Carolyn Faulkner Male Order Bride [Blushing] (pdf)

Male Order Bride

Carolyn Faulkner

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Faulkner, Carolyn

Male Order Bride

eBook ISBN:

978-1-62750-638-0

Cover Design by ABCD Graphics & Design

This book is intended for adults only. Spanking and other sexual activities represented in

this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing in this book should be

interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocating any non-consensual spanking

activity or the spanking of minors.

Table of contents:

Table of contents: ....................................................................................................... 4

Chapter I ..................................................................................................................... 5

Chapter II ................................................................................................................. 16

Chapter III ................................................................................................................ 25

Chapter IV ................................................................................................................ 38

Chapter V ................................................................................................................. 46

Chapter VI ................................................................................................................ 57

Chapter VII .............................................................................................................. 67

Chapter VIII ............................................................................................................. 76

Chapter IX ................................................................................................................ 86

Epilogue ................................................................................................................... 95

Carolyn Faulkner ..................................................................................................... 98

Ebook Offer ........................................................................................................... 101

Blushing Books Newsletter ................................................................................... 102

Blushing Books ...................................................................................................... 103

Chapter I

“Can you believe this? And it’s just a classified, too. Why he didn’t bother to

just sign up for eHarmony or Match.com, I’ll never know – except that he seems to be a

Neanderthal when it comes to women and maybe he thought he’d get booted by outraged

feminists or something. Must be a creep of the highest order.” Kenni – short for

Kendall, Jayne’s best friend and co-worker, slapped the newspaper down in front of her

on her desk, pointing to the ad in question which had been circled several times in an

angry red.

Jayne barely gave it a glance, but did raise her eyebrow. “I’m more surprised to

see that you were reading a newspaper than I am to hear about some pathetic, lonely guy

who’s looking for love in all the wrong places. I think either of you would be considered

pretty retro nowadays.”

Of course, Kenni completely ignored the fact that Jayne was still working –

indeed, had barely raised her head in acknowledgement of her friend’s presence in her

office. It would take a bulldozer to stop the blithely oblivious girl from thinking that the

world pretty much revolved around her – and her romantic problems, of course.

“How could he possibly think that any woman in her right mind was going to

respond to something like this? All he’s going to get are losers and women who are too

cray-cray for words. Cooking, cleaning and fucking is all he wants out of them,

apparently – and that ‘no-nonsense’ line! That takes the cake – he must be a throwback

to the seventies, or something . . .”

Jayne managed – barely – not to smile at Kenni’s incorrect reference to how men

were in the era of the now defunct Equal Rights Amendment, when they were just

beginning to know what it was like to live in fear of a sexual harassment suit -especially

since the younger woman wasn’t even a twinkle in her old man’s eye at that point, while

she, on the other hand, was born in the middle of that decade – not that she was paying

much attention to men’s attitudes towards women at that point. She thought Kendall

probably meant the fifties, but to someone that young, it was all ancient history anyway.

Whereas that particular phrase turned Kenni completely off, it piqued Jayne’s

curiosity – despite the chauvinistic rhetoric that accompanied it – so strongly she found

herself abandoning her work in favor of reading the deceptively simple, seemingly

straightforward ad, and as she read it, she felt her lower body contract at the sheer

potential she saw there:

“Healthy, clean, sane, NO-NONSENSE man seeks potential wife who is same to

live on remote ranch. Must want children. No hippies, druggies, or those afraid of hard

work – cooking and cleaning - need apply. This is not a scam or a joke. Serious replies

only, please. Your picture will get mine.”

The ad listed a P.O. Box somewhere in Montana. Not website, a Facebook

account or even a cell phone number.

Maybe Kendall was right, and he did hale from the fifties. In which case, he was

getting a bit long in the tooth to want children, and would probably only attract women

with uncontrollable Daddy issues.

“He even said he was sane!” Kenni giggled. “He’s definitely one of those

religious fanatics who believes women are subordinate to men, or a prepper or something

equally as scary.”

She might have been a decade – or more – older than Kendall, but Jayne’s mind

definitely didn’t go immediately to the possibility that Mr. John Q. Rancher was a bulb

short of a pack, but rather it fixated on the idea that had drawn her to look at the ad in the

first place rather than shoving the paper into the circular file, where it probably belonged.

“No nonsense” was in all caps.

And that just so happened to be a bit of a trigger for Jayne. She knew she was a

throwback – that she’d been born well after her time – but she loved to cook – especially

for someone else – and had never had a problem doing housework, and would love to do

so in her own house. And she’d been looking for this type of man – one who didn’t

really know the meaning of the word “metrosexual”, who was a man’s man and didn’t

apologize for it, who did the right thing even if it was the harder choice . . .

Her pulse was racing and she was practically panting in reaction – not at all her

usual response to any man, especially one she’d never seen and knew nothing about.

One who wouldn’t hesitate to, perhaps, if she was lucky – or maybe not so lucky -

spank his woman if he deemed it necessary.

It was a gamble, a big one in a lot of ways, but staid, dependable, responsible,

reliable Jayne had a feeling in the pit of her gut she’d never had before, and she nearly

snatched the paper away from Kenni as the younger woman tried to take it back from her

desk.

“I want to keep this,” she said, not letting go as her friend tugged on the other end.

“Why?” she asked suspiciously.

Jayne decided that telling her the truth – or some of it anyway – was the best way

to go. “I want to write to the lonely rancher.”

The look on Kendall’s face was priceless, frozen in a rictus of naked surprise –

with a tinge of out and out horror – as it was. “You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“Nope. I want to hear what he has to say.”

Jayne knew exactly how Kenni’s mind worked, and wasn’t sure whether she was

relieved or sad when it went right where she’d expected it to. She watched her friend’s

expression relax slowly as she relinquished her hold on the other end of the folded paper.

“Oh, I get it. You’re going to string him along – see just how deep the crazy goes.”

“Something like that,” Jayne murmured, tucking the paper into her desk drawer.

“Cool, well, you have to let me see what he says. But be careful!”

She bounced happily out of the office, and Jayne released the breath she hadn’t

realized she’d been holding, taking out the paper to read the ad one more time,

deliberately inciting her body with the possibilities until she had to tuck it away again and

return to work in self-defense.

That night, alone in her nicely appointed, cozy two bedroom apartment, Jayne

pulled it out of her LL Bean canvas bag and read it again – but only once she’d finished

up the work she’d brought home, had some of the crockpotted chicken parmesan

casserole she’d thrown in this morning, and paid her bills.

She was in her comfy, warm pajamas and a well worn housecoat she just didn’t

have the heart – or the will – yet to get rid of, despite its dilapidated appearance – when

she put the paper to one side of her laptop and began her response to him.

Her fingers were shaking as they touched the keys, so there was a mistake in

nearly every word at first. She didn’t know what it was about this situation that had her

on edge like this. She’d never been the type to have such a violent reaction to much of

anything – especially not something that was likely to put her in danger. Everything

about this ad screamed exactly what Kendall had been harping on, and the two

possibilities she’d mentioned – fanatical religiosity or preparing for the end of the world

were on the mild end of the insanity spectrum. Cannibalistic serial killer was flashing in

red neon at the other end of that scale, with more than enough room for a wide range of

crazy in the middle.

But Jayne couldn’t get her own – admittedly idealized - picture of the man who

had written the ad out of her mind, and she hoped that perhaps writing a response to him

might help her exorcize him out of her life – and her dirty, dirty mind. She wasn’t going

to send it, after all. It was just to help her work through whatever was sticking in her . . .

craw about what she’d read.

She wrote and wrote and wrote – the project taking up the majority of her evening

as her favorite TV shows played unheeded in the background, ignored in favor of getting

just the right tone to her response, one that conveyed neither the desperation of a woman

in her almost late thirties who hadn’t yet married nor the insanity inherent in responding

to an ad like this, which she hadn’t really dismissed in him for writing it in the first place.

Instead, she strived to sound like the solid, mature, independent and successful –

well, relatively – woman she thought of herself as, although by the time she needed to

head for bed in order to be somewhat functional at work tomorrow she still wasn’t quite

sure it was right.

Dear Sir:

A friend pointed out your ad to me

No, that wasn’t right. It made her sound like she was incapable of getting a man

herself and had to enlist her friends to help her. And was ‘Dear Sir’ too formal? It

certainly got to her – living in the same place where his unusual choice of words had,

making her squirm in her seat as she typed.

Dear Sir:

I noticed your ad in our local paper and was intrigued.

First let me state that I have never indulged in recreational drugs, nor do I drink

alcohol except in social situations and then never to excess (the first few months of

college cured me of that permanently ).

I am in my mid-thirties, single, and work at a well-paid but boring office job. I’m

relatively healthy (hay fever in August and the occasional cold or flu, but nothing more

than that medically), am as sane as the next person (although I believe my friends would

question that, since I’m responding to what appears to be a marriage proposal made by a

man I don’t know, who published it in who knows how many papers all over the world),

and I’ve never been afraid of hard work, although, granted, I’ve not been required to do

much in the way of physical work in my life.

I have a degree in English History, which meant I had to take a real job in order

to, you know, eat.  I don’t think it would be much help in ranching, either,

unfortunately, but I have to admit that I’ve always wanted to see that area of the country.

I understand it’s amazingly beautiful.

I’m neither a neat freak, nor particularly messy, but fall somewhere in between on

that scale. I don’t mind housework, and I’m a fairly good cook, if I do say so myself. I

make my own spaghetti sauce, I love to bake all kinds of cookies and desserts, and I can

bake bread from scratch – not cheating and using a bread maker, in other words.

I have also always wanted children, and in lieu of that I currently have two cats

and a dog. Are you allergic?

I have included a recent picture that was taken at the annual awards ceremony

for my job where I was celebrating my twelfth year with them.

Please feel free to ask me any questions you might have, as surprisingly, I find

myself quite interested in the prospect of life on a ranch.

Thank you for your time.

Jayne Clarkson

Even though she had spent the evening telling herself that she was never going to

be stupid enough to actually send the letter, she nonetheless harkened back to the

keyboarding classes she’d had in high school about how to write a business letter,

addressing it with absolute correctness and spell checking the body of it to within an inch

of its life for some reason.

She hoped it sounded friendly but not too, mildly interested but definitely not

overeager. As she compulsively read and re-read it, she had to wonder why this man

hadn’t simply gone through one of the zillion online dating services.

But then, if she was reading between the lines correctly, he didn’t sound like the

type of man who would go for that kind of thing. She wondered if he could even get an

internet connection, considering that he’d said his ranch was remote. The more she

thought about him and what his life must be like, and – most importantly to her – what

his demeanor was, the harder it became to stick to her idea of just writing the letter, but

not sending it. After all of that effort, she began to lean much more towards the idea of

saying “what the hell” and dropping it into the mail, just to see what happened. She was

sure he would be inundated by women who were much better qualified than she was, who

had experience with farming or ranching, could ride and rope and do whatever else would

make them much more valuable in his eyes than someone who could list from memory

the kings and queens of England.

And, just in case the crazy was strong in him, she would take every possible

precaution to protect her personal safety.

She even went so far as to drag out an old box of stationery and actually

handwrite her response, rather than sending him the print out of what she’d written in

Word, wanting to add a bit of personality to her reply, along with reactivating an old

throwaway Tracfone she had in a drawer for emergencies, just in case something went

wrong with her smart phone, and adding its number just below her name, never expecting

him to use it.

Before she posted the letter to his P.O. box, she rented one of her own, several

towns away, in the biggest city Vermont owned – Burlington – figuring that she would

still be pretty safe because he wouldn’t really know where she lived.

She bought a book of stamps for the first time in a very long time, since she did

ninety-nine percent of her bill paying online now, feeling both agog and depressed at how

much it cost, then drove up to a mailbox and, after hesitating for only a few seconds,

dropped her letter in it and headed for work, figuring that that was that and hoping

against hope she’d somehow magically gotten him out of her system.

But she realized only a few minutes later that, having made such an

uncharacteristically bold move, she didn’t find her mind – or her body – eased in the

least. If anything, her fantasies about this mysterious rancher increased to the point

where she was having trouble thinking at work, and sleep seemed to be out of the

question.

All of her dreams – which could be quite steamy without the additional titillation

of waiting for his reply – seemed to revolve around a tall, broad, faceless stranger who

swung down from his horse, threw his hat on the ground, and took her into his arms,

holding her against a body that had been toughened and strengthened by manual labor –

not hours spent in spinning classes or on a treadmill. He would smell of sweat and horse

and she would love every minute of it, breathing deeply when he lifted his head long

enough to lift her into his arms and stomp his big, cowboy booted feet up the stairs of his

expansive ranch house, across the country veranda that spread out around the front of the

house, and up the Tara-esque staircase to make love to her in the large master suite his

housekeeper kept scrupulously tidy . . .

It wasn’t quite a picturesque veranda that Retrieve Jensen stomped across as he

carried the mail he’d picked up in Heartbreak - the nearest town to his small spread - into

his house. Oh, it was a beautiful porch – or had been at one time – but it was a minefield

now; one had to be very careful where one stepped for fear of rotting planks giving way

beneath one’s feet.

He shrugged the meager bags of groceries and mail onto a counter that was

already buried with remainders of other such trips and leaned back against it, knowing he

should be out fixing fence posts, but he’d seen very feminine handwriting on an envelope

amongst all of the usual bills – the majority of which were labeled “past due” in big red

letters – and – uncharacteristically, his curiosity got the best of him.

It was very pretty handwriting, indeed, neat and very flowery and curvy, but not

overdone and still quite easy to read. He was impressed that she’d taken the time to

actually write it rather than just printing it off her computer. And it was on actual

stationery that smelled a bit like roses, and had lacy accents at the top and bottom,

although, contrarily, it was addressed very formally, as if his had been an ad for

employment rather than an advertisement for a wife.

As he read, he reached into the fridge for a bottle of milk and one of the plain

peanut butter sandwiches he made every week then kept in the fridge for when he was

hungry, washing it absently down with enormous gulps of milk as he perused his way

through her chatty letter, then reached for the picture she’d enclosed, and was

thunderstruck.

His knees went weak, his heart began to pound in his chest, and he thought – for

the briefest of moments – that he might faint, but, of course, he would never let that

actually happen.

Trieve didn’t find himself attracted to very many women – especially not lately,

since he hadn’t had a social life in . . . well, awful close to a decade or longer. He made

no excuses for it – his priority had been to get the ranch back on its feet, and he didn’t

have time for all of the social crap that accompanied wooing a woman.

Wooing a woman well, the way he wanted to, anyway, given the time, money,

and inclination, of which the latter was usually the least likely, since his general opinion

of women had been negatively affected early in his life.

And, thanks to dear old Mom, he didn’t have the money to do it, either, so it had

been firmly shunted to the back burner.

Lately, though, he had begun to realize that, poor or not, he was just past forty

and, if he was going have anyone to leave the ranch he’d been pouring his blood and

sweat into for years to, he’d better start looking for a wife.

True to form, he’d done it as quickly and efficiently as possible. If things had

been different in his past, he would have been able to wine and dine pretty much any

woman he wanted to. The ranch had been quite a prosperous concern at one point. He

wasn’t Brad Pitt, but he wasn’t Quasimodo, either, and, even if he had been, he would

have had a bank account that – in his experience – would have encouraged the majority

of females to look past any chinks in his looks or character.

But those days were long gone, and he did his best not to mourn them, since it

was a waste of the energy he needed to devote to the project and plans he had to restore

the ranch to its former glory, which had been his one and only goal for longer than he

cared to remember.

Since after his mother had left when he was twelve or so, and his father had died

of a broken heart.

That was not going to happen to him, he’d already vowed. He’d meant every

word he’d said in the ad, exactly how he’d said it. He knew it sounded sterile and dour

almost to the extreme, but that was what he’d wanted. He wasn’t going to play games, he

wasn’t going to pretty up his life or be anything other than what he was.

And he most definitely wasn’t going to fall in love with whoever it was that he

chose. He would tell her that upfront, right from the start. He wanted a practical

arrangement that would result in a cleaner house, a fuller belly, and children – not

necessarily in that order. No more, no less. She could take it or leave it.

And Miss Jayne Clarkson, of . . . Burlington, Vermont definitely did not fit the

bill. He tried to remember what he knew about that state – besides that they produced a

lot of maple syrup and got a fair amount of snow, but he couldn’t come up with much

beyond that.

Trieve’s face darkened. He’d’ve loved to bring her to the best restaurant in

Billings, get them two gourmet meals and maybe take in a movie – he couldn’t remember

the last time he saw one - then go back to a palatial suite in the best hotel in town to make

sweet, fine love to her. But that would be as far as it could go. He wasn’t in the market

for a fling or a lover, unfortunately, because she looked as if she’d fit the bill for either

perfectly, if his physical, visceral reaction was anything to judge by.

This was not a life for a tenderfoot. He needed a strong, sturdy woman who could

work alongside him occasionally, when he needed her to. A second pair of hands out

here could sometimes be the difference between life and death – especially in the winter

on an operation as small as this - and she looked as if a strong breeze would knock her

over.

But damn if she didn’t have gorgeous, wavy long golden blonde hair – an

admitted weakness of his – bright, smart eyes and a beautiful smile, not to mention

breasts he would give his eye teeth cup in his palms, a trim waist and almost too slim

hips.

He could feel himself getting harder every second he stared at the photo, until he

put it down on the counter, trying to force himself to walk away from it, but he couldn’t.

He flat out couldn’t. He felt caught, and almost angry that she could make him want her

so much from afar, when there was no way he could have her.

Absolutely no way.

Disgusted, he dragged himself away from her picture, leaving it and the letter on

the counter and willing himself out the door to pick up the backbreaking work where he’d

left it. But all that long afternoon, he wasn’t thinking about what needed to be done next

– fixing the holes in the barn roof, getting the cattle vetted and culled, repairing the water

tank . . . the list was quite literally endless.

Instead, visions of her danced before his eyes – she’d been beaming happily,

cutting a cake, surrounded by a gaggle of what he assumed were friends and coworkers.

There’d be none of that here, of course. If she had cake, it would because she’d made it

herself, and it would pretty much just be the two of them, twenty-four-seven.

Her dress was a rose pink, body hugging number that was quite modest by today’s

standards, but which was, nonetheless, cut a bit deep in the cleavage department, for

which he was eternally grateful, although perpetually tortured by throughout the day. He

would give his left nut in order to pull her into his arms and kiss her, just once, but he

knew that wasn’t possible, and the longer the day stretched, the surlier he got, until he

nearly got gored by a bull because he was aching for her so badly that he wasn’t paying

attention to what he was doing.

With his erection perpetually throbbing behind the zipper of his worn jeans, he

finally quit for the day, a bit earlier than usual, taking his peanut butter sandwich supper

into the living room to sink down into his disreputably worn recliner and stare at her

picture again – the one he’d memorized every detail of from the moment he’d first laid

eyes on it – then at the phone that sat on the end table next to him – then back at her

picture again, and back and forth for the longest time.

He dearly wished she hadn’t included her phone number, for his own sanity, but

for her safety, too. He hoped she was smart enough about her personal, physical security

as a woman in a world filled with men who were even more royally screwed up than he

was, that it was a throwaway number and not her real one – and his gut and privates

clenched even more painfully as he realized that – if she became his by some miracle - he

would make damned certain she always thought of things like that first.

And when he’d finished what there was of his dinner, it was the thought of her

over his lap that had his hand on the phone.

Chapter II

Jayne had her laptop on her lap, and was, as always, multi-tasking. She was

texting with Kenni on her iPhone, chatting on Facebook with a good friend she’d kept in

touch with since her college days, was scouring Pinterest for new recipes for things she

should never – ever – bake and watching the latest episode of “Modern Family”, all at the

same time.

She heard a phone ring and vibrate, yet her iPhone was silent, and for a long

moment she couldn’t figure out where it was coming from, until she remembered that

she’d tucked that old clamshell Tracfone into one of the front pockets of her purse, and

she damned near to killed herself trying to get to it before it went to voicemail.

