by Starla Kaye
So Not A Cowgirl
By Starla Kaye
©2010 Blushing Books Publications and Starla Kaye
Copyright © 2010 by Blushing Books® and Starla Kaye
All rights reserved. No part of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Kaye, Starla
So Not A Cowgirl
eBook ISBN: 978-1-60968-240-8
Cover Design: ABCD Graphics
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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
“You what?”
Tanya Montrose stopped pacing back and forth in front of the windows of her loft in Midtown Sacramento to respond to her best friend’s shocked question. “Broke his hand.”
“You broke your boss’s hand?” The question came out as more of a gasp than an actual inquiry.
“El Jerko’s not really my boss. Well, he is and he isn’t. He’s just one of the three partners; one of the three owners, one of the three bosses. But he’s the least liked by everyone at the firm, including the other partners.” He was the absolute least liked partner, by her especially. Russell Haynesworth was a disgrace to bosses everywhere. A managerial lowlife. “And I didn’t actually break his hand; it was his wrist. He put that hand one time too many times on my person.”
The sunny March afternoon outside her window faded from her mind as she distinctly recalled that fatal day in the conference room. It still made her furious. Scumbag! She continued her explanation with renewed outrage. “He snuck up behind me when I was gathering up my notes after the meeting and cupped my buttocks. Thought he was being sexy, squeezing my tush and trying to breathe down my neck. He doesn’t think so now, though. Ha!”
On the other end of the line, Mandy heaved a sigh that clearly summed up her amazement with the length of stupidity that Tanya had gone to this time. Tanya had heard this kind of sigh many times from her friend over the years. From her parents, too. Especially her father. His sigh had been sort of a combination of resignation to her latest bit of trouble and a warning of something unpleasant to happen next: usually being turned over his knee for a formal display of his disapproval. She’d always been something of a slow learner when it came to staying out of trouble, or keeping the wrong words from zipping out of her mouth at the wrong time. But there had never been anything slow about her father’s reaction, or slow about the way his hand connected with her poor bottom.
Inching those annoying thoughts away, she watched a pair of twenty-something geeks carrying laptops into the coffee shop across the street from her building. Maybe she’d drag out her laptop, too, and join them in a little while. She could down some much-loved coffee and a donut, and start an on-line search for a new job. New job. Her hackles rose in indignation.
“I’m pissed about being suspended temporarily, while the situation is investigated.” Her displeasure boiled up again, and the steady clanging of the warning bell of the approaching commuter train on the nearby tracks only added to her irritation.
She blew out a breath to steady her emotions. It didn’t really help. Her mind went back to replaying the scene where she’d shoved the middle-aged, so-not-God’s-gift-to-women against the conference room table. Only she shoved him harder this time. Hard enough that she did break his hand and his wrist.
“This is so unfair,” she grumbled. “Besides that, who even for a minute lets go of a highly-trained accountant in a desperately busy accounting firm in the middle of March, in the middle of tax season? Idiots, that’s who.” Immediately she saw the stacks of tax files she’d been working on, and the many more that she needed to work on. Now the rest of the already over-burdened staff of accountants would be bombarded with even more work. “Idiots,” she mumbled again, clenching her hands into fists.
“They may be idiots, and El Jerko especially, but what are you going to do while the partners sort through this mess? A mess we both know is going to reflect more on you than on Haynesworth,” Mandy said pointedly.
What was she going to do? She wouldn’t be getting overtime pay now, which she’d been counting on to pay down some recent debt. She’d be lucky to even get her normal check on time. Her stomach tensed with worry. She’d really hoped to stop living from paycheck to paycheck sometime this year, but now. . . .
“If worse comes to worse, which is likely and we both know it, you’ll have a hard time getting another position with any of the big firms there in Sacramento. Since the ‘big boys’ tend to play together and watch each other’s backs. He’s a partner; you’re a struggling accountant.”
Tanya knew every word Mandy had said was true. Even if the other two partners discovered what a disgusting pig Haynesworth was, they probably wouldn’t do much more than tell him to take a vacation for a while until the instance was forgotten. He held too much weight in the firm and had too many well-connected, powerful clients for them to risk their own plush existences. She was expendable.
Her lower lip trembled and tears welled in her eyes, but she blinked them away. She didn’t have time to cry over this mess…well, not again. Maybe she’d give in to another crying jag later. Right now she needed to find a new job, because Mandy was right, she would be the one made to look bad in this situation. And a week had already gone by since “the incident.”
“I could talk to a lawyer friend of mine about a sexual harassment lawsuit,” Mandy offered.
Haynesworth might have taken liberties several times with his roving hands when he managed to get too close to Tanya in the file room, or the conference room, or in the lounge, but she really didn’t want to take him on any more than she had. Okay, she still wished she’d actually broken his whole hand. Maybe kneed him in his pride and joy too. But, other than that, she really wanted to put all of this behind her. “No, no lawsuit.”
