Authors: Amity Maree
With a smile on her face, she went into the yard and then let out a cry of rage! Her newly planted tomato plants were laying on the ground, trampled and smashed to smithereens! That mean old witch had struck again! Jenna went from calm and happy to angry in one split second! This time the old harridan had gone too far. Maybe Will didn't believe the eighty-five year old woman was capable of such blatant destruction but Jenna knew better. Mrs. Pratt hated her, and she was systematically sneaking over here and killing off her plants!
Jenna marched next door and leaned on the doorbell until the elderly woman answered. "Don't you dare try to look frail, you old busy-body! I want to know why you killed my tomato plants? I just put them out two days ago!"
"Did you water them?" the woman asked with a smirk.
"Of course I watered them!" Jenna yelled at her. "You beat them to death with that bloody cane of yours!"
"Why, I have no idea what you are talking about!" the woman's eyes were openly mocking her.
"IF you weren't so old, I'd... I'd..... Oh, I'm going to sue the pants off you, you old witch! This is IT! Do you hear me? I have had it and I'm going to nail you and your cane to the fence!" Jenna stomped home, and without considering her husband's reaction, she prepared the documents she needed, faxed them to her office, and had her aide come by so she could sign what needed signing, and had the young man go and file them with the Court. She was tired of being nice. Maybe if the old biddy had to make restitution for all the plants and flowers she'd destroyed in the last three months, she would learn to behave!
When Will came home a while later, he was clearly angry. "What did you say to Mrs. Pratt, young lady?" he demanded as he walked into the kitchen without so much as a 'hello'.
"I told her I was sick and tired of her coming over here and destroying my plants and flowers," Jenna replied calmly.
"She said you threatened to hit her," his eyes were damning.
"No, I did not. I told her she was lucky she was old, and then told her I was going to sue her."
"You are not going to drag Mrs. Pratt to court, Jenna. I forbid it."
She looked at him and said, "You're too late, Buster. I already filed the suit, and I'm not going to drop it. I won't let that old witch get away with destroying my property."
"You aren't serious?" he asked in an incredulous tone of voice.
"Never more serious in my entire life. I'm going to make that old witch confess once and for all."
"You'll give her a heart attack!"
"She'll never die; she's too damn mean!"
"Jenna, be reasonable."
"I am being reasonable. You're the one who's blind to this woman's perfidy!" She stomped her foot and then said, "Come with me, Will. Just you bring your butt outside and look what she did!"
Will followed his little blonde outside to her garden and looked in disbelief at her tomato plants. "Did you forget to water them?" he asked.
"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Jenna screamed and then cursed before stomping back into the house. "If you want your dinner you'd better take it out of the oven in five minutes. I'm going upstairs and I want to be alone."
"Jenna, you come back here. We need to talk this out in a reasonable manner. You can't sue an eighty-five year old woman over a few tomato plants. A dog might have trampled them!"
"Yes, a dog unlocked the gate and said, "I'm only going to jump on the tomato plants! Good grief, Will! That woman hates me, and you refuse to believe me!"
"You're overreacting. Let's eat dinner and then we'll go over and sit down and have a talk with Mrs. Pratt and work this out like two reasonable neighbors."
"I'll talk to her in Court, Will. I've given you three months to deal with her, and now I'll do it legally... my way!" She headed for the doorway. "Your dinner is going to burn..."
"Aren't you going to eat?" he asked.
"No. I've lost my appetite."
Will removed the food from the oven, shut it off, and then headed upstairs. Apparently the last spanking he gave his little wife had worn off. She was back to acting like a brat again. "Jenna, when you're done in there, I expect you to come down to the study." She was taking a shower and he couldn't understand what she said, but it sounded like, "Duck golf!"
At least, that is what she'd better have said! he frowned.
He took off his suit and then found a pair of jeans and an old tee shirt that had seen better days. He didn't bother with shoes or socks, but went to his study and flipped on his computer. He didn't know a thing about gardening, but he quickly looked up tomato plants and their diseases, trying to find a rational explanation for the condition of Jenna's plants. A half hour later he knew a lot more about tomato plants, and at least enough to know that Jenna hadn't killed them herself, and they weren't diseased. It still didn't mean that Mrs. Pratt did anything to deserve being sued. He looked at his watch and frowned. Jenna should have come downstairs by now.