No one else would call her on that number – they all had her real one. It had to be

him. It had to be him!

Of course, the zipper got caught in the lining of the pocket, and then she nearly

dropped the phone before she could push the talk button, and then she missed that button

entirely and hit the number three, which, surprisingly, accepted the call.

“Hello?”

That deep, dark tone washed over every inch of her – leaving a trail of puckered

nipples and gooseflesh in its wake as it boldly staked its claim - then settled in between

her legs as if it belonged there with a fiery ache that began to roast the boulder of

nervousness that lay in the pit of her stomach.

Finally, she got the blasted thing to her ear and said, “Hello?” back.

Of course, her mouth was Sahara dry, and it sounded as if she had a wad of paper

towel in it, but at least he hadn’t gone to voicemail. Somehow that would have been so

much worse, because then she would have had to call him back.

“Is this Jayne?”

She nodded like an idiot, still stunned by her body’s naked response to his voice,

then took a quick sip of the coffee she nearly always had next to her – wishing it was a

Diet Sprite or something like that - cleared her throat and said, “Yes, this is Jayne.”

Before he responded, she looked at the caller I.D. on the phone and took note of

the area code in particular – it was 406. She googled “406 area code” and came up with

Montana.

It was him!

“My name is Trieve Jensen. You responded to my ad.”

Damn right she did – in more ways than one - but she managed not to say that.

“Yes, Mr. Jenson. It’s nice to meet you.”

He was impressed that she used “Mister”. Few people had real manners like that

any longer.

Two points for her, he thought immediately – and another fifty for her sexy voice

– kind of breathless and hoarse, as if she’d been waiting by the phone for his call, which

he knew was a patently ridiculous idea.

Then he reeled his overeager imagination – not to mention sex drive – in as best

he could, reminding himself that he shouldn’t even have made this call in the first place,

that she was all wrong for the type of relationship he intended to have with his wife. She

was entirely too good looking, too small and dainty and too damned sexy, and that was

just based on her photo and the first five seconds of this phone call. He knew he should

hang up on her – however rude that would be – or at the very least spend the call

explaining to her why she just wouldn’t suit, but he couldn’t seem to get his body to obey

his mind as it usually did.

He suspected his genitals were at the heart of that rebellion, and they were rapidly

recruiting what remained of the rest of him, too.

Since the ball was in his court, Jayne took the time during the small pause before

he spoke to text “gotta go” quickly to Kenni and Jerrill, the friend she’d been chatting

with on Facebook. She flipped off the TV, and shut the lid of her laptop, giving him her

undivided attention.

“Well, I wanted to let you know that I received your letter.”

She could already hear what he was going to say next - she was not the kind of

woman he was looking for, but he was going to thank her for taking the time to send him

a note. It was like getting that call after an interview for a job she really wanted, as if he

was reading directly from the script. “We here at Whoever Ranch want to thank you for

applying for the position of wife, but we didn’t think you were quite the right fit for the

job, and have selected a candidate who more closely matches our requirements. Best of

luck to you in your future endeavors.”

It was coming. She knew it. Her heart was already in her slippers; her stomach

forming intricate knots in her stomach that had her perilously close to throwing up.

So she decided to pre-empt him. “And you wanted to call to say that I’m not

quite what you had in mind?” she asked, knowing she was right, but holding her breath

anyway.

She could hear a blast of air from his end, as if he was snorting in disbelief that

she’d read his mind so accurately, but then, after only a fraction of a second of hesitation,

he said, “No, just the opposite. I’d like you to come up to Montana so that we can meet.”

Trieve was completely taken aback. She would have sworn that that was not what

he meant to tell her originally. How could he have said that? She had been more correct

and truthful when she’d said it than when he replied!

But Trieve could hear the disappointment when she’d said what she expected to

hear from him, and that was all his libido needed as encouragement.

Jayne’s jaw was in her lap. She couldn’t believe what he had just asked, but she

wasn’t going to over-analyze the situation; she didn’t know this man, and perhaps her

impression had been wrong. Before he changed his mind, she was going to take it and

run with it.

“I’d love to! I have a reasonable amount of leave saved up, so I can come

anytime you’d like. How long would you like me to stay?”

He took so long to answer that she wondered if she’d blow it by appearing too

eager, but then he said, “A month. Why don’t we see how it goes for a month?”

“That would be fine. I’ll look forward to meeting you in person.”

She could feel him withdrawing, not that he’d been all that open in the first place,

really, but he didn’t seem to be very happy that she was coming, even though it had been

his idea! “I’ll send you a bus ticket to Billings – that’s the nearest city.”

“A bus ticket?” she parroted incredulously, as if she wanted to clarify that he’d

said “bus” not “plane”.

And that was clearly not the thing to have said. “Yes, Ms. Clarkson, my ranch

isn’t as prosperous as it once was, despite my best efforts, and that’s all I can afford at the

moment.”

She smiled, although she knew he couldn’t see it, and said, “Well, that’s nothing

to worry about. I can buy my own plane ticket with no problem.”

Instead of making things better, though, she realized immediately that she’d just

made them a thousand times worse.

His answer, when he finally gave it, was clipped and downright unfriendly. “Suit

yourself. You have my phone number on your caller I.D. Leave me your information as

soon as you can so that I can arrange my work schedule to pick you up.”

Suddenly there was a dial tone in her ear instead of his velvety – if somewhat

unwelcoming - tone, and Jayne wondered why he hadn’t just told her not to come at all

instead of leaving it that way.

She had half a mind to call him back and ask as much, but figured she’d rocked

the boat enough already, and for some reason she couldn’t fathom at this point, she really

wanted to meet this man.

Two thousand or so miles away, the man who had ended their conversation so

abruptly reached down to the bottle at his feet and took a healthy swig of rotgut whiskey

while he wondered just how he was going to manage to keep his hands off her for a solid

month. There was no other way to do it but to just not allow himself to touch her,

because if she looked anything like what she did in the photo she’d sent him, and he

ended up holding her or, hell, even brushing up against her, he wasn’t at all sure he was

going to be able to control his reactions, and he had a feeling that his stark passion might

give that little lady some pause for thought, and he knew he would control himself as best

he could in order not to drive her away from him.

Although he knew in his beaten up heart that that was what he should do.

To say nothing of the fact that, guest or not, if he was going to let himself even

begin to consider that she might be a viable candidate for a wife – not that she was at all,

but just supposing – he was going to let her know in no uncertain terms exactly what he

expected from his wife in the way of behavior, and that meant inherently that he was

going to end up touching her in some very private areas. He was of the opinion,

nowadays, that most women could use a few – or more – trips over their man’s lap. He

knew it sounded terribly old fashioned and out of date, but he thought the divorce rate

might plummet if that happen a lot more often.

As he sat there, taking the occasional swig of liquor and thinking about her, he

realized he’d enjoy it even better if she was a bit defiant, or mischievous might be a better

word. As much as he knew he was going to try to fight the urge – along with the other

gut reactions she inspired in him from several thousand miles away – he also knew he’d

like nothing better than to take her over his knee and blister her behind, then soothe her

very real tears away as he laid her on his big bed and made her scream and cry for an

entirely different reason.

But just when he was going to settle into a very nice fantasy about her, with her

picture right on the table next to him, he got to thinking about the fact that he didn’t have

any sheets he’d lay anyone down on besides himself. They were so worn they might as

well not even be there, and he knew there would be no hope for it but to go into town and

get a new set, and the more he looked around the place and thought about someone new

seeing it for the first time, the more things he knew he had to add to that list, which

squelched his fantasy as effectively as a cold shower, because he really couldn’t afford to

do any of it.

Jayne’s boss was surprised at her request for time off, but since she had so much

built up and it was so unusual for her to ask for anything like this – especially this

impromptu – she didn’t hesitate to allow it.

“Is everything okay?” Donna asked, leaning forward to pat Jayne’s hand.

She was rewarded with a smile. “I think I am, yes. Thanks for letting me go so

soon.”

Kenni, on the other hand, was livid. “I thought you were kidding with this thing –

that you were leading him on to see what kind of psycho he really was.”

Jayne didn’t mention how uncouth that would have been, but since she’d kind of

led her friend to believe that was what she was doing, she let that lie.

“I don’t think he is at all. I think he’s a very hard working man who doesn’t have

the time – or the money - to spend dancing and romancing someone in order to find a

wife.”

“Oh dear Gawd, he’s crazy and poor?!” Kendall looked positively horrified at the

thought, so much so that Jayne just had to giggle at her apoplexy.

And Kenni wasn’t the only one who was more than a bit concerned about what

she’d decided to do. “You’re going where to meet whom?” Jerrill had asked.

Jayne had met Jerrill D’Agostino in college – they had a lot of the same interests

– except that Jerrill took classes in British history for fun while he earned a law degree.

He’d often warned Jayne that she ought to get a real degree to back up the one she had

been indulging herself in, just in case she wanted to pay rent and live after she graduated,

but he’d had to shut his mouth when she’d ended up where she was, relatively happy and

reasonably well paid.

There was a time when Jayne had a slight crush on him, he knew, and he had

gently let her down by telling her that he was gay. “But if I ever need a beard, honey, I’ll

give the ring to you.”

Jayne had frowned a bit, raising her eyebrow. “Thanks, I think . . .”

But this was beyond the pale, as far as he was concerned. He kept asking her

questions about how she intended to make sure she was safe while she was in his house,

and Jayne had answers for every one of them.

“You – and Kenni – have my flight numbers, and both cell phones, although the

Verizon is the only one likely to work in the boonies. You know when I’ll arrive and

when I’ll leave, and I’ll call you that afternoon at two, so you’ll know I arrived safely,

and I’ll message you on Facebook or text you throughout the month at eleven every

night, using our safe word.”

She knew that their idea of a safe word and, say, the BDSM community’s idea

were two entirely different things, but Jayne wasn’t stupid. She was aware that she was

stepping into a potentially dangerous situation, and she was trying to do everything she

could to be smart and safe about it.

She’d chosen a list of potential safe words and given them to each of her closest

friends, of which she’d only use each once while she was there, to prevent the idea that –

if he did have ulterior motives – they would be suspicious of any text or message that

didn’t start with a safe word. They were also both free to call or text or message her any

time they wanted throughout the month, as far as she was concerned, and if that changed,

she’d let them know.

Jerrill was demanding to talk to Trieve at some point, but Jayne had avoided

answering him about that, figuring it was going to be the best idea all around to keep the

two of them as far apart as possible until things were more settled.

The day before she was scheduled to leave, an envelope arrived from him. Her

heart dropped to her toes. She wondered if it was a letter telling her know that he’d

reconsidered his offer, but there was no note in the envelope at all – just a picture of him,

in his chaps and a well worn denim work shirt, astride a big palomino. He was obviously

working – he wasn’t posing in any way or even looking at the camera; it was a true

candid shot.

And he was freakin’ gorgeous. So much so that Jayne began to have second

thoughts herself. She wasn’t anywhere near as pretty as he was handsome, yet he’d seen

her picture and had – with what she had a pretty good idea was severe reluctance –

invited her to see his home and his world.

If she thought about what she was doing for too long, she got so nervous she got

nauseous, so she spent the last hours before she boarded the plane at Burlington

International Airport staring at his picture, and wondering what the hell it was that she

thought she was doing with her life, anyway, although no amount of persuasion could get

her to let loose of her desire – no, her need – to meet this man.

It was a reasonably long plane flight – she left Vermont at five-thirty the previous

evening and would arrive in Billings at nine-thirty in the morning, with two stops. It was

the quickest flight she could get with the fewest stops, and it still cost her eight hundred

and fifty dollars, partly because there was little to no notice. She could have waited a

couple of weeks, but her body wouldn’t let her, and neither would her mind. She needed

to know whether or not this was going to work out, and she wanted to see him in the flesh

as fast as she could, especially after he sent her that pic.

Trieve wasn’t happy with the arrangements – she could tell when she gave them

to him – but he didn’t say anything. “How much is this costing you?” he asked, and he

didn’t sound as if he was going to let her get away with demurring much, if at all.

Not that she didn’t try. “It’s nothing -”

“Jayne.”

Her breath caught loudly, and she knew he had heard it, too.

She hadn’t imagined she had that much of a stubborn side, but apparently, when

confronted with a clearly dominant man, it surfaced like it had always been there.

“I’m not going to wait forever, Jayne,” came his surprisingly soft warning.

It was an empty threat – what could he do to her from two thousand miles away?

But that tone was more than enough impetus to get her to tell him, no matter how

reluctantly. “Eight hundred and fifty dollars.”

She heard his whistle. “It’s been a while since I’ve flown anywhere,” he

confessed.

“Well, it would have been cheaper if I had made the reservations for some time

next month or whatever.” Jayne bit her lip and said what she was thinking. “But I didn’t

want to wait that long.”

There was a short pause while nerves exploded all over her body, then he replied

hoarsely, “Damn straight.”

Jayne didn’t think she’s smiled that broadly in years. It was nice to hear that he

was as eager as she was for them to meet.

“I’ll pay you back,” he continued.

“You don’t have to. There’s no need.”

Another, albeit shorter, pause. “What did I say, Jayne?”

She’d never pouted in her life, yet here she was again, sighing impatiently and

repeating his words back to him.

“Then that’s what I’ll do.”

“Stubborn, much?” she asked impishly.

“Through and through. I’m half Scottish, a quarter Irish, and a quarter Cherokee.

But every nationality is one hundred percent stubborn.”

“You’re Native American?”

“My grandmother on my mother’s side was a full blooded Cherokee.” It was one

of the few things about his mother that he would ever say with pride, and he thought it

was quite fitting that it was mere happenstance, not something she’d had any control

over.

“Very cool. I’m a Heinz 57 – some Irish, some English, a little French Canadian,

some Polish – I’m the melting pot in action.”

“French Canadian, huh? Do you speak the language?”

She snorted. “Hell no. And if I attempted when I was in Montreal, I’m quite sure

I’d be deported immediately. The English part of me murders foreign languages. I can

barely get through American and be understood.”

He chuckled softly. “Well, I’ll be there tomorrow at nine thirty.”

“Okay. I’m all packed and Kenni – my girlfriend – is driving me to the airport.”

However reluctantly, she added to herself. It wouldn’t do for him to know that all of her

friends thought he was a serial killer, or worse.

“Be safe,” he warned, and there was that tone again.

“I will.”

Chapter III

He got there early, as was his habit, but this was much earlier than he should have

– which he blamed on nerves like he hadn’t felt them in years - considering the mounds

of work that he knew were piling up in his absence. But there was no one to send to get

her, not that he would have done that even if he had someone available. She deserved for

him to pick her up at the airport, and that was what he was going to do, even if he had to

kill himself getting his work done once they got home.

It had been so long since he’d flown that he hadn’t had to deal with the new

security issues, and he decided he didn’t much like being kept back behind a windowed

wall as he watched the passengers deplane. It seemed she must’ve been in one of the

very last seats, or perhaps she was having a problem getting her bag down from the

overhead compartment. He hoped some guy was gentleman enough to help her with that,

since he couldn’t, although he didn’t hold out much hope.

She was the very last person off the plane, looking anxiously around until she saw

his face, then smiling so brightly he felt his entire body flood with warmth. It was a

foreign experience to him, but one to which he could easily become addicted. He

couldn’t remember anyone in his life besides his father being that glad to see him, and it

seemed quite genuine on her part.

Jayne was trailing a little suitcase on wheels, but it didn’t slow her down any. She

parked it on its end when she’d just made it through the door and walked over to him.

He’d been prepared for a nice, polite handshake, but she’d reached up on her tippy-toes

and hugged him – full out. There was no sense of reserve from her in the least, and, just

before she pulled away, he relaxed enough from the surprise to wrap his arms around her

and squeeze very carefully, as if she was the Dresden doll he’d equated her to in his

mind.

They found baggage claim without having said a word to each other, although the

silence between them didn’t feel all that awkward to him, and he hoped it didn’t to her.

She’d brought two big bags – which was part of why her flight cost so much – but then

she was staying for a whole month – hopefully.

He’d brought his only vehicle – one of the few times he wished he owned

something a bit flashier, newer and much, much cleaner. The truck was an old standby

that was held together by bailing wire and spit, but he couldn’t afford to buy another one,

so he just kept fixing it as best he could.

Trieve helped her up into it, trying not to notice how light and small she was, yet

deliciously curvy in all the right places.

Despite how torturous it was for him to touch her, picking her up only

reemphasized just how utterly and completely wrong she was for his purposes, no matter

how much he wanted to stop the truck the moment they got onto his land and make love

to her right there in the front seat.

She was wearing a pair of skin tight jeans that looked like she’d just bought them.

She was wearing a pretty navy pea coat that he knew would be a dull shade of shit brown

in no time if she helped him at all around the ranch. Her boots were relatively workaday,

but they were also obviously brand new. And her hat . . . her hat was pure white, had

ears, eyes and nose, making it look like a polar bear. He doubted it would keep her head

very warm through a frigid cold Montana winter, but it certainly did look cute on her.

He knew he should have just put her on the next plane back to her cozy little life

and not have dragged her into his hard, messy one, but then she’d hugged him –

unreservedly – her soft, warm body pressing against his – not lewdly or suggestively at

all – but comfortingly, somehow, and he couldn’t resist having a bit of her sunshine in his

life, no matter how impractical, and even for just a short time.

In a month, he’d send her back. It would be a horrendous month, having her there

but not touching her, but it would be that welcome, too.

He did his best to be a bit of a tour guide on the drive home, although he really

only showed her what she could see from his usual route home, because he really did

need to get back to work.

They chatted quite amiably about all sorts of things, and she oohed and ahhed in

all of the appropriate places. Soon they were well out of the city, though, and the land

became more desolate and much, much less populated. It had its own beauty, though,

and he hoped – although he knew he shouldn’t – that she would see it, too.

He found how she was acting like a tourist in New York City, craning her head

around so as not to miss anything, to be quite endearing, and had to suppress a smile.

But when he pulled up and looked at the place through her eyes, he knew for sure

that it wasn’t going to be his choice that she go home. He fully expected her to refuse to

get out of the truck and demand that he take her right back to Billings so she could go

home. He’d been so concerned with getting the ranch away from its own fiscal cliff that

he hadn’t noticed how dilapidated the house had become. The second floor shutters were

each hanging by a thread. The house had been a bright white at one time, but it was a

dull, dishwater gray now. She couldn’t see it because of the snow, but what there had

been of grass in the yard hadn’t been able to hold its own against his driving tendencies –

he parked the truck wherever it was most convenient for him, not necessarily where the

driveway was, and the result was that the front lawn was more dirt than grass. Weeds

had long since turned the gardens and bushes his mother used to take such care with into

a jungle, and neither he nor his father were going to spend any of their precious energy

trying to save them, or even just beating them back.

None of the other outbuildings looked quite this bad, but then, the house didn’t do

much for the fiscal health of the overall ranch, either. It was just a place into which he

could come out of the cold after working for fifteen hours straight, grab something to eat

and some sleep, then get up and do it all again the next day.

Embarrassment wasn’t a feeling he was accustomed to. He had never felt the

need to apologize for the way he lived his life, but then he’d never much cared what

anyone thought about him in the least since his father had died. Trieve flushed bright red,

planted his hat on his head, grabbed her suitcases from the back and trudged ahead of her

inside, then thought better of it and came back to get her from where she stood at the top

step, looking at the holes in the floor of the verandah as if she was trying to figure out the

correct sequence of steps to use to get to the door and remain alive, as if she was living in

a video game.

He took her hand, not giving her any choice in the matter, and guided her into the

house. The grimy cupboards, dirty floors and piles of newspapers and bills that covered

nearly every flat surface piled another load of pure discomfort on him as he wished he’d

been able to clean up a bit before she’d arrived, but there just wasn’t enough time in a

day to get everything he had to get done, much less then things he might want to.

Besides, it wasn’t that dirty – just messy, really.

