Impulsion (Station 32 #1)(81)

“Where are you?” he said as he squeezed her arms, which were around him.

Harley opened her eyes, finding them on a distant, rolling hill, overlooking one of the furthest sections of the farm, past the point of where Wyatt had built his home.

“Right here,” she said as she glided around him. He reached for her legs, which were around his waist, and pulled her hips closer to his, then leaned up and gave her a sweet, seductive kiss.

“I’ve been waiting hours for that,” he said in a husky whisper.

She smiled as her hands ran down his face.

He glanced to his side, and she followed that gaze. In the far distance, she saw Avowed in the pasture. The yearling stalls on the far side of the barn, at least a few of them, had the stalls to where the horse could go out or in the paddock of its own will.

“How soon before I get to ride him?”

“Him? Good eyes,” Wyatt said as he watched Avowed take off in a gallop, only to stop and see how far away from the stall he was, then run again when he decided the restriction was too close.

“Your mother introduced us weeks back.”

“Did she?” he said.

When Harley looked back, she found his stare lingering on her.

“She gave him to me.”

Wyatt lifted a brow. “Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me.”

She was reading him then, the near sadness in his voice. Her stare questioned him.

“I wanted to make peace with her, but all that gift did was seem to bring the pain to the surface.”

Harley knew that Camille had never really found blame with her son. She wasn’t really sure who Camille found blame with for those lost, dark years, but she knew all she wanted Wyatt to understand about that gelding was that beauty, life, talent, power come from every walk of life, not just good breeding. “She was proud when she showed me.”

“And how did you feel?”

“I think he’s extraordinary. I have to wonder how much like Danny Boy he’s going to be.”

“Different blood, at least by half.”

“That doesn’t matter,” she whispered.

His lips met hers as his arms enfolded her, then lifted her body against his. She was so lost in the touch of his lips that she didn’t realize where he was carrying her until he went to lay her down.

Under this distant shade tree, there was a blanket, a basket of food, a few ice-cold long necks.

“You’re a little early, Mr. Doran,” she said as she laughed against the near growling kisses on her neck, even fought to roll him over on his back so that her hands were playfully pinning his arms as she sat astride him. “The sun is still up.”

“No one’s coming in my back forty,” he said as his eyes grew hungry.

“Yours,” she said with a sly smile and a lifted brow.

“Mine,” he said as he broke from her hold and clenched his hands on her hips. “Came with the house…the rest will come in time.”

“Let’s not rush that,” Harley said in a quiet voice, knowing when it was all his that his parents would have shifted into the role of his grandparents, or even be gone. Harley wanted him to hold on to his family, hold on to time, youth.

He started to unfasten the belt on her shorts.

“Wyatt Doran.”

“I’ve loved you under the stars, never the sun,” he said, pulling her belt away. She looked like an angel above him, the way the sun was shining through her long hair, making it look more blonde than red at the moment.

“Every day, you do,” she whispered as she closed her eyes and felt the sensation of his velvet hands moving under her shirt, only to fall and glide up again. Right when his hand fell past her waist and slid across the folded paper she had stuffed there, her eyes flew open and she reached back for them, completely slaughtering the mood, but the smile on her face told Wyatt that she didn’t even notice.

“This is for you,” she said, handing him the paper.

As he opened it, she spoke. “If I ordered anything wrong, I can still change it. Well, I have to have it changed by in the morning. I keep forgetting to talk to you about it. I just told them the latest version of what you had, about the hitch and everything.”

Wyatt’s smile fell as he read the papers. He sat up, causing her to slip between his legs. “You bought me a truck?”

His tone was the last thing Harley expected; it was near cold, almost threatened. She felt her skin flush, the way it always did when her mother would come at her with that same unforgiving tone and words that would twist whatever intent Harley had in the first place, making Harley’s actions seem downright criminal.

Wyatt felt her tense in his lap, looked up from the paper. His stare didn’t seem to help her edgy response.

“No, I’m giving you mine.”

“Same difference. You give me yours, and your daddy gives you another one.”

Where the hell did that come from? “I don’t get why you’re mad about this.”

He heard the building anger in her voice. There was still a tremble there, but she was fighting back. He might have taken the time to realize how strong she had become, but right now he was too furious, felt like he had been punched in the stomach.

“You don’t get why I’m upset? Harley, I don’t want your money. I don’t want or need anything that I haven’t earned.”