The Blacksmith's Bride

Patricia Green

Description

Sunny Winslow knows exactly what she wants in a man. When she meets the blacksmith in her new home, Abel Armstrong, she's immediately hooked. Unfortunately, her mother has other plans for her that do not include a blacksmith. Her mother is determined to tie Sunny to a rich town counselor. Sunny is desperate to escape the counselor, so she embarks on a series of schemes to get what she wants.

Abel Armstrong has some skeletons in his closet. In the year of 1873, it's quite the scandal to be a divorced man. Over the course of the last ten years, he's had to work very hard to get his reputation back. Meeting Sunny is like a breath of fresh air, but he can't afford to throw caution to the wind and force their joining by doing something disreputable.

Can spankings teach Sunny to have some patience and trust that Abel's way is the right way? And, can Abel deal with Sunny's impulsive scheming and keep his standing in the community intact?

Sujets

• Humor
• Alpha (ethology)
• Inheritance
• BDSM
• Brother
• Family
• Discipline
• Ranch
• Suspense
• Bondage et discipline, domination et soumission et sado-masochisme
• Western

Informations

• Publié par: Blushing Books Publications
• Date de parution: 06 juin 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781627504409
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Blacksmith’sBride
(The Sons of Johnny Hastings)
By
Patricia Green
©2014 byBlushing Books® and Patricia Green
 