He got up and made the trip upstairs and found her in her office, working. "I thought I asked you to come down and talk to me?" he said questioningly, giving her the benefit of the doubt. "Didn't you hear me over the water?"
Jenna didn't look at him. "I thought I made it clear I didn't want to talk to you...?"
"I see. Does that mean that the 'duck golf' I heard you say was another phrase altogether?" His voice was still calm, but underneath his temper was starting to simmer and little Jenna had no clue how close she was to another sound spanking.
"By Jove, I think e's got it!" she said in her best Cockney accent.
"Well, I think it is time that you 'get it'," Will announced and with a quick move he shut off the power to her computer.
"William Cole! You just caused me to lose all that data!" Jenna declared furiously.
"Too bad. You come with me, young lady. I won't be spoken to so disrespectfully, even by you."
"Too bad for you!" her blue eyes flashed dangerously. "I've asked you for three months to deal with that old harridan. You haven't. I'm dealing with her now, and you can just back off. As my husband, I would think you would support me, not make some impossible demand to go and sit down with that old biddy and let her make more excuses. She's got you fooled, Buster!"
"That tears it. How many darn times have I asked you not to call me that?" Will was offended. "Every time you get annoyed, you start talking like a gangster from the 30's."
"Well, I've asked you not to call me 'young lady', and yet you persist in calling me that!" she was good at making her point and arguing.
But so was he, "Young lady is not derogatory, Buster is. Look it up if you don't believe me."
"How can I when you just shut off my computer without letting me save my work... BUSTER!"
"You're acting like a brat."
"And you're acting like a hardheaded blind man! You can't even see what is in front of you. That old woman wants me dead, and you're going to be sorry when you come home and find my body and learn the truth some day!"
"Jenna, you're being ridiculous. While I have to admit that it doesn't appear your tomato plants died of a disease, you have no proof whatsoever that Mrs. Pratt came over here and beat them with her cane. Your lawsuit is ridiculous, and if it comes through my Court, I'll dismiss it out of hand."
"Luckily, I made damn sure it won't come through your Court, Judge Cole. I want a fair Judge!" she taunted him, and as soon as the words left her mouth sweet reason returned and she realized she'd said the wrong thing at just the right time. Will prided himself on being fair, no matter the case or who was involved. Since he was already angry with her, it wasn't surprising when his face hardened and he reached for her, his intentions clear as could be in his dark eyes. "Don't you DARE!" Jenna backed out of reach. "I know you're fair, Will, but not in this matter. You've already made up your mind that Mrs. Pratt is innocent and that I'm out of my mind."
"No, I've made up my mind that you need a damned good spanking, and that is what is going to happen right this minute."
"No! That's not fair!" she protested.
"It might not seem fair to you, but it sounds real fair to me." He moved quickly and snagged her slender wrist and pulled her along behind him and into their bedroom and over to the bed. In the next instant she was lying facedown across the new comforter she bought.
"No, Will! I don't want a spanking!" she cried out mere seconds before his hand landed on her bottom. All she was wearing was a short tee, and it was up around her waist, effectively baring her backside for spanking. It was too embarrassing for words. "I have to sit in a deposition first thing tomorrow morning!" she tried to get him to stop.
"Then you shouldn't have gone out of your way to earn a spanking tonight," he said with no sympathy whatsoever. "You've been rude and insulting, telling me to 'fuck off', and calling me 'Buster' with all the contempt you can muster. I won't have that from my wife, Jenna. When you behave like a brat, then you will be treated as one." Will was done talking. He spanked in earnest, turning her cheeks from a creamy white to pink to dark pink and finally a nice dark shade of red. Jenna was soon crying and begging him to stop, but he didn't.
"I want you to promise you will sit down with me and discuss this situation with Mrs. Pratt in a reasonable manner, Jenna. She's an elderly woman, and she doesn't need to be dragged into Court."
"No amount of spanking is going to get me to agree to drop this lawsuit, William Cole."
Will heard the steel in her voice and stopped spanking immediately. "Is that your final word on the subject?" he asked in a cold tone of voice.
