By the time Mason sent Winnie Crawley and the roofers packing and helped Ms. Marble to her car, he was fit to be tied. And if there was any tying to be done, Mason was usually the one doing it. He didn’t like being manipulated, and he had little doubt that Becky had sent the townspeople to his house as part of some harebrained scheme to get rid of him. Well, it wasn’t going to work. She might be able to bend other people to her will, but she wouldn’t bend him. He intended to set things straight with her right now.

But finding someone on hundreds of acres of land wasn’t easy. He bounced along the dirt roads of the Earhart Ranch in his Range Rover for what felt like hours before he spotted her bright-red truck.

He parked on the road and strode across the pasture to the fence she was working on. She was back in wranglers, the snug fit showing off her curvy butt. A butt his hand itched to smack. Repeatedly. But without the jeans. If he was going to spank her, he wanted nothing between her sweet, round bottom and his hand. Before he could let the fantasy unfold, he noticed the blood on her gloves and shirt. He broke into a run. When he got closer to the fence and saw the calf entangled in the barbed wire, he breathed a little easier. But he didn’t like seeing an animal suffer.

“What can I do?” he asked.

She glanced over for only a second before she started issuing orders. “Hold the piece of wire so I can cut it.” He knelt to do her bidding, but doing Becky’s bidding wasn’t easy. “Not that one,” she snapped. “The one next to it.” He lifted the next wire, and she efficiently snipped it. “Now move down to the next barb and hold him steady,” she ordered.

The calf didn’t look like it could move with its legs roped and tied, so Mason only rested a hand on its side. The calf jerked, and Becky barked, “Could you just hold him steady? I didn’t take you for a weakling.”

Mason was not used to being insulted. Especially by a woman who was already on his shit list. His anger simmered down deep as he followed her orders and she finished clipping the wire off. Once the calf was free, she didn’t untie it. Instead, she went to pick it up. It was the final straw.

“I’ll get him.” Mason physically moved her out of the way before he hefted the calf into his arms. “Where to?”

“We need to get him to the ranch.” Becky headed to her truck. He expected her to fold down the tailgate so he could put the cow in the bed. Instead, she opened the passenger’s side. “You’ll have to hold him.”

He understood why he had to hold the calf when Becky backed up and took off over the field. She drove like a maniac.

“Would you slow down!” he barked as the truck dipped into a pothole. If he wasn’t wearing a cow as a seatbelt, he would’ve been catapulted right through the windshield.

She glanced over and grinned. “What? Does a little off-roading scare you, city boy?”

Mason gritted his teeth and kept his comments to himself as she continued to drive like she was at a monster truck rally—hitting more potholes than she missed. It was a miracle that they made it to the ranch in one piece. As soon as Becky pulled up front, she jumped out of the truck and started hollering. Ranch hands came out of the woodwork. One took the calf from Mason, another headed over to Becky.

“What happened, Miss Becky?”

“A calf got tangled in a fence in the pasture just behind the bunkhouse.”

The man looked confused. “But we don’t graze the herd there.”

Becky ignored the statement. “Just make sure that the wounds get washed thoroughly, Jess. And call the vet if they look too deep. I’m going to wash up. I’ll be out in the barn to check on him later.” She turned and headed inside without one word to Mason.

No thanks for the help.

No go to hell.

No nothing.

As a partner in his law firm and as a sexual dominant, he understood giving orders. But when his orders were followed, he made sure to show gratitude. He hesitated for only a moment before he followed Becky inside.

The ranch house was so large and spread out that it took him a while to locate her bedroom. It looked just as he expected it to. No pretty lace. No girlie prints. The colors were bold and dark. The furniture was solid and massive. The bed was unmade, and there were clothes and boots scattered all over the floor. He spotted the pair of pink satin and lace panties she’d been wearing the night before. A few feet away was a matching bra. The sound of a shower pulled his attention to the closed door to the right. It wasn’t locked. Obviously, no one dared interrupt Princess Becky in her bath.

He dared.

He opened the door without knocking and walked in. She was already in the shower. Her bloody clothes were piled in a corner, and behind the shower curtain she was singing a Miranda Lambert song. Badly. Her voice was off key, and she substituted words. And even though he was pissed, he couldn’t help being amused as he stripped off his bloody t-shirt and tossed it in the corner with her clothes. He turned on the sink and scrubbed the blood off his hands and forearms. He had just finished toweling off when the shower stopped and the curtain slid back.

He got a glimpse of small perfect breasts with pretty rose tips and a strip of dark between toned pale thighs before she turned to grab a towel. Still, the image was seared into his brain and caused him to harden beneath the fly of his jeans. He was surprised by his reaction. He had seen a lot of naked women, much more voluptuous and sexy than Becky, but none who had got him as hard as a fourteen-year-old with his first Playboy.

Even after she wrapped a towel around her body, he struggled to keep his breath even and his desire from raging out of control. Maybe it was the long, toned legs that would perfectly encase a man’s waist, or the soft, pale shoulders that begged for his kisses, or the lush, pink lips that opened in startled surprise when she finally turned and saw him.

“What are you doing?” She pointed a finger at the door. “Get out. Now!”

The snappish order brought back the anger that he’d been fighting since leaving his house, and mixed with the desire that pooled in his loins, he did something he never did. He moved to dominate her without any agreement between them. He backed her against the wall and clamped one hand on her trim waist. The other he fisted in her wet hair, yanking until her head snapped back and her eyes locked with his.

“There are a few things we need to get straight, Rebecca.”