Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(48)

“I just wanted to check and make sure your mother didn’t know Ava’s name.”

“I don’t think she knew his until after all that happened. Why?”

“She called this morning. I didn’t answer. I’m going to steer the conversation away from this when I call her back, but if I have to say something I wanted to check the story. That girl you horse showed with at school, Caroline, her farm is only a hundred miles from there. I didn’t know if saying her name would be better.”

For Christ’s sake, I’m a grown woman and still hiding from my mother, Harley thought to herself.

“Just try not to say one at all. You know the motto, never speak the truth but state it clearly at the same time.”

He laughed at that.

“Did I spoil your weekend?” Harley asked.

“No. Quinn wanted me to fly out to you, but when I laid it all out she saw your point. I think she’s rooting for you.”

“Because that will give you freedom,” Harley said with a smile.

“No, because she’s a romantic at heart. Believes in fate.”

“We’ll see.”

“Yeah,” he breathed. “Try and take it easy today, okay?”

Feeling how bad her body hurt at that moment, that would not be a hard promise to keep. “I will.”

“If this conversation goes off course with your mom, I’ll let yet you know.”

Harley felt her breath catch, felt seventeen all over again. Then she told herself to get over it. “What was that you said about fate again? Maybe she needs to figure out she can’t control me anymore.”

“And she will, soon enough. We just need a little more time to line up our story.”

Always a story, Harley thought to herself. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“No, you won’t. You’ll forget, and I’ll call. I’m serious, take it easy, on all accounts. Don’t say anything you’ll regret. Ease into it.”

“Will do,” she said quietly, hoping the worst of the edge was over with Wyatt.

She stayed in the stall with Danny Boy, halfway expecting Wyatt to surface any minute, but he never did. Around 7 A.M., she heard Camille come in the barn, along with the lead farm hand, Johnnie. If Harley closed her eyes, listened to them, she was moved back in time.

***

How is he? Wyatt grumbled in his thoughts as he walked out the barn. The two of them all worried about Danny Boy. Like that * knew anything about Danny Boy. Like he was there to break him, like he was there when Harley went from barely staying on to jumping advanced courses.

He stormed right outside, found his four-wheeler, and roared it to life, peeling away and racing toward his father’s side of the farm. Right to one stall.

The first purse Wyatt won was used to pay for a stud fee, one that would allow his mother to breed one of Willowhaven’s mares to a sire in Danny Boy’s bloodline. It was a gift he wanted to use to apologize to his mother for losing Danny Boy.

Wyatt was clever about it, told his mom he wanted a horse to ride when he got home, a challenge waiting on him. He was telling her he would be home before she knew it and giving her the horse that she had never gotten over leaving this farm.

His mother proved to be more clever. Instead of breeding one of the mares with a strong bloodline, instead of placing two powerful bloodlines together, she bred Stolen Heart, the mare that Harley was in love with, that was dropped from a rescue mare.

His mother almost cracked a smile when she saw his What the hell were you thinking? expression.

In Wyatt’s mind, it was almost a waste, and without a doubt his mother was trying to prove to him that two bloodlines—one of caliber and one from a common background—should never be together. But when he saw the colt, the power he had as he dominated the paddock he and his mother were watching, he knew it wasn’t. He knew that horse was going to be a prized possession of Willowhaven Farms.

“It’s not always about blood, son. Sometimes it’s about heart. There has to be a first in any great line.”

The colt, Avowed, was now a gelding that Wyatt spent every morning he was off shift with. There were things that Avowed would do that would remind him of Danny Boy, more than a few. That could have been why he was determined not only to break Avowed but also get him to the main barn so that his mother could ride him or use him in her lessons. His way of saying, Lesson or not, I still replaced the horse you loved so much.

As he walked into his dad’s main barn, everyone looked up at him. Normally it was jokes, some kind of tease, something from this crew every morning, but not today. No. Today, they were looking at him like he was about to burn the place down.

He was livid when he figured out Avowed had been turned out already. He knew it would take him forever to catch him, and it did—almost thirty minutes. He was tacking him up in the crossties, easier said than done. Avowed hated the bays and would fight with any horse near him just to have someone to take it out on.

“He’s not scheduled to ride today, now is he?” Wyatt’s father Beckett said.

Beckett looked like an older version of Wyatt in the face, with the same eyes, near the same features. Even the same build. Truman was the one that had gotten Beckett’s dark hair and deeper skin tone.

Most times, Beckett would rather give you hell than have a normal boring conversation. He’d throw some comment off, then laugh like he just told the best joke in existence.