Reject Ranch

Reject Ranch Carolyn Faulkner © 2004 © 2010 by Blushing Books and Carolyn Faulkner

Reject Ranch © 2004 © 2010 Carolyn Faulkner & Blushing Books All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Published by Blushing Books, a subsidiary of ABCD Graphics and Design 977 Seminole Trail #233 Charlottesville, VA 22901 Faulkner, Carolyn Reject Ranch eBook ISBN: 978-1-60968-139-5 The trademark Blushing Books is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office. Cover by ABCD Webmasters & Graphics

Blushing Books thanks you whole-heartedly for your purchase with us! There are plenty more stories such as the one you‟ve purchased from Blushing Books! Visit our online store to view our diverse selection! http://www.blushingbooks.com 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 advocating any non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.

Chapter One Crrraaacckkk! In a still confident, damned if I‟m going to cry voice, “One.” Ssmmaacckk! Oh, that was a bad one, April thought. But then, weren‟t they all, dammit?! Why did this man, of all men, have to know how to spank? And when to spank? And to be so blasted consistent about doing it? She held back an exasperated sigh, knowing it would just get her into even more trouble. “Two.” And why the hell did he have to make her count the strokes out loud sometimes? What good did that do – beyond humiliating her when she got to sobbing so much she could barely get the words out? He was generally very lenient about that. As long as she made the attempt – because it always did get to that point where she was spending all her time expending her breath, then trying to breathe it back in so that she could scream. And he didn‟t always make her count – just sometimes, when he felt like it, she guessed. Hank didn‟t give light spankings. April sincerely doubted he knew the meaning of the term. And with a huge, callused hand that easily swatted both of her small – but more than ample – cheeks at once, he was unlikely to even attempt to discover it. Hank believed in very basic, old fashioned spankings. They weren‟t all day events – although they certainly felt like they were to the recipient – but rather were very much like Hank himself – hard and unrelenting and to the point. Hank didn‟t mince words or swats much. If she earned a lickin‟ – which she had the unfortunate tendency to do with a depressing frequency in his judgment, which was the only one that counted in this relationship – she would get it as quickly as possible after he‟d found out what she‟d done... like importing a whole heard of sixty or so horses, from a rescue group that had lost its lease, into one of their older barns without asking or even telling him... or donating his favorite old jalopy to a humane society during one of their fund raising drives – not to mention coming home with four kittens they didn‟t need. This time, it was draining their in-ground pool and turning it into a terrarium to house a flock of eight homeless iguanas – even if it was just temporarily. And she didn‟t even like iguanas. He‟d come in off the range – helping to move the herd to their winter pasture – tired and dusty and dirty, more than ready for one of her incredible meals, and what did he find? First of all, he didn‟t find her. Hank ended up hollering for her through the house. One of his rules for her – not that there were many, there weren‟t – was that if she was going somewhere, she needed to tell him that she was leaving. There was no permission asking involved – he wasn‟t a control freak and she was quite old enough to go where she wanted and do what she wanted to do. He just wanted to know where she was going, so that he didn‟t worry when he finally got home and she wasn‟t there. Since he wasn‟t always available – and he wasn‟t always within cell range of even the best system out there – they had a white board on the fridge where they left messages for each other. But there was nothing there, so she had to be around somewhere. He checked every room, calling for her and swearing up and down to himself that he was going to put an electronic ear tag on her. She was harder to find than an honest politician in D.C. Come to think of it, his mind wandered a little, “honest politician” was an oxymoron...

Where the hell was she? Finally, he happened to look out the sliding glass pocket doors in the living room and there she was, bending down and looking at something in the pool. With April, one could never tell. She didn‟t do the girlie, screeching, standing on the nearest piece of furniture, “come kill it for me” dance unless it was an insect, he‟d found. She wasn‟t much on having some unauthorized bug crawl in bed and throw six or eight legs over her. But she was fine with rats, hamsters, and even snakes. One of her worst spankings had resulted from the fact that seen an injured rattlesnake along the long road in to the ranch and actually got out of her car to try to help it. The idea of the danger she‟d put herself in then made chill bumps come out all over him even now just at the thought. Aggravating woman! It wasn‟t until he got closer that he realized that there were heat lamps around the perimeter of the pool. Those didn‟t bode well, he thought. First of all, they were electric, and if they fell into the water whoever was swimming at that point would be toast. Secondly, what did they need them for? This was southwest Texas, for crying out loud. It was hotter than the hammers of hell most of the year. Why use heat lamps on the pool? Already shaking his head at his wife – who was the love of his life but also the greatest source of aggravation in it, even more so than the contrary cattle – he walked up to their beautiful, lagoon like pool. It was one of his favorite places. He loved the whole house, and how homey April had made it with various touches here and there. But the pool – especially after a long day working cattle – was his pride and joy. It was at the back of the u-shaped house, and he‟d taken an idea from some houses he‟d seen in Florida and put a screened roof over it – a “pool cage” – that attached to the house, so fewer bugs, as well as leaves and various flotsam and jetsam – got into the water. The pocket door sliders went right into the wall, disappearing completely, and that brought the whole area as close to inside the house as possible. It was fantastic. He‟d made the pool area as jungle like as possible, with tons of green foliage around the perimeter. It was like swimming in a hidden lagoon on some tropical island, and they would spend most of their evenings there, except during round up, when he was lucky to get home at all. It should have been a clue to him that April moved several steps away – out of arms reach – when he walked towards her. But he was tired and distracted, and didn‟t notice, until he looked down into the pool. The dry, iguana and lettuce covered pool bed, anyway. She‟d drained the pool completely. Come to think of it, he could see the sump pump she‟d used to do it, nestled – rather, badly hidden – in the greenery in one corner of the pool cage. “Aren‟t they cute?” she asked, a little too hopefully. Hank couldn‟t say a thing. He moved his lips, but nothing would come out. “They were found by the police in someone‟s garage – most of them are sick from malnutrition and lack of proper light. They were all crammed together... “ His silence made her mouth run nervously. “This is only temporary. There‟s a herpetologist in Abilene who‟s going to come down this weekend and take them – they shouldn‟t all be together even in a space this big – they‟re not herd animals like cattle...” she finished weakly, knowing she was going to get it, yet again. “F- f – fifff – teeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeen!” April shouted, trying unsuccessfully to kick her legs up to protect herself. Hank deliberately didn‟t let her lie on the bed when she was over his lap. He kept her feet on the floor, on tippy toes with her head down, so that her only support was that which he provided - his legs. Luckily, those were about as broad and sturdy as was physically possible. Hank was no lightweight. He stood six two and weighed close to two fifty,

although there wasn‟t an ounce of fat on him. Every bit of him was lean, hard muscle, and his thighs provided the perfect platform on which she was forced to balance when she assumed this all too familiar position that forced her to get up close and personal with her choice of ocean blue as the color of carpeting for their bedroom. Of course, there always ended up being a darker patch of blue just beneath her face, where her tears fell and rendered the carpet almost a navy color, as they were doing now, dripping off her chin, mixing with her hair and trailing down those honey blonde strands, too. “Twennnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn – “ she screamed all the breath out of her lungs, so the word was interrupted, and another two smacks snuck in while she was trying to get the end out. “ – teeeeeeeeeee!” The rule was that if she got a swat that she didn‟t say the count for, it didn‟t count. He had told her that he was going to give her fifty spanks, and they weren‟t even halfway there yet and her bottom was already about to fall off – or, worse, stick around and sting like the dickens for the better part of a week. Hank didn‟t usually give her a set number of swats, unless he intended it to be a bad spanking. He knew that she would miss a lot of them, and get many more than she could count. Or, unless he was royally pissed. If April had been in her right mind, and not delirious from pain, she would have recognize that both cases were true right now. But she was too busy right now trying to live through her punishment. It got to that inevitable point where she couldn‟t count any more, not that that stopped Hank. She still jerked with every single spank – and they were all complete and individual, crisp and hard. He fluttered and flurried swats over her bottom. And he covered every inch he could reach, up and down those cringing hillocks and down the backs of her thighs – which was cruel and unusual as far as April was concerned. The backs of her thighs had been complete virgins when he‟d first started spanking her, but they certainly weren‟t any more. They got at least as red as the rest of her, and damned if it didn‟t hurt like hell to pull her jeans on afterwards, not to mention sitting a horse was something she wouldn‟t be doing for a while, and she so loved to go riding with him, surveying their land and planning and dreaming with him about what they could do with the ranch and how to make it the biggest and best in all of Texas. When he finally stopped – and even if she did lose count, she knew it was at a count that was much less than fifty – all she could do was hang over his legs. Hank knew what the count was – and it wasn‟t much past thirty or so. He had no interest in abusing her whatsoever. But he wanted her to learn to consider what she was doing before she did it, at least when it was something big like draining their pool. She‟d pumped all that water out without thinking where it would go and what it would do to their landscaping, such as it was. To say nothing of the expense of renting the sump pump and, once the animals were with whoever it was that was going to be gracious enough to adopt them this weekend, refilling the pool. When it came to animals, she didn‟t think. They were her worst downfall. She didn‟t smoke or drink or speed – much, at least not enough to get caught – rarely swore, and was generally responsible with their money. And usually she was pretty good about including him in decisions, just as he was with her. But if it meant helping a suffering animal, even the green, lizardy kind, common sense flew right out the window. And speaking of flying, he noticed that they had had an audience of the feathered kind, who was continuing to verbally spank his mistress. Fred, their green Amazon parrot, had heard enough spankings that he could reproduce the sound perfectly. As Hank eased his captive onto

her back on the bed, she mumbled something about parrot under glass sounding good to her about now. Using his beak and claws, Fred climbed up the bedspread and up to April‟s head, where he proceeded to preen her feathers. April was Fred‟s favorite of the two of them, although he liked to ride Tasia, the retriever like mutt, whenever he could. He was dead on with his imitations of phrases and words he heard a lot – like “No, Hank, please!” and “Stop, please, stop!”, and the occasional and highly embarrassing, “Over my knee!” The problem was when they had guests - especially those who didn‟t know the true nature of their relationship, like close family. If they had time, the covered his cage and put it in their bedroom, which generally kept him quiet... well, quieter than usual, anyway. It was the drop in visits that always got them in hot water. Hank drew April into his arms, ignoring the pesky and jealous Fred‟s attempts to arrange her feathers into a becoming, birdish coiffure. She was still crying a little. “Are you all right?” he whispered against her neck. Spanking her always seemed like the right thing to do at the time – and it was. But afterwards, he always felt a certain amount of guilt. What was a big, strong, strapping guy like himself doing spanking this tiny little woman? She was no heavier to haul around than a big sack of feed, and yet she never shrank from him, despite the hard spankings he dished out. April always turned to him, even right afterwards, cuddling against him within his arms, being stroked and comforted by the same hand that had been paddling her bottom not seconds before. She only nodded. Hank sighed. “Do you know what kind of mess you made of the back yard – such as it is?” he asked. “Did you pay any attention to where the water was going? Thousands of gallons of water? Do you know how much of our yard has been washed away?” “No, Sir,” April answered softly, and he hated that subdued sound of her voice. She never sounded like that, except just after a spanking. It was when she was the most vulnerable. Well, he thought, one of the times, anyway, the others being when he had her in one of the many compromising positions they both enjoyed so much. “I – I just wanted to help.” Dear God, he loved her. She had a heart as big as the universe, especially when it came to animals, or those she loved. Hank hugged April tight, wrapping her up in his arms and reveling anew – as always – about how good her curvy body felt against his. He couldn‟t stay angry with her. He just couldn‟t. Her motives were always pure, even if she didn‟t always think things through. Truth be told, he would have done something himself if he‟d known about the problem, just not probably something as drastic as she‟d chosen to do. Problem animals and animal problems seemed to see April out. The golden retriever mutt was hard of hearing. Their German Shepherd Rottweiller mix was blind in one eye. All of their four dogs and three cats had been strays at one time, and one of the cats had only three legs. Hank pressed his lips to the top of her head, smelling the light perfume she always dabbed under those heavy tresses and behind each ear. She had a huge collection of name brand perfumes, yet her favorite scent was a simple rose oil he‟d bought her back when they‟d first met, and kept replenishing as a tradition every year on their anniversary. April Marie Cahill was years behind him in school – Henry “Hank” Edgecomb was eight years her senior. He met her at one of the socials that the local ranchers had after roundup, when there was a tad bit less than the usual twenty five hours a day of work to be done. The bigger ranches had bigger barbeques, but this was one given by the owners of more medium to smaller sized operations. Hank, who had inherited a ranch that was on the verge of bankruptcy from his

ne‟er do well father, was determined that, eventually, his ranch would be one of the biggest ones – but that he would still hang around with the people he‟d grown up with, most of whom had relatively small ranches. She was a quiet thing who barely said anything beyond the polite niceties. The bald reality was that April was painfully shy and really preferred to be considered another one of the potted plants. She was so nervous about being there that she couldn‟t even conceive of eating anything, for fear that it would make a violent reappearance at an inopportune moment. But that seemed to be what her life was comprised of lately – inopportune moments. The only thing that could pull her out of her shell was animals. She‟d been an animal lover since she was very little – she used to drive her mother crazy because anytime she saw a dog or a cat, or pretty much any other cute and cuddly, she would be off like a shot. Her mother never could drill it into that pretty, stubborn skull that not all animals were necessarily friendly. The only reason they even met was because April tried to leave the party and found that the battery in her old jalopy was dead, so she came back into the party to ask the hostess, who was her good friend Melissa Polcaro, if she could get a jump. Melissa, whose mind was notoriously dirty, had dissolved into giggles at such a blatant suggestion coming out of sweet, innocent little April, but then she spied Hank Edgecomb trying to make his own secret escape out the back door. The two of them were peas in a pod – neither of them had a two social graces to rub together. Melissa had been amazed to see either of them at the party, but now a thought popped into her ever busy head, and she called out loudly, but in as innocent a tone as she could muster, “Oh, there you are, Hank. Would you be a dear and give April here a jump?” Hank actually cringed more at being caught trying to sneak out than Melissa‟s crude double entendre. “I have jumper cables in the back of my truck. Shouldn‟t be a problem,” he responded, already halfway out the door and never having looked either of them in the eye. April didn‟t look very enthused at the prospect either – she would have preferred if Melissa had gotten her husband, Kent, to help. At least April knew something of Kent. Beyond the fact that he was a rancher, and a friend of Kent‟s, Hank Edgecomb was a total stranger. She was actually shaking with nervousness as she nevertheless dutifully followed him out to her own truck. Not only was she having to spend time with a man she didn‟t know, but he was getting an eyeful of her truck, which had definitely seen better days. At this point in its advanced age, it was being held together by the strength of her own intestinal fortitude and some strategically placed Bondo. But he wasn‟t laughing, which she took as a good sign. He wasn‟t even smirking, which her mechanic did every time she brought it in for whichever thing had died on it that week. She kept telling herself that she was going to get one of those kits that eliminated the need for another car to jump a battery, but that was just one of those things she never quite got around to. And when he drove his own truck over to hers, she didn‟t feel anywhere near as bad as she had – his old clunker looked worse than hers! Of course, it was probably a work vehicle and got driven all over the range and could be excused from looking like it had just come off a showroom, but it was bad. April was immediately more at ease than she had since they‟d come out there. She‟d never paid much attention to men – she was too busy avoiding them and pretty much anyone else – but this man was different somehow. He wasn‟t trying to hit on her – heck, he hadn‟t said a word to her. He‟d taken the keys from her hand and opened the driver‟s side door of her truck, then opened the hood and affixed the cables and gone to get his own truck,

