How Does Your Garden Grow Page 6

  Adam McCann, on the other hand, wasn't quite as sure of himself as Beth was thinking. What he did know for sure was that Beth Walker was stubborn and that she wasn't the kind to back down from anything without a fight, and neither of these traits was good in a dangerous situation. She'd also proven to him that she wasn't the kind to bluff easily, a trait he normally admired—in most situations. The problem was that this situation was confusing. Confusing and unclear and capable of veering into dangerous territory fast. Was Kruger a mildly dotty college professor with a flower fetish—or something else? Something lethal?

  That was the bigger problem, of course, but the smaller problem facing McCann at the moment was no less confusing. The threatened spanking had started as a stupid joke and a bluff, but he was completely serious now. He needed to convince Miss Walker that sticking her nose into police business was a bad idea. The immediate problem was how to spank Miss Walker without being distracted by the view he currently had of Miss Walker's remarkably attractive ass. Several pleasant possibilities had leapt to mind when she first started squirming and wriggling over the sink, but spanking her had not been the top item on the list. Considering that Miss Walker probably hated his guts right now and had begun calling him a lot of very unnunly names, it didn't seem likely that she'd be open to any activity of an erotic nature, so at this point he was going to have to go ahead and wallop her for real or back down. And the second thing that McCann knew for sure was that he wasn't the kind to back down, either. He could be just as stubborn as she was. The lady was obviously smart, but she didn't see the kind of trouble she could get into, whereas he'd seen it all before. There was something going on at Kruger's, and until he could get a handle on it, he needed to keep her safely out of the picture. And if she needed to have her charming butt set on fire to discourage her amateur sleuthing, so be it.

  The first blow of the spoon came as a shock, and Beth showed her astonishment and anguish by emitting a yowl of complaint and by splashing in the overfilled dishpan so violently that several quarts of cold, soapy water exploded out of the sink and onto the floor. At well over six feet tall and a muscular one-hundred-and-ninety pounds, Adam had no trouble at all holding her firmly in place, even with Beth squirming and kicking at each scorching swat. At a foot shorter and sixty to seventy pounds lighter, her chances of escape were slim to nonexistent, but she did an excellent job of flooding the kitchen and soaking them both to the skin. Still covered in dirt and now thoroughly drenched, McCann's temper took a turn for the worse. He repositioned her, added a couple of blazing bonus smacks to her wriggling ass with his bare hand and then continued the pattern he'd started. Five blistering swats with the wooden spoon to the right cheek, five to the left, and repeat. Forty was the plan, with an additional five to the backs of each flailing thigh and one final, dazzling swat to the lower curve of her scalded behind. In between howls, Beth was attempting to blubber out an apology, but Adam was no longer interested in an apology. He was out for results, and if her yelps and squeals were any indication, he was achieving exactly the result he was looking for.

  Owing to its impromptu nature and her ungainly position, the spanking that night in the kitchen was painful and highly embarrassing, but it wouldn't be the worst one that Beth would suffer at Adam McCann's firm hand. Since it was her first spanking, though—by anyone—it seemed that way. By the time it was over, she would be completely convinced that mild-mannered Lieutenant McCann was definitely not a chicken, and that pushed far enough, he could be a tough man to deal with. She also learned that the big wooden spoon was not merely decorative.

  Something odd happened to Mary Elizabeth Walker that day, and it had happened before the first swat landed. She had known, even then, that she wasn't going to call anyone, or try to get McCann fired. And when it was over, her mind hadn’t changed. The spanking had hurt, but she'd learned something interesting from it, and Beth had always believed that almost any experience was worthwhile if you learned something from it. What she had learned from her first spanking was that—all things considered—it wasn't such a bad way to end an argument. She hadn't lost the argument; she hadn't conceded anything important, and McCann hadn't even insisted that she do so. He'd simply ended the argument—for the moment. When it started again, as they both knew it would, she'd know to go about it differently and more reasonably.

  She also knew, with absolute certainty, that what had happened in the kitchen would happen again, and when it did, she would submit—not out of fear, for she knew instinctively that there wasn't a single thing that she had to fear from him. Not out of weakness, because she knew in her heart that she was every bit as strong as he was—though in different ways. She would submit because in some deep way that she didn't fully understand yet, Beth liked what had happened. Not enjoyed, but liked. Maybe needed. And this came as a surprise to her. She—a woman who had always regarded herself as a feminist—liked and needed the sense of being under a man's firm control and his protection.

