The Strong, Silent Type Read online

  Mae closed her eyes and dozed, awakening abruptly in response to a nightmare replay of the shooting. The sun was over the horizon now, casting the desert in shades of purple and brown. It occurred to her that she hadn't yet called her father to let him know about the attempted robbery.

  Tears came to her eyes. They were an unwelcome surprise. It seemed like tears were out-of-place so long after the robbery. She wiped them away and shrugged off the blanket. Mae wasn't feeling quite like herself, but she needed to get her cell phone from the store.

  Her legs felt a little wobbly as she exited the car, but she stomped her feet some and they firmed up. The beat-up Malibu was gone, probably towed away as she slept. The EMTs and ambulance had left as well. She strode into the store. Drake was taking pictures of the scene.

  Her purse was on the counter with half the contents spilled out.

  "Hey! What did you do ta my purse?"

  The cop turned from photographing the gun under the chips display. "Searched it."

  Anger brought more foolish tears to her eyes. What the hell was wrong with her? "I'm the victim here! Searching my purse is outta line."

  He pinned her with his dark eyes. They were coal black, like his hair. "The incident might have been about illegal drugs. And you agreed to the search."

  Mae snorted her irritation. His excuse made a certain amount of sense if you looked at it objectively. Mae didn't much feel like being objective. She stomped over to her purse and angrily put things back inside. "You didn't find anything did you? I coulda tole you you wouldn't."

  He frowned at her, and she felt a surge of apprehension. Maybe she was digging herself into a deeper hole. When he turned back to his photographs, she released her breath. It was a weird relief to not have the force of his irritation turned on her. But she was not going to apologize. She really was the victim, and he'd just have to deal with her that way.

  She riffled through her purse, then did it again. "I need my phone. I hafta call my dad. This store is his and he needs ta know what happened." He made no response. "I'm talking ta you. I need my phone! Do you have it?"

  "In a plastic bag in my evidence bag. I need to check your text messages and recent calls."

  Fury shot through her like a flame from a match. "What the devil for? I'm not the criminal!" She pointed at the stiffening body on the floor. "He's the criminal!"

  Drake put down his camera with great deliberation. "You shot him, woman. That's usually considered a crime."

  "He was gonna shoot me! He was a robber!"

  He nodded. "Maybe."

  "Maybe?Maybe!" Her hands fisted and she took a step toward him. His forbidding look stopped her. He was a big guy, and his bronze face was implacable. "You son of a bitch. Gimme my phone!"

  "No." He scratched his chin casually, though she could feel the tension in him, even from several feet away. How could he be so self-controlled? Why wasn't he yelling back?

  "You big bully!"

  "Go sit in the car."

  "No!" She took a stance--she hoped it looked like a strong one--and crossed her arms over her chest. "Gimme my phone and maybe, maybe, I'll go back outside."

  His voice was calm, but his words were clipped. "Go back to the car or there will be consequences."

  "Consequences? You mean like you'll handcuff me again?" Actually, being restrained by him might be appealing under the right circumstances. She had a brief surge of interest in him as an alpha male. It made her consider him in a new, disturbing way. She shooed those unwelcome thoughts right out.

  "Last warning. Go sit in the car."

  She squared her shoulders. "Gimme my phone first."

  He closed the distance between them quickly and took her by the arm. She squealed and protested, pulled back against his grip, but it was iron hard. Not bruising her, but encircling her bicep with a hold that she could not break. "Lemme go!"

  Without a word, he dragged her out the doors and to his car. He used his key to open the back door and shoved her into the caged compartment where the criminals rode. So that was the way it was gonna be. She was now to be treated as a criminal.

  To her surprise, however, he slid in next to her and closed the door most of the way. Just as she was about to blister his ears with a new tirade, he grabbed her by the waist and hauled her over his lap.

  "What are you doing!"

  No answer. He yanked her jeans down, putting painful pressure on her hips. The jeans were tight. "Oh God," she screamed. "Don't rape me! I'm sorry!"

