Ties That Bind Read online

  Text copyright © 2014 Neeny Boucher

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  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters, incidents, and places are products of the author’s imagination and as such, are not to be misconstrued as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or actual events are entirely coincidental. The author acknowledges trademark status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  This book is licensed for personal enjoyment. Ebook copies may not be resold or given away to other people. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  All rights reserved.

  Ties That Bind

  By Neeny Boucher

  Cover By Hang Le Design

  Edited by Stephanie Inglesby

  Interior Design Formatted by Fancy Pants Book Formatting

  http://www.fancypantsformatting.com

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to Iona Camilla Ingelsby.

  CONTENTS

  Prologue

  Chapter One: Bright

  Chapter Two: Coiled Rope

  Chapter Three: The Working End

  Chapter Four: Round Turn

  Chapter Five: Tether

  Chapter Six: Lashing

  Chapter Seven: Slip Knot

  Chapter Eight: Boom

  Chapter Nine: Loop

  Chapter Ten: The Bitter End

  Chapter Eleven: Friction

  Chapter Twelve: Jamming

  Chapter Thirteen: Whipping

  Chapter Fourteen: Bend

  Chapter Fifteen: Decorative Knot

  Chapter Sixteen: Splice

  Chapter Seventeen: The Running End

  Chapter Eighteen: Lines

  Chapter Nineteen: Flake

  Chapter Twenty: Capsizing

  Chapter Twenty-One: Hitch

  Chapter Twenty-Two: Noose

  Chapter Twenty-Three: Untethered

  Chapter Twenty-Four: Fray

  Chapter Twenty-Five: The Gordian Knot

  Chapter Twenty-Six: Binding

  Epilogue: Unbreakable

  About the Author

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thank you to my wonderful husband, children, and the iron vaginas. A special thanks to Yessi Smith, Lora Balabanova, Amy Bustard, Lisa Chamberlain, Tamara Witika, and Stephanie Inglesby. Your feedback, encouragement, and advice, day or night, were immense. I also enjoyed the sweary PMs and emails from my iron vaginas, but your identities shall remain nameless!

  To Krystle Zion, Serena Prather Knautz, Liz Grumpecht, Miranda Howard, Jaime Iwatsuru, and Rosie Malec-Mastropieri, a heartfelt thank you for your constructive criticism. Your comments and input were invaluable.

  Thank you to Jill Sava for all your promotional work, Ash Eryn, Lee Casey, Kiki Amit, Rockin’ Robin Stranahan, Stefanie Pratt, Yolanda March, Annika Roman, Lisa Pantano-Kane, Kindle Buddies, and the Amazing Guerillas Team.

  And lastly, a thank you to ‘you’: the readers. Thank you for taking the time to join the characters on their journey and I hope you enjoy reading this work as much as I enjoyed writing it.

  Prologue

  October 22, 2012

  Dear Dina,

  I know you’re pretty angry with me right now, but I wanted to explain my reasons. You don’t have to agree with them, but I hope you understand that I did this for you.

  I heard that your commitments to Gabby were getting in the way of your career and I wanted to ease the stress on you. Someone suggested you needed a client in Shanwick, or to win the lottery. I couldn’t arrange the lottery, but I could get you a client at home. It means that you don’t have to choose between your career and family.

  You did tell me you were good at your job and the projects I want you to cover are important. I know how you feel about Shanwick. It isn’t a great metropolis, or the most exciting place in the world, but I need someone that knows the area.

  Dina, it’s just for a few months or until Gabby’s case is finished – whichever one comes first and then we can leave. We can go wherever you want to.

  Baby, I can imagine you reading this letter with a crease between your eyes and your lips pursed. You’ve probably got your scary face on and are questioning my motives. Don’t do that, not where you’re concerned.

  I’ll do whatever it takes, Dina, to make sure you’re okay even if you don’t agree with what I’ve done.

  Yours always,

  Riley xxxx

  **********

  Christina read Riley’s letter with barely concealed fury and with the urge to break things, like damn Nicholas Xavier Riley’s kneecaps. I am going to kill him – I really am going to kill him this time. He cannot be serious. Except, apparently, he was.

  Her current residence in Shanwick indicated that this was no elaborate practical joke or an egregious error. She was in her personal idea of hell because of him. She rubbed her forehead vigorously and tried not to swear in a way that would cause undue attention.

  Christina had been back in her hometown for exactly two hours and at this stage, she would have sold her soul to be anywhere but here. On arrival her solemn faced father handed her Riley’s letter, smiling at her, in an attempt to placate her. It turned into a wide-eyed stare when he saw the look on her face and he hastily excused himself before fleeing down the stairs.

  Rather than giving her any comfort or clarification, the letter had the reverse effect, making a horrible day even worse. It also confirmed her suspicions that Riley had planned her enforced sojourn down to the last detail, including an escape with all his body parts intact. If she thought about this for too long, she was going to have a meltdown and possibly fulfill her hometown’s prophecy: that she really did belong in a psychiatric facility.