He doffed his hat and stood in front of her, feeling – and looking, he was sure –

big and dumb and awkward. He hadn’t felt like this since high school, and it was even

more unwelcome now, so he was happier than usual to get back to work. “I’ve got stuff

to do. I’ll be back at about six.”

He turned and stalked out the door before she could say anything, leaving her

standing there in the middle of the kitchen, looking around at the mess and wondering

what the hell she was doing there.

An uncooperative herd had him coming in the back door more than an hour later

than he’d told her to expect him, fully ready to apologize for being so abrupt when he left

and looking forward to taking her into Heartbreak – even all the way back to Billings, if

she felt like it – for a nice dinner. What greeted him when he opened the door, though,

had him standing there, dumbfounded, uncharacteristically letting nearly every bit of heat

in the house – and thus dollars he couldn’t afford to lose – escape out around him as he

just stood and stared.

The kitchen was immaculate. How she’d managed to make it so in such a

relatively short time, he had no idea, but the woman was obviously a miracle worker.

Every flat surface was spotless, the floor was sparkling, and the room – the whole house,

it seemed – was filled with the scent of something delicious that had been made with a

slew of garlic.

And was that – no, it couldn’t be – biscuits he smelled, too?

He was salivating so badly a river of drool almost poured out of his mouth.

Jayne appeared then, a cleaning rag in one hand, a roll of paper towels under that

arm, a bottle of some sort of cleaning spray under the other arm and a feather duster in

the other hand. She also had one of those cheap plastic grocery bags hanging – looped –

from her belt. It appeared to be full of dirty paper towels. “Oh, you’re home. My word

you work long hours!”

After putting her tools away in a bucket under the sink, she moved behind him to

reach up – it was the only way to get to him – and helped him take off his heavy shearling

coat, amazed at how heavy it was and barely able to get it up onto a peg on the row of

them that was very near the door. “Wash up, please, then go into the dining room and sit

down. I’ll bring dinner in.”

As he did as he was told – which was a rarity in and of itself – he glanced around

the room at the wonders she had performed. She had been busy, and that was even more

points for her, his eager mind added into the “plus” column, under the category “Never

Let Her Go”, and he doubled them as she put a heaping bowl of beef stew – full of corn,

carrots peas, green beans, potatoes, and onions – down on the plate in front of him, along

with an overflowing basket of biscuits on the table between them, and butter and

raspberry jam to top them.

He hadn’t had a meal like this in longer than he could remember. Well, since his

mother died, probably, since neither he nor his Dad cooked. He tucked into the stew with

gusto, finishing a bowl and three biscuits before she’d taken more than a spoonful of her

own much smaller portion. When she heard his spoon clink against the empty bowl, she

rose and refilled it, seeing him reaching for another two biscuits as she laid his second

portion down in front of him.

“Save room for dessert,” she cautioned.

His mouth still full of stew, he rhapsodized, “Dessert?!”

She grinned, and he knew she was laughing at him, but at that point he didn’t

much care.

When he’d finally had his fill of the stew – as well as about seven of the dozen or

so biscuits she’d baked – he leaned back in his chair and sighed contentedly. “Beats the

ever loving hell out of peanut butter sandwiches.”

She frowned, even though she knew he’d meant it as a compliment. “Those,” she

said, distaste dripping from every word, “are in the freezer, and, while I’m here, they’re

only to be used as food if we lose power or the world comes to an end, or something

equally as cataclysmic.”

“Done,” he said. He could live quite happily never tasting peanut butter again in

his life.

For her part, Jayne had been much more appalled when she’d opened the fridge to

see the forlorn little pile of lunches – and probably dinners, too – that he’d been

subsisting on for Lord knew how long, than she was with the condition of the house by

far. He was obviously just barely eking by, putting all of his effort into the ranch and

neatness be damned. But he did a lot of hard, physical labor all day, and she couldn’t

imagine that peanut butter sandwiches – on Wonder Bread, for crying out loud - helped

him much nutritionally.

“How did you manage all this? I didn’t think there was this much food in the

house!”

Jayne shrugged. “Once I got the kitchen somewhat organized, I ventured

downstairs and found the freezer, where there was a package of round steak that didn’t

look too freezer burned, and there were hash browns – with onions and potatoes in there,

as well as a couple bags of frozen veggies. I took those and the can of beef broth I found

in the pantry, along with a small can of tomato paste and some spices that looked like

they had seen better days, that, in the crock pot I found on the top shelf of the pantry

made the stew. I was a little short on the flour for the biscuits, but they came out all

right.”

“Hell yes!”

“I’ll put the stew in the fridge for leftovers – you’re not allergic to them, are

you?” she asked, staring down at him with their empty bowls in her hand.

“Allergic?”

“I have several friends whose husbands won’t eat leftovers.” Jayne couldn’t keep

her eyes from rolling as she said it.

“Idiots! Stew and stuff like that is even better the second day!”

“My thoughts exactly. Then I’ll do what my Mom used to do – cook through the

week, and have Friday as a leftover day.”

Far be it for him to delay the presentation – and devouring – of whatever dessert it

was that she had made – he didn’t care if it was just a Twinkie, for crying out loud – but

he felt he had to say it, “You can’t not cook on Saturday and Sunday, too, you know. I

have to work both of those days, so you have to cook.” He did so unapologetically,

though. It was a fact of life he couldn’t change, and she would either have to adapt or

this was going to be a very short month.

She stopped in the doorway on her way back, her hands full of something he

couldn’t see yet, then chuckled. “Yeah, I guess I will, then, won’t I? My Dad was a

business man – he sold insurance - and my Mom stayed home with us – my sister and I.

We did Saturdays in town – Burlington – and had lunch and dinner there, usually, then

Sunday breakfasts were out, lunch was catch as catch can, and dinner was always pizza

Sunday night.”

“So no problem?” he asked as she put what looked like a chocolate cream pie

down in front of him, cut him a huge hunk, then drizzled it with Hershey’s syrup and

handed him a spoon.

But it was her unconscious actions when she spilled a bit of the syrup on her

fingers, which she brought to her mouth and washed thoroughly, that held his attention.

The parts of him that were most interested in her doing that to them were beating against

the zipper of his jeans, and he wondered if it had the strength necessary to hold him back.

“No – the only thing I can say is that I need supplies. I mean, this chocolate

cream pie should have a pastry crust, and I didn’t have enough flour to do it, and there’s

no shortening at all.”

He hadn’t noticed anything wrong with the crust, in face he would swear his

erection was getting that much worse because of how the delicacy melted in his mouth –

a symphony of chocolate that he thoroughly enjoyed, even though it was his second

favorite flavor.

“What’s the crust?” he mumbled, again through a mouthful of delicious food.

“Brownies.”

He moaned, caught off guard, then stifled it to the not unwelcome sound of her

giggles.

“Yeah, I’ve decided that pastry is overrated, too,” she said, sighing over her own

small piece. “But, if I’m going to do the cooking and cleaning, I’m going to need a

whole list of stuff.”

He had been looking a lot more relaxed, until now, when she literally watched

him tense up.

Despite the fact that this was probably not the time to mention it – although

perhaps it would be a good diversion – she said, “And every one of my girlfriends was

appalled at the fact that you listed cooking and cleaning as what would be expected of

me, I’ll have you know.”

“Why were they appalled? It’s the truth,” not that he cared that much, but he was

a bit curious.

Jayne didn’t look at him as she took a sip of milk – which was the only thing

she’d found to serve as a beverage for their meal. “They found it unbearably

chauvinistic.”

Trieve snorted loudly, then put his hand up, as if to forestall an argument. “I have

no problem at all with equal pay for equal work. Any cowgirl - who can match my

strength and skill - should be paid exactly what I am, absolutely no doubt. But your

friends would prefer that I send all five foot nothing, ninety eight pounds of you out to

deal with the cattle, in the freezing cold, when you could probably barely lift a saddle

onto a horse, while I’m back here with a frilly apron on, burning everything I set in or on

the stove and creating more of a mess than I clean up?”

She had to grin – against her will – at the idea of him in any kind of an apron at

all, but then she tried – with only a modicum of success – to be serious. “Yes, well, you

have to admit that we’ve done a reasonably good job of obliterating the stereotype that a

man has to go off to earn the bacon and the little woman has to stay at home, taking care

of the house and kids.”

“And in a clean, warm, corporate world, that’s very possible to achieve,” he

agreed. “But out here, we’re quite a bit closer to the edge of civilization than Wall Street.

And just because they became stereotypes doesn’t mean they weren’t valid in the first

place,” he pointed out. “Those gender roles served us very well for an extremely long

time. Men are bigger and have better upper body strength, so they hunted or farmed or

whatever. Women are the only ones who can physically bring the next generation into

the world, and despite the incredible strength necessary to do so, the majority are still

physically weaker than their male counterparts, so they stayed home and did the

gathering and the childrearing.” She barely heard him add under his breath, “Some of

them, anyway.”

Jayne wasn’t at all sure what she was going to say to refute his points, but Trieve

was already done with his first slab, and was holding his plate out in front of her for

another. She restrained herself from asking if his arm was broken, reminded by his

speech just how much work he’d probably already done today, out in the cold with

animals stepping on him and such while she’d worked here in relative comfort, and just

gave him another piece.

But she did say, as she put the pretty pie server back onto the plate, loudly enough

that she knew he couldn’t miss it, “You’re welcome.”

She would never have expected the response she got, which was a hearty, self-

deprecating chuckle. “You’re right. Thank you, Miss Jayne, for a wonderful meal. If

you keep feeding me like this, I’m not going to be able to waddle out of the house.”

Beaming, she thanked him for the compliment.

When they were both done, he cleared the table, but she noticed that he didn’t

make a move towards doing the dishes. Instead, he retired to the living room, which she

hadn’t tackled yet, hearing him sink down into his chair, then get up again as she began

to load silverware into the bottom of the sink she was filling with hot, soapy bubbles.

“Where are your suitcases, Jayne?”

That tone had sent shivers up her spine while they were on the phone, and it had

her knees knocking in real life, but she ignored them as best she could. “Upstairs.”

He wasn’t wearing his boots, so she didn’t hear him clomping into the kitchen to

stand behind her, but she certainly could feel that he was there, staring at her back. “You

brought them all the way upstairs by yourself?” he asked quietly.

“I got them here by myself . . .” she replied, turning with a dishrag in her hand to

lean against the sink and stare back at him.

“No one helped you?” he asked, looking outraged at the idea for some reason.

Jayne frowned. Come to think of it . . . “Well, I offered the taxi driver a little

extra if he’d come in and get them for me, and he did – he didn’t even take the extra tip I

offered,” she said almost proudly.

But he didn’t look at all impressed. In fact he looked pretty annoyed.

Trieve was thinking that he wouldn’t have charged her, either, if she’d just smiled

at him like she seemed to have a habit of, and he was sure the cabbie felt the same way.

Jayne blithely rambled on. “And when we arrived at the airport, he got me a

Skycap who helped me get checked in.” It was her turn to blush. “I guess you’re right. I

did have help. But I did drag them out to the foyer myself,” she said, turning away from

him to pile more dishes into the dishwater.

Those bags were each nearly bigger than she was, and together they probably

weighed a good twenty pounds more than she did, at least. He knew – he’d hefted them

into the kitchen for her before he’d left.

Trieve didn’t know why the idea of her slogging those suitcases up the stairs had

him so incensed, but it did. There was plenty enough for her to do around here – there

was no need for her to do donkey labor like that. She was much too delicate, and he was

definitely enough of a chauvinist that he intended she shouldn’t do that kind of thing

while he was around.

And, as he walked slowly up behind her, he let her know – in no uncertain terms –

that he did not consider that to be acceptable by popping her several times – relatively

hard – over her jeans. Jayne whirled around in outrage, soapy hands held up like

weapons, although all they did was drip down her arms, outrage plain on her face.

“I did mention that I wouldn’t put up with a lot of nonsense, didn’t I?” he asked.

Her face clouded violently. They both knew the answer to that question, damn it.

He’d capitalized it so that she couldn’t miss it! But her lips pursed tightly nonetheless.

“But that’s not -”

“I’m not going to sugarcoat what I expect of you, Jayne,” he said, not quite

putting his hands on the counter behind her, but standing closely enough that she knew

that – if he wanted to – he could easily prevent her from moving away. “And if you

decide that my way is abhorrent, then I’ll take you back to the airport right now, or any

other time you ask.

“You see, I happen to kind of like the stereotypes we were talking about earlier. I

think that, especially out here, they’re particularly valid. And one of the things I don’t

want my wife – or potential wife -” he corrected quickly “ – doing are things that might

hurt her, especially those that I can do easily – like lifting heavy suitcases.”

Jayne, who fancied herself a pretty practical, down to Earth person, found herself

entranced by his words and the low, gentle voice in which he was delivering them,

however autocratically. So much so that she let herself be turned around again, so that

her front was against the counter, as that huge hand of his began what seemed to be an

unending volley of swats that cracked loudly against her backside in the silence of the

kitchen.

“Am I making myself perfectly clear, Jayne?” he asked huskily as his hand still

rose and fell like clockwork.

“Yes, yes, you are!” she practically yelled. Damn, her jeans were no defense at

all! She’d have to shop around for a thicker pair! Snow pants. That’s what she needed.

A pair in every color, if necessary. She’d even wear them in the summer if she needed

to, and she had a feeling she might well end up having to do just that.

“Good. Because the next time I feel the need to do this, you’re going to be over

my lap and bare bottomed, as you always should be when you’re being punished.”

She swallowed hard, her mouth doing its impression of the Sahara again, her

bottom throbbing long after he left her, leaving her wondering – although not

reconsidering – about her decision to come up here as she finished the dishes and tried to

ignore the fire he’d set in her behind.

They spent the evening – short as it was for the both of them – companionably,

although that was after he let her discover – slowly and painfully for her, but amusingly

for him – that he didn’t have cable. Or satellite. Or any form of internet – even dial up.

“No internet?” she asked, her eyes glazed over like a junkie who badly needed a

fix.

This time he actually laughed, and although it was at her expense, she still got a

flash of pride, knowing instinctively that this man hadn’t had much to laugh about in his

life.

She checked her phone compulsively, hoping she’d find something other than the

two bars on an edge network that would let her make and receive calls – of dubious

quality – and probably text, but not surf the web.

Dear God, how was she going to go a month with no Facebook? No Pinterest?

No Farmville? No anything – not even non-cable TV with only local channels!

“You know, if you have an antenna, you can get one of those converter boxes -”

He just sat there, grinning like a fool and shaking his head.

He laughed again at her pained whimper, then relented a bit. “I don’t have any of

those new fangled conveniences, but I have a reasonable amount of games.” He didn’t

mention that they were all decades old. “And cards.”

“What kind of games?” she asked suspiciously, as if she had read his mind.

Trieve had to think for a moment. “Cribbage. Scrabble. Trivial Pursuit.

Squence. Sorry. Aggrivation. Maybe more.”

Well, Scrabble was just Words with Friends without the annoying Facebook tie

in, so she chose that. The living room didn’t sport much for furniture – and what there

was was ancient and covered in dust – kind of like the Munster’s, as if he’d been adding

dust to it instead of trying to get rid of it.

But it did have a big, square oak coffee table that was damned near perfect for

games if they both sat on the floor, which was easier for him – at least at first – than it

was for her.

Trieve watched her carefully lower herself onto her spanked backside and did his

best to keep his smile to himself.

They quickly found that they were quite evenly matched.

“Where’d you go to college?” she asked, assuming facts that were not in

evidence.

“I didn’t.”

“Oh. You have a very good vocabulary.”

“Thanks. I read a lot.”

“Not much else to do here,” she mumbled not so quietly.

He laughed, a bit awkwardly, but she thought she might have inadvertently hurt

his feelings. They played some cribbage and gin rummy, but he got up to stretch after

only an hour and a half or so. They were in the middle of a game.

“Well, I’m going to turn in. I suggest you do, too. Morning’ll be here before you

know it.”

How she regressed into being an eight year old, she would never know. “But it’s

only nine-thirty!”

“And breakfast is at six, so you’ll have to get up earlier than that to make it.”

She was just starting to get up when she did a Mrs. Broflovski “What-what-

WHAT?” that he would never recognize the origin of, she’d bet, as cloistered as he was

out here.

This time he looked like he was trying – sort of – to suppress a grin, but not very

hard, at her complete surprise. “Welcome to ranching, Jaynie.”

She stopped in her tracks on the way to the stairs and sealed her own fate, turning

to give him the stink eye. “Don’t call me Jaynie.”

“Whatever you say, Jaynie.”

She rolled her eyes, saying, “You are such a man!” Then she waved her small fist

at him in what she hoped was a very threatening manner and mounted the stairs.

“G’night,” he offered up entirely too happily from the bottom of them.

She couldn’t stifle the yawn that took over her mouth, despite the early hour.

“G’night.”

Chapter IV

She didn’t, however, go right to sleep. He could see that she had the light on

when he looked out his bedroom window. She was up quite late, in fact, as was probably

her habit, he realized, and as long as she was up, he was up – in many different ways.

It had gone better than he’d thought it would, he had to admit, considering that he

should never have invited her here in the first place. She was smart and funny and a

damned hard worker, he had to admit. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected to come home

to, but it hadn’t been a much cleaner house and an amazingly good meal, and despite her

disappointment at what she considered to be a distinct lack of entertainment choices,

she’d been a good sport and seemed to have enjoyed time they spent playing games. She

hadn’t even much bitched about having to get up extremely early, which he bet she was

very not used to.

Then he admitted to himself that what he’d thought to himself was a lie. He’d

know exactly what he’d expected to come home to – a repeat of what the first potential

wife he’d brought here had done – absolutely nothing. She’d had her nose stuck so far in

the air that he didn’t even care what she thought about the condition of his home – there

was absolutely no embarrassment in showing her, just anger at her snooty reaction – to

him, to Billings, to the ranch . . . She’d thought that he would take her into town to wine

and dine her, as if she hadn’t bothered to read his ad at all, and had told him as much.

Nothing had been touched around the house at all, and when his back got up about her

expectations, she’d told him she thought it wasn’t going to work out, and demanded that

he take her back to the airport so she could catch the next flight home.

He’d been just as happy to do so. It had been a complete bust, and had made him

even more wary of the opposite sex than he already was.

But she seemed to be Little Miss Jayne Sunshine, and it left him wondering when

the other shoe was going to drop.

Considering the way she looked, he might be willing to put up with more than he

might otherwise of what he considered to be bad behavior in order to be able to sleep

with her every night. She was gorgeous, and he couldn’t believe she was even

considering moving out here to live alone, ninety percent of the time, with him.

Although he had his occasional lucid moments, most of the time all his filthy

mind could think about was how much he wanted to make love to her, what she’d feel

like beneath him . . . would she scream when he made her cum, or sigh blissfully? He

was ruthless with himself and figured he’d last an embarrassingly short amount of time,

at least at first, but he’d be willing to risk that complete humiliation in order to be close to

her.

And as he was building the fantasy of making love to her, he saw the light dim in

her room, but seconds later could hear her stepping carefully down the stairs – and no

matter how hard she tried – or he had tried as a kid – those stairs were too old and creaky

for either of them to get away with it.

He knew when he was trying to sneak past his parents as a kid it was to go outside

and get into trouble down by the barns, but he doubted that was her motivation.

Trieve let her pass by the short hallway where his bedroom was, then began to

follow her. Who said his Marine Corp training had gone to go to waste? She had no idea

he was there.

She was using something as a flashlight that wasn’t a flashlight, and it took him a

minute to realize that it was her smart phone. He watched her open the back door and

make her way carefully across the verandah – which was in better condition there than

out at the front door – to stand, with the cold wind whipping the housecoat and

nightgown around her legs and look up at the sky.

He was almost to her when she turned around and walked right into him, nearly

dropping her phone, but he sank down and caught it inches from the ground.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as she stood there shivering.

“I saw you go out of the house and wanted to make sure you were alright.”

