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pretty bad. Worse than bad. And generally speaking, me and Mattie, Cat, and Jake got along really well with one another. There was no so-called sibling rivalry between us. We were like a band of little wolf pups roving around in our happy little pack, out exploring, having fun, and getting in trouble together.”
    “So, who decided on the paddling then?” Tal asked, interested. She saw a glimmer in Wyatt’s gray eyes.
    “Actually, I did. My dad sat and talked to me. He put what I did to Cat into my framework of understanding. What if he or my mom had told me that Santa didn’t exist when I was five or six years old? Because at that age, I fully believed in Santa Claus. He made me go back to that time and see how I might have felt if they’d ripped that reality away from me. Would I have been devastated? Of course I would have. I got his example, big-time. I told him I’d probably be crying like Cat was crying. I believed with all my heart Santa Claus was real at that age. I wrote letters to him, to the North Pole. It was then I honestly realized what I’d done to my sister, and I hadn’t before that. I felt like cow dung at that point. I asked Dad if there was any way I could fix it, put it back together again for Cat. He shook his head and said no. That I had destroyed her faith in what she believed in. My dad asked me what my punishment should be for doing that to her. I told him he should paddle my britches. That I really deserved it.”
    “Your dad is a remarkable parent,” Tal said. “Making you own up to what you did. Talk about a teachable moment.”
    Wyatt smiled a little, finishing up with her foot and then running his hand lightly over the injured ankle, which was now looking normal in size once more. He opened up a jar of Gram Bell’s herbal ointment and slathered it gently around her ankle. It had a nice, citrusy fragrance. “Yeah, he was. He’s a very black-and-white kind of man. There’s right, and there’s wrong. He’s a typical cowboy with a code of morals, values, and integrity that means something to him. He lives by that code. That’s the way we were all raised. You didn’t lie, you didn’t cheat, you were honest to a fault, your word was your bond, and you followed the Golden Rule.”
    “Why did you choose being paddled by your dad when he’d never done that to you before?” Tal asked, holding his gray gaze. Wyatt, freshly showered, was wearing a black T-shirt with a pair of loose blue pajama bottoms.
    “I made Cat cry. I figured if I got paddled, I’d cry too. Tit for tat.”
    “Did you choose it out of guilt for what you’d done to her?”
    “Yep,” Wyatt murmured, standing up. He turned off the overhead lamp, throwing the room into semidarkness. The light of the moon sneaked in around the dark green drapes at the window, allowing him to see where he was going. “Dad had me bend over his knee and he used his hand on my butt.” Wyatt pulled the covers down. “It really didn’t hurt that much. He didn’t hit me that hard.”
    “It just hurt your pride?” Tal asked, getting off the bed and pulling the covers down on her side of it.
    Chuckling, Wyatt said, “Yep. I had a heap of pride, I discovered. My dad worked that out of me, too. He told me there was a huge difference between pride and having confidence. He taught me the difference.”
    Tal slipped into bed, watching as Wyatt sat down and maneuvered himself around. “I think my dad will love Hank. They have a lot in common.”
    “I think so too,” Wyatt said, gathering Tal into his arms as he lay down. Sliding his arm beneath her neck, his other hand guiding her hip toward him so they lay face-to-face with one another, he gave a growl of satisfaction. “Now, this is nice,” he murmured, leaning over to kiss her hair, which she’d taken down. Some of the strands were crinkled from the humidity in the bathroom.
    “Mmm,” Tal murmured, sliding her arm across his hard belly, feeling his muscles contract as she