The Art of Discipline: Dani’s Discovery (The Mockingbird Chronicles) Read online

  Chapter Four

  Emma woke to the smell of something burning and the sound of swearing. Noticing Dani was no longer in bed with her, she made her way toward the noise and shook her head with laughter at the sight before her. Dani was covered in flour, as was the countertop and a good portion of the floor. There was smoke coming from the oven, and Emma was shocked the fire alarm hadn’t gone off yet. The top of the stove wasn’t in any better shape. She had no idea how many eggs Dani had tried to open, but at least half of them had landed on either the stovetop or the floor.

  “Dani, what happened?” Emma asked as she opened the oven to remove the burnt lumps of dough.

  “I wanted to make breakfast for us,” Dani cried.

  “So you decided on a blackened theme?” Emma teased.

  “No, I burned the biscuits, and then the bacon stuck to the pan, and I dropped the eggs.”

  “Sounds about right,” Emma confirmed. “Tell you what, I’ll help you clean up this mess. Then we can get dressed, and you can take me out for breakfast.”

  Surveying her kitchen, Dani started to chuckle. “I think that’s a better plan.”

  “As well as safer,” Emma added.

  * * *

  Dani shifted again in the booth. “Are you sure we can’t take our breakfast to go?”

  Emma shook her head. “No, we’re eating here, so you can stop asking.”

  Dani crossed her arms over her chest and pouted as she winced. Her bottom was still sore, and Emma’s teasing and lack of sympathy wasn’t helping. Then again, since Emma put her bottom in this state, asking for sympathy was probably a little silly.

  The women sat in silence, looking out the window by their booth. Each lost in her own thoughts, they were interrupted as the waitress put breakfast down on the table.

  “Excuse me, but where’s the diet soda I asked for?” Dani asked the waitress before she could leave their table.

  The waitress looked at Emma and then back to Dani. “I thought you wanted orange juice.”

  “But I ordered diet soda,” Dani protested, looking pointedly at Emma.

  “Don’t you think it’s a little early in the day for soda, Danielle?” Emma returned with a raised eyebrow.

  Dani shifted. “The juice is fine,” she gave in, realizing that with her backside still tender, it was best not to argue at the moment.

  The waitress nodded and left them to enjoy the meal.

  “You know, just because you are the boss inside the store doesn’t mean you can boss me around in my personal life,” Dani quietly commented.

  Emma sighed. “I’m not trying to boss you around, Dani. I care for you, and I’m just looking out for your best interest. After all, what would Uncle Sean say if you ordered a soda at breakfast?”

  “I’m not six years old, Emma. I can decide what I eat and drink.”

  “Dani, just what was the nature of the personal errand that Will ran for you?”

  The question caught Dani off guard, and she shifted once again. “What does that matter? We’ve dealt with that already.”

  “I know, but I want to know what was so important that you felt breaking the rules were necessary.”

  Dani put her fork down and sat back against the booth. “I was out of soda, so I sent him to pick me up another case.” Green eyes sparkled, and Dani realized that the news wasn’t news to the redhead. “But you already knew that.”

  Emma nodded. “From now on, no more soda with breakfast.”

  Dani scowled. “Fine.”

  * * *

  Dani shifted from foot to foot. She was tired of standing, but the last thing she wanted to do was sit on the high stool that was behind the counter. It was another long day in the store, two hours into her shift, and they’d hardly had a customer all day.

  After breakfast that morning, she and Emma returned to open. Emma had then retreated to her office to work on paperwork, leaving Dani behind the counter until Anna and Stevie showed up.

  Dani tried to tune out the incessant talking of her two co-workers and was trying to concentrate on her laptop when she suddenly heard a loud slap. Dani’s head popped up at the noise only to see Anna giggling. The raven-haired woman was pinned over one of the tables as her partner swatted her a second time with a large hardcover book.

  Stevie let Anna up, after which she swatted Stevie playfully on the arm as they both giggled. Anna then noticed that Dani was watching them and blushed slightly, playfully pushing Stevie away. Stevie turned as well, giving Dani a grin and a wink.

