8. More Money Problems

No matter how Sarah massaged the numbers on the farm software's spreadsheet, the digits stayed red.

Her savings account was still wiped out by the hackers. Her credit cards were closed.

They needed to be ready to leave when the White Russian bratva found them.

This was her home, darn it. This was her farm. It needed to operate, or else it would fail.

With this week's delivery of fertilizer as mandated in the contract with Bow-Daniels-MidWest, plus a bag of chicken feed and some dog food for Remi, and then there was the electric bill and Sarah's minimum-plan cell phone charges, not to mention a small bag of cat food for Muffintop and the coffee was running low, all of that meant the spreadsheet's ever-increasing red numbers represented money that Sarah did not have.

Blaze had handed her the money he'd had left over from their trip, but it wasn't nearly enough to run a business.

Her last deposit had been a week ago, when a person on SnipSnap had needed to ask the tarot deck whether the guy in her algebra class would ever like her or not. Of course, Sarah had assured the girl that the guy knew that she existed but was holding back until the right time, earning her a ten-dollar tip on top of the twenty-five bucks for the reading.

If only she'd gone directly to the bank with the fifteen thousand in cash Blaze had forked up a week ago for scaring the daylights out of her, she wouldn't be in this pickle.

But she'd been lazy.

And the bank probably would have been suspicious about where she'd gotten such a large sum in cash, and then the IRS or the ATF would have shown up and asked questions for which she wouldn't have had answers.

But now she was in trouble.

So Sarah had to double down.

With HowNow the Brown Cow home, Sarah could refill the roadside stand with fresh milk after tomorrow morning's milking, but it would probably be a few days until the people from Cedar Rapids and Iowa City came looking for their farm-fresh finds. They usually showed up from Thursday to Saturday, stocking their larders for the weekend. She should have time to make sweet butter before they started poking around.

Yet, no matter how she added up or subtracted from what she owed, the farm would need a supplementary loan before harvest. The numbers just did not add up this year.

And paying back a loan meant the farm would have less operating money next year, and even less because of the bank interest.

If she didn't bring in some money soon, the situation was going to become dire.

Maybe after Blaze left the farm, she could go down to the Kalona Auction Barn and see if they needed help behind the desk or with the livestock. She could still do her farm chores in the morning and the tarot card flimflamming at night.

Otherwise, when the debt from the farm reached a critical point, the bank was going to repossess the land and sell it for far less than it was worth.

She would lose her parents' legacy.

And she would destroy the dream they'd worked their whole lives to pass on to her.

She just—couldn't keep it going.

Someone else probably could have saved the farm. Someone better. Someone with more knowledge or experience, or maybe who'd been more diligent about the chores and upkeep.

Sarah had tried so hard, but the farm was failing anyway.

Failing the farm was failing them.

Knots filled her whole body, from where her hand cramped around the mouse to her shoulders brushing her earlobes.

Blaze called out, "What's wrong?"

It was rude to allow a guest to worry about her problems.

Sarah tapped the power button underneath the screen. "I was just looking at some farm details. I've been gone for a few days, but the farm never sleeps."

His voice was deeper, but he sounded soothing, not stern. "Come here, little kitten."

Sarah left the small computer desk with the antiquated desktop and padded barefoot around the couch to sit on the other end, leaving an empty cushion between them. "It's fine."

Muffintop was lying unconscious on the back of the couch, her legs hanging down like a tiger on a branch. She'd immediately cozied up to Blaze as soon as Sarah had released her into the house.

Very suspicious. Maybe Abigail had given Sarah the wrong cat, one that liked people instead of her own beast still recovering from kittenhood barn trauma.

From the other side of the couch, Blaze held out his hand, palm up, and looked pointedly at his hand and then back to her eyes.

She reached over and dangled her fingers, tapping his palm.

His hand closed around hers. When he tugged on her arm, Sarah followed, crawling over the couch with one hand captured in his until he'd pulled her across and settled her in his lap.

