Taking The Reins Read online



  Brooklyn

  I stood there with the horse, petting his velvet nose, trying to absorb his quiet calm to help ease my jangling nerves.

  It worked a little, until he returned, striding toward the outdoor arena, looking amazingly sexy in his riding outfit. Suddenly, like he was on a mission, he walked straight up to me. His eyes burned into mine and when he didn’t stop a few feet away, I began to panic.

  Because I was suddenly sure he was going to grab me and kiss me.

  My lungs froze on a breath. My heart began to race.

  And then he stopped right in front of me, inside my bubble and close enough that I could smell him; leather, saddle soap, boy.

  I looked up at him. His lips were turned up in a slight smile and then they parted. He reached up toward my face, his eyes taking me in with his usual intensity. My cheeks flushed, but ached for his touch. I licked my dry lips and swallowed, suddenly worried about too much saliva. I did not want to ruin this kiss. My eyes fluttered closed as he leaned in.

  Taking the Reins

  The Rosewoods, Book 1

  by

  Katrina Abbott

  Over The Cliff Publishing, 2014

  By Katrina Abbott

  Copyright © 2014 Katrina Abbott

  First edition. January 2014

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the author’s imagination and used fictitiously.

  For Steven,

  who stole my underwear once.

  Welcome to Rosewood

  I should have felt insulated and safe in the back of the Town Car.

  Instead, my heart was pounding like crazy as the driver pulled into the long circular drive that would bring me to the front of the Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence—my new home for the next ten months. The windows of the car were tinted, so no one could see in, but as I was in one of several limos (mixed in with Range Rovers, Audis, Mercedes' and other cars of the famous and wealthy), no one really paid attention. And, gauging by the chaos on the front lawn of the school campus—registration, moving in, laughing and getting reacquainted—people were too wrapped up in their own stuff to notice a new girl, anyway.

  The new girl.

  I sighed and gave myself a couple moments to calm my nerves as the driver rolled to a stop at the curb. I took my long brown hair out of the ponytail holder, then second-guessed and put it back in again. Then realized it would look sloppy to have a ponytail, so I took it out one last time.

  God, Brooklyn, get it together.

  The driver put the car into park, turned halfway toward me and smiled. “This is it.”

  “Yeah,” I said, glancing out at the crowd. There were several tables, including one with a banner that read, “Check in. Come here first.” Brilliant. At least that part was sorted. The fitting in and making friends part couldn’t possibly be quite so easy.

  “It will be fine,” the driver assured me, as though he was reading my mind and standing in as my father or something, making me feel guilty that I’d forgotten his name already. “I hear it’s a good school.”

  I almost snorted at his comment; Rosewood wasn’t a good school. Rosewood was the best school. The school governors and celebrities send their kids to. The place where no one asks how much the tuition is, because if you send your kid here, you can afford whatever it is and don’t care what it costs, as long as your child is getting the best education money can buy. Of course, this isn’t what the brochure says, it’s what I heard my dad tell my grandmother when he phoned to tell her he was sending me back to the States. He said he didn’t feel I was getting a quality education at my last school in London. Which is kind of ridiculous, because I’m pretty sure the Brits invented proper education, right?

  Looking up at the big building now, I had seriously mixed feelings; I’d never been a huge fan of the school in London or maybe being in London altogether, and getting away from my parents was a distinct benefit. They were still there; probably it would be another year before they would move back to the States (though they promised to come for Christmas). But I knew exactly no one here at this school, and my old friends from before I left the U.S. were states away in Colorado, not exactly close enough to meet up for pizza on the weekend. And anyway, after two years away, we probably weren’t really friends anymore. We’d become what Mom called “Christmas Card Friends”—meaning we caught up like once a year and didn’t care for the other three-sixty-four.

