Rein in the Night

By Tressie Lockwood

After Keena's fiance leaves her standing at the alter to run away with her half-sister, Keena decides she needs to get away to heal. She wants solitude in a place she's never been. From the moment she sets foot on the grounds of Luna Mountain Ranch deep in the Colorado Rockies, she is pursued by the sexiest cowboy she's ever laid eyes on. Keena thinks an affair with him will help her become a woman like her half-sister, China, one who doesn't give a damn about anyone but herself and never gets hurt. But there is something strangely different about Ryan. This ranch hand has a secret that everyone seems willing to keep from Keena. They warn her to stay away from him, but when Keena looks into Ryan's eyes, she sees the pain and loneliness she knows are reflected in her own. Denying herself the pleasure of his touch might mean the difference between saving her life and losing it forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tressie Lockwood
• Release date: Dec 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502297006

Book preview

Dedication

To Kelly, for an awesome title. You’re one of a kind.

Chapter One

Keena, preening in her wedding dress, turned this way and that before the full-length mirror. How long had she been waiting for this moment? Maybe all her life, since she was a little girl of four. Yes, that’s when she first knew that she wanted to grow up, meet and fall in love with the perfect man, have a perfect wedding, and then enjoy a life of bliss making babies with him. Six at least, she whispered to herself.

Aunt Delores moved up behind her and pressed a hand to her chest, eyes wet with unshed tears. "Baby, you look just like her. Your mom would be so proud seeing you like this today. I’m proud and happy for you."

Keen blinked her eyes in quick succession. Stop it, Aunt Delores. You’re going to make me smear my makeup. She sniffed. But you’re right. She’d want to be here. I’d give anything for her to be here, to see that our dream came true.

Her mother had been in the advanced stages of lymphoma when she and Keena made their pact—that Keena would not settle for anything other than to reach her dreams. Her mother had asked her what she wanted to do when she grew up, and Keena had answered without hesitation—she wanted to marry a man like her poppa and be a good wife for him like her mother. They had shared a good laugh at Keena’s announcement that she would have six children, although Keena didn’t understand why it was so funny at the time.

However, her loving mother had hugged her to encourage Keena to strive for all she desired, that she would find the right one, and after a series of failed relationships, she had. Remembering how blessed she was, Keena grinned at her aunt’s reflected image. I can’t believe we’re finally at this point, and Steven is the perfect man. I’m so happy.

Her aunt dared to squeeze her while attempting not to wrinkle her white dress. Best of all, he’s an up-and-coming manager at his firm, so there are prospects.

Keena laughed. True. He’ll need to be able to support six kids.

Aunt Delores shook her head. You’re still stuck on that? Child, in this day and age, it’s too expensive, even with two parents working, to raise a couple of kids. You were a handful by yourself.

Keena whirled around to face her aunt, the woman who had been by her side when her mother passed and she was soon after abandoned by her father, who couldn’t move past the loss of his precious wife. Keena had thought her world had come to an end, but Aunt Delores had showered so much love on her, being unable to have kids herself since the curse of cancer had affected her health as well many years before, leaving her barren. Sometimes, Keena felt an overwhelming terror that she would develop the disease just as she was in the prime of her life and that it would snatch away the happiness she had waited so long for.

She was thirty-four and had a master’s in humanities. The degree had landed her a teaching position at an online university, which did nothing to fulfill her. Only after she had been dating Steven for a while did contentment begin to grow within.

Keena allowed her aunt to place her veil on her head. Don’t worry. The fact that I work at an online university allows me to have flexible time to spend with my babies, and Steven and I are going to start on those right away.

Aunt Delores patted her shoulder. That’s my girl. You have an entire month off from work. You don’t let him out of that hotel room until you’re pregnant.

Keena blushed. She’d had years to quit being embarrassed over the things her aunt said. Keena wasn’t a virgin, but she didn’t consider herself that experienced either. To discuss sex with her aunt was out of the question. She was about to change the subject when the music began inside the sanctuary.

Aunt Delores clapped her hands. Oh, it’s time, and I’m not in my seat. How can they start without the mother of the bride in place?

