Fort Laramie (9 page)

Something didn't feel right, he thought, as he parked at the campsite. He did a quick headcount, stopping when he saw Adrian.

Adrian's face was scarlet, his expression thunderous. "I'm going to wallop some ass," he shouted, shaking a fist at Tom.

What had Carrie done now? And where was she? That's when he realized that he didn't see Adrian's van anywhere. Had she left? Why would she do that? And where had she gone? Had she had enough of the internship and took the van to the airport? Why didn't she talk to him about it?

Maybe because of the contract he'd insisted she sign. He had said he wouldn't let any of them leave, as it could ruin his project and any chance he had of completing his dissertation. 

Adrian yanked the passenger front door open and yelled at the student there to get out. Jimmy jumped, vacating the seat so Adrian could get in. The other students stayed in the van, unsure what to do. Tom wasn't sure, either. He had planned to take them all to town - but what about now, with two girls missing? But was it fair to ruin their day off just because Carrie was a spoiled brat!

"Anyone who wants to spend the rest of the day in town, get in now," Tom ordered. "Or you can stay at the campground. Adrian and I need to go find Carrie and Julie."

Two students decided to stay behind - Henry and Vicki. Tom didn't have to worry about them - they wouldn't go anywhere. The rest fastened their seat belts - he had them well trained - and he tore out of the campground. "Which direction?" he asked.

"I haven't the faintest idea," Adrian shouted.

"Calm down. We'll find them. Now, did they take everything they own? Do you think they'd go to the airport? Or did they leave anything behind?"

Patrick spoke up. He hadn't gone to worship services, so presumably he knew what was going on. "I checked out their shit. They left their duffels and sleeping bags behind, but took some stuff. Shampoo stuff. I bet they went to a motel. Julie keeps complaining about the restroom."

"Okay," Tom said, sighing with relief. So they weren't headed to an airport. They could have gone to a truck stop or motel to find a shower. He'd bet on the motel, since truck stops didn't have bathtubs, and Carrie would have problems managing a shower. "We'll check out the town of Fort Laramie first. It's closest, and if we don't find them, then we'll go to the next town.

"I told them to stop," Adrian muttered, raking his fingers through his hair. "The little shits were laughing. They were laughing at me! I am so going to beat their butts!"

"Oh yeah, this I gotta see," Patrick said.

Tom glared at Adrian. "No one is going to beat anyone's butt," he said.  "Except maybe me," he added quietly.

Adrian lowered his voice, so only Tom could hear. "You can handle Carrie, but I'm going after Julie. She was the one driving. I'm sure it was Carrie's idea, but she couldn't have managed it without Julie's help."

"Ok," Tom conceded. "You work things out with Julie, then. But be careful, buddy. We don't need a lawsuit."

The girls hadn't tried very hard to hide. They were at the very first motel, Adrian's bold yellow van parked in plain sight. Tom drove right on past, despite Adrian's loud complaints. "I'm going to drop the kids off in town," he explained. "Then we'll return."

"But we want to watch," Patrick piped.

"Too bad. Go watch a movie," Tom said. "It's nearly two. How long do you kids want to hang out here? Should I come back around seven?"

"Make it nine," one student in the back answered. "We'll grab dinner in town tonight."

"Nine it is." That would give him and Adrian plenty of time to get to the bottom of this!

Adrian convinced the clerk to give him a key to the room, by showing her his driver's license and registration, to establish that the van was his. He said that they wanted to surprise their "wives" and take them out tonight. Then he booked another room as well. The clerk gave him a bright smile as she readily handed him the two keys. "Hank's Steaks is a real nice place," she offered. "It's just off of Main Street. And tell him Margie sent you."

"Will do," Adrian said, giving her a wink. Just outside the girls' room, he turned to Tom. "I'll take Julie and go to the new room. You and Carrie can stay here. If you feel up to it, we'll meet at Hank's Steaks at eight. Okay?"

"Good plan," Tom said gravely. They shook hands. Then Tom inserted his key into the door and opened it.

Julie was in a cute little baby-doll pajama outfit on the bed, painting her toe nails a shell pink. She gasped when she saw them, nearly spilling the polish. She capped the jar and put it on the end table, slowly getting to her feet. "Now just relax," she said cautiously. "I can explain."

"You can explain stealing my car?" Adrian growled. "This I gotta hear."

"We didn't steal it. We just borrowed it. And we weren't doing anything wrong."

"Then why didn't you ask me? I would have let you take it."

"I wanted to ask you, but Carrie said that if you said no, then it would be harder to get away. She said it was easier to say you're sorry than to ask permission."

"That's bull and you know it," Adrian yelled. "Enough. You and I are going over to room 8. Tom wants some privacy when he talks to Carrie."

"I'm not going anywhere with you," Julie said hotly. "You're mad. And - and dangerous. I think I'd better stay here with Carrie. She needs me!"

Adrian tossed Julie over his shoulders and left, ignoring her screams and kicks. If anyone in the motel heard or saw them, they didn't say a thing.

"Julie," Carrie called from the bathroom. "Who are you talking to?"

Tom opened the door and stood just inside with his fists on his hips.

"Oh, shit," Carrie said.

"Get out now," Tom bellowed.

"You get out! Get out of this room! You can't see me like this - it isn't right! Shut your eyes and get out!"

"Carrie, you are in a heap of trouble already. And don't bother to scream. Adrian told the clerk we were your husbands and we planned to surprise you. If anyone hears you scream, they'll assume it's from pure joy."

"You're insane!"

"Now that's the pot calling the kettle black. What on earth were you thinking, stealing Adrian's van like that! Why didn't you just ask?"

"What would you have said," Carrie whispered.

"I might have said yes. I don't know. Now we'll never know, because you didn't even give me a chance."