then completed the process under his own hood. As he bent over to attach the leads, April was struck by how rounded and tight his buns looked beneath the well worn denim of his jeans. She had to shake her head at that. She never had thoughts like that about men. She‟d always been so mousy and quiet that no man would have noticed her if she‟d stripped naked and set herself on fire, but she‟d never felt the lack of attention, either. April, for all her reticence, was a very self-sufficient person. Her profession as a research librarian let her spend most of her work time alone, delving into tomes as well as surfing the web to catalog information for various companies and clients, but her free time was spent trying to help animals as much as possible. She volunteered at the humane society, which she had originally thought would be too hard to even contemplate, but she wanted to go where the need was, however hard it was for her. And it was, at times, an unbearably painful pursuit. But there were other times, when a little one left with a puppy or a kitten, and everyone knew that the animal was going to a great home, that it was the most rewarding experience of her life. April had long since come to the conclusion that, given the opportunity, in nearly every case, she would choose the companionship of animals over humans... most particularly human males, who seemed to be as disinterested in interacting with her as she was with them, especially once they realized that she had a brain and used words of more than one syllable on a regular basis. As a result, she had never had a boyfriend in her adult life. She didn‟t count the boy next door while she was growing up, with whom she used to hold hands and catch frogs. Aside from her few, very close female friends who seemed to think that misery needed company and tried to fix her up every chance they could, April didn‟t miss having a man in her life – most especially not when she got together with her friends and listened to them bitch about their men. The girls – there were anywhere from four to six of them who had been together casually during high school, but had kept in touch since then to varying degrees, depending on what was going on in their lives – tried to get together at least once a month – usually to play poker, but sometimes just to go out and have a long, relaxing dinner where someone else did the dishes, and then see a first run movie without having to escort a screaming child out of the theatre every five minutes. Everyone in the small group had been married – some several times – except for April, who was pushing thirty hard, and had never so much as been engaged. All of them had at least one child – again, except April, who had, instead, one dog, two cats, two ferrets and a tank full of fish. None of her friends were advertisements for the joys of parenting in any way, shape or form. April was just as happy right now with her animals, who would never make a scene in a restaurant or run around naked in front of the Pastor. Her parents had long since despaired of getting grandchildren from their youngest, but then they had her older sister Marilyn‟s kids to dote on, so it wasn‟t that big a deal, and she only had to put up with their gently disparaging remarks on the holidays. But this man... he was inspiring thoughts that she would just as soon not have had. She didn‟t need a man complicating her nice, tidy, boring life. April had things arranged just as she liked them right now, and she wasn‟t going to let anything upset her tidy little applecart. Besides, he was not her type – whatever that was. He was too damned big and brawny and... dangerous looking, somehow. Of course, she knew that Melissa wouldn‟t have anyone in her house that was any sort of a threat to her guests, but still. The man managed to look like one of those nineteen thirties gangsters, even in jeans and a western shirt. There was no way he was a simple rancher. There was something more to him than that, April was willing to bet. She wasn‟t

the most observant of people – unless it was something about an animal, in fact she was notoriously oblivious regarding the opposite sex. Nevertheless, here he was, annoying her senses to no end. Her skin felt tight and uncomfortable, and she realized with a start that she was full on blushing and he hadn‟t so much as looked at her, although she was certainly drinking in her fill of him. There wasn‟t a spare inch of flesh on Hank Edgecomb – he was as broad as a barn but lean. He had a full head of jet black hair, a nose that looked like it had been used to stop more than one big fist, and a distinctly unpretty, craggy face that would have made anyone think twice about meeting his eyes, much less turning to him for help. He was tall and tanned, and April found herself wondering uncomfortably how far his tan continued beneath the buttoned up vee of his shirt. “Did you hear me?” he asked, getting into April‟s face, closer than anyone who wasn‟t family or a friend had gotten in a long time. “Start the car, please.” She did as she was told, without thinking, because she was too distracted by the fact that her nipples had spiked at his nearness, as if they were trying to attract his attention. They tingled and ached in a way they never had in response to any man. April started the car, and after a couple of choking attempts, the engine roared to life. Hank busied himself removing the cables, and April found she couldn‟t look away from him. It wasn‟t just her nipples that were aching, dammit, and she shifted angrily in her seat to try to dispel the unfamiliar throbbing between her legs. The seam of her jeans, though, was only aggravating the situation. Sighing exasperatedly, April swung the car door shut. She needed to get away from this guy. He was just what she didn‟t need. Men were more trouble than they were worth, as far as she was concerned – and ninety five percent of what she heard from her friends about their relationships only confirmed her opinion. “Thanks for the help,” she called out the door as she practically laid rubber going down the driveway. Hank stood watching after her, red and black coiled cables still hanging from his fist. That woman was as skittish as a mare in season. He wondered absently what her problem was, shaking his head as he rolled the cables up and stuck them behind the seats in the cab, where they would always be handy. He stood there for a moment, figuring he should go back into the house and say his proper goodbyes, but he didn‟t want to. He was tired and cranky and what was going on in that house didn‟t hold much interest for him. When he got free time, he liked to watch the programs he‟d taped, or play his guitar, or read, preferably Tom Clancy or W. E. B. Griffin – not party. But Melissa and Kent were friends, and he could only ignore so many social obligations, so he‟d come. But he wasn‟t going to go back in there. Kent wouldn‟t care in the slightest, and Melissa would be bursting with wedding plans, figuring she‟d set them up and they‟d left together. She‟d be ecstatic, and, if he knew Melissa – and he had since high school – she‟d be downright impossible to live with, which made him cut loose a rare smile. Kent was going to have his hands full. He‟d done his job. She was a cute little thing, though, his mind wandered as he drove home through the darkness. Shy and hesitant, except at the end, when she ran away from him like a scalded cat. He‟d never really paid much attention to April Cahill until tonight. She was so easily overlooked. But she certainly was cute – small and delicate, but nicely rounded in just the right areas. And her hair! It nearly reached the generous top curve of her butt, curling and waving all the way there. He‟d always been a sucker for a woman with long hair, and right now, even just the thought of those delicate, silken strands and what they could wrap around or unsuccessfully try

to hide like a living curtain made him have to reach down and adjust himself into some semblance of comfort while his genitals tried to bore their way through the front of his jeans. It wasn‟t at all like him to react to a woman like this – at least not now. There was a time when he would have been all over her, in not the nicest of ways. Hank grimaced to himself at those God awful memories of what he‟d been like as a wayward youth and young man. To say he‟d had a misspent youth was to understate the situation in the extreme. He was young and testosterone filled, and bigger than most grown men by the time he was eighteen. He was a walking crime waiting to happen, and he never missed a chance to get into what had started to be small scrapes at first that grew in pace with the rapid changes of his own body. Several scrapes with the law had landed him in front of a judge who gave him an unusual choice after his last run in with the police: a considerable chunk of jail time – especially to a young man who craved speed and freedom like he did – or join whatever branch of the military he preferred. Luckily, he had chosen the later, or he probably would have been dead before he made it to the ripe old age of twenty five. That judge had known exactly what he was doing, because the military had been just exactly what he needed – structure and discipline. Everything that had never been present in his life. His mother had split not long after he was born, and Hank couldn‟t even say he blamed her, considering that his Dad rarely surfaced much from the bottle the entire time he was growing up. The ranch foreman, Doug Simmons, had kept it going, with little to no help from its owner. And the Circle E had been there – such as it was – when Hank had needed it the most. He had done his time in the Army as a Green Beret in the Special Forces. He‟d become one tough son of a bitch – the Army was adept at taking the anger of big young men and honing and directing it, providing a target du jour then letting their highly trained testosterone bombs go off and do the nation‟s dirty work. He‟d loved it, and had become an excellent sharp shooter. Heck, he‟d even earned his degree - something he would have never though was possible while he was skipping most of his high school classes. But despite his years of experience and training, a mission on which he was the commanding officer when horribly wrong, and four out of six of his men didn‟t return from their mission. He hadn‟t thought he would ever get over the loss of four of his closest friends, and despite their active recruiting attempts and everyone around him repeating the mantra that it hadn‟t been his fault, he had abandoned the career he‟d so carefully built as soon as he could, and gone back to the only home he‟d known – almost dead center Texas, near Abilene. His home town, Santa Rosita.

Chapter Two Hanks‟ father had died nearly a year before, and he‟d barely been able to attend the funeral, flying in and out the same day. He hadn‟t even gotten a chance to see the ranch, but Doug was there, of course, and he got an earful of how rundown it had become. Doug had agreed to stay on as foreman, and Hank had started sending home as much of his Captain‟s pay as he could afford, hoping that might help to turn the situation around. It was his only legacy, and once the mission had gone sour, it became his salvation. He wiggled his way free of the military and headed to the ranch to lick his wounds, amazed when he discovered just how hard things had become around there. Digging it out of debt and setting it on the right track towards solvency and beyond had been his personal mission for the past few years, and it was the only thing he could see. He didn‟t date, he barely socialized with anyone, even friends like Melissa and Kent. He got up, ate, and went to work, came home well after dark, dirty and smelly and sweaty, ate something if he could stand to do it, and dropped into bed, only to repeat the exact same pattern the next day, ad infinitum. The ranch was slowly – very slowly – coming back to life. He felt like it was a patient on life support and he was a doctor trying to save it. It was probably what in medical terms would be considered stable right now. The bills were paid every month, but they needed to be paid off, and would be eventually. The wolves weren‟t beating down the door any more, but they were still circling not too far away, and if anything was skewed in the future, the ranch could still be eaten up by creditors. But he was doing it, and he could see on the balance sheet every day that things were getting noticeably better. He just had to keep things on an even keel, and continue to do as much of the work himself as he could to avoid having to pay many hands. Doug had stayed on, but Hank knew that he wasn‟t going to stay forever, and it was in the back of his mind that he‟d need to start scouting for a new foreman in the not too distant future, but he wasn‟t in any hurry for that day to come. Maybe little Miss April would be a nice distraction from the daily grind. He could afford the occasional afternoon off, and his evenings – as much as there was of them once he‟d gotten through with everything that needed to be accomplished – were generally his own, especially now that roundup was officially over. Thoughts of her lithe body and all that hair tantalized him all the way home and beyond that, so much so that he was rock hard when he climbed into bed that night. He could have taken care of the situation himself, but somehow, he knew that wasn‟t going to be what he needed. He needed a little honey blonde shrinking violet, and resolved as he rolled over and tucked the pillow under itself once, as was his habit, to call Melissa and make her day tomorrow by asking for April‟s phone number. It didn‟t turn out that their next meeting was quite as genteel as he‟d expected, though. He had called Melissa the first thing the next morning and listened to her gloat for as long as he could before finally prying the number from her. But he needed to go into Hannibal‟s in town to pick up a fencing order, and he was too cheap at this point to pay for a cell phone, so the actual call to April would have to wait until this evening. He was driving down highway eighty seven at seventy miles an hour and had to do a double take as he whizzed by what looked like the same

disreputable truck he‟d jumped last night, parked on the edge of the road as his fair haired girl stalked something he couldn‟t see. He‟d had emergency driving training courtesy of the military, but it had been a while ago. Luckily, he pulled over to the right before applying the brakes, and came to a stop not far from where she was. Eighty seven was a busy, four lane road, and he could feel the truck shake as vehicles whizzed by during the morning rush hour. A couple of hours from now, the traffic would have died down considerably. He barely opened his door, slipping through as small a crack as he could to get out of the truck, sidling carefully around its bed with his butt plastered against the side panels until he could walk along the side of the road further away from the traffic. What in hell was she doing? His eagle eyes watched her as she crouched with her fingers out. She seemed to be talking, but there was too much noise from the road for him to hear what she was saying. Who was she talking to, anyway? There was no one standing there as far as he could see. Was the woman mad? Hank snorted to himself. She had to be to have gotten out of her truck for any reason other than emergency, as far as he was concerned. The more he thought about how she was putting herself in danger for no reason, the angrier he got. When he got closer, he could see who she was talking to: a golden retrieverish mutt, who had had an unfortunate encounter with what had most probably been a fast moving vehicle. The dog was just lying on his side, but Hank could see that his back left leg was twisted at an odd angle. It was definitely broken, and that was probably the least of the dog‟s problems. A blanket suddenly appeared in her hands, and Hank realized that she was apparently quite intent on bundling up the poor unfortunate and carting him off somewhere, completely heedless of the consequences of approaching a strange, wounded animal. She was totally concentrated on the dog, and he didn‟t even though she noticed that he was there, although he could see that she wasn‟t really looking directly at the dog, but rather at some point to the side of him. “Is this your dog?” he asked hopefully, already knowing the answer. “No,” she whispered. “Why are we whispering?” he asked, crouching down to her level. “Because I don‟t want to scare him into oncoming traffic.” She had never even looked at him; her eyes were glued to the mutt as she duck walked a tad bit closer to him, keeping the blanket spread but close to her own body, so that it wouldn‟t look threatening to the dog, who was whining agitatedly, but didn‟t seem to be discouraging her advances. She was really going to do this – pick up a wounded, stray dog off the highway and probably cart him to a vet. Hank drew a deep breath, reaching for patience and not quite latching onto it. He wasn‟t about to let her do this. She could get torn up, and she certainly didn‟t have the strength to handle the dog when he wiggled and jerked at being picked up – if she was even able to pick up a dog that size. So he took matters into his own hands, as he was used to doing, and relieved her of the blanket, almost smothering the dog in it in one smooth motion, then rising with the animal in his arms. He deposited the dog neatly into the back of his truck. She caught on quickly and was at his elbow the whole way, like an eager puppy, but apparently his accommodations didn‟t meet her stringent standards. Frowning down at the dog as she put her hand out towards it very slowly, she none the less was neither looking at him nor the dog. “Dogs shouldn‟t be kept in the bed of a truck. If there‟s an accident, they‟re as good as dead.”

Hank snorted, scratching his forehead and adjusting his hat. “He‟s not coming into the cab with us, I‟ll tell you that right now. He should be happy he‟s in the truck at all. Are you crazy doing this on the side of a busy highway? You could have been killed!” Scolding her, and the fact that she, for some reason refused to look at him but instead was fascinated by the gravel at the side of the road, brought Hank‟s temper to the boiling point. He hadn‟t been this angry in years. The dog was whimpering and nuzzling her hand, licking it lightly, but it didn‟t seem to be aggressive it all, just obviously in pain. Hank eased April away and tucked her into the truck ahead of him, closing the door and grabbing her shoulders to turn her towards him, shaking her just a little. “Are you out of your mind? There are so many things wrong with what you did that I can‟t even begin to list them – starting with the fact that this is a major four lane highway and you could have been picked off by a commuter like so much litter, and ending with the fact that this is an injured, strange dog who could just as soon have taken a large chunk or two out of you as look at you. He doesn‟t know you‟re coming to help not hurt, you know.” “I know all that; I‟m not stupid,” April said quietly. “Well, you couldn‟t tell that from the past five minutes.” Before she had a chance to understand what he was doing, he had scooted towards her a little and pulled her over his lap. Within seconds her elastic waist shorts were pulled down to mid-thigh, and his hand was crashing down on her bottom so hard she screamed a little with each swat. Hank channeled all of the blood chilling fear he‟d experienced when he‟d seen her on the side of the highway come out through his stiff, hard palm and onto her resilient bottom, quickly turning it a piping hot shade of red. Hank didn‟t really have time to do what needed to be done – he didn‟t want the dog to suffer needlessly, so he roasted her as well and as quickly as possible, then pulled up her shorts and set her down onto her side of the bench seat and started the truck. April didn‟t know what to make of the spanking he‟d given her. She was so mad she was practically beside herself. She‟d been caught between the dashboard and him, and they seemed to be of equal density – there was nowhere for her to go when she struggled to avoid the furious volley of swats that each stung like a thousand angry bees. Who the hell was he to spank her? What the hell was he doing spanking a grown woman, anyway? She sat there and fumed, scrunching herself against the door as far away from him as she could, barely resisting the urge to reach behind her and soothe her singed butt. As they approached town, the silence in the cab was oppressive, but April had to pipe up to let him know what vet to take the dog to. Hank grimaced, his anger still simmering when he thought of what could have happened to her along the side of that road. It could easily have been April that he had to cradle in his arms and take to the hospital. “I have an account with Jack Barton.” Although she didn‟t want any sort of confrontation, April piped up, “He‟s not a small animal specialist. He‟s a cattle vet. Go over to Third and Main to County vet. They treat all my animals.” He hated that she was right, but he cut across town quickly and pulled up in front of Tom Green County Vet. She almost beat him to the dog and picked it up herself, but he nearly growled when she reached for the dog. April had to settle for tagging along after him. Once the dog was seen to – April told them to do whatever they needed to do and that she would cover the bill herself – Hank grabbed April by the upper arm and maneuvered her back into the truck. April skittered across the seat to plaster herself against the door.

