Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(2)
Harley had told herself that this summer was going to change her life, that this summer she was going to give him something she could never take back, that no matter what, no matter where life took them, they would forevermore live in each other’s memory. They were living in an immortal summer.
The first few weeks of this summer started like the rest, with her deep in her shell, uptight. It was hard for her to move from one lifestyle to the other, for her to let her shoulders down and breathe in, relax. Most times, she made it to Willowhaven Farms in mid-May and didn’t leave until the end of August. Over Christmas break, she would fly in for a week just to ride, and if she was lucky she would find a way to spend at least part of her spring and fall breaks there as well. The time in-between was hard. Doran Farms possessed the two things she was sure she could not live without: her gelding, Clandestine, and Wyatt, the love affair that she had no choice but to keep clandestine.
Wyatt’s mother would kill them both if she ever figured out there was something between them. Not because she didn’t adore Harley, but because she was a woman of her word. She had sworn to the Tatum’s that she could safely board Harley as she trained. Claire, Harley’s mother, pointed out more than once that Camille had two sons near the same age as Harley. Camille took offense to that and clearly voiced that her sons were southern gentlemen, not brood stallions.
Nevertheless, Camille built a two-bedroom apartment over the main barn. Everyone assumed it was for Harley simply because it was no ordinary barn apartment, but built to perfection, built with southern luxury, but in the end the boys took over the apartment and Harley stayed in the main house when she was there. Wyatt and his brother, Truman, didn’t mind, in fact, they loved it. It was their independence, their freedom. Their mother had warned them more than once that it came with responsibility, and daily she walked the apartment, twice, not only to make sure it was clean, but also safely kept.
This side of the farm, this side of the business, was not where Wyatt’s interest lay. More times than not, he was on the other side of the farm, the one his father managed. That side had the bulls, the broncs, was the wild side as his mother called it, but Wyatt managed to find a reason to be in his mother’s world, in the mix of her endless riding lessons more often than not when Harley was around. That should have made them obvious, but it didn’t.
Clandestine was green when he first came to Willowhaven Farms, scarcely broken to ride much less jump, which was where Wyatt and Truman came in. They had grown up breaking horses, training them. Wyatt’s long, strong legs and build were assets in that heart-racing addiction, not to mention that the ability to bond with horses was instilled in him from birth. He had a raw respect for the ride, knew the limits, when to push, when not to, a notion he used in more than one area of his life, meaning when it came to Harley.
Girls were just girls before Harley. Wyatt may have had a wayward crush here or there at school, gone to a few middle school dances or hangouts with a girl now and again, but most times he was too into when his next ride would be, into the boy toys the farm was stocked with. Four wheeling, the tractors, fishing, the trucks, all of it; Wyatt’s world was his family’s farm.
Then out of nowhere, Heaven descended on his family’s farm when he was just shy of sixteen and life hadn’t been the same for him since. Every thought, she haunted, more so when she was not at the farm, when she was away at school or home, when they couldn’t even dare to call one another. That was hell on Earth, Wyatt was sure of it.
Wyatt could still remember how uptight his mother was about the ‘Tatum girl’ coming to the farm. Camille had met Harley’s mother and found it offensive the way she looked at their farm as if it were some backwoods redneck playground. The woman seemed disgusted with nature in general. Even the plantation home that had been in Wyatt’s family for near a hundred years failed to impress that woman. Insulting, considering it had hosted several presidents in its lifetime.
The only reason Wyatt’s mother even dared to put up with the notion of the proposition of training Harley was that she knew Clandestine’s bloodline. She had heard of Harley, too, seen clips of her riding.
Camille had pulled out all the stops weeks before Harley arrived. Twice the number of farm hands were hired, and she brought on board a full-time housekeeper and cook.
Wyatt hated Harley before he met her. He was sure they all did, simply because instead of riding his four wheeler or even breaking horses, along with everyone else he was making sure that water buckets were scrubbed, if not replaced, cobwebs were swept away, the rings were dragged, the tack was cleaned, and anything and everything that could be was cleaned or restored.
But when she stepped out of the rig that had brought Clandestine, when the wind brushed her long, strawberry blonde hair over her shoulder, when the sun hit her eyes, which were a mix of green and blue, when he saw her shy smile—he felt the wind sucked completely out of him.
He was expecting some holier than thou girl, uptight, rude. What he found instead was that she was timid, somewhat at least.
Harley was the one that let down the ramp to get her horse off the rig, a horse he was sure was too big for her. She was barely five-three, a hundred pounds soaking wet, and Clandestine was well over seventeen hands, a warmblood, nothing but power. It would be up to Wyatt to harness that power and his mother to finesse that grace, to bring that out in the horse and the rider.
At first, they assumed Harley was just with the transport driver, his daughter or something. Truman even made the wry comment, “Well, look-a-there, boys, money can buy happiness.” He glanced at Harley. “Did you meet the owner, or was the butler there when you picked him up? If his rider is anything like the mother, ya’ll might want to hang close. Apparently, they don’t like dirt.”