Pulling on jeans over her butt emphasized the lingering soreness from her first spanking in two years. Her response to that embarrassing pain had been just as fast, her lust just as hot as before and she wondered how long it would take her to get over him this time. Given her legal woes, that was something she couldn’t afford to fret over right now. She grabbed another tee shirt, this one black with a row of bright pink flamingos standing in different poses, and hurried to the kitchen, eager to see both Gavin and Lily.
A coffee cup sat next to the brewed pot but instead of Gavin standing against the counter, waiting for her, her heart sank when she spotted the note with Jim Bob’s number to call when she was ready to go out. She tried not to allow the letdown at his absence ruin her morning and managed to perk up when Lily greeted her by wobbling over on shaky legs as she entered her stall a short time later.
“She’s taken a shine to you, miss,” Jim Bob said, his eyes crinkling at the corners with his smile as he leaned on the half door.
“I’m glad, considering my lack of experience with newborn foals.” She stroked the little filly’s nose as Lily nudged her arm in affection.
“Then the boss must trust you, otherwise he wouldn’t have turned her over to your care. All three of the McCulloughs are protective of their horses.” Tipping his hat, he added, “Holler if you need anything. Gavin will likely be gone most of the day searchin’ for a missing calf.”
“Thank you, I will.” The final dregs of her melancholy slipped away at hearing Gavin was on a mission of such importance and not deliberately avoiding her.
Aislyn spent the morning with Lily, taking her out to the attached corral after her feeding, having fun watching her explore a new space. When Jim Bob brought her some fried chicken from his wife at lunchtime, she accepted the food with a grateful smile and took the opportunity to learn more about Gavin’s ranch and his family as they sat down together at the picnic table again.
“Have you been here long?” she asked, swallowing her first bite of the best fried chicken she could remember eating.
“Goin’ on thirty some odd years. Started working for the boys’ daddy back in ’88. Watched those kids grow up into fine men I’m happy to work for now.”
She pictured Gavin as a five-year-old back then, his brothers toddling along after him, and then smiled imagining them as teenagers. “I’ll bet they were a handful, though.”
Jim Bob chuckled. “They gave their parents more than a few gray hairs, but they’re loyal to their family, their employees and this place. Most young ‘uns take off to do their own thing nowadays, but not those three. For some reason, their daddy never doubted they would return, kept telling me ‘when the time was right’ his boys would come home to roost. And he was right.”
Aislyn thought back to when Gavin had broken up with her. She couldn’t bring herself to return to the club, having no desire to seek another Dom. It had been just chance running across one of the submissives she had bonded with as a newbie when she had shopped the local farmer’s market a short time later. Unable to resist, she had asked about Gavin and learned he’d left Boise for his ranch within days of their split.
“They seem happy here,” she murmured, wishing she had meant more to him than his family. She had been without any family ties for so long, she couldn’t understand such a strong bond, or help envying it.
Handing her a napkin with a kind, knowing look, he said, “They are, but I’ll tell you this much, each of them returned home carrying a personal burden they’ve kept to themselves. They’ll have to unload and deal with whatever it is before they are truly happy.”
Maybe that would have to be part of what she reaped by coming here, Aislyn mused. If she found a way to free herself from Heath’s manipulations, with or without Gavin’s help, maybe she could find a way to put her relationship with Gavin behind her for good once they parted ways again.
By the time she had taken a long hike along a trail Jim Bob mapped out for her and then returned to the stable, Aislyn was closer to revealing the bind she was in to Gavin, just not yet convinced she could live with herself if it brought trouble down on him. In making the snap decision to come here and hide out for a few days, revealing Heath’s manipulations hadn’t been on her agenda, the very thought causing a ripple of apprehension slithered down her spine. With his brother being a former sheriff’s officer, could she risk seeking Gavin’s help without knowing the stand either would take on the matter? She’d never been a risk taker, and yet she still found herself struggling with an untenable situation.
Running ‘what if’ scenarios through her head was getting her nowhere so, to make herself useful, she had Jim Bob drive her back to the house in time to fix dinner for Gavin, hoping they could talk more. His kitchen was well