  "I'm not going to rape you, woman. I'm going to spank your ass until you settle down." And with that, he commenced smacking her bottom.

  It hurt, oh how it hurt! Each wallop stung worse than the last, and he didn't let up. This was no slap and tickle game like she'd played with past boyfriends. This was a genuine spanking, meant to teach a lesson, meant to punish. Each slap shattered her tender flesh like a sandpaper block. Friction fire spread over her butt and grew with harsh intensity.

  The tears she'd tried to keep under control since the robbery attempt began to spill out. She squirmed and kicked on his lap. After a few minutes of punishment passed, and she thought she couldn't take even one more blow, he stopped. His callused hand swept over her hot flesh, scorching hot where her rear was tender.

  He rolled her over and held her on his lap, in his arms. She bawled and he held her there, her jeans still around her knees, her ass burning where it rubbed against his uniform. It was confusing to be comforted by the very man who'd taken her to task so forcibly. But curled up against his chest was the only place she could imagine being at that moment.

  She felt his hand in her hair, smoothing, gathering, gripping gently. Mae could feel a wet spot growing on the front shoulder of his shirt as she sobbed against him. And, curiously, she felt wet between her legs. There was a kind of buzzing in her pussy, a signal of attraction to her punisher, despite her discomfort. As she focused on that for a moment, she also realized that he had a hard erection in his pants, pressed up against her hip. He wasn't immune to her as a woman. That was somehow reassuring.

  Mae thought about him as a man, putting aside his authority for a moment. He was handsome, with black hair that brushed his collar; deep black eyes, like train tunnels leading to some mysterious place; broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His hands were large, work-roughened, bronze like the rest of him. He looked like he was a member of the local Paiute tribe, with their telltale prominent and proud nose, and chiseled cheekbones. They rarely came to town, but the few that Mae had met were good people. She wondered if he'd learned police skills there with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, or somewhere else. He was enough older than her to have made headway in his career. And now he was Police Chief of Fire Gorge.

  She tested him by squirming against his erection a bit. His shoulders tensed under her cheek. Yeah, he was definitely feeling the kind of excitement her pussy was whispering about insistently.

  "I'm sorry for being difficult."

  He grunted. "Now you are."

  "No, I'm really sorry. Generally, I'm not a belligerent person, I mean, I usually don't snap at people or call them names. I'm upset about everything and I took it out on you."

  His hand was gentle in her hair, though his verbal response was terse. "Next time, mind."

  Next time?"Yes, sir."

  "You done crying?"

  She nodded. She was done. Quite done. It had been cathartic, and, even though she'd had to have that spanking to let it all out, she was glad the emotions had been released.

  "Stay in the car."

  "Can I sit in the front?"

  "Yeah. But don't push your luck."

  "No. I won't. My butt is sore."

  He grunted again and helped her off his lap. She unfastened her jeans, pulled them up and then refastened them.

  When he got out of the car, he reached a hand back in to help her out. She took it gladly. The sun was bright and the heat was rising. "You gonna take long?"

  The coroner's wagon turned into th
e station.

  "No." He opened the passenger door for her and she slid in.

  "Can I have my phone?"

  He pinned her with his gaze.

  "I guess not."

  "You can call from my office."

  "Thank you."

  He didn't respond as he walked away.

  Chapter Two

  "Hi, Daddy. I have some bad--"

  Drake listened, though he was typing his portion of the crime report into the computer.

  "Oh, you did?" She paused. "I'm sorry! I woulda called you earlier, but the Police Chief--yeah, that guy." Mae breathed a sigh and fidgeted in the chair. "I know you don't, Daddy, but, he's--"

  It seemed like she'd never get to finish a sentence. Drake wondered if her conversations with Walt Weston were always like this.

  "I'm at the police station. He's sitting right here." She turned away from Drake and whispered something into the receiver. When her voice resumed a normal level, she went on to describe the crime. It was pretty much the same description he'd heard from her before. No new information.

