Authors: Starla Kaye
To his astonishment, all the irritation seemed to disappear…like she finally realized she’d been making something out of nothing. She perched on the edge of the desk and said tiredly, “Sorry. I’m not used to handling the smaller accounting things like paying bills or balancing checkbooks. Guess I just got freaked.”
His mood settled as well and he reached for the scattered checks and a pen. “I haven’t had the best of days either.”
She tossed her hair back over one shoulder and the soft scent of her perfume drifted to him. He was aware of her every move, no matter how slight and that concerned him a lot. He looked intently at the checks, quickly scribbling what passed for his signature.
“
Are you going to apologize for what you did?” she asked.
Drew couldn’t help but glance at her, inwardly amused by the prim look on her face. “For spanking your butt?”
Pink inched up her cheeks and she nodded. “Yes, for that.”
“
No.” He went back to signing checks.
She straightened and scooted around the desk. “Am I to assume
that
is what you meant by consequences for not following your instructions? And I should point out that I hadn’t disobeyed any instructions today.”
He had a hard time controlling the urge to grin at her sassy tone and her daring. When he was in a bad mood most people left him alone. They sure didn’t try to push his buttons.
“
Yes, that is exactly what I meant.”
“
No wonder you can’t keep office help,” she muttered and attempted to re-stack some loose papers.
“
I’ve never had office help before.” He set the pen down and they studied each other.
“
Well, that type of management behavior is … well, it’s…”
Lord, she was a pretty woman. Especially when her sweet face got all pink with embarrassment or anger. This would be one hell of a long month, unless she quit now.
“
I’ll write you out a check for the day,” he said, pulling open a drawer and sitting down in the chair.
“
You’re firing me?” she asked, annoyed again. “I let you touch my person in such a crude manner—for doing nothing to deserve it, I might add. And you’re firing me?’
He was in the mood to touch her person in a crude manner all over again. Instead he stated patiently, “I figured you had decided you didn’t want to work for a boss like me.”
Please say yes.
Her chin went up. “It’s only for a month, and I really do need the money.”
He sat in silence for a long couple of minutes. Finally he shoved the drawer closed. “As long as you understand…”
Tanya nodded. “That you get a little testy? Yes.”
Drew climbed to his feet and walked around the desk, stopped right in front of her as she looked stubbornly up at him. “Testy?”
“
Domineering. Bossy. Alpha. Whatever.”
Color him a damn idiot. He took hold of her shoulders and lowered his head to give her a kiss that took his breath away.
She didn’t resist a bit.
Shakily, unnerved by what he’d done, he stepped back. She appeared as dazed as he felt. He walked out of the room before he was foolish enough to kiss her again.
The moon was high in the night sky, filmy clouds drifting over its full face. As Tanya sat rocking in one of the chairs on her front porch, she savored the cool, gentle breeze. She held her cell phone in her hand, intending to call Mandy. But her thoughts kept returning to the big cowboy with the gruff voice and oh-so-nice butt. She grew hot all over again at the memory of watching him stride quickly from the office after he’d kissed her. The man certainly filled out a pair of jeans well.
Her heart rate picked up, almost as fast in beat as the sound of the cicadas chattering away in the nearby trees. Drew Weatherford sure knew how to kiss. Even if that one kiss had been too darn short.
Startling her, the cell phone came to life with a loud trill that seemed out of place in the countryside. She answered breathlessly, “Hello!”
“
You okay out there?” Drew asked, sounding nervous.
She glanced toward the main house and could see him in the light of the porch, talking on his cell phone. They hadn’t spoken since that bizarre incident in the office when she’d gotten all weird over the invoice, when he’d spanked her, and when he’d kissed her. He’d made himself scarce, like he was afraid of her.
“
I’m fine. Thanks.” She watched him walk to the other end of his porch and look out toward the corral in the middle of the main area. She’d seen someone deliver the three bony horses right before she left the main house for the night. They looked nervous wandering around in the dimly lit arena. “Were they abused?”
