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  Home for the Holidays

  By

  April Hill

  ©2013 by Blushing Books® and April Hill

  All rights reserved.

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  Hill, April

  Home for the Holidays

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-62750-2887

  Cover Design by ABCD Graphics

  This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

  Table of Contents:

  "GETTING OUT OF DODGE(VILLE)"

  "OW, TANNENBAUM"

  "A NEW YEAR'S PROMISE"

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

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  "GETTING OUT OF DODGE(VILLE)"

  By April Hill

  It was generally accepted by everyone who knew her that Melissa Wilcox was a spoiled brat, but until that crisp autumn day when she stole her fiancé's midnight-blue Mercedes, his American Express card and most of his underwear, she had always regarded herself as basically honest. Melissa was about to learn, however, that a life of selfishness and crime, once begun, has a way of spiraling downward into chaos.

  It had started simply, as most catastrophes do, when Jonathan (the aforementioned fiancé) brought home ten pounds of ground pork and placed it before her on his exquisite antique mahogany dining table, and on one of his prized gilt-edged Limoges dinner plates.

  "That," he intoned, in the masterful voice he always used in discussing Melissa's shortcomings, "is ten pounds of ugly fat. By my calculations, you are carrying at least that, in a number of highly visible places, and on a ridiculously small frame. I've decided, therefore, that we will not be attending Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' this year. I would prefer that you not meet them in your present condition. Perhaps we'll see some measurable improvement by Christmas—with the new diet I've designed."

  Yes, that is how Jonathan talked, and though he hadn't actually called the woman he presumably loved a grossly obese and misshapen dwarf, his implication was clear. He didn't trust her. Melissa's last dieting experience had been with something she'd read about on the subway, entitled the "Ho Chi Min Rice Regimen," in which one ate like a starving Vietnamese peasant, and on which she had managed (by adding just a few insignificant embellishments of her own) to gain six pounds. Even Melissa would have conceded that Jonathan was right—on this issue, at least. Left to her own devices, the chances that she could reach an ideal weight in the two weeks left before Thanksgiving were minimal to zero. In fact, she had a far better chance at equalizing her skewed height/weight ratio by growing six inches taller in that same time. All of which meant that she would now have to embark upon yet another of Jonathan's own rigidly enforced diet and exercise programs.

  Jonathan was wrong, however, about the number of excess pounds Melissa was "carrying," though the error had been made through no fault of his own. Some months earlier, the very expensive and carefully calibrated electronic scale he had purchased for her from Brookstone had suffered a tragic fall from their apartment balcony to the street below, and since they lived on the fourteenth floor, the scale had been in far too many pieces to collect and reassemble. The second scale, manufactured by a renowned firm in Switzerland, had simply vanished shortly after its arrival. Reluctantly, Melissa had allowed the blame for the scale's suspicious disappearance to be placed on the stooped shoulders of Helga, their elderly, underpaid and entirely blameless cleaning lady. When wrongfully accused, Helga promptly quit—after giving Jonathan the finger, kicking him in the right shin, and calling him a cheap, pompous fucking scumbag—in two languages. Melissa assuaged her guilt in the matter by slipping Helga what remained of her own monthly household budget, and a letter containing a glowing reference.

  Two days after the pork fat incident, having breakfasted on a handful of what looked and tasted like hamster pellets (Jonathan called it whole-grain granola), Melissa set off on her morning errands in a very glum mood. Since she had to travel to the furthest reaches of Queens in order to pick up Jonathan's laundry at the tiny Chinese establishment he insisted was the only place that got the starch right, he had graciously allowed her the temporary use of his car. She had already picked up the laundry and was stuck in cross-town traffic when it suddenly occurred to Melissa that she also had in her temporary possession Jonathan's American Express card, with its well-publicized no-limits limit, and upon which she was a duly authorized user.

  What better time, thought Melissa, than to break an ill-advised engagement?

  Since boarding a flight with no luggage might seem suspicious, she made one quick stop on the way to the airport—at Macy’s, where she purchased a small green suitcase. Into the small green suitcase, she stuffed some of Jonathan's freshly laundered shirts and all of his underwear, every map and document in the Mercedes' glove compartment, and a paperbound copy of The Infinite Jest (in case she found time to read a thousand pages of dense and incomprehensible prose between New York and California).

  She had chosen California as a destination because it was the earliest flight available out of Kennedy. Her younger brother lived in Los Angeles and had always regarded Jonathan as something akin to pond slime, so Melissa knew she would be welcome to stay with him until she found a job. It wasn't much of a plan, but then, Melissa had never been much on planning ahead. Which probably explained her choice of Jonathan.

  Her problems began when she very considerately called the apartment and left a message for Jonathan, explaining that she was leaving him and would not be returning in his lifetime or hers, and informing him where to pick up his Mercedes. It never occurred to her that he might call and check his messages before he left his office for the day.

