Impulsion: A Station 32 Fire Men Novel (11 page)

The reason he felt his gut plummet now was that he was sure he heard his mother shouting his name.

Harley was on her feet, looking like she had seen a ghost. He didn’t even bother to wrap the blanket in plastic. Instead, he shoved all of it in the tree and they both ran to the golf cart. As they sped towards the main house, they couldn’t hear the sound of Camille’s voice, but they could still hear the dogs; they sounded fierce, like a predator was near or something.

“You’re safe,” he said, knowing that one way or another he would make sure that were true
. He would take any blame or shame his mother would dish out this night.

When the house came into view, Harley was sure she was going to puke. A town car was out front, the kind of car her parents used to drive around. All the lights in the plantation home were on, even Harley’s bedroom light.

“Go to your apartment. I will tell them I was out walking,” Harley said, nearly jumping out of the golf cart.

Wyatt slammed on the brakes, then followed her. He knew that wasn’t going to work
. Not only were all his apartment lights on, but it looked like Harley had fallen down a muddy embankment. Her strawberry blonde hair was windblown, her legs had dirt on them, and her dress was wrinkled from where he had pushed it up. He didn’t look much better. He’d never tucked his shirt in, and Harley loved to run her fingers through his hair—no doubt, it looked out of control. Even if they were perfectly dressed, he would be damned if he let her face any of this alone.

All at once, Wyatt heard his name bellowed from behind him at the same time the plantation door opened and Claire Tatum stepped out and glared in Harley’s direction.

Claire took one look over her daughter and tensed with fury.

Camille Doran was racing toward her house when she finally saw the look on her son’s face, the way he and Harley both looked. She was filled with humiliation, anger, and some kind of sorrow. She knew she was watching a tragedy unfold.

Claire marched down the front porch and jerked Harley’s hand from Wyatt’s.

“It’s not enough that you find it liberating to play in
the dirt, to have your hands covered in calluses, but you decided to go slumming with this trash.”

“You wait just one
damn
minute,” Camille shouted from behind him as Wyatt pulled Harley back to his side.

Claire lunged her hand forward, ripping Harley from Wyatt’s arm. “Did he force himself on you? Did he force you to your knees?”

Harley gasped with wide eyes. “
Mother
.”

“Don’t
Mother
me.” She pulled Harley in the house and marched her up the stairs, throwing a glare at Garrison, who was in the foyer. “I told you, from day one. I told you. She claimed her sons were not brood stallions, but they had no issues using your
only
daughter as a mare. Look at her, Garrison. Just look. You’re living in the wrong decade. Clearly you have forgotten that teenage boys only want one thing.” And with that, she jerked Harley up the stairs, calling her everything from a slut to wannabe trailer trash.

Camille grasped the back of Wyatt’s arm and was pulling him back to the barn. Easier said than done
—her son was taller than her at age ten, and now she looked like a rail dragging a man across the driveway, but she was furious enough to lift a building at the time. Every time Wyatt looked back, she pinched him harder. She ultimately marched him up the stairs to the barn apartment before slamming the door closed.

“Have you lost your fucking mind?” she shouted.

Wyatt was too busy trying to look out the closest window, trying to make sure they were not hauling Harley away. His mind was racing with a truckload of different ways to stop them.

“How long, Wyatt!”

He gave his mother a hard stare. “How long have I loved her?”

“Do not give me that bullshit, son.”

“First sight. How long have we been a couple? The first July.”

Camille stepped back as if he had struck her. Her mind was rushing back over the years, all the times she had missed this. Her husband had told her more than once that there was something there, but she told him Wyatt had more sense about him, knew the risk, would not put himself in a position where he would get hurt.

“How long have you been sleeping with her?”

Wyatt looked away, not willing to discuss this with his mother, or anyone for that matter.

“You tell me now. You have no idea how much trouble you’re in.”

He didn’t get that. She could ground him until she was blue in the face
, he just had to know that Harley was okay.

“Just now.”

“Now? Like, tonight?”

He shook his head.

“Wyatt, you are weeks away from eighteen. If they had caught you then, do you realize they would’ve put you in jail?”

“Mom, seriously.”

“I am serious, son. You cannot fuck with people like this. You cross them, and they will run you into the ground.”

“That’s not how I was raised, to back down.”

“I didn’t raise you to sleep with girls that are boarding here!”

“She’s not some girl.”

“Wyatt, Claire Tatum will do everything in her power to ruin our name.”

“Fuck her!” Wyatt yelled. “So she takes a few boarders away, a few lessons. Those people are not in our world
, this is some game to them. Horse people will always come to the Dorans’.”

“You know
damn
well this is not about boarders.”

And it wasn’t. The Dorans were connected to several charities
, most were concerned with animal rights, but not all. Having a partner such as Garrison Tatum empowered foundations that Camille’s family had either started or been a part of her entire life. Her son had risked more than his own farm with this love affair, and right now she didn’t know how to feel about that.

“I don’t give a damn about this farm!”

“Well, maybe you
should
. Maybe you should think of someone beyond yourself.”

“I am. Her.”

“Wyatt, we could lose it all and I don’t care. I’ve been there before. I’ll be there again before my dying day, but I swear to God that I
refuse
to let you go to jail over this girl. It’s over.”

“Go to jail, my ass. You’re overreacting. Nothing is over!”

No, she wasn’t. Her son was only weeks away from eighteen, and if Camille didn’t figure out how to separate them until Harley was eighteen, talk some sense into her son, Claire Tatum would no doubt come after Wyatt in some legal way.