Jayne sighed and turned away from him again. “I’m fine. I just realized that

Montana is big sky country, and I forgot to really look at it in the light. I wanted to see

how different the night sky was from Vermont’s.”

He was only half listening to her explanation. “You’re in your slippers. They’re

going to be soaking wet and you’re going to catch your death of cold.”

“Thanks, Mom,” she replied sarcastically as she rolled her eyes and turned around

at the same time, completely unprepared for what he did next, which was lift her into his

arms and carry her back into the house. At least he had had the sense to slip on his boots

and not stand in the snow getting pneumonia while looking up at the stars.

“You’re welcome, Jaynie,” he said, apparently in no hurry to put her down as he

stood in his kitchen – that still smelled of her wonderful cooking – and held her in his

arms.

A horrible thought popped into her head. “You’re not going to spank me for that,

are you?”

His eyebrow rose, and he appeared to be thinking very carefully about his

response, and, not knowing him all that well, she couldn’t tell whether he was serious or

not. “Well, I’m not sure yet, really. It appears you need more looking after than I might

have thought at first.” He squeezed her gently closer, certain not to hurt her even

accidentally.

She bit her lip, and he was more charmed by the unconscious gesture than he

wanted to be. She was an independent, successful woman, and he couldn’t imagine she

spent very much of her time being indecisive.

As she looked up at him, awaiting his decision, he found that he had hit the dead

end of his rope and could no longer deny himself a taste of her.

Jayne watched him bend towards her, giving her almost too much time to raise

any sort of objection, which she wasn’t about to. When their lips met, she whimpered at

the delicacy of the kiss, lifting her head a bit to deepen it herself and hearing his echoing

groan, and it was as if she’d found the key to the floodgates. She’d never felt possessed

by a man merely through his kiss, but he managed it without a hitch. Her arms reached

unconsciously up to settle just behind his neck, the fingertips of one hand exploring him

tentatively there, the other boldly buried in the thicket of dark hair she found there,

feeling every strand flowing through her fingers as she dragged them through it.

Trieve found himself fully and completely capable – he had been since he’d seen

her picture. But he didn’t want this to be one sided at all.

After devouring her mouth eagerly, he held back for a moment, not letting her

entice him again until he’d said what he wanted to say. “I want you, Jayne. More than

almost anything I’ve ever wanted in my life. I just want to make sure that you want it,

too.”

Jayne shook her head and tried to reach up to kiss him again, but he wouldn’t

allow it. Instead, he said something that would have had most women crawling right out

of his embrace and back to wherever they came from.

“But my making love to you doesn’t mean I’m going to marry you.”

She was unable to control the way she stiffened in his arms. It was automatic

when she felt insulted, apparently - not that she didn’t think she had a bit of

understanding about this man, even after so short an acquaintance. The hard edge he

wore so often was comfortable to him – it kept people – mostly women – at bay, and that

had been fine with him for quite a while, she’d bet. Someone had hurt him badly, made

him a wary and distrusting man for the rest of the female population to deal with.

Frankly, though, she didn’t much care at this moment whether or not this was

going to result in happily ever after. She just wanted him to lay her down on his bed,

strip off her nightgown and merge his body with hers. She didn’t care if there was a

blizzard coming, or a nuclear winter, or an evil, axe wielding snowman.

She just wanted him, every bit of him she could get for as long as she could get it.

Til she finally let the thought through, the inevitable moment when he invited her

to leave, or threw her out. She let herself realize with a sudden, painful clarity that he

really didn’t think she’d fit the bill for what he had in mind at all, despite the fact that

he’d invited her up here, and that this month was a hard won indulgence for a man who

didn’t want a wife and a partner as much as he wanted an egg donor he could keep at

arm’s length.

But she knew that even admitting those distasteful facts to herself didn’t change

things a bit as far as she was concerned. She felt as if she was caught up in something

much bigger than herself, that she had no control over. She could no more stop what

they’d started than she could

“I don’t give a damn, Trieve. I just want you to make love to me. Please.”

The last word was whispered achingly, and he was sorry that he’d made her feel

she needed to beg for him, when every cell in his body craved nothing more – and

nothing less - than every inch of hers.

In answer, he walked with her to his bedroom. It had been his parents’ while he

was growing up, then his Dad’s once his Mom had left, and now his. It was one of the

biggest rooms in the house, with an attached bathroom, and the biggest bed he could

afford, which his feet still hung off of if he didn’t position himself just right.

But none of that mattered right now. All he cared about was that he was about to

have her, here, beneath him, and that she apparently wanted him just as badly as he did

her, although he found the idea absolutely amazing.

She reached up and tried to help him off with the t shirt he’d slipped into to trail

after her, but he brushed her hands away in favor of reaching down to her upper thigh and

beginning to gather her warm, soft nightgown in his big hand, raising the hem as

excruciatingly slowly as he raised his hand, exposing the most intimate parts of her till

she helped him get it off over her head, wishing the entire time she’d remembered to

bring pajamas that made her more easily accessible instead of being cute.

The only scrap of material she still had on was her panties, and they wouldn’t

have protected her from a soft sigh, much less someone the size of Trieve. But he

surprised her by not reaching for the bows that decorated each of her hips, holding the

front and back – what there was of them – together. Instead, he stretched out beside her

and kissed her, leaning a bit towards her but not jumping on her, as if he didn’t want to

overwhelm her.

Trieve wasn’t at all sure how long he could keep up his tame pussycat demeanor,

but he hoped it would be long enough to bring her to the same heights he had long since

scaled, although, judging by the eagerness of her response, she wasn’t necessarily that far

off. She returned each kiss and more, pressing back eagerly, arching against him but not

trying to brush those tight tips against him – yet anyway.

As he continued to kiss her, slowly, more languorously than before, he let his

hands begin to claim her, inch by slow inch, beginning at the top of her head, where his

fingers mirrored her own, losing themselves in her soft, shiny hair, cupping the back of

her head and using his hold to keep her still for a kiss, and that had her writhing more

violently than anything else he’d done, so he continued to do it – teasing her, testing her,

watching and reveling in every one of her reactions.

He held her still, with her neck and back forcibly arched by the way he positioned

her head as his lips dropped first down onto her collarbone, then a bit lower each time

until he began to climb the impressive slopes of her breasts, alternating wet, warm kisses

between the two until the only places that remained untouched by those his eager lips

were her nipples, which was where she must wanted him to kiss her.

But he ignored their silent enticements in favor of the flat of her stomach right

beneath them, and all the attention her poor, aching peaks got was the feel of his hair as it

was dragged over them as he descended to greener pastures.

She wasn’t too proud to beg. “Trieve, please. My nipples. Please.”

He looked up at her with a benevolent smile, then returned to what he had been

doing. “Not right now, Baby. Not right now.”

It was the first time he’d used an endearment with her, but she couldn’t really

enjoy it because the only thing she could think about was how much those tender,

tightened tips cried out for him – any part of him. Even just his breath over them would

have been fine with her, but he wasn’t even offering that.

Somehow, Jayne hadn’t considered that she would be expected to obey him in the

bedroom, too. That was something that bore more thinking about . . . sometime.

Definitely not right at this moment, though, because he was descending, full steam ahead,

into an area she wasn’t at all sure she wanted him to become acquainted with the first

time they made love, especially since she hadn’t had a chance to take a shower before he

did so, and, as he slid between her legs, forcing her open naturally, she said as much to

him, despite the fact that she could feel how her cheeks flamed while she made her

admission.

Not that he seemed as if he was going to let her little confession stop him. No, he

continued to do what it was that he had set out to, until she lay there, completely exposed

to him, not exactly actively protesting his presence at the altar of her womanhood, but

reaching down occasionally to push him half-heartedly away, sometimes twisting as if

she was going to try to get up.

But he put a stop to that quickly by swatting her behind every time she tried to

turn and move away from him. There was no other possible way to remove herself – her

head was up against the headboard, and there was nothing else she could to in order to

escape, until he finally said, quietly, firmly, “Stay still.”

She collapsed back onto a bottom that was decently reddened, despite how she

tried to protect it as she tried with an alarming lack of success to extricate herself.

Trieve positioned himself so that his outspread, bent arms held her down without

much effort as he leaned forward, between her well spread legs to nuzzle her mons for a

moment, then begin to gently, very gently, flick the tiny pebble he found there.

His efforts were rewarded when he heard her gasping for breath within seconds.

She writhed and twisted, but he knew it wasn’t a continuation of her attempts to get away

from him. Her entire body was arched, taut strings, expertly played by the relentless bow

of his lips and tongue and mouth.

A surprisingly short amount of time later – before he’d even begun to really

explore the lush expanse before him, she was begging him – but it didn’t seem as if she

wanted to say what for.

She just kept repeating the word “please”.

He did like it when a woman said that to him, especially in bed, so he wasn’t at all

sure whether or not he wanted to stop her, but he did look up at her for long enough to

ask huskily, “Please what, Jayne?”

Then he returned to the very pleasant task at hand – or rather mouth – without

waiting for her response.

Jayne herself wasn’t at all sure she could answer him. It seemed entirely beyond

her to do more than she already was, and when he paused for a long moment again, a

little while later, she couldn’t take the loss of stimulation, the loss of that warm, wet, live

cocoon with which he had surrounded her.

“I asked you a question, Jayne, and I expect an answer.” Not accusing, not angry,

but firm and quiet – and immutable.

How could he possibly sound so goddamn sane when she was slowly but surely

losing her mind?

She tried. She really tried to give him a more complete thought, a more complete

sentence, but it was just behind her at the moment. She was too far gone.

But Trieve knew exactly what to do to help her recover her sanity.

So he flipped her over, very abruptly and rudely, onto her tummy, and began to

spank her.

Hard - much harder than he had before.

She struggled to get away – this time with much more impetus than a few minutes

ago – but with the same stark lack of results. She quickly realized that she was well and

truly caught, and it didn’t seem that he was in much of a mood to be lenient.

Quite the contrary.

Chapter V

It took her a disconcertingly short amount of time to cave and do exactly what

he’d asked, shouting at him, “Please make me cum!” She hated the neediness in her tone,

but then, she felt needier now than she ever had in her life!

Her embarrassing plea didn’t even slow the painful tattoo he was beating out on

her behind in the slightest, and all she could do was moan and cry and occasionally try to

wiggle away, with no visible signs of success.

By the time he stopped crisply swatting her rear to flip over onto her back again

she knew what it was like – for the first time in her life - to have her backside set on fire.

The sheets her highly sensitized rear came in contact with were far from the seven

hundred count Egyptian cotton ones she kept on her own bed, and it was like dragging

that raw skin over sandpaper, so much so that she jumped a bit, arching away from the

bed and towards him, before finally settling down, albeit gingerly.

Trieve knew he had accomplished two things by spanking her like that – one, she

knew that he meant to be obeyed even when the order was given casually, and two, he

knew that cumming was now the last thing on her mind.

For now.

At least until he rededicated himself to getting her to that point again, in answer to

the plea he’d had to drag out of her. He’d been surprised at just how reluctant she’d been

to say something like that – but then she was just beginning to bring home to him the fact

that that his skewed viewpoint on women always made him think badly of them, and that,

although the good ones may be few and far between, he shouldn’t paint them all with the

same brush.

Jayne was amazed at just how quickly her tears dried and he had her panting

again – for a much different reason.

This time, as he made his descent, he didn’t neglect her nipples, giving each of

those swollen buds the same lavish attention he gave other parts of her body as she

writhed beneath his ministrations. Then he continued his path down her body, leaving a

wet trail to the very top of her neatly groomed cleft.

As he once again conquered and surrounded her, he let his fingers trail down from

where his lips had settled to carefully explore that which he intended to claim next,

immediately feeling a huge sense of self-satisfaction at finding his fingers slickened

naturally by the feminine juices that seemed to be pouring out of her.

Two thick fingers reached up inside her, delighted to discover just how tight she

was, almost virginal, in fact, prompting him go slower than he might and stretching out

the anticipation for both of them as his body occupied and controlled her most sensitive

spots.

Jayne had lost all sense of embarrassment and time and logic. Her entire

existence was concentrating on him and what he was doing to her. She couldn’t even feel

the pain of her reddened bottom, except to know that its incessant tingling – and even the

considerable sting - ratcheted up her desire several notches, whether she wanted it to or

not.

Stretching up a bit to flick and suckle at the very top of what seemed to be his

favorite area, Trieve ordered hoarsely, “Cum, Baby. I want to feel you explode against

my mouth.”

And, without so much as a second’s hesitation, as soon as those eager lips touched

her again, she did exactly that, absolutely unable to control the almost violent screams

that told of just how far into the atmosphere he’d brought her before letting her fall back

to Earth. And he didn’t stop there. He didn’t do what a lot of men in her experience did

– leave to reposition themselves as soon as she began climaxing, which left her only half-

fulfilled the majority of the time. No, he was a very thorough lover, and she found

herself subject to five more orgasms that were each just as hard and raw as the first with

which he’d gifted her.

Only when he could tell by her body’s greatly reduced responses to him did he

leave off and lever himself over her, sinking his rampant, demanding cock fully within

her in one stroke that had her arching against him, tensed and hard, as if he’d hurt her

badly.

“Are you all right?” he asked, beginning to withdraw despite how his body

protested at the mere thought of doing so.

“YES!” she yelled again, reaching up to grab onto his hips and draw him back

inside her.

And that was all Trieve could stand. He couldn’t be civilized enough to inquire

further. She was meeting his every thrust, as if trying to match him, and – amazingly –

doing just that with the aid of her own feminine strength, growling low in her throat the

whole time.

Gone were his gentlemanly tendencies – the ones that had him holding back,

especially the first time he made love to a woman, making sure he wasn’t going to

inadvertently crush or hurt her, that had him only half thrusting a lot of the time, taking it

slow and making sure she was with him.

He let go for the first time since he was an adolescent who couldn’t control

himself if he’d wanted to, fucking her hard, his mind nowhere but on that ephemeral goal,

the ecstasy that reared up on him and threw him into the fire as he pistoned mindlessly

through it all, taking every bit of pleasure he could before he collapsed atop her.

And what little bit of awareness that had lurked in the background of his

consciousness during this mind blowing experience had retained the fact that she had not

cringed away from him once, hadn’t tapped him on the shoulder and politely asked him

to be careful, and wasn’t now, trying desperately to get him to move off her. Instead he

knew that she had urged him on, whispering “Harder!” under her breath and wrapping

her arms around him as best she could, encouraging him to find what he had given her,

and simply holding him and stroking his back in the aftermath.

She actually whimpered a bit – although he didn’t think she knew it – when he did

finally move, even though it was only a few inches to her right. She followed him,

cuddling up against his chest and holding him, even trying to rock him a bit, he thought,

and, although he was still pretty well brainless and far from recovering, he leaned down

and kissed the top of her head, folding her in his big arms against him, content for the

first time since he could remember.

But, once reality began to set in again, the longer they lay there in what should

have been the afterglow, Jayne could feel him beginning to withdraw from her again. His

arms fell away – although he didn’t actually push her from him – and his body stiffened

in a manner it hadn’t been minutes before, making her feel about as welcome in his bed

as the plague.

With that stark, unwelcome feeling slapping her in the face, she got up, realizing

sadly that it felt very necessary to doing her best to shield her nakedness from him – not

that he was any kind of help. In fact, he just stared at her quite blatantly, not saying a

word as she scrambled around trying to find at least her nightgown, which would cover a

multitude of sins. Surprised to feel the compulsion to do so after they had just made love,

she turned her back to him as she pulled the long gown over her head, grabbed her

panties and housecoat in one hand and left him there to silently ascend the stairs, feeling

colder inside than she did out by a long shot, and doing her level best not to let him hear

her crying.

Trieve cursed himself as he watched her walk away, knowing he should go after

her but unable to make himself do so. He hadn’t meant his mind to go where it went –

and his body followed, to hold himself away from her like that when they should have

been cuddling. He’d adored it when she had followed him onto her side, pressing her

cheek to his chest. He’d been almost overwhelmed by a feeling of having come home, of

frighteningly complete satisfaction he’d never experienced before and indeed, had never

really thought was possible.

And – as big as he was – those feelings absolutely terrified him, so he let her go,

knowing intellectually that he was doing the absolutely wrong thing as he watched her

cover her nakedness as if she was ashamed that she’d let him see her that way in the first

place and climb the stairs, alone and hurt.

Disgusted with himself in a way he’d never been before, Trieve rolled over. It

was three fifteen. Hell, he’d have to get up in an hour and a half or so, and he knew he

was much too wound up – despite the tremendous, hair raising release he had found with

Jayne – to get back to sleep, so he hauled himself out of bed to begin his day.

He stayed away for breakfast, coward that he was, preferring to go hungry rather

than face her recriminations. Hell, she could have called a cab and left by now, he

thought as he swung down from his big gelding and began to trudge to the back door,

head down, expecting the worst, since that’s always what seemed to happen.

But he could smell something wonderful before he’d even made it to the door –

and hear something, too.

Someone one was playing a stereo – although he didn’t own one. He’d pawned

his nice system years ago. He knew she’d packed some heavy stuff into those two

suitcases, but he hadn’t thought it would be an entire sound system. Trieve walked past

something bubbling on the stove that smelled amazing, but he was too intent on finding

her – and the source of the music – to linger for long. He found her in the living room –

not the den, but the formal living room his mother had insisted they maintain, although

there was nothing at all formal about how they lived and they almost never had any

visitors out here – with the vacuum and its cord wrapped around her, singing loudly to

something that sounded very discordant to him, but then he hadn’t listened to popular

music in a very long while. And he had yet to discover what she was using to play it.

When he tapped her on the shoulder, she jumped three feet, and he absolutely

could not suppress a grin, no matter how hard he tried.

“Sorry,” he chuckled, knowing it was a lie as he said it. “I didn’t mean to startle

you.”

She glared at him, turned off the machine with her foot and went to the now

immaculate brass and glass end table to pick up her phone, which seemed to be stuck into

. . .was that a toilet paper roll?

He stared at it and her, agog.

“I forgot to bring my portable speaker – I figured you’d have something here,

really,” she said, not caring much about whether that insinuation hurt him. “So I

improvised.”

She stepped over the vacuum, past him, and into the kitchen. Paper plates and

bowls had been set up at the snack bar. He filled the plate with three fresh, hot

homemade rolls as soon as she put a basket of them down in front of him, then filled his

bowl with garlic smashed potatoes, over which she poured what looked like a thick

chicken stew.

He dug in without saying a word as she took her own seat in front of a very small

portion after filling both of their glasses with milk.

When he felt able to slow down a bit from shoveling food into his maw, he

ventured, “You’re not eating much.”

She didn’t even look up from her bowl. “Not hungry.” She finished before he did

– before he’d even gotten a chance to tell her how great the food was – threw her plate

and bowl in the garbage and set her glass in the sink to fill with water. Before she left,

heading back to finish up the living room, she said, “I need supplies if I’m going to cook

for you for a month. There’s a partial list on the fridge, but the more I work the more I

have to add to it. I’m running out of things to make for dinner because I don’t have much

in the way of ingredients.” Jayne figured that mentioning running out of food might

resonate with him, since he seemed to devour whatever she set in front of him.

She’d done a thorough inspection of just exactly what it was he had on hand, and

created the list out of what she thought she’d need. The pantry was good sized but it

looked like Mother Hubbard’s cupboard – all she found there was literally seventeen jars

of off brand peanut butter, for which there were thirty corresponding loaves of cheap

white bread in the freezer, and, surprisingly, about twenty five plastic containers of sugar

cookies – the frosted ones she’d seen in the bakery section of her local grocery store.

One container was half eaten, and when she saw him come watch her clean out of

the corner of her eye, she could see that he was munching on a handful of them for

dessert. She ignored him in favor of getting the living room done today, and he finally

left, if somewhat reluctantly.

Dinner that night was a quiet affair, neither of them willing to discuss what had

happened between them – not even the good parts. Trieve didn’t want to talk about how

she had left him so abruptly, even though he knew it was his fault that she had, and Jayne

didn’t want to let him know just how hurt she’d been by what she perceived as a rejection

of her.

