Page 13 of Keeping His Brat

Already the congestion was rebuilding, and he was trying not to be irritated at her about it. It wasn’t really her fault he’d caught a cold, even if she was the reason he’d been out in the storm. And there was a good chance he’d already had something percolating in his system considering how fast it had popped up.

Besides, the point of punishment was to clear the slate, so it really wasn’t fair to be irritated at her now. Except apparently his emotions didn’t understand that because he’d taken far too much pleasure in the thought of her getting a cold shower.

Well, he couldn’t help how he was feeling. He’d just have to keep an eye on it to make sure he wasn’t unfair to her because of it. And in the meantime, he’d hoped it was a mild cold and nothing that would slow him down. That was really his big concern.

Winter was the slower part of the year. Technically. There was less they could do outside because of the unpredictable weather and biting cold, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t still plenty of work to be done. Trekking out to check on the herds was time consuming and difficult, but it had to be done fairly often in case the automatic waterer froze up.

Inside, the hands concentrated on catching up with maintenance and repairs. In the garage, the machinery and farm vehicles would be getting the same kind of work. All of the leather gear, and there was a lot of it, had to be thoroughly gone over and repaired, sometimes replaced. There was painting, and building, and cleaning –all of which kept them busy.

Some of the staff used the winter months as a time to take vacations too, so they were usually down a couple of hands. Sometimes, during really bad weather, the roads were impassable. It left Sam and Charlie on their own to take care of the animals, but that was rare. Usually at least a couple managed to straggle in, since most owned trucks that could manage almost any terrain.

When Sam wasn’t pitching in with all of that, or finding new things that had to be done, he was dealing with inventory and budgets. There were stacks of paperwork that he needed to catch up on from the busy season when he was too exhausted to bother. The lawyer took care of the financial end, but he couldn’t do his job if Sam wasn’t ready with the information.

All of that aside, winter was almost over now. Well, at least they were heading towards March. Spring meant babies. In less than a month, maybe even sooner, the calves would stop dropping. The heavily pregnant cows would have to be separated and moved to a smaller field with a hut to warm the newborns.

Some of the births would need an assist. Sometimes the mothers rejected the calves which would then need to be hand fed until they could be sold to people with more time to raise them.

It was exhausting just thinking about it, and it was important that everything was prepared and ready to make that time easier. Being sick was going to royally fuck up his carefully planned schedule. He considered, and not for the first time, that he needed an assistant.

His second-in-command was starting to think about retiring. The last thing Ben wanted was to take on more work. The man was experienced, and he’d worked there for years, but he wasn’t much interested in managing anything. He would probably be thrilled to be demoted because he never felt comfortable telling anyone what to do anyway.

And Mike, the only other hand Sam felt he could trust with authority, didn’t care much for people. He liked animals and he was near brilliant at keeping the machinery running, but that was all he was interested in. Sam had offered him the job first, with added pay, and been rejected on the spot.

“Thanks, but no thanks, Sam. Not my type of thing at all. I’ll just stick with the tractors,” he said. “Besides, you want a young man for that. I’m past sixty now. Too old to learn new work.”

So, he’d given it to Ben. Ben had signed up, reluctantly, but he just had no aptitude for it. Most of the time he just went running to Sam to report the problem instead of dealing with it. He’d manage alright if Sam needed a couple of sick days, but there’d be a whole mess of problems for Sam to unwind when he got back.

But finding someone for the job would have to wait. For now, he had enough on his plate and the morning was passing by quickly while he stood there with his coffee.

He sighed and set the empty cup down so he could get dressed. He was just pulling on his boots when Charlie came out of the bathroom. She was scowling, but being careful not to direct it at him, as she grabbed her clothes and pulled them on.

He stood up and went over to her, tugging her around so he could see her face. “I love you, Charlie girl.”

She fought to keep the attitude. He could see it in her face, but finally she sighed and stepped into his arms. “I love you too, mean Daddy.”

He chuckled as he hugged her up tight against him. “Are you going to stand here and pretend you don’t like it when I’m mean?” She buried her face against his chest without saying anything, but he heard her muttering something and laughed again.

“Yeah, that’s what I thought.” His hand slid down to squeeze her ass. Judging by the way she jumped she was still sore from the night before, which was exactly how he wanted her. “You must be feeling sore this morning if you’re not arguing with me.”

Her head tipped back, and she scowled at him. “See, this is what I’m talking about.Mean.Daddy.”

“Uh-huh, well you’ll see how mean I can be if you don’t get your chores done before I come home. I’ll be checking and you don’t want to be in any more trouble than you’re already in, darlin’. Trust on that.” He gave her ass another squeeze, purposely rough this time, just to remind her.

Charlie squeaked. “Okay, okay! I’ll get it all done, but before you fill my whole day with punishment, I do need to remind you that I’ve got assignments I have to work on too.”

Hehadforgotten that.

Charlie was back in school, working towards her doctorate. And while she was doing most of her classes online from home, she had a pretty heavy course load to deal with. There was a schedule pinned to the fridge with a plastic magnet that she kept updated with class assignments, so he could schedule ranch work around it.

Not that she was essential on the ranch right now. He’d dropped her down to two days a week, and that was only because she enjoyed the work. The truth was, except for the busiest seasons or when they were short-staffed, Charlie’s help wasn’t necessary. But she was half owner, and the ranch was important to her. She wanted to be part of things and he understood that.

But work, and especially not punishment work, wasn’t more important than her classes. For today, he’d switch things around to make it all work.

“Right, you have a couple of research papers. I forgot. Okay, new plan. You’re going to do a fifty/fifty schedule today.”

She frowned, tilting her head in confusion. “What’s that mean?”

“Clean for an hour, then school for an hour. Repeat until you finish both, or until I come back to check on you.”

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