Impulsion: A Station 32 Fire Men Novel (20 page)

“I talked to your mom,” Harley finally said.

He nodded once.

“Professional, huh?”

Wyatt glanced to his side, wondering exactly what his mother had said to Harley, if she had used the caress she had sworn him to. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You’re all right, though. Right? You were all right there.” It terrified her that he had been in any kind of danger, that she had been clueless. As hurt as she was, she still would have cared, still would have been worried.

Wyatt clenched his jaw. He was still fairly fresh out of the world of being on the road constantly. Those years were not his best to talk about, not with Harley. They did make him a man, did make him strong, but that was also when he dared to take another girl to bed, more than one. When he fought Harley’s memory with them and beer. It took him long enough, but he figured out that neither of those would stop any hell; only created more of it. For the last year, he’d more or less been walking the innocent line.

“Me and Easton had each other’s back. Brant was ‘round, too.”

“Now, too, right? You’re both firemen.”

That was a fairly new development. He’d been on the volunteer for years, but now it was a career. “So’s Memphis and Truman.”

“That’s what you wanted, that’s good.”

He didn’t have a response for that. The career as a fireman was something to do, something he loved to do, but Harley was all he ever wanted.

Harley’s biggest regret in life was not fighting harder for Wyatt. He may not be the boy that she loved then anymore, but she was going to tell the man why she did what she did.

Normally after being away from him for long periods of time, she would be timid for the first bit, mostly because she was always trying to figure out if he still had feelings for her, if in her absence some local girl had stolen him from her.

She didn’t have time to be timid, or rather she learned long ago that you waste time by doing that, so she chose to be blunt. Just to get this edge out of the way. Feelings or not, she wanted him to know that being ripped from him was something she’d yet to get over.

“I thought you were with Dorcas. I was ready to run away, spend the rest of my life with you. I had a transport company ready to bring Danny Boy down, everything in line, then when I got there I knew I was too late.”

She saw him tense, was sure she saw emotion flash in his blue eyes; it was anger, at who she didn’t know. She knew she was a coward then, ran. Hell, for all she knew she was still one. This break between them, this unspoken goodbye, it was all her fault. He had the right to be angry. But at the time, she thought she had every right to run. Emotion had always been Harley’s enemy. It clouded her judgment constantly.

“Have I
ever
lied to you, Harley?”

“No,” she breathed.

“And what did I tell you about Dorcas?”

“I know what you said, but you thought you had reason to be mad at me, you thought I’d moved on. For all I knew, she was revenge,” she said to justify the thoughts she had years ago, the ones that had been her curse up until she woke to find Camille standing over her hours before.

“I
thought
I had reason?”

She looked out the window, told herself to breathe. Dorcas or not, he’d been with other girls
—she’d seen enough images online to gather that much—and he was giving her hell about Collin, a basically platonic relationship.

Part of her wanted Wyatt to think they were together
. That way, Collin could be her shield once more. She could hide behind the idea of him and act like she didn’t care who Wyatt was with today. “I wasn’t with him.”

“So now you’re going to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” she shot back.

“I saw you, Harley.”

“It was just an event, he was my escort to it. We weren’t together.”

“But you are now,” he said, elbowing the box closer to her.

She had no response for that. Wyatt would never get the public game she and Collin were playing, no matter how she explained it. If he had not come at her as hard as he was now, she would have figured out how to tell him they were merely good friends.

She knew Wyatt well enough to know that no matter how she put it right now, with this much space between them it would only make it worse. She needed to figure out how to get past this, not rip open the feelings that had barely dulled.

“And it took you all of two days after seeing Dorcas to decide to be with him. It was that easy for you.”

Harley furrowed her brow in confusion. She was well into her second semester of school before the public gave her and Collin the title of dating.

“I called, Harley, and Donald told me that Mrs. Tatum was entertaining Collin Grant, for me not to call anymore. But I did, over and over. Hell, I called you a month ago. Same answer, that or that you were not in at all.”

Rage boiled inside of Harley. She was sure at times she hated her mother; this was one of them. “I was home for all of a day after Willowhaven. I already had a flight booked overseas. I made that flight. Mrs. Tatum was entertaining Collin. Not me; my mother.”

“Not always,” Wyatt said under his breath.

“I never knew you called. Trust me. I may avoid confrontation, but if I knew that you gave a
damn
, I would have run right into the hell of you.” She wanted to argue that she didn’t live at home anymore, that she hadn’t really stayed there at all since they were ripped apart, but thought better of it. His knowing her address now was not going to help this matter.

Wyatt slowly glanced to his side. Harley raised her brow as if to dare him to challenge her on that point.

“Doesn’t change now,” he finally said.

What about now?
she thought.
About the way you feel about me, or that you think I’m with Collin? Do you have to be such an
ass
?

“Are you trying to tell me that you think you have the right to give me an attitude for dating someone almost two years after we were torn apart? What are you? A saint? Are you telling me that there has been
no
one between me and now for you?”

She noticed his body tense, the way he glanced away. Felt a sickness slam into her. He had.

“Girls, yes; dating, no.”

“Oh, so it would be better for you if I had just slept around? That would put me in the right if I had?”

“Where the hell did that come from?” he snapped. The Harley he knew, that girl that blushed when she told him she wanted him to be her first never would have said something like that.

“Where did that come from? You’re mad at me because of Collin.”

