Shana's twenty-fourth birthday hovers on the horizon like a death sentence. She's the oldest eligible woman in Jackson Settlement, and she dreads the day her guardian, Uncle Daman, announces her marriage. Her feelings for her widowed uncle are complicated, especially because they aren't related by blood. Daman is a strict man who wields a mighty paddle, but Shana has grown to love him wholeheartedly in the years after her parents' death. To her surprise, he proposes they get married. Of course, he's upfront with her about his expectations in a wife. If she marries him, she'll be subject to spankings and more intimate discipline when she misbehaves. Will Shana accept his terms of marriage? Even worse, will the threats looming outside the settlement barriers doom their relationship before it even has a chance to begin?