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Until, finally, he let go. And she went flying.
Squealing with delight, she kicked her legs out in front of her. “Higher! Higher!” she screamed as she swung back toward him.
Dean’s loud laughter mingled with her own as he gave her another shove, sending her just a little bit closer to the heavens.
With everywhooshof air around her, it felt as though her worries were being swept away, one by one. She knew she should feel cold, but it was as if the physical world couldn’t touch her in this state. Like she was beyond cold, and pain, and fear, on some other plane where the only thing that truly existed was joy and freedom.
“...warmed up.”
The tail end of Dean’s statement cut through her happiness as he grabbed the chains, forcing her to slow. “What?”
“I said, it’s time to go back inside and get you warmed up, babygirl,” he repeated with a soft chuckle. “Your cheeks are so rosy Santa Claus would be jealous.”
“But I’m not cold. I wanna keep swinging!”
“If you’re a good girl, we can come back outside after lunch and play for a bit. All right?”
“But—”
“Or you could keep arguing with me and you can spend the afternoon sitting on a sore bottom and writing lines about being a good listener. Your choice.”
Deflated, she sagged in her seat. “I’ll come inside.”
“Good choice.” Flashing her a wide grin full of what she thought might be pride, he reached out to take her hand and pull her to her feet. “Your hands are like blocks of ice, babygirl. And… weren’t you wearing another sweater when we came out here?”
Uh oh. Busted.She could lie and sneak back up to the fort to retrieve it when they came back out after lunch. But she had a feeling the punishment for disobeying himandlying would be a lot worse than if she just fessed up.
“Yes, Sir.”
“Where’s your other sweater, then?”
“Umm, up there.” She tugged her hand from his grip to point up at the fort.
“Naughty girl. Go get it and we’ll go inside.”
Not willing to risk any more trouble, she raced up the ladder to the top of the fort and grabbed her sweater, yanking it over her head before she traveled down the slide one last time.
“Thank you for listening, babygirl. Let’s go.”
Nerves twisted her tummy into knots, but she let him take her hand and lead her back into the house. To her surprise, he didn’t take her straight to the living room like she’d expected, but to the kitchen.
“All right, little girl.” Face set in stern lines, he turned to face her, giving her hand a tight squeeze before he released it to cross his arms over his broad chest. “Can you tell me what happened with your sweater?”
Unable to form words with the sudden lump that had formed in her throat, she shrugged.
“Let me rephrase. Why did you take your sweater off?”
“I dunno,” she whispered.
“Honey, I don’t want to punish you until I have the full story. Were you too hot?”
“Sorta.” Ugh, she should have just said yes so they could just get the stupid spanking over with.
“Okay. Did you just get tired of wearing it?”
That was probably as close to the truth as they were going to get with her basically being unable to speak. “Uh huh.”
“I see. And do you think taking the sweater off without talking to me first was a good choice?”