She wanted to know what the hell had been done to this man in the past that had

affected him so now – made him so brittle and wary and ashamed about his lack of

money - and she knew that if she ever got the chance to get her hands on the person –

who she’d bet was a woman, somehow – she was going to throttle her.

The next two days went by in much the same awkward silence, and Trieve had yet

to even acknowledge the reality of the fact that she was practically down to serving him

peanut butter sandwiches herself.

Not willing to confront him – and figuring he’d just clam up even more when she

wanted to discuss his finances – or lack thereof – she decided one morning, just after he’d

left from breakfast, that she wasn’t going to expect him to do anything about the situation

any longer. She’d fix it herself.

So she called information and had a cab come out – there was one whole cab for

the entire burg of Heartbreak, who seemed to know where she was immediately – and he

came out and brought her back to town.

Sometimes living near a small town had its advantages.

The driver was a very nice fellow who offered to wait for her to get her groceries

so she could store them in his trunk, then pick her up when she was all done shopping

and take her back out to the ranch. She agreed thankfully and gave him a healthy tip.

She’d brought her list – to which she added liberally as she shopped at the one

and only grocery store in town, despite her reservations, because she knew that tiny,

regional grocery stores were barely above convenience stores in price and selection, but

she was able to get almost everything she wanted there, and what she couldn’t get there,

she got at the local hardware store.

As her purchases were run up – and not scanned, she noticed – the plump cashier

came right out and asked, “Are you Trieve Jensen’s new girl?”

Jayne wasn’t at all sure how to answer that, so she merely gave the woman a

small smile that neither confirmed nor denied her suspicions.

“I hope the two of you will be very happy.”

Thanking her generally without acknowledging her wish for them that definitely

wasn’t going to come true, Jayne gathered her items, thinking how things were between

them – and of his attitude towards females in general – and muttering to herself

something to the effect of “not fucking likely”.

She could see the cab was parked outside a diner, and realized she was pretty

hungry herself, so she stowed her things back there and took a booth at the back, realizing

as she entered that all eyes would be on her for the entire time she was here.

“What can I get you, honey?” the waitress at her elbow snapped her gum

incessantly, and even blew a few bubbles for added measure.

Not having been offered a menu, Jayne replied without thinking, “A bacon

cheeseburger, fries and a Diet Coke, please.”

“Say, are you Trieve Jensen’s girl?” she asked before leaving, as if she was

inquiring whether Jayne wanted ketchup with that.

Jayne sighed. She’d grown up in a small town. She knew how fruitless it was to

try to buck the grapevine. “I guess so, but not really.”

“Mmm-mmm-mmm,” the other woman rhapsodized, getting a faraway look in her

eye. “That man’ll wear you out if you’re not careful.” She nudged Jayne knowingly. “In

a good way, of course. It’s too bad about his Mama. He and his father deserved better

than how she done them.”

Before she could turn away, Jayne touched the girl’s arm. “What about his

mother?”

That was all the invitation Peggy needed to take a seat across from Jayne and spill

every single bean she knew.

Although her lunch was much later than she’d intended, Jayne had to admit as she

stepped out of the restaurant that it had been an eye opening hour and a half or so – and it

wasn’t because of the stellar cuisine.

Peggy was Trieve’s contemporary and had lived in Heartbreak all her life. She

knew all the dirt, and now, so did Jayne. It appeared – if hearsay was to be believed –

that Trieve’s Mama, who everyone but his father had thought was a terrible choice for a

wife, had up and abandoned them when he was near his early teens in favor of a wild,

much younger ranch hand. And for a long while, no one saw or heard from her, until one

day, Trieve’s father, Carlton, received a summons to county court.

The horrible woman wasn’t just content with leaving utter devastation in her wake

after leaving them, she had the gall to sue his father for half of the ranch that had been in

his family for five generations.

And she won. She was granted fully half of what had been an enormous ranch,

and the loss devastated Trieve and his father, who they say was never the same. They’d

had to struggle – really struggle – after that to retain ownership of what remained, and his

life now was merely a continuation of that battle.

“He mourned the loss of her for the rest of his life, God rest his soul,” Peggy had

murmured, practically tearing up.

She dialed up Amos, the cab driver to let him know she was ready, and headed for

the cab, mulling over what she’d learned about Trieve. As reasons for hating women go,

his was a doozey, she had to admit.

But he had to come to grips with the fact that not every woman was like his

mother at some point in his life, or he’d end up donating what was left of his ranch when

he died to the state, and somehow, even she found that idea quite untenable.

As Amos drove her home, she replayed one of the last things Peggy had said to

her in her mind. She had leaned over and patted Jayne’s hand in an almost maternal

fashion, saying, “I can tell you’ll be good for him. Why, you’re already miles ahead of

the last woman he had out there. That witch barely lasted twelve hours.”

She couldn’t help it. Her curiosity was piqued. “How many others has he

brought to the ranch?” she asked, careful not to tip his hand that he was actively looking

for a wife when she wasn’t sure just how much the town – and thus Peggy – knew.

“Just the one in decades, really. Decades. It’s so sad.” She teared up again, then

cleared he throat. “We could tell that she wasn’t going to be a good fit for him just from

a glimpse of her as he drove her through town to pick up some stuff at the feed and seed

on the way to the ranch. She was all haughty and looking down her nose at us. Good

riddance to her, I say. He deserves someone better. You’re the one, all right. You’ll get

him to come ‘round, or my name’s not Margaret Bernice Cavendish Davis O’Reilly

Sinclair Hudson.”

Jayne’s eyes had gone round at what seemed to be the never ending list of her

husbands, which, to her, diminished her endorsement by quite a bit. She wondered

casually how many she’d buried and how many she’d divorced, not really sure she

wanted to know.

She had a lot to think about once she got home – back to the ranch – she corrected

within her own mind. Amos helped her bring things in for which she again tipped him

generously, although he waved her money away. “No, no, I can’t take that. I’d just like

to be able to say I had a small part in helping Retrieve Jensen come to his senses. That’s

more than enough payment for me.”

Jayne had to admit she was touched by the sentiment as she headed for the

kitchen with her booty and got dinner started, then set about tackling the den, a long

neglected study, and then began on the upstairs, armed with more and better tools than

she’d had before.

He’d come home for lunch – already anticipating the wonderful scents and tastes

of whatever it was that she had cooking, and there was no one there. The house was as

quiet as a tomb – as it had been for years and years before she’d come into his life. She’d

transformed his expectations in such a short time that he knew this was just a taste of

what he was going to feel when he had to tell her it wasn’t going to work out at the end of

the month. His heart lodged painfully in his throat until he’d taken the stairs by twos and

threes and found that her stuff was all still there. When he got back to the kitchen, he

saw that her ever present – and ever growing – list was gone, and deduced that she’d

gone into town, probably with the help of one Amos Thrushkill.

Trieve had taken two bites of one of the peanut butter sandwiches he’d found in

the freezer, right where she’d said she’d leave them, and threw it away. There was no

way he could go back to that now. At least, not until he was truly starving again and had

no choice in the matter.

So when he was done out on the range, he headed home with a somewhat heavy

heart, trying not to hope too much that she’d be there when he got there, but then he saw

the light on in the kitchen, and his step livened considerably. He did a terrible job

grooming Kellan, his horse, giving him a couple extra rations of precious grain to make

up for it as he practically ran into the house.

Jayne barely looked up at him as he came in, but then she was taking a pan of

something that smelled absolutely luscious out of the oven. “Dinner in fifteen,” she said,

her voice as no nonsense as he once claimed he was. “Go wash up.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he said, almost automatically, but not without a small smile.

As he wandered through the house, he saw a new mop and pail in the corner of

the hall, found his bed made with flowery sheets he’d never have bought himself, and sat

down in his chair at the head of the table to a meal of pork chops he knew hadn’t existed

in this house for more years than he cared to remember.

“You’ve been shopping,” he said, not letting the accusatory tone stop him from

digging into an enormous, thick cut chop that was covered with onions, and, to his

surprise, applesauce. The meat fell off the bone and melted in his mouth, full of the

flavors she’d added to the dish – garlic, ginger, soy sauce . . . it was pure Heaven.

There was also stuffing as a side dish, as well as baby carrots with peas, and he

devoured it all.

“Yes.”

“I’ll pay you back.”

They both knew he’d said that about her plane ticket, too, but he had yet to

address it. She knew he couldn’t, and wouldn’t have accepted money from him that she

knew was so dear to him and that deserved to be pumped right back into the ranch,

anyway.

Jayne shrugged her shoulders and played with her food rather than eating much of

it. When he was done, she removed their plates, scraping the remains of her chop –

which was three quarters of it – back into the casserole dish.

What she brought back puzzled him. It looked like a blonde brownie, but it was

frosted with little multi-colored jimmies in it, like the sugar cookies he was addicted to.

She plunked one down on his plate, saying, “Try it.”

It, too, was pure bliss. Moist and dense and tasting very much like a sugar cookie

. . . only better. When he reached for seconds, she cautioned, “Wait,” and brought in a

bowl, along with other accoutrement. She put a bar in the bottom of the bowl, covered it

with Ben and Jerry’s World’s Best Vanilla, hot fudge sauce and whipped cream, then

handed it back to him, vowing to keep him in homemade sugar cookies – or bars – as

long as she was here, just based on the sheer ecstasy on his face.

For his part, Trieve now he knew he was going to die happy!

Chapter VI

When he was finally done, he wiped his mouth with what he recognized as a real

napkin, rather than a paper towel, and said, “I will, you know.”

“What?” She looked up from a glass filled with ice and Diet Coke, her eyes

landing on his for only the most fleeting of seconds, then skittering nervously away.

“Pay you back.”

Jayne shrugged. “I’m not worried about it, either way.”

Trieve’s face clouded up. “I know, but I am.”

She cleared her throat uneasily. “I know, and I’m sorry you’re going to agonize

over something when you don’t need to. You have enough on your plate trying to keep

this place afloat, and although I haven’t seen all that much of it yet, I can absolutely

understand why you would want to preserve it and leave it as a legacy for your children.

There’s its own kind of . . . stark beauty. Not flashy like Vermont in the fall, but

gorgeous nonetheless.”

That’s exactly how he thought of it. He loved the land and he loved his work. He

just wished he’d been a better steward, been able to make it pay off better than he had.

He was working on a strain of high yield, disease resistant cattle, with his now tiny herd,

but money was so tight that he hadn’t been able to get very far with it. He could sell

some of it, he guessed, but his heart balked at the idea of reducing his legacy even

further, even if it would provide a lot of ease for him in a lot of ways.

“You’ve been talking to Peggy.”

She looked surprised at first, then remembered her own experiences in her

hometown. Everyone knew everyone else’s business. “When I was done getting

groceries, I was hungry, so I stopped in to the diner.”

He looked about as angry as she’d seen him.

“Don’t be mad at Peggy. She made a remark about how sad –“ she changed

tacks, “what your mother did – and I couldn’t resist asking her about it. I’m sorry. I

didn’t mean to pry.”

“Yes, you did,” he countered with neutrality he didn’t feel.

She had the grace to blush a bit. “Well, I plead guilty to wanting to know more

about you, and what makes you tick.”

That was a telling confession, and it almost diverted him from being unhappy

about her having pumped Peggy for information that, if he’d wanted her to have, he

would have given her himself. “Still. I don’t appreciate the fact that you snuck around,

asking question about me in town, where everyone knows me, and, since it was Peggy,

by now everyone in town will know who did the asking and about what.”

Jayne bit her lip, knowing she had made a major faux pas that she should have

been able to avoid – her own experience of small town living wasn’t much different from

this, but she hadn’t thought about the repercussions for him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to

give anyone cause to gossip about you.” By the time he was thirteen he’d probably been

the innocent victim of more gossip than most adults, considering his mother’s behavior,

and here she’d gone and stirred the pot again. She met his eyes and held them, for the

first time in a long time.

And she really, really didn’t like what she saw there.

He was looking down his nose at her – which she’d only just realized had

probably been broken several times, considering the various bumps and bulges it sported

– with one eyebrow raised. He looked . . . expectant, and she had a good idea what it was

that he was waiting for, but hell was going to freeze over before she marched herself to

her own doom, and she’d tell him that herself –

“Jayne.”

As he continued to stare back at her, she began to feel as if she couldn’t look

away even though she wanted to. He held her eyes with his in the same effortless manner

he would soon be employing to hold her in place for a punishment.

“What?” She felt as if she was being hypnotized by those black eyes of his,

rapidly losing her usually staunch strength of will.

“What do you think I ought to do about the fact that you spent the afternoon

talking to Peggy about me behind my back?”

“I didn’t figure you’d talk to me about it yourself . . .” she whispered, squirming

in place as if she was already trying to avoid the swats she knew were minutes away from

falling.

He probably wouldn’t have, he thought to himself, but that was not the question.

“That doesn’t give you the right to go questioning other people about my personal

affairs.”

His use of the word “affairs” had her wondering about the other woman he’d

considered for the same position she was supposedly in contention for, but she figured

she was already in enough trouble without bringing that up.

“No, but -”

He didn’t even bother to stand, but just kicked her chair abruptly away from the

table at the same time he did his own, tugged her near arm, and she landed right where he

wanted her – over his lap.

As much as she flailed her arms and legs, trying to get purchase with either the

tips of her toes on the floor or her hands on the side of the chair or his leg or anywhere,

really, she came up with nothing. He had her perched perfectly, where her hands were

too far down to reach back and grab anything, but not far enough so that she could plant

them on the floor, and it was the same for her feet. Even kicking up got her nothing but a

harder smack to her behind.

And then he reached down and began to tug her pants off.

Why, oh why, had she worn yoga pants? Hadn’t she brought anything with a

belt? Preferably a locking belt of some sort?

The answer was that she had, but they were dress pants that she wouldn’t wear it

to clean, which is what she’d spent most of her time doing here – cooking and cleaning.

And he didn’t stop there – no matter how she’d prayed that he would and, in a

shockingly short amount of time, begged him to. He’d told her before that the next time

he spanked her she’d be bare assed, and she had been in bed with him. Apparently he

meant that as a general rule, because as soon as he had her heiney exposed, the spanking

commenced, and it didn’t end quickly.

It seemed they never did.

He didn’t lecture, but rather concentrated on the task at hand, which mean

roasting every bit of her behind, then down the backs of her legs and back up again.

He seemed to have an eerie ability to reduce her to the lowest common

denominator of herself, and spankings achieved that more rapidly than making love did.

He forced her – in varied ways – to spend long moments concentrating on nothing in the

world more than what he was doing to her – whether it was stinging the back of her or

pleasuring the front.

Unfortunately for her, this was definitely in the former category, and he didn’t

even begin to slow down until her rear was carmine red, with touches where the swats

had overlapped that bordered on maroon.

She had long since lost the ability to do much more than croak hoarsely when his

palm collided with her cringing flesh, tears falling unheeded to the surprisingly clean

carpet beneath and forming a telling, damp spot there.

In the end, she was surprised to feel him shifting her around so that he could hold

her on his lap – gingerly with every thought to her comfort – just the opposite of a few

moments ago. It felt almost like what she had wanted after they’d made love. He held

her there, his cheek on the top of her head, stroking her arm and rocking slightly side to

side.

He comforted her, more so than she had ever experienced in her life. Of course,

she’d never really been put into a position where she needed all that much comfort – and

certainly not for something like this - but this one definitely fit the bill.

When her breathing had slowed to almost normal, he reached out a long finger

and tilted her moist face to his, kissing her with excruciating gentleness, then standing to

carry her into his room, closing the door behind him and allowing himself that sweet

indulgence no one else in his life had ever been able to give him.

And in the long, dark night, he told her about himself, and what had happened.

There were no tears, and not even any recriminations against his mother. He just told her

the cold, hard facts of the situation. There wasn’t even a big blowout with his father or

anything that marked the end of his time with her – she had just said she was going in to

town to get some milk and he never saw her again.

Jayne didn’t he even realized how bereaved he sounded as he recounted the facts

to her with an eerie calm after the second time he’d made love to her that night.

He didn’t sound bitter, either, although she knew there was a heaping helping of

that, too, but more like he’d never had the chance to really mourn the tremendous loss

he’d experienced – twice. At least when she’d disappeared the first time, he’d still had

his dad and they’d had the ranch to work together. But when she reappeared later on, it

had seemed to him as a boy – and to her as an adult – that all she was there for was

money. She apparently had made no effort to contact her son in any way when she came

back.

She just wanted what money she could get out of his father, regardless of any

damage she caused to either of them.

And she did.

He told her how, after that particular blow, his father had declined rapidly, until

he’d finally surrendered to a combination of cancer and emphysema when Trieve was

just shy of his eighteenth birthday.

“So you’ve been working this place by yourself for all those years?” she asked, so

incredulous that she was half sitting up, trying to stare down into his face in the

moonlight.

“I had hands helping me at first, but after a while, I couldn’t afford to keep them.

I still have a few part timers who’ll come and help me when I need them at round up or

whenever.”

Jayne sat up. “If you’ll teach me to ride, I’d be glad to help.”

Trieve put his arm beneath his head as he stared up at her, reaching out to tug on a

curl that seemed to like cupping her nipple, not that he could blame it. “Why, thank you,

Jaynie, but I wouldn’t be able to get a thing done for worrying about you, honey.”

She humphed, hating to admit that he was probably right. “So what can I do to

help? I want to do something . . .”

“You’re already doing it,” he said. “You’re cleaning up the place – you’re

feeding me so much I’m not going to be able to swing into the saddle shortly, but more

than that, you’re here, in bed with me.” Trieve caught her around the waist and pulled

her down on top of him.

As much as she didn’t want to bring it up, she felt she had to. “About that . . .”

He seemed to lose his lovely, tranquil state immediately, seeming on alert and

suspicious of whatever it was that she was going to say. “What?”

“Well,” she said, tracing circles around the light hair on his chest, “I just wanted

to say that I don’t usually hop into bed with men I’ve just me. I know it’s what everyone

is doing – sex is supposed to just be a casual recreational pursuit nowadays, but that’s just

not how I’m built – although, apparently, with you, it is how I’m built.”

It was quite an admission – at least as revealing as what he’d admitted to her. But

he didn’t want her assuming that he thought she was easy or anything of the sort. Quite

the contrary. He’d felt first hand just how relatively untried she was, and that didn’t

come from a lifetime of one night stands.

Besides, it wasn’t in her personality to be like that, he could tell just from talking

to her and being around her.

He sat up and kissed her, holding her to him as she straddled him, his cock

automatically finding its home within her as he did so. “I’m glad you’re that way with

me,” he whispered, rocking them to a final culmination that was so slow and soft and

sweet and powerful that she practically had tears in her eyes when it ended.

Despite his reservations, he did let her ride out a bit with him, although it was so

cold that he made very sure it was a short, easy trip for a beginning rider. She didn’t

seem to have any fear of horses, which was good – indeed, she seemed to be extremely

excited to learn how to ride. She’d appeared down in the barn long before he’d told her

to, saying she wanted to learn how to take care of her horse, too, and he was only too

happy to give her a lesson. He gave her outfit the once over, and decided it was okay if

you didn’t intend to do much real work, which he didn’t intend to let her do, so that was

good, but he did remove her polar bear hat in favor of an old, disreputable knit one that

was day-glo orange.

“If you wear that hat out riding, some overeager hunter is going to think you’re

the ass end of a deer,” he said as he pulled the horrid cap down over her ears. He had to

admit she looked cuter in the other one, but even that eye-popping shade couldn’t dull her

looks in the least, as far as he was concerned.

He was down to four horses – although the barn had held twelve when the ranch

was at its best, and he thought that Sandy might fit the bill for her. She was a twelve year

old mare that was unfailingly even tempered and pretty much bomb proof.