  Dani chewed on her lip for a moment before her eyes quickly returned to her computer screen. Not that she was reading anything there; it was just a convenient place to hide. Wishing again that she could sit so that she could further hide behind the screen, she glanced at the clock. She was never going to make another four hours of this.

  She managed another fifteen minutes of shifting and avoiding looking at either Stevie or Anna before she gave up and headed to Emma’s office. Knocking softly on the open door, she was met with green eyes and a smile. “Hey, Danielle, what’s up?”

  “Ah, I was just wondering. It’s pretty slow. Would it be okay if I went upstairs for a while?”

  Emma furrowed her brow in concern. “You okay? Sick?”

  Dani shifted from one foot to the other. She didn’t want to lie, but the excuse was almost too convenient. “I’m a little tired. Might want to lie down for a bit.”

  Emma stood and crossed the room, putting the back of her hand on Dani’s cheek. “You’re not warm, but go ahead. I’ll come check on you in a little bit.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m sure I’ll be fine. Just wanna rest for a while.”

  Emma nodded, giving her the permission she needed, to which Dani smiled in thanks, before heading up to her apartment. Once safely inside, though, her smile widened. “Nice,” she praised herself as she quickly walked across to the kitchen and opened a fresh can of diet soda.

  It seemed as soon as Dani left the store, it suddenly got busy. Emma was forced out of her office to help run the register, while Anna and Stevie helped various customers. It was almost three hours later before things slowed again mid-afternoon, and Emma hadn’t even had lunch yet. Deciding a break was in order, she left the store, with the intention of checking on Dani and grabbing something to eat.

  Heading to Dani’s first, she knocked on the door gently without getting an answer. Figuring Dani was sleeping, she slipped her key into the door and let herself in. The main room was deserted, so Emma headed to the bedroom. Finding that room also empty, she just was about to go check to see if Dani’s keys and purse were gone when she heard a loud yell.

  “Sparrow, damn it, look behind you!” Dani’s voice suddenly rang out. “Gunner57, no, to the left… your other left,” Dani continued.

  Thoroughly confused, Emma followed the noise only to discover Dani in her uncle’s study, fully engrossed in some sort of multi-player online game. Dani had her back to the door, with her laptop propped up on one of the built-in shelves. No doubt so she could stand and still access it. She was wearing headphones with a mouthpiece and was yelling various commands at the screen.

  The real surprise, though, was the state of the room itself. Emma counted three empty soda cans, a half-consumed bag of chocolate chip cookies, two different bags of chips, one which had been knocked to the ground and kicked halfway across it, as well as a bowl of popcorn, some of which was also decorating the floor. Shaking her head at the parts of the mess she could actually identify, Emma took a deep breath. “Danielle Elizabeth Ryan!”

  Dani’s back stiffened at the sound of her full name, and she slowly pulled the headphones off as she turned to face Emma’s flaming green eyes.

  “Shut that off, this instant,” Emma commanded.

  Dani swallowed hard as she moved to close the laptop. “Emma,” she started to explain, but Emma shook her head, forbidding Dani to say another word.

  “You don’t look very sick to me.”

&nb
sp; “I never said I was sick,” Dani replied, “just that—”

  “You led me to believe that you weren’t feeling well. It’s the same thing, Danielle.”

  “Do you need me to come back down to the store? Did it pick up?” Dani asked.

  Emma shook her head. “You’re done with work today. It’s obvious you don’t want to be there anyway.” Emma paused, staring down Dani for a moment before she held out a hand. “Give me the laptop.”

  “What? I need it. You can’t just take it. My work.”

  “You didn’t look like you were working to me.”

  “I was just taking a break,” Dani tried to defend herself.

  “Give it to me, Danielle. If I leave without it, I’ll come back with the hairbrush.”

  “Oh, come on,” Dani protested, but she handed over the laptop anyway. “When can I have it back?” she asked in almost a whine.

