I never expected the contract I signed for this frontier marriage to turn every word I spoke into a test of obedience. Bram Underwood states each rule once and never repeats it. The hitch in his step has never once slowed him down, and the small house leaves me nowhere to breathe without wondering if I have broken another.
The first hard freeze looms over the ranch like a judgment, and my sharp questions keep coming even though I know the price of defiance. The way he answers them makes yielding feel both terrifying and necessary, as if the ranch itself depends on how far I will bend.
He finds me in the barn and says the words that stop my heart. Turn and bend over the saddle rack.