His thick arms scrunched her into a ball on his thighs, her knees tucked up and her head resting on his heavy shoulder. When she inhaled, the scent of soap and his shampoo filled her nose because he'd showered before they'd eaten supper. He rumbled, "I asked, what is wrong?"

Her inability to run her parents' farm shamed her. "It's nothing."

"Don't lie to me, little kitten. What were you looking at on the computer that has you so upset? You weren't on social media, were you?"

"Oh, no. I haven't been on any of my socials since you showed up on my farm last week, and I understand why we shouldn't. ‘Loose lips sink ships,' and all that. It was just farm stuff."

"Farm stuff like how?" he asked.

"You know, just farm stuff. Never you mind."

"You looked terrified. Did one of your friends see someone suspicious in town?"

"Nah, Abigail would've called me if someone was poking around. Our group text is on high alert for any weirdos in town. That's what I told her: weirdos. That'll encompass everyone from hippies to mafia gangsters to the IRS."

"Then tell me what the matter is, kitten."

"Nothing."

His voice dropped lower, and so did his hand on her hip. "Do I need to turn you over my knee and spank this luscious bottom of yours, or are you going to tell me what's going on?"

A tremble of a different sort started in her stomach. "It's nothing."

"Tell me."

"I don't have to tell you."

"Oh, kitten. Now you're just asking for it."

"You can't make me."

With a quick movement of his hands, he flipped her over on his lap so that her bottom was up.

"Oh!"

He caressed her bottom with one hand while he held her by the back of her neck with the other. "Such a pity to spank this lovely bottom of yours. Tell me now."

Every bit of her attention was riveted on the warmth of his hand resting on the back pocket of her jeans and the sharp look in his blue eyes as he watched her.

The rest of it—the red numbers and the White Russians—faded away, and nothing mattered but there and then.

Her voice lilted with a snarky tone. "I said I didn't want to talk about it, and I meant—"

With a sharp flick of his hand, he swatted her backside with a crack.

Her behind smarted. "Ow!"

He asked, "Naughty girls say what?"

Crack.

"Ow!"

"Ready to tell me what's on your mind yet?"

Sarah yelled, "I don't even remember what I was thinking about!"

"Yeah, I know, my naughty little kitten. Now, are you going to be a good girl, or am I going to have to discipline you more?"

All she had to say was say Yes, Sir. "Look, buddy, you're in my house, and I'm the boss here."

"Oh, baby. I've been waiting for you to be so naughty." He stood, dumping her on the braided rag rug on the floor, and he stared down at where she crouched at his feet. "I am always the boss, little kitten."

Sarah started to scramble to her feet, but he grabbed her around her waist, spun her in his hands, and threw her over his shoulder.

Dagnabbit, he liked this fireman's carry a little too much, maybe because he was so strong that it must be easy for him to pull off.

Sarah pummeled his back with her fists. "Put me down."

"Keep doing that. It feels good. I think I'll need a massage this evening because you were such a naughty girl."

He carried her through the house and up the stairs, stepping up each riser easily as if he didn't have a full-grown woman flopped over his shoulder.

"What are you doing? Ow!"

He'd popped her on the behind again. "The first time I saw that towel hook in the huge bathroom of yours, I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Now be quiet, or I'll gag you. It would be a shame to lose access to your mouth. I'd have to make other arrangements."

What the—whoa.

Again, all she had to do was not push him.

All she had to do was say Yes, Sir.

"Put me down!"

"Deeper and deeper, little kitten. You don't know when to stop digging yourself into a hole, do you?"

Considering the farm's finances, evidently not.

He went first to the guest bedroom, where he'd tossed his duffel on the bed earlier.

A chilly night breeze floated through the rooms through the open windows, and the wooden floor rose a foot toward Sarah's face as Blaze bent his knees to reach something. She asked, "What are you doing?"

"Quiet, kitten, unless you want a real spanking."

"Oh, you think that wasn't a real spanking? Ow!"

"And it's going to keep getting harder, naughty girl, every time you mouth off. All you have to do is stop."

Sarah braced her arms on his muscular back and pushed herself up to where she was planking over his shoulder. "I know what you want me to do, but that doesn't mean I'm going to—Ouch!"