  "I dunno how long till the store can reopen." She glared at Drake. "The Chief has ta do his investigation." Mae said it like Drake was being perverse for wanting to do his job. He gritted his teeth and kept typing.

  He could hear Weston's voice on the other end of the line, but couldn't make out the words. He glanced at Mae from the corner of his eye. Judging by Mae's stiff face, she was getting quite a stern talking-to. His hat was on the corner of the desk and she reached out and traced patterns with one finger on the wide brim.

  "I'm sorry," she said again. "I hafta get my car from the Gas N Gulp, but then I'll come over ta the car lot, Daddy. One sec." She tapped Drake on the shoulder and he turned his head. She was holding her hand over the receiver. "How long will this report thing take?"

  "About an hour."

  She leaned in like a co-conspirator. "Can we go faster?"

  "Maybe."

  She waited, then relaxed back into the cheap chair. "You sure don't say much, do you?"

  He sighed. He didn't like to waste words. People called him terse. Hell, people called him much worse than that, but "terse" and "taciturn" were the most common complaints. "If you get off the damn phone, we can get through this a lot faster."

  Her cheeks reddened, whether from irritation or embarrassment, Drake couldn't tell.

  "I need ta go, Daddy. Yes. No. I won't let him, I prom-" Her voice got a little strident. "I have ta go, Daddy! I'll see you later. B'bye!"

  She handed him the handset and he hung it up on the other side of the desk. "You won't let me what?"

  This time, her red cheeks were clearly due to embarrassment. She muttered something.

  "What?"

  "Nothing."

  He grunted and turned away. If she didn't want to tell him, he'd just have to make his own assumptions. But apparently, she wasn't comfortable with his silence. Now why didn't that surprise him, he thought sarcastically.

  "He doesn't want you ta touch me." Her voice was the barest whisper.

  "Too late for that." Her bottom was likely still sore, though he'd been pretty easy on her. But he knew where Walt Weston was coming from. He didn't want his precious daughter sullied by a dirty Indian. It happened all the time. White women wanted him for fun, but their families said, "hands off." His only long-term relationship had been with a Dine woman at the BIA Justice Services office. But they'd had to keep it quiet. When it came out, he nearly lost his job. She'd been fired outright because she'd been his superior officer. To find work, she'd had to move away and that had been the end of the relationship. Eventually, he saw a photo from her wedding on a co-worker's desk. It wasn't like he'd considered getting back together, but knowing that she was now totally off-limits was strangely depressing.

  Drake wanted a change and the Police Chief of Fire Gorge wanted to retire. Seemed like a perfect fit. He'd live near his family, and get away from BIA politics.

  "Yeah," Mae said. "Too late."

  * * *

  It took a pair of days for Drake to collect all the evidence he needed for his investigation. The Gas N Gulp opened up again, and he had no professional reason to see Mae. In the course of his work, though, he'd found out a few things about her. One particularly notable thing was her reading material. The morning of the robbery attempt, she'd been reading a men's magazine: "Hunka-Chunka." It was a disreputable rag, with lurid pictures of men and women, some doing some pretty kinky stuff. There it sat, open, right under the checkout counter.

  Mae had a libidinous streak, apparently.

  Considering how giving her a spanking had turned him on big time, thinking about her paging through an x-rated magazine, undoubtedly imagining herself as a participant in some of the scenes depicted, made him rock hard. But he held himself away. She was a white woman, and her father had warned her already.

  However, Fire Gorge was a small town. It had eleven streets and the interstate and state highway. There were fewer than 500 residents. Drake was bound to run into her sooner or later.

  There was a nursery on the outskirts of town, and Drake went there on Saturday morning looking for some tomato seeds. He loved to grow his own vegetables and tomatoes, having learned some farming skills from his Mexican grandfather as a child. While he was a student at UNLV and then with the BIA in Las Vegas, he couldn't afford a home with a backyard big enough for even a small garden, but in Fire Gorge, his new house had a large backyard and a perfect square of ground just waiting to be cultivated.

