Finding Their Bliss (Corbin's Bend Book 1) Read online

  “Hey, Brent,” Kelli called. “Come on in. I turned her heat up and made some hot chocolate too.” Her soft voice chatted as he walked in the front door. Looking around in a daze, Char had a hard time figuring out what was different, though something definitely was. “Her bedroom is down the hallway,” she informed him, pointing down the hall. “Put her on the bed and I'll come help her change into pajamas.”

  Obviously none of these people understood the concept of space. Brent put her down on her bed before untying and then removing her wet shoes and socks.

  “Poor dear,” Kelli said soothingly, walking into the room with a mug of hot chocolate. “Go on,” she tutted at him, pushing him toward the door. “I’ll call you as soon as she’s decent.”

  He muttered something that sounded like, “Damned mother hen,” but it was said in such a pleasant voice, as if it was a compliment rather than a put down, that Char could not pull up animosity for it.

  Kelli smiled softly at her. “How are you feeling, Hon?”

  “Head hurts,” she mumbled.

  “I’m sure. Lelo says you hit your head pretty hard… oh, I see you did. Poor thing. Where are your pajamas?”

  It took a few seconds for the question to make sense to her. “Uh, I don’t own any,” she admitted. She always slept in the nude.

  “Okay, well I'm going to go look in your closet for something warm for you to wear. Let’s get you out of those clothes. You must be freezing.” Warm, sure hands helped her out of her shirt and jeans before plumping up the pillows for Char to rest on and pulling her fluffy comforter over her. After handing her the mug of chocolate, Kelli walked over to the closet. “Hon? There’s nothing in here.”

  Laughing softly, Char nodded. “Yeah, I haven’t exactly unpacked yet.”

  “That’s all right. You stay and drink that and I'll find your clothes. Box or suitcase?”

  “Box.”

  It was difficult to keep her eyes open even as she sipped the smooth hot chocolate. It was wonderful. Char wondered if she had used milk instead of water. Whatever her secret, Kelli made a kick-ass cup of hot chocolate.

  “Well, you should probably get some warmer gear, but this will work for now.” Kelli walked in with one of Charmagne’s college sweatshirts, a pair of sweats, and her bunny slippers.

  Giggling slightly, Char helped Kelli dress her, though in retrospect her helping was probably more of a hindrance, and when she laid back on the bed, she was too exhausted to move. “You sleep now, Hon,” Kelli’s soft voice said. “I’ll go tell Brent you’re asleep.”

  “’Kay,” Char mumbled before drifting into slumber.

  She woke up suddenly, making one of those startled movements where she sat up before she was fully awake, breathing hard and clutching her chest where her heart was beating madly. “Hello?” she called, though unsure why.

  A creak to her right surprised her and she turned her head just as a small lamp came on. Brent walked quickly to her side. “Headache?” he asked, reaching out a hand to touch the side of her face gently.

  “Nightmare. What are you doing here?” She immediately felt stupid for the question as the evening before came back to her. “Sorry. I forgot.”

  His lips quirked. “Hitting one’s head hard can do that. How are you feeling?” His deep voice was calming and very reassuring for some reason. Without thinking about it, she curled back into bed, her heart beginning to slow down to normal.

  “My head hurts a little,” she admitted. “Mostly I just feel… scared.” Later on she would worry at having admitted to such a thing, but here in the dark it felt right.

  “That also is normal. You’ve just had a large move, you're still unpacking, and you have now been in an accident. Any one of those would be jarring, let alone all three.”

  That reminded her. “My truck?” She hoped it could be repaired easily. It was only a couple years old and she really did not want to buy a new one.

  “Lelo said the back end is caved in. He will take it to his house tomorrow and check it out. If anyone can fix it, he can.” He smiled gently at her and she nodded. Her mother told her never to accept charity from strangers and she would be sure to pay this Lelo person, but for now she would just accept their generosity. “And Kelli got all your food put away. She says you will probably want to rearrange it to how you want it, but it's all in your pantry.”