He turned his head in her direction, evidently unaware that she’d been sitting on her porch. “I figured you were safely inside for the evening. And, the horses don’t appear to have been physically abused. Just abandoned. Half-starved. Frightened.”
She heard the anger in his tone. “So this is what your foundation is about? Helping abandoned animals?” She’d known that, of course, Mandy had told her as much. But she was in the mood to talk a little, and she liked the sound of his voice.
“
Horses mainly. There’s lots of places that take in wounded or abandoned small animals, like cats and dogs. I’m more interested in helping horses.”
The breeze picked up and with it dust floated her way, enough to tickle her nose. Enough to make her sneeze. Immediately he looked in her direction.
“
Bless you,” he said automatically. “It’s getting late. You ought to go inside, get some sleep.” He hesitated before adding, “Make sure you set your alarm. You wouldn’t want to be late two days in a row.”
Tanya stopped the rocking chair, heart pounding with a strange sense of excitement. Feeling safe at this distance and in the dark boldly said, “That would be grounds for another spanking, huh?”
“
Oh yeah. A
real
spanking this time. Not a mere slap on your bottom.” There was a huskiness in his voice and she could almost feel the intensity of his look toward her even from this far away.
Heat curled lower in her. She grew bolder. “Two slaps.”
He snorted. “Just know that when I choose to give you a real spanking, you’ll not take it so lightly.”
She squirmed in the chair, imagining one of his big hands landing on her bottom when he was serious about spanking her. No, she didn’t imagine the experience would be something to take lightly. And she had no idea why she was even talking about this, must be overly tired.
Yet she found herself telling him, “My father still spanks me, when I do something that he considers stupid. Pretty strange thing don’t you think, for someone my age? It’s one of the reasons why I didn’t move back home now while I’m between jobs.”
“
Don’t think it’s strange at all. Some women just need a good bottom burning no matter what their age.”
They were silent for a minute. She feeling embarrassed for having told him, and clueless as to why she had.
She was about to say good-night when he asked curiously, “You still love him, don’t you? Even though your dad spanks you.”
“
Of course,” she didn’t even hesitate to answer. Being punished by him had nothing at all to do with her feelings for him.
“
He give you more than a few taps on your bottom?”
She very well remembered the last time her father had spanked her. “Definitely.” She hadn’t sat comfortably for a whole day.
“
Ever been spanked by someone besides your dad?”
Tanya sucked in a breath, that heat curling through her again. Drew’s tone was deeper, huskier now. Sexy. She should end this odd discussion, but instead she said, “No.”
“
Reckon that’s soon going to change.” He sighed and she heard the shakiness in his voice. “Go to bed, Ms. Montrose. And set your alarm.”
Chapter Three
A cloud of dust drifted up around Drew as he, again, landed butt first in the middle of the corral. He glared in pure disgust at the honey-toned mare all but prancing by him in delight. Not only had she just tossed him off, but she’d done so two times before that. Damn, his butt hurt. Almost as much as his pride.
“
Gonna sit there all day resting?” Greg, his foreman, taunted, leaning on the outside of the corral.
Drew eased to his feet, feeling muscle strains all over his body. He turned his glare toward Greg and the pair of cowboys standing next to him doing all they could not to grin. Thank God he hadn’t groaned with the effort of getting up. “Your turn here with Fancy Lady. See if you can keep your butt in the saddle.”
The grin remained on Greg’s face. As far as Drew knew there wasn’t a horse alive that his friend couldn’t ride, even if some of those first rides were purely hell.
Concentrating on putting one banged-up leg in front of the other, Drew headed out of the corral. His gaze darted toward his house. Everything in him wanted to head there and ease into his whirlpool tub to soak the aches away. Even more, though, he wanted to invite a certain blue-eyed blonde to join him in that tub. He’d been avoiding Tanya for five days as much as he possibly could. They passed in the hallway on occasion, or he endured very short periods of time in the office with her as they went over this or that. But being around her for more than a half hour at a time made his thoughts veer far away from anything to do with business. Sometimes it didn’t even take a half hour.
