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 wereother 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 thebench 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... thatword. 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?”
