Impulsion: A Station 32 Fire Men Novel (24 page)

Knox stepped away from Danny Boy and looked over
at Harley. “How’re you holding up?”

“Feeling good
. I worked out the soreness yesterday.”

“I tell you right now, I did not like the look of that truck. I’m too old to get calls like that. You know I have daughters your age. Don’t be putting more fears in my head; they already keep me up at night as it is,” he said with a chuckle. He glanced back at Wyatt. “Tell your momma I’m sorry I missed her. It’s looking like it’s going to be a long day,” he said as he pulled his phone out and read the screen before making his way out of the stall.

Harley could feel the raw tension between her and Wyatt, felt that harsh, painful glare he was giving her. It took all she had not to tell him that he had no right to look at her like that when Honda girl was still lying in his bed upstairs.

“I can rinse his legs, set him up. I’m sure you’re tired.”

“We didn’t turn a wheel last night. I’m fine,” he said as he led Danny Boy to the doorway and reached for his lead. Harley dropped the stall guard, and with Danny Boy in the middle they made their way to the wash bays on the far side of the main barn.

They worked in silence, unwrapping Danny Boy’s legs, getting the water and soap ready.

“Did you ride Ghost yesterday?” Wyatt asked finally.

“I did.”

“He didn’t throw you?”

“Did you want him to?” she spat back.

Wyatt looked at her like she was insane. He couldn’t figure out how she had become so cold in just a few years’ time. He hated her mother with a passion. Her father? He’d always seemed like an all right kind of guy to him.

Every visit Garrison made to Willowhaven Farms, he spent just as much time watching Wyatt ride the broncs as he did Harley riding the jumpers. Wyatt took him as a man’s man, but now, seeing how Harley was, he found just as much blame with him. He could have stood up to his own wife. They had all seen Claire change her tune when he was around; she almost acted human toward Harley. Man’s man or not, he should have figured out what that woman was raising Harley to become.

“No. I suppose I didn’t know how much you were able to ride since you went to so many parties. For all I knew, he was too advanced for you.”

Harley was having to tell herself to be tender with Danny Boy. She felt her hands pushing into him as she scrubbed
. The tension was just that elevated inside of her. Danny Boy was dancing from side to side, hating the water in general.

“And how many parties did you go to since I saw you last, Wyatt? Do girls that hang out at bars ride better than ones that go to charities?”

“It doesn’t matter what you do outside the barn, but in it,” he stabbed back as he eased Danny Boy. He never liked water on his legs, but oddly he liked it on his head, or at least his teeth. If you held the hose up to him, he would always lift his lip and move his head from side to side across the stream. If you did that a few times, he would let you put water anywhere without making too much of a fuss.

If Harley weren’t furious, doing everything she could not to look at Wyatt’s piercing stare, she might have found some kind of awe that Wyatt had remembered that about him. She might have noticed that to Danny Boy, not a moment had passed since he was here before. He’d once again found the only trainer he could tolerate, that he had never managed to buck off. That odd bond Wyatt had with Danny Boy had always made Harley’s heart flutter a little when she was younger, made her think that there was nothing Wyatt could not do simply because he was able to harness the amount of power that Danny Boy always used and find a way to use it where everyone was satisfied.

“And how many girls have you brought
in
this barn, Wyatt?” Harley asked as she stood, prepared just to engage this tension, to flat out tell him that whatever he thought or assumed about her and Collin was so far off the mark that it was comical. Not only that, but it hurt that he would think she could move on like that, that it hurt that he had moved on.

“I don’t bring anyone here. They show up.”

Harley felt like slugging the hell out of him.

“Is that what they taught you on the road? To say it’s not your fault that you fucked whoever? They fell at your feet, so you had no choice?”

“And what did they teach you at that charity event?” Wyatt said, dropping the hose and moving to the same side of Danny Boy that Harley was on. He was towering over her, doing his best to mask the pain in his eyes. He could not believe she was faulting him for fucking anyone when she was in a long-term relationship with Mr. Perfect, bound to marry the son of a bitch. “To make sure your man had a manicure before you let his hand slip between your legs?”

“Fuck you, Wyatt.”

“Not possible,” he said as he stepped forward. He was growing livid. The sight of her in that wash stall, the water that had splashed up on her white tank, those tight riding pants, that long, strawberry blonde hair pulled back in a loose ponytail, the flush of her cheeks, those sharp blue green eyes—it was all stirring him, making him lose all his senses and forget any warnings those around him had given him to take this slow.

Harley had never seen this side of Wyatt. He’d always been blunt, but at the same time he was a gentleman
. He’d never outright say something like that to her. She was about to ask him what the hell his problem was when Danny Boy turned his neck with more power than needed and slammed Wyatt into her, or at least tried. Wyatt’s body was pressed against hers, his strong arms braced on the wall on either side of her, his face an inch from hers.

Their breaths were causing both their chests to heave. Wyatt’s ice blue eyes were racing across her image. “I could never just
fuck
you. That’s not how you taught me to hold you.”

She didn’t take in his words until after she leaned up and took his lips with hers. The sensation of his body against hers, in that wash stall that they had managed to steal moments in almost every day—there was no stopping her body’s reaction. She was still furious with him, furious that he had whomever upstairs in his apartment, but right then she didn’t care. Not when she felt the power behind his lips, not when he forced her mouth open and deepened that kiss to the point where she was forgetting to breathe. His hands started to slide down her, and she didn’t dare stop him.

The feel of him was electric, it burned, and it caused her whole body to ache. She had tried to tell herself that she would never feel this sensation again, that it had only felt that way because she was young, because it was a first, that it wasn’t her partner that made a difference, just the fact that her body was not shocked by the emotion any longer, but clearly that was a
lie
.