Hank sighed. He hadn‟t wanted to make her afraid of him. Hell, he‟d wanted to ask her out. Now the only thing he‟d managed to do was put that look of fear in her eyes, the one he‟d seen in the eyes of men three times her size when he was in the military. He‟d never wanted it applied to any woman, much less her. Just as she‟d approached the stray, he‟d held his hand out to her – the same one that had so recently roasted her buns. April looked at that outstretched hand, at the calluses on his palm and the strength of the bulging arm that continued to hold it out there for her to sniff and decide whether or not he was friendly. And she already knew that he wasn‟t – her still stinging butt could attest to that quite heartily. Truthfully, she‟d never even thought about what might happen to her when she‟d seen the dog wandering aimlessly at the side of the road as the traffic whizzed by. She just knew she wanted to help him. He had been alternately barking and charging the cars, and one of them hit him while she was trying to get her truck as far as was possible off the side of the road without tipping it over in the attempt, and of course the waste of humanity hadn‟t bothered to stop and see if the dog was all right or help her or anything remotely humane. She knew she could easily get bitten, but it didn‟t matter. What mattered was helping that poor, now injured, dog. It wasn‟t his fault that he‟d gotten lost, or worse yet, been dumped off at the side of the road by whatever asshole had been charged with his care. April would do her best to capture him and get him to her vet, and, having done things like this before, she knew to approach him slowly, and not challenge him by looking him in the eye. She‟d never been bitten – yet – but it‟d been touch and go more than once. This guy had looked like he wanted to trust her, and hell or high water, she was going to get him some help. The man who was sitting there with his hand out to her reminded her of a combination of all of the dog breeds everyone was wary of – and he‟d already taken several large chunks out of her bottom, or at least that was the way it felt to her, especially since she was now sitting on that offended portion of her anatomy. The uncomfortable silence stretched out too long for him. “I‟m not going to hurt you,” he ground out. April raised her eyebrow, giving him a disbelieving stare, but eventually put her hand into his. His fingers closed around her like a fleshly trap – slightly yielding on the surface, but steely strong if tried. “I‟m not going to say I‟m sorry I spanked you, because I‟m not. I think you‟re out of your mind – that dog could have torn you to pieces – “ He stopped short, shocked at how horrified he was at the thought of her in bloody pieces by the roadside. “You‟re crazier than a loon, woman, and you need a keeper more so than any stray does.” She stole her hand back at his derisive comments, folding her arms over her chest and leaning as far away from him as possible. It didn‟t make a difference, she kept telling herself. His opinion didn‟t count for anything. It didn‟t. It shouldn‟t. But it did. April didn‟t want to care what he thought – he wasn‟t anyone to her. They barely knew each other. But his words hurt – he thought she was touched in the head because she loved animals. Well, then she was definitely certifiable. So be it. Besides, she said to herself, conjuring every bad thought about him she could. She wouldn‟t want to be around any man who abused woman like that. April shifted in her seat, her butt tingling at the thought of how he‟d manhandled her... her thighs involuntarily clenching

against the warmth that seemed to migrate all on its own to that sensitive spot between that no man had managed to stir in the least. Until him. April studiously ignored that growing, insistent ache in favor of heaping invections on his head, and repeating to herself that she never needed to see him again – ever. Ever. Ever. Hank left her off back at her truck alongside the highway, noting how she shot out of the truck as if from a cannon, without so much as a “thank you” or a glance backwards at him – even to give him a one fingered salute. He waited to make sure that her truck started without a problem, a habit he‟d picked up early on when he was stationed in colder climes, then drove home much more slowly than usual, running the whole scenario over in his head to see if he‟d do anything different. Nope. Not a thing.

Chapter Three The phone rang, and April had to disturb her two cats from the pig pile they‟d created on her warm lap to get it, since she‟d forgotten to put the cordless on the occasional table next to her recliner. “Hello?” She started to unload the dishwasher while she was talking – it was one of the few ways housework got done around her place. The last voice she expected to hear rumbled its sexy way to her ear, and into her all too receptive brain. “Good afternoon, April.” It was that awful man again. It wasn‟t enough that he‟d sp – done what he‟d done only this morning, he had to call and harass her four hours later, too. “What do you want?” Hank had found himself somewhat stumped this afternoon – and it wasn‟t a position he usually found himself in, or liked finding himself in. He was a doer, and much preferred action to words. But actions – his own actions, as right as he thought they were - were what had gotten him to this place, where the woman he was interested in was more likely to hang up on his butt than even decide to let him get to the point of asking her out. “I want you not to hang up on me.” April was shaking her head. He was nothing if not autocratic, even if he was somewhat psychic. She was so busy mulling over that thought that she ended up doing exactly as he‟d practically ordered. “Thank you. I know you‟re probably not very happy with me right now, but I would like to take you out some time.” It just kept getting more and more absurd. He wanted to date her? Why, so he could abuse her some more? Did he think she liked that kind of thing? That last thought gave April pause. Only she knew how wet her panties were when she got home – how she‟d balled them up and thrown them out, not wanting any reminder of how he‟d made her feel by what he‟d done. She did not like being spanked. It was awful, and she never intended to let herself get into that kind of situation again, and that meant staying away from one Hank Edgecomb, come hell or high water. “No thank you.” She heard his sigh and it was of more than exasperation. This was the first time she began to get an inkling that this man wasn‟t going to be put off easily. “Well, considering that I roasted your rear good this morning, I can‟t say as I‟m surprised by your answer.” “Bully for you.” She gave herself points mentally for her blasé delivery. “I‟ll ask you again in a little while. How‟s the dog?” It was the perfect thing to ask her, and he knew it. She was the type who cared more about animals than herself, obviously, judging by the danger she‟d put herself in this morning. “The vet called not long after I got home – he‟s got a broken leg and some bruised ribs, but he‟ll heal fine.” “That‟s good.” He was a half a heartbeat away from offering to adopt the mutt, but he decided to keep that in his back pocket for emergencies. All he needed – with all this work he was doing night and day on the ranch – was another animal to look after. “Where will he stay once they let him out?” “I have a friend who‟ll foster him until he‟s better.” Almost all of April‟s friends got pressed into service somehow when she found an animal that needed help.

“Sounds like you‟re on top of it.” “Yes.” This was going nowhere. She wasn‟t about to talk to him. It was too soon. He‟d made an error in judgment calling her this quickly, and it wasn‟t like him to make rookie mistakes like that. He just hadn‟t wanted to let any opportunity to soften her attitude towards him to slip by him. He wanted her, and he intended to have her - despite the fact that her little bottom was probably still smarting whenever she sat down. “Well, I‟ll call you later to see how he‟s doing.” “You don‟t need to do that, thank you.” Hank could see her getting her back up at the idea that he wasn‟t going to let this drop and let her get away from him that easily. “I know I don‟t need to. But I will anyway. You have a good night, you hear?” With that he was gone, leaving her holding the dead phone to her ear. Somehow that man managed to make everything into an order, even a simple farewell. And he also managed, without trying very hard apparently, to make every nerve in her body tingle... some more than others. Even her bottom was tingling, probably because he‟d spent so damned much time touching it, if one could call it that. He‟d gotten his hands on an intimate portion of her anatomy faster than any man she‟d ever known – not that there were many of those. But she knew he would be as good as his word about calling back – he was that type of man, and she was right. He called her every day, usually just for a short kind of check-in chat, after dinner, usually just before she was considering going to bed, around ten or ten thirty. It surprised her that he kept it up as long as he did, considering that neither one of them was much of a talker, but he got her talking about her animals and she forgot to continue to be resentful of the fact that he‟d taken considerable liberties with her person. He‟d hit on the one topic that would pull her out of her shell, and when he let her talk, he didn‟t have to. And he was smart – a little too smart. He didn‟t harp on the fact that he wanted to date her. It took him a week and a half to ask her again, and by that time, she‟d mellowed considerably towards him. His call came at a time when Melissa had stopped over to see her. Melissa was also involved – although on a more casual basis – in rescuing animals, and they were both trying to coordinate foster families for a group of twenty cats that were found abandoned in a two room apartment. As soon as April answered the phone, she glanced up at her antique banjo clock and knew she shouldn‟t have in front of Melissa. “Hello?” She knew exactly who it was going to be and had already started to maneuver herself out from under several cats. “Hi.” She could hear him yawning in the background. April made her way to her bedroom, signaling to Melissa that she‟d just be a minute as she stalked down the hall, not wanting to say anything that might tip her friend off. “Don‟t let me keep you awake,” she said wryly, sitting gingerly on the edge of her bed. Somehow, being in her bedroom talking to him on the phone was a bit too intimate for her, but other than using the bathroom – which she balked at – there was no other private area to choose from in this tiny apartment. “I won‟t,” he said grumbled bluntly. “You sound tired.” What he sounded was exhausted and completely worn out.

His only response was a noncommittal grunt. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he‟d called just to growl at her, but she kept quiet. She knew he was short handed. He was always short handed. “When‟s the next time you‟ll have a night free?” “Middle of next week.” Biting her lip, she spit out what she was thinking before she had a chance to think about it too much. “Well, then why don‟t we plan to go out next Friday night, when you‟ll have a bit more time?” Her offer was greeted with complete silence – not exactly encouraging. Her heart began to try to thump against her breastbone with a frightening strength as every muscle in her body tensed. For a brief moment she considered retracting the offer as delicately as she could and hiding under her bed for a few weeks in embarrassment, but then he practically growled, “It‟s about damned time. I‟ll pick you up at eight.” “What are we going to do?” “I don‟t know about you, but I‟m going to spend the evening trying not to ravish you,” he answered, just a tad more laconically. “Oh, we‟ll go out to dinner – you pick the place, I don‟t care, and then maybe go dancing at the Stampede.” He wasn‟t asking, of course. She was surprised that he was letting her pick the restaurant. “All right.” “How‟s the mutt?” They settled into what had become their routine conversation about the animals she was overseeing, and all of the work he was doing to the ranch. It was stupid, but everything he kept telling her made her feel as if he needed someone to watch out for him. He was this big strapping guy who looked like he could take on the world and win, but he was doing all sorts of things single-handedly that should have taken three or four men. Stubborn man. April knew that most nights he called her just before dropping into bed. She kept waiting for him to call her from the hospital – that was probably the only thing that could get him to slow down. The ranch was doing better, she knew from her conversations with him and from what she‟d heard as pure gossip from others, but the better it did the more work there was for him, and he was already working all day every day, from five in the morning until about ten at night. He‟d already gotten stomped on, nearly gored, broken his pinky finger, and fallen off his horse and hit his head. And most of that was just last week. But he just got up and bowled his way through all of it. He was yawning in her ear again, loudly. “I think I‟m going to turn in, hon. I‟m whupped.” April could feel her blush creep to her hairline at his casual endearment. “Night.” “Night.” When she finally came back to the living room, Melissa was about ready to pop. “Who was that calling so late? And why‟d you have to go into your bedroom?” Melissa was nothing if not out and out nosey. And she made no excuses for it. She was the biggest gossip in town, and always knew the dirt on everyone. As long as you were forewarned and fore armed, knowing that anything you said to her was going to make the rounds of the big, eager ears who were her friends, then you were safe. April never told Melissa anything that she didn‟t want broadcast on the local evening news. “It was Hank Edgecomb,” she said with careful casualness, dropping her bomb with a small smile and watching Melissa fairly puff up and explode with questions.

Melissa‟s voice rose three octaves with excitement as she spoke. “Have you two been dating? Since my party? What‟s he really like? He‟s so quiet; what do you talk about? Hell, you‟re quiet, too! What, do you just breathe at each other? Is he good in bed?” April just sat back with a Mona Lisa smile and watched as her friend nearly imploded with the need to find out the answers to her questions. Melissa was sitting forward in her chair, fairly seething with curiosity. It was downright funny to see how entranced Melissa, the ultimate soccer mom, was at the idea of having all of her ambitions – of being a matchmaker – as well as her fantasies – from being long in a too comfortable marriage – about having sex with someone, anyone new vicariously fulfilled by April. She tried to answer the questions as they were thrown at her rapid fire. “No, not dating. Not really since your party, but kinda sorta. He‟s a pain in the patoot. We talk about all sorts of things. And I certainly don‟t know how he is in bed,” she ended on as delicate a note as she could. “You haven‟t...?” Melissa let the end of the sentence drag out and up slowly. April frowned. “I haven‟t even been on a date with the man... ” “Yet?” her friend finished eagerly. April swore if she moved just a bit more forward Melissa‟s more than ample butt was going to become up close and personal with her ratty beige carpet. “Is that what that phone call was about?” “Wellllllllllll,” April answered slowly, enjoying torturing her friend enormously, “we‟ve been talking most nights since I brought that dog I told you about that I found on the side of the road to the vet. He managed to come along while I was trying to get close to it.” She decided to do some judicious editing of the reality – not lying, just omitting stuff that Melissa would have had a field day with. “He drove us to the vet and then drove me back to my truck, and the man doesn‟t know how to take „no‟ for an answer, so I‟m going to go out with him for the first time next Friday.” Melissa stood and punched the air. “I knew he was gonna do something with you when he called and asked me for your number. Yes! Two lonely birds with one barbeque. Am I good, or what?” “Or what,” April answered wryly. “Don‟t break your arm patting yourself on the back, there, girl, and stop giving out my number to strange men!” “Why not? You two would make the perfect pair – you‟re both confirmed bachelors who don‟t think they need anyone, but you do.” April snorted. “I‟m only going out with him so that he‟ll leave me the hell alone.” Melissa raised her eyebrow. “That man? Once he gets something into his head – Kent says that he was just incredible when they were working together, and that he‟s not much different since then. Always so serious and deadlier than a snake.” “I can confirm that he‟s very stubborn and serious. The deadly any idiot can see. He looks like he‟d sooner snap you in two than have to answer a polite question from anyone.” Melissa considered her friend carefully. “Did you say that he helped you with that dog you found along the side of eighty seven?” “Yeah – the one I fostered out to Tiff. Someone must‟ve dumped him, but he had no collar or anything,” April shook her head back and forth disbelievingly at the way some people treated animals. “He found you alongside a four lane highway at rush hour?” “Uh, yeah, why?”