He dusted off the sides of his jeans and growled under his breath. Tanya kept him distracted too damn much, whether in her presence or whether he was thinking about her. He wished he could spank his conniving sister all over again for putting him in this unbearable situation. His gut told him that she’d been playing more matchmaker than just matching an employee with an employer. She refused to believe that he would rather stay single the rest of his life than go through the nightmare of another marriage that fell apart. Which his marriages always did.
Greg picked up on the growl and the attitude, grinning even more as they passed by each other at the corral gate. “You could always go see Sarah. Get a little stress relief of sorts. She’d be willing.”
“
I don’t need any
stress relief
,” he lied, fully understanding what Greg meant. And, yes, Sarah, his long-time lover whenever either of them needed that sort of thing with no strings attached, would probably have no qualms about taking him to her bed. His body wouldn’t mind at all some recreation like that. Trouble was his heart just wasn’t in it.
As Drew glanced at Greg, the man’s telling eyebrow rose. “Maybe you should consider doing some lip-locking with that hot little accountant. Maybe even…” He waggled his eyebrows.
The other two men chose that moment to wisely walk away and find some work to do elsewhere.
“
Oil and water. Fire and ice. Whatever,” Drew said bristly. “Plus, she’s pretty pissed off at the male of the species right now.”
“
What’d you do?” Greg immediately questioned. Even though the men had barely run into her, they all seemed to like Tanya.
“
I didn’t do anything,” he grouched. Well, he’d slapped her ass a couple of times last week, but she hadn’t really been upset about that. “She got a letter the other day from that asshole ex-boss of hers.”
“
The one who manhandled her?” Somehow her former work situation had made the gossip vine around the ranch. His men were almost as upset about the incident as he’d been when he first heard about it. Cowboys protected their women, and she was one of their women whether Drew liked the idea or not.
“
Yes. He sent her formal notice that she was fired. And he let her know that if she tried to cause him any more problems, he’d sue her for breaking his damn wrist.” When Drew had caught her reading the letter, caught her both muttering curses and crying, he’d fought back the urge to call the idiot man and rip him a new one.
He’d taken a few strides away when Greg stopped him by asking in a disapproving tone, “You still planning on letting her go after that month you agreed to?” As Drew turned back around, he added, “I figure with that fancy accounting knowledge of hers that she’d be able to lock horns with that IRS gal pretty good. Better’n you will.”
“
Probably, but we only agreed to a month. I’m standing behind that agreement.” He gave the other man a look he hoped put an end to the discussion, and then headed the other direction.
“
Just saying,” Greg called out.
He didn’t have to say more than that because Drew knew what he meant. Yes, there wasn’t a doubt in Drew’s mind that he probably needed a real accountant to help him deal with the IRS agent. Yes, Tanya would probably be able to do the job. But he hadn’t told her about the upcoming audit, didn’t want to get her involved in the problem, and didn’t want to take a chance on her trying to convince him to let her stay and help. Pride was strangely involved. It was his intense attraction to her that worried him the most. He had a plan now for his life, and it sure didn’t include getting involved seriously with a woman again. She was too damn tempting. No, she was leaving in just over three weeks.
Tanya stood staring at the chaos she’d created in the office, all because she’d been determined to find one particular invoice. She’d gotten annoyed with references on two past statements to an invoice that she hadn’t found in the vendor’s current file. A phone call to the vendor hadn’t helped the situation. The evidently new bookkeeper there couldn’t put her hands on the invoice record, couldn’t even get into their computer system at the moment. She’d managed to lock it up but good. Finally Tanya had hung up, mumbling in frustration about incompetent help, and then she’d gotten down to serious investigation on her part.