Dang, he was alternating his swats on both bum cheeks, too. Her whole bottom smarted.

And yet, she couldn't quite stop. "You can't make me—Ow-Wouch!"

The room swung around her as he turned and walked back to the hallway. "Keep bratting, my little kitten. The night is young."

The fourth bedroom upstairs had been turned into a bathroom when indoor plumbing had been installed in the farmhouse nearly a century before. Thus, it was large for a bathroom.

Blaze held her with his shoulder digging into her stomach under her ribs with one hand and, as she saw in the mirror, stroked his chin with his other like a diabolical villain.

Yeah, he was a villain, having started their acquaintance by threatening her life, then kidnapping her, and then dragging her to New York City to meet her darned brother who'd been every bit as dastardly as her father had insisted her whole life. "Blaze, you need to put me down right—yikes!"

He swiveled back and forth, looking around the bathroom with the white clawfoot tub and pedestal sink on one wall and swinging her head around as he twisted. "What shall we do first?"

"Stop it! Stop flinging me around! You're not the boss of me!"

He released his hands.

Sarah slid down the corrugated washboard of his front, but she missed landing on her feet and crumpled to a lump on the floor.

Blaze leaned down, his eyes intense as he pinned her with his gaze to the floor. "Oh, yes, I am the boss of you, and we're going to have to make sure you know that. First, tell me your safeword."

"Red,but I'm not saying it because you shouldn't be—Ah!" she shrieked.

He'd grabbed her wrists and plucked her whole body off the floor like she was a limp bunny dangling by its ears. He said, "Naughty little kitten."

A batch of those silken ropes hung over his other wrist. She hadn't even seen them on his arm. He caught them and flipped loops over her wrists that he pressed together, tying her hands flat against each other over her head with a neat row of knots.

"Dang, how did you—you shouldn't be manhandling me this way!"

"I'll manhandle you any way I want." He bent and smiled a sultry grin at her. "Indeed, it's what I do best, handling you like a man."

Warmth flushed all the way down her body, jiggling her legs. With her hands tied over her head like this, she couldn't stop him from doing anything he wanted.

He could do absolutely anything.

Her breath caught in her chest like she was hyperventilating, and the stroke of his fingers down her arm made her writhe in the bonds of the rope.

He held her hands over her head and stepped forward, dragging her heels over the wooden floorboards, and he hung a loop attached to the rope around her wrists on a robe hook bolted to the wall, one that Sarah knew was screwed tightly into a stud.

Her toes barely touched the floor, and she couldn't balance. She twisted, looking at the bindings above her head and her bare toes dancing on the wooden planks.

Blaze stepped back, surveying his handiwork and her predicament with fire in his eyes. "You're so beautiful when you're helpless."

"I'm not helpless!"

He slid his hand behind her neck and bent, kissing her.

As his lips caressed hers, every bit of anxious zinging in her muscles drained away. She drooped, her shoulders relaxing and her toes lowering to the balls of her feet.

All she had to do was let go of the tension bunching her shoulders and back, and she could balance.

In the darkness of her closed eyes, his mouth gently sucking on her lips drew all her mind and soul, and she opened her mouth for his tongue to brush and then stroke hers.

When he withdrew, she might have fallen forward, except that she was still tied to the wall. Her wits meandered with the blood rushing through her heart until they returned to her, and she gasped air because she didn't seem to have breathed recently and sputtered, "I am not helpless. I'm not."

With a mischievous glint in his pale eyes, he reached over and slipped the top button of her shirt through its buttonhole.

The cotton fabric relaxed where it had been tight across her chest from her arms raised over her head.

He said, "You're helpless," and popped the second one.

"I'm not, and this is inappropriate!"

He flipped open her third button, and her shirt gaped open all down her white bra. "All you have to do is tell me you'll be a good girl from now on, and I'll stop."

"I'm never going to be good for you!" she yelled at him.

He was still smiling and looking straight into her eyes. "Go ahead and scream if you want. There's no one around for miles."

A little bit of a chill crawled down her spine. "What if I said red?"

