Free Relentless (Fallon Sisters Trilogy: Book #1) by P. J. O'Dwyer Page A

father had spoken with Bernie. They signed the paperwork and arranged the auction for the first of February. But now, two weeks later, she was angry all over again.
    Bren swung her dark blue pickup into the parking lot across from the Washington County courthouse steps. She'd meant to be on time. Not that she could stop the proceedings today. But walking into this thing with her eyes open, she wanted to know who would end up with a cool hundred acres and one farmhouse below market.
    Whoever bought the property would be sharing Grace's driveway, their right of ingress and egress a constant reminder Grace's heart had been sliced in two.
    Bren stepped off the curb and cut across two lanes of traffic. Even the sun had chosen to hide this morning. Gray clouds crowded the sky, only adding to the bleak future looming several footsteps away.
    "Hey." Jeremy jogged the distance between them.
    She met up with him on the sidewalk.
    His hardened expression, uncommon for Jeremy, and a paler than usual complexion, sent a streak of alarm racing toward her gut.
    "Where have you been?" His lips thinned.
    Jeremy and indignant didn't go together. Last time she'd checked, she was off the schedule today. Her only commitment was to Grace and the horse rescue. It was touch and go as to whether she'd even show her face at the courthouse steps.
    "Short on volunteers. I had to dole out the medications this morning. And all that money I hoped to make on this year's rescue calendar is sitting at the print shop because I'm here dealing with this crap, instead of picking them up." She grabbed his arm, irritation scoring her brow. "Why are you here and what the hell is wrong?"
    Whatever he felt compelled to lay on her this morning couldn't come close to losing the land her family—namely her mother and father—had toiled over for the past forty years.
    "Bren, don't freak out on me."
    If he was trying to console her, he was doing a piss-poor job of it.
    "It's Wes."
    With the bank dealings, emptying her childhood home, moving her father in, and her return to the master bedroom and all the emotional baggage after her father refused her kind offer to take it—the room, not the baggage—Wes had been only a shadow on the periphery of her subconscious.
    The other factor had been the phone calls—they'd stopped.
    Bren spotted Bernie over Jeremy's shoulder, standing on the courthouse steps with his glasses perched on his nose. He flipped through papers attached to a clipboard. Grace wasn't the only trustee sale today. he paper listed seven properties.
    "I don't care about Wes," she threw back at Jeremy and moved past him.
    "Wait." Jeremy grabbed her arm. "Your property's on the auction block now."
    Her heart bolted out of her chest, and she shook his hand off her arm. "Thanks for telling me." Bren's legs followed her heart and took off toward the crowd congregated at the bottom of the steps. She wanted to get a look at her prospective neighbor.
    Pushing through the crowd of bulky winter coats and endless chatter, she popped out on the other side. Bren grew cold.
    Wes.
    He stood with a well-shined, black dress shoe up on the brick knee wall to the left of the courthouse steps. Hand tucked beneath his chin, he leaned forward. She'd seen that stance before. He was strategizing for the win. The prize was her land, her childhood home, and her sense of security, along with that troublemaker—her pride.
    "Let me through." Jeremy nudged a businessman and his briefcase and came up alongside her. "He's bidding on your—"
    "No shit," she snapped. She'd been grieving for a year, struggling to survive both mentally and financially, and now Wes wanted to humiliate her.
    Son of a bitch. I'll strangle you.
    She dashed up the steps. A hand brushed her arm.
    "Shit, Bren, hold up."
    She turned, catching his profile. The only thing keeping her from strangling him, too, was the fact he was Robert, not Wes, and even that was a small margin of consolation. "You're his