Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(45)

He wasn’t in his uniform anymore. He’d thought to put on his best jeans, one of his nicer shirts, and cleanest boots.

When he made it to the section they had her in, she was on the phone. He heard her say, “I know, I will, I love you,” then hang up.

Wyatt almost walked away then, almost called his sister to come get her instead. In all the haunting daydreams about her, he never once imagined that when he was face-to-face with her again she’d be in love with someone else. It just didn’t seem possible in his universe.

Harley’s father had called her first thing that morning. He told her not to push Danny Boy to recover. Worst case, he’d find another barn. Told her to take it easy and not push herself. Harley gave him the short, sweet answers he wanted to hear, told him she loved him, then hung up.

Right as she did, she felt this electric current race down her spine, felt adrenaline come to the surface of her skin for no reason. When she glanced to the curtain just behind her, she lost her breath.

Wyatt was standing there. Time had not been good to him; it had been extraordinary. At seventeen, she would have told you that there was no way for him to be any more gorgeous, heart stopping. But manhood looked good on him. He seemed taller (not by much), his hair was the same, that short, dirty blond, barely kissed by the sun. Those eyes were bluer, his jawline was sharper, shoulders broader—he had filled out even more so.

There was no way in hell he was single, and if he was, there was no way that he did not have girls like Dorcas knocking on his door every chance they got.

He didn’t smile at her; there was no expression in his stoic image. She was really feeling like a fool for kissing him when she woke up from that crash.

He stepped forward, carefully, like she was a wounded animal. “Ava pulled these from your bags,” he said with a husky voice.

She held his stare, not able to say a word. Every emotion was flooding to the surface so fast that it hurt.

“Are you in pain?” he asked in a softer tone.

“They gave me some medicine. They told me I could go.”

He walked a few steps closer, leaned in, and reached to let his thumb brush across the burn on her cheek. Harley’s eyes closed on contact.

Harley had become a woman. Even with the hint of burns from the airbag and the gash at her hairline, she was radiant, breathtaking to him.

“You scared the hell out of me.”

Her eyes opened and connected with his. “You made me feel safe.”

His jaw clenched, and he nodded to the clothes. “I’ll let you get dressed, take you home…I mean, to the farm.”

Wyatt left before she could say a word. All night she had rehearsed what she would say to him, how she could tell him that she knew Dorcas had played her, how’d she tell him her dad was sick then, not much better now. She didn’t expect a conversation like that, for there to be that much tension, anger in his ice blue eyes.

He lingered at a distance as she was discharged. Walking outside, he kept space between them.

In the parking lot, she felt her skin flush. He was still driving the same truck, the truck that had more than enough memories attached to it. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do if she got inside and found the mark of another girl, some picture or hair tie on his gear shift.

He helped her in the passenger seat. As he walked around, she glanced down to the small box in the middle of the seat, recognizing her things, some very personal things: a picture of her and Collin that she didn’t even know she had, her birth control, her wallet. She swallowed nervously as he climbed in. She had to wonder if that was why he was being so distant from her. Her only issue was that she couldn’t explain any of that away.

She was in a public relationship with Collin. It had been over a year, but she had slept with him. She gritted her teeth and chanted, Backbone in her head. Even if he was mad about this, he had no right; she seriously doubted he had not slept with another girl.

Wyatt glanced at the box that she was shifting through, at the things she was trying to get out of both their faces. “That fell out when they were towing the truck. Everything else should be in it.”

He started the truck and pulled away, leaned into his door as if he wanted as much space between them as possible.

“I talked to your mom,” Harley finally said.

He nodded once.

“Professional, huh?”

Wyatt glanced to his side, wondering exactly what his mother had said to Harley, if she had used the caress she had sworn him to. “Seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“You’re all right, though. Right? You were all right there.” It terrified her that he had been in any kind of danger, that she had been clueless. As hurt as she was, she still would have cared, still would have been worried.

Wyatt clenched his jaw. He was still fairly fresh out of the world of being on the road constantly. Those years were not his best to talk about, not with Harley. They did make him a man, did make him strong, but that was also when he dared to take another girl to bed, more than one. When he fought Harley’s memory with them and beer. It took him long enough, but he figured out that neither of those would stop any hell; only created more of it. For the last year, he’d more or less been walking the innocent line.

“Me and Easton had each other’s back. Brant was ‘round, too.”

“Now, too, right? You’re both firemen.”