Impulsion: A Station 32 Fire Men Novel (30 page)

“I’m an ass,” he said softly to her. “I assumed. I never asked.”

Harley furrowed her brow.

“You’re not with Collin.”

She pulled herself up, wondering how he knew that. She’d tried to stop him last night and tell him that, but then everything else happened. Then after, Collin was the furthest thing on her mind; she was in a world all alone with him.

“I was, a long time ago, but that sick feeling you told me about…it was the same for me—maybe worse.”

He stopped her by brushing his lips against hers. “I’m an ass,” he said again. “Everything I read, everything I saw, even the stuff in your truck…I thought it was now. I thought it always had been.”

She shook her head.

“I heard you on the phone with him, telling him how cold it was here, telling him not to come…all of that. I should have had the nerve to say something then.”

Harley’s gaze grew wide. She was sick of them slipping by each other, thinking the other meant something they didn’t. That meant that night they both were in misery, thinking the other had moved on. “You heard me on the phone?”

He didn’t answer, just went on. “I should have never stopped trying to get to you. When you landed back here, I should have told you how I felt when I picked you up…I think we all thought that slow was better, that rushing you would push you away, but you and me have been taking things slow for too long.”

He looked away as she sat up next to him. “I answered your phone this morning. I was prepared to tell Collin he was going to have to fight me to get you…”

“You did what?” she gasped as she moved her hand through her hair, trying to ground herself. She knew them both well; they were both fierce
in their own right—they just had different methods. She had to wonder what daggers were thrown while she slept this morning.

“He told me
everything, all of it.”

“You’re not mad?”

“Mad that you survived the best you could?”

That was the last thing she expected. She assumed when he figured out her mother was plotting for her to marry Collin, he would come unglued, never see the point. Maybe even think she and Collin
did
have something going on.

Her eyes rushed over him. “I could have fought harder. I was weak, didn’t use my voice.”

“Harley, you have never been weak, you just care…even if that woman had put me in jail, I would have gotten out. She could have sued the hell out of my family, we would have survived…you were trying to protect me.”

What in the hell did Collin say to him that made Wyatt
so calm about this?
“I was a coward later. I was even a coward here. I thought you were sleeping with that blonde. I didn’t ask, just assumed. ”

Wyatt’s eyes went wide in shock. Harley raised her hand to halt whatever he was going to say. “If I was half as bold as you, we would have been here long ago.”

“This is where you want to be?” he asked with a trace of disbelief.

“Wyatt, I’ve never wanted to be anywhere else
. I love you so much it hurts.”

A gasping smile left his lips. “I
will always keep you safe, Harley. I swear to you, I will give you everything you ever want and more.”

Her eyes moved across his face, she reached to brush her fingertips across his strong jawline. “I only want you…”

They never left that room all day. While listening to the rain, they lost themselves in fits of passion, would drift to sleep, only to awaken then find a new way to explore each other.

If Wyatt had ever thought to put more than a few snacks here and there in his house, they would have stayed in all night. But when his father called and asked if he was coming to dinner, they dared to venture out.

They walked in his parents’ house hand in hand. He pulled out her chair, sat next to her. Even squeezed her knee a time or two when he noticed that she was flushing, not making eye contact with everyone.

The dinner was lively. Ava and Truman were there; Memphis came by, too. No one said a thing about the pair of them, but Harley could swear she saw the curiosity in everyone’s eyes, the lingering smiles, even caught the hard jokes about how some thought rain meant you didn’t have to show up.

After dinner, Harley didn’t take all of her things to Wyatt’s, but she grabbed a small bag, the clothes she would need for the next day, and walked hand in hand with him through the stables, lingering near Danny Boy, spoiling him with apples and mints.

Wyatt was up with the sun the next day. Harley opened her eyes to see him dressing for work.

“This is going to be the longest day,” she said with almost a playful pout.

He pulled her legs to the edge of the bed, then her up into his arms. “I can handle a day as long as I know when I call, you’ll answer; as long as I know as soon as I’m off, I can see this beautiful face…anything past that…not possible, not anymore.”

***

Harley had just finished wrapping Danny Boy’s legs after his morning hand walk when Camille appeared before his stall.

“You need me to ride?” For the past few weeks, it had been hit or miss with that question. She either needed her to ride or train, but the training was few and far between. Most of the time, Harley just helped her with the lessons she already had set up.

“No, I need you to come with me,” Camille said as she walked past the stall.

Harley felt her heart pick up a notch. This thing between her and Wyatt, now that it was out in the open, it was sure to change her and Camille’s relationship in some way. So far, they had been acting like they had in the past, teacher and student, neither acknowledging the obvious.

Camille was close to her son,
really
close. Harley couldn’t read her, didn’t know if Camille had said the things she said before because she wanted him happy and Harley was just the source of that happiness, if in truth she couldn’t care less about Harley, or if it was the opposite, if Camille saw Harley as more than another rider.

She found Camille in a golf cart just outside. Camille didn’t say a word as they drove off, and Harley had no idea what to think when she started down the path that would lead to Wyatt’s home. Camille turned off, though, down a path that led between the paddocks.

Harley knew they were heading right toward the broodmare barn and assumed that Camille was just showing her the foals everyone kept talking about at dinner. She stopped the cart, leaned back in her seat, never said a word.