They had a wonderful time together, spending longer than he had intended out in

the cold, laughing and talking as if they’d been together for years. He’d shown her some

of the ranch, his pride in ownership showing through in his voice as he spoke about what

his grandfather and his father before him and on back had fought for and held, prospering

in the face of adversity.

Jayne couldn’t miss what he had left unsaid – that he had been unable to do so

when he had become the caretaker of their legacy.

They returned to the stables on a more somber note than they had left it, but he

showed her how to groom Sandy and put her up in her stall, then he looped his arm

around her waist as they walked back into the kitchen to sample some of the chicken and

rice concoction she’d put in the slow cooker this morning before breakfast.

Jayne found herself more content here, with him, than she had ever been in her

life. She knew that this was where she belonged, where she wanted to be.

But she had a feeling that Trieve might not feel exactly the same way. Oh, he

adored the way she cooked, and he was nothing if not inventive and encouraging while

she shared his bed, but she still had an overwhelming feeling of doom. She knew,

beyond a shadow of a doubt, that he wasn’t going to ask her to stay at the end of the

month.

She knew it like she knew her own name.

He was enjoying the time they spent together, but he didn’t – couldn’t - trust her,

and she wasn’t at all sure he ever would, even if she ended up staying. And that was no

life for either of them.

They settled into a routine of sorts, which was only broken once, the night he took

her in to Billings. They ate at the best steak restaurant in town, went to a movie, then

dancing. He moved on the dance floor like he rode a horse – both of which he did much

better than she did - with a natural sensuality and grace that he oughtn’t have possessed

as a big man, and that had her wanting to drag him back to the truck and have her way

with him. But it was as if he didn’t really want her to enjoy herself too much while she

was staying with him, or perhaps he was embarrassed to have revealed so much about

himself to her, but that night, when they returned to his home, he sent her to bed by

herself for the first time since she’d gotten there.

It was long, lonely night. She’d wondered if wandering out into the yard again in

the middle of the night would entice him to come get her, but she doubted it. As much as

they’d enjoyed themselves, she could feel him distancing himself from her, as if in self

defense.

She did her best not to nag him – it wasn’t in her nature to do that anyway – but

when she did a little investigation while they were in Billings – and she had 4g on her

phone, she discovered that he could get internet at the ranch. Granted, it wasn’t

lightening fast or unlimited, but he certainly could get it.

And she found herself over his lap yet again for mentioning it one too many

times. “I’ll have it put in for you and pay out the two year contract. Come on, where’s

the bad in that?” she wailed, knowing what was coming and wondering – every time she

ended up here – how she could possibly have thought she’d ever wanted to be spanked!

Maybe he was doing it wrong, but she definitely didn’t want him to spank her.

“Jayne.” The truth was that he had had a connection years ago, but it got to be too

expensive for him to afford. His old desktop was now tucked into a closet somewhere,

forgotten and unused. He would have loved to do it again, but any money he earned went

right back into the ranch and his breeding program – nowhere else.

“But -”

The relentless rhythm of those tremendous swats continued as he lectured. “I am

not going to let you buy anything more than you already have for me and the ranch. I can

barely deal with the idea of the money you’ve already spent while you’ve been here, and

I’m not about to let you do any more, internet or not.”

It appeared he was damned serious about it. So much so that she was sitting very

gingerly at dinner that night, her lower lip out in a full on pout.

Trieve had to grin to himself. He had had to spank her in order to get her not to

spend her own money on something that wouldn’t benefit her for very long – her visit

was nearly three quarters gone. And she was still mad that he wouldn’t let her, despite

the condition of her backside. He didn’t know very many women – or men – who would

be quite that eager to waste their own money.

She was an extraordinary woman. She’d charmed everyone in town, such that

when he went down to get his order at the feed and seed, everyone there remarked on

what a fine young woman she seemed to be, and that they hoped the two of them would

be very happy together. By the time he’d gotten home, he was downright sick of being

told how wonderful she was, even though he shared their opinion, mostly.

He had to admit, he hadn’t heard one word of complaint out of her while she’d

been here – unlike the first one, who did nothing but find fault with everything she saw.

She’d gotten more done in one day than he’d’ve thought someone so small could do.

She’d even taken to horseback riding; he’d loved to see her naked excitement when

they’d trotted down the lane through the snow.

Hell, he loved to see her naked excitement anywhere or way he could get it.

She was self-deprecatingly funny, she was generous to a fault, and she seemed to

genuinely enjoy it out here in the boonies with him and several hundred head of cattle.

But he couldn’t quite manage to convince himself that she would remain that way

for very long. She wanted the internet. She’d probably want satellite TV, too, then

movies and dinners out, none of which could he afford to give her at this point, and,

frankly, he didn’t see things getting a whole lot better any time soon. The idea that she

might come to resent that which had brought them together had him balking at the idea of

asking her to stay on, to become his wife. He’d lived through that scenario once already

and wasn’t eager to repeat it.

Even though he wanted it with every single bit of himself, and letting her get on

that plane back to Vermont was going to kill him nearly as much as his mom’s desertion

had killed his Dad.

A few nights before the end of their trail month, he surprised her by taking her

back to Billings, this time to an all you can eat barbeque restaurant that had been one of

his favorites. He knew a lot of people in the city, too, apparently, and there was a

constant stream of people stopping by their table to be introduced to her and to tell him

how good he looked and how much having a woman around seemed to agree with him.

They often gave her the thumbs up sign when they thought he wasn’t looking, as if to tell

her that they were on her side, and hoped he’d pick her.

But Jayne knew what this meal was about, and once the traffic around him slowed

and stopped, and they had a bit more privacy, she leaned forward and covered his hand

with her much smaller one, saying quietly, “I’ve had a wonderful month here with you,

Trieve. Thank you for showing me your ranch. It’s a very special place.” She

swallowed hard and fiddled with her wine glass, ruthlessly forcing the tears that had

flooded her eyes to retreat so that when she looked up at him, it was with a genuine, soft

– albeit small – smile on her face and lied through her teeth. “But I don’t think I could be

happy here in the long term. There are none of the amenities I’m used to, even in the

back hills of Vermont.”

It was as good an excuse as any, she supposed.

She knew she was confirming everything he already thought about her; telling

him exactly what she knew he wanted to hear, although she really wanted nothing more

than to scream at him to tell her she was dead wrong, she knew he wasn’t capable of

doing that. He’d been too hurt, too deep, for too long to quite believe that she wasn’t

going to decide one day that life on a ranch just wasn’t exciting enough for her. She

would have loved nothing better than to spend the rest of her life with him, having his

babies and cooking and cleaning for the lot of them, but she didn’t have much interest in

living under a cloud of suspicion, either, having him constantly wondering when she was

going to up and leave him.

The fairy tale she wanted – of them riding off into the sunset to the ranch they

rebuilt together - wasn’t going to happen, and she was doing her best to accept that, and

to preempt anything he might say about it in favor of being able to control when her heart

was carved out of her chest with a melon baller.

Chapter VII

He didn’t react in the manner she expected at all; he simply sat there, as if she’d

told him she was gay or something else he knew – or should have known – was patently

false, looking like he didn’t quite believe what she was saying but couldn’t get to the

point in his head where he felt he could call her on her bluff.

She’d removed the wind from his sails by taking it all on herself. He’d been

planning this dinner in his mind for a week or so – because he knew it had to be done.

He’d known from the moment he’d held her picture in his hand that she wasn’t right for

the kind of marriage he had in mind, and none of her amazing cooking – in the bedroom

and out – negated that fact.

But he’d worked hard on the speech he was going to give her about it, carefully

mulling over every word, making sure he put the blame squarely on his own shoulders,

where it belonged.

And she had come along and taken it all on herself, which he had learned in their

very short time together, was quite like her. She’d come here a stranger, and had offered

him her time, her money and even her body, and he had – consciously or unconsciously –

availed himself of all three, and more, and at that moment he would have given just about

anything to tell her she was mistaken, that she didn’t need all those things – that all she

needed was him.

But he wasn’t sure enough in the truth of that belief to say it, not to ask her to stay

with him, but to tell her, firmly, that she was staying, and leaving no room for argument

whatsoever.

Instead he did what he knew he could. He stood, leaving a very good meal on the

table, which went wholly against his grain, and put his hand out to her. Jayne placed hers

in his without a second’s hesitation, which had both his heart and his groin swelling

painfully.

Forty five minutes later, with absolutely none of their passion having cooled in

that time – as a matter of fact, she kept touching him so intimately and incessantly that

he’d thought at several points he was going to drive them off the road. As soon as he got

her over his own property line, he pulled the truck over and took her, finding an

unsatisfactorily quick release that he knew left her wanting, which grated on him

something fierce. Making love that way – with the gearshift in his side the whole time,

had definitely lost its charm since he was sixteen or so, so he drove them the rest of the

way home then clamped her to his side until they got inside, guiding her down onto his

bed with infinite care as he devoted the next several hours to worshipping her.

And that was exactly what it was.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell her how he felt about her – hell, he wasn’t really

sure he knew himself, and was entirely unwilling to call it love, regardless, which is

something he knew she would want to hear. He wasn’t sure he’d ever get to that point

with any woman, but if he did, it would definitely be with Jayne. So he showed her what

he was feeling instead, using every trick he’d learned in his younger days, when he’d

made it much more of a priority to indulge in such things, to prolong her ecstasy, to keep

her right at that point of no return, writhing and begging and arching in his arms as he

forced her to dance along the razor’s edge for him and with him, limiting himself just as

surely as he did her, not allowing his final culmination until she had experienced six or

seven of her own. Then sinking into her slowly, watching her eyes the entire time and

feeling as if he’d been hit by a bolt of electricity as she boldly watched him back, feeling

more connected to her in that moment than he ever had with any other woman.

Two days before she was scheduled to leave, he came down with a very nasty

cold. Of course he couldn’t let anything like that stop him. The animals needed to be fed

and watered, his work had to get done, regardless, and he forced himself to do the same

amount as he always had – getting up just as early and staying out just as late - despite

the fact that he looked and felt half dead as he did it. Jayne coddled him – more so than

he could ever remember anyone else - even his mother - doing. She bullied him into bed

as soon as he came home, taking all of his clothes – which inevitably got wet and muddy

or worse during the course of the day and putting them in the washing machine

immediately, then piling blankets on top of him so he could rest before dinner, which she

brought to him on a tray in bed that was big enough for both of them – lots of chicken

soup and garlic knots, or a stir fry type of thing with lots of fresh vegetables that he

balked at at first, until she made him try it. She gave him plenty of water and Tylenol,

but he refused cold medications entirely, saying he always felt better when he just let it

take its course and didn’t try to stifle it in any way. A box of Kleenex was always at

hand, and she cajoled him into drinking a big glass of orange juice every morning for the

vitamin C, as well as plenty of water.

He tried to keep her from clinging to him at night as had become her habit – one

that had only strengthened the closer she came to having to say goodbye to him – but she

reassured him that she rarely got colds. To herself, she admitted that, even if she caught

this one, she would consider it more than worth it to be near him.

That was as close as Jayne got to telling Trieve how she felt about him. She could

have said it a million times, but didn’t want to make him feel guilty or obligated, or have

him think she was trying to manipulate him somehow by telling him. She knew that

getting on that plane was going to kill her, but she’d do it, because he had known it all

along – she wasn’t really right for him, and she didn’t see any signs that he was going to

change that attitude.

Still, even feeling as he did in the middle of the flu, he never missed an

opportunity to spank or make love to her. On the day before she left, it was a particularly

blustery day; there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. His cold was leaving him with little to no

appetite, although she did get him to have a relatively good breakfast, it was nothing like

what he usually ate when he was feeling better. She’d seen him devour a dozen

pancakes, six sausage patties, and three eggs, then come back for lunch and devour

another huge amount of food, but then, he burned every bit of it and then some off doing

what he did for a living, especially when it was cold.

On one of her trips into town, she had bought him an elaborate lunch kit –

complete with what claimed to be a setup that would keep hot stuff hot and cold stuff

cold in separate thermoses. He had modified it for his needs – ignoring the flimsy bag it

came in in favor of parting it out, so that it would fit into a saddle bag better – and had

seemed to adore having real food to eat while he was out working, if he couldn’t make it

in.

He headed out the door without his lunch even when she pointed it out to him,

and he said he felt badly enough that even her cooking couldn’t make him hungry, and

she knew it was a mistake to let him go.

“I could bring it down to you . . . ?” she suggested as he took a step outside, and

he poked his head back in, giving her a very stern look.

“No, you couldn’t. I won’t have you risking your safety for something so trivial.

I’ve skipped meals before and it hasn’t hurt me, Jayne. It won’t now, and it won’t when

you’re gone, either.”

He was almost deliberately brusque, and she felt a bit hurt, but she chalked it up

to him not feeling well and managed, in the process, to convince herself that he definitely

needed to eat lunch. She couldn’t bear to think of him out there with no food when he

was healthy – and she considered those meager peanut butter sandwiches to be on par

with no food – and definitely not when he was sick.

So, around lunchtime, she did the only thing she could do – she saddled Sandy –

with no small amount of trepidation, because she’d only seen it done once and she hadn’t

realized how heavy those saddles were – and set out to find him. Even the horse seemed

tentative about this adventure every once in a while she’d stop and crane her head around

to look at Jayne, as if she couldn’t imagine how she’d gotten there.

Jayne had also developed the safety habit of making him tell her where he was

going when he left in the morning, just in case she needed him for some reason. He had

readily agreed that it was a good idea, and had told her this morning that he was going fix

fences that were relatively close to home. He’d been doing that lately – working much

closer to the house than before. She wasn’t sure it if was because he was sick, or she was

so close to leaving.

Either way, she knew where he’d been talking about, so she found him relatively

easily. He heard her coming and looked up, but when she handed him his dinner –

grinning proudly at her accomplishments – he didn’t return the smile. In fact, he looked

downright pissed.

Trieve didn’t even look at what she’d given him, nor did he say anything to her.

Instead, he walked over to the horse and checked the job Jayne’d done saddling her,

shaking his head as he pulled the girth much tighter than she could ever hope to, raised

her stirrups so that her legs were in a better position to keep her heels down, and adjusted

the bridle so that it was more comfortable for the horse.

Then he stowed the lunch kit she’d given him, swung up onto his horse, took the

reins of her horse in his free hand and walked them both back to the barn, where he made

sure she helped him get the two horses situated before turning and saying the first words

she’d heard from him in what seemed like hours: “Go in the house to my bedroom and

sit on the edge of the bed and wait for me.”

And if she had thought he was no nonsense from his ad, it had nothing on seeing

him being that way part in real life.

She turned, very reluctantly, to do as she was told, but she knew he was following

not too far behind her. She could feel him staring holes into her back with those obsidian

black eyes of his, and she couldn’t resist trying to tell him why she did what she did,

which she couldn’t really see as much of a problem, frankly, although he obviously

disagreed.

Almost as soon as she turned around and opened her mouth, though, she regretted

it. He didn’t look at all receptive to anything she had to say, yet she couldn’t seem to

stop herself from saying it. “I just wanted to bring it down to you in case you’d gotten

hungry working so hard. You’ve been so sick lately; I didn’t think it was a good idea for

you to skip eating a nutritious . . . meal . . .” He continued to stare at her, not saying

anything, until she realized that he had quickened his pace and was suddenly, easily close

enough to touch her. Jayne became more and more nervous at that look in his eye, and

finally she just let her sentence trail off in favor of turning around to nearly run ahead of

him into the house, but not before he got in two sharp swats to her behind that had her

arching forward as she ran, trying to avoid the second once the first landed, but he was

too damned quick.

But even if she had made it to the house well before him, where was she going to

go once she got there that he wasn’t going to be able to get to? She might have had a

better chance just running down the road, but then, no. He was in much better physical

shape than she was, so she knew there would have been no hope with that choice, either,

and that would probably just piss him off even more than he already was.

But did she want to do exactly as he’d told her and just go sit on the end of his

bed to await her fate? Hell no. But he seemed mad enough that she didn’t much want to

find out what would happen if she didn’t, either!

So, hating herself for caving like a coward, she forced herself to go into his room.

But she didn’t sit on the end of his bed. It was a small victory, one that she hoped

wouldn’t cost her anything, although she certainly wasn’t sure it wouldn’t.

He took his sweet time about getting to her, too, even though she knew he had

been right behind her, and, of course, the first thing he noticed was that she wasn’t where

he’d told her to be. But it ended up that she was in an even worse position than he had

suggested, because she’d somehow talked herself into the far corner of the bedroom, so

that when he advanced on her with those long steps of his, she had nowhere to go.

His hand reached out, lightning fast, and caught her upper arm, turning her face

into the corner like some naughty little girl and holding her there while his other hand –

his strong, right hand – landed more than ten times on her backside, so hard she might as

well not have been wearing anything at all! Her jeans were little to no defense and she’d

completely forgotten her armored underwear at home.

When he spoke, his lips were right next to her ear, and his voice was a husky

whisper. She was surprised that she could smell whiskey on his breath. He hadn’t

touched a drop at home since she’d been there. “When I tell you to do something – or

more importantly in this case not to – I expect you to obey me. I would have thought that

the spankings you’ve been receiving pretty regularly since you got here might have given

you a clue about that, but I guess not.”

Sarcasm noted, she thought, not liking this side of him at all.

“This isn’t Burlington – hell, it isn’t even Vermont, and despite the similarities in

where we grew up, this is a working cattle ranch that you know next to nothing about,

and when I tell you what to do it’s not just because I can, it’s because you don’t know

your way around this kind of environment, and if you’re not careful, one bad decision –

like the one you made today - could cost you your life.”

As if she wasn’t in enough trouble already, she couldn’t stop herself from opening

her mouth to almost whine, “But I got her saddled and I found you!”

That was the wrong thing to say, in the very wrong tone of voice, as if she’d

forgotten entirely where she was and who she was with. He bent her over with

frightening ease, so that her back was against the corner, and with him stationed close

behind her, she had nowhere to go. Her jeans found her ankles in record time, along with

much more substantial, less revealing panties than she had come here wearing – an act of

self defense he had commented on with a smile the last time he’d given her a smack

bottom, not that they’d deterred him in the least in either case.

And when the first swat fell, she realized that he wasn’t using just his hand any

more. He’d reached over to the top of his bureau and grabbed his hairbrush. She had

made the mistake of admiring it one day while they were getting ready to go in to town,

and he had warned her that if she misbehaved badly enough, she would become much

more acquainted with it.

At the time, Jayne had merely smiled uneasily and dismissed what he’d said as a

mere threat. Certainly she would never do anything so bad as to merit him using the

hairbrush, would she?

Unfortunately, she had the answer now, and it was a terribly painful one that had

her pleading with him within just a few strokes to go back to his palm – which she would

have said minutes before that she would never do – beg him to use his hand on her! That

was preposterous!

But the hairbrush was much more solid than mere flesh and blood, and seared

every nerve ending it came in contact with. It was also smaller than his palm, and

delivered a much more concentrated smack to a much smaller area. The way he peppered

all over with it, often travelling over the same area more than once or twice – had her

trying to dance away from him, but she had nowhere to go, especially when his well-

placed arm tightened around her waist, holding her just that much more quiet while she

received her punishment.

It wasn’t until after he’d reddened all of her at least once that he began to lecture

her in response to her bratty outburst. “That saddle was a hazard in and of itself. It’s not

the right one for Sandy and doesn’t fit her very well – which you wouldn’t know – and

that girth was so loose you’d soon have been under her rather than on top of her – or

worse, having fallen off and onto your head, breaking your neck. And you found me by

sheer luck, Jayne. What if I’d finished with what I was doing there and had move

somewhere else? You’d’ve had no idea where to look for me, and if Sandy had started at

something – and you can never tell with a horse - you’d’ve been stranded, out in the

middle of nowhere in freezing temperatures, with no transportation, trying to walk back

home in whatever direction you thought the house was.”

It seemed he emphasized every single word with a swat, making her entirely

reconsider her attitude about hairbrushes – as well as questioning the validity of the

choices she’d made.

