Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(72)

“It’s not all about breeding; a lot of it is about heart. Blood can give you every talent you could ever need, but heart gives you the notion to use that talent.” Camille handed the envelope to Harley. “I could have bred any mare on this farm with the stud fee Wyatt obtained, but I chose this one, and I made sure this horse was the first thing Wyatt saw every day when he came home. I wanted him to think, that may or may not have helped him find the nerve to say what he never had the chance to.”

Harley looked down at the paperwork, the name of the horse. “Avowed.” She glanced up at Camille. The name meant the exact opposite of Clandestine’s.

“He named him—seems more than fitting currently.” Camille nodded to the papers. “He’s yours.”

“You’re giving him to me?”

“No, my son did, long ago. He just didn’t know that he did.”

“Camille.”

She raised her hand. “I didn’t want the horse back, Harley. I wanted you back. I wanted the peace you brought this farm. When you were here, everyone walked a little straighter, tried a little harder. They may have been simply displaying the respect I all but burned into them, I realize that, but I always thought you brought out the best in those you were around.”

“This place brings out the best in me.”

Camille let a small smile emerge before she turned, then drove the golf cart away, saying they had work to do.

Harley had dinner with Wyatt’s parents and grandparents all alone that night. Wyatt didn’t join them because he was on duty at the fire department. The days he was there seemed to last forever. The business discussion was the same as the ones she’d heard before, they even asked for her input on a few matters.

Willowhaven Farms hosted several schooling shows a year, along with A shows and Grand Prix. The ones hosted at Willowhaven Farms always had a charity event that each sponsor was asked to donate to. It was also included in the entry and stall fees. Harley asked to take on the responsibility of setting up the communications for the shows that were seasons down the road. She knew it was something that would fill her time when she was not riding, something that her background had made her skilled at.

Camille was hesitant about giving Harley the file of past sponsors, even said she had had plenty of event coordinators. It was Beckett that told her it might be a good idea.

Harley didn’t understand the strained gazes they were giving each other and just assumed that Camille still thought that Harley would vanish from the farm at any moment. Having Beckett stand up for her, that made Harley’s heart hum with approval. He was usually the one that would crack wry jokes about her.

Camille not only nodded, agreeing that Harley should work with the coordinator, but she also asked Harley if she wanted to take on a few new students and teach afternoon lessons on a regular basis. Right then, Harley felt like she had been handed a world medal. She could only nod as she thought of Wyatt. She was sure that he had told his mother that was something she wanted to do.

On the days Wyatt was at the fire department, those dinners with his family were part of her routine. It was also the nights she would stay in her room at the main house, have long conversations with her father on the phone, and talk to Collin, something she couldn’t really bring herself to do around Wyatt.

Beyond that one conversation, the one where Wyatt told her that he knew she wasn’t with Collin, his name was never mentioned. It was like the two of them just wanted to forget those years they were apart, and honestly, at times it was hard to imagine they had ever been apart; that was how seamlessly Harley had fallen back into Willowhaven.

When she spoke to Collin, they would go through the play-by-play that was occurring in the world she had left behind.

Harley was due back at her family home soon. The thirty-day stall rest period was almost up, and as far as her mother knew, her slow journey home, where she was staying with friends on her way up from Florida, was due to be over, too.

No one ever mentioned when Harley would or would not be leaving. Every time the topic even looked like it had the chance to develop in a conversation, she would drastically change what was being discussed, if not walk away all together, acting as if she had something she had to get done just then.

Without a doubt, she would have to attend her father’s party, go through that fake separation with Collin, deal with her mother—but that wasn’t until the end of summer, and right then she was in the middle of the best summer of her life.

Being at Willowhaven Farms, not having to hide how she felt about Wyatt, that was a dream come true, to be sure. They still never touched, had any major open displays of affection in front of his family or the clients, but when they were both at the barn, neither one of them thought twice about disappearing for a moment or two, stealing a kiss when no one was looking their way.

Harley’s issue now, the reason she and Collin were on the phone for hours on the nights Wyatt worked, was that her mother apparently still thought she was ten. Claire Tatum knew Harley’s schedule, that she was supposed to be at home, so she had set up lunches with girls Harley had always known but hated—and if not lunches, some kind of dinner that she and Collin should or were supposed to go to with other couples. Basically, adult play dates.

All of it was done gracefully; her mother made it seem as if it weren’t plotted by saying she had spoken to someone and they had said they should meet, and her mother only made the plans because she knew Harley was traveling, enjoying the last of her holiday before any ‘major’ events in the fall.