They hadn’t made it all the way to that broodmare barn, but the one next to it that had the yearlings, those that Wyatt and Truman, along with others, rode to break, teaching them everything from handling a saddle on them to whatever role they had in their horse world. The horses in that barn were ones that would become jumpers.

All at once, Harley heard the gallop of powerful hoofs, looked to see a golden gelding charging across the largest paddock on this side of the farm. Harley had seen him at a distance before, when she was either making her way to or from Wyatt’s. It was the only horse near his home; the others were kept closer in.

He was massive for a young horse
. You could just feel the power vibrating off him.

The only marks on him were his white face, and that color was almost topaz. The sun seemed to bring forth a glow.

“He’s gorgeous,” Harley breathed.

There was rarely a horse she had not found majestic, even the ones that were rescues that this farm brought back to life. In her mind, a horse was royalty, so much power, heart, something that could never really be tamed but called you to want to live your life with the same grace.

The only other horse that had taken her breath away like this was Danny Boy, when she was just a girl and the trainer at her school showed her a clip of him. That trainer told Harley that if she worked hard, if she really wanted to commit to this sport and challenge herself, that was the horse she needed to strive to build to.

Before that point, Harley had mastered the basics, mastered the horses that did their job so well that the rider was almost a decoration. That trainer never let anyone settle. Harley always thought that she was the one that told her father about Willowhaven Farms, suggested them, because when she told that trainer where she was going, that she had the mount she always wanted, all that trainer did was smile and say, “This is about to get real for you. Don’t go there unless you’re prepared for your entire life to change. You will never be the same.”

She was beyond right about that, for more than one reason.

Camille was still staring at the gelding, not bothering to agree or not. Just like with her riders, she rarely showed clear favoritism.

“Was he bred here?”

One nod.

“He’s young. Has he been broken?”

“In the process.”

“Which mare?” Willowhaven had stallions, but breeding was the smallest part of their business, and if Harley had been paying attention at the dinner-slash-business meetings, she knew that they had not used a stallion of theirs on the property until recently, too recently for this gelding to have been bred.

Camille glanced to her side, keeping her body in its character-rigid position. “Stolen Heart.”

A slow smile came to Harley. She loved that mare, she really did. This farm had rescued her mother, and Stolen Heart was dropped a few months later. That was the first birth Harley had witnessed, just days after she arrived at Willowhaven for the first time. They thought they were going to lose the filly a few times, her mother had little to no milk, but Harley, Ava, others all took shifts in feeding her goat’s milk. Stolen Heart grew strong fast.

She was hard to break. Wyatt had gotten her to where she could be ridden, but it seemed her job all in all would be to become a buddy for the rescue barn
. She seemed to calm the other horses that were recovering, taught them to trust again by showing them how.

The gelding had stopped his gallop and was slowly walking to the water trough. When he got there, he drank his fill then lifted his lip, showing his teeth, then glided his head back and forth over the water. Harley’s shocked gaze moved to Camille.

“Same sire,” Camille said.

“Danny Boy’s?”

Camille nodded slowly, even laughed as the gelding scared itself with the water and darted away, only to buck through the field.

“Wyatt was a natural the day he went pro. His first win, he paid the stud fee.” Camille kept her stare on the field. “He told me he was sorry I lost Danny Boy, that this was all he could do.” Camille moved her head from side to side. “I told him it wasn’t…told him it wasn’t the same.”

She rolled her shoulders against the seat. “I always say what I mean, but what I mean is not always heard. My son thought this horse would replace Danny Boy, maybe the memories of my first horse. He was telling me he was sorry for all the hell he put me through…what he didn’t hear, what I tried to tell him, was that he could cover up his past any way he wanted. He might find some joy in it, but it would not be the same.

“In this world, some say it’s all about breeding, that the power is in the blood
. If this world has taught me anything, it is that there are no absolutes, no real endings or beginnings, just a cycle of life.”

Camille looked to her side at Harley. “Harley, my father was a lot like yours, hard to understand. In the way that you are sure that his words had an insane depth that your humbled youth could not possibly fathom
. My dad and me had a falling out here and there…always about breeding. And after our biggest fight, he told me that all I ever had to do was tell him what I wanted, needed.”

Harley looked away, hearing the similarities, and also knowing that she had gone so far down this road with Collin that there was no way to get out of it without telling her father she had lied to him for years. He’d never understand that she lied to keep the peace, that she lied because she found someone that could and would deal with her mother for her, that after all his silent lessons she was still a coward when it came to her mother. She never wanted her father to feel that disappointment, which was why Collin’s plan, this fake separation deal, seemed so inviting. It also felt wrong, though; it really did.

“Life is a cycle, Harley. You can’t be terrified to say what you feel. You need to say it while you can, say it before you can only wish you took the chance.” Camille leaned forward and grabbed an envelope that was on the dash of the golf cart.

“It’s not all about breeding; a lot of it is about heart. Blood can give you every talent you could ever need
, but heart gives you the notion to use that talent.” Camille handed the envelope to Harley. “I could have bred any mare on this farm with the stud fee Wyatt obtained, but I chose this one, and I made sure this horse was the first thing Wyatt saw every day when he came home. I wanted him to think, that may or may not have helped him find the nerve to say what he never had the chance to.”

Harley looked down at the paperwork, the name of the horse. “Avowed.” She glanced up at Camille. The name meant the exact opposite of Clandestine’s.

“He named him—seems more than fitting currently.” Camille nodded to the papers. “He’s yours.”