Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(52)

“None of that meant anything,” Wyatt said, glancing to Harley, who was making her way upstairs. So much for talking to her tonight, he thought to himself. Random nights or not, he’d never moved on to another, said things to another. Clearly Harley had done that with Collin. Harley had moved on, and that scorched him with fury.

“Girls don’t see it that way, even I know that,” Truman said. “Did you tell her?”

“It’s not like I have some big number,” Wyatt snapped.

“More than one,” Truman shot back. “Makes you look like an ass for giving her grief.”

“Maybe you guys should just keep the numbers off the table,” Easton said, moving between Truman and Easton.

“Numbers or no numbers, she’s not the same. I’m not either,” Wyatt said, knowing that somehow she had fallen into the life that she had always told him she hated, and there was no way in hell he could give her that life. Or would want to.

He was a southern man. He was a horseman. The socialite life was not his gig, not now, not ever. All his time on the road taught him where home was, who he was, and what he wanted, and it was right where he was standing. His legacy was right here, not in some boardroom.

Back then, he would have been a stable boy at her family’s home, would have left it all behind. Now, though, now he knew he cold never outrun his life. There was only one thing missing from the paradise of it: sharing it with someone.

“Well then, the not-the-same-Wyatt and the not-the-same-Harley need to get to know one another again for the first time,” Easton said.

“I don’t think I can live through that again,” Wyatt said under his breath as he walked off the back porch and disappeared into the shadows of the night.





Chapter Eleven



After a long, hot soak in a tub and some pain medicine, Harley drifted to sleep, staring out her window in the direction of the main barn, halfway hoping that she’d see a flash of light.

Those meds put her in a deep sleep, well past her automatic dawn wake up call. By the time she made it to the stables, the horses had been fed and the morning lessons were being tacked up. Wyatt was nowhere in sight.

Ava found her in Danny Boy’s stall.

“He looks so good…well, outside of the injuries.”

Harley smiled to thank her.

“You still need a ride into town?”

Last night at dinner when Beckett was asking about her truck and why she decided to trash a machine like that, she had said that she needed to pick up a rental in town. She’d hoped Wyatt would take that hint, but it wasn’t looking like it.

“Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Ava ran Harley all over the place before she bothered to take her to get her rental. She wanted to show Harley the new shopping center that had just gone up, and she said she had to pick up a few things for school.

“I’m calling Mom to tell her we’ll be too late for dinner,” she’d said while Harley was waiting for the truck they had given her to be cleaned. Harley felt the disappointment wash over her. It was like being seventeen again, watching the days move by, watching for every window of opportunity to steal a moment of time. She had hoped that she’d at least see Wyatt at dinner; now all she could think to do was make sure she was up before dawn the next day to catch him in the barn feeding.

“I never can find you online, at least outside of some blog or article. Do you seriously not have a profile anywhere?” Ava asked her as they sat down at a little café.

Harley shook her head. “I’ve looked you up, though,” she admitted.

“But never called,” Ava said with a lifted brow.

“It was hard at first, then after…it just didn’t…it would have hurt.”

“After Dorcas?”

“Yeah.”

“I told you to stop.”

“You have to understand where my head was then. I was drowning in emotions.”

“Then? Not now?”

“Now it’s not as bad.”

“Because of that rich boy those articles always show you with.”

Harley bit her lip before she spoke. Even though Collin wasn’t here, he was still being a shield for her. “He keeps my mother away. He’s my best friend.”

“You and Wyatt used to be best friends.”

Harley grinned at that.

“You guys were not as secretive as you thought. I saw it. I think we all did.”

Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. She and Wyatt were always a little more daring around the kids their age but still held back. If she knew then that they knew and were not going to say anything, they could have had so many more moments…then again, that would only make now all the more difficult. “Everything looks and feels different at seventeen. We were sure no one knew.”

Ava’s smile fell a little. “Harley, I can’t tell you how destroyed he was…he fell hard.”

Harley looked away, then right back at Ava. “I told you I looked you up online…when I did…he looked happy.”

“Wyatt? He can smile with the best of them, throw up a front that says he’s perfectly happy with life. That doesn’t mean he was over you.”

Harley shook her head as she looked down at her phone; Collin was checking on her through text. She told him she was with Ava, and the ‘boy’ was still pissed.