  She was already fairly sure that she and the Lieutenant were meant for one other, though she couldn't have explained why, or even how she had come to that unlikely conclusion. She could only hope that he was leaning toward the same unlikely conclusion. There wasn't much she could do to make that happen. Her experience in dealing with men was limited, at best. Her experience in dealing with men like Adam McCann was non-existent.

  Beth sighed. Here was another fine mess she'd made, as Oliver was always saying in the old Laurel and Hardy comedies she loved. She was a phony and she knew it. All her smartass attitude was a sham and a charade, just like the endless pages of adolescent twaddle she was writing in her so-called "romance" novel. She'd spent her years in college and grad school as a painfully shy intellectual misfit. Struggling to be a serious writer and passing her days in a series of dusty libraries, daydreaming of real life and true love. Waiting for a faceless knight-in-shining-armor to break down the doors and drag her out into the sunlight. After that, there'd been another eight years of failure—hoping for spiritual happiness by trying to be what she could never be—a good nun. And now, after all those sad, wasted years trying to avoid it, she had a lot of catching up to do—as a woman.

  And her chosen knight in shining armor—whether he knew it yet, or not—was a forty-two year old divorced police detective with a teenaged kid to support, a great smile, and soft gray-blue eyes that made all those wasted years seem worth it.

  The following morning, though, the spoon was going to come to a bad end—by going out with the weekly garbage. If she was right, and if she and Adam McCann had a future together, what had happened today was more than likely to happen again—sooner or later. Sooner, probably. At her age, she certainly wasn't going to change much, and he'd just made it painfully obvious that he could be as determined as she was—maybe more determined. He could bring with him or import any other spanking implement he felt necessary, but the spoon was non-negotiable. Her rear end was still sore as hell. She didn't need mementos.

  "I still can't believe you really did what you did," Beth grumbled, rubbing her backside carefully. She was standing in her kitchen, watching McCann set the small table. More than an hour had passed since the wooden spoon incident, but she was still noticing a distinct ache when she tried to sit down anywhere. Time hadn't exactly healed her admittedly minor wounds, but it had given her a chance to think and to ponder her own part in what had happened. Her first impulse, after the humiliating over-the-sink spanking, had been to tell the lieutenant to get lost and to never darken her doorway again and then report him for something or other, but on reflection, she'd decided to do neither. Especially after he'd mopped the kitchen floor and done the dishes while she was sulking in the bathroom and calling him obscene names through the door.

  When she finally emerged, with her nose red and her behind throbbing, she discovered that he had cooked dinner. Wine, candles, and canned ravioli.

  "It's all I could find," he apologized. "You don't spend a lot of time shopping for groceri
es, do you?"

  "Funny thing about that," she said irritably. They always ask for money."

  "You’re short of cash?" he asked.

  "What's the next step after dead broke and bankrupt?" she inquired sweetly.

  "I could float you a loan," he suggested.

  "Thank you, but I try not to accept charity from men who try to drown me in my own sink and beat me black and blue with decorative cooking implements."

  "Is that the story you want to go with?" he asked affably, spooning half the ravioli onto her plate.

  Beth took her plate and stood by the refrigerator. "It's the truth, isn't it?" she demanded.

  "Truth is a two-edged sword," he said. My version of what happened earlier is that you pushed one too many buttons and got what you had coming. What you richly deserved. But why don't we just skip the clichés and call it what it was—a pretty good walloping with a really big spoon, for being a really big pain in the ass. Think of it as poetic justice. Sit down and eat your ravioli—or whatever this crap is."

  "No, thank you. I'm uncomfortable enough, standing. If I ask you a question, do I get spanked again?"

  "Not by me. I'm bushed, and my right shoulder hurts. What's the question?"

  "What do we do next? About Kruger?"

  He set his plate down. "I wonder where I put that spoon," he remarked, glancing around the kitchen. "Maybe it's all the starch and chemical preservatives, but all of a sudden, my shoulder's feeling a lot better."