Melissa leaned back in her chair and pinned April with a too knowing stare. “Did he spank you for it?” How the hell could she have known that? April knew it was in her best interests not to acknowledge her probing question in any way shape or form, even with just a facial expression or twitch, but she also knew that her face gave her away long before she could marshall any control over it. Melissa drew a breath in so deep that April thought she was going to pass out. “He did!” She was even more beside herself than she had been when she found out the couple she had brought together was going to go out. “Tell me all about it!” April frowned in horror. “I certainly will not. And how did you know about it, anyway? That was between me and him, unfortunately. It was horrid, and he‟s damned lucky I‟m not filing charges against him.” Sometimes, on those thankfully rare occasions of incredible insight, April hated her friend. “I think you‟re protesting a bit too much, there... “ The words “shit eating grin” were just made for Melissa and this situation, somehow. April‟s frown couldn‟t have been any darker than Melissa‟s grin was bright. “I am not!” Realizing there was nowhere to go in this conversation but down, April pronounced, “And I‟m not going to talk about him any more. You can just stew in your own juices, because I‟m not going to say another word unless it‟s about someone – anyone – else.” “Okay, okay, relax. Sheesh. If you get any more uptight you‟re going to blow a gasket, and that would make a horrible mess of your furniture.” April didn‟t seem to be following her advice, so Melissa sighed and continued. “I didn‟t hear about it from anyone, I just knew from your expression... and from knowing Hank. Well,” she reconsidered, “knowing Hank as well as anyone can, except maybe Kent.” From the look on April‟s face, she wasn‟t making things any better. “Well, you know that I get spanked,” Melissa still colored prettily when she admitted it, even though she and Kent had been married for more than ten years, and he had been spanking her for longer than that. “And since they‟re such good friends, I figured that Hank probably had a lot of the same tendencies that Kent does. “I know that it‟s awful – especially the first time. At least when Kent first spanked me he was my boyfriend, and we‟d known each other forever. It must‟ve been so embarrassing for you – you barely know Hank. I‟m kind of... surprised, though, that he‟d do that. He‟s always been almost medieval in being courteous towards me – „ma‟aming‟ me all over the place, and he‟s the only one of Kent‟s friends who doesn‟t swear in front of me.” Melissa was lost in her diatribe. “Kent got mad at Blair Kennedy when he let loose with a string of „f-this‟ and „mother f-ing‟ that one night the guys were playing poker at the house, but Hank nearly decked him. I‟ve never seen Blair look so bug eyed and scared as when Hank stood up. All he had to do was stand up and Blair was apologizing all over himself.” Melissa allowed herself a little shudder at the thought. That Hank was a force to be reckoned with. She didn‟t envy April dealing with him one bit. Not that Kent was always a pleasure ride, but he wasn‟t nearly as quietly lethal as Hank. She was dying to know if Hank had taken her pants or panties down – Kent had always had a standing rule that if she was face down over his lap, her butt was bare. No exceptions. He considered that spanking denim or cotton was a total waste of his time. Melissa wouldn‟t be surprised to find out that Hank agreed with that. But, by the look of her friend, she didn‟t think she was going to get any answers today eventually, maybe, when she‟d settled down, especially if she continued to date Hank. Melissa

found herself hoping fervently – even more fervently than before – that they got together. She‟d like to have someone around to talk to and commiserate with about husbands that meant “no” when they said “no” and the consequences some wives suffered when they ignored the rules. She knew there were other women like herself because she read and posted to several groups on the Internet. But that‟s not quite the same as having a friend in the same town on whose shoulder she could cry when Kent laid down the law on her butt.

Chapter Four Friday came all too soon for April. She had spent most of the days since she‟d asked him fighting with herself about whether or not she should call him back and try to rescind the offer. Part of her – those lower parts that, since meeting him, had been prone to acting up and trying to vote when they were definitely not enfranchised – desperately wanted to see him again. They hadn‟t gotten nearly enough of his tall, broad self, enough gawking views of his tight butt, and she had yet to see whether his chest was bare or sprinkled with accent hairs, or if it was wall to wall hair covered muscles. But the rest of her – the other ninety five percent of her – was much more tentative. April was not at all sure that seeing him again was a good idea – she was sure she was likely to do something else that was going to get her in trouble with him, and that seemed to lead to her getting a spanking, whether or not she thought that the action constituted trouble. Since he was the one with the brawn and the hair trigger hand, it was what he thought that mattered. Still, she stood in front of the mirror Friday evening tingling in anticipation and, if she admitted it to herself, a little fear, which she steadfastly refused to acknowledge. But when the doorbell rang, she jumped, then scolded herself inwardly for doing so. When April opened the front door, though, she knew that nothing she could have done could have prepared her for seeing him again. And all he did was just stand there, looking impossibly sexy, staring at her from under a furrowed brow, unforgiving steel gray eyes taking in every detail of her in an inspection so thorough she figured he‟d probably deduced what color her underwear was, and whether or not she‟d ever gotten a Brazilian wax. But he didn‟t say a word. Nothing. Not even hello. He put his hand out to her and waited until she took it. He looked as if he was prepared to wait as long as he needed to for her to comply. Luckily, she was ready. “Where did you want to go?” He asked, his eyes on the road after he‟d lifted her into the truck with those strong hands on her waist. The hand on the steering wheel was white knuckled, as if he was having to wrestle the wheel into submission. April already wasn‟t happy. He‟d gone even more monosyllabic on her than he‟d been before. She was feeling just about as uncomfortable as she‟d ever felt in her life. Where was the man she‟d talked to on the phone every night for the past week? “I – I don‟t know,” she answered tentatively, looking down at the hands she‟d laced nervously in her lap. Her fingers were frozen, a sure sign that she was just about as nervous and tense as she could get. At this point, she was seriously considering saying “McDonalds” just so the date would be mercifully short. Hank sighed and reached over with his free hand, grabbing her left hand and holding on for dear life. “I‟m sorry. I had a really crappy day and I barely made it over here at all. Then I saw you in the doorway, and I didn‟t want to go out – I wanted to carry you into your bedroom. A bad day and uncomfortably horny doesn‟t make me the most talkative companion. I‟m sorry.” April was blushing, but pleased at his explanation. “That‟s okay. How about if we go to Uncles?” She named an extremely popular steak place on the outskirts of town. “So you love animals, but you‟re not a vegetarian, huh?” he observed, resting her fingers on his hard thigh as he drove.

Flustered at the feel of all those bulging muscles under her fingertips, even through the worn denim, April could barely formulate a coherent reply. “Isn‟t vegetarian a four letter word in cattle country?” The corners of his lips came up in an almost smile, and an incredible warmth spread through her chest, combining with the hot ache that had begun below the moment she‟d seen him on the stoop. She knew instinctively that he didn‟t smile much, and laughed even less, and it felt wonderful that she was able to get him to let his guard down enough to even consider smiling. Despite the rocky start, they had a great dinner together, and she found herself counting every time he came close to smiling. They even indulged in a sinfully rich, slightly underdone brownie, with hot fudge, hot caramel, ice cream and whipped cream, although, in consideration of what was left of her figure, April let Hank eat most of it. While they were talking she tried to watch him as surreptitiously as possible. He was so overwhelming up close and personal that she was enjoying having him captive in front of her, when she could take her time and drink him in more on her own terms than his. And what she realized, baldly, was that he wasn‟t pretty. Not at all, and not in any sense of the word. Of course, that was much too feminine a term to apply to him anyway. This was not a man who even owned a feminine side. He wasn‟t handsome, either, but somehow, that was perfectly okay. He wore self confidence the way most men wore cologne. April doubted that the man had ever experienced an iota of self doubt in his entire life, and that was a disgustingly sexy trait. It kind of surprised her, though, considering the fact that he‟d spanked her, that he didn‟t go overboard and become too controlling, acting as if he always knew what was best for everyone. He didn‟t try to order for her – which would have been a disaster considering how many things she wouldn‟t eat – but once she‟d decided, he gave her order to the waiter, and he made sure that she had everything she wanted throughout the meal, signaling to the young man whenever her glass became even slightly empty and asking her himself if the meal was to her liking. He... took care of her, April realized with a start. No one had done that for her since she was a kid, and it felt annoyingly good to know that he was looking out for her. On the rare occasions she‟d dated - and she was frankly embarrassed to admit how long ago her last date was – she‟d found that it was pretty much every man for himself. They‟d even gone Dutch, which was actually all right with April. As far as she was concerned, it alleviated her of any sort of pressure she sometimes felt at the end of the evening regarding what he might expect in the way of physical gratification, because she didn‟t plan on providing him – or any man – any of that, especially not on the first date. But there was no such opportunity for her to pay with Hank. The waiter delivered the bill to him – the sexist pig – and he already had a card at the ready. April didn‟t even have a chance to make a grab for it. Hank noticed when she automatically reached for her purse – he noticed everything – and gave her a warning look, saying, “Don‟t even think about it.” April frowned back at him. “Don‟t think about what? Paying my own way? Why not?” He didn‟t say anything, just looked at her in that warning tone. She tried not to get flustered, but she remembered that look from her spanking, and it was making her nervous. “But – “ Hank leaned forward, holding her eyes with his as he removed her pocketbook from her hands and put it back on the floor near her chair, where it had been during dinner. “No buts.” Still disconcerted, she let him help her on with her wrap, then guide her out of the restaurant with his hand on her waist. It was the first time he‟d really touched her in an intimate

way – if you didn‟t consider the spanking – and the sure weight of his hand on the curve of her waist felt wonderful – better than she ever wanted to admit. As they were walking to his truck, though, April could see a familiar couple coming towards them, and she let loose with a heartfelt vulgarity, which was very unusual for her. “Son of a bitch.” She could feel his hand tighten and knew it was a harbinger of bad things to come as soon as she looked up into his face. There was that look again. But before she could begin to worry about what that look might have meant for the health and safety of her bottom, Melissa and Kent walked up to them on their way into the restaurant. “April! Hank! Fancy meeting you here!” Melissa used her most innocent tone, even though April knew there wasn‟t an innocent bone in her body, especially not in this situation. As soon as she‟d found out that April and Hank were going out, she‟d been threatening to drag Kent out to the same place at the same time, so that they could “bump” into each other. Santa Rosita was small enough that Uncles was really the only place for a couple to go when they didn‟t want to hang out in a bar. Every other restaurant was a much longer drive away. April had told her that if she did that she would be dead meat, but apparently her warning looks were nowhere near as effective as Hank‟s. April glared at Melissa through the entire – thankfully brief – exchange of pleasantries. She was incredibly thankful that they had obviously been late for some reason. She practically stalked away from the other couple when everyone finally got around to saying good bye, and Hank had to lope to catch up with her. He helped her into the cab of the truck, lifting her bodily at the waist and settling her gently onto the seat as if she weighed nothing while she stewed and steamed, even though she knew that her reaction was, logically, out of proportion for the situation. Melissa and Kent had a right to go to any restaurant they wanted. As long as she and Hank weren‟t there on their first date, dammit! Hank could sense the tension between the two women, and as he slipped behind the wheel and got them going on their way back to her place, he considered whether or not to open that particular can of worms. Sometimes it was better just to let things lie, especially between two women. But she looked like she was about to pop over there, fussing with her wrap and fidgeting furiously. She‟d already gotten herself in trouble with him when she swore – he wouldn‟t tolerate anyone swearing around a woman, and he certainly wouldn‟t put up with it from the woman herself – especially not if he was well on the way to considering her to be his woman, as he was with April. He was going to let her off with a firm warning, though, this one time. In the future, she‟d find herself getting a good thrashing if he ever heard her saying anything like that. She was too smart for it – anyone was, and he simply wouldn‟t put up with it under any circumstances. She‟d just have to make do with euphemisms. He did. In the end, he couldn‟t resist trying to do what he could to help her, even though she ended up digging herself even deeper. “It was nice to see Melissa and Kent,” he drawled, keeping his eyes on the road, but watching her with interest out of the corner of his eye. It was all she needed to explode all over the cab in a hail of emotion. “It was not nice. Melissa knew we‟d be there, dammit, and I specifically her not to come, but she never fucking listens to me. I guess I should have told Kent – he‟d‟ve kept her in line.” He told her, very deliberately and softly, as soon as she said the word “dammit” that she had better watch her language, but she was too het up and full of steam that she didn‟t even

notice it, he didn‟t think. When she let loose with the f-word, he considered pulling over to the side of the road, but decided against it. He hadn‟t been satisfied with the cramped quarters of the truck for the first spanking he‟d given her, and he knew he could take care of business better when they got to her place. By the time he pulled up in front of her little apartment, she‟d wound down some, but there was still the occasional word that made him wince when it came out of that small, delicate mouth, and grimace at the idea of those lips forming it, much less her soft, feminine voice saying them. Hank came around to help her out of the truck, but she was already half way to the doorstep. He caught up with her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Invite me in.” It was that order that sobered her cold, and made her realize how she‟d completely she‟d gone off – she hadn‟t even noticed that he was in the cab with her. Melissa had just made her so mad, butting into their date. She knew that if the other couple had gotten there earlier, they would have joined them at their table and she wouldn‟t have had any time alone with Hank at all. April looked up at him, into those stormy gray eyes. “Oh, Hank, I‟m so sorry. All I‟ve done since we left the restaurant is rail against Melissa. I pretty much forgot that you were even there!” He almost snorted at that pronouncement. Few people were comfortable enough around him to just forget about him. He liked that she had been able to. She didn‟t seem to see him as the potentially lethal weapon that he was – that he had been – and that was just what he wanted. But she was still in deep, deep trouble. He held out his hand to her, setting her to digging out her keys. He‟d asked once, and he wasn‟t going to ask again. He was coming in tonight, not to see what he could get her to put out – he would never do that to her, cheapen her like that. But to set things right and lay down the law on that pretty rounded rump of hers. Again. This was getting to be a habit, and Hank had a feeling that, as the relationship progressed, it was going to become even more so, considering how spunky she could be, despite her predominant quietness. Hank let them both in, then turned immediately and locked the door, noting to himself that she needed more locks. April had put her wrap away in the closet, after leaving her purse on the hall tree near the door. She wasn‟t exactly sure what she was going to do with the big lunk who was standing in her foyer – such as it was. When she was in close quarters with him – and not raving mad – the size difference between them became much more evident. She wasn‟t one of those blown over by a good gust of wind, turn sideways and she disappears types, but she was pretty small, and he was very big. Next to him, she seemed that much smaller, and a lot more breakable. He towered over her, and his shoulders seemed broad enough to block out the sun, especially when he started advancing towards her. April backed up as far as the couch behind her would allow, but when it bumped up against her calves, she overbalanced and ended up sitting rather unexpectedly, and very awkwardly. Hank saw his chance, and took the cushion next to her, tugging her over his lap in a fluid motion. April knew where this was going as soon as her stomach hit his thighs. She‟d thought he might try to make a move on her, but this wasn‟t quite the move she‟d pictured having to fight off, but fight she did. She was not going to let him spank her again, no sir!! The struggle didn‟t last very long. It was over as soon as he put his left arm around her. It was humiliating just how quickly he was able to subdue her. April was about to count her

blessings that she wasn‟t having to fight him off romantically, but then she felt him tugging the hem of her soft pink velour scoop necked dress up over the backs of her nylon clad thighs to fold it neatly at the small of her back. Then he dug his fingers under the waistband of both the nylons and her panties and tug them down slowly while she wiggled and squirmed, then thought better of it, because she knew she was giving him quite a show in doing so. “Hank Edgecomb, you let me up this minute!” There was no response. Even if he‟d been inclined to speak, he couldn‟t have. He was staring down at the most beautiful bottom he‟d ever seen – it was perfect, wonderfully and generously proportioned, round and soft and gorgeous... and infinitely spankable. “Did you hear me, you big brute! You have no right – yeeeaowwwwwwwwwwwahhhhhhhhhhh!” The barrage had started without a word from him. She didn‟t even know what she was being spanked for, although she figured she could probably make a reasonable guess, considering what she knew about him. It was her language. He was, apparently, hopelessly old fashioned. And in some ways, that was good. In other ways, not so much. And his hand – it covered a huge amount of her bottom in one swat, so that he was constantly spanking over the same area every time his hand connected with her quickly reddening bum. He gave her what seemed like a thousand hard, crisp swats, then said in a tone that was becoming all too familiar – that no nonsense, don‟t push your luck tone, “I don‟t ever want to hear language like that coming out of your sweet mouth. Ever. I don‟t use it, and I won‟t let you, either. If I have to do this again, you‟ll get double.” She couldn‟t even reply or argue, not that that would have been a prudent idea anyway, considering her current position. But the swats were coming so hard and fast that she barely had enough time to take a breath to yell in protest, which she did, despite the fact that the neighbors were probably already on the phone to 911. April couldn‟t help it. His spankings hurt like the dickens, and she positively had to scream with every awful smack. The sounds of the swats he was delivering seemed almost to make things worse – every sense she owned was enveloped in the experience. She could hear the spanks almost before she felt them, and she could see his arm rise every time out of the corner of her eye – when she was brave enough to look, and his rock hard thighs reminded her of his innate strength with every ineffectual wiggle. “Understand?” He took being a man of few words to a higher plane. Even when he spanked her, he barely said anything, letting his administration of the punishment say it for him. “Yesyesyesyesyesyesssssssssssss!” she wailed, because he hadn‟t stopped spanking at all – in fact, he‟d increased the tempo, often swatting twice in the exact same spot. He stopped suddenly. It was as if he finally felt the roasted flesh beneath his fingers. Dear God, she had soft skin! Hank‟s mind wandered away with the rest of him, wondering if the rest of her was as soft as she was here, and suddenly he was desperate to find out, but he clamped down on his runaway libido as best he could. Hank was a highly sexed man. He had more than the normal sex drive, but he‟d always kept it tamped down. He controlled his genitals, not the other way around. But he couldn‟t stop himself from flipping her over, as gently as possible, cradling her soft roundness against his chest. The free hand that had been holding her in place for her spanking came up to cradle the back of her head, turning it towards him. Hank caught her eyes as his lips descended slowly. He wanted to enjoy the moment to the fullest – their first kiss. He was amazed by the strength of his

