Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(34)

The barn at her family home was, in part, designed the same way as the Doran barn, done that way in the past to make the transition easy on Danny Boy. All it did for Harley was bring the ghost of her past to the forefront of her mind on a daily basis.

“I’m sure he’s wondering what is taking you so long,” she heard her father say.

She jumped slightly. The moment he’d said that, Wyatt was saturating her mind, the sight of him trying to pull open that elevator door. She knew now, after this much time, no phone call would appease that anger he had to have for her. She’d have to see him face-to-face if she ever wanted him to understand that night, how tragically it could have ended.

“It’s been hectic.”

“How so?” he asked, standing at her side.

She glanced up to him and smiled when she caught a glimpse of the powerful man he was. “You look good, Daddy.”

“You were rudely torn away from your eighteenth birthday, and now you are spending your graduation party hiding out here all alone, standing downwind of the stables you rarely visit anymore.”

“I wasn’t rudely called away…I don’t know half those people in that house, and the ones I do, I wish I didn’t.” And that was the truth. Collin wasn’t there that night. His college courses were finishing, and he had major exams to contend with.

Garrison laughed at his daughter’s bluntness.

“Harley, what have I always told you about obtaining what you want in life?”

“Never beg for what is already mine.” She breathed in. “Demand it with passion…reverence.”

He nodded at her side. “Then why have you not asked to return to Willowhaven?”

Harley’s glance shot to him. In her mind, she’d asked a million times, cried even more tears, but staring at her father now, she realized she had never asked him if she could return.

“I’m happy there, Daddy. Free. I’ll be even freer now, without having to…with being able to relax.”

“And where would that ease come from?”

Harley stared out into the fields, letting her past consume her. “I spent all that time afraid I was going to lose him, that I would lose it all. Knowing that the worst that could have happened has already passed, or if the worst comes, I can survive it…just being with someone who hears what I say when I don’t say a word.”

Garrison caught that lingering remark in his daughter’s words, but what he wanted to teach her was that in life you have to state clearly what you want, not assume that others could read you.

It pleased him that she had found someone that could read her silent gestures as well as he could, that they cared enough to let her be who she was. At the same time, Garrison knew he would not always be there for her, always there to nudge her, so he did what he could to help her learn the silent lessons of life.

Right now, all the harsh words Harley had endured, this separation, in some way could have been avoided if Harley had just come to him and stated what she wanted, what she needed. Now, that lesson would stay with Harley. She would always know to speak her mind. He’d thought about waiting for her to figure out how simple it would be to solve this, but he could no longer bear the sadness in her eyes, how broken his already fragile daughter was.

“What is stopping you?”

She held his gaze. “Will you hurt that family if I go back? Sue them, make sure they lose clients?”

Garrison laughed a deep, bellowing laugh. “Even if your mother told everyone she knew to stay away from Willowhaven, they would flock there, sure that she was simply trying to keep them away from the best.”

He held her gaze. “Sometimes this socialite game your mother plays will work to your benefit, if not always. It constricts her, ties her words. She would never admit what she feels she caught you doing at Willowhaven. In her mind, that would shame her far more than you.” He laughed again. “Harley, you don’t give a damn what people think about you, your mother does.”

The weight of the world felt as if it had been lifted from her shoulders, and she felt air sliding into her lungs.

“Planes leave here daily, Harley.” And with that, he turned and left her side.

She stepped off that porch and walked right to Danny Boy, rubbed her hand down his mane, breathed in his scent, one that took her back to Wyatt in some way.

“We’re going home, Danny Boy.”

Harley may have had her father’s silent nod to run, the assurance that no escape from her would cause him any stress, but she still feared her mother, so much so that she walked on eggshells the next day as she booked a flight and packed an overnight bag. She had to plan her escape carefully. She knew without a doubt her mother would follow her to Wyatt’s. She wanted a least a half-day lead on her so that she could talk to Wyatt without all the drama.

She was even bold enough to set up a tentative appointment with the transport company to haul Danny Boy back down south. She wanted to make sure Camille still had a place for him first. Harley wanted to set things right with all the Dorans. Face-to-face.

Harley thought if Wyatt saw her, if he looked in her eyes, if she told him that her father had been sick, the hell she had been through, whatever pain she had put him through would make sense.

Her stomach flipped over and over as she traveled to him. She was terrified that he had moved on, that she was too late.