An Old-Fashioned Education by Fiona Wilde Read Free Book Online

want me here. And now no one else will, either.”
    “I’m not taking you back for two reasons,” he said. “The first is the most obvious, I can’t. In case you haven’t noticed, there’s about ten inches of snow on the ground and another front’s coming through tomorrow. The second reason is because you want me to, and the last thing I’m going to do is give you what you want. Not after what you’ve done to us. A baby almost died, Polly. We could be planning a funeral right now, do you understand that? The cord was around its neck. He was born blue. It took the midwife some real effort to get him to breathe. The extra minutes it took to call for help almost cost that kid his life.”
    Polly began to cry. “Stop,” she said. “Just stop…”
    “Why? Because you don’t want to feel guilty? Because you want to just pretend there are not consequences for your actions? I told you when you arrived, out here, working together and being straight with one another isn’t just about good manners, it’s about survival. This is about the worst thing anyone here’s ever done.”
    Polly felt horrible. Now she was not only stuck in Pepper’s Hollow, but was a pariah as well.
    “I can’t undo what you’ve done,” he said. “That’s going to take a while, Polly. You’re going to have to earn your way back into acceptance with this community. But the first step is going to be accountability. Everyone here is accountable. You break the rules, you suffer the consequences. For you, that’s going to start with the switching you almost caused little Peter to get.”
    The switch. She’d forgotten about it. Walt took the seat Benjamin Criner had been sitting in when she’d first burst through the door. Beside him on the table, the switch lay there, pale where the bark had been stripped.
    “I can’t,” she said, backing away.
    “You will,” he said. “You’re going to pull those jeans down, pull those panties down and lay yourself across my lap. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m going to tear your ass up and everyone within 500 yards of this cabin is going to hear you screaming. But they need to. They need to know that I’m taking care of business. And they need to know that the rules apply to you as surely as they apply to any other member of the community.”
    “Mr. Springer, please…”
    He picked up the switch. “Take your pants down. Now. I’m in no mood to fuss with you. You have to the count of five. If you’re not across my lap, then I’m going to drag your butt to the main hall and whip your bare ass in front of the entire lunch crowd. You got that?”
    She did not for one moment think he was bluffing as he began to count. Polly’s fingers were shaking so badly that she could barely undo her blue jeans. Tears were already coursing down her face as she lowered them to the top of her thighs. When she put her thumbs in the waistband of her panties, she looked at Walt imploringly, hoping for a last-minute reprieve.
    “Down with them,” he said. “I’m already on three.”
    She pulled them down, exhaling in a ragged breath as she complied.
    “Take the coat off, too,” Walt said. “I’m not going to spank you through that.”
    “Oh…” Polly looked almost absent-mindedly at the jacket she still wore. Slipping it off, she let it fall to the floor. She was glad her sweater was long enough to cover her from view.
    “Come on now,” he said. “Let’s get this over with.”
    Polly could feel her heart pounding in her chest. He reached for the switch as she positioned herself over his knee. When his hand touched her back, she instinctively tried to stand, but he was ready for this and pushed her forward and down. Polly felt Walt’s strong, muscular arm tighten around her waist. She knew he intended to hurt her enough to make her want to fight.
    But she was not aware of how bad the switch would hurt. She heard the “whish” of it and almost instantaneously felt the burning line of pain on