  At least in London I had some friends. Not super close ones, but still, friends I’d had to leave behind and would probably never see again who would also become “Christmas Card Friends”. At least I didn’t have a boyfriend I had to worry about leaving. No, leaving a boy behind had never been an issue for me; on the contrary, I was pretty much boy-repellent. Not that I was ugly or anything, I just wasn’t the fun girl or the popular girl. I was the plain girl: brown hair and eyes, a few freckles across my nose, average build. Not overly smart, not overly pretty: the girl no one noticed.

  But as I looked out at the crowd consisting of what would be my fellow students, I thought maybe I could change that. Maybe this would be the opportunity to reinvent myself that I’d been too chicken to take when we moved to London. Back then, I’d been shy and insecure; starting at a new school in a different country will do that. But now, I was back on home soil and could, as Dad would say, ‘fake it till I made it’. And since Dad had paid whatever ridiculous amount of tuition it had cost to send me here, I had just as much right to be here as anyone else. I had no reason to be insecure or feel like I didn’t belong here.

  We came from old money that had little to do with my dad, even though he was a high ranking military strategist and probably made a lot of money at it. I think my coming back to the States for school had more to do with that than my education. A lot of Dad’s job is classified, and based on all the recent late night and closed-door whispering on the phone and with Mom, I got the impression he was going out on a very classified assignment. My brother Robert, older by almost three years, was already far away at Yale doing his MBA, so I was their most immediate concern.

  It would be easy for me to take it personally that they were sending me away, but I knew a lot of what they did was for my own safety. It had always been that way for Robert and me.

  We weren’t even allowed to use our real last name; Dad said if terrorists or other bad people knew who we were, they could use us to get to him and that made us a liability. I was so used to having a fake last name, I barely remembered my real one anymore.

  It sounds cool and all spy-thriller, but trust me, after seventeen years of growing up with a military strategist, I knew it was mostly meetings, sitting around, and waiting for stuff to happen that almost never does. I can’t talk about what assignments my dad has been on, but some of them were really big deals that were sort of world security things. But even those required a lot of sitting around and meetings.

  Still, despite my dad’s cool-sounding job, I was certainly no celebutante, although thinking about how I might actually end up rooming with one made my right eye twitch. But there was nothing for it and I couldn’t stay in the Town Car forever.

  Even as I thought this, the trunk popped open behind me.

  I took a breath.

  “Let me help you with your things,” the driver said, getting out of the front seat and hurrying to open my door. As I stepped out onto the driveway with my backpack and my carry-on suitcase, he moved to the back of the car, grunting as he hauled out my steamer trunk. I looked around for a cart or something, suddenly worried that this poor man was going to have to haul my year’s worth of clothes up what looked like at least fifteen
stairs just to get to the main floor door. I had no idea where my room might be, but I hoped The Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence had an elevator if it was anything beyond the ground floor.

  It was the least the school could do, since it was lacking the one thing I argued with my parents was the most essential requirement to a girl’s social development: boys.

  Seychelles

  That’s right: The Rosewood Academy for Academic Excellence is an all-girls school. Because “part of receiving the best education money can buy is the lack of distractions,” Dad had said. On some level I got his point and of course, I wanted to get good marks, but how was I supposed to grow into a functioning young woman without ever being able to interact with boys?

  But as I looked around, there were a lot of boys. And I’m not talking old, bearded professors with tweed elbow patches, I’m talking young guys. Cute guys, milling around, moving luggage up into the building, chatting with girls. Maybe Dad was wrong.

  “Can I help you with that, Sir?”

  I swiveled around out of my reverie as one of the guys spoke to the limo driver. This boy was definitely cute and had nothing professorly about him at all. He looked a bit young, maybe fifteen or so; too young for me, but in a couple of years, with those big brown eyes and that friendly, open smile, he was going to be a heartbreaker.

  The limo driver looked suddenly relieved. “Thanks. Maybe you could help me take this up to…” he looked pointedly at me as though I had any idea where my assigned room was.