  By the time Melissa landed in Dallas, where she was scheduled to change planes, the American Express card had been cancelled. She knew the jig was up when an announcement came over the loudspeaker system telling her to report to the airline's boarding counter. Ignoring the page, she hastened to the nearest rental booth and maxed out her own low-limit Visa card by renting a tiny little Honda. A quick check of her wallet showed that she might have enough cash to reach Los Angeles if she ate nothing whatever, slept in the car, and attended to all of her hygienic needs in gas station restrooms. Since her budget didn’t include buying maps and/or a road atlas, she simply pointed the rented Honda in a direction she believed to be due west, and started driving.

  As it turned out, the highway she chose to take west from Dallas led into the middle of prairie-dog hell, with nothing in sight but dirt, rusted oil wells, and a number of gas stations that appeared to have gone out of business in 1946. It was then that Melissa realized that maybe she hadn't been traveling due west, but more south-ish—sort of. Some hours later, having wandered mostly in circles, up and down a series of unmarked, pitch-dark roads that felt more like creek beds, she crashed into something soli
d. The driver's-side airbag went off in her face, and the windshield imploded into a shower of diamond-like fragments. Melissa wasn't hurt, but when she crawled out to see what had happened, she discovered that the rented Honda had imbedded itself in the wrecked and untidy kitchen of what appeared to be Snow White's cottage.

  Melissa had rear-ended a house.

  Actually, it was more like a playhouse, or maybe a guest bungalow for very small guests, and since she had just sheared off its teeny-weeny bathroom, the house looked even smaller. Melissa's first thought, naturally enough, was to get in back in the car and keep driving. You see how easy it is to become a criminal? One moment you're making off with someone's underwear, and the next thing you know, you’re contemplating hit and run on a house.

  The Honda wouldn’t start, which was just as well, since its front left tire was flat and the car had begun to leak a variety of body fluids. There was, moreover, the additional impediment of the rusted, avocado green refrigerator that was resting on the hood, which would have made progress slow and possibly hazardous. Since both front and back seats of the crippled Honda were littered with broken glass, and since Snow White wasn't present to object, Melissa opted for spending the night in the bedroom of the wee house she had just demolished.

  And that's where she was the following morning, when the law showed up.

  She woke up to a crunching sound, which turned out to be a strange man, walking around and around the house. He was dressed all in tan, and wore cowboy boots, a white Stetson, and a perplexed expression. Melissa couldn't help noting that the stranger was not only tall, but quite handsome—in a rugged, outdoorsy sort of way.

  When she popped up from the sagging bed like a sort of demented Goldilocks, the man regarded the apparition with curiosity for only a moment or two before tipping his hat politely. "Mornin', Ma'am," he said, with a slight drawl. He pointed to the Honda." This your car?"

  Melissa shook her head, still a little out of sorts at being awakened so early." Not exactly. Who are you?"

  "Name's Ben Harris. I'm what passes for sheriff around here. I was on my way into town when I … you a friend of Homer's, by any chance?"

  "Who’s Homer?" she inquired, not too politely.

  "That'd be Homer Breedlove. That's his bed you’re sleepin' in. I reckon Homer won't mind that, but he's gonna be real pissed when he sees his house. He just bought it."

  "Does Mr. Homer Whomever always park his houses in the middle of public thoroughfares?" Melissa inquired, irritably.

  "Well, now, I expect Homer's gonna' say you were trespassin'. This lot here's only twenty-odd feet wide, but old Homer likes to call it his 'spread.' He had the house hauled out here on a truck last week, after he bought it from Theron Wilcox. Theron's mother-in-law stayed in it when she came down from Wichita, but she passed on last winter. I figger you won't tell me, anyway, but I'm supposed to ask. Were you drinkin' last night, Ma'am?"

  "No," Melissa answered, offended by such a suggestion." I was not drinking."

  "Glad to hear it," the sheriff replied. "That'll keep all this just a matter of money, between you and Homer. You're insured for accidental damage, right?" (In the interest of economy and not overreaching her credit limit, Melissa had declined the rental company's damage waiver, but she didn't regard this information as the sheriff's business.)

  "This was in no way my fault," she responded firmly." And I have no intention of paying for anything. This stupid building is a public hazard. It should have been marked with those little red flags or something."

  Sheriff Harris pointed behind him. "You didn’t see that fence?"

  Melissa looked. Two strands of barbed wire lay in the dirt, where she had run over them, along with a hand-printed cardboard sign that read, "Bar-B-Ranch. No trespassing." Her goose was cooked, and it was still thirteen days until Thanksgiving.

  * * *

  The sheriff drove Melissa back into Dodgeville—not to be confused with the more infamous Dodge City, the sheriff explained. The town was little more a than collection of dusty, turn-of-the-century buildings with cars—mainly dented pick-up trucks—parked diagonally along one wide expanse of badly-patched potholes labeled "Main Street." Once inside his small office, the sheriff sat down at a big oaken desk and began filling out an incident report. Homer, it seemed, would be out of town until after the holiday—visiting his brother in Oklahoma.

  "In a town this size, everybody knows pretty much everything about everybody else," the sheriff explained, grinning. "It has its advantages, sometimes."

