Impulsion: A Station 32 Fire Men Novel (34 page)

Wyatt wrapped his arms around her and lifted her, then spun her around. She broke away, only to laugh, then slid down him and swayed against him as the song ended.

All Wyatt could hear in his mind was that one word
—
promise
—it made his heart thunder. She was seeing forever with him, something that would have seemed impossible just over a month ago.

Harley didn’t even think about that image that Dorcas had taken until Collin called her the next morning. He told her the only reason he knew that photo was even of her was because of the outfit she had on, that you couldn’t see her face, only Truman’s. The hum of the night before was slaughtered with a random thought that Dorcas could have done a lot of damage if she was capable of taking a clear photo and sending it to her mother instead, but then the very next second she realized she wouldn’t have cared.

At one point or another, her mother was going to figure out what was going on. But like Collin, she would rather reveal her heart with wit, a shocking moment, in a near public eye. Because sadly, in her mother’s mind nothing was real until the world was aware, until you had no chance to alter the story to anyone’s benefit.

And that moment would come soon enough, but right then Harley decided to live her life in the moment she was in, not fearing an end or even plotting an escape. Rather, she decided only to worry about it on her phone calls every third day, calls that at times were barely fifteen minutes at best.

Harley became addicted to the pub, to the people, to dancing. To laughing so hard that her sides hurt, to just being young, carefree. She and Wyatt made their way there at least once a week, if not twice. It fit perfectly into the routine of the barn time, the time with Wyatt’s family, and their sacred alone time.

During barn time, Wyatt was only on the side that Harley worked on first thing in the morning. Now that Danny Boy was past his thirty-day stall rest, he had to be worked again. For good measure, Wyatt treated him like a horse that had never been ridden, carefully tacking him up to get him used to the feel of the saddle, walking, sometimes an easy canter.

It would be a while before Danny Boy was jumping again, brought to his
peak athletic ability, but the process eased Harley. It was like that break, pause, erased all the bad habits he had picked up over the years, gave him a clean slate. Everyone knew without a doubt that no one had seen the best of Danny Boy yet. He was entering his prime with nothing but talent, experience, and now reverence to soar him forward.

After the morning lessons, Wyatt spent the day with the yearlings, or any other task his father had aimed the farm to accomplish while Harley taught her lessons.

Every day he wasn’t at the fire department, like clockwork he picked her up on the four-wheeler. Before dinner, they would race around the farm, watching the sunset from the hilltops, slipping into the creek on the hotter days. Sometimes, when the wind had just enough strength to wash away the summer heat, they found their way to the hayloft and lost themselves in a fiery fit of summer passion.

“How come you never bring that pretty girl of yours around?” Camille asked Easton as he made his way past her office.

“Stingy with time, I suppose. Your boy around? He’s been M.I.A. forever now.”

Harley stepped out of Danny Boy’s stall, curious as to what girl Easton had that he was hiding and what boy he was looking for.

Wyatt was right about Easton not coming out much, and if he did it was late. As many times as she had been out with the boys from Station 32 and Ava and her friends, she had only seen Easton twice, and he was alone each time. A walking mystery, that one was.

“Is he with you?” Easton said with a slow smile, looking in the stall she just came out of.

“Should be here soon. What do you mean M.I.A.?” Harley asked, moving to the hose to wash off the dust of her day. “You’re the one that’s M.I.A. You owe me a dance.”

“You want
me
to dance?” Easton said, widening his bright green eyes as he pointed his finger at his broad chest. “Not enough beer in the world.”

Harley busted out laughing. “What are you and Wyatt up to?”

She could have sworn that she saw him pull up hours ago.

“Fixing that pump in his truck. But he was supposed to be getting a part that was sent here for that Mustang of Memphis’ we’re building when we get the chance. He vanished on me, and I gotta get going.”

“Hold your horses, Daddy-O. It was at the house,” Harley heard Wyatt say. He had emerged from the side aisle way.

“What did you do? Take a bubble bath?” Easton said, noting that Wyatt’s hair was still damp. His clothes had not been touched by the summer heat or whatever project he’d been working on that day.

“It’s called a shower. You didn’t think I was going to get oil all over Harley, now did you? Come on, Memphis’ part is on the four-wheeler.”

Harley glanced at Camille. She had only looked up from her desk for an instant, but a lingering smile was on her lips. Harley knew why; Easton and Wyatt, even Memphis and Truman, they were the definition of best friends. Always there, always had been. Shared the same passions, in more than one avenue of life.

Harley went to follow them, sure that she and Wyatt were going to take off for a bit before dinner was ready, but she doubled back and walked into the office. She had printed out a few papers she wanted to show Wyatt and had left them in there just so they wouldn’t get wet. She had folded them up and pushed them into her back pocket and was walking out again when Camille shifted the calendar on her desk toward Harley. “I’m setting up a schedule for the next shows. Are you going to be at all of these?”

Harley felt her heart pick up. Camille always knew more than she said but expected you to tell her something before she acknowledged it. One of the shows was across the days she was due home.

“Not this one,” Harley said in a ghost of a whisper.

Camille wrote something down. “Wyatt was due to train for these riders. I can shift them.”

“He still can, as far as I know. I mean, I don’t know about his schedule with the fire department.”

Camille looked up at Harley over the reading glasses she only used at her desk. “I suppose I assumed if you were going home that Wyatt would want to go, that you would want him to go.”