  Christina scrunched Riley’s letter in her hand until it hurt and then smoothed the paper out again, so she could analyze it. Riley could be an arrogant, manipulative and controlling son-of-a-bitch. An intense, serious, protective and passionate individual that could, at times, be extremely difficult.

  Being ‘problematic’ was something they shared in common, especially with each other. They had spent the better part of a decade in conflict; both in love and at war. Christina had hoped they were beyond their contradictory relationship, but clearly, they were not.

  Riley had so many qualities that she found equally attractive and annoying. Today, she found him fully annoying and wanted to stick him with pins. Some women might like borderline stalking, dominant, aggressive bossy men, but she wasn’t one of them.

  No one had the right to control her life and make decisions for her. No one, but Riley had and he’d done it with the full knowledge that it would upset her. There could be no clearer message to Christina than Riley’s choice of messenger sending her back to Shanwick with her tail between her legs.

  The name made her top lip curl in disgust. Masssssssson Glenn. Memories of that horrible encounter still burned in her mind. Mason wasn’t Mercury, the winged messenger of the gods. No, he was something else entirely: a pervert, a porn-pirate billionaire, thief of her mother’s underwear, and the demon spawn of Satan. The two men had s
tiff-armed her like a piece of property and dumped her here for reasons yet unexplained.

  Christina shook her head and scowled. She wanted out of this situation and the only way she could do that was with Riley’s agreement. Now was probably the time for diplomacy, but diplomacy and Christina had never been friends.

  She shrugged. Why change the habit of a lifetime? Opening her laptop, she decided to be true to herself.

  **********

  October 31, 2012

  Dear Riley,

  Thank you for your letter. I understand that you have your reasons for doing what you did and you are quite right: I disagree with them.

  I cannot reconcile how you made a conscious decision not to discuss this with me when you had every opportunity to do so. In fact, you had ample time to raise the subject, but instead utilized it to pursue other avenues. I would have preferred you raised your rationalizations and justifications with me, in person, before embarking on this course of action.

  I have made my feelings to you quite clear in relation to Shanwick and that I have no desire to set up residence here beyond familial obligations. What you have done is interfered in a way that I find unacceptable.

  The conclusion I draw from this is that you have some serious power and control issues. This is my life and my professional career, but you have exercised overt influence, which leaves me in a predicament that I am extremely displeased with.

  You have objectified me without giving salience to my own subject position as a conscious, rational, and free thinking human being to make my own decisions.

  Writing terms of endearments in order to justify your actions and characterizing it as being on my behalf, is not only impoverished, but also, self-serving. It minimizes not only your actions, but also, the ones you chose to deliberately ignore.

  In fact, this makes me question everything about our relationship and whether I can be involved with a person that cannot communicate with me, but chooses to make unilateral decisions about my life without the courtesy of involving me in said discussions.

  Your choice of messenger, Mason Glenn, was particularly insulting and offensive. I doubt there are many people in this world that I would be less pleased to see than Mason. Considering you are cognizant of this fact, and I have always been forthcoming with regard to my feelings about Mason, what am I supposed to conclude from this?

  Clearly, this was a deliberate act and intentional on your part. Do you have such little respect for me that you think I would somehow resign myself to engaging with someone as amoral as Mason Glenn? The only conclusion that I can reach is that this is some test on your part to see what I can endure. The critical question is why?

  I am so hurt and confused by your actions. I don’t know what to think or how to feel. I believed you to be one of the few people I could trust in my life and that our love for each other would take precedence over everything else. Clearly, I was wrong, and at the moment, I feel foolish in trusting and believing in you.

  You have made me feel vulnerable and exposed in a way that I am finding it difficult to articulate my feelings without bitterness. I’m unsure if you fully comprehend the magnitude of what you have done. Or is this some kind of elaborate revenge plot to punish me for the sins ofour past?

  Currently, I am checking out my future options and will be exercising them as soon as possible. This might surprise you: none of them include Shanwick or working with Mason Glenn. Where this leaves you and me is also undecided.

  Yours sincerely,

  Christina Martin

  **********

  Riley: Lift, Sunday, November 4, 2012

  Riley scrunched Christina’s letter in his hand and frowned. He drew three main conclusions: 1) she was pissed, 2) he needed a thesaurus, and 3) she had broken their code of conduct in how they communicated with one another. They had agreed not to make any personal attacks or give ultimatums, but Dina didn’t seem to have any reservations in going for the jugular.

  He laughed and shook his head, then pinched the bridge of his nose. She really was a stubborn, irrational woman and refused to accept anyone’s help, even when she needed it. Riley felt conflicted, wanting to strangle and kiss her, yell at her and soothe her. After reading that letter, he wasn’t sure what impulse was stronger.

  “You okay, Nick?” Riley turned to his older brother Steven, who was looking at him in trepidation.

  Riley’s green eyes met the worried dark blue of his brother’s and he nodded. “Sure,” he seethed. “I’m fine – just fucking peachy.” He started pacing and then marched past Steven, back toward the place he was staying in.

  “Nick,” Steven warned. “What are you doing?” Steven watched the retreating back of his brother and sighed. This was going to get messy and probably publicly - two things Steven hated.