His smile softened, and he glanced over her head. "That's a slipknot. You'd be untied in an instant."

Sarah pulled in a shaky breath. "I won't say it. You can't make me."

His wicked smile was back, and he pulled her shirt out of her jeans to unbutton it so it swung free at her sides.

"Yeah, but that's a front-hook bra," she told him. "And most guys don't know how to—"

His thick fingers twisted in front of her.

The bra cups dropped to her sides, and her breasts hung heavily on her chest.

He smiled at her again, and oh dang, that devilish grin. No wonder he hadn't smiled much when she'd first met him. If that was his idea of a smile, people would be afraid of him all the time.

Not that she was.

Or she sure as heck couldn't show it. "Hey!"

He reached inside her hanging shirt and bra, caressing the swell of her breast and barely brushing his thumb over the peak, sending a zing through her pebbling skin there. He said, "So beautiful. I could play with you all night."

He stroked her other breast with his other hand, holding the weight of them, gently circling her nips with his thumbs.

Twitching energy traveled under Sarah's skin with every brush of his hands on her skin, every sensory quake over her flesh, and she stretched against the ropes binding her wrists.

He barely moved, so still, just the gentle caresses on her breasts and soft drag of his thumbs on her even more sensitive peaks, until her skin bloomed with warmth and she couldn't think.

She was leaning against the cold plaster of the wall, her head thrown back, as he touched, and stroked, and thumbed, and she whimpered with wanting more.

The wooden floor spun under her feet as his hands tormented her with gentle touches and soft strokes.

Her pulse in her ears sounded like she was caught in a windstorm.

Blaze grabbed handfuls of her shirt and bra and dragged them up her arms to the ropes binding her wrists, and he tied the fabric there in a bunch, leaving her naked from the waist up.

The cool evening air streaming in the open window wrapped her naked torso and tightened her nipples into hard knots like he'd dragged ice over them, and even his gentle strokes cascaded waves through her skin.

With her arms stretched over her head like this, she was entirely exposed to his gaze and his hands, vulnerable. He half-stepped nearer, encroaching on where she was tied to the wall, and sent shivers through her body.

"Tell me you'll be a good girl," he murmured.

Dear Lord, no. He might stop. "I'm not your good girl. I'm no one's good girl."

"Oh, little kitten." He lifted her chin with one finger and said with no emotion, "I'll make you beg me to be a good girl."

Even though the need for him pulsed through her like a heartbeat, a shiver crawled down her back like a spider in her shirt, and she felt her eyes widen. She whispered, "You're really good at this."

One side of his mouth curved in a mirthless smile. "Yes, I am."

"Why are you so good at this?"

A hint of sadness dragged the outer corners of his eyes. "Every moment of life is sweet, even the ones filled with pain. Sometimes, the pain is all you have."

With that, he unbuttoned her jeans and unzipped her fly, and then he shoved her pants and panties to her ankles. "Step out of them."

She pushed the wadded-up denim off her feet with her toes, and he tossed them across the bathroom.

The chilly night air pricked her naked skin, lifting goosebumps all over her body.

Without breaking eye contact, Blaze leaned in, his shoulder flexing, and a touch grazed the skin between her legs and then slid deeper between her folds.

Waves of pleasure rolled up her body with every slippery stroke, and his fingertip pushed deeper, gliding inside her and curling to stroke her intimately.

His gaze sharpened as he watched her, but she couldn't keep her eyes open. Every stroke of his fingers inside her and the pressure of his thumb on her clit spun her, nearly driving her over the edge. Faster, she prayed, harder, but her consciousness floated without falling.

"So wet,"he growled. "My good girl, so wet for me."

He grabbed her around the waist and spun her to face the wall, the loop attached to the binds around her wrists twisting above her head, and he flattened her against the plaster.

After the warmth and friction of his hands, the cold roughness against her nipples sparked a shock through her as sexual as his touch.

Behind her, leather whispered against fabric.

Blaze said, "I'm taking off my belt, and I'm going to whip you with it if you won't be a good girl. I'm going to spank you until your bottom turns pretty pink and rosy, until it smarts when I grab it."