She glanced back out the window at the hazy white sky and the little pockets of people walking on the sidewalks below. She wanted to get out there, too, and let the beautiful early spring weather surround her; let it momentarily heal her emotional wounds. She wanted to forget the whole miserable situation for just a few hours. After that she’d need to get focused on finding a new job.
“Have you considered going to stay with your parents in Denver for a while? Maybe move back to Colorado and get a new position somewhere in that area?”
“Absolutely not!” Tanya didn’t even hesitate in answering. Sure, her parents would take her in again. She’d already bounced in and out of their home several times in the last half dozen years when she’d been between jobs as she’d struggled finding where she really belonged. Her father loved her, tolerated her, but still got seriously annoyed with her sometimes. Especially when she tended to walk away from good positions just because she got bored there, or decided she didn’t like the city. The last time she’d done that and moved back home—for only a month—he’d been really upset with her.
He’d made that particularly clear with a session over his knee. Jeez, she was twenty-eight and still got spanked by her father. How humiliating was that! Painful, too, of course.
“Get over it, Tanya, you know you deserved it,” Mandy said, knowing and sensing where Tanya’s thoughts had wandered. “Anyway, this time it’s different.”
Tanya felt so as well, but wasn’t sure her father would see it that way, at least not completely. Sometimes she thought he just warmed her bottom out of habit, out of too many years of feeling like it was necessary. She didn’t want to chance that reaction this time. What she needed was a new accounting position and a way to pay her credit card bills and make her car payment. She didn’t need a hot bottom.
“Drew!” Mandy gasped. “I’ll call my brother right now. He’s just complicated his life. Remember he’s got that ranch? The kind of ranch that also does trail rides and round-ups for city people who want to play cowboy or cowgirl. And now he’s started a non-profit animal rescue foundation. He needs your business savvy. I just know it.”
“You want me to live in the middle of nowhere Kansas—“
“Hey! I’m from Kansas, and it’s a good place to be from.”
Tanya rolled her eyes and plopped down on the window seat, staring out at the city she loved. Okay, sort of loved. But at least this city had shopping malls, boutiques, funky little coffee shops for geeks like her, and nightlife. “Sorry. But really, can you see me in some little town without at least a dozen shoe stores? A Starbucks on every corner?”
“Not really, but you need a change and at least a temporary way of paying for all those shoes and flashy clothes you like to buy. Right?” When Tanya didn’t respond, she pressed, “Right?”
Shoulders slumping, Tanya admitted momentary defeat. “He probably won’t agree to your idea anyway. He didn’t seem all that fond of me the last time we met, when you brought him with you to see your great aunt out here.”
Mandy’s laugh lightened Tanya’s mood. It always did. “I’ll agree you were basically a surprise to him. Most of my friends are, well, rather conservative. I’m sure he thought because you’re a CPA you would be, too.”
“People shouldn’t make assumptions.” She’d never forget the way his eyes had widened at first sight of her in the skin-tight leather pants she’d had on that winter day. Or the way his gaze had kept straying to the low cut of her top, even if he’d tried hard not to look. She hadn’t minded his interest, but he certainly had.
“Call him?” Mandy questioned.
“Give it a try, but I’ll start searching the Internet too.”
Drew Weatherford needed to get out of bed. Now. Yet he lay without moving, staring at the alarm clock he’d just tapped off for the second time. Second time! Hell, he’d never even used an alarm clock until this last week. He’d always risen before the sun even thought about slipping into the morning sky. But he’d also gone to bed with the ten o’clock news for more years than he could remember. He rubbed at his burning eyes and tried to make his legs edge toward the side of the bed. Wasn’t happening. Damn.
Growling at himself, he forced his worn out body to action. The routine he’d settled into lately: doing chores beginning at six in the morning, working with one of the new horses for a couple of hours before noon, leading a group of city dudes out on the trail for an overnight campout with a few of his ranch hands or battling down impatience while he taught someone who shouldn’t be on a horse how to ride, and then battling to keep up with the ranch books until late in the night. Plus, now he had all the numerous details of dealing with his newest venture, the animal rescue foundation. He wished that he could give all of his attention to that business, but it just wasn’t possible yet. So, for now, his daily routine stunk. Particularly the working with citified cowboys and cowgirls part. Yet that part of the business had really taken off, mostly by word of mouth. So he shouldn’t be complaining.
He slid off the bed and stretched his sore body. He shouldn’t have spent the last couple of nights sleeping out on the hard ground in a sleeping bag with the latest batch of cowboy-wannabes. His thirty-three-year-old bones were too old for that sort of nonsense. Of course he shouldn’t have followed that up with a marathon of late night bookkeeping, but he’d gotten behind with the books. That annoyed him. From now on he’d pay more attention to the debits and credits, and leave the trail campouts to his ranch hands. Both of his businesses depended on him not screwing up the finances.
