Chapter 5
“The guys are fixing a line,” the receptionist at the electric department told her, once she’d paid her deposit and filled out her paperwork. “They’ll be able to get to you right after that.”
“The earliest availability we have to turn your water back on is...” the clerk at the water department said as she checked her schedule, once she’d filled out that application and paid that down payment, “...uh, looks like tomorrow. And we’ll need someone to be home when we do it.
Trust me, you’ll want to be there if there’s a busted pipe or something. ”
Or something. Stace had painted on a smile of agreement. “I’ll be there,” she promised.
The second-hand store wasn’t closed, but it didn’t have much of a winter coat selection either.
She bought the heaviest thing that would fit her, which wasn’t much but which she hoped was water proof, and a pair of sneakers that were a little too big for her, but which didn’t have holes in them.
Then she got back into the stifling silence of Brock’s car, casting him an uncertain look as he drove her over to the natural gas company.
“We can put you on the schedule for Monday,” they told her as she signed up for that too, paid yet another down payment on the off chance that she might not pay her bills on time. “Will that be all right?”
Stace nodded, because there wasn’t a lot she could do about it, if she did object. If they couldn’t get to her until Monday and she’d just have to be patient about it. So, back out to the car she went, juggling the different days in her head that she would need to be home.
“Where next?” Brock asked.
“I’m all done,” she said, not wanting to take up any more of his time than she had to.
She didn’t want to be ‘that’ kind of neighbor, and although he had threatened her—with a spanking, no less; she still couldn’t believe she’d actually heard him say that—she didn’t want to be a pain or to waste any more of his time.
Surely he had his own stuff to do, not including the interviews she knew she was pulling him away from.
“You got groceries?” he asked.
No, she didn’t. Nothing beyond a few dried goods like cereal and macaroni and cheese in single serving cups. The movers hadn’t allowed refrigerated goods or liquids onto their truck. She’d ended up throwing all of those away before she left the other house.
She looked away. “I can...”
“If you say get some later, I really am going to put you over my knee.”
Her stomach twisted sharply and she peeked at him again.
“We’re here,” he explained. “Grocery store is just down the road and you still don’t have a car, so please. Let me help, okay?”
“You have things you need to—” She stopped abruptly when he took off his seat belt and, with his car parked right at the curb in front of the gas company’s front sidewalk, where everyone in town could see them.
Although it was a small town, there were other people here, browsing through the various little shops that comprised the five-block business district.
They weren’t looking at them, but she knew that would change if he dragged her out of the car and started whapping her butt. “What are you doing? Wait—”
He shut the door, coming around the side of the car, already taking his coat off and laying it tossed over the top of hood before he opened her door.
He draped his arm along the top of the roof and opened her door.
He bent down, talking to her low and slow.
While he didn’t sound angry at all, the sternness with which he spoke made her nerves spark like fireworks.
And those sparks sounded like they should be happy things, but inside she wasn’t sure if it was.
His hands looked huge. She stared at them the whole time he spoke.
“I am right here,” he said. “We’re in town, I’m trying to help. Now, you are one wrong word away from having me paddle your sitter. I know you don’t want that. I promise, if you’re at all in doubt about how much it will hurt if Daddy has to spank you—”
Her wide eyes shot to his face, her heart fluttering, her hands catching the excess fabric of her clothes in tight, tiny fists. “D-Daddy?” she squeaked.
He stopped, frowned, took another deep breath and continued on as if he hadn’t just said the most astounding thing she’d heard in her life.
“I promise,” he continued, “I will paddle your little bottom until you are very sore and very sorry. Now, let’s pretend I didn’t already ask this question and we’ll try it again. Do you need groceries?”
She nodded, small jerks of her head as she struggled to keep from gaping. “Yes, please,” she whispered, afraid to say anything too loudly. Her tummy kept knotting. She was afraid to respond for fear of making it worse.
This was worse, right? It kind of felt like worse, but there was an errant shiver captured tight inside her that seemed like it might easily run the other way if only she’d let it go.