Sarah balled her hands into fists and leaned her forehead against the plaster.

"Will you be a good girl?" he asked.

"I'm not a good girl," Sarah said. "And you can't make me."

The leather whistled in the air, a terrifying anticipation, but the slap was lighter than the smacks with his hand had been.

"Is that all you've got? My hens flap me with their wings harder than that."

The next slap on her other booty cheek made her yelp.

His voice whispered next to her ear as he leaned down, "Because you're naughty, I'll continue until you give in."

He was going to break her. Sarah could feel it, that his will was more than hers.

It was the craziest thing she'd ever done, as un-Sarah-Bell as anything ever was, and she could hardly wait.

A storm of slaps rained down on her backside, each one harder and faster like she'd unleashed something in him.

At first, she was yelling at him, telling him that he couldn't make her do anything as the belt stung her skin.

Then he grabbed her, holding her stinging bottom with one hand like he would palm a basketball, and his other hand slipped around her front and between her folds to circle her clit in a rush of tension in her pelvis. He whispered, "You're so beautiful with your ass so red and rosy for me."

She gasped as his fingers stroked her clit, back and forth, and then pressed inside her. Her body trembled in time to his strokes.

He backed away, picked up his belt, and whipped the soft flesh of her behind again. "Now, little kitten. Let me make you cry."

And she did. Hot tears welled from her eyes and flipped onto her cheeks, and she gasped with each stinging slap on the raw skin of her bottom.

She cried because her farm, the only thing she had left from her parents, was going to be taken away by the bank soon. She cried because the White Russian mafia killers would come to the farm and then go, and then Blaze would leave her all alone, too. She cried because she'd have to give HowNow and Charlie to someone else because she wouldn't have any place to keep them and because Remi would be sad if he didn't have chickens to take care of, so she'd have to give him to someone else, too. Without the house, she'd have to get rid of the old furniture she'd lived around all her life, probably in a yard sale where she'd get maybe fifty bucks for the old stuff that no one else would want.

Everything was slipping away from her because she hadn't been able to hold on tightly enough.

Her fingers clung to the ropes above her head, and she held onto those, at least, just for tonight.

A restraint curled around her waist, Blaze's arm on her skin, and he yanked her back against his body. His clothes were rough on the sore skin of her bottom.

His voice whispered in her ear again. "You're so beautiful when you cry."

"No, I'm not," she sobbed. "You can't make me. I won't do anything you say."

His fingers stole lower again, barely brushing her clit that was so sensitive she thought it would burst. "Maybe I should fuck you until you're a sobbing puddle at my feet and you promise me you'll be a good girl."

"Oh, no, don't do that,"she said, trying to mock him despite her tight throat.

"To make me stop, you just have to say yes, sir. All you have to do is submit utterly to me and be a good girl."

"No,"Sarah said. "I won't. You can't make me."

His voice dropped lower. "Or your safeword."

Sarah wound up and said the worst thing she could think of. "Oh, to—to hell with that."

His dark chuckle growled in her ear, and the stubble of his skin scratched her neck. "Oh, I like it when you talk dirty, little kitten."

His arm tightened around her waist, and he lifted her so that her toes left the floor, flipping the silk rope loop off the hook high on the wall to release her arms.

Relief swamped her shoulders as her arms fell, even though they were still bound in front of her. Pins and needles filled her hands from her arms being over her head for so long.

With his arm still around her waist, Blaze dragged her sideways until she stood in front of a towel bar on the wall. "Hold onto it."

Sarah twisted her wrists within the coils of rope and clutched onto the steel towel bar, another cold sting on her palms. Her bare feet were flat on the wooden floor, and her thighs trembled.

Blaze backed away, trailing his fingers over her hip as the air cooled her back. The grate of his zipper and the crinkle of a plastic packet reached her ears as she clenched her fists around the metal bar.

He grabbed her hips, tugging her back so she had to bend forward, and kicked her feet apart with his bare ones. "Don't let go, kitten."

