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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
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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
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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.
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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.
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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.
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