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He fisted her hair into a ponytail, pulling it out of the neckline of her robe. Instead of letting go of her hair, he wrapped the strands around his fist. His strong hold on her hair made her twist around and look up into his eyes.
“This is exactly how I pictured you.”
“Pictured me?”
His eyes held so much intense fire as he said, “Yes. I thought about how I would punish you the moment I would get my hands on you again.”
“Punish me?”
He suddenly let go of her hair and took a step back. Even though Frankie bolted into the room like a hurricane, she didn’t miss him whisper to himself, “Tonight.”
As if she wasn’t flustered enough. Now he had to speak of punishing her tonight. Thoughts of Owen tying her up and having his way with her made her cream her panties.
“I’ll go change in the bathroom so we can go out for breakfast.”
After changing into a dark blue skinny jeans and a long sleeved white shirt she stepped out of the bathroom. Owen instantly rewarded her for her choice of clothing when his jaw dropped.
He’d always liked her curves but she felt good knowing that he seemed to be even more enthralled by her figure now she carried some extra weight.
Tara had gained twenty pounds since she’d left Winter Peaks. A counselor from one of the shelters she had stayed in Kansas had said that she wasn’t in touch with her emotions and therefore eating the pain away of losing her mother.
Tara had been eighteen and just lost her mother, she was running away from her deranged father and had just found out she was pregnant with the love of her life—whose heart she’d broken just five months ago. She had been working her ass off; taking on three jobs so she was able to rent a lousy room above an old lady’s garage for after the baby was born.
If she wanted to have three chocolate brownies after her PBJ dinner, then she would freaking do so—no matter what that counselor said.
“It’s still nice out, but maybe we can already shop for some winter clothes for you girls?”
Frankie squealed with delight and said, “Yay! Even more clothes!”
Owen buying them clothes, buying a house, renovating rooms like he was a proper Santa Claus made Tara’s head pound. She wasn’t ready for him barging into their lives and taking over. Even though she was enormously grateful for everything he did for them, Tara still had her pride.
It pained her to think, but maybe deep down she wanted to be the one to give Frankie all of this. She had tried to give her daughter exactly this kind of life that Owen handed to them on a silver platter. Unfortunately, life had thrown a curveball at every turn and they ended up in that horrible neighborhood in Las Vegas.
“We’re going shopping, we’re going shopping…,” Frankie singsonged as she ran down the stairs before going out the front door.
Tara took a deep breath. This was just another phase she had to go through. She would get back on her feet. First thing she needed to do after breakfast was finding a job. Tourists came all year round to Winter Peaks, but during wintertime one could walk over the helmeted heads on the slippery cobblestone sidewalks as the tourists slid to the ski lifts. There had to be a job of some kind she could do around here. She’d done waitressing, reception work, delivered packages, and even worked in a factory on the assembly line cleaning out guts of fishes. She had taken on everything as long as it brought in money for food on the table and it didn’t endangered her or Frankie.
“That’s okay. I’ll think of something… You don’t need to buy us any more things,” she said as she took the first step down the stairs.
“What do you mean? I’ll buy—”
She stopped mid-stairs and said, “We don’t need your charity, Owen.”
He turned around a couple of steps below hers so his eyes were right on her level. “That’s what you think? That this is charity? Frankie is my daughter, too, Tara. I don’t want her to freeze to death in one of those thin jackets when one of our snowstorms takes you by surprise again.”
She narrowed her eyes at him throwing that horrible day back into her face. If he hadn’t found her sitting on a bench on one of the mountains trails, she’d probably frozen to death. How dare he use that against her?
“That happened one time! I just moved out here and my mom had been away all week for a job. How was I supposed to know how cold it could get in the matter of the flick of a wrist? It had been sunny and warm all morning!”
“Well, now you do know how things work in the mountains. You always check the weather report and you always dress accordingly. I’m taking Frankie shopping and you can do whatever you like.”
Frankie’s golden brown curls popped up from the front door entry and said, “Are you coming? My belly is making funny noises!”
Owen left her standing on the stairs as he took Frankie’s hand. During the ten-minute walk, Tara listened in on Frankie telling Owen everything about her favorite animal: the pangolin.
“So they look like anteaters?” Owen asked.
Frankie nodded. “Yeah, but they have an armor of scales. And they curl up into a ball whenever they are threatened.”