The bluntness of him nudged her opening, an unrelenting but slow pressure filling her.

Sarah bit her lip at the deep ache of him slipping inside, deeper and farther.

She flinched, curling her hips under.

"Don't pull away," he said, yanking her hips back. "Take the dick like a good girl."

Stillmore, thick and hard, a brief second of relief as he pulled back before continuing. Sarah closed her eyes, shrouding herself in darkness so that she was nothing. He was a relentless rod that bored into her, impaling her on his heat, rubbing that spot inside that already lifted sparks through her veins.

Finally, just when she thought he was going to be too much and the pressure was turning to hurt, his hips contacted her sore bottom, a sting of pain that heightened her response.

Behind her, Blaze's groan was almost a snarl as he pulled back and pushed himself to her limit again. "Take it all, little kitten. That's your punishment."

And yet she still wasn't tempted to be good.

He pressed his hand on her lower back, forcing her hips up, and he crammed it in deeper."Take it all."

The ache was a cramp of sharp desire, as if more pain would send her over the edge instead of mere pleasure.

He held onto her hips, buried in her, before rocking backward slowly, teasing inches at a time, not enough pleasure or pain to hurl her body into ecstasy, but instead, an inexorable winding of the spring.

Blaze pushed himself in and barely retreated, more of a throb inside her than a thrust, until her tears turned to frustrated weeping for more.

He dug his fingers in the long braid at the base of her neck and turned her head. "Open your eyes. Look at the mirror."

The mirror above the pedestal sink was angled down, glowing brightly from the light spilling from the hanging lamp above them, and she could see them.

Blaze hadn't taken off his clothes, just opened his fly, and the tails of his dress shirt hung over his backside. Waves rolled up his body as he moved in her.

Sarah's naked body took him in, swaying with each pulse. Her dark eyes were wide on her face, glazed with passion, and she could see a peek of his shaft at the apex of his thrust before he pushed into her body again.

Her lower belly tightened, the passion condensing there.

"See how I'm fucking you?" he asked her, leaning over her back. "I will fuck you whenever I want to, my naughty kitten. You're so beautiful, and I can't resist you."

As he moved in her, he closed his eyes and bit his lip. "Do you see how beautiful you are? Look at how smooth your skin is, the luscious rounds of your body. Every time I look at you, I want to make you writhe in ecstasy with my tongue, or my fingers, or my cock, put my thumb on your clit until you're begging for me. I've already made you cry. Now I'm going to make you scream."

His fist tangled in her hair and turned her head away from the mirror, and then he pulled away from her, leaving her empty and limp. Just as her knees were giving out and she was collapsing to the floor, Blaze caught her under her arms and crowded her until her back hit the wall.

He was staring into her eyes, the blue of his as hot as the heart of the star. Without breaking his gaze, he reached down and grabbed her knee, folding her thigh against her chest and then angling himself to sink inside her again.

He took her that way, standing up with her spine pressed against the cold plaster and her head thrown back as shivers of pleasure ran up her body.

He pumped harder.

Sarah clung to his shoulders, little sounds coming from her throat that she had never heard from herself before. Wildness crashed in her mind, pleasure driving away the guilt of what she should have been.

Blaze leaned and grabbed her other knee, lifting her leg and wrapping both around his waist, holding her with his strong fingers biting into the sore flesh of her bottom as he crushed her against the wall and pumped into her, all the while whispering how hot and wet she was and how her body drove him wild.

Even though he was holding her up, her weight forced her farther down onto his shaft, a deeper invasion rocking pleasure through her body.

The sting from his fingers on her sore bum intensified the rough thrill every time Blaze ground against her, from the bright sparks of her clit to his thickness inside.

The desire grew, tightened. Sarah gasped against his shoulder until a wave of ecstasy rolled over her. The world turned dark as sparks flickered behind her eyes. Her core clamped from the waves rushing through her flesh, and she threw her head back and bared her throat as Blaze pumped harder into her, his deep penetrations rocketing through her over and over until he pulsed and grunted, his breath harsh with his cheek pressed against the top of her head.

