Rein In (Willow Bay Stables Book 3) Read online

  Rein In

  Copyright © 2016 Anne Jolin

  Cover Design: Sara Eirew

  Cover Photo: Diego Durden

  Cover Models: Carmen Delgado & Roberto Ruiz

  Editors: PREMA Editing

  Formatting: Champagne Formats

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by an information and retrieval system without express written permission from the Author/Publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Playlist

  Epigraph

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Epilogue

  Other Books

  Acknowledgements

  About The Author

  Chasing Rhodes

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Good Girl, Bad Boy – Florida Georgia Line

  From the Ground Up – Dan + Shay

  I Get to Love You - Ruelle

  Break up with Him – Old Dominion

  Little Monster – Royal Blood

  Skeletons – Eli Young Band

  How It’s Done – Maren Morris

  Like Jesus Does – Eric Church

  Different for Girls (feat. Elle King) – Dierks Bentley

  Lonely Day – System Of A Down

  Half Broke Heart – Cam

  Soldier – Gavin DeGraw

  I Want You to Want Me – Dwight Yoakam

  Ruin – Shawn Mendes

  California Sunrise – Jon Pardi

  War Paint – Madeline Merlo

  Lead Me Out of the Dark – Crown The Empire

  Edmonton, Alberta

  2007

  A CAR DOOR SLAMMED SHUT followed by the eerie screech of tires.

  Resting an arm on the back of the couch, I parted the blinds with one of my fingers to reveal the street in the southeast corner that doubled as our front yard.

  I squinted into the dark. The single streetlight provided little clarity, even if it had been illuminated, which it wasn’t. Something moved along the curb.

  Something wicked snaked down my spine, and my eyes—still unadjusted—seemed frozen at the sight. I rose to my feet, stalking to the front door and nearly ripped it from its hinges.

  It was only one of many things that needed fixing in this rotting house.

  Stepping into the yard, on dirt where there should have been grass, the blurred heap moved again and the chill in my blood turned to ice.

  The moonlight caught the shine from her auburn hair as her head rolled to face me.

  The next forty-eight minutes and thirty-seven seconds would remain committed to memory and to every nightmare I would plead against for eternity.

  I broke against the buckle in my knees as I ran toward the curb, collapsing into the mud next to where they’d dumped her like the night’s trash.

  The wetness of the ground seeped into my bones within seconds, and my gut was torn to shreds by the knife of guilt.

  My hands roamed her broken body as the hollow in my voice rattled the numbers of our address to the 911 operator on the phone tucked between my shoulder and ear.

  Her breath was shallow, if that, and bruises tarnished each feature of her pale skin. The white of her dress was stained in dirt and caked blood that suggested they’d had her for hours. I followed my assessment down her legs and through the filth saw the pale pink shade she’d painted her toes only yesterday.

  She was barefoot and bleeding in my arms when the paramedics arrived.

  I stood as they strapped her to the gurney.

  The fear in me snapped into something sinister.

  They’d waged war.

  A war I would finish.

  “You can ride with us to the hospital.” The female paramedic nodded to the back of the ambulance.

  I shook my head, backing up toward the driveway that led down the side of the house.

  “Hey, kid. Don’t,” the male paramedic yelled, but it was too late.

  He was too late.

  Throwing a leg over the seat of my motorcycle, I put the gearshift in neutral and squeezed the clutch with my left hand all the way to the grip.

  The lights from the ambulance emulated chaos as they reflected off the black monster between my legs. The sight looked a little like fire burning in my heart.

  Pressing the start button with my right thumb, I let the starter motor turn over until the engine fired.

  I could barely hear its pipes over the blood pounding between my ears.

  The paramedic yelled again, but I only saw red as I shot from the driveway into the shadows.

  Her blood on my hands screamed in my soul each time I throttled back.

  Not soon enough, my tires spun gravel in the lot as I spotted his bike under the neon lights.

  The thundering underneath me dulled when I put the kickstand down and stalked toward the barking sound of hell.

  My boots halted abruptly. I glanced sideways into the back window of the car I was passing. Something flickered in my rage and my feet kept moving, my eyes scanning the parking lot, landing on a discarded red brick. My fingers sought it out, wrapping around the jagged ridges that bit into my palm as I squeezed it, before launching it through the glass.

  The car alarm roared, and the fury in my bones growled in response as I retrieved the crowbar from the backseat. I spun it slowly, once and then twice. My right fist adjusted to the weight of the steel in its grasp, and my knuckles welcomed the addition as they turned white with exertion.

  The Harley boot attached to my left foot met with the wood of the bar door and kicked it open. I vaguely heard the sound of it crashing against the wall as my glare narrowed on a table against the back wall.

