Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(46)

That was a fairly new development. He’d been on the volunteer for years, but now it was a career. “So’s Memphis and Truman.”

“That’s what you wanted, that’s good.”

He didn’t have a response for that. The career as a fireman was something to do, something he loved to do, but Harley was all he ever wanted.

Harley’s biggest regret in life was not fighting harder for Wyatt. He may not be the boy that she loved then anymore, but she was going to tell the man why she did what she did.

Normally after being away from him for long periods of time, she would be timid for the first bit, mostly because she was always trying to figure out if he still had feelings for her, if in her absence some local girl had stolen him from her.

She didn’t have time to be timid, or rather she learned long ago that you waste time by doing that, so she chose to be blunt. Just to get this edge out of the way. Feelings or not, she wanted him to know that being ripped from him was something she’d yet to get over.

“I thought you were with Dorcas. I was ready to run away, spend the rest of my life with you. I had a transport company ready to bring Danny Boy down, everything in line, then when I got there I knew I was too late.”

She saw him tense, was sure she saw emotion flash in his blue eyes; it was anger, at who she didn’t know. She knew she was a coward then, ran. Hell, for all she knew she was still one. This break between them, this unspoken goodbye, it was all her fault. He had the right to be angry. But at the time, she thought she had every right to run. Emotion had always been Harley’s enemy. It clouded her judgment constantly.

“Have I ever lied to you, Harley?”

“No,” she breathed.

“And what did I tell you about Dorcas?”

“I know what you said, but you thought you had reason to be mad at me, you thought I’d moved on. For all I knew, she was revenge,” she said to justify the thoughts she had years ago, the ones that had been her curse up until she woke to find Camille standing over her hours before.

“I thought I had reason?”

She looked out the window, told herself to breathe. Dorcas or not, he’d been with other girls—she’d seen enough images online to gather that much—and he was giving her hell about Collin, a basically platonic relationship.

Part of her wanted Wyatt to think they were together. That way, Collin could be her shield once more. She could hide behind the idea of him and act like she didn’t care who Wyatt was with today. “I wasn’t with him.”

“So now you’re going to lie to me.”

“I’m not lying,” she shot back.

“I saw you, Harley.”

“It was just an event, he was my escort to it. We weren’t together.”

“But you are now,” he said, elbowing the box closer to her.

She had no response for that. Wyatt would never get the public game she and Collin were playing, no matter how she explained it. If he had not come at her as hard as he was now, she would have figured out how to tell him they were merely good friends.

She knew Wyatt well enough to know that no matter how she put it right now, with this much space between them it would only make it worse. She needed to figure out how to get past this, not rip open the feelings that had barely dulled.

“And it took you all of two days after seeing Dorcas to decide to be with him. It was that easy for you.”

Harley furrowed her brow in confusion. She was well into her second semester of school before the public gave her and Collin the title of dating.

“I called, Harley, and Donald told me that Mrs. Tatum was entertaining Collin Grant, for me not to call anymore. But I did, over and over. Hell, I called you a month ago. Same answer, that or that you were not in at all.”

Rage boiled inside of Harley. She was sure at times she hated her mother; this was one of them. “I was home for all of a day after Willowhaven. I already had a flight booked overseas. I made that flight. Mrs. Tatum was entertaining Collin. Not me; my mother.”

“Not always,” Wyatt said under his breath.

“I never knew you called. Trust me. I may avoid confrontation, but if I knew that you gave a damn, I would have run right into the hell of you.” She wanted to argue that she didn’t live at home anymore, that she hadn’t really stayed there at all since they were ripped apart, but thought better of it. His knowing her address now was not going to help this matter.

Wyatt slowly glanced to his side. Harley raised her brow as if to dare him to challenge her on that point.

“Doesn’t change now,” he finally said.

What about now? she thought. About the way you feel about me, or that you think I’m with Collin? Do you have to be such an ass?

“Are you trying to tell me that you think you have the right to give me an attitude for dating someone almost two years after we were torn apart? What are you? A saint? Are you telling me that there has been no one between me and now for you?”

She noticed his body tense, the way he glanced away. Felt a sickness slam into her. He had.

“Girls, yes; dating, no.”

“Oh, so it would be better for you if I had just slept around? That would put me in the right if I had?”

“Where the hell did that come from?” he snapped. The Harley he knew, that girl that blushed when she told him she wanted him to be her first never would have said something like that.