Courted by Discipline: A Courting Romance (In Hyacinth Book 1) Read online

  “I know. But sometimes we have to do what we don’t want. Now, wash your face and come down.” Carilyn reached out, cupping Kathy’s face in both her hands. “Gerry loves you, honey. He just wants the best for you. Plus, he’s looking like someone ran over his puppy at the moment because he knows you’re angry at him. Please come down and put him out of his misery? And if not him? At least put me out of mine. Right now he’s trying to help to try to get his mind off things. He actually suggested putting shelving in the corners of my kitchen. It’s driving me mad.”

  Snorting out a laugh she couldn’t help, Kathy nodded. “Okay.” As soon as she washed her face and took a comb to her hair, she made her way downstairs. As the table wasn’t set, she gathered plates, glasses, and cutlery and quickly set their places, purposefully not looking at her father who was measuring the corner next to the fridge.

  They sat down and after prayer, passed around the food. Surprised at the barbequed pork chops as that was one of her favorites, Kathy finally looked up at her father who offered her a small smile. “I’m sorry it was such a big surprise,” he said calmly. “But I do need you to know I believe it’s in your best interest to live a Hyacinth life.”

  She turned back to her food, unable to respond. Thankfully he seemed to understand as he didn’t call her on it. The pork chops did not taste as good as they normally would as she knew they were apology food. And it wasn’t even an apology, really. He wasn’t saying, “I won’t make you court some guy.” He was saying, “I’m doing this for your own good.”

  Just like he did when he disciplined her. Sitting up straight, she stared at her food in surprise. The discipline, as much as she hated it, actually was a good thing. She felt better afterward… well, except for the smarting rear. And she always knew he forgave her for whatever she had done when he did it. “Daddy?” she said when there was a lull in the conversation. He looked up in surprise. She rarely called him Daddy except after he spanked her. “What if I don’t like any of them?”

  “If I don’t feel that any of those young men are good enough for you, they won’t be courting you,” he said firmly. “And if I find one that is, in that year he won’t just be proving himself to you. He will also have to prove to me that he’s worthy of you.” Reaching over, he squeezed her arm. “And that is no easy feat.”

  She wasn’t exactly mollified as it seemed that her liking a guy wasn’t a prerequisite to courting him, but she decided that if nothing else, she could give it a try. Just because she was meeting guys who wanted to court her didn’t mean anything. Guys at her old high school had wanted to date her and only a couple had gotten past her father. “Okay,” she whispered, cutting off another piece of meat and stuffing it in her mouth.

  A large smile spread across his face. “It’ll be great, honey. I promise.”

  That remained to be seen. But for right now, she wouldn’t hate her father. If he chose a jerk, though, all bets were off.

  “Oh,” she said, remembering. “A girl I met. Cami. She’s going around to places for volunteer opportunities this week and wondered if I could come along.”

  “Who are her parents?” Gerald asked, eating with gusto now that she was talking to him again.

  “I don’t know. I’m not even sure what her last name is. She’s the one I was talking to at the picnic.”

  After chewing and swallowing, he took a moment to drink some water before he replied. “I would like to know who her parents are before we let her take you somewhere.” Nodding, as that was a normal-enough response from her protective father, she wondered how she could find out.

  “Have you had a chance to look over the events list for this summer?” he asked.

  “No! I’d forgotten actually. After dinner, I’ll go grab it.”

  With the tension out of the air, the rest of the evening was kind of enjoyable. She did all the dishes to make up for not helping her mother make dinner, giggling as her mother shooed her dad out of the kitchen when he tried to go back to measuring. As soon as the kitchen was clean again, she ran upstairs and got the events list and brought it back downstairs. As she stepped off the last step, the phone rang and her father walked out of the room to answer it.

  “Anything good?” Carilyn asked as Kathy sat down.

  Looking down at the list of classes, trips, and events that were planned for the summer, Kathy was actually kind of impressed. “Wow. They have something for every day during the week all summer long.” Before she could continue, her father walked back into the room, holding out the phone.

