Larkin's Cowboy by Kira Barcelo
When Larkin Gregory arrives at her sister's house in the (very) small town of Santo Pueblo Texas, her intention is to take a Thanksgiving vacation break from her life in New York and then return to the city to patch things up with her boyfriend Eric. In spite of the fact that Larkin's sister, brother-in-law, niece and nephew are her only remaining close family, she KNOWS she could never live outside the hustle and bustle of New York. She doesn't think much of small town life. There are no Starbucks within a hundred miles, and the biggest form of entertainment on the weekend is dancing to country tunes at the local bar. It only gets worse when, at Larkin's first visit to the bar with her sister and brother-in-law, she goes outside to catch a breath of fresh air and stumbles across a young woman bare-bottomed across her boyfriend's knee, getting her tail tanned. When she reports the sight to her sister, to Larkin's shock, her sister shrugs it off and tells Larkin matter-of-factly that sometimes she gets spanked too. Larkin decides then and there that it's back to the big city for her, no doubt about it.
But then she meets real-life cowboy Adam McLeod, and her perspective starts changing. She's not exactly interested in him, but one dark night, bored, she decides to check out his ranch she's heard so much about, and he catches her snooping. Adam is a widower and he makes no effort to hide the fact that he's interested in Larkin. He also makes no effort to hide the fact that he shares the small-town "values" that so shocked Larkin, and that he has a pretty clear idea of what should happen to snoopy trespassers.
Can Larkin learn to love the gruff cowboy, even if it means an occasional bare bottomed spanking? Can she maybe even learn to love the spankings? As Larkin and Adam come to terms with where their lives are going, they both have the best Thanksgiving ever.