  “I haven’t decided yet,” Emma snapped. “Tell you what I have decided though. You have exactly one hour to get this mess cleaned up. I doubt you’re hungry after eating all this junk, but I am. I’m going to get something to eat and calm down. One hour, Danielle,” Emma repeated, before turning and storming out of the apartment and toward her own.

  Dani gave herself a minute or two after Emma left to remind herself to breathe again. She hadn’t been this scared since Uncle Sean caught her smoking when she was fourteen. With a sigh, she looked around the room. It was a pigsty. Shaking her head at her own behavior, she bent to pick up the bag of chips from the floor.

  It took her a good twenty minutes to get the study spic and span again. She’d had to vacuum to get all the potato chips up and found herself vacuuming the rest of the apartment as well. She did the few dishes in the sink, straightened up the cushions on the sofa, and even remade her bed, making it as neat as possible.

  By the time her hour was up, she found herself sitting in the middle of the sofa, twitching nervously every time she heard a creak or a noise that could signal Emma’s arrival. Emma managed to drag out the torture though, making her wait nearly another fifteen minutes. By the time Dani heard the key rattle and saw the door knob turn, she was sure her heart would explode from pure stress.

  Not sure if she should stand or say something or what, Dani decided to go for the safest option and study the ground. She sensed Emma move across the room and felt the sofa sag as Emma sat next to her. Only when she felt Emma’s gentle hand on her knee did she look up.

  “You know, Danielle,” Emma began. “I was really worried about you today. I thought you were getting sick.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to worry you.”

  Emma squeezed her knee. “You lied to me, Danielle. You left your shift under false pretenses. That’s unfair to me and to our employees. This is the second day in a row that you’ve skipped out on work.”

  Dani didn’t know what to say, so instead she let her eyes travel back to the floor.

  “I don’t know if you are testing me or if you really just don’t want to be here. I thought we were getting somewhere, Danielle, but seriously, if you don’t want to be here, let me buy you out so you can get back to your life.”

  Dani felt her eyes suddenly fill with tears. They were hot, angry tears of disappointment. “I don’t want to leave. Please don’t make me leave,” she managed to force out.

  The two women sat in silence for a moment as Emma debated what to say and Dani fought the tears that so stubbornly insisted on coming.

  Emma reached out and wiped a tear off Dani’s face with her thumb. “Oh, Dani,” Emma breathed, encouraging Dani to turn toward her as she wrapped her arms securely around her. “Shhh, now. It’s okay,” Emma continued to coo as she rocked Dani gently.

  “I miss him so much,” Dani blubbered between sobs. “He would have been so disappointed in me.”

  “No, sweetie, no. He loved you. Do you have any idea how often he spoke of you? I felt like I knew you before we ever met.”

  “Really?”

  “Yeah, really. He was so damn proud of you, Dani.”

  “He wouldn’t have been proud of the way I acted today,” Dani whispered.

  “No, probably not. He’d probably be paddling your butt right now, giving you a reason to cry,” Emma half joked.

  That got half a smile out of Dani. “Probably,” she agreed, before frowning again. “Is that what you are going to do?”

  Emma considered Dani’s question carefully. “I think there has been enough crying today, so this is what is going to happen. I’m going to keep the laptop until bedtime tomorrow night, which will be at 8:00 p.m., same as tonight.”

  “But—” Dani started to protest.

  Emma held up a finger, silencing her. “Since you were pretending to be sick, you can spend the rest of today and all day tomorrow in bed. No TV, no electronics. You may read or write or draw or sleep, your choice. Since you’ll be missing your shift tomorrow, you can make it up on Saturday.”

  Dani frowned. Grounded—like she was fourteen.

  “And, if you can manage to follow all that, I might consider not paddling your butt before bed tomorrow.”

  Dani’s chin dropped. “Might?”

  Emma smiled. “If you behave and follow the rules, I don’t think you have much to worry about. However, if you don’t, I promise you the spanking you got last night will feel like a warm up compared to tomorrow. Understand?”

  Dani nodded her head.

  “Good. Now go put on some pajamas for me.”