  “It’s a Cami,” he explained, chuckling when she jumped up, grabbed it, and ran upstairs.

  “Hi!” she said once she closed her door behind her.

  “Hi, Kathy. Sorry about calling so late. Are you able to go volunteer shopping with me this week?”

  “I asked, but my dad wants to know more about your family before he agrees.”

  “Drat. Though, I’m not surprised. If it weren’t that Dad knows all the other families in town, he would do the same thing. So, do you have some time to chat?”

  “Definitely,” she said lying down on her bed with her feet tapping on the pillows and her head on her hands on the foot of the bed. “So, I just found out about this whole courting thing…”

  “What about it?” The confusion in Cami’s tone made Kathy shake her head.

  “Do you realize that in other places couples just date all sorts of people without the intent of getting married?”

  “That’s kind of pointless. What’s the use?”

  The two of them talked about courting and Hyacinth for over two hours until a knock came at her door. “Hold a second, Cami.—Yeah?”

  The door opened and her father stuck his head in, shaking his head as he saw she was still on the phone. “Come down for prayers.”

  Glancing up, Kathy was surprised to see it was already nine. “Be right down.” As soon as he shut the door, she went back to the call. “Sorry, Cami. I gotta go. Family prayer.” As she said the last two words, she paused, half expecting some sort of rude comment which was the kind of thing she got from girls in her last town.

  “Me too. I’m sure Dad’s waiting with a look that says ‘you’re late, young lady’,” she said with a giggle. “Talk to you later, Kathy.”

  As Kathy joined her parents after hanging the phone up, she said, “Cami’s going to have her father contact you so you can get to know him better.”

  “Perfect. Who is he?” he inquired as the three of them knelt down.

  Startled, she felt a blush tinge her cheeks. “I forgot to ask.” His roar of laughter filled the whole room.

  The next few days were extremely busy. Carilyn and Kathy worked hard painting the entire downstairs so that Gerald could rest when he got back from work. By Wednesday, all of the rooms any guests would see had two coats of paint. “We’d better stop there,” Carilyn suggested as they finished the second coat in the living room. “Give the house a couple days to air out the paint smell before your—” She paused and placed her hand over her mouth. Kathy reached over and put her hand on her arm, afraid her mother was having some sort of reaction to the paint fumes. “Before your gentleman callers arrive,” she finally squeaked, bursting into laughter.

  Rolling her eyes, Kathy shook her paintbrush at her, spattering her mother with paint. “Ha ha, very funny.”

  Snickering and hiccupping, Carilyn nodded. “Sorry,” she gasped out. “Suddenly the phrase came to me and I couldn’t not say it.”

  “Uh-huh.” Kathy tried to appear stern, but her lips were twitching. Her mother’s laughter was so infectious it was hard to keep a straight face.

  She would have liked to ignore the fact that three men were coming to meet her in a few days to check her out like a prized cow, but that was all that came to mind. Cami had acted like it was the most normal thing in the world when they talked on the phone on Sunday.

  “Of course, I’ve known Damian my entire life,” she said at one point. “His mother and my grandmoth
er were good friends. When he went away to college and came home, I figured it was no good wishing as I was only thirteen and had so long to wait to reach marriageable age.” She giggled. “I had no idea he would wait. I mean, it’s not like he’s declared himself or anything, but he has never entered the courting pool and he comes to dinner here twice a month. I can hardly wait until I turn eighteen and can be officially courted. It must be strange, though, coming into town not knowing of the rules and suddenly hearing about it. I would probably mouth off to Dad if he had done that to me. And gotten a spanking for it,” she added dryly.

  That all the girls had the same rules she did made Kathy feel warmth toward the community. It was wonderful to have that be the norm. For once, she didn’t feel weird for having a father who was the head of the house.

  For some reason, Kathy had assumed all the gentleman callers, as her mother referred to them, would come on the same night. As it turned out, she would get one each night. “Like the ghosts from A Christmas Carol,” she mumbled when Gerald informed her Friday morning before he went to work. Unfortunately her words combined with her glower and the fact she interrupted him merited her ten swats with his belt. Her constant reminder all day every time she tried to sit down made it even more difficult to be excited for the evening’s festivities.