“You stay in this room. You don’t move. You don’t make one sound until I tell you to.”

Wyatt didn’t say a word.

Camille stepped up to her son, glared up at him as she poked her finger at his chest. “You’re my son. I will not lose you over this.” Her voice dared to crack, almost quiver
. That broke Wyatt’s heart, and his gaze said as much, but he didn’t move. Camille stormed out of the apartment.

Wyatt watched her walk to the main house through his window. Her head was held high. He knew his mother was walking into a battle zone, that Harley was in the middle of one and there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt like an ass for doing this to his mother. Both his parents had taught him long ago that your name, your integrity, were worth more than any dollar. Do right by others, and you will never go hungry.

He could see Harley’s room, her silhouette sitting on the bed, her mother pacing back and forth before her.

Downstairs, he saw his parents both talking to Garrison. They were not yelling, but their body language alone told him it was a stiff conversation.

Just before dawn, he dozed off at that window. He had seen his parents go to sleep, Garrison move to the guest room, the lights in Harley’s room go out an hour or so before, but he was watching for any signal from her, making as many deals and bargains as he could with the Man upstairs. He felt the weight of this hell fall on his shoulders.

Harley’s mother had spent the night berating her. She asked Harley a million times over if Wyatt had forced himself on her, almost demanded that Harley say such things. For the first time ever, Harley lost her temper with her mother, stood up and yelled that she loved him, not caring who in the house heard.

Her mother spent the rest of the night telling her that she was nothing more than a notch on Wyatt’s bedpost, that boys would sleep with anyone, that she was a fool if she thought he gave a damn about her, she was just another girl, a fast ticket to Easy Street, along with anything else she could think to insult Harley with. It was almost 4 A.M. before Harley was granted permission to shower, to wash the dirt from her legs. Harley dressed for the barn after that, prepared to run at any moment. She didn’t know where she was going to run to, what to do at this point, but she didn’t trust her mother.

She was terrified of facing her father. He wouldn’t yell at her, wouldn’t dare say any of the cruel, hateful things her mother had said. Garrison Tatum didn’t need to raise his voice; his stare was hard enough to make some of the most powerful men in the U.S. cower. Harley was holding on to the slim hope that he had heard her say she loved Wyatt, but she had her doubts that would win her any favor with her father. Harley doubted he had loved anyone in his life beyond her.

Her parents were far from faithful to each other
. They played some kind of game of cat-and-mouse, silently pushing each other’s buttons. It had become even more apparent as Harley grew up. She knew that once she was eighteen, away at school, her mother would no longer have anything to pin her father with—the divorce would not be half as messy, if there ever was one.

Harley was more than sure her mother’s plan was just to wait
for her father to die.

Neither one of them would understand how she felt about Wyatt, she knew that. Neither one of them would understand that right now she couldn’t care less about any family name or fortune. She would live on the streets if she had to. She had said as much in her outburst to her mother
, which had earned Harley a slap across the face.

“You think this family is going to take you in?” Claire said through gritted teeth. “That you’re anything but a paycheck to them? What is your plan? To crawl into that overpriced stall with your horse—shovel horse shit for your keep? You know what will happen if you do that? You will watch Camille Tatum sic her son on the next rich girl that dares to come to this farm
, and I promise you, as long as I am alive this farm will never have another client that is worth a dime. I will run it into the
ground
.”

That threat was the last words she heard her mother say before dawn. Those words were stirring her gut, making her sick to her stomach. She wasn’t exactly sure what damage her mother could do to this farm, but she knew not to underestimate her either.

She woke the next day to the sound of a diesel engine. She flew from her bed and looked out her window to find the same private transport company that had brought Danny Boy to the farm backing in.

She didn’t even dare to open her door
. Instead, she climbed out her window like she had done a million times over.

She ran across the lawn as fast as her legs would carry her. She saw her mother standing with the driver of the town car, her father speaking with the driver
of the rig. She ran right past them with only one goal in mind.

When Wyatt opened his eyes, he saw a rig backed into his barn, saw Danny Boy’s tack trunk being loaded, could have sworn he heard him being loaded. He took off toward his door as fast as he could. Right as he opened it, Harley fell into his arms and they both gasped on contact. His lips found hers; the kiss they gave each other was desperate, a gallows kiss, one that you poured every emotion into. He broke away, only to hold her as tight as he could as he buried his face in her hair, breathing her in, telling every sense he had to burn her even deeper into his mind.

“I love you, Harley. You’re safe. I’ll fix it.”

She was crying too hard to say a word. Clenching him, her nails dug into his back. Wyatt’s eyes were burning, and he squinted them closed, only to beg whoever was listening upstairs to stop this, to give him some kind of power to stop this.

He opened his eyes when he felt a presence spill into the room. Garrison Tatum was standing in the threshold of his doorway. Wyatt couldn’t read the look on his face; it was somewhere between fury and agony.

“I love you, Wyatt. Always, no matter what,” Harley was saying over and over between her desperate crying.

Wyatt leaned back, looked in her eyes, did his best to brush away the tears. “This is too real, too deep, too powerful for them to stop us. I love you.”

“Harley,” Garrison said.

The sound of his voice made Harley tremble in Wyatt’s arms. She shocked him when she reached up and kissed him anyway, right there in front of her father.

The next instant, Beckett had made his way into the room. Garrison had taken Harley’s arm, and Beckett had no choice but to use his entire stout build to hold his son back.