Page 24 of Taming His Brat

“You do believe me then? I mean I’m kind of shocked you thought I’d even consider selling but …”

“I believe you and yeah, I should have known. But we’ve got a big mystery on our hands and I want it solved fast.” He reached out, tucking a stray strand of hair back behind her ear. His knuckles caressed the line of her cheek gently. “Let’s go home and talk about this.”

The horses were restless, probably from all the noise she’d been making either during the spanking or the sex that followed, but it didn’t take long to reassure the most anxious animals and close up the barn for the night. They held hands on the way back to the house and there was a peaceful silence between them.

The punishment and quickie in the office had at least dissolved some of the frustration he’d been feeling and that was something. He had a feeling it wasn’t going to last, so he took the time to enjoy it. The air was chilled with the on-coming winter, which didn’t encourage him to draw out the walk, as much as he was tempted to delay the conversation they needed to have.

It had warmed up briefly after the early freeze, but the temperatures had dropped again steadily, and he stopped to grab an armload of firewood on the way inside. They would need the emotional comfort of a fire.

“Why don’t you fix us something to eat, while I get the fire going, Charlie?” It was phrased as a question, but the tone made it clear he was giving her an order. He hadn’t forgotten her inadvertent confession earlier and wanted to make it clear that it was also on the agenda for their discussion.

She picked up the cue. “Yes Daddy.” Without complaint she went straight to the fridge and poked her head in. “We’re low on groceries but we have eggs and bacon. Feel like a breakfast for dinner meal?” She sounded guilty. While cooking had been her suggestion, grocery shopping was an assigned chore since her schedule was more flexible than his—she’d been slacking on both.

But breakfast suited him fine. “Sounds good to me.” Crouched in front of the fireplace he settled a couple of logs on the bottom and stuffed old newspapers and dried pinecones between and under them. It only took a minute or so to get a decent flame going. He stood up, brushed his hands off on his jeans and eyed it critically to make sure it was going to keep burning.

Once he’d decided it was going well enough not to need supervision, he joined her in the kitchen area. He wrapped an arm around her waist and snugged her back against his body as she started laying strips of bacon in the frying pan. “I’m going to take a quick shower and wash the sweat off.” The words were softly spoken next to her ear and followed with a kiss.

She melted back against him with a happy sigh. “Don’t take too long, it should be done in ten minutes or so.”

He didn’t make it a long shower, but it was an extra hot one. By the time he’d washed off the day’s sweat and changed into a pair of baggy pajama bottoms the whole house smelled like sizzling bacon and his stomach grumbled. He heard the toaster pop just as he left the bedroom and considered it perfect timing.

Over dinner it was like having his old Charlie back, the pre-Vicky Charlie who he could talk to while they ate. His girl who laughed and smiled, and sometimes sat in his lap so he could feed her bites off his plate. Had it really only been weeks? It felt like so much longer that there’d been this strain between them.

He wanted to hold onto the moment. It was going to get worse before it got better because he could see now that Vicky had her hooks in deep. That was a problem because it had occurred to him in the shower that the most likely suspect of trying to sell the ranch … was Charlie’s mother.

Vicky hated the ranch and always had. She’d settled into the main house and suddenly Charlie barely set foot on the working property. She didn’t visit the animals, she didn’t go riding, and she’d even missed work shifts.

So, if there was a woman calling around about trying to sell the ranch, well, he couldn’t think of anyone else who had a motive. And of course, since Vicky had lived here a ways back, she probably remembered the other ranchers in the area, which also gave her opportunity. But he could have caught the woman posting a for sale sign on the front gate and Charliestillwouldn’t want to hear that her mother was probably to blame.

He didn’t know how she thought she’d get away with it, or what she was trying to accomplish by doing it, but his instincts told him that Vicky was responsible.

As Charlie shifted into his lap and snuggled up, he realized that he didn’t have the energy to bring that up with her—not tonight. He needed to suggest her mother might be responsible in a way that wouldn’t immediately make her defensive. They needed to discuss it, but there were other things to talk about too, and all of it would be too much after the long day.

He squeezed her tight. “So, little girl, you made a confession earlier. You want to tell me about that?”

She tilted her head back and looked up at him with a frown. “Not really? I mean, if it’s a choice I’d rather not.”

He laughed and smacked her ass lightly. “Sorry, did phrasing it as a question confuse you? It’s not a choice. Spit it out.”

Her bottom lip pouted, and she let out a long dramatic sigh. “Well … you said you wanted the work to start in two weeks.”

“Charlie, I know whatIsaid. Let’s move along to the part where it didn’t start and why.”

She muttered something under her breath about how she was getting to that, but before he needed to encourage her, she continued. “Vicky was just talking about how she’s got dust allergies—apparently that was one of the reasons she never liked the ranch. All the dust drove her crazy.”

He patted her ass in warning. Hearing Vicky’s life story wasn’t really necessary. She was stalling and they both knew it.

“Well, I told her we’d have them start downstairs and she could stay in the upstairs part as long as she needed … but she was worried about the dust and well …”

When she didn’t continue, he growled. “Well, what?”

“Well, I said that I couldn’t move the construction because we might lose our spot. You know because with winter coming, they have to get as much work—”

“Charlie.” This time it was punctuated with a hard swat that made her yelp and jump in his lap. “I know how construction schedules work. Finish the story.”

With big round eyes, full of false innocence she finally spit out the rest. “So, I called them and said that we weren’t rescheduling, but that we were fine with delays on their end if they had other projects to finish first.”

“I see.”

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