  Added to it, her mother had insisted they made rather time-intensive meals for each night. “Something to showcase your cooking talents,” she explained, ignoring Kathy’s grimace.

  It was difficult to do something she both wanted to do and loathed to do at the same time. If she knew the guy and wanted to date him, she would want to make the most wonderful meal on the planet, and knowing that one of these guys could end up courting her pushed her to do so. The smaller part of her, the part that loathed making these guys good food, wanted to add jalapeños to everything. Thankfully her mother had put a kibosh on that when she mentioned getting some when they were at the store. Kathy had the feeling her father wouldn’t have stopped at ten if she had managed to do it.

  Spaghetti and meatballs was on the docket for Friday night’s dinner and Kathy felt good about that as she had made it a lot. Only… “For dessert, you can make an angel food cake,” her mother informed her. Given that desserts were not her forte and the fact that Kathy seriously regretted signing up for baking as a class next year, she spent most of the morning going over and over the direction for the cake before finally starting.

  Carilyn kept out of her way, letting her cook as she popped in the kitchen every once in a while in the guise of needing something to eat or drink. As she walked in just as Kathy had taken her cake out of the oven, she walked over and looked at the pan Kathy rather roughly sat on the counter. The cake was flat. It hadn’t risen at all. And there was a rather distasteful stench coming from it. Placing an arm around her daughter’s shoulders, she squeezed. “We’ll get one from the store. Come on, start on the spaghetti sauce and everything’ll be fine.”

  The sauce allowed Kathy to work out her frustrations by cutting up the vegetables and frying the meatballs. By the time she added the tomatoes, she felt marginally better. When her mother arrived home with an angel food cake, she shrugged. “I have no idea what happened.”

  “Angel food cakes aren’t easy,” her mother responded with a smile. “Why don’t you cut up the strawberries for the sauce?”

  Everything was ready by the time her father arrived home and he had barely had the chance to greet them when the doorbell rang. Both Kathy and her mother turned toward the door but didn’t move. Gerald chuckled. “That will be Michael. Calm down.”

  Calm down? Kathy was about to meet a guy that could possibly be someone she would have to date for a year without her okay and possibly marry. How was she supposed to calm down? Her mother patted her shoulder as he walked to the door. Suddenly all those regency romances Kathy used to sneak on the sly seemed preposterous and the girls really silly. Arranged marriage. How had her life come to this?

  Michael seemed like a nice enough guy. A local farmer, he had his own land and even had a couple large contracts to sell his produce. The man was prestigiously proud of his cucumbers. He even brought her a bottle of pickles made from them. What were you supposed to say when a guy brought you pickles? Thankfully, he didn’t expect anything except for the tiny “Thank you” she offered when he handed them to her.

  He and her father kept up most of the conversation. All she and her mother had to do was serve the food. Relieved, she slowly relaxed. After dessert was served and he prepared to leave – because as it turned out, a bonus of these kinds of dinners was the guy only came for the meal and then left – he thanked her for the meal, smiled at her, showing slightly uneven teeth covered in coffee stains, before taking his leave. After Kathy and her mother cleaned up the kitchen, they joined her father in the living room, though she wished she could escape up stairs. She knew they would ask how she felt about the whole thing and she wasn’t sure she was ready to say something and not make a snarky comment that would end her up over her father’s desk with an even sorer rump.

  To her relief, neither of them brought it up. Instead, they brought up the events list Kathy had received and began to discuss things she might like to partake in. As it was, by the time she escaped upstairs after prayers, she decided this whole dinner thing wouldn’t be so bad. Until the next evening, that is.