  “What? Why?”

  “So I can remind you to behave before I tuck you in.”

  “But… you said you weren’t going to spank me.”

  “No,” Emma corrected. “I said that if you behave, I wouldn’t paddle you tomorrow night. I wasn’t planning on paddling you tonight, well, unless I need too…”

  “No, no, that’s okay. I get the message, I’ll go change,” Dani grumbled.

  “Good girl,” Emma praised as Dani shuffled toward her bedroom.

  Emma gave Dani five minutes before she followed her. She paused briefly by the study, just to make sure that Dani had indeed cleaned it before heading to the master bedroom. Knocking softly with her knuckles, Emma caught Dani just as she was buttoning up the front of her pajama top.

  Not saying a word, Emma crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed. Turning herself slightly sideways, she motioned for Dani to come closer. Reaching out, she didn’t give Dani any warning as she gave the loose pajama bottoms a tug, encouraging them down to Dani’s knees. She then grabbed her wrist and guided her over one knee, letting Dani’s weight from her torso rest on the mattress.

  “Danielle, tell me why we are here?”

  Dani took in a breath. “Because I mislead you into thinking that I was sick so I could skip out on my shift at work.”

  Emma smiled, pleased with the response. “And tell me, Danielle, was it worth it?”

  Dani was quiet for a long moment, but when she did speak, her voice betrayed her as she squeaked out, “No.”

  Emma reached down and slid Dani’s panties down over her hips. She then ran the palm of her hand along each cheek, as if memorizing the bruises from the paddling the night before. She heard Dani sniffle and for a moment regretted what she knew she had to do. But she wasn’t going to shy away from her task now.

  Raising her hand, she let it fall quickly and rapidly, alternating cheeks with each strike. Dani moaned and wiggled under her attack, but like the night before, Emma held her securely around the waist. Emma tried her best to avoid the worst of the bruising but knew that Dani was in no way comfortable. Her hand fell no more than two dozen times, but it didn’t take much to rekindle the fire in Dani’s backside. When she stopped, it was almost as hot as it has been the previous night.

  Dani seemed to agree, for when Emma let her up, Dani’s hands flew to her backside in an inane attempt to rub out the heat. Giving her a moment to calm down, Emma reached out and pulled her closer.

  Dani winced as her st
ill-burning bottom came in contact with Emma’s lap. “Did you really have to do that?” she whined, wishing that she was still rubbing her sore backside.

  “What do you think?” Emma asked.

  Dani frowned but eventually caved. “If I ever deserved a spanking, I guess it was for today’s stunt. But did you have to do it bare?”

  “Yes, Danielle. I bared you for your own protection. I wanted to see the damage from yesterday to make sure I didn’t hurt you unnecessarily.”

  “Well, if you didn’t want to hurt me, you could have just not spanked me,” Dani complained.

  “That’s true, but really, I think you more than earned this spanking. Let’s just make sure you don’t earn another tomorrow, okay?” Emma encouraged. Dani continued her frown as Emma motioned for her to stand and then replaced her panties and pajama bottoms. “Now, off to bed with you.”

  Dani reluctantly crawled under the sheets, careful to keep her position so that her bottom didn’t make contact with the mattress. She couldn’t help but glance at the clock, noticing that it was almost four.

  “Do I really have to take a nap? I mean, I already have to go to bed early, and I won’t be able to sleep if I nap now.”

  Emma studied Dani for a moment. “If you promise me that you’ll stay in bed, you don’t have to sleep. I think the early bedtime will satisfy the nap requirement this time,” Emma agreed.

  “I’ll stay in bed if you’ll stay with me,” Dani bargained, hoping Emma would agree.

  “I can’t right now. I need to finish up downstairs. After we close though, I’ll bring dinner up before I tuck you in for the night.”

  Dani sighed, supposing that would have to do. “Emma, could you do one more thing for me before you leave?”

  “Sure, Dani, what do you need?”

  “Would you bring me Uncle Sean’s copy of To Kill a Mockingbird? I think I’d like to read it.”