  “Tell them thank you,” she murmured as she felt herself become hazy.

  “I will. Would you like a pain pill before you go back to sleep?”

  She never knew if she answered him.

  When she woke up, she saw that this time there was light coming in her windows, the pure white of new snow rather than sunlight, but right now she was happy it was no longer nighttime. Now, in the light of day, she was embarrassed to have let a stranger carry her all over the place, let alone stay at her house all night. Plus, two other strangers had been in her house last night. This could be dangerous. She needed to draw the line that would tell these people to back off.

  Friendships were dangerous, and she did not want to get hurt again. Taking a deep breath, she struggled to her feet and was able to take two steps before the world spun around her, and she screamed as she fell to the floor.

  ****

  Standing at the large cooktop, Brent kept his attention on the eggs that were cooking. The last twenty-four hours had been a bit of a wake-up call for him and he was still trying to come to terms with his attraction for the woman a few rooms away. Marcus had noticed it first. It wasn’t until Brent informed him of her brown eyes that he realized Marcus was ahead of him. Of course, he knew to some extent he was attracted the moment she opened the door. Tiny, almost elfin, she appeared fragile, and yet there was a strength to her he admired. When he shook her hand, he did not want to let go.

  It had been years since he felt this kind of instant attraction to a woman. The last had been his fiancée, Elizabeth. That relationship had changed many things for him, including the fact that he found out others enjoyed spanking as well. He had always kept that particular desire to himself until Eliza begged him to spank her. Over their five years together, they had developed a wonderful domestic discipline relationship. When cancer took her away from him, it felt like a huge chunk of his heart was ripped away as well.

  Friends of theirs who were also into DD had gathered around him, supporting him in the lowest times of his life. When she was alive, they had talked about how wonderful it would be if they could build a community of people who enjoyed what they did so they did not have to hide it. After her death, his friends Jason, Corbin, and Calbert convinced him it could be done. When he was shot on the job and spent three months in physical therapy overcoming his injuries, he knew he could not go back to his career. Instead, he put all of his energy into researching a legal way to create a spanking-friendly community.

  It took two years of planning before they were able to get all the legal contracts lined up and the okay from the state of Colorado to build it here in the middle of nowhere. Of the thousand single-family dwellings, over four hundred were filled, and they received applications daily. He would admit they were choosy. The last thing they wanted was for someone with a grudge to move in and make life difficult for the rest of them.

  Life here was happy. He kept busy with administering the development, making sure everything ran smoothly. There were twelve single women in the community, and he and the other single men were hit on constantly. They were called upon also when one of the twelve broke one of their laws and had to submit to a spanking. It never occurred to him that another woman would affect him like Eliza did.

  Lelo had been blunt about it last night. “You like her. She's pretty. You better do something before another guy gets her. About damned time you were interested in someone.”

  Kelli was worse. “Oooh! Brent, she's sweet. You two will be so cute together. Let me know if you need someone to help mentor her.”

  Shaking his head, he turned off the burner and poured the eg
gs onto a plate he had waiting. Putting down the pan, he turned toward the fridge to get her some orange juice when a loud scream startled him. A cop for fifteen years before he retired, he quickly shifted into alert mode and made his way back to her bedroom, pushing the door open cautiously just in case there was someone there. Instead he found her in a lump on the floor.

  “Dear lord!” he exclaimed in frustration, shaking off the stillness that came with his policeman mindset, quickly picking her up and placing her back on the bed. For such a tiny person, she could certainly get into a lot of scrapes. The dominant part of him wanted to tell her not to move and that if she did, he would turn her over his knee and pound her backside, but that was not acceptable. At least not yet.

  If he had his way – if she could accept spanking and domestic discipline – he looked forward to getting to know her.

  Her eyes slowly opened and she stared at him. “I fell down,” she murmured.

