Grading Garnet: The Red Petticoat Saloon Read online

  Seth froze, and that was all the doctor needed to know. “Doc, I—”

  But Anson waved off his explanations. “I don’t really need to know the particulars, and it’s not for me to judge, anyway. I’m sure you’ll be glad to know that it’s covered under doctor-patient confidentiality, too, so no one is ever going to hear a word from me. I had to ask because it affects what I’m going to give her for that cough, which is now, essentially nothing. If it gets intolerable, give her a shot of whiskey, but not too much. Anything else I have might harm the baby if there is one.” He paused, on the way to the door, saying, “Oh, and, just so that you’re fully educated on the matter, this illness could well… throw things off in regards to her cycle. So you might not be able to tell she’s pregnant until later than usual.”

  He left him with that potent bit of information as well as a strong caution to call him if she got worse, leaving Seth a mess on several counts.

  Like an idiot, he hadn’t even thought about the possibility of her being pregnant. He’d avoided her outright just after it had happened—for which he cursed himself daily and called himself innumerable types of a fool, too. He should have insisted that they get married right then and there, but he was too wrapped up in guilt, to say nothing of the fact that he knew how she felt about the idea of getting married—hell, she’d come three thousand miles just to avoid that fate!

  He left her for a moment after Lola returned and was plying her with a cup of coffee – strong and black was the only way she knew how to make it – and headed to his study, where he took a fortifying shot of whiskey and got a hold of himself.

  He’d deal with the other mess once she was better, after he’d gotten some advice.

  First things first, he had to get her well.

  He could accept absolutely no other possible outcome.

  Chapter Eight

  Gloria was broiling hot, kicking off covers that some annoying bastard kept immediately replacing. She felt as if sweat was pouring off of her, as if her very blood was boiling, and she was haunted by dreams that didn’t really seem like dreams, where she was drowning—not in a lake or the ocean, but in coffee, for some reason.

  Perhaps that was why her lungs and chest ached so—they were full of acidic coffee, which her body naturally kept trying to get her to violently cough up.

  She didn’t know how much later it was, but she knew that now she was freezing cold, huddling under the covers and shivering so badly her teeth were practically chattering right out of her head. The only relief she got was when the coffee ocean turned to a pond of whiskey, and then someone joined her beneath the covers, pulling her into his body and curling himself almost completely around her, surrounding her with his natural warmth.

  Even then she still shuddered occasionally, but it was really the only time she got any sleep, feeling more comfortable and for some reason safer in his arms, perhaps because he kept the coffee away from her.

  It was, coincidentally, the only sleep Seth got. Although every time he crawled into bed beside Gloria, he got the evil eye from Lola, but she couldn’t argue with his results. Gloria was noticeably better every time he slept with her, having gotten from four to six more hours sleep than she might have if he hadn’t.

  After several days of what he considered to be touch and go—whether or not the doctor would have agreed with his amateur medical assessment wasn’t his problem—Gloria finally seemed to be on the mend. She was more aware than she had been. When she was really sick, she wasn’t really conscious, even when she wasn’t technically asleep, either.

  He knew she was on the mend when, one morning after he’d gotten up and reached—as had become his habit—first thing for the thermometer the doctor had left, as well as the small tin of salve he’d donated to the cause, also, for ease of its use.

  Gloria was already on her tummy, where he had noticed she liked to sleep, so he pulled back the covers. Mindful of not setting off chills, he raised her nightgown to her mid-back, then did as he had been doing for a couple of days now and turned towards her. Using the fingers of one hand to part her nether cheeks, and trying not to notice just how perfect they were, and the middle finger of the other to apply a dollop of lubricant to her cute little bottom hole.

  He did not, however, expect what happened next.

  “What the ever loving fuck do you think you’re doing, Seth McIntyre?” Gloria shrieked, struggling as hard as she could to drag herself away from him.