  "You don't expect me to just forget everything that's happened, do you?" she demanded.

  "Well, I was hoping you’d remember it for at least a couple of days—when you sat down, anyway."

  Beth flushed with embarrassment. "That's not what I meant, and you know it."

  Adam sighed. "Okay, so what do you want me to do? We've already checked the guy out pretty thoroughly and come up blank. I even ran another missing persons check yesterday, but nothing turned up. Nothing that I can connect to Kruger, anyway."

  "Can't you get a search warrant for his place?"

  "Not on what we've got, which is your uncorroborated story about some nameless women who may have walked off without their clothes."

  She thought for a moment. "Couldn't you pull some strings?"

  He chuckled. "If I could pull strings, I'd start by giving myself a raise. I'm thinking about running for mayor, actually, before the transmission on my car gives out."

  "What about a tail?"

  He smiled. "You've been watching 'Law and Order' again. Anyway, I tried that the last time I had a brilliant hunch."

  "What happened?"

  "They pulled the tail off in twenty-four hours, when the money ran out. The city can't afford to have cops sitting around in cars, eating doughnuts and swilling down stale coffee."

  "All right, then, so I'll try tailing Kruger for a few days."

  "No, you won't, and stop making stupid suggestions like that. Do you have some sort of a problem with short-term memory, or didn't I do a good enough job while you were bent over the damned sink and howling at the top of your lungs?"

  "I could take a few days off," she said eagerly. "You know, pretend to go to work every day, and…"

  "I thought you were broke."

  "I'll manage," Beth said airily. "Remember me? The girl who existed on thin gruel and dried bread for eight years?"

  McCann groaned. "What was it about the word 'no' you didn't understand—as the saying goes?"

  "And what gives you the right to give me orders?" she asked, sullenly." I'm a private citizen, not a rookie cop."

  "Count your blessings. I'm pretty sure there are union regulations about spanking other cops. Especially rookies."

  "It's not just the missing women," she insisted, "or the clothes. A couple of times, I've seen Kruger go out and put something really big in the trunk of his car, and his clothes were absolutely filthy at the time."

  McCann's brow furrowed. "Filthy, eh? Well, that settles it. I'm going over there and arrest the bastard for poor hygiene."

  "Very funny," she said grumpily. "But it's weird, don't you think? A guy as prissy as Kruger, going out of the house dirty like that?"

  "You saw me when I came back from Kruger's place. Digging in a garden gets you dirty."

  "So does digging graves."

  Adam sighed wearily. "Now, you’re letting your imagination run wild—again."

  "Yeah?" she shot back. "And maybe a competent detective—one with a little more imagination—would have found something by now!"

  McCann grabbed his wrinkled coat off the chair and walked out the back door, slamming the door behind him hard enough to knock a colander off the wall. Beth waited for the door to open again, but moments later, she heard the sound of a car pulling away from the front curb. She'd finally gone too far, and he wasn't coming back. Maybe never. Exhausted and defeated, she walked into the living room, slumped down on the couch and pulled a worn afghan over her head. A visibly pregnant gray cat jumped up on her lap and nuzzled under the afghan. "What in the name of God is the matter with me?" she wailed, burying her face in the cat's soft fur. "I just drove off the most attractive man I've ever met in my whole stupid life! You’d think I wanted to stay a damned virgin forever!"

  CHAPTER FIVE

  McCann spent most of the next day at his desk, doing what he was being paid to do, and not what he really wanted to do. What he wanted to do was go over to Beth's and try to repair some of the damage he'd done yesterday. Not that he planned to apologize for spanking her. Considering their combined temperaments, the spanking would probably have happened sooner or later, and despite all the pouting and slamming doors and name-calling that came afterward, he suspected that she was basically okay with it. He smiled. Once it was over, anyway. That had been a real surprise. He'd expected her to come out of the bathroom, grab the phone and either whack him over the head with it or call in an abuse complaint. The complaint was the more likely of the two, and he wouldn't have blamed her if she'd made the call. He had overstepped the bounds of good public relations, plain and simple.