Carrie blinked, her eyes looking watery all of a sudden, but Tom was too angry to care. She could cry all she wanted. He expected her to cry, in fact, buckets of tears before he was finished with her.

"Please get out. Let me dry off and get dressed, so we can talk this through," Carrie begged.

Tom was almost moved, but he grinned instead. "I think we can talk just fine like this."

"No! Get out!"

"I have you at a disadvantage, Carrie. You see, you really can't go anywhere, so we're going to stay just where we are and talk until there isn't anything more to be said. And then I'm going to beat your ass within an inch of your life."

She gulped, biting down on her lower lip. She did look contrite at the moment, and she was adorable. Tom felt his anger dissipate, which was a good thing. He shouldn't spank her when he was angry. He needed to be calm and rational, if she were to learn anything from the experience. A woman was spanked because she had it coming, and not because her man was just mad at her.

"Well, Julie doesn't really like camping," Carrie began.

"I know. She doesn't make that much of a secret. We can all hear her complain about the restroom, although it's a hundred times better than when we arrived. The boys swept it out, and repainted it. I replaced the broken sinks and toilets. We even plugged in an air freshener. I mean, golly, Carrie, what more do you expect!" Tom was a little annoyed again.

"I don't mind the restroom, Tom. And I should have thanked you. I'm sorry, I thought maybe the owners fixed all that stuff. Whenever did you find the time to do it?"

"Don't change the subject."

"Well," she began. "As I said, Julie doesn't like camping. So we planned months ago that we would take a motel room on weekends and get our "girly fix."

"It would have been nice to know this," Tom said pointedly.

"You aren't exactly easy to talk too!"

"Neither are you!"

"Argh!"

"If you're done using words, young lady, we can move on to the next step."

"No!" Carrie folded her arms over her chest as the bubbles were popping and covering less of her. Tom wasn't sure how long he could keep up his end of the conversation. Seeing the woman he loved in the buff, in a bath full of bubbles, was stirring some incredible fantasies he didn't dare ponder.

"Okay. What else do we talk about then, Carrie? Why don't you tell me why you've been in such a snit all week?"

"Me? You! You were the one avoiding me."

"I was avoiding you, because you were snapping at me every time I came within earshot."

"I was snapping at you because you were avoiding me!"

"Okay, this is silly. I don't know who avoided whom first, Carrie, but if you had just asked me what was wrong instead of snapping at me, we could have worked this out like intelligent adults."

"I thought maybe you didn't like me anymore," she whispered.

Oh man, if that wasn't a come on, he didn't know what was. Did that mean she liked him now? If he asked her out again, would she change her answer? He wasn't going to give her the chance. He was just going to take her out, damn it! Enough of these silly undergrad games. It didn't matter that she was an undergrad - she was too sweet, too nice to be playing them anyway.

Tom reached into the tub and pulled the plug.

"Please go, Tom. Let me get dressed," Carrie begged.

"Nothing doing. You could fall and get hurt. Julie isn't here to help you, she's with Adrian having a similar discussion right now."

Tom took Carrie's hands and helped her to stand on her good foot. Then he gently dried her, using several of the tiny motel rectangles euphemistically referred to as towels. He dried her tangled hair, and then took her comb and very gently worked it through the long tresses. Carrie fidgeted and fussed, trying to hold a tiny towel over her breasts while he worked. Eventually she gave up, still nibbling her lower lip.

Tom lifted her then and carried her to the bedroom. He sat down on the bed, still holding her on his lap. "Carrie, I've made no secret of how I feel about you. I wish you could say the same. You've pushed me away, and then you act mad when I don't come crawling back. So I have to assume that either you do like me, which would be nice, or you like to tease me, which isn't nice at all. So which is it?"

"Huh?"

"Are you nice, Carrie? Or are you a flirtatious tease?"

"Um, the first one," she stammered.

Tom was almost overwhelmed with a great feeling of relief. She liked him! She did have feelings for him! He would wait however long it took for her to be ready, but just knowing that she liked him made the wait worthwhile. He helped her to stand in front of him, between his knees. He nudged her chin up so she would have to look him in the eye. "Now tell me, Carrie, why you are going to be spanked."

"I don't want to be spanked," she whispered.

He slapped her exposed bottom once, hard. She braced her hands on his shoulders and lowered her eyes. He nudged her chin up again. "Carrie," he said warningly.

"You are going to spank me, because Julie and I stole Adrian's van. We drove into town without permission. We - I. I didn't respect you enough to ask you first."

"And?"

"And I'm sorry," she finished.

"You're sorry because you were caught?"

"No. I didn't try to hide it. I knew you'd come after us. At least, I figured you would. Maybe I hoped you would. If you came after me, then I'd know you still cared for me. If you'd stayed at the camp until we came back, I'd have known that you'd moved on, and I was nothing more than a responsibility to you."

"So what are you sorry for, Carrie," Tom urged. He had to make her say it, or he knew they would be in this position again in the near future.

"I'm sorry that I didn't show you the proper respect," Carrie said, looking him right in the eyes.

"Thank you, Carrie. I'm sorry you didn't either. And now, you're going to be spanked to help you remember to respect me - to respect us and our relationship - in the future."

"Can't I just get a bye this time?"

"A bye?"

"Yeah, you know. Like a pass. A freebie. A get-out-of-jail free card."

"No, Carrie. Not this time. Besides, your girlfriend is going to be sitting on a very red bottom tonight. And this was more your idea than hers, wasn't it?"

"What? Adrian's going to spank her? You can't - he can't! She'll hate it! Tom, you have to stop him!"

"I think it's too late for that now, honey. Adrian is more likely to spank first and talk later. Now enough about them. This is between you and me. I spanked you once last week for disrespect. This is a second time for the same thing - I'm going to be much more thorough this time."