m trying to make things more pleasant for us both.”

  “Pleasant?” Flora said. “You make things about as pleasant as a horse’s arse.” Once the words were o
ut of her mouth, there was no taking them back. What she said wasn’t true, Ham had been trying to be nice the last few days; she was just cross and tired of being trapped.

  “Well a horse’s arse is better than the bitch you’re being right now,” Ham told her.

  “How dare you,” Flora said, standing up and without thinking she slapped him.

  “Aye,” he said. “You’ve been asking for this for days.” Just as he had done the day they got stuck in the cave, he grabbed her by the arm; pulling her over to the wood pile he had replenished just that morning. “I’d never slap you in the face like you did me, but let me show you what an arse is really for.” With those words he once again flipped her over his leg which he had already propped up on the wood.

  “Nay, Ham stop,” she shrieked. “I’m sorry, I really am.”

  “I don’t think you’re sorry yet, but believe me, by the time I’m done, you’re going to be,” Ham said. He then made a huge decision. He already knew what he was going to have to do when they arrived back in Gleann, and since he’d be seeing her in all her glory soon enough, he grabbed the waistband of her trews and quickly pulled them down to her knees, baring her.

  “You can’t bare me,” she said, “it isn’t proper.”

  Ham didn’t answer right away. Instead, he started in on her backside even harder than he had the first time he’d spanked her. Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack. “I’ve had enough of your bad attitude,” he told her. Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack. “You’re going to quit complaining and start saying something positive.” Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack. “If you can’t manage that, then don’t say anything at all, just sit quietly and smile.” Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack. “I don’t care if the smile is real or not, but I’ve had enough.” Smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack, smack.