  My nostrils flared, smelling the stench of stale beer and desperation on the floorboards. I swiped a bottle off the bar, cradling its long neck in the fingers of my left hand.

  The seconds dragged through the air in slow motion as I walked his way.

  Without hesitation, I reached up and broke the bottle over his head.

  The men around him shoved to their feet, but as he bled, he held out a hand to them and shook his head.

  I kicked over the back of his chair and landed a blow with my boot to his kidney. He rolled to his side, and the bite of the crowbar bit his shoulder.

  Someone screamed behind us.

  Grabbing a fistful of his hair, I pulled his head into the air and broke it over my knee.

  His lackeys stepped forward, but again he waved them off.

  I shoved the butt of the steel under his chin and lifted his face to mine.

  He smiled at me through the blood in his teeth.


  I smiled back, and then I cracked the crowbar over his head.

  The sound of a gun behind me cocked somewhere in the pounding of my head. “Drop the weapon.”

  Red was pouring from a wound in the bastard’s head where he’d collapsed onto the floorboards, and I could feel his blood dripping from my hands as I allowed the steel to slip from my hands.

  “Put your hands behind your back and kneel on the ground.”

  My knees obeyed, and my heart settled as I placed my ravaged hands behind my head.

  Metal found my wrists.

  “You are under arrest for assault with a deadly weapon. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. However, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights that I have just read to you?”

  The cop hauled me to my feet.

  I nodded.

  Willow Bay, Alberta

  Present Day, May 2015

  THEY SAY HOME IS WHERE the heart is.

  If that were the case, then my home would be in so very many places.

  I wanted my heart to seek and find new things to love each day. To feel it returned to me each time bigger and more full than it had been before.

  My heart is in every person I have ever loved, in every person I have ever gotten to know, and in every place I have ever been.

  My heart is strong and unwavering, blinded in its trust for others.

  My heart is grateful, and my heart is eager.

  My heart has never not found a home in anywhere it’s ever looked.

  I suppose that is why they call me the Saint of Willow Bay. It’s ludicrous, if you ask me, but isn’t there always a little truth to the lunacy?

  “Fixing that heap is about as useless as tits on a log, Ray.” My older brother, Owen, crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back into his chair.

  “Language. Jesus, Owen,” Ray, his better half, scolded him from her place in the kitchen.

  “Thou shalt not use the lord’s name in vain, Mom,” Ryley, her daughter, mimicked to the tune of her Sunday school teacher as she reached for the cupcakes I’d made earlier in the day.

  Ryley, though she wasn’t Owen’s daughter by blood, was in a lot of ways exactly like him, and this of course extended to sneaking my baked goods when she didn’t think anyone was watching.

  “Tut, tut,” I hissed, tickling her sides. “You’ll spoil your dinner.”

  She flailed, launching herself off the breakfast barstool and running full barrels to hide behind the forever jean-clad legs of my daddy.

  “Easy there, sweetheart.” He laughed, steadying the plate of barbequed steaks he was balancing in his hands.

  Even surrounded by his family, which included two fully-grown, far-from-small men, my dad always felt so tall to me. With everything we’d been through losin’ Momma to cancer, London’s accident, and the fire in the barn, he never quit feeling tall to me.

  I’d been lucky enough to have been raised by a king. Of course, that was only true if you swapped the crown for a Stetson, but I had never been much for things that glittered anyhow.

  “I have to say, I agree with him, Ray.” Branson shrugged, cradling a sleeping Christopher in his arms. “That vehicle is an accident waiting to happen.”

  London, his wife and my older sister, fawned over their nearly eight-month-old son as she set her homemade Caesar salad down on the table.

  You could tell we were sisters, of course. We both had white-blonde hair and blue eyes, same as our momma did, and long black eyelashes, like our daddy, but that was about where the similarities quit being similar. Even after childbirth, London was tall and willowy. I, on the other hand, was shorter and curvier. While I couldn’t blame the height on flour and sugar, I did attribute my curves to being a result of my baking.

  Baking was something Momma and I used to do together. I guess since she passed, it felt like my way of keeping her close to me.

  “Quit ganging up on her,” London pointed a salad tosser in Owen’s direction and then at her husband. “It’s Ray’s car. If she wants to fix it, that’s up to her.”

  Ray moved from the kitchen, her brilliant mess of wild, brown hair piled on top of her head, and set the garlic bread down on the table. “Thank you, London,” she huffed, undoubtedly exasperated by the overbearing nature of the man she loved.

  Owen meant well, but he could be a protective pain in the ass. Something London understood all too well, seeing as she married a man so possessive it was a wonder he let her out of the house each morning.

  “But for the record, honey”—London shook her head sympathetically—“that car is a hunk of junk.”

  Ray rolled her eyes and plopped down into the chair between Owen and Ryley.