As he slowed, radio static filled her brain and drained the strength from her limbs. Blaze released one of her legs, and her thigh and calf dangled from her hip to the cool wood under her toes like a hot noodle.

He reached between them, grabbing himself, and pulled out of her body.

She collapsed with a groan, her knees buckling as she clutched his shoulders and clung to him because the bathroom was spinning like the house had been caught in a tornado that was whirling them away to Oz.

In the mirror, it looked like Blaze was holding a long, lumpy bag of liquid fertilizer.

He pressed her tightly against his chest with one arm and tossed the condom into the trash bucket by the sink.

Her feet flopped on the floor like flippers, one too weak to turn over properly. As Blaze gently lowered her to the wooden floor, her legs coiled like spaghetti swirled on a plate, her arms and torso heaped on top. She was a limp pile of person-pasta, a heap of female fettucine, a bowl of post-orgasmic weak chicken noodle soup.

Blaze bent down beside her, fully dressed, entirely in control, and asked, "Are you going to be a good girl now?"

Sarah gasped as she trembled on the floor and whispered, "Yes."

"That's my good little kitten."

He untied her wrists, shucking her shirt and bra off her wrists, and gathered her naked body into his arms. Her head dropped to his shoulder, too heavy to hold up. The breeze from the window chilled her back.

Blaze held her in his arms for a moment, gently swinging her back and forth like she was a crying lamb, and then set her backside on the rolled edge of the old claw-footed tub. He steadied her as he leaned to turn on the tap.

Sarah leaned against his shoulder, still trying to catch her breath because her gasps sounded like sobs.

After flicking the water from the faucet a few times, he asked, "I didn't hurt you more than I intended, did I?"

She shook her head, rolling her forehead on his shirt.

He crouched in front of her, one knee on the floor. "Then tell me what just went through your mind."

Sarah sighed. "Don't use too much water for me, please. It's been a dry year, and the well is slow."

"Ah. Then we'll conserve water."

She huffed a weak laugh. "Like you know anything about roughing it."

His sly glance out of the corner of his eyes startled her. "I was a Navy SEAL, Sarah. I am practically feral. I lived off the land for months sometimes. Having a roof and a bed is an indescribable luxury as far as I'm concerned, but I'm also content sleeping on the ground with my rucksack for a pillow."

"Maybe you aren't such a city boy."

"Oh, I can be a city boy, too." He paused to help her into the warm, shallow bath that lapped at her hips and soothed her raw bottom, and he dunked a washrag into the water and squeezed it out in his fist. "I was born and raised in Minneapolis."

"Oh, that's a big city," Sarah said.

He shrugged. "Sort of."

"You don't have to do this," Sarah said, gesturing to the bath and the washcloth in his hand. "I can take a bath."

His voice came out like a growl. "I take care of what's mine."

Well, okay then."You've never mentioned Minneapolis."

Blaze nodded as he smoothed the washcloth over her skin, washing her like she was a toddler. "That's where they killed my father."

His father had been murdered by other dirty cops for skimming too much money from their drug ring. He'd mentioned that while they'd been driving. "I'm so sorry." She needed to add more. "About both of them. Do you have anyone else?"

He shook his head. "I did one of those DNA tests, but I appear to be a genetic dead end, the result of too many only children. My family tree is a stump."

"Me, too. On my mom's side, everybody died when I was little. I remember going to a lot of funerals. I think they were all old. My dad wouldn't let us go to New York to meet that side at all, and the Russian cousins all fell away over the years."

"Do you know why?"

She shook her head. "My dad was a hard man to like. If anyone was around him enough, he'd drive them away."

He held out a hand and helped her out of the tub, then toweled the bathwater off her. "That must have been tough."

Thoughts ground in her head. "He was conflicted about his family situation. He stressed over and over that his side of the family were all criminals. Whenever someone stopped talking to him, he'd yell that his father had ‘consolidated' them."

"Oh, Sarah. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. It was a long time ago. It felt like his whole family unified against us, and we had no one. I'm scared to think what would have happened if one of us had needed a kidney or something."