  Her second dinner did not go as well as the first. Joseph Lafferty was a total jerk. A math teacher at the local high school – which was an automatic no for her and by their expressions, her parents as well – he seemed to think rather highly of himself, giving them a litany of his accomplishments since he’d graduated college. At one point Kathy was sure it would never end. When her mother practically grabbed plates the second they were clean and did not mention dessert, she was relieved, though she also spotted her father’s narrowed eyes. Wincing, she knew her mother was in for it. Rudeness was something Gerald Bretherton despised. Though, she personally thought their guest’s rudeness should have been taken into account. At least they got to enjoy a leisurely dessert after he left. Well, she did. Her father sent her mother to his study as soon as Joseph was out the door.

  When she woke up Sunday morning, Kathy didn’t want to get out of bed. Not even the scent of cinnamon rolls wafting through the house could entice her. Another dinner tonight with a guy she didn’t want to deal with. Imagining herself as Samantha from Bewitched, she placed her finger to the tip of her nose and moved it from side to side, wishing she could change things so that whoever was coming would conveniently forget to show. Knowing her non-magical powers wouldn’t work, she finally managed to pour from her bed and start her day. Only, she didn’t start her day the way her parents would have approved of.

  Once she was on her feet, her eyes looked at the sanded walls and the need came on her suddenly to paint. Pulling on her painting clothes – jeans and a t-shirt so splattered it wouldn’t matter if they got more splatters on them – she pulled plastic over her bed and nightstand and grabbed the paint supplies which thankfully her mother had stacked in her closet. After dragging the drop cloth over half the floor, she got to work.

  There was something soothing about painting her room, covering the dingy gray walls with bright peach paint. After a few minutes, she wanted music to paint by, so she turned on her stereo, cranked it up, and singing along with her favorite songs, went back to painting. She wasn’t sure how long she was at it, though only one half a wall was covered in peach when her door opened and both of her parents walked in, confusion on both of their faces.

  “Kathy,” her father said in the kind of tone which meant he was trying to stay calm. “We have another guest coming tonight.”

  “I know,” she said, still painting. “But my room needed paint.”

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her mother place her face in her hands, shaking her head. Obviously Kathy was on thin ice, but at the moment, she was beyond caring. “Doesn’t the peach look better?”

 
“Young lady,” Gerald said in a slightly cooler tone. “Put the paintbrush down and close the can. You can paint tomorrow to your heart’s content.”

  Frowning, she paused for barely a second before continuing. “No. I need to get it done. A half done room is just going to drive me nuts. Besides, if the guy tonight is anything like the last two guys? What’s the use?”

  “Deeper and deeper.” Her mother’s soft voice came to her and Kathy winced. Carilyn was trying to get her to back off, knowing and probably recognizing that Kathy had no intention of doing so willingly. She kind of got her hard head from her mother.

  Her father’s strong hand grasped the paintbrush just beyond her fingers so she couldn’t continue painting. “Hey!”

  “Put the paintbrush down,” he said firmly.

  Internally, the part of her that did want to be able to sit down was jumping up and down waving a flag in front of her face yelling, “What are you doing!” But for some reason, she couldn’t stop. “No. I want to paint my room.”

  “I don’t care.” He pulled the brush from her hand and grasped her wrist when she tried to grab for it. “March yourself down to my study. Now.”

  Glaring at him, she stomped her foot. “No!” If she didn’t cooperate, he couldn’t spank her. So, there.

  The brush landed on the top of the paint can at the same time he swung her around and his hand landed hard on her rump. “Ow!”

  “Study,” he repeated.

  Taking his orders firmly and giving them all the emphasis she could, she marched, slamming her feet down with every step as she left her room, stomping down the stairs, and marched into his study. Her brief moment of so there lasted all of fifteen seconds as the tingling soreness of her rear combined with the scent of his study. She was in so much trouble. And she didn’t even have an excuse. Slumping her shoulders forward, she shook her head. If she thought about it, this whole morning had been heading toward this direction. Kathy was mad. Really mad. She just wasn’t sure who or what at.

  The sound of the door closing on the study made her jump. She hadn’t even heard him coming down the hall. “That isn’t the way to get your father to listen,” Carilyn said kindly, sitting down on the sofa. “Though it’s a sure way to make sure you won’t be able to sit down today.”