  The sheriff then phoned the rental company, which promptly denied any responsibility for the unfortunate loss of Homer's house.

  "That is not my problem," Melissa insisted. "Mr. Breedlove was still at fault. He may take me to court if he wishes, but in the meantime, I intend to be on the first bus out of here."

  The sheriff nodded. "Let me guess. You're about to give me your personal guarantee you'll high-tail it back here when poor old Homer gets ready to sue you."

  Melissa smiled sweetly. This was a purely civil matter, she explained, and she knew her rights.

  The sheriff smiled back at her. "Well, now, skippin' out on a debt may be legal where you came from, but folks around here tend to look at things a little different. The fact is, if you can’t square this house business with Homer, you're gonna end up in jail." He paused for a moment, watching her reaction. "And another thing. If you keep that smart-assed little smirk on your face, you're not only get your butt tossed in the clink, you just might get it a real good paddling, into the bargain."

  Melissa flushed but tried to ignore the sheriff's crude remark. He was obviously bluffing, trying to frighten her. "And am I to assume that you are the one who makes the rules, 'around here'?" she asked, haughtily.

  He shook his head. "No, Ma'am. We’ve got a judge for that. I'm just a part-time sheriff. Three days a week. The rest of the time, I make my livin' like most fellas around here—as a workin' cowboy. I've got a little spread outside town, about four miles or so. So, I don’t make the rules, but I do enforce 'em—when I have to. And when I'm on duty, of course."

  "And what are you today, Mr. Harris? Sheriff or cowboy?"

  "It looks like your luck's holdin'. Today, I'm just plain cowboy. On the other hand, you know what they say about cowboys."

  Melissa rolled her eyes. "No, I don’t," she said. "But I'm sure you're going to tell me."

  "Well, what they say is that a lady hasn't really been spanked until she's been spanked by a cowboy. Of course, that's pretty much true about most things. Cowboys just can't seem to help puttin' their whole hearts into everything they do, whether it’s makin' love to a woman, or blisterin' her tail when she's got it coming. They say that when a cowboy gets put out enough to take a woman across his knee, she's not real likely to sit down easy for quite a spell—without leavin' fingerprints, anyway."

  "That’s what they say, is it?" Melissa asked, annoyed by another silly, macho threat.

  "Yes, Ma'am, that's what they say." The sheriff was still smiling.

  "And is abusing women legal in Texas?" she demanded.

  "Nope. I reckon abusin' women, or men, for that matter, is pretty much against the law in most places, nowadays. But the way I see it, there's legal, and there's plain common sense. And lettin' anyone take advantage of some poor devil like Homer is just plain wrong. So, I'll tell you what. Tomorrow's my day to be sheriff, so if you'll put up the nine hundred bucks Homer claims to have paid for that rundown shack of his, and then get yourself out of town on the afternoon bus, we'll call it even. And you'll be able to sit down on that pretty butt of yours without yelping too much."

  "As it happens, Sheriff, I don't have nine hundred dollars," Melissa said. "I have perhaps sixty-eight dollars in my purse—period."

  At this point, the sheriff abruptly dropped the twang, and every trace of local color disappeared from his voice. "In that case, let me explain what's going to happen next. Tonight, you'll sleep back there, in my jail." He poin
ted behind his head. "The bank opens tomorrow morning at nine, and I usually get here a few minutes later, after I've had my coffee over at Alma's Diner. If you haven’t agreed to pay up by then, I'm going to come back there and give you a licking you'll still be remembering when you’re old and gray. When I'm done, you'll spend the next few days sitting on a steel bunk. And if you give me any more trouble, you'll be doing it with your big-city ass on fire—every day if necessary. The court's in recess, but it'll convene again the day after Thanksgiving. Now, Miss Wilcox, I believe I've made my position absolutely clear. I hope we understand one another."

  Melissa was somewhat taken aback by the sheriff's speech, but with nothing else to lose, she tried a bluff of her own. "I understand you perfectly, Sheriff. Now, allow me to make myself clearly understood. Should you make any attempt whatever to harm me in any manner or to confine me for even one moment in your filthy hillbilly jail, I will see that you and everyone else involved in this travesty of justice is prosecuted to the full extent of the law. I am assuming, of course, that even in this sinkhole, there is some rudimentary system of law."

  Melissa was almost certain she saw a smile on the sheriff's handsome face.

  "There is, indeed. You'll find Judge Harold H. Carter on the bench over at the courthouse every morning at nine—after Thanksgiving, of course. A first-rate legal scholar, a true Texas gentleman and as fair-minded a jurist as you'll ever meet. Hal's my great uncle, actually, on my mother's side. And should you require a good lawyer, I can recommend Ned Hawkins. He's over on Second Street, above the drug store. Graduated second in his class at Texas State."

  "Another uncle?" she snapped.

  He smiled. "Nope. Ned's my brother-in-law. He and Janice—Janice is my sister, by the way—have three terrific kids already, and they’re about to make me an uncle again, around Christmas."