desire for her. He was rock hard beneath her soft hip, poking into her insistently. He wanted to claim her, in more ways than just his lips would allow. But for now he would have to settle for what he could get. April was caught off guard, and Hank had never failed to press his advantage in that situation. His firm, warm lips settled over hers, twisting insistently, touching her lips with the tip of his tongue before pressing it between them briefly, his goal accomplished: she was in his arms, complacent, at least for the moment, her warm bottom cradled on his thighs, kissing him back with an ardor that mirrored his own. Hank was at full, aching attention, his hips arching of their own accord, seeking the warmth he knew she possessed that would be just for him. April found herself floating on the bliss of his kiss, still trying to deal with the pain of the spanking he‟d given her – and that she‟d ended up getting another spanking from him at all when she‟d sworn to herself that she‟d never let him do that to her again – and reconcile it with the absolute pleasure of his kiss. She could feel his arousal pressing against her, and moved just a little, experimentally, pressing back. His guttural, unrestrained moan was all the encouragement she needed to keep doing it. She found she liked making him groan as much as she liked trying to make him smile, but she was having much more success at the former. But Hank knew he was getting much too involved much too quickly. His palms ached to cup her generous, velour clad breasts, but he didn‟t want to push too far too fast and taken the chance of losing her, although she didn‟t seem like she was as much of a shrinking violet in his arms as she might have been. Her little fanny, which must still have been on fire, was rubbing itself against his prominence, teasing and tempting him out of his mind, and he couldn‟t stop his right hand – the one he spanked with – from reaching around to that downy delta, slipping his middle finger slowly between those plump lips to see if she was as involved as he was. He half expected her to protest at the liberty he was taking with her body, but April was too far gone for that. Her legs didn‟t quite fall open, but she didn‟t make any protest as his middle finger slid over that turgid bud, drawing in a quick breath that hung in the air as his finger slipped past it to her slippery opening, her body providing him all the answer he needed. Finally, he set her away from him, onto the couch, clearing his throat and wrestling himself back under control. April‟s face was at least as bright red as her bottom as she stood quickly and rearranged her panties and pantyhose back where they belonged. She cleared her throat nervously, not really knowing what to do with her hands. No date she‟d ever been on – the sum total of which she could tick off on one hand – had never ended in such intimacy. Certainly not in a spanking, but also not with the man‟s hand tucked between her thighs as if he had every right to be there. April wasn‟t quite sure what she should be doing, so she kept quiet, sure that if she said anything it would be the wrong thing. It was stupid to be a nearly thirty year old virgin, but there she was. Unlike the usual portrayals of young woman having sex all over the place, April‟s shy, quiet tendencies had hindered her interactions with the opposite sex to the most neutered of dates. Nothing like this had happened to her before, and she was struggling to deal with it all. Hank was struggling not to lay her down right then and there and make her his own in the most elemental of manners. He was taking very slow, deep breaths, but she was sitting right next to him, and he could feel the softness of her up against him with every fidgeting move she made. It was enough to drive a very sane man crazy. She was more nervous than a virgin at an orgy – and therein was the rub.

He would have bet his bottom dollar that she was as innocent as his days were long. No wonder she was barely able to sit still – besides her stinging butt, she was dealing with the newness of being touched intimately for the first time. Hank scratched his chin. This threw a bit of a crimp into things as he had them planned out, but he‟d work around it. In the mean time, he leaned back and wrapped his arm around the nervous girl, tucking her against his side as if she was made to fit there. They sat there quietly for a long while, just cuddling and settling down, getting to know each other on a physical, more casual basis, letting their bodies adjust to each other. Hank was the first to yawn, and April immediately pulled back to crane up at him. “You‟re tired. You should go home and go to bed.” Hank absently grabbed one of the blonde curls that rested on her shoulder, near her breast, and wrapped it around his thick index finger. “I‟m tired, but I‟m too wound up to sleep.” “Wound up?” He reached for her hand and brought it slowly to his bulging crotch, pressing her palm against his zipper and then letting go so that she didn‟t feel trapped or pressured. “Wound up. This is all because of you. I want you.” April‟s face burst into flame. “I can‟t – I haven‟t – “ “It‟s okay. I understand. I would never push you into anything anyway.” Thoughts of what kinds of pressure other men who had dated her might have tried to bring to bear on April made Hank want to break something. She was too small to be able to fend off much of anyone. His voice was calm and soothing, although it would never be particularly soft. He had a very masculine, deep voice, but it was pretty much always gravelly. “I‟m not trying to pressure you at all. I just wanted you to know that I want you.” April didn‟t know quite what to say. No one had ever said anything like that to her. She was too plain and too mousy to even be noticed. But Hank noticed her. Even those things she really wished he wouldn‟t. “I really like you, Hank. But I don‟t like being spanked. I‟m not a child, you know.” He was totally unapologetic. “Well, then don‟t act like one. If you won‟t watch out for your own safety and dignity, then I‟ll do it for you. Every time. If we‟re going to date, then I‟m going to spank you when I think you need it.” On the basis of pure intellect, April would have loved to have told him off just because of the spankings. Told him to take what he was selling and stick it where the sun don‟t shine. But she couldn‟t. She liked him. She liked being with him, and her emotions – and her libido – were already involved. He made her feel protected, and he paid attention to her. And as he‟d already proven, embarrassingly so, she wanted him as much as he wanted her. When he left that night, Hank left her in a quandary. She went to bed in a tangle of emotions and compulsions and longings. She was awake for hours after he left, tossing and turning, her body on fire in more than one way, wishing he‟d spent less time spanking her – much less time – and more time touching her. She kept replaying that scene over and over in her mind where his big finger gently parted her lips, rubbing – only once – over her yearning bit, then dipping itself into her dew before withdrawing slowly. There was precious little sleep for either of them that night. They dated regularly after that – and Hank was also still religious about calling her every evening. It was a wonderful tradition that April loved. But one evening she was sitting by the phone, and it got to be eleven thirty and he hadn‟t called, then twelve, then twelve thirty.

April hesitated to call him in case he‟d fallen asleep early, or come home late and just fallen into bed exhausted. Finally, at one, she called. If she woke him up, then she‟d bear his wrath, although she doubted he‟d be mad at her. Hank didn‟t get angry at stupid things. In fact, she was much more likely to be angry at herself if she woke him up, knowing how little sleep he got working night and day as he did. But there was no answer. The phone rang and rang and rang. He was such a tightwad that he didn‟t have an answering machine – yet. It was on her list to get him for either Christmas or his birthday, but neither had come around yet. Hank was as steady and reliable as the sun. He always called her. Always. April was beside herself with worry. Something was terribly wrong, and she wasn‟t going to rest until she made sure that he was okay. He did all sorts of things on that ranch that were dangerous, and half the time there was no one there who would see if he fell or got gored or any number of awful things happened to him. She drove as quickly and carefully as she could through the night, cursing the distance between them. They had been seeing each other so regularly that most people who saw them thought they must‟ve been living together, but that was something they‟d just started to discuss. April was quiet but very self reliant and used to living by herself – with several animals. Hank had never really had a pet per se. The animals he‟d come in close contact with were going to end up being someone‟s dinner, or carrying people around on their backs all day. He‟d never become emotionally attached to any of them, really. He appreciated a good horse, but he didn‟t love it, certainly not like April loved her animals. His father had never allowed him to have a dog or even a cat, even though cats were useful on ranches to keep rodents away from the feed. But he was perfectly willing to live with a whole herd of animals, if that‟s what it took. He was the one who brought up living together, one night after he‟d come very close to bringing her to physical completion without really having to try very much. The ease and completeness of her responses to him made him feel funny in his chest. She was the most responsive woman he‟d ever had the honor of touching, and he wanted her all to himself, twenty four seven. April, however, was less enthusiastic about the idea of living with him. It wasn‟t that she didn‟t want to, really, she did. She wanted to make love with him, but he had put a moratorium on their mutual completion until they were able to be together on a more permanent basis, in their own bed, in his house. But she wasn‟t at all sure she wanted to commit to a relationship where she was going to end up over his lap having her bottom inflamed every other day. If she was living with him, she wasn‟t going to get the occasional spankings she‟d gotten so far. He‟d be right there with her all the time, and she was sure that he was going to find a ton more things that he wouldn‟t like about her behavior. This was the only thing that was holding her up, and she‟d talked to him about it. It was a deal breaker. Neither of them was going to budge on the point. Hank felt it was necessary – and he quoted chapter and verse of her behavior every time they talked – to curb her in some way, most especially in regards to her health and safety. He was entirely unwilling to just stand by and let her do as she pleased, even though she‟d made it to this ripe old age without his vigilant guardianship. He‟d blithely attributed her current healthful state to dumb luck, and was apparently willing to wait as long as was necessary for her to come to her senses about submitting to his discipline. April was seething with desire. She practically orgasmed the moment she saw him. He‟d begun very gently initiating her into intimacy, but flatly refused to complete the journey for either of them. April was going crazy, and but he, beyond the most obvious evidence of his

response, seemed outwardly to be unaffected by the fact that she‟d cupped him in her hand, reverently, gently, exploring him with her fingertips before she even looked at him. Every evening they were together, he kissed her passionately, bending her back over his arm, or hauling her onto his lap and kissing the life out of her while his own fingers trailed slowly over her breasts, making her catch and hold her breath, nearly passing out as he took his time exploring those mounds, watching avidly as her nipples came out to entice him to include them, too. Every time he so much as looked at her nipples she wanted to dissolve into an incoherent puddle of desire, and when he actually touched them, it was a thousand times more intense than she‟d ever thought a touch could be. She ached for him, morning noon and night, but he seemed largely unaffected, leaving her each evening with a detached peck that in no way reflected the lovely petting they‟d done all evening. All of these conflicting thoughts were racing through her mind as she drove out to the ranch. She loved it out here. It was so quiet and open. She parked her beat up old jalopy next to his and dashed into the house. As soon as she‟d driven onto the property, his motion detector lights had gone off, and more of them came on the closer she got to the house. April made a quick sweep of the area but didn‟t see anything out of the ordinary, but something made her stop in the middle of the front yard. “Hank?” she called, using every bit of her lung power. If he was merely asleep, he‟d be awake now. Nothing. Just blackness and the soft lowing of cattle in the distance. One more time. “Hank? It‟s April.” Something caught her ear. It sounded like a snuffling, like a dog who was trying to pick up a particularly interesting scent, but then it turned into a deep, pained groan. “Hank! Where are you?” It was faint, but it was his voice. Barely. Choked. Very pained. “Here – “ “I know it must hurt, but if you could keep talking it would help me find you... “ “Here.” She moved a little to her left, more towards the barn where he kept the equipment that needed repair, although that had easily overflowed out into the yard. “Hank?” “He-re,” he groaned. She found him sprawled under a tractor that seemed to have landed on his legs and midsection. April didn‟t see any pools of blood, but she realized that that didn‟t mean that there weren‟t any. She had her cell out, and caught a break and found a signal, which wasn‟t usual this far out of town. An ambulance was on the way within seconds. Dropping to her knees by his head, she threw her arms around him. “Honey, what can I do? Is there a winch I could work to get it off you?” She was near tears, but held herself together as best she could. He needed her, and she wasn‟t about to let him down. His groaning was incredibly disturbing to her, especially since she could see by the way he was gritting his teeth and the small sounds that were escaping him that he was trying – for some reason – to suppress them. This wasn‟t a man who gave in to pain. “Arr- uh, no – medics – blood – “ he took a breath “ – pressure - shock.” April was at a total loss what to do, and she hated not being able to help him, so she ran to her truck, yelling to him all the time that she‟d be right back, and got a blanket from the cab of his truck, where he kept all sorts of emergency supplies. She put it as far over his legs as she could, noticing that the part of him that seemed to be under the most crushing pressure from the tractor was his left leg, although the weight on his ribcage certainly wasn‟t helping things any.

There was still no visible blood, but April wasn‟t sure if that was a good thing or not. He could have – probably did have – internal bleeding. She hated that she was reduced to just lying by him, stroking his head. “You‟re gonna be all right, Hank. You are,” she was saying it as much for herself as for him. She had the biggest compulsion to get as close to him as she could – at the very least she‟d be sharing her body heat with him, but it was also that need to comfort and help – not unlike what she felt when she was helping an injured animal. The need to hold and pat and pet and reassure with her body. April kept scrunching closer to him, and she was so small that she could pretty much squeeze nearly all of herself under the tractor, since his big body was, essentially holding it up. Hank, however short of breath he was, was letting her know that he didn‟t at all like the idea of what she was doing, barely breathing in a ragged voice, “Get – away – out – from – under –“ But, despite the fact that it hurt to be told to get away from him when she was only trying to help, April stayed right where she was. She could hear the sirens of the ambulance – and the fire truck that always accompanied it – getting closer, and she told Hank in case he couldn‟t hear them. “They‟re on their way – I can hear them. You‟ll be in the hospital in no time.” Hank growled, puffing his breath like a pregnant woman in the throes of labor. “Get – away – from – me – now!” How he managed to sound commanding when he was probably dying she would never know, but he did it. Not that she paid any attention. Consequences be damned, and she knew they would be forthcoming. Even if he had to deliver them from the grave... tears filled her eyes at that awful thought. There was no way she was going to let him die! No way. In direct opposition to his order, she moved even closer to him, trying to cuddle him as much as she could, despite how feeble that effort was in the way of making him feel better. Really, it made her feel better, no matter how much trouble it got her into.