She gasped as she felt that powerful hand slide down her stomach, right past her
hips, and move to the scorching heat of her. A moan came from deep in her throat, but he had swallowed that moan with his fierce lips, then he picked her up, wrapped her legs around him, and rocked into her. Harley’s head fell back as his lips slid down her jaw, then her neck. As his hands squeezed her bottom, his long fingers brushed against the part of her body that was aching the most.

Her hands fisted through his hair, ran across his face, slid down his back, pulling him closer. Harley forgot where she was, what she was doing. She was in a quenching dream where only they existed.

“Who is flooding my barn!”

Right as they both heard Camille’s voice from the next hallway, Wyatt let her legs down but took his time slowing the kiss on her lips.

When he did, he held her face in his hands. “Creek tonight.”

Sanity was coming back to Harley. Creek? Why a creek? Not to be romantic, no. But because there is someone in your apartment.

She never had a chance to say a word. Camille had appeared at the front of the wash stall, saw Wyatt’s hands holding Harley’s face like a gentle lover, their eyes connected past that moment.

That gaze between them had reached in the past and reflected every first, every ounce of pain, and pulled them to the present.

To Wyatt, that gap of time no longer existed. She had always been his, and he was going to do whatever he had to do to make sure she never left him again.

“Does the word ‘flood’ mean anything to the two of you?” Camille said as if she didn’t even notice how Wyatt and Harley were standing, as if she could not imagine why no one noticed the hose running into the aisle.

Wyatt let his stare linger a second longer, then let his hands fall.

“Why is he in here anyway?” Camille asked, picking up the hose and letting Danny Boy glide his teeth over the flow of the water.

“Doc wanted the cuts cleaned and his legs wrapped again,” Wyatt said as he turned and leaned down to push some of the water off Danny Boy’s legs.

“Are you riding today?”

Both Wyatt and Harley said yes at once.

“Then you need to change, Wyatt. We’re almost done tacking.”

Wyatt stood and looked back at Harley. His eyes fell deep into hers. As far as he was concerned, they were still in their own world; this right here was just going through the motions of life. “You want to walk him while I change? Then we can wrap him.”

“Do that. I want to see him walk,” Camille said.

Wyatt reached past where Harley was still standing to turn off the hose. She was utterly aware of how his hand grazed her arm as he leaned a little longer than he needed to.

Harley’s head was spinning, her heart was racing. She was sure her skin was flushed as she unhooked the cross ties on Danny Boy and attached his lead.

Harley had walked out of the side doorway by the wash stall and was leading Danny Boy to the side paddock.

“Lead him up front, better footing,” Camille said.

Being at her side was not making Harley’s head, her emotions, all of it, any better. This place was like a wicked time warp. If they had been caught like that years ago, there was no telling how her life would have ended up. At this point, Harley didn’t know if that would have afforded her and Wyatt more time or less.

“I’m only going to say this once, Harley,” Camille said as she stopped them just before making their way into the gate that led to the front. “You break my boy’s heart again, and I will be your worst nightmare. I will make your mother look like a kitten compared to me.”

Harley held her stare, swallowed her emotions, then opened the gate to lead Danny Boy in. How the hell was she supposed to tell her that it wasn’t Wyatt’s heart at risk, it was hers?

Wyatt had kissed her like he owned her, touched her body like it had only been his, like it would only be his. During that moment, that’s all she could ever want. Now, after…it hurt. For more than one reason, her body hurt with want, her soul hurt from the separating, her mind hurt as she kept imagining that girl upstairs under Wyatt, him touching her that way.

“He’s not putting much weight on that leg,” Camille said after a few minutes, obviously trying to start a conversation that had nothing to do with killing anyone.

Right then, Harley heard, “You low life, selfish, ornery son of a bitch!” coming from the second story doorway.

The apartment upstairs had two ways out; one was through the stairway that Harley could clearly see, and the other was the one inside of the barn that Harley had always used. Last she was at this barn, no one used that outside doorway. That was one of Camille’s rules. There used to be a stallion boarding under that stairway that would break a board in his stall every time Wyatt or Truman would run down the stairs.

That blonde Harley had met in passing threw down a bag from the stairs, then continued to yell inside the apartment as she grabbed another bag.

Harley glanced at Camille; the woman had turned rigid. Camille never yelled outside of the ring, but you could always see when she was furious
—and this moment was one of those times.

Harley was half-mad, half-elated. Mad that Wyatt thought she was a sure thing, that he decided at least to clean out his apartment
—elated that the girl was that easy to replace.

The girl charged down the stairs, threw her bags in the car, tossed a glare in Harley’s direction, then got in and peeled away. Harley almost lost control of Danny Boy; he’d jolted back, his eyes wide. That was a new development. Harley halfway considered that the wreck they were in had marked him in more than a physical way, but the thought never surfaced. She was confused. That green Honda almost backed into a four-wheeler that was approaching, a four-wheeler that Wyatt was driving.

Wyatt cursed in her direction, “Slow the fuck down!” Then looked at Harley. “You all right? You have him?”

Camille had grabbed hold of Danny Boy’s halter, and she and Harley were both running their hands down his neck as he stood between them.

“Tell him to get his ass down here,” Camille said to Wyatt as he pulled his four-wheeler closer to the gate and got off.

He’d changed
. Now he was in his jeans and a white T-shirt that fit just right. Just watching him walk across the driveway was causing Harley’s breath to hitch.
All man now
, she thought,
not a trace of the boy left.