  “Oh! I guess I have to check in.” I glanced over to the Check In booth. “Let’s start there.”

  Without another word, the boy nodded, grabbed a handle and picked up an end of the trunk, his biceps bulging a bit at the effort. For a kid, he was pretty cut. I hoped his upper classmates subscribed to the same Phys Ed program. Realizing I was supposed to be the lead on this caravan of three, I stopped ogling, picked up my carry-on, jogged a few steps to get around them and led them over to the Check In booth. There were several other girls standing in front of me, so I motioned for the boy and the driver to put my trunk down.

  The driver glanced at his car but didn’t say anything. Experience told me that people who wear livery uniforms had politeness built right in, as though it came on a hanger with the black suit and cap.

  “You can go,” I said. “I know you have other clients.”

  He looked at me, indecision on his face.

  “Really,” I assured him, waving at the boy beside me. “I’m sure I’ll find plenty of help. Thanks for getting me here safely.”

  “Thank you,” he said. “Sunday afternoons are my busy time, taking the weekend commuters to the airport.” He extended his hand and shook mine. Then, with a polite nod of his head, he turned and left.

  So this is awkward, I thought as I stood there for the next several moments, the kid who’d helped with my trunk standing next to me, not saying anything either. I figured I should at least thank him, but when I opened my mouth, I was interrupted by a very authoritative-looking girl with a clipboard who’d materialized by my side. She had long reddish-brown hair, knotted up in a messy ponytail that left wisps framing her round face. She had what my mom would have called ‘baby fat’, but wore nice jeans and a white blouse under a standard-issue navy blazer which looked identical to the three packed in my trunk. She also had a pretty scarf tied around her neck in a complicated knot, reminding me of one of my mother’s bridge friends who never left the house without a Hermes scarf accenting one of her many Chanel suits. It was weird to see a scarf on a teenager, but this girl sort of rocked it and I was strangely envious.

  “I need you,” she said and I was about to beg her pardon, when I realized she was talking to the guy. She pointed to the girl at the front of the line. “She’s got luggage in her car. Go help her, okay?”

  The guy gave me an apologetic look and then took off before I even had a chance to thank him for his help.

  Clipboard girl smiled at me and then jutted her chin toward my trunk. “Don’t worry, I’ll get you some muscle when you’re ready to move in.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’m Brooklyn Prescott.”

  She smiled again, “I know. I’m the orientation coordinator; they give me the files of all the new girls. Nice to meet you, Brooklyn. I’m Seychelles Spencer. But you can call me Chelly, sounds like Shelley, but spelled with a C-H. I’m a junior, too, so we’ll definitely be getting to know each other.” She hugged the clipboard to her chest with her left arm and stuck her right one out to shake hands.

  “Seychelles? What a nice name.” Thanks to Dad’s job and both of my parents’ love for travel, I had a pretty good knowledge of world geography. So although I’d never been there, I knew that Seychelles was a country made up of tropical islands near Madagascar in the middle of the Indian Ocean, known for its remote beauty.

  She rolled her eyes. “I was conceived on my parents’ honeymoon there. How’s that for a name legacy?” She fake gagged, making me laugh. She also made me wonder (and not for the first time) if I got my name thanks to my parents conceiving me while traveling to New York City. Mom always said she loved New York, and I wasn’t about to ask her, but you never know. Seychelles was so much more exotic, but maybe it was better I didn’t know for sure that my name was thanks to some horny vacation sex while mom was extra fertile.

  Ugh, I wasn’t far behind with the fake gagging. Enough about that, though. I had more important things going on, and anyway, Seychelles was talking to me.

  “I didn’t realize you were British,” she said. “I thought you were American?”

  I smiled. “I am American, but I’ve been in London for a couple of years, so the accent sneaks in. It will wear off soon enough. My British friends still think I speak totally American, so I guess I sound funny to everyone.”