  “I know,” he said with a huff of laughter. “Stay there. I'll bring you some food.”

  “Bathroom,” she moaned.

  “What?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom. It's why I fell down the last time.”

  “All right. I'll carry you in there and then carry you back when you’re done.”

  Chapter 3

  Embarrassed, that’s what she was. Char was completely and utterly mortified by the way she acted three days ago. Brent was just being a nice guy, helping her, and instead of acting thankful like any normal person should, she bit his head off and told him to get out of her house and out of her life.

  It was not one of her finer moments.

  She supposed she could come up with excuses: she was tired, hurt, getting over an accident. There were tons to choose from, but none of them were the reason any of this happened. Setting her pen next to the pad of paper she had been glaring at for the last two hours, she knew she was not going to get anything done until she made amends. The paper in front of her was filled with doodles in all the corners so that the paper appeared like a piece of stationary with a border of flowers and leaves, albeit a lined piece of stationary with a border of flowers and leaves. Not one actual word had made it onto the page.

  Leaning back in her desk chair, she forced herself to go over that horrible day. After she fainted and he picked her up off the floor, he had insisted on carrying her into the bathroom. True, he was a gentleman and left her next to the toilet before leaving the room, but still, no woman wanted the man she’d just met and found attractive to think of her in any way associated with such a basic human function.

  Peeing was not sexy.

  Then, after she flushed the toilet, she got to her feet and struggled to the vanity to wash her face, brush her teeth, and try to make herself look less like Medusa when he opened the door. “You should have told me you were done,” he chided, putting an arm around her waist. “Hurry up and I'll take you back to bed.”

  And it got worse. He brought her breakfast in bed, found and brought her clothing – including her panties and bra – to change into, and to top it off, refused to let her walk anywhere. He carried her out to her living room when she insisted on going there, as well as out to his vehicle when it was time for him to force her to go to the doctor’s office.

  By the time they reached Dr. Devon’s office, she was speaking to him in a clipped, acid-like tone that he did not even seem to take notice of. In fact, the more acidic she was, the gentler his eyes seemed to become. When the good doctor gave her a vote of confidence, she smacked Brent’s hand away from helping her down off the table or, even worse, carrying her out to his truck.

  And then her attitude grew shoddier.

  She was in pain, though she had not told the doctor that, mortified by the morning’s events and pissed off at the gorgeous man to her left who was being far too nice, considering how she was reacting to him. So when they reached her house, she told him off.

  Grimacing at the memory, she rubbed her eyes, as if by doing so she could forget that horrible moment.

  He had just gotten out of the driver’s side of his truck when she slipped out of the passenger side, hitting the snow with a thump, but still managing to stay upright, and began her walk to the front door. “Whoa,” he said, grasping her arm. “You still aren’t well enough to—”

  Wrenching her arm out of his grasp, she climbed the few steps up to her porch and turned around, glaring at him from a much higher vantage point. Here she could almost stare him straight in the eyes. “Look. I’m fine. I don’t know why you feel you need to treat me like an invalid or old lady but I assure you, I can wipe my own ass!”

  His eyebrows rose and a small cough left his lips, a cough that she had the feeling was a cover for a laugh. “I’m sure you can,” he said dryly. “But you’re in the middle of Nowhere, Colorado, Ms. Kendle. If you fell down, who would know? If your head began to hurt badly, how would you get help? I take pride in this community and do my best to help her residents. I—”

  “Oh, good for you! If you remember, I'm not a member of your precious housing development. So, why don’t you just leave me alone? I do not want or need your help, Mr. Carmichael.” On her high from telling him off, she turned and walked up to the door… only to realize she had left her purse in his truck. He seemed to realize the problem, and by the time she turned to march down the stairs to retrieve it, he had gone to the cab and was back, holding it out to her. Neither of them said a word as she turned back to the door, unlocked it, and walked in, slamming it behind her.