Blaze led her, naked, through her own house and lifted the covers of the bed in his guest room for her.

She slid between the sheets, and he swiped his duffel bag onto the floor, saying, "Rest. I'll be back in a minute."

And Sarah was alone again.

The sheets scraped against her sore backside, and yet she didn't care. The tension straining at every nerve in her body was gone, replaced by a floaty sensation of not caring.

Within moments, Blaze returned, wearing loose basketball-type shorts and a tee shirt stretched across his broad chest. "Are you warm enough?"

She shoved the sheet off her shoulder. "A little too warm, actually. Summer is hitting hard."

"Good."

Oh, dear Lord, his voice had lowered to that gruff commanding tone again.

He yanked the sheet and thin blanket off her. "Roll over. I want to see my work on your pretty little bottom."

"I do not know what to make of that," she said, but she rolled over, facing away from him and resting her head on a cool spot on the pillow. Fresh air from the open window feathered over the sore skin on her backside. "Do I have welts?"

"Yes," Blaze growled deep in his throat, and his hand ran down the back of her leg to her knee. "Perfect."

Stripes on her backside stung from his hand rubbing her skin, but not too much. She'd had worse sunburns. "That's kind of weird."

"Oh, little kitten. You haven't begun to see the weird yet."

"That almost scares me."

His deep voice was right by her ear. "It's meant to."

She turned her head back. Blaze was beside her face, almost nose to nose with her, and smiling. "How long can you stay?"

His head tilted, and he looked more serious. "Until we deal with the White Russians."

"Being home makes them seem so far away."

The light pressure of his hand on her back moved upward to rest on her waist. "They're coming."

"I know."

"And I'll be here."

She snuggled closer to his big, warm body in the sheets. "I know, but after that?"

His shoulders shifted as he rolled on his back to look at the ceiling. "You won't need me around here."

"Well, not that I need anybody—"

"Of course not."

"But you're halfway useful around the farm, what with milking HowNow and doing the feeding. You know, for a city boy."

"I'll take that as the most backhanded of compliments." But a smile warmed his voice. "But you know I can't stay."

"You don't need to. I've been doing it all myself for years. Honestly, I started doing the bulk of the work in high school because my parents were starting to get sick at that point."

"And you're good at it," he said.

She couldn't even keep the farm above water financially. "Not really."

"Yeah, you are, even if you're modest. Could I ask you a favor?"

Not that she had anything of value he would want. "Um, sure?"

"Some of the veterans that I counsel have become friends. I can vouch for their character and their actions. Even though they are holding down jobs and look like they're doing well enough, they aren't."

"Of course, I'm open to anything to help our veterans who served our country."

"The Fourth of July is tough for them, with the fireworks and performative patriotism. It would benefit their mental health if a few of them could get away from the cities into the countryside. The fireworks are really the worst. They'll start the pyrotechnics shows this Saturday, even though it'll only be July first this weekend."

"You don't think the White Russians will be here by then?"

"No one's been poking around yet, according to your whisper network, right?"

"Nope. The University of Iowa is on summer recess, so it's just the graduate students and us townies around."

"So it'll be quiet. That's good."

"But it's three days from now. The house only has three bedrooms."

"They could camp out. These guys are used to tents or less. We can fire up that grill on your back patio to feed them."

"Sure, if you think it would help."

"I can think of a hundred veterans who would be greatly helped by getting out of the city for the Fourth of July and spending the night under the stars on a farm far away from fireworks, but a dozen really need it."

"We can pick up supplies at Costco."

"Steaks, potatoes, corn, and salad would work for the first night. After that, maybe I could outfit a rotisserie on your grill for chickens."

"Oh, my layers aren't good for eating. They're too old. It'd be like eating drumsticks made out of belt leather."

"Oh, no. I didn't mean your chickens. We'll buy some whole birds."

She barely had the money to feed her stock and the two of them, and that was dwindling fast.

Sarah needed to find more money, a lot of it, to feed a dozen more mouths, and fast.

Madam Belova would have to start reading tarot cards on SnipSnap again.

But she'd have to hide her use of social media from Blaze.