Total pages in book: 248
Estimated words: 236036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1180(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 787(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 236036 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1180(@200wpm)___ 944(@250wpm)___ 787(@300wpm)
“Don’t even think about it!” I called out in a tone that brooked no nonsense. Changing my hand’s position, I pointed to a spot directly in front of me and added, “Now!”
The girls looked at each other again and then Livvy called out, “Move so we can jump back,” before tapping her heels against her horse’s flanks.
“No!” Luther and I chorused.
“Jesus, pixie, are you trying to kill me?” I asked when she pulled back on Calico’s reins.
“Of course not, I just thought you were in a hurry so—”
“So you will walk along the fence until you reach the gate. Then, young lady, you will walk through the gate all the way to the barn where you will unsaddle Calico, brush her down, water her and then head into the house where you will drop your jeans and panties and stick your nose in the corner of the living room.”
“Kate, you’ll be in the opposite corner. And, if you both aren’t there by the time we arrive, the only dancing you’ll be doing today is to the tune of a belt after the paddle.”
“Any questions?” I asked without missing a beat.
“No, Daddy,” the girls chorused.
We didn’t say another word as they turned to guide their horses along the fence line. Once they were out of earshot, I took off my hat and ran my fingers through my hair. When I realized Luther was leaning over to stare at me, I froze. “What, is something in my hair?”
“Nope, just checking to see how many gray hairs pop out because I feel like I aged about ten years.”
I chuckled and settled my hat back on my head. “Says the man who so cockily welcomed me to his club.”
“I never said that club was boring,” Luther said with his own chuckle.
“Nope, you didn’t, but you also never mentioned membership just might kill me,” I said as I put my foot in the stirrup.
“Yeah, but what a way to go,” Luther quipped as we both swung up in the saddles again. “So how long do you think it’s gonna take them to make it all the way home?”
“Hopefully long enough to put the fear of God into them.”
Luther’s chuckle turned into a full-blown laugh. “Seriously? Have you met those two?”
I could only sigh. “Yeah, but you know what they say, hope springs eternal. Come on, let’s go check the herd and get that out of the way.”
After we’d done exactly that and spent a few minutes watching Skeppy and Skippy butting their heads in play, I figured we’d given the girls enough time. Once we’d closed the gate, I cut my eyes to him and grinned. “Race you!”
Neither of us were too concerned to declare the win as we pulled up at the same time once we were within sight of the barn. Though all four of us had basically spent the last month together, and this wouldn’t be the first time the girls had gotten into mischief and earned a spanking, those had taken place in different bedrooms. This was the first time they’d be punished together.
“Anything I need to know before we begin?” Luther asked as he unsaddled Duke.
I took the time to give the question serious consideration as I pulled the saddle from Zephyr’s back, knowing he wouldn’t rush me.
He’d have to have been blind, deaf, and not paying any attention at all to be ignorant of the fact that Livvy’s only and last relationship had been tainted from the start. She’d shared a bit about how Spencer, her father, had hand-picked Roland for her. He hadn’t even searched hard or any further than his own company as Roland had been his vice-president. The two might as well have been cut from the same cloth. If that didn’t make it easy for the asshole, the fact he’d kept his daughter under tight control by sending her to private schools and limiting her exposure to anything and especially anyone that didn’t meet with his approval, assured she was as malleable as clay. His only mistake had been in failing to recognize that try as he might to ignore it, Livvy shared the same DNA as her mother. And her mother had inherited the same DNA from her mother, Olivia Brenson. Those strands of genes and the love Livvy had for those two women had been the difference in being poured into some mold and breaking free of it.
With Spencer’s death, Roland had become president of one of the largest firms in the United States. He proved to be even better at seizing floundering companies and gutting them as well as the people who’d spent decades building those companies. It had taken a lawyer who’d seen his clients losing their jobs at the whims of a man who hadn’t considered them at all to awaken the warrior in Livvy. It all began with an envelope slipped to her, not by himself or in view of Roland, but by the lawyer’s wife in the restroom of the very building where the final papers were being signed to turn over ownership of yet another family owned company to a man who wouldn’t know the meaning of family if it bit him in the ass.