  Her high lasted all of about a millisecond before she crashed onto her couch and cried. She had spent most of the last two days in bed trying to forget. Unfortunately it didn't work, though not for want of trying. Yesterday she had been brought out of staring at her ceiling by the perpetual ringing of her doorbell. When she opened it, it was to find Lelo and Kelli on her porch smiling widely at her.

  “Fixed your truck,” he told her, holding out her keys. “I also put some chains on her. This way you can go up and down your own drive with ease.”

  “Thanks,” she said after a moment’s surprise, opening the security door. “How much do I owe you?”

  “Nothing,” he assured her as Kelli walked inside and he followed, closing the door behind them against the chill in the air.

  “No, I’m sorry, I cannot take charity. I have the money. How much did it cost to fix?” she asked a little more firmly, grabbing her purse and pulling out her checkbook.

  He gave her an amused smile. “Brent paid me already for it. You'll have to take that up with him.”

  She wanted to scream, rail, do something… but she was still embarrassed about her words with the frustrating, gorgeous man. “Oh.”

  Kelli smiled. “Are you doing all right? Brent said it was a nasty bump.”

  “I’m fine,” Char said, reaching up to touch the bandage that still covered her stitches. “So, um, why don’t you have a seat?” In truth, she wanted them to go, but how could she kick them out when they were being so nice? Corbin’s Bend residents were so nice, they were scary. Where were the rude ones? The angry ones? The bitches? Surely they must have them. She desperately needed neighbors she could be rude to at the moment.

  They stayed for an hour and chatted before leaving to go to dinner, and afterward she had been a bit restless. The restlessness was a perfect excuse for drinking two tumblerfuls of Jack Daniels. Of course, then she got to blame the whiskey for making her throw up at one in the morning. All-in-all, it was a sucky night.

  And here she was, unable to do anything but think about it. The person inside who wanted to disappear into the woodwork and become a nonentity in the area just wanted to pay him off and forget about him and the rest of them. But the real her felt bad for what she had said to him, especially as he had gone out of his way to help her. Finding out from Kelli yesterday that that was just Brent’s way made her feel even worse.

  “All right, Char,” she mumbled to herself. “Time to pull up the adult panties an
d grow a pair.” Pulling out her cell phone, she grabbed the tan envelope she still had not opened up and quickly emptied the array of paperwork onto her desk. Thankfully the phone list was on top.

  His number was the third one down, listed under Carmichael, Brent. Housing Board, President. Discipline Board, Vice President.

  Discipline Board? Was that what they called their police force?

  Taking a huge, deep breath, she quickly dialed his number and sat back, hoping she could sound like an adult rather than a raving lunatic as she had the last time they spoke.

  “Carmichael,” he barked into the phone.

  He sounded angry. Did she really want to talk to him while he was sounding angry? Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.

  “Hello? If this is a crank call, it won’t do you much good.”

  “No, hi,” she said before she could stop herself. “It’s me. Charmagne.”

  “Ah, hello.” Her head came up as his tone lost some of the bark, and her stomach commenced doing weird loop-de-loops.

  “Look, um, I’m really sorry for what I said a few days ago, and I talked to Lelo and he said you paid for my truck’s repairs. So, if you could tell me what I owe—”

  “How are you feeling?”

  What did that have to do with her apology? “Fine. I had a headache for a while, but it's gone now. As I was saying, if you cou—”

  “Would you like to go to dinner?”

  She watched her fingers pick up her pen and begin doodling in the middle of the lined page as if completely disconnected from her body, as she tried to make sense of this completely nonsensical conversation they were having. “Dinner?”

  “Yes. You. Me. Food. At a restaurant. What do you say?” The bark was most definitely gone, but as amusement had taken its place, she began to wish for the bark to come back. The bark made her body tingle.

  She supposed it wouldn’t hurt to go to dinner with a member of the development board, give an in-person apology, and then she could write him a check. By the time she left, she could go back to being by herself.