Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(24)

He leaned up, stealing a kiss before moving her legs from around him and making his way to the creek side. Right as he was walking back to her, as he fastened his belt, he heard the dogs bellowing. He had heard them start to bark before, just as he and Harley started to heat up, but they stopped faster than he could manage to stop himself.

The reason he felt his gut plummet now was that he was sure he heard his mother shouting his name.

Harley was on her feet, looking like she had seen a ghost. He didn’t even bother to wrap the blanket in plastic. Instead, he shoved all of it in the tree and they both ran to the golf cart. As they sped towards the main house, they couldn’t hear the sound of Camille’s voice, but they could still hear the dogs; they sounded fierce, like a predator was near or something.

“You’re safe,” he said, knowing that one way or another he would make sure that were true. He would take any blame or shame his mother would dish out this night.

When the house came into view, Harley was sure she was going to puke. A town car was out front, the kind of car her parents used to drive around. All the lights in the plantation home were on, even Harley’s bedroom light.

“Go to your apartment. I will tell them I was out walking,” Harley said, nearly jumping out of the golf cart.

Wyatt slammed on the brakes, then followed her. He knew that wasn’t going to work. Not only were all his apartment lights on, but it looked like Harley had fallen down a muddy embankment. Her strawberry blonde hair was windblown, her legs had dirt on them, and her dress was wrinkled from where he had pushed it up. He didn’t look much better. He’d never tucked his shirt in, and Harley loved to run her fingers through his hair—no doubt, it looked out of control. Even if they were perfectly dressed, he would be damned if he let her face any of this alone.

All at once, Wyatt heard his name bellowed from behind him at the same time the plantation door opened and Claire Tatum stepped out and glared in Harley’s direction.

Claire took one look over her daughter and tensed with fury.

Camille Doran was racing toward her house when she finally saw the look on her son’s face, the way he and Harley both looked. She was filled with humiliation, anger, and some kind of sorrow. She knew she was watching a tragedy unfold.

Claire marched down the front porch and jerked Harley’s hand from Wyatt’s.

“It’s not enough that you find it liberating to play in the dirt, to have your hands covered in calluses, but you decided to go slumming with this trash.”

“You wait just one damn minute,” Camille shouted from behind him as Wyatt pulled Harley back to his side.

Claire lunged her hand forward, ripping Harley from Wyatt’s arm. “Did he force himself on you? Did he force you to your knees?”

Harley gasped with wide eyes. “Mother.”

“Don’t Mother me.” She pulled Harley in the house and marched her up the stairs, throwing a glare at Garrison, who was in the foyer. “I told you, from day one. I told you. She claimed her sons were not brood stallions, but they had no issues using your only daughter as a mare. Look at her, Garrison. Just look. You’re living in the wrong decade. Clearly you have forgotten that teenage boys only want one thing.” And with that, she jerked Harley up the stairs, calling her everything from a slut to wannabe trailer trash.

Camille grasped the back of Wyatt’s arm and was pulling him back to the barn. Easier said than done—her son was taller than her at age ten, and now she looked like a rail dragging a man across the driveway, but she was furious enough to lift a building at the time. Every time Wyatt looked back, she pinched him harder. She ultimately marched him up the stairs to the barn apartment before slamming the door closed.

“Have you lost your f*cking mind?” she shouted.

Wyatt was too busy trying to look out the closest window, trying to make sure they were not hauling Harley away. His mind was racing with a truckload of different ways to stop them.

“How long, Wyatt!”

He gave his mother a hard stare. “How long have I loved her?”

“Do not give me that bullshit, son.”

“First sight. How long have we been a couple? The first July.”

Camille stepped back as if he had struck her. Her mind was rushing back over the years, all the times she had missed this. Her husband had told her more than once that there was something there, but she told him Wyatt had more sense about him, knew the risk, would not put himself in a position where he would get hurt.

“How long have you been sleeping with her?”

Wyatt looked away, not willing to discuss this with his mother, or anyone for that matter.

“You tell me now. You have no idea how much trouble you’re in.”

He didn’t get that. She could ground him until she was blue in the face, he just had to know that Harley was okay.

“Just now.”

“Now? Like, tonight?”

He shook his head.

“Wyatt, you are weeks away from eighteen. If they had caught you then, do you realize they would’ve put you in jail?”

“Mom, seriously.”

“I am serious, son. You cannot f*ck with people like this. You cross them, and they will run you into the ground.”

“That’s not how I was raised, to back down.”

“I didn’t raise you to sleep with girls that are boarding here!”