Free The Woman Next Door by Joanne Locker Page A

tearfully admitted. “I’m a terrible, awful witch!”
    “Stop calling the woman I love names!” he scolded.
    “Aren’t you fed up with me?” she asked, and her earnest tone told him she was serious. “I earned a spanking, and wimped out on it.”
    “You can’t help it if you have a low tolerance to pain.”
    “But, what if…”
    “Oh, I can handle it, Miss Matthews. Instead of long spankings, you’ll get spanked more often with short spankings that you can tolerate. It will still hurt, and it will still accomplish the purpose.”
    “Or, maybe I just won’t earn any spankings,” she said solemnly.
    Craig snorted in disbelief. “Five minutes from now you’ll be giving me sass about something,” he predicted.
    “I promise I’ll try not to. My bottom really hurts.”
    “How is your head?” he asked.
    “It doesn’t hurt as much as my butt does.” She was being honest.
    “Good. Your butt is supposed to hurt.” He gently put her on her feet. “Get your jeans on and we’ll explore this place. We need to know where everything is just in case we have unwanted company. We need to be able to move in the dark without the fear that we’ll run into something.”
    “That makes sense, but it would be my luck to blindly run into the arms of the bad guy!”
    “That I can believe, little one, but that is why I am here to protect you. I’m not expecting trouble, but if it comes, I expect you to obey me instantly.”
    “I will,” she promised. She was anxious to prove to him that she was sorry for her bursts of temper.
    “Your very life could depend upon it, sweetheart. I don’t want to frighten you, but if something happens, we won’t have time to have this little talk. I can’t impress on you how serious I am, but I need your help to keep you safe.”
    “I’ll do my part, Craig.”
    “Okay, Lizzy. The first thing we do is look for a good hiding place for you.”
    “That’s easy.”
    “It is?”
    “Sure. Come on. Let’s find someplace small that someone larger wouldn’t think of as a possibility.” Elizabeth suddenly giggled. “Do you realize that you spanked me before we even looked around this cabin?”
    “I told you that spanking you was the first thing I was going to do, and I meant it.” Craig couldn’t see why she found that so amusing, but she did. She giggled again. “What is so darn funny?” he demanded.
    “I’m just happy to know that you do have a temper. It’s comforting to me; perhaps I won’t scare you off?” She looked at him to see his expression.
    “You won’t scare me off, but I just may spank your cute little fanny off!”
    “Deal,” she stated. “You really are special to me, and once this situation is cleared up, I won’t be as testy as I have been,” she assured him. “I can go for months without getting upset with anyone, and then I can lose it over something and it sets off a chain reaction. I don’t want you to let me take my temper out on you, or others, not even that nosy woman next door to me!”
    “I think Mrs. Huffy is a good woman at heart, Lizzy. She just needs her backside paddled a few times, too.”
    “I would pay to see that.”
    When he turned and frowned, she quickly changed her mind. “On second thought, I believe I would feel very sympathetic with Mrs. Huffy, and I might even defend her!”
    “Don’t rub it on so thick, Miss Matthews,” he said, and then chuckled. “You make me smile, Lizzy, and I really needed laughter in my life.” Then he shook his finger at her. “We need to take stock now.”
    “Okay.” She looked at the sofa and said, “Hiding behind the sofa is the first place anyone with a functioning brain would look… too predictable. I don’t think anywhere else in this room is a hiding place, do you?”
    “No. I think you’re correct. The first place I would look in this room is behind the sofa. The kitchen is out, too. There is no place besides the fridge, and that is too dangerous.”
    “I’ve heard on the