  “Well I for one think it’s darling, darling,” Chelly said in a drawl that I’m guessing she thought sounded British (but didn’t). She also gave me a big wink. I liked her already and hoped we’d share some classes. Speaking of classmates…

  “So, uh…” I said, looking around at the throng of students around us.

  “Yes?”

  “This is going to sound like a weird question…”

  She waved me off. “I’m orientation coordinator; it’s my job to answer all of your questions about Rosewood. Nothing is too weird.”

  I leaned in. “I thought there weren’t supposed to be any boys here?”

  Chelly stared at me for a second and then took a breath and looked around. “Right. Yeah, there are boys here today helping with move in. They’re from the all-boys school a few miles from here: Westwood.”

  Oh. Well that was disappointing.

  She nodded sympathetically and I realized I must have showed my disappointment on my face. “I know, it’s a drag, right? But don’t worry, there are lots of opportunities to hang out with them. Not the same as a co-ed school, of course, but you won’t have to live like a nun for ten months.” She winked and then her eyes widened. “Unless you want to, I mean, some girls…not to say you’re a …”

  I laughed again and interrupted her stuttering when it sounded like she was just going to make it worse. “It’s okay, I knew what you meant. It’s not like I’m easy or anything, but it is nice to have guys around.” I was hardly easy—I’d barely even gotten to second base.

  Chelly waggled her eyebrows at me. “True story. Anyway, once you get checked in, we’ll get your stuff up to your room. Newbie orientation and tour is tonight at seven after dinner, so don’t bother trying to find your way around this afternoon—just get settled in for now.” She glanced down at her clipboard. “Your roommate is Celia Thomas up on the third floor.”

  My heart fluttered. “Any relation to Kevin Thomas?”

  A smile spread across Chelly’s face. “The three-time Oscar Award winner?”

  I held my breath but nodded.

  “His niece.”

  Wow. Okay, I shouldn’t have been
quite so starstruck and Dad had warned me a lot of the kids here had famous and very important parents and that I shouldn’t get all fangirl on them, but it was hard not to get excited about being the roommate of the niece of such a famous (and hot, let’s be honest) actor.

  “Seychelles!” someone hollered from one of the booths on the other side of the lawn. “We need you over here!”

  Chelly gave me a shrug. “That’s my cue; I’ll see you tonight at orientation, if not before, okay? Welcome to Rosewood!”

  And with that, she was gone. I turned back toward the front of the line in which I was now second, and thought about my first moments at Rosewood. Okay, so there were no guys, but if the other students were as nice as Chelly, I would do okay. And I was about to be the roommate of the niece of a VIP.

  Or not.

  Will

  I finally got to the front of the line. I got checked in and was handed my room key and a map of the huge building in front of me with a highlighted trail from the front door to my room. Easy. Maybe too easy?

  I was thanking the girl at the desk for her help and was about to look around for Chelly to assign me ‘some muscle’ to help with my trunk, when I was hit from behind, shoving me into the table and completely knocking the wind out of me.

  “Oof,” is the involuntary sound I made as all the air was pushed out of my lungs.

  “Shoot, sorry!” came from behind me as I gasped for air and then turned, ready to give whoever had come plowing into me a few choice words.

  But when I saw who had run into me, words and the sudden anger dissolved in my throat. Because the guy standing in front of me, breathing hard from, I guessed, running a marathon that didn’t stop until my body got in the way, was gorgeous.

  Like, movie star gorgeous. Zac Efron gorgeous.

  And the sheepish smile and pleading raised eyebrows just made him that much more so. And then I wondered if he was a movie star, on campus at Westwood in between shoots or something. He didn’t look familiar, but he sure had that look about him. He had messy brown hair that was a lot longer than the military cuts I was used to seeing on most of the guys in my life. Maybe it wasn’t always messy, but it looked like it was suffering the effects of the aforesaid marathon. Honestly, in that second my fingers tingled, wanting to run through it or fix it or just feel it. Something; I was dying to touch it.