Chapter Five The emergency vehicles were pouring into the driveway, and the first thing the medics did was assume she was hurt, too, until she crawled out from under the tractor and told them what she knew about his injuries. “Keep – her – away,” Hank ground out, though he needn‟t have worried. They all did exactly that while working on him. The medics worked on him furiously, even before they jury rigged the winch that had leg go and injured him in the first place and lifted the tractor off him. April‟s knees nearly gave way when she heard his scream as the blood rushed back into areas that had been cut off by the weight of the machinery. She started to cry in earnest, and tried to rush forward towards him, but two strong arms held her back. “Let the medics help him, April.” She vaguely recognized Denton Bradley‟s voice – they‟d gone through school together – but all of her attention was fixed on the broken man lying on the floor of the barn. She‟d never seen him looking so helpless – it was the complete antithesis of everything he was. He was such a dynamic man, so strong and solid and protective. April wrapped her arms around herself, watching everything that was done to him. When they‟d gotten him onto the stretcher, after putting him in a collar and observing all C-spine precautions, because they didn‟t know if he‟d injured his back, too, several horrid moans later, she ran to him, and refused to be separated from him as they bumped and rumbled him, jarring him horribly, to the open back of the ambulance. “I‟m coming with you,” she announced, climbing into the back as soon as they‟d gotten him situated and grabbing his hand. April didn‟t remember a thing about the ride, she was only absently listening to the chatter between the EMT and Hank and the squawking from the hospital radio. The only thing she could see was Hank‟s pale, sweating face. The EMT worked around her, thankfully, because she wasn‟t about to let go of her death grip on his hand. But when they got to the hospital, partly because of what they needed to do and the fact that she wasn‟t any relation to him, she was required to stay in the Emergency Room waiting area, instead of going into the exam room with him. April paced up a storm, then accosted the medics on their way back out to the rig. One of them was Dent. “What‟s happening?” Dent turned and patted her arm. “They‟re taking him up to X-ray right now, and they‟re going to check for internal bleeding, but they thing that the only thing he‟s going to come out of this with – believe it or not – is a broken leg. Snapped like a twig under the weight of the tractor.” April sighed audibly. “He‟s been asking for you, and he‟s not one to take no for an answer, so someone should be coming back here to get you as soon as they‟re done with him and have him settled. He‟s a stubborn one, ain‟t he?” Her eyes overflowing with tears at the idea that he was going to be all right as readily as they had when that was in doubt, she shook her head exaggeratedly. “Oh, yeah. That‟s him all right.” They left suddenly on another call, but someone came shortly to bring her back to where Hank was. April wanted to throw herself at him, but something stopped her short – she didn‟t want to hang on anything that hurt. He looked so vulnerable lying there with a white sheet over

him to just the top of his waist, his left leg in a cast from toes to mid thigh. He didn‟t look small – a man that size rarely did – but she could see the vivid bruising across his ribcage. It was no wonder he‟d had a problem breathing. “Hey,” his low whisper almost startled her. Hank held out his hand and April put hers into it automatically, not even noticing the wetness on her cheeks. “I‟m gonna live, I promise.” “You are?” Her question was so earnestly put that he pulled her as close to him as he could. “Yes, I am. The doc says it‟s just some badly bruised ribs – “ “I can see that,” she interrupted in a watery tone. He gave her the eye about interrupting him. “And a broken leg.” “I can see that, too.” Hank sighed, tightening his arm around her waist. “It‟s going to play hell with the work around the ranch – I‟m going to have to hire another hand, I guess. Just no way around it. Stubborn doc refuses to give me a walking cast; says the break‟s too bad and I need to stay off it for six weeks.” He made a disparaging noise that called into question the doctor‟s qualifications as well as his parentage in one nonverbal sound. “Good for him,” April pronounced bravely, and she knew that if he‟d been fit as a fiddle she would have had to take a step or two back so that she was out of his range. Instead he just growled, then reached up and pulled her down to kiss her with surprisingly gentleness. “I‟m fine, worry wart. Stop your cryin‟, or I‟ll give you something to cry about.” April kissed him again, her heart bursting with the news that he was going to be okay. “Speaking of which, April Cahill, you are in deep, deep trouble.” She tried to move away, but his hard arm around her waist wouldn‟t let her. “I am not.” Prying at his fingers did her no good. She wasn‟t going anywhere. “You are, and you should be very glad that I‟m not feeling well enough to do anything about it right now, or the whole ER would be hearing you get your punishment.” “You wouldn‟t dare!!” The bad thing was, she knew without a shadow of a doubt, that he did dare. April kept trying, unsuccessfully to wiggle away from him, but wasn‟t getting anywhere for her efforts. “You bet your bottom I would – and you can‟t bet that because it‟s mine,” Hank growled, turning her towards him. The look on his face was enough to sober her up immediately. He meant business – but then he always did. “I distinctly remember telling you several times to stay away from me, in case that winch gave further. And you kept shinnying towards me. April, my heart was in my throat every time you got anywhere near me, but then you put yourself in danger – I can‟t have that. I couldn‟t stand it if something happened to you. I – I just couldn‟t.” It was the longest speech she‟d ever heard from him, and it was about her, and how much he cared about her. April‟s heart nearly burst. She‟d been feeling her heart becoming more and more attached to him every moment they spent – except, of course, the spanking ones. She liked him, even though he was so tough and quiet and serious. He was more relaxed with her than anyone else. She‟d seen him smile more times than probably anyone in the world, and each one had made her heart sing. Suddenly, she looked into those deep gray eyes, and her hand cupped the side of his face. She loved him. April wanted to shout it out, but repressed that urge considering their surroundings. She loved him – the stubborn, hard nosed, downright scary man that he was, she loved every annoying aspect of him – even the spankings, she admitted reluctantly, because they at least

meant that he was paid attention to her, and that he cared enough to ensure her safety and well being. He cared more about her than any man had in her life since her father. And she cared about him – she‟d thought she was going to die herself when she saw him lying under that tractor. April buried her face in his neck, her heart near to bursting with love for him and relief that he was going to be all right. Her suddenly launching herself at him startled Hank. She wasn‟t usually quite that affectionate with him, yet, although he could see her growing more and more comfortable with him. He hadn‟t pushed her – much, anyway – because he could see how hard it was for her. He always began any of their frequent petting sessions, because if he waited for her to do it, it would never have happened, although she was always a more than enthusiastic – if somewhat tentative – participant. But she was crying, too. He worried instantly that he wasn‟t the only one who was hurt. “Are you all right, darlin‟? You didn‟t get hurt, too, did you?” He tried to set her aside from him so that he could inspect her more closely. “No, no, I‟m fine,” she mumbled, seeking the warmth and protection of the crook of his neck again. He was stumped. “Well, you know I‟m going to spank you, but you should also know by now that I would never really hurt you.” April shook her head hard. “No, no.” She was bawling like her heart was being cut out with a spoon. “Well, what is it, honey?” But all she‟d do was clutch him closer – gently, always careful of his bruises – and cry. Finally, Hank gave up and decided to just enjoy it, figuring correctly, in part, that she was just experiencing the let down from the anxiety of earlier. He was unfamiliar, however, with the role of comforter – it was the exact opposite of what he‟d been all his life. He‟d never really been put in that position, but it looked like she was going to do that on occasion, and he figured he‟s better start learning how to do it right... or as well as he could in his situation. They cuddled for a long time, until the doctor came in and interrupted them. Hank did his best to be reassuring to her, to do all those loving, tender things a man was supposed to do when his woman was distraught, and, what‟s more, he found he liked doing them, at least for April. She responded to him and followed his lead, letting him dry her tears and staying close to him, her head near his as she pulled up a chair but continued to stay as close to him as she could. Hank loved that she wanted to be so close to him. It made him feel happier than he‟d ever felt in his life – happiness wasn‟t something he was used to, and the ache he was feeling in his chest from the compression of his ribs was nothing in comparison to the ache she was creating in his heart by her touching actions. She was as solicitous as could be, almost overly so, making sure he was as comfortable as he could possibly be. When the doctor came in, he handed Hank his release papers, along with instructions that included vehement cautions about using that leg as little as possible if he wanted the bone to heal well and not lead him with a limp. April assured him that she would make sure he obeyed each and every rule. Hank gave her that raised eyebrow look that said she was getting too big for her britches if she thought she could get him to do anything he didn‟t want to do, but she did her best to ignore him, even though he was basically right. There wasn‟t anything she could do if he wouldn‟t obey her. She could hardly take him over her lap, although she‟d pretty much do anything just to have a shot at that situation just once in her life.

April ended up calling Doug Simmons, who brought Hank‟s truck to the hospital, because it was the newest vehicle on the ranch and had the best shocks. He was going to have to be loaded – carefully – into the bed of the truck, because the cast was set so that he had to keep the leg perfectly straight. April wanted to climb into the back with him – cursing Doug, whom she barely knew, because he didn‟t think to put pillows down in the back to make it more comfortable – but Hank wouldn‟t have it. He wanted her in the cab, where she was safer, but she spent the entire long ride twisted back in her seat, looking at him and wincing with him every time they went over the slightest of bumps. She was in tears again by the end of the ride, when Doug finally pulled up in front of the house. Getting him into the house was another interesting procedure. Doug had to do all of the helping, because there was no hope for April to ever support a man the size of Hank – even Doug was groaning under his weight. The doctor had sent him home with both crutches and a prescription for a wheelchair, but both of them knew he would never use either if he could possibly get away with it. He pretty much hopped into the house, leaning on Doug as much as he could. April had gone ahead and changed the sheets on his bed as quickly as she could. She‟d never seen such a big bed in her life – she knew it was just a California King, but it was huge. She was just tucking in the sheets, the thinking better of it in case that hurt his foot or his leg and pulling it out again, as he hobbled in and collapsed onto the bed with another suppressed groan. April flittered around him, trying to make sure he was as comfortable as possible. Doug went back to bed in his small house on the ranch after making sure that April knew he‟d do whatever donkey labor she needed done in conjunction with taking care of his boss, but Doug figured he was in pretty good hands. April looked like she‟d burst into tears if he so much as sighed. He knew she‟d bend over backwards to make sure he had everything he needed. And she did. She brought in a cooler with sodas, complete with ice she‟d found languishing in the freezer. He didn‟t have any magazines, but she figured she‟d bring over some of her own. April knew that she would be spending a lot of her time here, and was already trying to figure a way to finagle some time off from work, which, considering how much vacation and sick time she had saved up, shouldn‟t be that hard. The only time she ever took off was time involved in rescuing animals, and that was only a day here and a day there. She was busy trying to figure out what she was going to do and fluttering around trying to anticipate his needs when he finally yelled at her, “April!” “Oh, yes, what can I get you, sweetie?” She sat beside him on the bed, taking his hand and looking at him as if he was dying. Hank sighed. She looked like her world was just about coming to an end. “April, honey, I‟m fine.” He rubbed the back of his index finger against her downy cheek. “I know,” she replied, rubbing the inside of his arm compulsively. “You don‟t look like you know. You look like your best friend has just died. Smile for me, darlin‟, so I‟ll know you‟re all right.” It was a small one, but it was better than seeing her look so somber and unhappy. “Is there anything I can get you?” Hank shook his head. “There‟s only one thing I want right now.” “Some soda? Another pillow? A pill?” She had kept suggesting he take one of the pain relievers the doctor had given him to tide him over until she could get his prescription to the pharmacy tomorrow, but Hank had staunchly refused, which was driving April crazy. She wished he‟d take what help was offered, but that wasn‟t Hank‟s way.

“Shhh-shhh-shhh. Let me finish,” he admonished gently, and she shut up so fast he almost smiled himself. “The best thing for me is to have you around. I want you to come and stay here while I recuperate.” Hank was no idiot, and even though he was a little fuzzy from the shot the doc had given him before he set and cast his leg, he knew a great opportunity when he saw it, and it wasn‟t about to let it go. He could get April all moved in with him for the next six weeks, and by that time, she‟d be so settled that she wouldn‟t be able to think of going back to her apartment. “Oh, of course, I‟d be glad to,” April answered without a trace of hesitation, which Hank took as a good sign. “But that means I‟ll have to bring the dog over with me... “ “That‟s fine.” April gave him the same raised eyebrow look he so often gave her. “But you don‟t like dogs... “ “I‟m fine with dogs. I‟ve never had one. I‟m just... not much of a pet person. Bring him over, I‟m fine with it.” “Her,” April corrected automatically. “I thought you said she was fixed?” he asked pointedly. April nodded. “Then she‟s an it, really.” “That‟s an awful thing to call her!” Despite her misgivings about how Hank would handle Daisy the Wonderdog – who had only three legs – she didn‟t really have any choice. “C‟mere – you‟re too far away,” he murmured, lifting his far arm up in invitation. April didn‟t even think about the fact that this was the first time she‟d gotten into bed with a man. She snuggled up against his good side, careful of his bruised ribs, enjoying the tightness of his arm around her waist. “Are you sure there‟s nothing I can get for you?” “Nope,” his arm squeezed her again. “Got everything I need right here.” She was glad though, when several minutes later, he asked her where those pills from the doctor were, and took one with a glass of water. He was asleep within the next half hour, and April used that time, figuring he was going to be asleep for awhile, to go back to her house and throw together as much in the way of clothes and things she‟d be needed as she could. She made sure the cat‟s self-feed bowl was full too the rim, and their water and litter were fresh. Then she got a big zip lock bag and filled it with dog food, grabbed some dog toys, and ran out to the truck. She‟d only taken about an hour to go there and back, but as soon as she got into the house, she could hear him bellowing for her at the top of his lungs. April ran into the bedroom, and found him trying to crawl across the floor. “Hank! What are you doing?” “I was worried that something had happened to you.” He was all but naked – the paramedics had carved up the legs of his jeans to check him over and get to the injured leg, and the hospital had removed the rest of them entirely. He was in his worn white cotton t-shirt and his tighty whiteys. Reacting that illogically was very unusual for Hank, so April felt his forehead and realized that he had a bit of a fever. The doctor had said he might spike one in reaction to what had happened. April got him back into bed – although she wasn‟t much help in doing so since he was so darned solid – and gave him some Tylenol, then positioned the cordless phone from the living room on the nightstand next to him, in case he needed it. She flailed herself inwardly that she hadn‟t thought of that before leaving him.

Once she had him as comfortable as was possible, she picked up her small valise and started to leave the room and close the door. “Where you going?” April had thought – hoped – he was asleep. “I‟m going to sleep in the spare room just down the hall – “ “No you‟re not,” he stated flatly. “Come back here.” Now that things were no longer in an emergency status, she was thinking more clearly, and wasn‟t at all sure that lying next to him all night was the best course to take. But before she knew it, her feet had carried her over to the other side of the bed, and she was rummaging around for something to sleep in that didn‟t reveal too much. Unfortuantely, she didn‟t have a lot of choice – the only things she ever slept in were tshirts that were to old and threadbare to be presentable to the rest of society. As a result, she ended up wearing a faded red t-shirt that read “Just Do It” that barely came down to the top of her panties. Hank was finally relaxed enough to let the meds that the doc had given him start to work again, although they helped with the pain but not the general crappy feeling he was getting from the fever. He knew he‟d overreacted when he‟d awakened and she was gone, but he had really been worried, and it had seemed terribly important that he find her and make sure that she was okay. But now she was going to be sleeping with him for the first time, and he intended to enjoy it. He desperately wanted to roll over towards her, but he couldn‟t, so he settled for getting a terrible crick in his neck watching her undress. She did it the maidenly way – pulling her arms into her shirt to take off her bra, then quickly slipping out of one shirt and into another. Her pants came down and she bent over to pick them up, and he realized for the first time that she wore regular briefs, rather than any sort of flashy or sexy thong or even bikini panties. It was perfect for her – right in line with how generally uptight she was, and he found himself amazed at just how sexy he was finding granny panties, as long as they were hugging her cute little bottom. He‟d never really paid much attention to her underwear – only enough to get it off her, generally down to the backs of her thighs with her jeans so that he could spank that cute little bum of hers. She turned around and found him staring at her blatantly, and she blushed everywhere, making Hank smile broadly. April didn‟t mind being embarrassed so much, if it made him smile like that. She took her toothbrush and paste into his master bathroom, where, she realized, she could have undressed without giving him a free show. But it was too late for that now. April turned out the lights and pulled down the comforter and sheets on her side, slipping under them as if she was afraid to disturb them, and prepared to spend the night completely within the confines of her side of the bed. But Hank wasn‟t about to let her do that. He reached out and groped under the sheets until he came upon her arm and tugged, carefully but insistently, leaving no doubt as to what he wanted. “Hank!” Her outburst did her no good. April found herself tugged across the great divide of bed between them, and cuddled against his side. His naked side. Warm. Naked. And very lightly hairy side. Her hand was resting on a hard pectoral muscle that had a little more hair on it, and she could feel his strength and bulk against her from stem to stern. Her leg naturally rested atop his good one, her knee dangerously close to uncharted territory. “Mmmmmm. Much better.” Hank nuzzled the hair at her temple, his lips pressing soft kisses down her cheek to her welcoming lips. Dear God the man could kiss! When their lips met, all of her scruples flew out the window, never to return – at least as long as his lips were on hers. His tongue was firm as it

