Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(11)

I lifted my backpack higher onto my shoulder and leaned sideways, but instead of my hips finding the wall, they found only air. Air then more air.

I screamed as I fell, completely submerged into one of the water troughs.

My arms flailed in the water as I thrashed around in the dark to grab the edge of the trough. It took me a second, and when I did, I sputtered as I pulled my head out from under the water.

Looking around into the black, I absentmindedly noted that I no longer heard the sounds of Crow reading, and then I felt hands under my arms.

“Oooph,” I stammered as something in the dark pulled me out of the tub.

I was soaked, completely. Luckily, somehow, my backpack managed to land on the floor as I regarded when I nearly tripped over it as the hands set me down on my feet.

Blinking rapidly, I felt, more than saw, him leave me, but he returned a few seconds later, wrapping what smelt like a horse blanket around my shoulders.

“T-t-thank you,” I stuttered through clanking teeth.

I’d always been one of those girls who tended to run on the cold side, even in the heat of summer, so being soaked in the dead of night meant I was nearly frozen to the touch.

He didn’t speak. Instead I felt his hands as they moved up and down my arms, patting me dry and securing the blanket around my body with the straps.

My eyes re-adjusted to the darkness, and the ridges of his jaw caught the moon through the skylight.

He was rough, not in the way my dad and Owen were, but rough just the same.

“You… you have a beautiful voice,” I told the shadow in front of me.

He stilled.

“I was… I was listening,” I added for some reason. “I love that book.”

I felt his hands slide down my arms and drop away as he took a step back.

“Why don’t you talk more?” I pressed and took a step in what I hoped was his direction.

The once-faint outlines of his face recessed deeper into the shadows of the barn as he stepped back once more.

My teeth clattering together offset the pounding of his heart that could be heard from where I stood across the isle.

“Girls like you shouldn’t be in dark places with men like me,” he rumbled.

I fought back the smile tugging on the edges of my mouth. Somehow, in the few minutes since I’d last heard it, I’d missed the sound of his voice. Except, this time, it was different than the reading. It once again carried that haunting of pain.

But he’d spoken to me directly, and somewhere in my heart, that felt like a victory worth a fortune.

Stepping under the skylight, I felt a water drop run down the bridge of my nose. “I’m not scared of you.”

The shadows around where I knew he stood sighed.

“Go on home to your country club boyfriend, angel,” he said, and I almost felt like I was being chastised. “There’s no place for you here.” I heard his boots scrape the pavement. “Not tonight. Not with me.”

It was then that the hollow surrounded me, and I knew he was gone.

Making awkward jabs into the darkness with my legs, I found my backpack and hauled it along beside me. Then, using the wall as a guide, I counted the paces and stopped where I thought it might be. I knelt down and felt around the cool floor until my fingers curled around the edges of a book.

The Black Stallion.

I wanted to keep it. Maybe he’d speak to me again in order to get it back.

I left the barn in a hurry—or in as much of a hurry as one fumbling, shivering person in the dark could manage—and darted for Grant’s office. It was locked, but I knew the code and tapped it into the keypad as quickly as my cold fingers could muster.

I flicked on the lights and went straight for where I thought they might be. Grant had asked that prior to starting my new position at Equine for Hearts, I familiarize myself with each of the volunteers and program members so I could better assist him.

Now felt like as good a time as any to do so.

Reaching the desk, I hauled open the file cabinet and scanned the labels. There were four names written on the top of four files near the back of the top drawer. I grabbed the first one labelled Anthony Johnstone and flipped it open. There was a photo of Glitch along with his name and documents from the prison. I stifled back a small giggle at the realization that his real name was Anthony before shoving the folder back where I found it.

The next two were labelled Robert Karlson and Hank Armstrong, or as I had come to know them as I scanned the photos in the files, Fun Bobby and Dirt.

I decided not to read their files until I found the one I was looking for. The last one, at the very back of the drawer, was labelled Rhys White. I flipped it open.

There was a mug shot of a younger version of Crow, or I guess his name was Rhys.

I liked his name.

I scanned over the file. Arrested at seventeen years old on two charges of assault with a deadly weapon and attempted murder.

My heart thundered in my chest.

He was tried as an adult and sentenced to ten years in prison with the possibility of parole after seven. He was released on parole after eight years this month into the custody of Grant for a court-ordered period of twelve months.

Rhys had been in prison for eight years.

In the file, it listed the details of his parole, but nowhere did it list why he’d done what he’d done and whom he’d done it to. In fact, the file left out almost everything about him save for numbers and a few photos.