  “See, darlin’.” Owen put his arm on the back of her chair and kissed her cheek. “Told yah they’d be agreein’ with me on this one.”

  “Best you let Rayne be makin’ her own decisions.” Daddy tipped the brim of his cowboy hat in her direction before hanging it on the back of his chair.

  Ryley coughed and narrowed her eyes at Owen. He frowned, and her eyes flicked up to his head. “Were you raised in a barn, Dad?” she scolded him. “No hats at the dinner table.”

  I looked at London and she looked down at her plate, meanwhile we both tried desperately not to break out in hysteria. Ryley sounded exactly the way we did when we scolded Owen at the dinner table. That girl was a sponge.

  Owen fluffed her hair and obliged, setting his hat on the back of his chair.

  “Who would like to say grace?” Daddy asked the table, and Ryley waved her hand like a maniac. “All right, sweetheart. You go on now.”

  Pressing her hands together, she bowed her head and started to speak. “Dear Lord, we thank you for this super yummy food we’re about to eat and for little Christopher because he’s cute. Amen.”

  We lifted our heads and smiled, all repeating. “Amen.”

  Chaos ensued as the food became fair game.

  “Where is he?” London whispered under her breath as she loaded salad onto her plate.

  I shrugged and took the bowl from her. “Late, I guess.”

  She made a face, and I did my best to ignore what seemed like disapproval.

  “Have you made a decision on your job offer, Aurora?” Ray asked from across the table.

  “You didn’t tell them?” London’s mouth dropped open.

  “Tell us what?” Owen stopped midway through cutting his steak.

  Ray’s eyes went wide and sympathetic. I’d mentioned it to her while we’d been cooking, but it had slipped my mind that she might say something. She mouthed “sorry” and I shook my head with a smile.

  “Grant offered me a job,” I said, piling more salad onto my plate than I could possibly ever hope to eat.

  “Equine for Hearts, Grant?” Owen asked.

  I nodded and passed him the salad bowl.

  Equine for Hearts was a non-profit facility I’d been volunteering at every Sunday since I turned eighteen. It’s located in Edmonton, a three-hour drive from Willow Bay. Volunteers get a chance to rehabilitate troubled youth by working with horses. It was something I loved, and while my family supported it as a wonderful cause, they were less than supportive of my decision to volunteer there.

  “What’s the offer?” Daddy pressed.

  I sighed and threaded my fingers together under the table. “It’s just a part-time job for the summer.”

  “Doin’ what?” Owen was like a dog with a bone.

  “The organization is expanding to facilitate a new program, and Grant is understaffed. He offered me a position Thursday through Sunday helping manage the volunteers and assist with some of the administrative work.” I blurted out the information as fast as it would leave my lips.

  Branson’s lips pursed. “You’re going to drive three hours there and back, four days a week?”

  I shook my head. “
No. I’ll be living in the main house four days a week.”

  The table fell silent and I felt my stomach in my throat.

  Please don’t ask.

  My daddy rested his forearms on the table and tiled his head to the side. “What is the new program?”

  I chewed on the inside of my cheek, and London’s hand came over my knee under the table.

  “The fostering of violent parolees with hopes for an effective release into society.”

  I heard a fork clatter as it dropped from my brother’s hand onto his plate. “You’ve got to be fuckin’ kiddin’ me?” Owen exploded.

  “Language,” Ray hissed at him.

  “There are only a few parolees and they are hand-selected by Grant himself,” I said, defending these people I’d never met.

  “Will they be staying on the property?” Daddy’s stern voice came over the table.

  “Yes, but…”

  “No buts, Aurora,” Owen growled. “You’re only twenty-five!”

  It was in that moment that Wells chose to make his entrance.

  “Sorry I’m late.” He rushed through the kitchen and sat down beside me. “The eighteenth hole took forever.”

  Wells and I had been dating for over a year now. He was everything my father and brother were not. Larry and Owen Daniels were salt of the earth type men while Wells Donahue had grown up with a silver spoon in his mouth. My boyfriend was from the country club side of our little town and handsome, but in an Abercrombie kind of way.

  I’d adored him from afar growing up, but when his father declared bankruptcy early last spring, he’d gotten a job at our farm to help his family get by, and we’d been dating ever since.

  “So help me God, Donahue.” Owen’s fist slammed down on the table. “You know somethin’ ‘bout this and ain’t said shit to me, I’m goin’ to use your balls for battin’ practice. You hear me?”

  “Owen,” Ray snarled and flicked her eyes toward Ryley who giggled.

  She was used to my brother.

  Wells’s handsome face tightened as his eyes moved from my brother to me. Today he was wearing a dark blue golf shirt and white golf shorts with his sunglasses pushed up into his light brown hair. “Do I know something about what, Aurora?”