dueled insistently with hers, his mouth slanting slightly as his hand came up to cup the back of her head, his fingers digging into her mess of a pony tail until the loose scruchy fell out all together. Hank leaned back a little, seeing her beautiful oval face framed by all that loose blonde hair. His lips nibbled teasingly as hers as he breathed into her mouth, “Gorgeous.” His hands weren‟t idle as his mouth kept her otherwise occupied. His right hand smoothed its way down her back to her hip, pressing gently until she moved her leg enough that she was essentially spread over him, very nearly atop him, with her ankle resting over his far hip. But April was terrified about hurting him, and tried to move back as soon as she realized where her appendage was lying. Hank, however, had her exactly where he wanted her. His left hand clamped down on her upper thigh, refusing to allow her to move on millimeter. “I don‟t want to hurt you,” April barely managed to whisper through his insistent kisses. “You won‟t – besides, that kind of pain isn‟t.” That left hand of his continued to hold her, but began an exploration that was insistent but at the same time incredibly delicate. His fingers spread out, so that he could touch as much of her velvety skin as possible all at once. He‟d never thought his palm was much of a sex organ, but against her skin it made him swell to enormous proportions. He seriously thought that he was going to orgasm right there, with no other stimulation whatsoever. His reactions to her were way out of proportion, and he had to fight himself every time not to just let go and ruin the moment within seconds of touching her intimately. He‟d always been in complete control of himself, even in sex, and he liked to take his time with it. Orgasm wasn‟t just the end of it to Hank. He liked to enjoy the entire process, and a huge part of that was pleasuring his partner, and it seemed that there was little he could do to April that didn‟t pleasure her – beyond a spanking. And, even though that was definitely something she was in for later, it was going to have to wait a while, and what he was doing to her right now was much, much more interesting. Her hips were open to him, with her leg slung over him like it was, and he took full advantage of that position, letting his fingers wander over her slightly rounded tummy, then further, under her panties, down that natural slope until she began to try to wiggle away from him, not unlike her movements when he was spanking her. But his arm around her held her pretty still. Hank caught April‟s eyes, holding them steady as his probing fingers moved into that soft thatch of hair and settled there, kneading gently like a contented cat. “I won‟t hurt you,” he said quietly, not liking the tinge of fear he saw in her gaze. He tried to stroke her back at the same time holding her relatively still. April‟s face was a shade of neon red as she mumblingly answered, “I know.” In an unusual flash of insight, he stated – in a tone that conveyed that he was not unsure about what he was saying at all, “You‟re a virgin.” April couldn‟t answer him. She was ashamed. She knew she shouldn‟t be, and she wanted to say something, but she just couldn‟t. Her eyes slipped from his and she bit her lip. Hank couldn‟t believe that he had a nearly thirty year old virgin in his arms, that he wanted more desperately than he wanted to take his next breath. He had planned to go slow with her – it was his style in intimate situations anyway, but now he knew he would have to take it even more carefully than he‟d planned. He couldn‟t believe that – as inexperienced as she was – she‟d let him pull her pants and panties down and spank her on her bare bottom. Hank took that as a good sign, that she felt comfortable enough with him to let him do that.

She was a rare woman indeed, and very precious to him, and he wanted to show her just how precious. He began to move the fingers that had been stationery while she settled into letting him touch her this way, exploring gently and slowly, holding her eyes the entire time, watching, absorbing and analyzing every movement, trying not to scare her too much. The free hand on her back moved downward in concert with the hand on her front, coming to rest at the familiar small of her back, effectively trapping her where he wanted her without being too blatant about it. She couldn‟t move very far away from his ministrations even if she wanted to. Hank let his middle finger part her lips as naturally as possible – not prying or forcing them open, just slipping between them firmly, letting his ring and index fingers frame her soft puffiness. The pad of Hank‟s middle finger came to rest on top of that swollen bud – just sit there. Not trying to rub it out of existence or to force her to pleasure in any way that might be too overwhelming for her. “Look at me, darlin‟,” he whispered, but with no less command in his voice than normal. April was still trying to get over having admitted her innocence to him. “I – I can‟t,” she whispered back. “April.” That was all he said. Just her name. But it was enough. Enough to get her to raise her eyes to his with excruciating slowness. When their eyes met, she found more than enough there to sustain her. She saw how much he cared for her, how much he wanted this to be okay for her – how safe she was with him. That thick finger found its way to a place where no man had gone before, and her hand automatically went to his forearm, gripping tightly, not trying to stop him, really, just wanting to have some control over a situation she felt she‟d lost all control of. And when she felt him – there – for the first time, lying over every milimeter of that naughty bit, April sighed raggedly, leaning her forehead against his chest, wanting – but not wanting – to wiggle her hips and thus wiggle him around a little on her. But she didn‟t need to do that. He was already ahead of her, slipping down just a tad to wet the tip in her own copious libation, then back up to its original position, moving once, cautiously, back and forth, with no pressure but that of the weight of his finger. Again. Back and forth. April couldn‟t deal with the amount of pleasure he was conjuring her, even with just that simple movement. It was completely overwhelming. She felt as if she was going to explode any second, and he‟d barely touched her. “No, please!” she whispered in ecstatic anguish. “Too much – too much!” Hank kissed the top of her head, stilling his hand, but only for a second. He was thoroughly enjoying the sexy moans she was making, and he would have bet that she hadn‟t any idea she was making them. They were normal and natural and, coming from her, they went right to both of his heads. Hank wanted nothing more at that exact moment than to make her his own, then chain her to the bed for the next fifty odd years, because he figured it would take him at least that long to wear out his passions for her. This time, when that anxious finger started moving again, it was around the outside of her, and that was somehow even worse – it teased her, tormented and tantalized her with what could be, what would be. She knew Hank wouldn‟t let himself be deterred from his goal, having already gotten this far, but he was driving her crazy. Every once in a while, when she least

expected it, he would slide over the peak of her, over the most sensitive spot on her body, while it strained and ached and pulsed as if trying to keep him there, where she needed him to be. But he wouldn‟t stay. He went back to circling and gliding and slipping around her, making her pant and groan with it, make her want to beg him for the release he kept promising and not delivering. “Look at me,” he breathed, and for the first time, she realized that he was also panting, that his body was as taut and hard as she had ever seen it. When she met his hard gaze, she knew he was going through this with her, that he was feeling it with her, every thrumming heartbeat through that ultra sensitive inch or so of flesh. “I‟m going to make you scream, darlin‟.” And, for once, finally, it settled on top of her, rubbing with just the right slippery pressure, not too hard, not too soft, just perfectly enough to send her over the edge. April had to arch into his hand, she had to. She wouldn‟t survive if she couldn‟t thrust herself against his hand, riding it hard, holding it to her with her own hand, that had stopped being tentative and became demanding. And she did scream, because it wouldn‟t – couldn‟t – be suppressed. It bubbled up in her throat the way the aching ecstasy between her legs had bubbled and finally burst. Hank groaned when she screamed and ground herself against him, as if he was enjoying his own pleasure at the same time. Hank was beside himself, watching her in the throes of the passion he‟d induced in her. He cursed his current limitations, wanting desperately to press her onto her back and press himself into her. He was so hard he could split a diamond, and he knew there was no hope for it. Even if she was willing to help him find his ease, it wouldn‟t be the best of ideas, considering the condition of his leg and the fact that he would want to thrust and he really couldn‟t with his leg cast the way it was. April had collapsed against his side, her breathing ragged, eyes closed. Her skin was lightly flushed all over, as if she was in the midst of a permanent blush. Hank allowed himself a self satisfied almost smile, then leaned over and kissed her softly on the mouth. “Honey, you are liquid fire in my arms. We‟re going to have to do that more often.” She was barely coherent. April was floating on a lovely cloud of pure pleasure, and was entirely unwilling to come down to Earth. But she could feel something insistently poking against her knee, and she knew exactly what it was – the evidence of his own arousal. She could barely believe it – that just watching her, and touching her like that could make him so – so blatantly interested. A small frown touched her face, though, when she realized that there was little he could do about it. She would have agreed to pretty much anything – having just had her own small experience with the tremendous ache of unfulfilled passion. April wanted to help him, to ease his ache, so she opened her eyes and boldly put her hand over the bulge she could see in the sheets. Hank started at her unexpected movement, and jackknifed his body, then groaned with pain at the tension he had to place on his leg. April withdrew her hand as if she‟d scalded it. “I‟m sorry! I‟m sorry!” Hank sighed, collapsing back onto the bed, gritting his teeth at the renewed throb in an entirely wrong place – his leg instead of his crotch. She‟d put her hand on him for the first time, and all he could feel were rods of fiery pain in his leg. Something was very wrong there. He reached out and grabbed her small hand and held it. “No, you just startled me. A shy little thing like you reaching out and cupping me like that – “ Hank loved the make her blush more than almost anything, and she did it so readily he was always amused. “But as much as I

would love to have you do that – and a lot more – I don‟t think I can do it right now.” April nodded, not meeting his eyes, trying to look anywhere but at him, which wasn‟t easy at this close a range. “But give me a couple days, darlin‟. Just a couple days.”

Chapter Six It ended up being a lot longer than that, and Hank barely made the struggle through each day with his genitals horning in on his peace of mind to an extent that was much worse than any trouble his injuries gave him. The only good thing about what had happened was that it had pretty much forced April to move in with him. Oh, she‟d done her best to keep up the premise that she still lived at her apartment, but that stopped being true after the first few days. He kept encouraging her to bring more and more things over from her place – first the dog, then most of her clothes started to take up residence next to his in the big walk in closet, and then, because she kept having to go back there to feed and water them, he suggested she bring her cats over. It took her a minute to decide whether or not to do that, because it was more of a commitment than a few clothes, or even the dog, who was easily moveable and was fine as long as Mommy was within earshot. The cats... they came with more accoutrement, and were a lot more persnickety than the dog, who was definitely jealous of the time she spent with Hank. But, in the end, she‟d caved because of the convenience factor. It was just so much easier to have them there. And, despite her concerns, they both fell in love with him, and she became sloppy seconds to her own cats. It was near the end of the third week when he finally asked – no, told her – in his inimitable fashion to call a moving company and have them move her out of her apartment. There was only about six weeks left on her lease, anyway, and he wasn‟t about to let her stay there another year, regardless. April frowned down at him. He‟d been a surprisingly good patient – for him – as long as she was around. She‟d had nightmares at the beginning, knowing him and how he would hate being so helpless and immobile. But he was all right – but not good - as long as she was the one tending to him. He was impatient and snapped and yelled a lot less than she thought he would in this situation, though. She hadn‟t realized his attachment to her as his nursemaid – although she should have – and she tried to leave him in Doug‟s tender care for an evening the second week he was laid up, so that she could assist with a rescue. When she got home, however, Doug was nowhere to be found, the kitchen looked like something out of Beiruit, and Hank resembled a thundercloud. April sighed. Taking time off from looking after him no longer seemed like such a good idea, although she had enjoyed spending some time thinking about something else. They‟d rescued a slew of dogs and puppies from a puppy mill, and had had good luck finding foster homes for all of them. But she hadn‟t expected to come home to this. “What happened?” “Nothing,” he answered, flipping the channels on the TV she‟d moved into the bedroom. April sighed. He was exactly right. Nothing had been done except that it looked like a bomb had gone off in the bedroom and the kitchen. “Did you guys have a fight?” Hank looked distinctly uncomfortable, and it had nothing to do with his leg. “He doesn‟t make sandwiches the way you do – they were awful. And he gave me your Diet Coke – I hate Diet Coke – “ She was looking at him with a big grin on her face. “What are you smiling at?” “You. I never thought you‟d be such a baby about being sick, but here you are, acting like every other man when he gets sick,” April was already beginning to clean things up.

“I‟m not sick,” he said petulantly. “I‟m laid up.” “Uh huh.” “And how would you know how every other man acts, anyway?” She just smiled, and he hated that. She looked like the cat that ate the canary. “I just do. I had a father, you know.” He tried to sit up while she was walking out the door. “Where are you going now?” “Now that I‟ve picked up the mess in here, I‟m going to pick up the mess in the kitchen, then I‟m going to come back and go to bed.” He was starting to feel downright sheepish. Here he was, unable to assist her in the smallest of things, and there she was, having to do everything for him. She‟d made sure he was presentable when anyone came to call, she made sure he got time to talk to Doug about what was going on regarding the ranch, and she‟d even helped him with the more intimate details of his confinement. The truth was that she was the only person he really trusted to take care of him – she was certainly the only person he wanted to be around him that much. They‟d been together almost twenty four seven for the past two weeks, and it had been an interesting litmus test for their relationship. He‟d never felt cramped by her – by his circumstances, yes. Stir crazy because he was confined to the four walls of his bedroom, yes. But she endured his rotten temper that had gotten worse with every passing day, with quiet cheerfulness. She‟d tried to distract him – although she rarely offered him the opportunity to be distracted in the method he preferred. Occasionally he caught her unawares and held her tightly to his side, having his way with her body while she coyly tried to stop him – but not very effectively. Hank was getting quite good at bringing her to pleasure; he loved the way she sighed and panted in his arms. He couldn‟t wait until he was healed. He was going to have some case of blue balls before that, however. Although by all rights she should have been mad at the mess the two men had made that night, April found it touching how much he wanted her around, so she cuddled up next to him just as had become their habit, letting him touch her in incredibly intimate ways that had her out of her mind with pleasure in a matter of minutes. The next morning, she awoke late, and rolled over to his side of the bed, intending on burying her face in his chest. But her face landed on the cold sheets. He was gone. April was instantly awake. Where the hell could he be? He flat out refused to use the wheelchair, and only used his crutches when he needed to go to the bathroom. But the sheets were too cold for him to just be in the bathroom. Just to be sure, she hollered as she was dressing hurriedly, “Hank? Hank? Are you in the bathroom?” Nothing. She was beginning to break out in a cold sweat. Where could he be? April eyeballed the bathroom again just in case he couldn‟t answer her for some reason, then made a quick sweep of the house. It wasn‟t until she went by the picture window at the end of the dining room that she saw him, all the way across the yard, standing by the corral talking to Doug and a couple of other men. She was incensed. What the heck did he think he was doing? He wasn‟t supposed to be using that leg at all. He was supposed to stay in bed for six to eight weeks! She was going to give him what for when she got to him, not that that was really going to help.