  But she was horrifyingly weak, and as hard as she tried, she really only succeeded in flailing her arms and barely moving her legs a bit, like a turtle lying helplessly on its back.

  Only she was on her front and apparently all too vulnerable because of it.

  All it took was a hand placed on her back with just the slightest bit of pressure and he was able to completely immobilize her. “Gloria, when you are feeling better I am going to make you regret using that language. As for now, I am taking your temperature, as the doctor said we should. You’ve been very sick which is why you’re so weak. You had a very bad chest cold, which Doc Norwood was worried would turn into likely very close to pneumonia. You’ve had a very high fever, with it. So I want you to lie there calmly and quietly, like a good girl, while I do what I need to do.” He would never give her more than a swat if he had to, but she didn’t know that, so he added for effect, “I don’t want to have to spank your bottom when you’re sick.”

  Then he took up the surprisingly long, thick rectal thermometer and dabbed a bit of lube on it, too, before parting her cheeks again.

  “Please, don’t! Seth! Please!” she begged pathetically, her entire body awash in shame at the thought of what he was doing to her.

  “Stay still, honey,” his tone was low and comforting, but he did press that tube into her behind, slowly and carefully, until there was only an inch or so peeping out from between her cheeks.

  He saw her immediately begin to try to push it out, and, as he used one hand to reseat it within her, he gave her a sharp pop on the behind with the other, which practically sent her into hysterics.

  Seth knew that she was tired and still wasn’t feeling very well, but he put his foot down without raising his voice as he kept his finger on the tip of the thermometer, so that he could feel if she tried to expel it again.

  “That is enough, Gloria Renee. I know this is not hurting you. It’s embarrassing and a bit uncomfortable, but it’s not hurting you, and there’s no reason for you to be making such a fuss.” He reached out to rub her back slowly, soothingly as he spoke. “If you try to push it out again, I will tan your hide, sick or not. Do you understand me?”

  “Yes,” she whimpered pitifully on a loud sniffle.

  “Yes what, baby girl?”

  On another sob, she pouted, “Yes, sir.”

  “There’s my good girl. It’ll be all over before you know it.”

  He was very, very wrong about that. Even sick, knowing where his hands were, so close to other very interested parts of her that she would much rather he be touching, her body stood up and took notice of how strong yet gentle his hand felt. How that awful thermometer felt, all combined with the wonderful feeling of him caring for her like this made her melt in ways she’d really rather not in conjunction with having this humiliating thing happening to her at his behest!

  But, like the way she felt about spanking, she didn’t have much choice about how her body reacted to things.

  He continued to murmur soothing nothings as they waited, the fingers of his free hand boldly finding the spot she second least wanted them to. And if they hadn’t already had residual slickness on them, she was already providing an ample supply of her own.

  He did it all so quickly, so smoothly, that—already mortified—she didn’t really notice until the pad of his finger began to swipe and curl over a bit of flesh that was already swollen and more than ready for his touch.

  “Oh, God, Seth, no!” she whispered, with nowhere near the amount of conviction she wanted to.


  “Yes, little miss. Isn’t this a delightful method of distracting you? Or… perhaps adding to feelings you obviously already have about the position you find yourself in at the moment?”

  “Don’t—oh—mmm—uh pleeeaaasssee!” She buried her head in the nearest pillow, lest her moans be overheard, and very soon, they grew to be quite loud as he continued to manipulate her body. His hand occasionally left her clit to slide beneath her gown to gently pinch a peaked nipple, but always returning to that lovely warm cleft of hers.

  He could feel how her body was tensing, gathering itself for the storm. “That’s it, baby. Come for me. I’m not going to stop until you do, so you might as well surrender to it—to me.”

  And he was true to his word. He stroked her through not one, but two ecstatic convulsions before he withdrew his hand—with great reluctance—from between her legs.

  Then, while she was still in the midst of recovering, he removed the thermometer and read it.