Yeah, he was. He was mad because clearly he loved Harley more than she loved him, then and now.

“Harley, I fought like hell for you, and I clearly fought alone. One word from you, one random word was all I wanted. I don’t care how big of a
bitch
your mother is, I know she did not have you in chains. You would have found a way if you cared, if you wanted to.”

Those words cut right through her because they were the truth, all except the part about her not caring. She thought she was being brave by protecting his family from her mother, and by the time she figured out there was never a real threat, Dorcas helped her figure out she was too late…back then, her seventeen year old mind told her that
was the only way to survive.

“Not in physical chains, no. My life was hell, Wyatt. I can’t say that it’s much better, beyond the fact that I just don’t care to care anymore.”

“You didn’t look like you were in any kind of chains or hell when you left the hotel with that boy. Looked like you were running away with him.”

She stared at him, trying to figure out how he knew she left the hotel after she had seen him on her birthday. She and Collin were sure he was gone. She had watched him call the front desk, over and over. They had even snuck downstairs and looked through the lobby and the front parking lot together. She never found Wyatt.

And if it weren’t for her father having another episode, she would have been on a plane to him and beat him home.

“I thought I was rushing to my father’s grave.”

Wyatt jerked his head in her direction. The emotion he saw her trying to hold back underlined the truth in her words.

“He had a heart attack a few weeks after they separated us. He was still not all the way well, had another episode.”

“I’m sorry.” It took all he had not to reach for her hand. He knew that man, even as intimidating as he could be, was the only sun in Harley’s life. Garrison had always given Wyatt respect, treated him like a man long before he was one.

They rode in silence the rest of the way to the barn. Harley was sure this was going to be harder than she had ever imagined, but it was already healing her. She was seeing that he had turned into a hard asshole, yet she was still able to justify her actions, even if they seemed ridiculous today.

He pulled right up to the barn, not even questioning if she wanted to go to the house first.

Danny Boy had his head out of his stall, neighing as loud as he could in Harley’s direction. He even paced down to the next doorway to get closer.

“Easy now,” she said, reaching up to him. Danny Boy let his head rest on her chest, blew out deep breaths as she ran her hand across him and whispered how sorry she was.

Watching her with Danny Boy, seeing that bond, was nothing more than a wicked wave of nostalgia for Wyatt. Something that brought the past forward, yet at the same time was a testimony to how much time had passed. Before, Harley was close to Danny Boy, but Danny Boy had his distance, his moods, would do the littlest things to defy Harley. Seeing this now, Wyatt knew that she had managed to master this ride, and he
’d missed that accomplishment. He’d missed it, and that ass Collin was there.

Harley set her phone on the ledge of the stall, then slid under the stall guard into the stall with Danny Boy to check over his injuries. He was not putting weight on his back leg; there were lacerations all over his side.

“That’s from the partition,” Wyatt said to her. She glanced back at him. “I found him first at the scene. It had fallen on him, and he was rearing up.”

“I bet he was terrified,” Harley said, still keeping her hands on him.

Wyatt smirked. “No, he was pissed.” Danny Boy blew a gust of air out of his nose and basically grunted in agreement.

Harley let an ironic grin linger on her lips. Danny Boy had been ridden and trained by more riders than she cared to think about, but no one understood him like Wyatt. The only way Harley figured out how to handle him was by listening to the memories of Wyatt. Even when she wasn’t remembering his words, she remembered how well Wyatt had ridden Danny Boy.

Wyatt read his moods. Instead of trying to break him, not allow Danny Boy to feel those emotions that were bred into him, Wyatt played into them, used the energy he was putting off in a different way. Harley had tried to tell the other trainers that, but they all looked at her like she was insane and told her this horse would kill her if she didn’t rein him in.

Her phone started to ring. Wyatt reached back for it, gave it a glance, clenched his jaw as he handed it to Harley. She saw Collin’s image on the screen, his number. She almost didn’t answer but knew that would make this even more awkward.

“Hey,” she said as she answered.

“How is he?” Collin’s voice echoed through the stall. Danny Boy turned his head and nudged Harley. When she eased him back, she saw Wyatt walking away from the stall, felt her chest ache all at once.

“Pissed.”

“Which boy are we talking about?” Collin said in a half-amused voice.

“Apparently both.”

He hesitated for a second. “Is he close?”

“Yeah.”

“It will work out,” he promised Harley.

“I don’t know,” she said as she reached to run her hand along Danny Boy’s mane.

“I just wanted to check and make sure your mother didn’t know Ava’s name.”

“I don’t think she knew his until after all that happened. Why?”

“She called this morning. I didn’t answer. I’m going to steer the conversation
away from this when I call her back, but if I have to say something I wanted to check the story. That girl you horse showed with at school, Caroline, her farm is only a hundred miles from there. I didn’t know if saying her name would be better.”

For Christ’s sake, I’m a grown woman and still hiding from my mother
, Harley thought to herself.

“Just try not to say one at all. You know the motto, never speak the truth but state it clearly at the same time.”

He laughed at that.

“Did I spoil your weekend?” Harley asked.

“No. Quinn wanted me to fly out to you, but when I laid it all out she saw your point. I think she’s rooting for you.”

“Because that will give you freedom,” Harley said with a smile.

“No, because she’s a romantic at heart. Believes in fate.”