Caleb stood staring down from the window of the bridal suite, oblivious to the bustling traffic and garish neon of the crowded Reno strip below.
"insufferable pig" "arrogant bastard" "dirt beneath my heel" "miserable piece of..."
Caleb Hollis was a self made man and proud of it; a successful rancher who had started out as a hard luck hired hand and worked his way up to become the owner of one of the largest cattle operations in the great state of Nevada. True, he generally got what he set out to get, but he didn't think that made him either insufferable or piggish. He was proud of his accomplishments, but he'd never considered himself to be an arrogant man; he was still more comfortable with the wranglers than he was the tycoons. And the only thing that had ever made him feel like a miserable piece of dirt under someone's heel was the recent revelation that Mara Stevenson--the woman of his dreams and his newlywed wife--couldn't stand the sight of him. Ok, sure, he'd spanked her into unconsciousness, but that was an accident. How could he have guessed that the little terror stretched out on the bed behind him would be so, well, fragile? Still, he felt terrible. 'Matter of fact, as he stood there at the window Caleb couldn't imagine feeling any worse. Obviously, imagination wasn't one of Caleb's strong suits. Mara Stevenson Hollis was stirring.
"Whiskey!" bellowed ol' Doc Brown.
Startled, Caleb spun around. Doc Brown was the "go to" general practitioner of Reno. It was common knowledge that if you ran into a medical problem whose solution was a little bit too sensitive for more official channels, ol' Doc was the man to call--and Caleb had.
"Whiskey, boy! 'You deaf?"
Caleb sprinted to the bar, found an unopened bottle of top shelf stuff, and then trotted it back to the doctor. The old man nodded approvingly and gulped down an enormous slug--without benefit of ice, soda or even a glass. Setting the bottle aside, he chuckled at a somewhat surprised Caleb.
"Alright, my boy. She's going to be fine. Sometimes these high-strung fillies get a little overwrought. You just let her sleep awhile and she'll be as good as new."
Caleb breathed a long sigh of relief.
"Oh...and get ice", added Doc.
"Ice? For her forehead?"
"For her bottom, son", corrected Doc. "'Damned thing's still as red as prime rib and twice as tender. Keep an ice pack on her for the next few hours or she won't be able to sit for a week."
Doc Brown retired from the suite with Caleb's heart felt thanks, a hundred-dollar bill and the bottle of whiskey stuffed into his medical bag. Hollis prepared an ice pack and laid it gingerly on his bride's flaming bottom. He eased into a bed side chair, stretched out his long legs and was about to doze off just as Mara opened her eyes.
"You're still here?" she asked disapprovingly.
"I'm afraid so, Mrs. Hollis," he answered wearily.
"Don't call me that," she snapped.
Scowling, she started to scramble out of bed, but a twinge of oddly chilly pain stopped her short. She reached back and touched the ice pack, and then looked at Caleb accusingly. He nodded his agreement.
"I'm sorry about that, darlin'."
"You should be, you bullying son of a buck toothed baboon. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway? Nobody lays a hand on me--ever!"
"Well, I did", he said evenly, "and to answer your first question, I'm your husband. You may not like it much, but there it is. And as long as I am your husband, you'll show me some common courtesy and curb that viper's tongue of yours, or you'll find yourself over my knee again."
"You won't be any thing to me as soon as I can get up out of here and have this fiasco annulled," she shot back.
"Well, my love, that's going to be a little hard to do, seeing as how you aren't leaving this hotel suite anytime soon." Softening a little, Caleb managed a smile. "Look, Mara. I know this has all happened very fast, and you have every right to be skeptical, but believe me, I've got nothing but the highest respect and good intentions for you. I've done ok in this world, and I can't imagine sharing it with anybody half as spectacular as you. But know this: I'm not the men you've known before, and I'm not your father, either. When I give you my word you can take it to the bank."
He leaned forward and looked at her closely, sensing the slightest hint of warming.
"All I ask of you is simple respect in return", he continued, "nothing more and nothing less. But count on this; you are my wife, and you will behave accordingly. If you do, I promise you a life of love and laughter; a life where you'll want for nothing and I'll always have your back. But if you continue to resist...well...you've already had a taste of the consequences, and I'm not a man who gives up easy."
She wanted to scream. She wanted to lash out at this man and tear him to pieces with her bare hands. She found him completely infuriating, and yet there was something about him that was different. Oh, he was handsome in a roguish kind of way, but she'd known handsome men before and they'd always let her down. He had a kind of rough charm, too, but she'd learned that charm was usually a cover for a con, and she was no mark. No, there was something else about him, something deeper; unlike anyone she'd ever met, and she found it more than a little unsettling. Still, he'd done this thing without her permission, and then he'd had the unmitigated gall to lay hands on her, to spank her like a naughty child and she would have her revenge, one way or the other.
Mara's train of thought was interrupted by a knock at the suite's door. Caleb got up to answer it, looking back over his shoulder with an unmistakable message in his eyes: "Behave or else." Mara decided that caution was the better part of valor for the moment and lay back in bed thoughtfully. A hotel attendant entered with a tray of food. Mara realized she hadn't eaten for hours, and the smell of breakfast made her mouth water. Caleb tipped the attendant and closed the door, turning to Mara with a smile.
"Hungry?"
She nodded and said nothing. He carefully set the tray on a bedside table, uncovered a plate and poured her a steaming cup of coffee.
"Go ahead", he grinned. "It's not poison."
She muttered under her breath and was just about to dig into the food when she stopped dead. This was his food. He was trying to trick her. Did he really think that a measly little hotel breakfast was going to divert her attention from what he'd done to her? "Well, bucko," she thought. "You've got another think coming."
Forcing a smile, she raised the plate and then abruptly threw it right at Caleb's head. He managed to duck, and the plate smashed against the wall, throwing eggs and bacon and hotcakes and fruit in all directions.
"You think you can buy me off with this?" she snarled, picking up the coffee urn. "Well, think again you uncouth hunk of desert dirt!"
Caleb retreated, bobbing and weaving toward the bedroom door to avoid the coffee urn and the barrage of cups and glasses and silverware that followed close after it. Closing the door behind him, he had to chuckle a little at the sound of Mara's ranting, punctuated by the crash and clatter breakfast in the bedroom.
"Well," he thought, "nothing worth having ever comes easy."