He hadn’t taken two steps toward the bathroom than the phone beside his bed burst to life with an ear piercing ring. He scowled and considered for a second not answering, then reached for the receiver. “Weatherford Ranch, Drew speaking.”
“Hey, Big Bro,” Mandy chirped happily in his ear. “I can’t believe I caught you at the house.”
Drew held the phone to his shoulder and tugged on a pair of briefs he pulled out of the dresser. Sleeping in the buff was one thing, talking to his little sister while naked was another. Uncomfortable. Speaking of uncomfortable, there was something in her too-cheery tone that put him on guard. “You back in the states for a while? Coming here to the ranch?”
“Hawaii is one of the states, Bro,” she answered with the same chuckle she always gave him.
“Whatever,” he said with his usual annoyance. “As I said, are you coming here for a visit? You haven’t been here in months.” He hated that she worked as a flight attendant for Hawaiian Airlines based out of California, mainly because it kept her so far from home. He’d rather see her settled down somewhere much closer, not constantly risking her pretty neck flying in one of those big metal birds.
“Actually I am on my way there, as soon as our flight leaves anyway.”
His mind was still a bit foggy, but he caught a word that concerned him. “Our? Are you bringing home a beau? Some potential fiancé for me to check out?” It annoyed him that she tended to flit from one boyfriend to another. “I’m ready for nieces and nephews, you know.”
She laughed merrily again. “You’re such a hoot! Trust me, Bro, when I find the man I’m ready to settle down with, I won’t bring him to the ranch for you to rake over the coals and deem him worthy.”
Drew could almost see her rolling her eyes at him like she was prone to do when she thought him being ridiculous. He wasn’t being ridiculous. They didn’t have any other family around most of the time. Since their parents had sold him the ranch five years ago, they’d become world travelers. He didn’t even like to think about all the time they spent flying around, risking their lives. He seemed to be the only one in the family that worried about things.
“So who’s coming with you?” He glanced at the clock, knowing he didn’t have time to worry about anything right now. “I hate to say this, Sis, but I’ve got to keep this short. I’m running way behind already.”
“You’ve been staying up late again, haven’t you? Working hard all day with ranch stuff, dealing with your foundation, and then working harder on the accounts at night.” Before he could answer, she said cheerfully, “I’m solving that little problem for you.”
His stomach knotted with dread. “What are you talking about?”
“Tanya has agreed to take over the books and help manage the ranch office business.”
He froze, blinking, remembering. Five foot two or three, blonde hair that fell in a silky wave around slender shoulders, big blue eyes that seemed to twinkle with mischief, body begging for a man’s touch, and sassy. She’d been the exact opposite of what he had expected of an accountant. She’d been the exact opposite of both of his ex-wives, yet he’d felt an instant desire to get real up close and personal with her.
“I thought she had some fancy job with a big accounting firm in Sacramento,” he protested. He didn’t like the way his lower body was reacting to the mere memory of her in those all-but-painted on, black leather pants. Then his thoughts went to the way she filled out a tank top. He hardened even more, so he started up an internal mantra of Not my type, not my type, not my type.
Mandy was quiet a few seconds and he frowned, wondering and worrying. Finally she said, “Let’s just say she needs a change of location for a while.”
He mulled that mysterious answer over as she quickly continued, “We’ll be flying into Denver and driving from there. Probably be at the ranch tomorrow morning. Oh, I’ve got to go! They’re calling our flight number.”
She hung up before he had a chance to say “Hell no!” to having Tanya come to the ranch, thinking she would be working for him. It would be awkward once they were here, but no way was he going to have her stay here and work for him. No way, no how.
“I can’t believe I’m here, in Oz land, in Kansas,” Tanya said, looking out the passenger window of her best friend’s rental Jeep. She’d never been in the Midwest, certainly never anywhere that looked like this. “I thought there were hills, small mountains. Not miles and miles of, well, nothing.”
Mandy glanced in her direction and rolled her eyes before turning back to driving. “Don’t let Big Bro hear you say that. The ‘miles of nothing’ thing. Drew is pretty defensive about his state, especially his acres and acres of it.”
“I wasn’t attacking the place, just saying. . .”
“And I’m just saying you need to look beyond what you can see—“
“Hard to do, when it looks like from here we can see on and on, forever.” Tanya spotted the entrance to a private road and the arched wooden sign proclaiming “Weatherford Ranch.”
“I’ve only been to a zoo a couple of times in my life. I’ve never been camping. Not really that much of an outdoors person. So what am I doing here? Mandy, I’m really out of my big city-loving element.”
Her friend guided the Jeep across the odd steel bars buried in the road at the entrance, casually explaining, “Cattle guard.” She looked sideways for an instant and smiled gently. “You needed to get away for a while, away from El Jerko with the roving hands and God’s-gift-to-women attitude. I still think you should have reported him to the senior partner. Or hired a lawyer to go after his sorry ass for sexual harassment.”