I married Owen to hold a ranch neither of us can keep alone. The deed search has brought nothing but bad news for four months.
Every setback ends the same way, and I know the sound of it coming.

Owen does not shout at a courthouse letter. He sits down and he says my name.
Last Thursday the county sent back another denial and I went bare over his knee. He made me count all twenty.
Only when I had paid every one of them did he take me on the floorboards.

That is the shame of it. Not the counting. That I fetched the mail, read the denial, and felt something in me lift.
He pulls that chair from the wall and my knees know before I do.

Another land office letter is due this week.
Bare over his knee. Twenty counted aloud. Paid in full before he takes anything. Then whatever is left of me is his.
The valley talks, the deed falls apart if anyone learns what that front room is for, and I am watching the road for the mail rider.
What sort of woman hopes for bad news? What am I once the ranch is safe and that chair goes back to the wall?

A full-length Western domestic discipline counted spanking erotic novel featuring a frontier bride and the rancher who settles each setback over his knee.