Page 1 of Rein in the Night

Rein in the Night

Copyright © February 2010, Tressie Lockwood

Cover art by Amira Press © February 2010

Amira Press

Baltimore, MD 21216

www.amirapress.com

ISBN: 978-1-936279-02-9

No part of this e-book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and e-mail, without prior written permission from Amira Press.

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?”

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