  “No fever! That’s great, honey!” He cleaned up the equipment, then, to her intense embarrassment, he cleaned her up, too, while she squirmed to avoid it as best she could, although it was over and done with almost before she could protest.

  “Now, how do you feel?”

  “Utterly mortified, times two,” she replied, her body still contracting in the remnants of the bliss he’d brought her. “I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired in my life,” she confessed on a long, hacking cough. “I feel like I’ve been mowed over by a stampede.”

  One side of his mouth rose. “I can imagine. Are you hungry, I hope?”

  Just at that moment, they heard a knock at the door, and Lola appeared with a tray. “I heard voices and assumed that our girl was up.” She set the tray down on his bureau and came to touch her face. “The fever’s broken, I see. My prayers have been answered. I’ve brought weak tea with lemon and honey for your throat, which must be hurting you awfully from all of that coughing and a soft, hot biscuit with butter and jam. You just eat what you can, mija, and don’t worry about the rest,” she said, placing the tray over Gloria’s legs after Seth helped her into a sitting position. After fluffing the pillows behind her back and seeing to it that Gloria was as comfortable as she could make her, she headed for the door, saying, almost as an afterthought, “I’ll see to your breakfast now, Seth.”

  “Thank you so much, Señora Garcia,” Gloria said in her hoarse little voice.

  “You’re very welcome. And you must call me Lola, mija.”

  When she was gone, Gloria looked at Seth, in shock. “What happened to her while I was out?”

  Seth shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems your stock has risen while mine has fallen. I’ve been demoted!” He grinned. “She was a very big help in taking care of you.”

  Gloria took a sip of tea that was the perfect temperature and felt sinfully good on her raw throat. “But you did the lion’s share of the work, I’d bet.”

  He flushed. “We both wanted you to recover as quickly as possible, and we worked together to do that.”

  “Stop being so modest. And thank you, Seth.” She reached over and patted his hand. “I’m sorry to have been such a burden.”

  Seth turned his hand and captured her tiny one, looking deeply into her eyes, wanting to say more, but hesitant to do so. “You could never be that, Gloria. I’m so glad you’re feeling better.”

  She was, and she continued to get better every day, but he was like a nervous mother hen watching over a sickly chick. Although he got out and did some work while Lola rode herd on her, he spent as much time with her as he could even though she was clearly on the mend. He read to her which she loved because he changed his voice with each character and even sometimes acted out what they were doing, which usually had her laughing so hard she’d have a coughing fit. He not only ate with her, Lola also got into the habit of doing so as well. Seth would play cards with her although he refused to let her win and he was embarrassingly good at every game they played.

  Anything to keep her occupied and out of mischief.

  Her recovery was going well, but now she was going to die of boredom instead. One afternoon, when Lola was sitting with her, she asked her the question that had been on her mind since she’d begun to get better.

  “Why the change of heart about me, Lola? You weren’t nasty to me in any way, but you definitely let me know that you weren’t at all happy to have me here. What happened that made you change your opinion of me so radically?”

  Her question didn’t seem to faze the older woman in the least, as if she’d been patiently waiting for her to ask it all this time.

  “I’ll tell you why, although I’m not sure you’re ready to hear it, Gloria.” Lola cleared her throat and met the young woman’s eyes as she spoke. “It’s because I know he loves you. And if he loves you, I love you. I saw the truth of it in the way he took care of you throughout this. He never left your side, mija. He was in such terrible anguish because you were ill and there was so little he could do about it. I have waited a very long time for him to find the right one, and I believe that that is you.”

  Gloria could barely believe what she was hearing, but Lola wasn’t finished.

  “And, if you’ll just stop fighting it, I know you’ll come to realize that you love him, too. I hope you’re able to do that soon, mija. Don’t waste time—it’s the most precious thing God gives us, and we have so little of it to spend with our loved ones.”

  With that, she rose and kissed Gloria’s cheek, leaving the devastatingly shocked young woman with a small, knowing smile.