“Do you know how quickly you could have died out there?” he asked, then

paused, as if expecting and answer.

“No.”

“Too quickly,” was all he said. “You might have fallen into a stream or a pond

and frozen to death in seconds.”

She couldn’t think of anything more to say – beyond agreeing that he was right, it

was a foolish thing for her to have done.

And, surprisingly, as soon as she said that, he stopped.

Jayne heartily wished she’d known that those were the magic words long ago, but

even they weren’t really effective, because no sooner had the spanking ended than it

began again – only worse.

He had repositioned her over the end of his bed – the one, he reminded her as he

did so that he had told her she was to sit on to wait for him – and without letting her

remove the pants and panties that hampered her ankles, so she had to kind of shuffle walk

– naked from the waist down - until he had her where he wanted her.

And then he reached for his belt buckle. She could hear the metal parts softly

jangling against each other, and the soft hiss of leather against denim as he removed it

from its loops.

She remembered what his belt looked like – they all looked pretty much the same

and were in the same worn state of disrepair, but they were all long and wide and . . .

looked a lot like the girth he’d said she hadn’t tightened nearly enough on Sandy earlier

today.

And she realized with horror, as she turned to beg him not to strap her with it, that

she could see exactly what was going to happen in the tri-fold mirror above the dresser

that was parallel to her position.

And that there was no way she was going to avoid both seeing and feeling at least

the first jolting stripe.

Chapter VIII

Jayne had never howled before – definitely not while in a man’s bedroom. But

that was something she rapidly found that she couldn’t say anymore, because she found

herself doing exactly that in less than five strokes of that length of leather across her

behind. And he didn’t show any signs of stopping. Not a one.

At least he had stopped lecturing, although she didn’t much like the silence,

either, since it allowed her to hear the hearty crack of leather against flesh as it thwacked

its way across her, sometimes landing on the tops of her thighs, sometimes a bit lower

than that, and sometimes landing diagonally from top to bottom of her plumpish rear,

thus blazing a path of singed flesh that crossed most of the others he’d already laid down.

She didn’t know how long he used the belt. She didn’t really want to know – it

was all going to be much too long for her comfort! After she’d actually seen the first lick

fall, seen the reaction of her insulted flesh wobbling slightly, indenting in an automatic

cringe away from the source of its discomfort, Jayne kept her head buried in the pillow he

had so kindly provided – not that she needed to keep her voice down – which was a good

thing. His nearest neighbor was miles away, as he’d told her one night when he’d

blistered her for some reason she forgot in this moment – which probably wasn’t good,

either - she could scream all she liked.

And this time, she really took him up on that, especially when she’d tried to get

up and he’d just, very gently, put his fingertips to the bare small of her back. “If you get

out of position, Jayne, I’ll start again, at the beginning.”

She didn’t know how she did it, but she managed – with a lot of kicking and

screaming – to stay where she was put.

When he was done, he sounded out of breath, as he walked to his closet and hung

the belt up on a nail where she knew they all lived, then he stripped off the rest of his

clothes and returned to her side.

She still hadn’t moved, and, although he hated to spank her like that, he was glad

she seemed to have learned her lesson about doing as she was told.

At least this time. But he hadn’t been kidding when he’d reminded her that she

could – and did – make a decision in this vast, relative wilderness that could kill her.

When he’d looked up to see her atop Sandy, handing him the lunch he had already

refused once, he saw red. And knowing she was just trying to be kind to him made it

somehow worse. If something had happened to her while she was out just because she

was doing a good deed for him, he didn’t think he could live with it.

He knew he couldn’t live with it, which is why he’d been so hard on her.

Trieve let his hand slide gently over her bottom as he sank down next to her on

the bed, as she shrank from even that light touch, which had him almost whimpering for

her.

Jayne, wet eyed and cheeked, moved a bit to lie between his legs, on her knees,

still sobbing quietly, then looked up at him and, holding his eyes, began to move her

mouth down his lower belly.

But that was more than Trieve could take. “No, sweetie. There’s never going to

be a reason for you to kneel in front of me. Come up here.” He brought the both of them

up to the top of the bed, leaned back against his pillow and tucked his arms beneath his

head, stretched out before her like a lean, muscular smorgasbord that she couldn’t wait to

dive into.

Although she didn’t, at first.

Instead, she opted to lie next to him, stretched out, with her hand on his chest. It

was a very nice chest, with a light coating of dark hair, and impressive plates of muscles

that had her mouth watering. But she didn’t want to start there and leave out any little bit

of him. This was their last night together, and she wanted to celebrate him.

Soft, decidedly non-callused fingertips landed on his forehead. “Close your

eyes,” she whispered, and, surprisingly, he did. She fervently wished she had some

scented candles, but knew better to even ask if he did, although she did jump up quickly

and fish her iPhone out of her pocketbook, where it had largely lain fallow for the past

weeks, stuck it in the impromptu speaker system she’d made out of a toilet paper roll, and

put on a playlist she had of soft, romantic songs.

He had jerked up when she’d left him, but she soothed him back down as soon as

she got there again, repositioning herself exactly where she was, and replacing her

fingertips where she wanted them, right at his hairline, then drawing them down – gentle

as a whisper, to his chin, and back up, into his hair, massaging gently, and was rewarded

for her efforts by a long, low moan of pure ecstasy.

She let her fingers roam freely over his face, only ever touching him just barely

unless she was outlining a feature she found interesting – the crooked line of his nose, his

full eyebrows and strong, cleft chin. She reached beneath his head and massaged there,

and down the back of his neck to his shoulders, then moved smoothly to straddle him,

which had him coming right off the bed as she settled her privates over his, but didn’t

join them.

“You’re teasing me,” he accused, but it came out more like a question than an

accusation.

“Definitely.”

She couldn’t remember ever being quite so happy at having made someone smile

as she was now, and it only made her that much more determined to make sure that she

made him feel the best he ever had.

She did so by keeping her touches feather light, never rubbing him anywhere very

hard, and avoiding all of his erogenous zones. She pressed her face into his chest, but

kept all of her away from his nipples, never acknowledging them in the least. At one

point, when she was licking her way down his forearm, nipping just slightly,

occasionally, until she got to his palm, where she began to tongue it in very much the

same manner as he did her clit and he reached down to try to bring her to his lips.

All she said was, “Ah-ah-ahhh.”

He didn’t let go immediately, growling softly.

But all she did was chuckle at him and duck out from under his hold to return to

what she’d been doing – driving him slowly out of his mind.

To her surprise, he heeded her warning and lay almost perfectly still – except

when he couldn’t – as she drove him slowly crazy. It was a heady experience for her,

too, and not in small part because of his raw, honest reactions to what she was doing to

him.

Each arm got the same treatment, and so did his naked, vulnerable sides, as well

as his stomach and impossibly flat lower belly. But as soon as she got anywhere near his

good parts, she skirted around them, kissing over his hip bone and down one leg, tickling

the back of his knee and gently massaging his heavily muscled thighs, then down to

almost equally healthy calves, around to his Achilles tendon, then the tops of his feet.

She nipped the outside of his foot, tickling him unintentionally while doing so,

such that his body jerked violently. “Ah ha! A vulnerable point!” she cackled evilly.

“I’ll have to remember that you’re ticklish!”

“Am not!” he defended, badly.

In answer, she ran the tip of her pinky finger down the sole of his foot, and he

cursed roundly and tugged it out of her grasp.

“Relax, relax. I promise I won’t tickle you – much, anyway.”

Another growl of warning.

She had been going to say that she wouldn’t tickle him much now, but that she

wasn’t going to make any promises about the future, but then her throat closed around the

remark when she remembered that there wasn’t going to be a future for them. And that

there would be no need for her to remember how ticklish he was, either.

This was it.

So Jayne went all out. She gave him the full boat treatment, from head to toe and

back again, and on the second time down from the top, she concentrated all her efforts on

the exact areas she had avoided the first time through, kissing him deeply, sparring with

his tongue, suckling at his full lower lip, then trailing hotly, wetly down his neck to flick

his nipples, pinching them, tugging them a bit in just the way she’d learned he’d liked, all

the while watching him and his reactions like a hawk as he writhed and moaned and

clenched his hands in the bedclothes.

And, despite the ample provocation, he did obey her – better than she’d obeyed

him, by far, in most cases, she was embarrassed to admit to herself.

When she finally had him to the point where she thought he might explode

without her if she so much as breathed on him, she repositioned herself over him and

took him inside her in one strong downward thrust.

She wasn’t all that surprised when that motion was the impetus for him to take

back control of what was happening to him. Eyes that had been at half mast – or

practically rolling back into his head – snapped open and she felt big hands grasping her

hips, not letting her set the slow, sensual pace she’d had in mind, but rather forcing her to

bend to his own rhythm, flexing himself in and out of her, moving her up when he

withdrew, then slamming her down onto him when he arched up into her.

It was a cadence that quickly forced her to nearly the same heights she had driven

him to, helpless to stop him from holding her still for his powerful thrusts, forced to greet

each with a deep moan or cry that she couldn’t deny.

And when they finally came, together, within seconds of each other, the words “I

love you,” bubbled up in her throat, and she barely had the presence of mind to stifle

them, there, where they lay, because saying them, she knew in her heart, wouldn’t change

things, and would, more likely, just make their last hours together awkward.

So she fought the impulse back down, locked it away in her heart while screaming

it in her mind, and screaming out loud from the depths of her own pleasure and bone deep

sadness that this was how things were going to end between them.

It was inconceivable to her, although somehow it was happening anyway.

He took the rest of the day off and they spent it in bed, making love, eating what

she was going to prepare as a special dinner for them anyway, only they had it in bed

instead of properly at the dining room table. She’d fixed everything she knew he liked

best that she’d cooked for him so far – the beef stew she’d made the first night, the garlic

knots she’d served the first day he’d taken her out to work with him on his land, and, of

course, sugar cookies, both the bar and individual cookies, complete with vanilla ice

cream, homemade hot fudge sauce and piles of whipped cream.

He thoroughly enjoyed every morsel of it, especially the sundae, although it was

she who ended up wearing most of it as he slathered a bit of ice cream over her nipples,

chuckling at her “Ack!” of surprise then soothing away the chilly ache with his lips and

tongue, and following suit all over her body until he landed where he most wanted to be,

decorating her cleft generously then slowly lapping it all away until he found the cherry

he’d buried and set about devastating her as thoroughly as she had him.

They lay awake all night, talking about nothing then loving some more, eating a

bit, then sleeping and repeating the cycle until just before dawn. Hating to be the

practical one, especially in this case, Trieve looked at the slight brightening of the sky

and said, “We’d better get going if you’re going to make your flight.”

Her things were already packed and he threw them reluctantly into the back of his

truck, holding her hand as if it was a lifeline all the way there. It was a somber, quiet trip

with very little conversation, as if they were both feeling the heavy weight of their

parting.

He parked in short term parking and hefted her things into the terminal for her,

making sure she got checked in and walking with her to the beginning of the security

line, which, luckily, wasn’t packed, leaning back against the wall to one side with her

leaned against him, easily supporting both of their weights and reveling for one last time

in the warmth his body always flushed with whenever she was this close to him.

Jayne was trying to remember things in a desperate attempt to stave off the tears

that were demanding to be let. “There’s meals for weeks and weeks, remember, in the

freezer. All of your favorites. And cookies, too. They ought to hold you for a while.”

He chuckled softly, stroking her back. “You told me that already, Jaynie. I won’t

forget.”

Jayne wasn’t listening to him. It hurt too much. “And no more peanut butter

sandwiches. I told Barb at Bell’s Market not to let you buy any peanut butter or Wonder

bread. Buy something nutritious.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” he answered dutifully, and that was what had her pretty much over

the edge, lower lip trembling, eyes blurry with tears, completely unable to hold them

back any longer, although she managed not to weep outright all over him, like she would

have given her left arm to do.

“I’d be glad to come and cook for you -” She had to stop herself there, deflated

and defeated, as she realized what she’d said. Tears clogging the back of her throat, she

nevertheless said, “No, you won’t need me to do that for you once you find the right

one.” She reached up and grabbed his chin so that he couldn’t look away. “Whoever she

is is going to be one lucky lady, Retrieve Jensen. Don’t sell yourself short. Don’t settle.

Find the right woman for you and don’t ever let her go. Promise me.”

She watched his lips tighten and knew that he was having a hard time controlling

his emotions, too, and she was slightly glad that she wasn’t the only one. Jayne leaned the

top of her head against his chest, biting her lip hard to stall the tears.

“I will,” she heard his solemn vow rumble through his chest.

Trieve had rarely cried in his life, but her sad little speech brought tears to his

eyes, nonetheless, even more so because he knew she meant it with all of her heart.

She was going to be going back to her cozy little life a changed woman. She

should have been happy to return to where she had everything all organized into a tidy

little routine, back to all of her friends who she knew were dying to know about her trip,

and to a place where no one would dare call her Jaynie, and that was one of the reasons

she was going to miss the annoyingly dominant, no nonsense man the most.

She brought her head up then to anxiously checked the departure boards, knowing

she was cutting it close to get through security and make her flight, but she didn’t think

she could bear actually walking away from him.

He caught her look, though, and stood, helping her back onto her feet and making

sure she had her purse and the handle to her little suitcase on wheels.

The last thing he did was tip her back in his arms and plant a very slow, very

thorough kiss on her lips, something to help her remember him by.

“I’ll miss you, Jayne,” he whispered, pressing his forehead to hers, then, in one

smooth, unexpected motion, he set her on her feet and gave her a bit of a push away from

him, his lips narrowed into a hard, thin line.

Surprised and feeling bereft, Jayne took the hint and headed into security, not

looking back at all until she was all the way through, then as she gathered her things she

looked up and saw him standing there, his hands in his pockets, looking as devastated as

she felt, and the dam broke for her.

She stood there, staring at him, sobbing, until she heard the last call for her flight,

then she blew him a kiss and held her hand over her heart for a fleeting moment, until she

could force herself to turn and run down the concourse to her gate, barely making it in

time, and not giving a tinker’s dam that she was bawling all over the gate agent, and then

the stewardess, and practically the oversized business man who was wedged into the seat

next to her.

She dug out a Kleenex and barely managed not to wail as she sobbed, especially

when she saw him through a window, standing there, and when he knew he’d caught her

eye, he blew her a kiss back, then turned and walked away.

Jayne got home fine – although swollen eyed and dehydrated from all the crying.

She got her animals out of boarding and headed home. She tried to resume her life as it

had been – she went to work, she went out with friends, she chatted on Facebook and

brought the dog to the Dog Park . . . and she bawled uncontrollably through most of it.

Having lost any semblance of an appetite, she began to lose weight, and those who were

closest to her were beginning to worry. Jerrill and Kenni bullied her into seeing her

doctor, who prescribed anti-depressants that helped a little, but not much.

Nothing was going to help her but seeing Trieve bust through her door, but she

knew that wasn’t going to happen. Sometimes she tortured herself with the idea that he’d

probably already replaced her with someone who knew how to punch cattle with one

hand and could bake a mean banana bread with the other.

She picked up her phone several times a night to call him, but always shut it off

before she did. She knew she had to stop perseverating about him, but she wasn’t at all

sure that she was ever going to be able to do that.

Weeks passed slowly – very slowly – into months as she continued to go through

all of the right motions, going to all of the parties and gatherings for work and friends,

paying her bills, even meeting new people that some people thought might be a good

idea, but not feeling anything about any of it.

She was getting used to the numbness, though. It brought a certain amount of

comfort in and of itself. If you couldn’t feel anything anymore, then nothing could hurt

you.

And nothing new did. But the old hurt had settled into the area where her heart

had once been – it was already behind the walls of the numbness she’d settled into, and it

wasn’t going anywhere.

It was her usual night out with friends, some of them coworkers, some of them

friends from school, who all got together on Fridays at one particular bar and restaurant

to have drinks, relax, eat and, of course, bitch about the week’s events – who did what to

whom, who was doing whom, etc. It also happened to be Kenni’s birthday, and Jayne

had had the wherewithal – barely – to get her a male stripper that was going to jump out

of her cake. She knew it was exactly what the younger girl wanted.

But, when even louder music began to play as an introduction to the finale she

had arranged, Jayne hung back, on the outskirts of her crowd of friends, as had become

her habit in the past few months. She was down, but she didn’t want to drag others down

with her. She could no longer be the life of the party – she didn’t feel as if she had much

life left in her any more – so she hung around on the edges of the group, smiling wanly

while everyone else laughed.

She did her best to concentrate on Kenni and how much she was enjoying her

surprise – at least she could watch others being happy. So she didn’t see him when he

came through the door, dressed in his beat up old shearling coat and equally disreputable

cowboy hat, such that anyone who saw him would instantly know that neither of

accessories was an affectation. Those patrons whose eyes weren’t on Kenni’s

performance were on him – men and women – as he walked up behind Jayne and reached

for her arm to turn her around to him, then caught her against him in a kiss fit to knock

her to her knees.

And she let it, too. She had no defenses against him at all any more, they’d all be

stripped away by all that time and all those oceans of tears. She leaned every bit of her

weight against him, knowing he’d hold her safe, her hands crept up around his neck as

she kissed him back helplessly.

Suddenly it wasn’t Kenni they were cheering for as he lifted her into his arms and

carried her out of the bar. Kenni wasn’t all that happy to have had her thunder stolen, but

when they disappeared, all of that attention returned to her, where it belonged.

Jerrill had been on the fringes of the group, too, not because he didn’t want to join

in, he did. But whereas Kenni could be a self-centered thing, given the slightest cause,

Jerrill had been keeping a close eye on Jayne. He didn’t like how she’d started to look –

worn around the edges as if she’d was being beaten slowly down. He talked to her about

much more meaningful things than Kenni ever would, and he’d dragged the whole sordid

story from her one night not long after she’d come home, and was glad he could piece

together the few – very few - bibs and bobs he’d gotten while she was gone.

He’d done his best to look after her, not that she let him do very much for her. It

had taken making a threat that he would call this mystery man – whose name and general

location he knew – and tell him just how badly she was doing to get her to get onto an

antidepressant, but he was aware that was just a band aid, and a thin one at that.

So he followed them. He had been a military police officer once upon a time, and

he could slip into those skills at will, even now, and he knew he hadn’t been spotted.

They were at Jayne’s apartment, and he watched as the man tried to carry her up to her

place, but Jayne wasn’t having any of it. She made him put her down, and he could see

that she was crying.

That was all he needed.

Chapter IX

Trieve ran his hand through his hair in frustration. This wasn’t going at all the

way he planned. He’d upset her, somehow, and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

He’d meant for it to be a joyous reunion. He’d come to claim her and bring her back to

Montana to marry him and raise their babies – and make sugar cookies for him - and love

her to distraction all the rest of their days.

But she was crying, and not out of happiness at seeing him again, it seemed,

either.

Just when he was going to reach for her to take her on his lap and explain things

to her the best he could, there was a loud, forceful knock on the door.

“Jayne-bug, I know you’re in there, and that you’re not alone. I just want to see

you and have you tell me that you’re all right. If I believe you, I’ll leave you two alone to

fight it out.”

Jayne leaned forward from where she was sitting on her loveseat, and buried her

face in her hands. This was just what she needed – an overprotective Jerrill showing up

on her doorstep, fully capable and ready to duke it out with Trieve, who she knew was

more than capable of handling any type of confrontation that came his way.

“Go away!” Jayne yelled.

Trieve was staring at her as if her lover of the past eight months had come to the

door. “Who’s this joker?” he asked, inclining his head toward the door.

“Jayne, don’t make me have to knock this door down, because you know I will.”

This time Trieve didn’t wait for her to say or do anything. He opened the door,

amazed to find an imposing African American man leaning casually against the door

jamb. “Took you long enough,” he said, giving Trieve the once over.

And his opponent was doing the same thing, and he didn’t like what he saw,

which was a man who was looking and acting like he loved Jayne more than he did.

Trieve remained battle ready.

