The Sheriff Wears Pants (2 page)

All of a sudden, there was an abrupt knocking on the front door and Darcy silently cursed Will’s timing.  She’d been longing for a confrontation with her ex-fiancé, but she didn’t particularly want it to happen in front of the town’s newspaperman.  She gracefully excused herself and headed for the door, intending to send Will on his way until she was finished with her interview.

“Go away, Will! As usual, your timing is off.”  She could see he was angry, but since he’d never been rough with her, she certainly wasn’t afraid of him.  To her shock, he took her arm and gently pushed her inside the large foyer and closed the front door behind him. Then he pulled her behind him and into the front parlor.  In the next instant he seated himself on the settee she’d occupied just moments ago, and jerked her face-down over his knee and started spanking her… hard!  “What do you think you are doing, Will Davies?” she shrieked, angry and embarrassed at the same time.

“Something your Gram should have done when you were a spoiled child so that you wouldn’t grow up to be the spoiled brat of a woman you are!”  Will continued spanking her, barely taking note that Waldo was sitting in a chair across from them, his gray eyes open wide behind his thick glasses, watching every spank with great interest, but doing nothing at all to stop Will.

“You let me go!”  Darcy angrily demanded, kicking her feet and trying to push herself off of Will’s lap, but his left arm was wrapped securely around her small waist, and there was no way she was going to get free until he released her.  His hand was like a board, and she could feel every last spank through all the layers of petticoats she was wearing!  It hurt a lot, and she was afraid she was going to cry! “Damn you, Will, stop this right now!” she yelled loudly.

“What in the name of hell do you think you are doing by running for Sheriff, little girl?  Do you have
any
idea of how dangerous it is to wear a badge?  It makes you a target for every drifter and outlaw within a hundred miles of here!  I won’t allow you to risk your life like that!  And, no man in his right mind is going to vote for a female who doesn’t even know how to use a gun with proficiency!”

“I do too know how to use a gun!” she argued.  “I always hit my target!”  She was insulted when he kept right on spanking her bottom, which was burning and growing hotter by the second!  “Let me go, Will! You are hurting me!” she accused.

“Good,” he replied.  “That is my intention, Miss Hamilton!” he answered her and then continued with his scolding. “You can’t talk a drunk like Sid Schaeffer into walking over to the jail and locking himself inside a cell every Saturday night!  He’s a mean drunk, little girl, and he’ll break your jaw!” 

The spanking continued with determination to see it through to the end, and Will’s exasperation with her was expressed in an elemental way.  “This whole election thing is nothing more than an attempt to embarrass me in front of the entire town, and I won’t have it, Darcy Hamilton.  Stop making a fool of yourself.”  He ended the spanking with one final spank, and then got to his feet, sending her tumbling to the floor in a whirl of petticoats.

“Ow!”  Darcy cried out in pain as her bottom met the floor with a hard thump.  She scrambled to get to her feet, fully prepared to give Will Davies a piece of her mind, but he was already out the door!  “Oh, damn you, Will Davies!” she muttered, stomping her foot in pure temper, and then reaching back to gingerly rub her stinging backside.  She’d had no idea at all that a spanking could hurt so much!  And she couldn’t believe that Will would do something so horrible to her.  He couldn’t possibly love her at all if he was willing to inflict pain upon her person. No wonder Gram hadn’t resorted to spanking when Darcy was a child, it was barbaric!

“Are you alright, Miss Darcy?” Waldo asked sympathetically as he realized she would be furious with him for not stopping the Sheriff from spanking her.  “I should have stopped him, but frankly, I didn’t know how.” He also didn’t want to get on the lawman’s bad side.  Waldo was basically a coward, and he freely admitted it.  “I’m truly sorry, Miss Darcy,” he added.

Darcy couldn’t believe that she’d forgotten Waldo was in the same room!  Her cheeks flooded with color and she decided she was going to make Will Davies’ life a living hell!  How
dare
he treat her so shabbily in front of the reporter!  “Now do you see what I mean, Waldo?  If Will would beat
me
for running for office, what would he do to a man?”