Allrights reserved.
Nopart of the book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by anyinformation storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing fromthe publisher.
Publishedby Blushing Books®,
a subsidiary of
ABCDGraphics and Design
977Seminole Trail #233
Charlottesville,VA 22901
  The trademark Blushing Books®
is registered in the US Patent and Trademark Office.
Green,Patricia
TheBlacksmith’s Bride
eBook ISBN: 978-1-62750-4409
CoverArt by ABCD Graphics and Design
Thisbook is intended for adults only . Spanking and other sexual activitiesrepresented in this book are fantasies only, intended for adults. Nothing inthis book should be interpreted as Blushing Books' or the author's advocatingany non-consensual spanking activity or the spanking of minors.
Table of contents:
  TOC \o "1-3" \n <![endif]--> Chapter 1 :   Licentious Behavior
Chapter 2 :   Lying
Chapter 3 :   Jealousy
Chapter 4 :   Scheming
Chapter 5 :   Deceit
Chapter 6 :   Manipulation
Chapter 7 :   Lust
Chapter 8 :   Love
Chapter 9 :   Begotten
BlushingBooks Newsletter
BlushingBooks
<![endif]-->  
Chapter 1
Licentious Behavior
“Yes, Mother.”
“And don’t let me catch you fussing with your gloves. A lady’s handsshould sit calmly in her lap.”
“Yes, Mother.”
“Be quiet. None of that giggling you’re wont to do. It’s quite annoying.”
“Yes, Mother.” Sunny sighed quietly, wondering when things had gotten soout of hand. They’d been at Aunt Elizabeth’s house for less than an hour. Allof these strictures had been drilled into Sunny’s head over and over again, andthen repeated a dozen more times on the train, coach, and wagon rides to AuntElizabeth’s farm outside Carrollton. Who did Mother think she would be fooling?Pretentiousness wasn’t going to make them any friends in their new home.
“You may speak when spoken to, of course.”
A little temper began to show. “Of course, Mother.”
“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, young lady.”
Sunny thought better about answering. She was not going to say she was sorry. Her mother was a harridan, andSunny resented it through and through. If only her father hadn’t been in that huntingaccident. She missed Daddy so much! There was no one like him. How they used tolaugh together.
Something had died in Sunny when she lost her father. But, she remindedherself, Mother had lost her husband. That had to be taken into account.
Softening toward her parent, Sunny reached out and squeezed the olderwoman’s hand as they unpacked their trunk in the small room they were to share.She got a squeeze back, but nothing was said, and eventually her mother leftthe room.
The house was full of laughter, noise, squabbles. Sunny soaked it up asshe put away her things. Having six other young people around was going to takesome getting used to. Being an only child made for a lot of quiet afternoonsreading or whispering gossip with friends during afternoon tea.
“Sunny!” her mother called. “You’ll be late to supper. Hurry up!”
“Yes, Mother.” Sighing deeply, Sunny hurried out to the big dining room thatheld a large, finely finished table. There were giant platters of food setabout and a sideboard with more. A family of eight sure ate a lot, and now, ofcourse, there were Sunny and her mother to feed as well.
Raymond Taggart, Sunny’s uncle by marriage, reached out to take thehands of his children to the left and right of him, and all joined hands aroundthe table.
“Lord,” he prayed, “bless this food that our hands have brought to tableby your grace. Give us strength and patience. And help us welcome Lila andSunny to our home with love. In Jesus’ name, Amen.”
The Taggart family immediately went to town on the food, passing bowlsand dishes, chattering away, while Sunny and her mother sat, a littledumbstruck, at the commotion and lack of decorum.
“Eat,” Aunt Elizabeth told them, as she passed a platter of friedchicken. “You’re both too skinny. What do they feed you in Kansas City?”
With a sniff, Sunny’s mother took the platter and genteelly helpedherself. Although Sunny’s parents hadn’t been rich with servants galore, theyhad had Deborah, the middle-aged housekeeper. She did the cooking and much ofthe cleaning, leaving Sunny and her mother time to go a-calling and getinvolved with church activities and charitable causes. But now, of course, thathad all changed. Sunny’s mother had moved them away from Kansas City to theTaggarts in Carrollton where Mother’s sister, Aunt Elizabeth, lived. TheTaggart family would house them decently and give them respectability in thecommunity. It was a fresh start.
Sunny smiled inwardly, watching her mother resist any temptation to letdown her guard for even a moment. For herself, though, she was ready to diveinto the melee, despite her mother’s dirty looks.
“Pass the biscuits, Ray-Jon,” she told her cousin on the left. “Why, Imight even have two!”
Across the table, her mother choked.
* * *
Church services were over. The sermon had been on licentiousness. Abelwondered if it was licentious of him to be interested in the young women whocame to the church and engaged in the after-church potluck. Unmarried womenwith eagle-eyed mothers brought all their best cooking creations to tempt theunmarried men and get them interested in courting. It was basically the samedance every week, and Abel, at age forty, was more an observer these days. Overthe past two years, after a long time being relegated to the rubbish heap, Abelwas seen as an acceptable potential suitor. The attention was flattering, buthe didn’t want to take on a project. He’d done that when he’d married Lorelei,for all the good it had done him. She’d run off with some actor in Dallas aftercursing Abel for being unexciting. He’d had to do the unthinkable and divorceher. That got him ostracized in Carrollton for more than eight years, though ithad eventually blown over. But the divorce had been necessary. Once Lorelei wasinstalled in the acting troupe, and it became clear that the troupe was looseand unsavory, she was irredeemable in Abel’s eyes. Lorelei had been pretty,though not a virgin, when he married her. She wouldn’t say who her prior loverhad been, but they were married, so Abel, though disappointed and a bitjealous, accepted her the way she was. Abel had cared for her, but he’d neverbeen in love with her. He’d wanted to, had tried to, but, in the end, he wastoo conservative, and she was unwilling to compromise. When and if he gotmarried again, it would be to someone who was ready to settle down and be awife and partner. The young women of his acquaintance were flighty andundisciplined. That wasn’t the kind of girl for him.
These days, flirtations involved widows, mostly with children of theirown. Abel didn’t much mind that, but he’d yet to find one he could fall in lovewith. The chemistry just wasn’t right. He kept giving it time, but his time wasrunning out.
As he put on his hat against the afternoon sun, he observed a game ofblind-man’s-bluff a group of young women, somewhere between seventeen andtwenty-one years old, were playing. They were laughing and giggling, flittingaround each other and trying to confuse the one with the blindfold over hereyes. She was laughing as hard as the others and her attempts to tag one ofthem were vigorous but fruitless. Her hair was dark blonde with sunlit streaks,and her mouth was a rosebud, pink and tender. The girl’s laugh trilled in theair like the crystal bells the ladies played at church concerts. She had a finefigure, too, petite and perfectly proportioned. A woman that size would make Abelfeel like a giant among men.
Eventually, the woman tagged someone, and then fell to the ground withbreathless giggles, pulling off her blindfold as she fell. Her eyes were asblue as cornflowers, glowing with youth and vitality. Abel pegged her age atnineteen or twenty. And, best of all, she was new around here. He’d never seenher before. It seemed unlikely that anyone was already courting her…unless shewas maybe already married. It was common enough for women of such an age to bemarried, some with children already. She probably wouldn’t know about hissocietal scar.
He tried to make out if she had a ring on her finger, but he couldn’tquite tell.
His friend Bruce sauntered up, offering him a glass of lemonade, which Abeltook and absentmindedly sipped at. “Now that’s a pretty sight,” Bruce said witha smile, as they watched the girls playing.
“Yes, indeed.”
“A single man like you could have his pick, Abel. I don’t know why youhaven’t settled down yet. It’s been nearly ten years.”
Looking at the new girl, he was wondering the same thing, but it didn’ttake him long to remind himself that a giggly girl barely out of the schoolroomwas hardly the right mate for man o