Chapter Eleven
It had been a very long, brutally hard day. Sam was exhausted and he knew Marnie was too. After her initial outburst, she’d taken the news much better than he thought she would. Together, they’d taken a small band of tourists up along mountain plains and through the valleys and rivers he knew and loved so well.
It was hard to believe this was all coming to an end. Sam had been riding these lands since he was just a kid. They’d been in the family since the first settlers came to the South Island. And now it was over, eroded by time and a world that changed far faster than the old farm could ever have kept up with.
She’d scooted inside before he had a chance to talk to her, and he’d let her be. Now he was hungry, and in addition to getting some tea, he needed to finish signing those forms. He’d been putting it off, but it was inevitable now. If they wanted to claw back anything from the sale of the farm, they needed to take this offer.
He went to the table where he’d left the paperwork that morning. None of it was there. Frowning to himself, Sam hunted around for it. He even went out to the barn to check if he’d left the contracts out there. Nope. Couldn’t find them anywhere. Weird.
He went back indoors and called up the stairs.
“Marnie?”
There was no response. Sam jogged up the stairs and checked the bedrooms as well as the bathroom. No Marnie. She was as mysteriously absent as the paperwork. Frowning to himself, he jogged back downstairs and went out the front and around the back of the house, calling for Marnie.
After about five minutes, she came out from behind the barn looking unmistakeably sheepish. She pushed something into the pocket of her jeans and put her hands behind her back as he got closer.
“What have you been doing, little girl?”
“Nothing,” she lied to his face. They both knew it was a lie the moment she said the word. Sam gritted his teeth. Now really wasn’t the time for her to start acting up, though of course it was almost inevitable that she would. This whole sale was going to be a nightmare on every level. Sam was determined not to let it come between him and Marnie, and he definitely wasn’t going to let it affect his discipline of her.
“I’m looking for the contracts,” he said. “Have you seen them?”
She hesitated for a moment and looked at the ground. “Yeah. I saw them this morning.”
“I mean, have you seen them more recently?”
She shrugged.
Sam let out a growl, reached out and took her by the chin, tipping her head up so he could look into her disobedient little face.
“Where are those papers?”
“You’re not signing them,” she said, finding defiance in the forced eye contact.
“Little girl…”
“No,” she said, trembling with defiance. “We’re not giving this place up. We’re not selling. You’re not signing.”
If only sheer determination could save the place, it would be with them forever, but reality was biting hard and the truth was, the place had been failing since long before either of them had gotten there. It wasn’t their fault that this was all falling apart any more than it had been Marnie’s fault that her city fell apart. He was sorry she had to go through this again, not even a year after the quakes. She was going to be more unsettled than ever, and her behaviour was probably going to reflect that.
“What did you do with the contracts?”
Marnie looked him dead in the eye. “I burned them.”
“You bloody what?” Sam released her jaw and stared at her.
“We’re not selling, so I burned them.”
“Marnie!” He shouldn’t have been shocked, but he was. “You burned them?”
“Yeah,” she said, folding her arms over her chest and tossing her hair. “I set them on fire and then they were burned and now the place isn’t being sold, so I fixed the problem.”
She wasn’t this naive. She knew it wasn’t going to work. It was the small, desperate part of her that had come up with a small, desperate plan to save Terako Treks.
“You know I’m just going to get them to send me another set of forms,” he sighed.
“And I’ll burn those too,” Marnie said. “I’ll burn everything I need to.”
“Arson isn’t the answer, little girl.”
“Well, apparently working hard and trying everything I know how to do wasn’t the answer either,” she said bitterly. “So I’m just going with fire now. It’s easier.”
Again, he understood her frustration, but that didn’t mean he was going to tolerate it. She was in big trouble. He reached out, took her by the hand, and started walking her toward the house. She traipsed after him reluctantly, knowing exactly what she was in for.
Just as they got into the house, the phone started to ring.
“I’m going to take this call, and then I’m going to take my belt to your ass,” he growled sternly, making for the kitchen where the old corded phone still hung on the wall.
“Yes? This is Sam Cooper.”
* * *
She was in so much fucking trouble. Marnie knew burning the contracts wouldn’t help, but it had felt so goddamn good to watch fire lick around the edges of those dreaded papers and then consume the horrible typewritten text that represented the end of her life here with Sam.
Whoever was on the phone had only given her a very brief reprieve. That belt around his waist was thick and mean, and Sam sure had a hell of a lot of frustration to work out on her rear.
Marnie thought briefly about running away, but it was pointless. He’d just catch her and then whip her and that would be even worse than what was going to come anyway. She wasn’t sorry for what she’d done though, and she would do it again if she got the chance.
She’d been working so damn hard to increase the visibility of the place, taking out online ads, making pages, emailing websites; hell, she’d even uploaded Sam’s shirtless whip tricks, though that was more a brag than anything. There weren’t many women who could boast having a man like Sam. She was damn proud of him, even if he was going to put that incredible musculature to use punishing her very soon.
Standing nervously in the corner of the kitchen, Marnie watched Sam’s expression go from angry to confused to cautious… and then a big, broad smile broke over his face.
“Well, that sounds perfect,” he said. “Can’t wait to meet you. Talk soon.”
He hung up and looked at her with that grin that made her heart leap for a dozen different reasons. “Well, little girl,” he said with a smirk. “Seems you’ve been up to quite a lot I don’t know about.”
“Uhm, like what?”
“Apparently some video you posted online has been seen over ten million times. It’s trending? I don’t know what that means, but that was an investor. Someone who wants to not only help us keep this place, but update it.”
Marnie’s jaw dropped. “Are you serious?”
“Mhm. We’re going to meet with the group’s representatives soon,” he said. “If it all works out, we might just get to keep this place after all—assuming you don’t burn it down first.”
“Oh, my god, Sam!” Marnie screamed his name at a pitch pretty close to what only dogs could hear and threw herself into his arms. “We get to stay?”
“We get to stay, little girl,” he confirmed, drawing her into a big bear hug. “We at least get another chance to stay.”
His palm ran down her back and his fingers spread across her ass. “You did it, Marnie. If this works out, you saved Terako.”
“We did it,” she said with a teary grin. “I couldn’t have done it without posting semi-naked pictures of you on the internet.”
“You did what now?” Sam jerked his head back and looked down at her. “Are you serious, Marnie?”
“Well, you were wearing pants,” she grinned. “I mean, it was soft-core at best.”
“Little girl, you are the worst brat in the world, and the best woman any man could ever have by his side,” he declared, kissing her deeply. “And now, I’m going to spank this little ass of yours.”
“Hey, not fair!”
“Very fair,” he said sternly. “Even good little girls deserve spankings, and you’re pretty far from a good little girl.”
“I’m the best little girl,” Marnie declared.
And she was right.