“Anything else you need while we’re here?” he asked, still stern. “Anything you can think of at all?”
She shook her head.
“Okay.” Backing up, he shut her door, picked up his coat, and came back around to get in behind the wheel of his car. “Let’s go shopping.”
So they did, and although she tried to race her way through the store to grab everything she could think of in as short a time limit as she possibly could, Brock refused to cooperate.
Starting with fresh fruits and vegetables, he made her go up and down every single aisle and double check to make sure she was getting what she needed.
“Milk?” he asked, and since that went with the cereal she already had, she put a jug into the cart.
“Eggs? Butter? Bread? Diapers?” Aisle after aisle, he found something to ask her and strangely, a lot of it would have been things she’d happily stock in her cabinet, but she was rattled.
All she kept hearing was the way he’d said that word, ‘Daddy’, followed by two spanking threats now.
Two! And that last one had seemed less a threat and more a certainty on the verge of happening.
She went home with three times more than she would have bought if she’d been there by herself, but she’d been almost helpless to stop herself from picking up bread, and then peanut butter because it sounded good when he suggested it, and then of course strawberry jam because he’d said, “Do you like jam or jelly with your peanut butter sandwiches? Which is your favorite flavor?”
She shivered the whole way home, and not because she was cold.
She could feel the vibrations of his nearness across the bench seat they shared.
She could feel every look she imagined he must be giving her as she cast her wide-eyed stare out the side window.
She could not believe he’d said that... that word.
As surreptitiously as she could, she pressed a hand to her tummy and tried to still her wild-racing nerves.
It didn’t calm down, not even when he pulled into her driveway. There were two cars in his driveway now, with one woman leaving the house as the other exchanged places with her and went inside. Brock’s father waved at them from the porch and then he went in too.
The snow was still coming down, a light drizzle of tiny flakes that had just managed to coat the greenness of the lawn in a thin layer of frost that crunched as she carried Lily.
He carried everything else, because that’s what he’d told her to do.
He’d reinforced that command just by the way he said her name when she tried to unpack her stroller first.
“Stace...”
Her hands trembled as she unhooked the car seat next, and would have carried that and Lily both inside, but he stopped her again.
“Young lady, this habit you have of not listening to what I say is about to have a very stern consequence. What did I tell you to do?”
She unbuckled Lily, leaving everything else, including her purse, the new coat and second-hand shoes in a bag on the front seat.
She was so rattled by then, she almost slipped on the front porch, where the rapidly cooling weather seemed to have turned the wetness from earlier into a thin sheen of ice.
“Careful,” Brock called, hurrying from the car to offer his steady arm for her to hold onto as she climbed the remaining two steps to where the porch was more covered.
She only had to take a single big step to cross over the ice onto firm, dry floorboards.
“You go inside, and I’ll bring the rest in. ”
Her instant response, “I can do it,” froze on her lips without being uttered. He was looking at her as if he expected her to contradict him, and the firm line that his mouth had become, coupled with the look in his brown eyes said clearly he was all done making threats.
Her bottom tingled, her heart stumbling in her suddenly too-tight chest.
“Okay,” was all she said and in she rushed, closing the door behind her to keep out the cold.
She put Lily down to crawl around the living room, exploring boxes and playing with what toys had been too bulky to pack.
Stace manned the door, watching through the side window until Brock came up the front steps, ready to open it for him.
If he hadn’t already threatened to spank her—twice!
Seriously, who did that?—she’d have thought him a perfect gentleman.
He stopped without crossing her threshold, handing her the first of two armloads of grocery bags before returning to the car for the rest. Last of all, he brought her car seat and stroller and handed them through the door too.
He looked up at the unlit living room light and the steam on her breath when she thanked him, and said, “When are they coming to turn on the power?”
“Tonight,” she assured him.
“Gas and water too?”
She nodded, knowing she wouldn’t have everything up and running until Monday, but that was close enough. So long as she had power, she could wait.