When she‟d stalked up to them, he leaned even further onto his crutches and reached out to pull her in front of him, holding her around her waist in an extremely possessive maneuver that fairly screamed that they were a couple. April was terrified that if she moved too much she might hurt him accidentally, and he‟d thrown her completely off her stride about taking him to task for being out there in the first place. She stood with him, watching him carefully, as he talked cattle with his men. April loved the ranch – almost as much as Hank did, she thought. She loved the horses, particularly, and she hated to admit it but she loved them much more than the cows. She‟d seen Hank on a horse several times, and he rode like a Centaur. No one could tell where he ended and the horse began. She‟d seen him work with the horses, and watching him with them reminded him of how he was with her – firm and strong and surprisingly gentle all at the same time. Hank was a hard man, there was no doubt about it. He issued orders and expected perfection from everyone – but most especially himself. Being disabled like this – even in the short term – was killing him. Doug had been coming into the bedroom every morning – and then several other times during the day, even when April was trying to get him to sleep as much as possible, to ask him to make decisions regarding the running of the ranch. But Hank was also a hands on man. He had to be in the middle of things – he preferred to do things himself than to delegate, although he trusted Doug about as much as he did anyone to run the ranch the way he wanted it to be run. Still, it rankled when he couldn‟t do things himself. April knew he wanted to be out riding fence, or moving cattle, or whatever the infinite number of things he needed to do every day to keep the ranch on its way to prosperity. Prudently, she decided not to harass him in front of his men about being out there when he wasn‟t supposed to be. Eventually the small group broke up to get back to work, but Hank didn‟t loose April one bit. He held her tight back against him, whispering into her ear, “If you move, everyone will see how much I want you.” April‟s eyes bugged, but he couldn‟t see it. She wouldn‟t have moved at that point if her life had depended on it. Instead, she concentrated on watching the stallion that was trotting around the corral, but, of course, that just served to remind her of him. He was very much like that horse – proud and stubborn and big. It was only a few minutes later that he said, “Let‟s go. I‟m fading fast here.” She wasn‟t sure in which capacity he was fading, but she hoped it was one in particular. April wanted to help him as much as she could, but he wasn‟t having any of it. He made it back to the house and into bed without incident, but she knew it was close. After having spent so much time on his back, just getting up and around was tiring. “I think I‟m recovered enough that you can get what‟s coming to you tonight, after dinner.” As she arranged the bed as comfortably as possible for him, she studiously avoided his eyes. “I don‟t know what you‟re talking about.” The fib fell from her lips as easily as dew off a rose petal. Hank nearly smiled at her prevarication. “Of course you do. You‟ll remember even more so when you‟re over my lap – “ April snorted. “Your leg isn‟t nearly healed enough to take my weight, Hank, and you know it.” He caught her arm as she was fluttering around her, tipping her chin with his hand and drilling her eyes with his. “It is if I say it is. Tonight, after dinner. I think you‟d better plan on an

early night. I‟m not very happy with your behavior the night I was hurt, and you‟ve got a good, hard spanking coming.” April spent the rest of the day with her stomach in an upheaval. She couldn‟t eat a thing. It was awful of him to tell her about it nearly a half a day before it was supposed to happen. His spankings were always something to dread, but to have so much time to dwell on it! She was building it up to be even worse than it was going to be! He was a devil, a true sadist. And that‟s just what she told him while she was getting ready for bed – at his behest. He lay there, propped up against the modest headboard, avidly watching her every move. He always did that - watched her closely, as if he was cataloging everything about her to replay in his mind later. She was just about to climb into bed beside him, hoping against hope that he‟d changed his mind or would somehow relent from giving her what she knew was coming when he preempted her, saying, “Please go to the top drawer of my bureau and take out the paddle that‟s there.” April‟s mouth went slack and her eyes went painfully round. A paddle? Wasn‟t that something that was used on schoolchildren in the fifties? It certainly wasn‟t something she wanted used on her own rear end under any circumstances! She was frozen with the horrifying thoughts that were flying through her mind. Hank‟s tone was gentle but firm. “Do as I say, April. You don‟t want to earn any more strokes than you‟ve already got coming.” She snapped out of it, but just barely, walking mechanically to the chest of drawers and rummaging around in the drawer, finding, to her terror, a good sized paddle, probably about twelve or thirteen inches long, with mysterious holes drilled into it at even intervals throughout the blade. If she hadn‟t been so concerned about the health of her bottom, she might have asked why they were there, but she didn‟t think she really wanted to know. It was only a few short steps back to the bed, unfortunately for her. April handed Hank the paddle, and he put it down next to his side, away from her. “Come here,” he ordered, still gentle. But April paused at the edge of the bed, not at all sure that she wanted to obey him, but very sure that she wouldn‟t want the consequences of not obeying him. Sighing slightly, she climbed onto the big bed, kneeling beside him. He didn‟t say another word, but pulled her over his legs. April was terrified of hurting him, and approached him gingerly, trying to be as careful as she could, holding herself stiffly over him, not giving him her full weight. “Lie down. All the way.” “But I don‟t want to hurt you!” “Let me worry about me. I‟ll arrange you in a way that doesn‟t hurt my leg, I promise.” She was so cute, more worried about hurting him than the fate of her bottom. For now. She did finally relax, and he found that her small weight didn‟t hurt him in the least. Even if it had, he didn‟t want any more time to elapse between her blatant disobedience and her comeuppance. She needed consistance; so that she knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that if she misbehaved according to him and his rules for her, she would end up with a very sore bottom within a very short amount of time. Delayed corrections lost their efficacy. Even though he‟d been touching her and pleasuring her for the past two weeks or so, she still squealed and wiggled when he raised her nightgown and pulled down her panties, baring that wonderful, generous bottom of hers. For a tiny woman, she was more than well endowed in

all the right places, and the curve of her bottom always fit just perfectly into the curve of his palm – and jiggled enticingly with the flat of it. And that was what she felt for the first part of the spanking – his hand. The intimacy of the spanking was one of the elements that appealed to Hank, besides his need to bring order and organization to April. He loved having her over his lap, nearly naked – and totally naked in the not too distant future, he promised himself silently – loved the feel of her bottom as it reddened beneath the spanks he delivered, crisp and individual each one, some overlapping and eliciting louder and louder squeals and moans. He didn‟t stop spanking her until she had truly begun to cry – not when she was just chuffing and sounding like she was crying. Hank didn‟t stop until he saw the tears rolling down her cheeks, and her bottom and some of the way down her slender thighs was a flaming cherry red. That was when he reached for the paddle and put it at the small of her back. He didn‟t generally talk too much during a punishment, but with this one, he felt he had to explain some of what he‟d been feeling and why she was getting such a harsh punishment. Hank swallowed hard, and began. “You‟re going to get the paddle now, and it‟s going to be bad. Be happy I‟m not going to make you count the strokes. The reason you‟re getting such a bad punishment is because you put yourself in such danger lying next to me when the winch that held that tractor up could have given way at any time. I can‟t stand the idea that you might have gotten hurt or worse – that you disobeyed me and put yourself in such danger. I can never have you doing anything like that again. It would kill me if you got hurt. You need to learn to obey me, even when you don‟t want to.” His words had her crying even louder, because she knew he was right – the reverse would be the same for her; she could never stand it if he got hurt because of her. The paddling was abominable from the first stroke. April truly didn‟t think she could take much beyond that, but she had no choice. She wiggled and struggled so hard that he had to clamp his hand down across her back and grab a hold of her wrist so that he didn‟t accidentally hit her hand instead of her rear. The paddle was relentless – he was relentless. It came down again and again and again, until she was moaning and blubbering and every orifice was leaking a sticky fluid of some sort, till she begged him to stop then couldn‟t form the words to do anything but shriek and cry. And still it fell. He roasted her butt good, till it was well and truly blistered, because the only thing that kept going through is mind was the thought that he could have lost her. That winch was hanging by a thread, and she could have rocked it or it could have let go and he would never have seen her again. His own fate be damned. He was stronger than she was, less delicate. He would have survived. He knew she would have been very badly hurt, or worse. Much much worse. He wasn‟t about to lose her when she‟d just come into his life, when he‟d just begun to love her. The realization came to him not in a flash but with the crack of the paddle on her bottom. Not violently, but seeping into him over the time they‟d been together, and gelling there and then. It didn‟t really change anything about him or about how he would act towards her. She was his – to love and to discipline, and he would never let her go. Hank delivered the five last swats as hard as he could, drawing screams from her that made him glad that the windows were closed. When he was finished, he threw the paddle across the room, dinging the wall slightly near the floorboard and pulled her up into his arms, hugging her so tightly against him that she almost squealed from the force of his arms.

They stayed like that for a long time, her bare bottom turned away from his legs, his hand drifting down slowly to cover it and rub, despite her protestations. April just clung to him, crying her heart out and ripping his apart with each sob. She fell asleep in his arms, but Hank remained awake long afterwards, holding and touching her, keeping her settled in sleep, watching everything about her even as she slept. Imprinting her indelibly on his hard heart.

Chapter Seven April never did move back to her own apartment. Long about the fourth week in the cast, Hank ripped it off himself, tired of the confinement. April was taking her first horseback riding lesson from Doug, on an old mare called Molly who Hank referred to as a sofa because she was so gentle and her seat was just about as comfortable as a horse could get. In other words, she was the least likely of any of their horses to do April any harm while she was learning. She was walking the horse around the corral and happened to look over where Doug had been standing inside the corral – only he wasn‟t. Hank was there, using his crutches, and completely without a cast. April pulled the horse up short and walked her very carefully over to Hank, where she started to swing down. “Stay where you are and take her around the corral again, darlin‟,” he commanded, leaning forward onto his crutches. She sat back in the saddle, but wasn‟t at all sure she was going to obey him about not getting down. “Where‟s your cast?” “I got rid of it. It was annoying me.” “Hank! You can‟t do that!” she chided. He out and out chuckled, and that never failed to warm her heart. “I think I just did, little girl. Take the horse around the ring again, then do a figure eight. I‟ve been watching you for a little while. You‟ve got a good seat.” April frowned at his double entendre, and reluctantly did as she was told. From then on, Hank conducted her lessons. He took up driving again, but April still accompanied him to all of his appointments. His doctor apparently knew him well enough not to be surprised that he‟d removed the cast himself. April was still cleaning little pieces of plaster – or whatever they used nowadays – out of the carpeting in the bedroom. Hank wanted to be one hundred percent, though, before he made love to her, so he held off another week before giving himself permission to love her the way he‟d wanted to for so long. It was an ordinary night, she‟d made them a wonderful dinner of garlic and rosemary chicken with jasmine rice, and they‟d spent the evening in the living room, watching old movies on Hank‟s ancient VCR. When they went to bed that evening, he drew her into his arms and began to kiss her, and April noticed that there was something different about him, about the way he was holding her and the depth of his kisses, and if it was what she was thinking, she was nothing but glad for him. She‟d known that he‟d been holding back so as not to be in pain when they were first joined, and was glad that he thought that he was well enough. She was more than ready to be his. He was wonderful with her. Strong and confident but gentle and loving at the same time. He treated her as tenderly as she‟d ever imagined being treated, touching her as if she was made of fine bone china, kissing her face then distributing butterfly kisses up and down her neck, and along her collarbone. He worshipped her breasts, suckling gently at first, then with more enthusiasm as he became more and more aroused. April had to arch back, had to move at what he was doing. She loved seeing him at her breast, her big, strong man, darkly tanned pressed to her porcelain white, devouring her so pleasantly she thought she would die from it.

His hands were everywhere, but slowly and carefully, not grabby or groping. He worshipped her, in the finest sense of the word. He adored her with his hands and his mouth, claiming her, overwhelming her with consideration, attending to her every sigh and groan of pleasure. Hank tipped her over onto her back, opening her to him naturally and gracefully. Her legs settled just a bit apart, and he took advantage of that opening, making it a little bigger just by insinuating his hand there, letting his fingers part her slowly. April had to reach down and grab his wrist, it was almost force of habit by now, wanting that last vestige of control that she knew she didn‟t really have. Her hand meant nothing, but was merely a reminder of her vulnerability to him, one that she knew he really didn‟t need, but that she was forced to give him anyway. Hank stopped for a second in acknowledgement of her feelings, then let his fingers discovered more of her than he ever had before, probing lightly at her entrance, gathering lubrication but also testing how well guarded she was. April‟s pleasure was quick, just the situation – just his hand between her legs and the sure knowledge that he was going to make love to her completely tonight was enough to have her on the edge of an explosion anyway. It only took him a few strokes to make her scream and convulse on his hand. Hank kissed her at the moment of her implosion, drinking in that cry of ultimate pleasure and making it his own, bringing her into himself the way she would soon accept him into her own body. He brought it all out of her, making sure that she felt every iota of ecstasy he could wring from her. Hank held her and rocked her a little, letting her breathing slow and letting her calm down before he went any further. After slipping on a well lubed bit of protection, he positioned himself between her legs, spreading them, looking up into her eyes as he put himself against her for the first time, not pressing, not pushing, just there, ready to join her so that neither of them was ever truly alone again. As he began to lean more of his weight onto that seeking, probing part of himself, he kept her gaze, murmuring gutturally, “I love you,” over and over and over, until he was seated deeply within her. It wasn‟t a violent thing – there were no tears, no rending of flesh, merely a stretching and a yielding to him, to his complete possession of her. April felt filled to overflowing, and incredibly pleasured by his invasion – it was much more pleasant than she‟d thought it would be to be full of him. And then he started to move, and she had to violently catch her breath at the exquisite feelings as he pulled himself all the way out then pressed himself all the way into her again, repeating the movement until she was beside herself – again – with feelings she‟d never expected. It was so wonderful, and yet almost terrible in its intensity, and there was no way to get away from it – he was everywhere, and he was so big she would never be able to move him away from her. Hank could see a little fear creeping into her eyes, and bent down to kiss her, holding her tightly against him as he pumped in and out of her. He wasn‟t going to last anywhere near as long as he wanted to with her, but he didn‟t want her to be afraid of it, or of him. She let him kiss her, but as he was letting loose within her himself, she arched into him, wrenching her mouth from beneath his and groaning as she lifted herself to meet his thrusts. Hank nearly burst with the knowledge that he‟d been able to bring her paradise again so naturally. His heart swelled near to bursting, too, and he just had to say what he was thinking. “I love you, April. I love you.”

It was those words that made April break down and cry. She couldn‟t believe it. He loved her. She wanted to dance around the room, and she wanted to hug him till he melted into her entirely. “Darlin‟, are you okay?” He sounded terribly worried, and shifted slightly so that she was cuddled against his side, as they‟d developed a habit of doing. April snuffled a little and tried to compose herself, for his sake. “I‟m fine, I‟m fine. Just... I love you too, Hank Edgecomb. I love you too.” They hugged tighter than they‟d ever hugged before, until April thought of something she should have thought of long before. “Oh – your leg – is your leg okay?” Hank grinned, and April felt another notch being carved in her heart. “Didn‟t feel it a bit. Not a bit.” He kissed her loudly. “I was too busy feeling other things...” April and Hank were married not long after that, in a small ceremony conducted on his – their ranch. He‟d made peace with the animals, and with her involvement in rescuing more of them, and she made peace with the fact that if she didn‟t behave as he thought she should, she‟d end up over his lap. But they enjoyed each other enormously, and the ranch began to prosper four fold as soon as he married April. Hank put it down to wanting to build them a dynasty, but she was his good luck charm and he adored her... except when she got some animal cause stuck in her craw. He‟d taken to blocking the Nature and the Animal channels on the television in self defense. She‟d seen specials on polar bear and tiger cubs that had needed fostering, and had wheedled and connived until he agreed that they could put their names on a list at the bigger zoos in nearby cities, in case orphaned cubs needed to be taken care of until they were a little older. He couldn‟t believe he‟d agreed to it, but he had. It would mean feeding them something like eight or ten times a day, even throughout the night, but he would pretty much do anything that made her happy, and he knew she‟d be ecstatic if they were ever tapped to do it. Nowadays, finding iguana in the pool was the normal thing, and Hank had to think that things were hardly normal in their lives, but they were excruciatingly happy with each other, and he couldn‟t imagine his life without her. He squeezed her again as she sat on his lap and he finished his reverie about how they‟d met and gotten together. “I love you,” he said suddenly, looking into her eyes. April gazed down at her beloved husband, knowing how much he put up with from her with barely a peep, and only the occasional spanking, really. “I love you too, Hank Edgecomb.” They cuddled for a long while, just enjoying being together and close, until April suddenly remembered something she‟d wanted to tell Hank when he got home, but the fiasco with the iguanas had deterred her. “Guess what?” she asked, trembling with excitement. “What?” he smiled broadly at her. April still noted those smiles. He smiled so much more since they‟d been together that they were close to becoming common place, but each one of them was a treasure to her. “There‟s a zoo that has some lion cubs they need foster parents for, and they called us!!!” The smile ran away from Hank‟s face to be replaced by an unreasonable facsimile. “Oh joy!” he said, with a noticeable lack of enthusiasm. April could see that he was less than happy at the idea of having the newborns with them, and she stroked his hair thoughtfully. “I turned them down.” Hank looked up at her, disbelievingly. “You what? Why did you do that?”

April fidgeted a little, twirling a strand of his short hair around her fingers as far as she could. “Because I knew you really didn‟t want to have them around, and all the extra work they‟d involve, and everything.” “But it would mean a lot to you, honey. And that‟s enough for me.” April was still shaking her head, not wanting to inconvenience him. He worked so hard on the ranch... But Hank‟s mind was set. “You call them back and tell them yes, and hope that they haven‟t already found someone else, you hear?” April threw her arms around her husband. He was so wonderful to him, she couldn‟t believe it. Hank watched her walk away, knowing he‟d just committed himself to a lot of sleepless nights. But as long as they were spent with April, that was fine with him. He‟d just go ahead with one of his more fanciful thoughts and change the name of the ranch from the Circle E to Reject Ranch.

The End

Blushing Books hopes you enjoyed this spicy, romantic spanking novel. We have lots of other erotic novels and novellas available, and new stories are constantly and continuing to be published on our online store: www.blushingbooks.com Come and sign up for our free newsletter and be the first to be informed of stories such as the one you‟ve just enjoyed!