* * * * *

Editorial April 7, 1871

When I heard that Miss Darcy Hamilton was opposing Sheriff Will Davies in the upcoming election, I had to smile, thinking it was just another rumor involving these two hotheaded people.  But, to my surprise, Miss Hamilton confirmed the rumor was indeed true.  I just happened to be interviewing Miss Hamilton when Sheriff Davies came by to discuss the election with her.  He resorted to putting Miss Hamilton over his knee right in front of me and spanking her, while scolding her for daring to add her name to the ballot!  I wonder if the Sheriff would spank anyone else for opposing him in the election?

* * * * *

“Oh, Darshana!”  Eleanor exclaimed in horror as she finished reading the editorial in the weekly edition of the Cactus Hill Advocate.  “What is the meaning of this?” She offered the paper to her granddaughter.

Darcy took the paper and read the editorial in disbelief.  Nothing that Waldo wrote was accurate.  He didn’t say one word about Will cheating on her.  And, all he focused on was the mortifying experience she hoped to forget!  Now everyone in town would know that Will spanked her like she was some naughty little girl.  It was humiliating.

“Waldo was here when Will Davies came by and assaulted me!” Darcy whispered angrily.  “I asked Waldo not to tell what Will did, but he just couldn’t resist!  I’m going to give
him
a piece of my mind, too!  And Will?  He needs to be horsewhipped!”

“Darshana, I am not amused by this unladylike display.  This whole election thing is just not acceptable behavior, and I must insist you withdraw at once.”  Eleanor was using her firm voice.

“Gram, I love you with all my heart, but now I have no choice but to follow through and run against Will Davies.  Someone has to teach him a lesson, and that someone is going to be me.”

“You are going to be the one learning a lesson, and a hard lesson at that!” Eleanor predicted.  She reached for her bell and daintily rang it to call for Greta. 

“Yes, Miss Eleanor?” Greta came into the dining room to inquire as to what the elderly lady needed.

“I am going to write a note that I wish to have delivered to Waldo Phares at the newspaper office.  Would you mind dropping it off when you are running errands today?” she asked politely as she always did. 

Eleanor was not a snob.  She might be exceedingly wealthy, but that wasn’t always the case. As a child, she remembered working a garden and praying the vegetables it produced would last through the long winter so they wouldn’t all starve to death.  As it was, there was seldom enough to eat on the table.  She was just plain Ellie back then, and it was her dear husband who took her from poverty to work beside him and build a fortune that Darshana would inherit soon.  Eleanor never forgot where she came from, and she treated everyone with respect, even if they didn’t really deserve that respect.  Waldo Phares had no right to tell something so personal about Darshana and Will, and she was going to insist he print an apology!

“Gram, please, let me fight my own battles.  I’m a grown woman now.” Darcy was dismayed that her precious Gram was so upset.  Her target was Will Davies, not Gram!  “Please, Gram.  I will handle Waldo.  I am a grown woman,” she repeated.

“A grown woman who aggravated the man who loves her so much that he resorted to spanking her in front of another man?  That doesn’t sound grown up to me, child.  It sounds as though the two of you are behaving like children in need of discipline.  You are to take your name off that ballot, Darshana Elizabeth Hamilton.  Do you hear me?”

“Yes, Gram.”  She felt tears stinging her eyes and she tried hard not to cry.

“Fine.  Do it at once!”  It was unlike Eleanor to send anyone away from her table, but she was upset with Darcy.

“Yes, Gram.”  Darcy got to her feet and left the dining room in tears.  Will might have spanked her bottom until she was stinging and in pain, but it was Gram who brought her to tears just by sending her from the breakfast table.

* * * * *

Waldo looked up from his desk when the bell on the door tinkled, alerting him, that someone came in.  Hoping it was someone wanting to place an advertisement, he got to his feet.  Somehow, he wasn’t surprised to see Will Davies standing there, an angry expression on his face.  “That spanking was private between Darcy and me, Phares!  You had no right to put it in your damn paper. I am sure Darcy is mortified and embarrassed, and it will be hard for her to show her face in town after what you wrote.”  He didn’t like the way he was portrayed, either. 
He didn’t spank Darcy because of his desire to win the election, but because he didn’t want criminals coming to Cactus Hill thinking there was a female Sheriff they could bully and abuse and get away with it.  Their bank would be a prime target for outlaws, too!  Will genuinely cared about the people in town, and protecting them was his job.