But the other man just patted him condescendingly on the shoulder and muscled

his way past him. “Oh, honey, stand down. She’s been my BFF since college and I’m

gay.” Jerrill, who always liked to be outrageous when he could, easily assessed Trieve’s

belligerent attitude and decided not to follow his own advice. Instead, he took a step

closer to Trieve, saying, “Besides, I’m a former Marine.”

Jayne still had her hands over her face, wishing she could disappear into the

carpet. She was thinking that she was going end up having to try to separate the two and

wasn’t looking forward to the idea, because Lord knew Trieve wasn’t going to back

down, in fact he put his nose right back in Jerrill’s face in response, balancing lightly on

his toes just like Jerrill was, preparing for a fight as Jerrill continued, “And if I really

thought you meant my Jayne even the slightest bit of harm, you’d already be down for

the count, country boy, and you wouldn’t be getting up any time soon.”

“Well, the same goes for me, Marine,” Trieve growled, adding in case his

intentions weren’t clear, gay or not, “Just for the record, I was a Marine, too. And make

no mistake. She’s mine.”

Jerrill blinked slowly, still in a fighting stance. “Well, it’s about damn time you

came to get her, then. You know how good she is – there’s always men buzzing around

Jayne, even when she’s feeling low like she has been. You might well have lost her.

What were you doing sending her away from you like that, anyway? Are you too stupid

to see what you had when you had it? And do you know how miserable she’s been to be

around since she got back from meeting you?” he asked the last item with a sly grin, and

the two men slowly tamped down the testosterone that had been filling the room.

In fact, they got to slapping each other on the back and talking about what units

they were in and when, as if they were all of a sudden best buds, all while Jayne sat on

the couch and rolled her eyes.

Finally, she came to her senses and said, “OUT,” pointing to the door.

Neither of them could believe she meant them, of course, until she actually went

to the door and held it open for the both of them.

“Even me?” Trieve asked unbelievingly.

“Yes, even you. If you think you can just waltz back into my life almost a year

after you’d turned it upside down, you’ve got another thing coming. I want the both of

you out. NOW.”

They hung around the door for as long as they thought she’d let them, and only

moved when she actually began to shut the door.

Then Trieve said, “Hey, man, you want to go grab a drink?”

“Hell yes,” Jerrill agreed. “I know just the place.”

Alarmed, Jayne pulled open the door before she’d even had a chance to shut it

properly in their faces, yelling at the two, who were already halfway down the hall, “Hey,

wait a minute! That’s not right!”

Jerrill just winked at her knowingly, but Trieve actually came back to take her in

his arms and kiss her passionately, leaving her breathless and wanting more and still not

happy about it, then he trotted back to Jerrill, grinning broadly and saying, “I’ll call you

tomorrow, babe.”

Not willing to give either of them the satisfaction of seeing her pitch a fit, Jayne

closed – and locked – the door, leaned back against it and sinking to the floor, unwilling

to consider what those two were going to be like together, and how much shit Trieve was

going to hear about her from Jerrill, who knew where all of her skeletons were buried.

It was Saturday, and although she had kind of expected to get a phone call from

him early in the morning, it didn’t happen, and she decided she was going to do her best

not to care. Jayne got up and did what she did every Saturday – she cleaned her house,

beginning with the back bedroom, that didn’t see a lot of use, but it still needed to be

dusted and vacuumed. Then she moved on to her bedroom and the bathroom and called

it quits. She always split the work into two days. It was probably just psychological, but

if she did the whole place in one day, she felt as if she’d spent her whole weekend doing

nothing but cleaning.

Nine o’clock rolled around, ten, eleven, then noon, and no call.

She sat in her beautiful floral wing back recliner and nibbled on first her lip, and

then her thumbnail, worrying and wondering whether something had happened to either

one or the both of them. But she didn’t want to call Jerrill and tip her hand, and she had

no idea where Trieve was staying, so she couldn’t call him.

Long about one or so, there was a knock on her door.

No one seemed to notice any more that she had a friggin’ doorbell, Jayne thought

as she rose and looked through the peephole.

Trieve was leaning against the doorjamb this time, and it wasn’t because he was

trying to look cool, it was because, she soon learned, if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be able to

stand up.

He gave her a bleary eyed smile and levered himself upright, slowly, and with a

lot of obvious effort and pain.

“Damn, that Jerrill can drink!” was all he said as he reached for her and nearly fell

on top of her.

How he expected her to hold him up, she didn’t know, but if she didn’t get the

two of them to the loveseat quick, they were going to go down fast.

Luckily, he seemed to realize they were in deep waters, and did his best to right

himself, and help move them to the couch.

He was still so polluted from last night that he barely realized that she was gone

until she reappeared at his elbow with a big glass of water and a couple of aspirin, both of

which he downed gratefully.

Somehow, that little bit seemed to help him enormously, and in short order he was

much more himself. She was sitting across the room from him, looking at him warily, as

if she wasn’t quite sure he was here, or more likely, she wasn’t quite sure what he was

here to do.

Trieve didn’t pat the cushion next to him. He wasn’t about to leave the decision

up to her about whether or not she sat closer. Instead, he rose and lifted her from her

chair, then deposited her gently onto his lap. “There. That’s much better.”

She didn’t look in the least convinced, chewing, as she did when she was nervous,

on her lip.

“I liked Jerrill. He might come up to the ranch sometime to check it out.”

Her eyebrow rose. “I wasn’t aware you were entertaining guests that couldn’t

bear you children.”

He had the grace to flush. “Yes, that’s how it used to be. But things have

changed a lot on the ranch.”

“And do you want to explain that to me?”

“I’d rather show you.” It was somewhere between a question and an order, and,

as usual, he didn’t wait for her to say much of anything, much less the “no” he really

didn’t want to hear. “Grab your purse,” he said, stopping at the door just long enough for

her to do so, then pulling her out to the front of her building . . .

Where a limo was waiting. The driver held their door open, and he helped her in,

then followed quickly behind her, not letting her sit in the corner of it, but keeping hold

of her hand so she had no choice but to sit next to him.

“Where are we going?” she asked, not quite believing it was the ranch. She

wanted to ask if he’d struck oil, or what, that he could afford all of this now, but she

didn’t want to be gauche, either.

Trieve looked down at her, playing with a piece of hair that had fallen out of her

haphazard bun. “The ranch. In style, this time.”

And he wasn’t just kidding. They arrived at the airport minutes later, and were

shown onto a private jet. And the interior didn’t look like any plane she’d ever been on.

There was a long, comfy looking sofa on one side with two elaborately padded – and seat

belted – recliners opposite. The steward greeted them and got them drinks, then asked

what they might like as an in flight meal, mentioning that the lobster tail had been flown

in from Maine this morning, and that there was also a particularly nice grass-fed fillet that

was recommended, with wines to accompany both.

Trieve ordered for the both of them, requesting the beef, but also asking that it be

delayed until he called.

He sat down on the couch and brought her back onto his lap, not that she didn’t

try to wiggle out of his hold, but all he had to say was, “Jayne,” in that particular voice,

and it was as if the past eight months had never happened. Her bottom – and other parts

of her – began to tingle immediately, as if he’d spanked her last night instead of nearly a

year ago.

“Trieve,” she came back, trying to mimic his tone.

That got her a swat on the behind, at which she was completely outraged. “You

can’t spank me now!” she hissed, grasping his wrist in both hands and knowing that the

only reason she was holding it there was because he was allowing her to.

“Of course I can, and I always will. Whenever I deem you need it,” he said,

swatting her with the other hand.

Damn his ambidextrous hide!

“No! Not when there’s someone else around!” she tried to avoid the swats he was

already delivering, but wasn’t managing to do much besides practically falling off his lap.

“Franco is up at the front of the plane, just behind the pilots, in his own little

quarters that are soundproofed. I asked before I got this plane. He won’t come again

until I call him.”

That did not make her feel any better in the least, because it just meant he could

feel free to do exactly as he please, which was no different from normal.

“No! Then you’re not allowed to spank me because I’m no longer your

prospective wife. I’m not even your girlfriend, so you can just take your hands off me,

Trieve Jensen!”

As if to refute her claim with action, he turned then with her in his arms, laying

her beneath him on the unbelievably comfortable couch while his hand delved where it

really oughtn’t, considering their circumstances, cupping her intimately, one finger

pressing a little deeper than the others until he found the graphic evidence of her desire.

“No, Trieve, please,” her objections were staunch in her heart, but faint through

her mouth.

“Do you know how much I’ve missed you, Jayne?” He kissed her cheeks and

temples and chin. “I missed every little thing about you – your cute, rounded fanny in

those yoga pants of yours,” which she was wearing now and shouldn’t have been,

knowing he was within a million miles of her, “the way your hair bobs up and down in a

ponytail when you’re dancing and vacuuming or riding,” he teased her lips with his, not

quite kissing her as his whole hand became much more bold, “and the way you pant and

moan and beg me to let you cum, and arch up to take all of me when I finally press my

cock into you.” She was already panting and moaning beneath him. It didn’t take much;

he knew all of her buttons and few she didn’t know she had.

Then he said with a smile in his tone, “And not the least of all, your cooking.”

That earned him a hard smack on his shoulder, which she was just realizing was

bare, and before she knew it, so was she and the rest of him, too.

“Trieve, no, we can’t do this!” she hissed, looking around as if the walls had ears.

He leaned back a little and gave her a considering look. “Is your only objection to

the idea that there’s someone else onboard, or do you object to me?”

She gave him a disbelieving look. “It’s the idea that someone might walk in on

us! Why would I object to you? It’s a little late for that, isn’t it?”

At her answer, he reached down to adjust himself so that he was poised at her

entrance. And as he both fingered and entered her at the same time, he said, “I love you,

Jayne, and I want you to be my wife.”

She couldn’t be as floored as she was because of his cock and his fingers and his

tongue and the magic they were working on her – that they always had worked on her.

Nothing between them – in that way, at least – had changed, and, as always, she was

damned close to cumming almost as soon as he looked at her.

And, it seemed to her, that he took his sweet time, too, as if to prove to her that

they wouldn’t be interrupted.

He loved that shy side of her that peeped out every once in a while, that didn’t

want to get caught making love. But he was too hungry for her to delay things, and

before too long, his need overrode his desire to tease her and for long, glorious moments

there was nothing in the world but the two of them the way their bodies exploded

together.

When he had collapsed on top of her, and she felt that weight that she had so

longed for during the interminable nights without him, Jayne whispered into his ear, “I

love you too, Trieve. I’ve missed everything about you, too, even the more annoying

parts.”

The smile he gave her at that moment was worth all of the time spent apart and

miserable. It was the first full, real smile she’d seen from him, and she would treasure

the memory of it for the rest of her life.

Eventually, after he’d kissed the breath out of her and made love to her again, this

time taking even more time, he finally allowed her to convince him that they should get

dressed, just in case. He complied reluctantly, and didn’t help her in the least, always

reaching out to touch her breasts or backside or . . .

That was when he stopped her entirely, when she just had her bra and panties on,

and made her stand in front of him. “My God, Jayne, what have you done to yourself?”

His horrified words had her literally trying to fold in on herself, to hide herself

from him, and he instantly regretted his outburst, reaching out to grab a wrist and

refusing to allow her to pull away from him. She ended up where she nearly always did,

on his lap, in his arms, being held closely to his chest as if she was a precious child.

“I didn’t know, Jayne. I didn’t know,” he still sounded terribly shocked. “I guess

I was seeing you as I wanted to see you – as I always had until now, and even when we

made love, I was just so glad to be with you, I didn’t really look at you but -”

He held her so tight he worried a second later that he might have hurt her, and

caught her chin in his hand, “What have you done to yourself?”

Jayne closed her eyes, knowing her face was an unbecoming shade of red. “I just

lost a little weight, is all,” she whispered, wishing she was anywhere but here, having to

have this conversation with him.

“Look at me.”

Her eyes remained stubbornly shut.

It wasn’t the swat as much as his voice that had her opening her eyes when he

said, “Damn it, Jayne, look at me!” It was as close to yelling at her as he’d ever gotten.

That wasn’t his style. “I am going to spank you until you can’t sit down for a week, and

when that week is up, I’m going to do it again, and again, and again. This is absolutely

unacceptable – that you lost the weight in the first place, and that you didn’t call me and

talk to me about it – tell me – in the second place.”

“How was I going to call you when you just going to be on to candidate number

three?” she cried. “What if you had married someone else? I was supposed to call you to

cry on your shoulder and find that out? I was much happier not knowing.”

He scoffed. “No you weren’t, obviously,” Trieve said, running his hands over

ribs that were showing blatantly and should never, ever have been. As if struck by

something, he shook her slightly and found her eyes. “You loved me when you left,

didn’t you?”

All Jayne could do was nod slowly and sob, her eyes slipping from his as she

buried her head in her hands.

“Then why did you leave?” he asked, his own heart caught in his throat, making it

hard to speak.

“Because you were so clear that I wasn’t the one. And knowing that I loved you

wasn’t going to change that. I understood what you wanted, and it wasn’t me. I’m not

the practical choice and I never will be.”

Trieve tilted her head up so that she had to look at him before his lips melted onto

hers. “No, you’re the only choice, Jayne. You’re the only possible choice for me.”

Epilogue

“So I thought your rancher was dirt poor?” Kenni asked during the reception,

when she slipped into the chair next to Jayne’s at what passed for the head table. It was

just a picnic table like the rest of them, just decorated a bit more, but it was on the ranch

that they both owned now, in a back yard that was beautifully landscaped by the lady of

the house.

They’d decided on a barbeque, inviting most of the residents of Heartbreak, who

had all been rooting for them all along, and all of Jayne’s friends from college and work.

In fact, they’d flown all of the out-of-towners up on a chartered jet. Trieve’s closest

friend from high school was his best man, and Jayne had a man of honor – Jerrill – as

well as a maid of honor – Kenni, although it wasn’t really all that formal, really,

especially considering some of the wedding shows she watched on satellite TV, now that

she’d browbeaten him into getting one, along with actual internet.

“He was when I first met him,” Jayne said. She wasn’t partaking of the various

smoked meats, slathered with every known barbeque sauce in the world, because her

stomach wouldn’t have it. This baby might be from a Montana cattle ranching family, but

so far, he had distinct vegetarian leanings, a fact that had his father worried to no end,

since he – or she, his now wife had reminded him with a painful poke in the ribs – was

going to inherit the whole shebang, and he didn’t want the kid turning it into a corn maze

or a hippie fest.

“So how’d he make so much money so fast?” Kenni’s mouth had absolutely no

filter and no sense of decorum at all. She would ask any question of anyone at any time

that popped into her tiny little brain.

Luckily, Jayne was used to it by now.

“He inherited it.”

Jayne had eventually gotten the whole story out of Trieve.

It seemed that he had gotten a call not long after she’d left – a couple of months or

so – from a lawyer’s office in Burbank, California. He was asked to come there for the

reading of his mother’s will.

He had started to give the man on the other end of the phone a piece of his mind

about what he could do with anything his mother had left him, until the guy cut in to his

tirade and told him that he really should come out, and that they would send him a plane

ticket.

Grudgingly, he went. He didn’t know how he felt about knowing his Mom had

passed, but when he got there, he found he that there was less to mourn about than he

might have thought.

His mother, in her later years, had sorely regretted leaving him. So much so that

she wanted to give him back that which she had taken from him. She didn’t do it while

she was alive because she thought he would refuse it from her, so she left it to him in her

will.

When he flew back to Montana, it was as a rich man. He would now have all the

money in the world to hire multiple hands – multiple shifts of hands, if he wanted to – to

do all the things he’d been trying to do by himself all his life.

And he knew that one of the first things he had to do was to go and collect the

woman who should have been his bride for the past six months, three weeks, and four

days. But he wasn’t quite able to get to her that quickly because there were too many

things that needed done on the ranch. He wanted to get it back into some semblance of

what it had been before he brought her back to it.

Whether she wanted to or not, he’d decided grimly.

So when he did bring Jayne back on that flight where they’d confessed their love

for each other, it looked like an entirely different ranch. All the holes in the porch were

fixed, the front yard was landscaped, and there were tons of men working everywhere –

some on horseback working the cattle, others painting the house, and still others building

or repairing miles of fences.

She left out the part about the fact that he had made good on his promise about

spanking her so badly she couldn’t sit for a week. And then doing it all again the next

week. Kenni would have been truly appalled, but it had only made Jayne feel loved and

treasured. She would never forget the look on his face when he realized just how much

weight she had lost while mourning him, and she was truly sorry for hurting herself, and

thus him.

“So that’s the story,” Jayne said, surprised Kenni hadn’t heard it before.

“Oh, I have. I just like the way you tell it best.” She gave her friend a hug, then

went off in search of a companion for the evening. They were putting their friends up in

the best hotel in Billings – not that they didn’t want more of their company, but when the

wedding feast was over, they wanted them the hell away. The hands had all been given

the day off in celebration, and they were leaving the next day to go on a honeymoon trip,

and Trieve wouldn’t say where he was taking her to.

“Oh, Jaynie!”

She heard him calling to her from across the yard, and ignored him. She wasn’t

going to encourage him in using that horrid nickname, but apparently her tactic wasn’t

working.

“Jayne.” This time much lower, and much more serious.

She got up and went to him, and he immediately excused them to the friend he

had been chatting with, leading her into the house and down the hall to their bedroom.

“Trieve, the wedding is still going on!”

“I don’t give a damn, Jayne. I want you. Right now.”

His desire for her – which had never waned even the slightest – had become even

more rampant once she’d become pregnant.

She didn’t remind him again. If he wanted to make love to her, she was going to

let him. She’d learned her lesson the hard way, and, even for what she thought might be

the best reasons in the world, she would never walk away from love again.

Carolyn Faulkner

The words "spanking" and "discipline" have always sent a shiver up Carolyn Faulkner's

spine.

She knows she's not alone.
Writing started as a way to explore her feelings. Soon short stories flowed from her pen

featuring reluctant heroes taking the leading lady in hand, but always for her own good.

Today Carolyn is the author of dozens of books. She writes from her home in Maine,

where she lives with her husband and leading man.

You can read an interview with Carolyn here:

http://www.blushingbooks.com/blog/?p=175

You may check out her website while it’s under construction here:

http://www.carolynfaulkner.com

Don’t miss these exciting titles by Carolyn Faulkner and Blushing Books!

Series books:

Adored series:

Adored

Tessa’s Wedding

Priceless Love trilogy:

Priceless

Love’s Possession

Thornton Brothers trilogy

AJ’s Hope

Thornton’s Desire

Thornton’s Wish

Single Titles:

A Christmas Holiday to Remember

A New Year's Eve to Remember

The Pleasure of Their Souls

'Til Death Do Us Part

Strictland Academy

Promises Kept

Rod of Correction

The Obedient Wife

Old enough to Know Better

To Trust Her Heart

Naughty Girls: Brynn and Kim

Taken By Force

Against Her Will

Dangerous Love

After Hours: A Medical BDSM fantasy

Droit de Seigneur

Skye’s Submission

The Sister and the Sinner

Dutch and the Cowboy

Under the Lash

The Rogue and the Rose

Submissive Bride

A Good Man

The Unrequited Dom

Griff’s Christmas Angel

Three’s Company

Generation Stables

All Hallow’s Eve

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Vlad’s Story

Two True Loves

Tria

The Reluctant Bride

Tears of a Vampire

Soulmates

Sheik’s Desire

Reject Ranch

Nola

More Than a Man

Man of Her Dreams

Love Will Find a Way

Jake Ryan’s Woman

His

Her Guardian Don

Fools Rush In

Everything Gained

Embraced

Depths of Desire

Body and Soul

Blood From a Stone

Angel of Sudden Hill

100

All of Her

A Piece of Heaven

Attentions Throbbing

Talus: A Demon’s Story

Sold!

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Submissive Desires

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A Hard Man is Good to Find

The Spoils of War

Gilded Cage

Second Chances

Prima

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‘Til Death Do Us Part

The Boss of Her

Boxed Sets:

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101

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