The Obedient Wife by Carolyn Faulkner Read Free Book Online

woman, and not a bean-pole .  He liked well defined feminine areas, and he thought that most men did, regardless of what the fashionistas said.
    She fit the bill most perfectly.  Probably better than any other woman he’d ever met.  He liked her bratty spunk, although it needed curbing, badly, and he was just the man to do it. 
    Sean had always been, necessarily, careful about how much of his interest in discipline he revealed to a woman at first, because some were completely offended by it, and he knew he had to tread delicately.
    However, he got a vibe from Ginger that told him he was definitely on the right track. He’d had other instances in his life when he had to trust his instincts - life or death situations - and he’d always lived through them.  If she rejected him, he’d live through that.  But, damn, she was awfully close to perfect for him, and he’d never felt this way about a woman in so short a time.
    It appeared that Scott had been right.  Sean owed him a case of beer if this worked out.  He knew that he wasn’t the only one being fixed up this weekend; Charlene had been busy on her end, too, to get Ginger there.  He could end up owing her a case - make that a bottle - of Grand Marnier for her efforts on his behalf.
    As he watched her, he realized that she was slowly drifting out towards the middle of the lake.  Now, Tunk Lake wasn’t the busiest of lakes, even in the dead of summer.  It was tucked well out of the way of the usual tourist’s radar, thankfully.  That didn’t mean that he was going to let her get in too much further over her head.
    So he swam towards her, not wanting to frighten her but determined to get her to come closer to shore by whatever means necessary.
    “Ginger?” he said as he put one hand on her waist, pushing her ahead of him back towards the beach.
    Of course, as gentle as he had tried to be, it was inevitable that he startled her out of position.
    “Sorry.  I just wanted to get you to come in a bit; you were starting to look like you were making a break for the opposite shore.”
    “Oh. Thank you.”  Embarrassed when she wasn’t sure why she should be, Ginger swam towards the light he’d put near their towels.
    “Getting cold?” he asked solicitously when she hugged herself once she could touch bottom.
    She shook her head.  “No, not really.”
    Sean kept a cautious distance, as much as he wanted to swim over there and take her into his arms.  After a short, only slightly uncomfortable silence, he asked, “So how many tickets do you have?”
    She burst out laughing, and he adored the sound of it washing over him and echoing off the water.  “As if I’m going to tell you!  What am I, stupid?”
    Suddenly he wasn’t a few feet away, but right in front of her, blocking her view across the lake and gaining her immediately and complete attention.
    “No, I’m just your friendly local cop who’s trying to watch out for you.  If you don’t pay those, you could end up with a big fine, and jail time isn’t unheard of . . .”
    She bit her lip, looking alarmed.  “You’re just trying to scare me.”
    “No, I’m trying to get you to do what you should have done the first time you got a ticket:  pay it.”
    Ginger cocked her head to one side.  “And what if I thought the cop was wrong?”
    “Then you should have challenged the ticket and had your day - or days, assuming you think that all of them were undeserved - in court.”  His tone conveyed his severe doubts about her innocence, for some reason.
    “Of course they were all undeserved!  I was only going seventy-five -”
    “Let me guess, in a sixty five mile and hour zone?”
    Ginger huffed angrily.  “I was the slowest car on 95!  I was being passed like I was tied . . .”
    The air suddenly went out of her argument as soon as he leveled that look at her.  The one that said that she should have been a good girl and taken her punishment, because ten miles over the limit was still