Harley was sure she was flushing. She was going home to fake break up with Collin, or at least break that news silently to their fathers just before the birthday celebration. In all truth, Collin was still hashing out the details. Harley had been too enchanted with her life now to follow through, but she knew that Collin had already had a few lunches with his father, even planned to introduce Quinn to him in a few weeks’ time.

Before Harley was forced to answer that hard question, that knowing stare, Wyatt came up behind her. “All set?”

Harley nodded.

“We’re going to have dinner at home. I let Dad and Grams know already,” he said to his mom.

“See you in the morning, son.” She always said that to him, but never to Harley. It was little things like that that Harley found herself reading far too deep into. It almost felt like the only one that trusted her beyond a shadow of a doubt was Wyatt, but at times he even seemed to hold her a little tighter, especially after her nightly calls with her dad or when Collin called out of their normal routine.

Harley was so deep in the guilt trip that Camille purposely wrapped her in that she didn’t notice where Wyatt was taking her. Her head was against his back, her eyes closed, her arms clenched around him, wanting to stretch every moment alone with him, not to think about home. She wanted to get past it, but she didn’t want to face it.

It was going to cause a fight somewhere; Camille had clearly already alluded to that, and she was right. So far, Wyatt hadn’t mentioned a thing about her going to that birthday party, but that didn’t mean that when he figured out that Collin was her date to it that he would be okay with it, even if the entire deal was just a ruse.

Wyatt had stopped, turned off the four-wheeler, but noticed that Harley was still holding on to him for dear life. He still found himself reading every silent gesture of hers, sometimes flashing back to their past. Right now, how she held him a little tighter, how she smiled and changed the subject when he asked her a random question about some tomorrow they had planned reminded him of when they were kids, when she would turn inward weeks before she was set to leave his side for months at a time.

“Where are you?” he said as he squeezed her arms, which were around him.

Harley opened her eyes, finding them on a distant, rolling hill, overlooking one of the furthest sections of the farm, past the point of where Wyatt had built his home.

“Right here,” she said as she glided around him. He reached for her legs, which were around his waist, and pulled her hips closer to his, then leaned up and gave her a sweet, seductive kiss.

“I’ve been waiting hours for that,” he said in a husky whisper.

She smiled as her hands ran down his face.

He glanced to his side, and she followed that gaze. In the far distance, she saw Avowed in the pasture. The yearling stalls on the far side of the barn, at least a few of them, had the stalls to where the horse could go out or in the paddock
of its own will.

“How soon before I get to ride him?”

“Him? Good eyes,” Wyatt said as he watched Avowed take off in a gallop, only to stop and see how far away from the stall he was, then run again when he decided the restriction was too close.

“Your mother introduced us weeks back.”

“Did she?” he said.

When Harley looked back, she found his stare lingering on her.

“She gave him to me.”

Wyatt lifted a brow. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

She was reading him then, the near sadness in his voice. Her stare questioned him.

“I wanted to make peace with her, but all that gift did was seem to bring the pain to the surface.”

Harley knew that Camille had never really found blame with her son. She wasn’t really sure who Camille found blame with for those lost, dark years, but she knew all she wanted Wyatt to understand about that gelding was that beauty, life, talent, power come from every walk of life, not just good breeding. “She was proud when she showed me.”

“And how did you feel?”

“I think he’s extraordinary. I have to wonder how much like Danny Boy he’s going to be.”

“Different blood, at least by half.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she whispered.

His lips met hers as his arms
enfolded her, then lifted her body against his. She was so lost in the touch of his lips that she didn’t realize where he was carrying her until he went to lay her down.

Under this distant shade tree, there was a blanket, a basket of food, a few ice-cold long necks.

“You’re a little early, Mr. Doran,” she said as she laughed against the near growling kisses on her neck, even fought to roll him over on his back so that her hands were playfully pinning his arms as she sat astride him. “The sun is still up.”

“No one’s coming in my back forty,” he said as his eyes grew hungry.

“Yours,” she said with a sly smile and a lifted brow.

“Mine,” he said as he broke from her hold and clenched his hands on her hips. “Came with the house…the rest will come in time.”

“Let’s not rush that,” Harley said in a quiet voice, knowing when it was all his that his parents would have shifted into the role of his grandparents, or even be gone. Harley wanted him to hold on to his family, hold on to time, youth.

He started to unfasten the belt on her shorts.

“Wyatt Doran.”

“I’ve loved you under the stars, never the sun,” he said, pulling her belt away. She looked like an angel above him, the way the sun was shining through her long hair, making it look more blonde than red at the moment.

“Every day, you do,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and felt the sensation of his velvet hands moving under her shirt, only to fall and glide up again. Right when his hand fell past her waist and slid across the folded paper she had stuffed there, her eyes flew open and she reached back for them, completely slaughtering the mood, but the smile on her face told Wyatt that she didn’t even notice.

“This is for you,” she said, handing him the paper.

As he opened it, she spoke. “If I ordered anything wrong, I can still change it. Well, I have to have it changed by in the morning. I keep forgetting to talk to you about it. I just told them the latest version of what you had, about the hitch and everything.”

Wyatt’s smile fell as he read the papers. He sat up, causing her to slip between his legs. “You bought me a truck?”

His tone was the last thing Harley expected; it was near cold, almost threatened. She felt her skin flush, the way it always did when her mother would come at her with that same unforgiving tone and words that would twist whatever intent Harley had in the first place, making Harley’s actions seem downright criminal.