Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(14)

Grant believed he could give these men a second chance, and I believed I could help him.

Closing the file, I stuffed it in my backpack and slid off the bar stool in Grant’s kitchen.

“Thank you for breakfast, Taylor,” I hollered into the house as I snagged the last bite of bagel off my plate.

She answered from somewhere in the house that I could hear but not see. “You’re welcome, dear.”

It was almost eight in the morning on Sunday, and Josh would be arriving for the day. We’d made a little progress since his altercation with Rhys that one afternoon a few weeks ago, and I was trying to build on that before we lost momentum.

Sliding my toes into the sneakers outside the back door, I held the bagel bite between my teeth and wiggled my heel inside. They’d once been white, but now, with the magic erasers, they were more beige. But being a barn rat had never been pretty.

The back of the main house stretched into a massive, landscaped yard that looked over the barn and the rest of the property. Heading straight across the lawn, I hopped over the fence and waved at some of the arriving volunteers.

Some were new but most had been there at least a few years. Grant and his program had a way of making people want to stay.

A faded blue minivan pulled into the lot, and I waved to Josh’s parents as he slithered out of the back seat.

“Have a good day!” Mrs. Farina hollered to her son, but he only grunted in reply as he walked toward me.

“Morning, Josh,” I chirped after swallowing the last of my bagel.

He scowled at me. “Do woodland creatures do your hair in the morning or something?”

“Pardon me?” I laughed.

He huffed and pulled his headphones off his ears. “You’re a morning person,” he stated.

“I am,” I said proudly.

“It’s annoying,” he finished.

Shaking my head, I put an arm around his shoulders, at which he groaned. “Better wake up, sunshine,” I teased. “We’re in charge of turn-out today.”

His head dropped back and he cursed.

The youth around here had very little childlike qualities to them, and that extended to their vocabulary without a doubt.

I was sitting on the porch of Grant’s office eating lunch while Josh puttered on his sketch pad when a car pulling some kind of trailer came up the driveway.

The vehicle parked in the space closest to me and idled for a minute before the driver turned off the engine. I was surprised when a girl climbed out of the car. She looked close to my age, maybe a little older than me, but even from a distance you could tell she was beautiful. Her body was willowy like London’s, but she was shorter than me with long, light brown hair.

She pushed the sunglasses she was wearing up into her hair, revealing cheeks covered in freckles and scanned the area in front of the barn.

She was looking for someone, and I knew exactly who the moment he stepped into the sunlight.

Sundays and Wednesdays were Rhys’s days off, which meant that today he’d be free to do as he pleased. I’d chalked up my fascination and knowledge of him to good work ethic, but even I knew I was full of it.

His reaction the day Wells had shown up and blown his top in the parking lot had given me the encouragement I needed to delve into him. If I was honest, I’d lurked around the barn a night or two since, hoping to catch him reading, but it seemed he’d found somewhere else to spend his evenings.

He was timid with me and I hated that. My heart loved to conquer.

She broke into a run and launched herself into his arms. He caught her and held her tightly against his chest. They stood like that for forever, and I sat with my tuna sandwich halfway to my mouth, watching the entire time.

When he finally set her on the ground, his smile knocked the wits right out of me. It was brilliant. Not in the cheeky way I’d seen him smile with the guys—this was uninhibited by any emotion except love.

Whoever she was, he loved her very much.

They walked to the trailer at the back of the car, and the girl gestured wildly with her hands, though I couldn’t hear what she was saying.

Finally, like a child, Rhys disappeared under the tarp she’d tied down.

“Lunch is over,” Josh said from the bottom of the steps.

Unable to take my eyes away from them, I gestured in his direction. “You can have a few more minutes,” I told him.

“Right,” he scoffed. “I can have a few more minutes.”

I was so curious that Josh’s sarcasm barely touched me.

The tarp billowed up and down as Rhys moved around underneath it, and I felt my butt moving to the edge of the stair.

Finally, something started to emerge. It was black, of course, and round… It was a tire, the front tire of a motorcycle. Rhys was backing a black Harley-looking motorcycle down the trailer ramp as the girl bounced excitedly beside him.

He swung a leg over the seat and his hands moved out to caress the handlebars.

It was as though I was watching him meet with a second person that day, like the bike was an extension of him.

The girl leaned forward and whispered something to him.

Then I heard it, anyone in the vicinity would have.

He laughed, and when he did, I thought the world must have turned upside down.

I had never, not once in my life, heard anything that vibrant come from a single person. It was like watching a dam break and a rush of water come surging forward.