  He was at the nursery, reaching for a seed packet when he heard Mae's soft voice behind him.

  "Hey, Chief."

  He turned, his dick already twitching like a trained dog at the sound of her voice. "Mae. Call me Drake."

  She smiled. It was the first smile he'd seen on her and it made her pretty face beautiful. Dressed as she was in shorts and a tank top, her round ass and breasts emphasized, she was a picture of healthy sexuality. A picture he shouldn't ought to be appreciating.

  "Yeah," she said. "You tole me."

  He plucked the tomato seeds off the rack without looking at the variety and half-turned away from her, pretending to contemplate some squash varieties. "You should do what you're told."

  Drake could sense her stiffen behind him. "Yeah, I prob'ly should, but I don't always."

  When he turned, she smiled at him again; it was a little forced.

  "And when you don't?"

  All her exposed skin--and there was plenty of it--went pink. "Consequences happen."

  He arched an eyebrow. It was about as broad a hint as he'd ever received. "Consequences, huh?"

  She nodded. "Yup."

  "Some consequences would have your father getting out his shotgun, Mae."

  Her sweet, soft lower lip protruded in a pout. "He's a pain. And I'm twenty-five. Old enough to make my own decisions."

  Yeah, she was old enough, but was she aware she was playing with fire? A better question: was it worth the risk? Walt Weston was a scion of the community. Not as important as the Mayor, maybe, but still considered important as a merchant and property owner. His daughter belonged to the town, while Drake was still a foreigner in many ways, though he'd grown up less than 20 miles away.

  His dick twitched at the thought of luscious Mae in his arms, maybe offering her round ass for another spanking--this time a fun one followed by some hot lovin'. He shook his head to clear his mind. It was a stupid daydream; just plain stupid.

  He made a low sound, then said, "Consequences aren't happening today."

  Her mouth tightened. "I'm sorry I bothered you, Chief."

  A painful jolt of electricity tightened his balls as he had a second-long image of Mae with her shorts down, hand between her legs as she looked over "Hunka-Chunka." He reached out as she turned to walk away. "Look, Mae. My hands are tied until the investigation is over."

  Biting her lower lip, she nodded. "Okay. That makes sense. How long's that gonna be?"

  "I need t
o get an identity on the guy that ran away."

  Her eyes were perfectly periwinkle as they moved over his face. "What if you don't?"

  "Then it's an unsolved case and it remains open until new information leads to resolution."

  "That sounds like a lot of legal mumbo-jumbo. If you are trying to tell me how this is gonna work, then just spit it out. What good is there in saying something if you're not gonna say it clear? Which is not ta say that you are mumbling or anything. What I meant to say is--"

  "Did the city attorney contact you?" Drake realized he was still holding her arm, so he let go.

  "Yeah. He said they weren't gonna press charges 'cause it was clearly self-defense. He called it 'justifiable homicide.' He said that you'd advised them ta do that. Thank you." She stared at her sandals for a moment, then tilted her face back up to look him in the eye. "That's really what I came over here ta tell you. I don't know what got inta me. I'm not usually so...bold."

  Drake smiled at her admission. He lowered his voice so that other customers wouldn't overhear. "You liked that spanking, huh?"

  She went beet red, and found her sandals fascinating once more. Her hands went into her pockets. "I guess."

  Drake reached out and lifted her chin until she looked at him. "Me, too."

  "But you hafta find that guy."

  He nodded.

  Her sigh was full of disappointment.

  "I got some prints from the Chevy they were driving. No match, so far. But I have some BIA LV people working on it."

  "You do? Like those CSI guys on TV?"

  He grinned. "Yeah. Like them."

  She seemed to perk up a bit, and socked him in the eye with another sunny smile. "Maybe we could just...just you know, a little?"

  Drake groaned inside. His resistance was fading."A little, huh?"

  "Maybe just a few swats. Right over my shorts, or something."

  He shook his head. "Never over your shorts, Mae."