Change Rein (Willow Bay Stables #1)(7)
After rounding the front of my red convertible Corvette, I slide onto the tan leather seat and toss my briefcase onto the passenger’s seat. After pressing the garage door opener on my visor, I roll the engine over while the morning light floods the room. It’s been a particularly hot summer in Alberta, wildfires clearing out massive areas at a time without much warning. I can feel the strength behind the sun as I pull out into the driveway.
The car I sent for Sarah is gone, so I take a minute to admire the home I had built nearly ten years ago. In fact, it’ll be ten years come October, the same month as my thirty-third birthday. If anything, I’ve grown to love it more every day.
The roughly eight-thousand-square-foot log home sits on nearly three hundred acres of farmland. The entire house is encased in floor-to-ceiling windows that run in line with the triangle-shaped roof. The red front door was my mother’s idea, as was the fountain in the middle of the circular driveway. While I’ll admit I balked at the idea at first, the result is gorgeous. The stone fountain is a roughly eight-foot-high horse rearing onto its back legs, and water cascades around it into the pool below during the summer. Either that or the deck running the expanse of the house is my favorite feature.
I let the vehicle pick up speed as I drive through the tree clearing towards the stables. While real estate may be what made me what’s considered a tycoon around these parts, my passion for horses keeps me sane. My parents still live on the ranch I grew up on in Coal Hill, approximately an hour’s drive from Edmonton, and although my property is much larger than theirs now, I work tirelessly to keep the same family atmosphere among the men and women under my employment.
As of today, I own thirty-seven thoroughbred racehorses in various stages of their careers. Ten are currently racing and boarded at Hastings Racetrack. While the other twenty-seven remain on my personal grounds, some are too young to race, and others have long since seen their name in lights. However, unlike most of the rich jerk-offs at the track, I don’t sell my older horses to the highest bidder without giving a shit where they’ll go—a glue factory specifically being of concern. I keep them, all of my horses. When their racing days are over, they’re put out to pasture and ridden by my nieces and nephews, but never once are they sold.
Horses are family.
You don’t sell family.
Charlotte, the barn manager, waves from her office window as I pass. Sliding my black Ray-Bans down over my nose, I nod once at her before turning left out towards the highway, no doubt to her dismay. We spent one night together a few years back, and sometimes, she wishes it were more than that. She’s a lovely woman, and while most men would love to bed or wed her, the case for me is neither. Frankly, she caught me on a bad night after one-too-many glasses of bourbon and the loss of one of my oldest horses. I was broken and lonely, welcoming the comfort of an old friend, although it became more than old friends that night.
I’ve grown into the kind of man that doesn’t sleep around. It was perhaps a fault of mine for a brief period in college, but besides that, it’s hardly been my taste to bed women I don’t see a future with. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t that the offers don’t come, but it seems hollow, and having come from a family with parents whose love seemed like the world revolved around it or would stop turning without it, that’s what I craved, but damned if God himself would see it fit to give or grant me that.
More often than not, I take Street, my horse, out for a ride each morning before making my way into the office. The fresh air and the space narrow my focus on the agenda for the remainder of my day. However, like everything else in my life, the ability to ride horses has been overshadowed by the one thing constantly nagging at my brain. Come Sunday, it will hardly be of concern. For, within a week’s time, I’ll take the first step towards righting the wrong that consumes my normally unrelenting, focused brain.
I’m a man familiar with getting what he wants.
This would be no exception.
“GIRLS!” MY FATHER’S VOICE BOOMS through the smaller barn, where I am organizing buckets for tomorrow’s Monday morning feeding.
I pop my head around the corner of the feed room door, wincing at his second harsh call. “Geez.” I step into the aisleway, scrunching my nose up and shaking my head. “Right here.”
“Yell a little louder, Daddy. I don’t think Hank heard you,” Aurora whines from a nearby stall, referring to one of our three miniature ponies. While Willy and Waylon are old but sound, Hank happens to be deaf and quite pesky, really—hence the reference.
“Hardy har har.” He crosses his arms over his chest. “I’m calling a family meeting. There’s something we need to discuss. Your brother is on his way over. Finish up and come on over to the house.” Pausing, he looks us both in the eyes from underneath the brim of his ball cap. “I mean it, girls. No dillydallying. This is important.”
Instead of waiting for us to answer, he stalks from the barn as quickly as he entered it.
“What in Heaven’s name could that be about?” my sister asks, leaning her hip against the stall she was cleaning, chucking her pitchfork into the wheelbarrow.
Shrugging, I look at where Daddy walked out of the barn. “Not a clue.” We had dinner less than two hours ago, so what could have possibly changed in that short amount of time? Her guess was as good as mine.