  Gloria couldn’t even begin to process what she’d just heard, wishing she’d never asked the question of the woman who was rapidly becoming a friend. So she tucked that enormous, stupefying tidbit of information away, knowing that, at the moment, she really couldn’t handle the truth of what she’d been told.

  Seth continued to be unrepentantly overprotective of her. He wouldn’t even allow her to get out of bed until the doctor visited again, which, he announced when he arrived back from town one afternoon and headed for his room first thing, would be a couple of days yet, as he was helping with an epidemic in another town.

  “I don’t believe you!” Gloria said petulantly.

  He balked. “Why would you say that?”

  She knew that Lola was outside, hanging laundry, so she was free to say it.

  “Because you don’t want me to get better. If I did you’d have to stop doing… it.”

  “What?” He was truly confused, having no idea to what she was referring.

  She scowled at him fiercely. “You know what I mean.”

  “I assure you that I don’t, Gloria. Would you care to enlighten me?” he asked, sitting on the bed beside her.

  “It! It!” she nearly shrieked, as if he should have understood. Then she looked pointedly at the nightstand, and it dawned on him.

  He had continued to take her temperature in that atrociously mortifying manner, every four hours, without fail, since he had been told to do so by the doctor. He had not made any kind of exception now that she was obviously much better and hadn’t had a fever in days.

  And he had almost succeeded in training her to expect to be “soothed” in that very intimate manner every time he did it.

  “Ahhh,” he said, comprehension dawning. Then he turned back to her. “Speaking of which, it’s been about four hours since I left…”

  “No! I won’t let you! Seth! Stop!”

  But even in her more recovered state, she was no match for him, and he easily subdued her, having his way with her body while she lay helpless, driven to pleasure by his nimble fingers, the violent release often propelling her into a deep sleep afterwards, as he held her in his arms and commiserated with her in a tone that let her know that he wasn’t all that sympathetic to her plight.

  Finally, the doctor did come and declared her healthy, but also stated that she needed to ease back into her life. School hadn’t continued with her gone. There was no one qua
lified to take her place so her students had languished in her absence, and she was eager to get back.

  Her mother hen, however, had other ideas, and he kept her home for another week before finally allowing her to go back. She had moved out of his room the day the doctor said she was cured, but she could feel his hungry eyes on her every evening, when she excused herself to go to her lonely bed.

  On the day before she’d be allowed to return to teaching, she approached Lola after breakfast. “I was wondering if you’d mind… I mean, do you know how to make something called tamales?”

  “Of course, mija,” Lola said. “Would you like me to have them for supper tonight? I’d be glad to make you some if you promise to eat. You still are too thin.”

  “Oh, I didn’t mean...” Gloria shook her head and smiled. “Actually, I have no idea what a tamale is but I’d like to learn if you don’t mind teaching me. I promised the children that we could include them in our picnic. Poor things have had to wait for so long for the day of thanksgiving. I thought it would be a nice surprise if I welcomed them back with a treat.”

  “So I’ll be the teacher and you my student?” Lola teased.

  “Yes, but only if you don’t mind.”

  Lola didn’t only not mind, the two women spent the entire morning working side by side, the older woman sharing the recipe as well as some stories about her childhood in Mexico. It amazed Gloria how quickly and neatly the woman could roll hers into corn husks soaked in water. While hers looked like neat little packages, Gloria’s were all different shapes and sizes.

  “Don’t you fret, mija,” Lola said, giving her cheek a pat. “They will taste just as delicious as mine. Now, you better get into bed before Seth gets back. When Gloria assured her that she wasn’t the least bit tired, she discovered that, older or not, the woman had an unerring sense of direction as the hand that had just caressed her cheek landed on her rear.

  “Yes, ma’am,” Gloria said, her cheeks flushing and yet feeling nothing but a sense of being cared for. She slid into her bed, and was asleep within minutes, her nostrils twitching when catching the delicious aroma of steamed tamales on the air.