  Unfortunately and to Steven’s consternation, it didn’t seem to bother Dina and Riley. The Rileys were a taciturn family that didn’t go in much for making public spectacles of themselves or personal disclosures. Well, until recently. There had been an accidental male bonding session a couple of weeks ago that Steven pretended never happened.

  Nick stormed out of the house with a bag and whistle for his dog. Steven inwardly cursed because he knew this couldn’t be good. “Nick,” he pleaded. “Whatever you’re doing, please… think about it.”

  Riley grinned. “I have thought about it and I’m going.”

  “Nick, come on. You can’t,” Steven groaned. “By the time you get there it’ll be after midnight. What are you going to do? Go over there and wake her up for a fight?”

  Riley smiled broadly, showing all his teeth. “Yeah,” he nodded. “Pretty much.”

  Steven scowled. “You’ll wake up the whole household.”

  “If she’s half asleep,” Riley added, “she’ll be vulnerable and the others will forgive me.”

  Steven regretted not waiting to bring the letter over in the morning, but it was too late now. He tried to appeal to his brother’s sense of decorum, but knew it was a lost cause. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”

  “Nope,” Riley grinned. “It can’t and I’ve waited long enough. I don’t care if she tears my face off. I want to see her.”

  Nick’s dog, Cartman, padded out and Steven stared at it. The dog was never going to win any beauty contests, but it was looking a lot better since Nick found her and took her in. Cartman was white with a large black spot over her left ear and eye. Steven was pretty sure she had a heavy dose of pit-bull in her, but she was a sweet natured dog.

  “Do you want me to take Cartman?” Steven asked, but Riley shook his head.

  “I’ll drop her off with Johnny and Jed at the farmhouse. They’ll look after her until I’m back. Thanks anyway, big brother.”

  The two brothers nodded at each other and Steven left as Nick got in his truck, heading toward Shanwick. Steven shook his head. The Riley brothers were as different as chalk and cheese, but they were close in their own way.

  Steven couldn’t understand how the love of his brother’s life was also his favorite sparring partner. He was going to wish his little brother luck, but decided against it. He’d pray for him on the way home instead. He was pretty sure Nick was going to need it.

  Chapter One: Bright

  Riley, Shanwick, Monday, November 5, 2012

  Riley and Cartman made it to the farmhouse just after midnight. When he walked inside, Johnny and Jed were still up. His two friends looked at each other, back at him, and laughed.

  “Oh man,” Johnny chuckled, shaking his head. “You are in so much shit.” Johnny was one of his oldest friends and Christina’s brother, lead singer of Collective Pitch, and known to the public as ‘Johnny Cool’.

  Riley turned to Jed McGuiness, one of his best friends, and his rock in times of crisis. He met Jed’s warm brown eyes and a grin slowly stole over Riley’s face. Sitting down on the couch, Johnny handed him a beer.

  “How bad?” Riley knew the answer, but needed confirmation.

  “Hmmm
,” Johnny screwed his face up. “First couple of days, she had All American Rejects – “Gives you hell” – on repeat. There’s been a lot of Hole, 4 Non Blondes, Pink, especially “So What” and there might have been some Alanis Morisette.”

  Riley winced and Johnny tapped his arm. “On a positive note, she was playing some Kelly Clarkson and Adele the other day. Oh, and they’ve been playing disco too.”

  Disco? It was worse than he thought. Rubbing his hand across his mouth and chin, Riley muttered, “I knew she’d be upset. I didn’t think it would make her psycho. I thought, you know,” he shrugged, “she’d need a cooling off period and then it’d be okay.”

  Johnny stared at him in disbelief. “We are, you know, talking about my sister? Christina Melody Martin: yay high, brown hair, brown eyes, head of the Witches Coven, and Queen of the hissy fits? That sister?”

  Riley laughed and then grimaced. Who was he kidding? He was in for a shit storm.

  “I mean. I’m surprised you brought her back here,” Johnny continued. “We’re happy you did though. It’s awesome, but she’s never got over that other stuff. You know how she can hold a grudge.”

  Johnny waved his hand around and his mouth turned down. “But, you know, I’d be pissed too if someone thought I was a murderer and attacked me. Yeah, that’d really piss me off.”

  Say what? Riley blinked, turning slowly toward Johnny until he was staring him in the eyes. “What are you talking about?” Riley frowned.

  Johnny shrugged. “I didn’t know about it until recently. Well, I might have, but, you know, the drugs… So they may have told me, but I don’t remember.”

  Trying not to grind his teeth, Riley waved Johnny to hurry him along. If Johnny was going to do one of his passive-aggressive, tangential rambling speeches, Riley wasn’t in the mood. “You don’t remember what?” Riley asked gently, resisting the impulse to shout.

  Johnny responded with his trademark, lopsided grin. “Sorry,” Johnny muttered, putting his hands up for emphasis. “I don’t know all the details, but it got pretty ugly. People thought Dina had gone crazy because Mom died and when you disappeared, they thought she’d killed you. The windows of our house got smashed, graffiti on Dad’s car, and she got attacked in town. She never got over it, man.”