Keena’s heart warmed at her aunt’s reference to herself as Keena’s mother, and she had to blink more tears away as the flighty woman dashed out of the room with the speed of someone half her age.

Keena dragged in a deep breath, waited a moment to collect herself, and then walked out to the lobby. Mr. Creighton, Aunt Delores’s longtime friend, wasn’t waiting to escort her down the aisle in the absence of her father. Keena began to panic. Everything needed to go without a hitch today. She’d planned and planned with her aunt until Steven took to hiding when she became grumpy about obstacles that arose.

She stopped in the middle of the lobby and waited, but no one was around. The music inside the main area continued to play. She lifted her dress so it wouldn’t catch beneath her feet and started across to the door leading to the sanctuary, but it opened before she got there.

Steven’s mother stepped out, the single cloud Keena found in her world at the moment. The elderly woman who’d had Steven late in life frowned in her direction. She held a cell phone, the one Steven had insisted she buy last year when he had trouble finding her after her car broke down. Keena told him at the time that cell phone wasn’t the problem—it was that his mother was too old to drive herself anymore.

The woman stretched her arm toward Keena not saying a word. Keena sensed impending doom, but took the offering. Who is it? Why now, when we’re about to start? She put the phone to her ear. Hello?

Keena.

She gasped. Steven? Where are you? I thought you were here at the church already. The music’s playing and—

Sweetheart, listen to me, he interrupted. I-I don’t know how to say this, but . . . uh, I’m not coming. I can’t. You see . . .

Give me the phone, silly, someone said in the background.

Just before she came on, Keena placed the voice. That melody-smooth, made-to-bring-men-to-their-knees voice could not be mistaken, no matter how she might wish she had never heard it before. China, her half sister, came on the line.

Look, Keena, I know you’re a big girl, so I’m going to tell it to you straight. Steven and I just clicked. We hit it off, so we’re running away together. You’ll move on soon enough and get over him. You’ve always been able to catch a man.

Was she serious? Shock and pain radiated throughout Keena’s system. She sank to the floor, disregarding her dress as she foolishly kept the phone pressed to her ear while desperate that, in another instant, one or the other of them would tell her this was some kind of cruel joke. But Keena knew it wasn’t. This man-stealing behavior had been what China was all about, all her life. Even Aunt Delores’s claim that she should invite China to her wedding, to rub her face in the fact that Keena was getting married while no man in his right mind would put a ring on China’s finger because of her cheating ways, had not made Keena give in and send her an invitation. This was why. This heartbreak. China stole or attempted to steal every man who came sniffing around Keena. She’d thought Steven was different, that he was somehow immune to her half sister’s model-quality body and beautiful face. Keena didn’t believe for a moment that love was involved on China’s part.

China, give me the phone. Let me tell her. You don’t know how to be gentle. Steven sighed. "This is her wedding day after all, our wedding day. Baby?"

You don’t get to call me baby, she responded, her tone cold and unfeeling, although she was far from it inside. You don’t get to even say my name the rest of your miserable life, you coward!

The music in the sanctuary grew louder when the door opened. Stop that damn music right now, Aunt Delores shouted, and the notes came to a rude halt.

Keena wished she could have laughed. Her aunt rushed to her side and took her in her arms, pushing Keena’s head down to her shoulder. Keena’s eyes, so wet earlier, were dry now.

Give me that phone.

Keena’s numb fingers couldn’t hold on to the small device when her aunt snatched it away. The dark brown eyes almost black, which matched both Keena’s and her mother’s, seemed ready to shoot fire.

You listen to me, Steven Boyce. You get your little narrow butt to this church on the double, and you tell Keena to her face why you let her almost get to the altar rather than tell her you were a no-good cheating son of a—

How dare you? Steven’s mother shouted.

The lobby all of a sudden filled with people, and more strained to see and hear what was happening from their positions inside the sanctuary. Keena wanted to sink through the floor to avoid all the drama. Her aunt ignored Steven’s mother and continued to yell at him at the top of her lungs. Dazed, with her heart cracking

Reviews for Rein in the Night

[Tanchel Smith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I REALLY enjoyed this book, and it was a great read, but the ending could have been more satisfying. Can you make that happen?;-)

[mrslash · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

good read but the ending was a little dissapointing