  He'd surprised himself, as well. Joking and kidding around about spanking a woman was one thing. Actually doing it for real was something else, especially a woman he'd just met, and met in a more-or-less official capacity. Looking back, he couldn't say he'd really enjoyed spanking her, but he hadn't exactly disliked it, either. The best way he could describe how he felt about it was that he had found spanking Beth Walker emotionally satisfying. It hadn't been especially erotic, even though he was definitely an ass man, and Beth Walker had a damned fine ass—from what he'd see of it. He was grateful that he hadn't yielded to the temptation to take down her pants, though. That would have been too much and definitely a sexual thing—for him, anyway. And the truth was that McCann was an old-fashioned guy, who usually favored filmy lingerie and candlelight the first time he undressed a woman. At the time, spanking a fully covered rear-end had made the whole thing seem pretty normal, in a kinky sort of way. And until the same argument blew up again and he stormed out, he'd been fairly sure there was a mutual attraction in the air. Had Beth Walker felt the same attraction? Or did she just hate his guts today?

  With a sigh, McCann leaned back in his chair. All of this was something they'd have to discuss—if she was still talking to him. He'd met a lot of fairly stubborn women in his life, and he'd learned to accept that it was sometimes just the way they were wired. This woman was different, though. This one had been playing with fire. And if she kept doing it, she was going to need a firm, loving hand—applied in exactly the right place.

  He smiled to himself. Or maybe a hairbrush. He'd read good things about wooden hairbrushes at various places on the Internet. The kind of places you stumble into late at night when you're bored or can't sleep or are looking for a chuckle. Or when you’re alone and horny and looking for something more entertaining than the well-thumbed Playboy you found in the garage, under your brother-in-law's old tackle box. Wooden hairbrushes seemed to be very high
ly thought of in those sorts of places. Of course, from what he could tell, leather belts and ping-pong paddles were held in high esteem, as well. Old razor strops, if you were an antique collector, or just happened to have one lying around in your attic. Maybe a plastic bath brush, and he already had one of those. A big pink thing, shaped like a heart. Ugly as hell, with a long handle. It had been left behind when his sister and her husband moved to the new house, and he usually used it to reach stuff at the back of the bathroom cabinet. And there was always tradition—a wooden spoon or a couple of switches from the backyard. Whatever. Hell, the choice was endless. When he found himself pondering the relative merits of plastic over wood, and wood over leather, McCann knew it was probably time to think about something else, like the stack of reports piled on the desk in front of him.

  * * * * *

  It was late afternoon before he was finally able to get out of the office, but he wasn't quite ready to go back to Beth's place. First, he wanted to talk to the man who'd sold her the little shoebox of a house at 285 Hazelwood Drive.

  Like many men of a certain age and era, Fred Lawrence was more than happy to sit down and chat with a member of the police department. Fred had been born in a simpler time—when growing up to be a cop could still be a kid's dream. Before the words "fuzz" and "pig" had become taunts to hurl at a working guy in blue. Many younger men tended to be hostile, but for Fred, helping with a police matter was apparently like getting the chance to be in a live-action episode of Cops.

  Fred had lived in the tacky neighborhood called Cottageville since it was built—fifty-eight years earlier—and what he had to say about 285 Hazelwood Circle was surprising and interesting.

  It seemed that Felix Kruger knew a good deal about Beth Walker's house. He'd lived in it for close to three years. "Felix actually wanted to buy the place, not rent it," Lawrence explained. "But my mother had just had her first stroke, and I just wasn't ready to part with the house where I'd grown up. Miss Walker's office was my bedroom when I was a child. Shortly before Mom's stroke, my wife and I put a down payment on the house in back—316 Morning Glory—where Felix lives now. After Mom didn't come home like I'd hoped, I decided to rent her place, to help with the expenses at the nursing home. Anyway, we called Felix right away, to see if wanted to rent the house, and he was delighted. Felix had been always awfully sweet to Mom. He said she reminded him of his own mother. He visited all the time, and did little chores for her. Even planted a big garden in the back yard. Felix isn't just your average do-it-yourselfer, you know. When Mom simply couldn't get downstairs to the basement any longer, Felix even came over and redid all the plumbing, so that her washer and dryer were upstairs, and easy to get to. I appreciated everything he did. I traveled a lot back then, and to tell you the truth, Mom and Ginger—Ginger's my wife—never got along well.