Rein In (Willow Bay Stables #3)(9)

What did I have against the puke anyway? Let him be happy.

With idle hands and nervous feet, I moseyed to the place that still didn’t feel like home.

There were some books in The Shed. Not many, but a few. I tried reading, but my mind became restless and again fought against the stillness. There was some hatred burned in my gut that just wouldn’t leave me be in this place. It nagged and cut at my back until finally my resolve caved, and I found my boots moving to walk the grounds for the second time this morning.

I was the only parolee with Sunday as a day off in the rotation. Each of us was given different schedules. My guess was that it was because it did not allow us much time to converse outside of work. It was looked down upon for fellows to be friends in this world.

Wandering through the trees, the sound of two voices trickled through the leaves.

“Heels down, Josh,” the female voice said with authority and encouragement.

There was some male grumbling from what sounded like a boy, and I paused at the clearing when I saw them.

“Heels down, shoulders back,” the blonde girl said to the boy.

She was standing in the center of the riding arena, and the boy who I’d seen her with before was bouncing around on the back of a horse in circles around her.

He looked miserable.

I fought back a grin as I watched them.

“You’re going to fall off if you don’t keep your heels down,” she told him.

Yanking back on his reins, the horse slowed to a stop, and the boy clung to the saddle as he slid down to the ground.

“What are you doing, Josh?” she asked him. She was frustrated, but she hid it well in the tone of her voice. “We still have twenty minutes left of your lesson.”

He ignored her, leaving the horse standing in the ring as he stormed toward the gate.

“Josh!” Her pitch rose as she called after him.

Now, just a few paces from his clear exit, he stopped and spun on his heels to face her. “You are such a bitch!” he roared.

The blood in my veins began to move slow and hot.

“Josh, come on,” she pleaded with him. “You’re so close to getting it.”

He took a step toward her and bared his teeth. “This is stupid and you’re a bitch.”

My frame exploded from the clearing, muscles and bones battling with each other.

“Josh, please.” She sighed.

She was patient and kind. More than the boy deserved.

“No!” he screamed.

She moved toward him and he jumped back like she was the lick of a flame and he was dry paper.

The boy, Josh, clocked me but she didn’t.

My boots met the railing of the riding arena, and I hauled my body over it, slamming into the dirt on the other side. He looked at me and took a step backward. I shook my head and he stopped.

Her long legs extended into a pair of brown cowboy boots, and her long hair was pulled into a ponytail at the top of her head. Just as I settled to a stop behind her, she followed Josh’s gaze and her body trembled with a tremor when it landed on me.

“Uh, hi…” she stuttered. “Crow, right? Hi.”

She was looking at me, eyes bluer than any water I’d seen in any dream or read in any book, but my eyes were on the boy.

He scoffed, but it was fake, only bravado that a man like me could tell in the way his body flinched with the sound.

She took a step away from me and toward the boy.

“Apologize,” I growled.

Her step faltered at the sound of my voice. and the boy shrunk in size.

He looked from me to her then back to me, and a sound rumbled in my throat when he did.

“Sorry, Aurora,” the boy blurted out.

The sound of blood pumping in my ears reversed to a dull ache, and I nodded at him. In the corner of my eye, I saw her lips part but I turned away from them.

My boots found the path in which they’d come from, and I left them behind me.

It was even harder to find stillness after that. The flicker of remorse tugged at my consciousness, and I grew more anxious with each lap of the grounds. I’d lost a few hours reading, but as the clock snuck up on the evening, I found myself in the parking lot off the barn just in time to see that convertible pull in.

She ran to it, tossing her backpack in the back and pulling her hair up on top of her head, the same way it had been this afternoon. Her boyfriend rested an arm on the top of the door and flicked his hand up in my direction.

“Later, bud,” he hollered over the sound of his stereo.

I rolled my eyes behind my sunglasses until they bounced off the back of my skull and didn’t move a muscle.

He was the kind of boy a man like me wiped his ass with.

Aurora, the boy Josh had called her, climbed into the passenger seat. I could feel her eyes on me. They burned over my skin like the sun did. It made me restless for the shadows and yet still, I watch as the loafer guy assaulted her mouth before she’d even buckled up.

She kissed him back and my gut twisted.

I watched him reverse quickly, her laughing in the wind at the surprise of the engine. They seemed happy, I guess, but as I watched his taillights, she watched me in the side mirror.

Seeing her go felt a little like watching the sun set, and I didn’t know why.





“I REALLY WOULD PREFER THAT you stay the night, Aurora,” Grant insisted.