“You are wrong, Davies,” Waldo insisted.  “You and Miss Darcy
are
news.  When she added her name to the ballot, Miss Darcy gave up the right to keep her personal life private. People are interested in this election, and they want to know the entire story behind the feud between you two.”

“There is no feud.” Will never once considered the way Darcy ended their engagement as a feud.  She was acting like a spoiled brat, and a hot-tempered redhead who refused to listen to reason, and he wasn’t about to try to explain himself to her when she was acting so snippy with him.  He should have hauled her over his knee for throwing his mother’s ring at him like that!  It took him over an hour of searching to find it, too.

“Miss Darcy sure isn’t happy with you for kissing Priscilla Clemons.”

“I
didn’t
kiss her,” Will said through clenched teeth.

“May I quote you?”  Waldo asked with a smile.

“The ballots are already printed, Miss Darcy,” the Mayor stated apologetically as he looked up at the pretty young woman.  “It’s too late to remove your name now.  There are quite a few people expressing their support of you.  Besides, I think it a damn… excuse me, Miss Darcy… I think it is a
darn
shame that Sheriff Davies thinks he can use force to keep you from running for Sheriff.  I don’t care if you are a woman, you have as much right to run for Sheriff as he does, and if you win the election, I will be glad to deal with you instead of that hardheaded bully.  I am sure that a lot of the wives in town are going to ask their husbands to vote for you, too.”  Mayor James Mason was trying to make his daughter’s friend feel better, but he could tell he was failing miserably. He privately thought that Sheriff Will Davies was the best man for the job, but he couldn’t very well say that out loud, not if he wanted to get re-elected next year when his term was up.

“But….”

“Now, don’t you worry!  I’ll have a word with Davies and tell him I’ll take a horsewhip to him myself if he raises a hand to you again.”  If he thought that would reassure Darcy, he was wrong.  The Mayor had about twenty years on Will, and he was several inches shorter and greatly overweight.  The only way he could possibly take a horsewhip to Will, would be if Will permitted him to do so.  That wasn’t likely to happen!

“Is there any way possible you could have the ballots reprinted?  I will pay the expenses,” she offered.

“I’m sorry, Miss Darcy.  These are official documents, and I cannot take them out of the town’s safe before the election.  The date for applying for office or removing a name from the ballot has passed.  In fact, you barely made the deadline to get your name added,” he explained.  “Now don’t you worry!  Folks are likely to think badly of Will for spanking you and that should add to your vote. Men don’t like to see women mistreated, especially a little thing like you!”

Darcy couldn’t have been more embarrassed as she left the Mayor’s office.  When she’d decided to run for Sheriff it was to get Will’s goat, but it seemed as though she was getting the worst end of things.  How many people saw that editorial of Waldo’s?  Darcy was as angry as she was embarrassed, and she headed for the newspaper office, only to bounce off Will as he wrenched the door open from the inside and barreled outside.

Will automatically reached out to steady her, preventing her from falling. “I apologize for nearly knocking you down… Darcy!” he exclaimed, surprised to see her standing there.  “I didn’t realize you were out here.  I didn’t mean to run into you.”

“You
should
apologize for the abominable way you treated me yesterday!” she immediately retorted.

“You deserved that spanking, and the only thing I am sorry for is not giving into temptation and spanking you the very first time I considered taking you over my knee!” he informed her.

Will was completely unaware that Darcy found him handsome, even when she was furious with him.  He had dark brown eyes framed with dark eyelashes.  His hair was always too long, and it was dark and wavy. He made her insides melt without doing a thing.  She couldn’t deny her attraction to him, although she wanted to smack him for insisting that she deserved that spanking when she very clearly did not! Darcy was prepared to tell him what she thought of him when they were interrupted.