"It is. You had several months to deal with her in neighborly fashion and you didn't. She has you convinced she is a sweet little old lady, but mark my words, Will, she hates me and she's out to kill me. I'm taking her down legally before she does." As his eyes narrowed in outrage she added in a calm tone of voice, "I do apologize for swearing at you, and I will try to stop calling you 'Buster'. I've always used that word when angry... but I will try very hard to stop." He nodded curtly. Her expression softened then, "I'm sorry I took my anger with her out on you, honey. I know that wasn't fair, but I am really angry right now. I spent good money on those tomato plants... and on the flowers... and on the seed for my sugar snap peas. Can't you see that she is attacking me?"
"I can see that you are truly upset over your garden," Will conceded. "I don't think that Mrs. Pratt is the guilty party, however." When Jenna's lovely blue eyes filled with tears, he held up his hands in surrender. "Let's just drop it for tonight. My wife made a wonderful dinner that is downstairs going to waste while I am fading away into nothing. Would you like to join me for dinner, lovely lady?" he offered her his arm, and to his delight and relief, she took it and went downstairs with him and finished fixing their salads.
Jenna's bottom was stinging furiously, but she had it coming for the disrespectful way she spoke to her husband. She knew better than to act like that. "Will, when I get so angry, I take it out on everyone around me. It's not personal, honey, and now I am perfectly ashamed of myself for what I said to you while I was in the shower. I didn't mean it. Please forgive me...?" she looked at him hopefully.
Will pulled her close and held her. "You're forgiven, Jenna. Just know that using that kind of language will get you a stinging bottom each and every time," he warned her. "Fair enough?" he asked, and smiled when she nodded. Now all he had to do was reason with her about poor Mrs. Pratt. The woman used a cane... and a walker sometimes. There was no way she would risk falling by crossing her yard and theirs to beat up on Jenna's tomato plants. He was going to have to install a security camera in the backyard to find out who
was
doing these things. It certainly wasn't Mrs. Pratt.
The rest of the evening passed quietly and harmoniously. Will complimented their dinner and then helped her put away the leftovers, telling her he was thankful there would be something wonderful to take and reheat in the microwave for lunch the next day since he had a full load of cases. Jenna had plans for lunch, and she assured him he was welcome to the leftovers. They watched a movie, and then went to bed to make love. It was exactly what Jenna needed to make her feel loved once more. Will felt the same, and when they went to sleep they felt reconnected in their commitment to each other.
Jenna waited until the weekend and then she planted new tomato plants. She was relieved when Will installed a small camera to watch over the garden area. Maybe now she would get the proof she needed to hang that old woman out to dry!
"Jenna, more than likely you're going to learn it's some kids having their idea of fun," Will scolded her for even suggesting such a thing.
"Kids would have done more than smash my tomato plants, Will!" she argued.
"I was hoping you would calm down by now and agree to drop the suit," he admitted, looking at her from his position beside the shed where he was putting the motion sensor camera.
"I am calm, and I'm not going to drop the lawsuit. Honey, she keeps destroying my property. She's lucky I'm filing a civil suit instead of having her arrested."
"The police would laugh at you," he said matter-of-factly. "Please, Jenna, drop this before it gets out of hand. It doesn't look pretty for a shark of an attorney to attack an eighty-five year old woman. You know the press will get wind of it, and you'll get negative publicity."
"I'll also win my case," she grinned. "Once I get her on film ransacking my garden she won't have any choice but admit she is guilty as sin."
"Do you really think a few tomato plants are worth all of this?"
"Don't forget my petunias and my sugar snap peas," she said with a straight face. "Only the Lord knows what she'd do with rose bushes if I planted them!"
"Jenna, do you know how ridiculous you sound?" he asked in irritation mixed with exasperation.
"No, and I don't care," she assured him.
In spite of all the arguments and pleadings, Jenna refused to back down from her position. She was going to take the eighty-five year old Mrs. Pratt to Court, put her on the witness stand, and make her admit she poisoned the peas, cut the tops off her petunias, and beat the tomato plants to death. Since the camera was installed, nothing further had happened, however, much to Jenna's disappointment, unless you counted the number of smirks the elderly woman gave her when she saw her outside over the fence... or the times she called and asked Will to come over and fix something or help her with something.