by Jamie Magee
“Your father had another episode. They took him back to the hospital. There’s a car waiting, a plane waiting.”
“How bad is it?” Collin asked.
“Horrifying enough to call and wake us. He has not been well since the end of the summer.” Right then, Harley knew that the grief on her mother’s face was all fake, there for Collin’s benefit; the cold glance in Harley’s direction told her that.
“Collin, be a dear and get downstairs. I’ll be just behind you. I need to notify some dear friends. If they want to say goodbye, this may be their only chance.”
When she left, Collin looked down to Harley in question. Everything inside of Harley was breaking. All night, she had been terrified and excited at the same time. Through it all, she was more worried about her mother’s threat that if Harley acted out, the stress would hurt her father. This right here told her there could be some truth to that; she had played her role to perfection thus far, and he was still sick.
“What do you want to do?” Collin asked.
“He’s my father,” she said as she grabbed her bags. Grief was ripping her apart, but all she could think was that at least he was there to protect her until she was eighteen.
In a haze, she left the hotel with Collin, sure that she was flying home to bury her father.
Her father went home a week later; he was to remain on bed rest, low stress. The finest medical staff was in and out of Harley’s home constantly. All the while, Garrison was telling Harley that the vultures were lurking but they were going to starve because he wasn’t going anywhere. Harley wanted to believe that, she really did, but this entire event had aged her father. Sometimes when she caught a glimpse of him, he almost looked vulnerable.
She only had a few weeks of school left, and because of her father’s condition she only attend to take her last exams.
By the time she graduated, it was hard to tell Garrison had ever been sick at all.
At her graduation party, he found her on the side patio, staring out at the distant stables. Harley hadn’t ridden since she left the Dorans’. Every time she tried, the memories would take her will to breathe away. The dreams of Wyatt would be twice as vivid, and the pain in her chest would take her breath away.
The barn at her family home was, in part, designed the same way as the Doran barn, done that way in the past to make the transition easy on Danny Boy; all it did for Harley was bring the ghost of her past to the forefront of her mind.
“I’m sure he’s wondering what is taking you so long,” she heard her father say.
She jumped slightly. The moment he’d said that, Wyatt was saturating her mind, the sight of him trying to pull open that elevator door. She knew now, after this much time, no phone call would appease that anger he had to have for her. She’d have to see him face-to-face if she ever wanted him to understand that night, how tragically it could have ended.
“It’s been hectic.”
“How so?” he asked, standing at her side.
She glanced up to him and smiled when she caught a glimpse of the powerful man he was. “You look good, Daddy.”
“You were rudely torn away from your eighteenth birthday, and now you are spending your graduation party hiding out here all alone, standing downwind of the stables you rarely visit anymore.”
“I wasn’t rudely called away…I don’t know half those people in that house, and the ones I do, I wish I didn’t.” And that was the truth. Collin wasn’t there that night; his college courses were finishing, and he had major exams to contend with.
Garrison laughed at his daughter’s bluntness.
“Harley, what have I always told you about obtaining what you want in life?”
“Never beg for what is already mine.” She breathed in. “Demand it with passion…reverence.”
He nodded at her side. “Then why have you not asked to return to Willowhaven?”
Harley’s glance shot to him. In her mind, she’d asked a million times, cried even more tears, but staring at her father now, she realized she had never asked him if she could return.
“I’m happy there, Daddy. Free. I’ll be even freer now, without having to…with being able to relax.”
“And where would that ease come from?”
Harley stared out into the fields, letting her past consume her. “I spent all that time afraid I was going to lose him, that I would lose it all. Knowing that the worst that could have happened has already passed, or if the worst comes, I can survive it…just being with someone who hears what I say when I don’t say a word.”
Garrison caught that lingering remark in his daughter’s words, but what he wanted to teach her was that in life you have to state clearly what you want, not assume that others could read you.
It pleased him that she had found someone that could read her silent gestures as well as he could, that they cared enough to let her be who she was. At the same time, Garrison knew he would not always be there for her, always there to nudge her, so he did what he could to help her learn the silent lessons of life.
Right now, all the harsh words Harley had endured, this separation, in some way could have been avoided if Harley had just come to him and stated what she wanted, what she needed. Now, that lesson would stay with Harley; she would always know to speak her mind. He’d thought about waiting for her to figure out how simple it would be to solve this, but he could no longer bear the sadness in her eyes, how broken his already fragile daughter was.
“What is stopping you?”
She held his gaze. “Will you hurt that family if I go back? Sue them, make sure they lose clients?”
Garrison laughed a deep, bellowing laugh. “Even if your mother told everyone she knew to stay away from Willowhaven, they would flock there, sure that she was simply trying to keep them away from the best.”
He held her gaze. “Sometimes this socialite game your mother plays will work to your benefit, if not always. It constricts her, ties her words. She would never admit what she feels she caught you doing at Willowhaven. In her mind, that would shame her far more than you.” He laughed again. “Harley, you don’t give a damn what people think about you; your mother does.”
The weight of the world felt as if it had been lifted from her shoulders, and she felt air sliding into her lungs.
“Planes leave here daily, Harley.” And with that, he turned and left her side.
She stepped off that porch and walked right to Danny Boy, rubbed her hand down his mane, breathed in his scent, one that took her back to Wyatt in some way.
“We’re going home, Danny Boy.”
Harley may have had her father’s silent nod to run, the assurance that no escape from her would cause him any stress, but she still feared her mother, so much so that she walked on eggshells the next day as she booked a flight, packed an overnight bag. She had to plan her escape carefully. She knew without a doubt her mother would follow her to Wyatt’s. She wanted a least a half-day lead on her so that she could talk to Wyatt without all the drama.
She was even bold enough to set up a tentative appointment with the transport company to haul Danny Boy back down south. She wanted to make sure Camille still had a place for him first. Harley wanted to set things right with all the Dorans. Face-to-face.
Harley thought if Wyatt saw her, if he looked in her eyes, if she told him that her father had been sick, the hell she had been through, whatever pain she had put him through would make sense.
Her stomach flipped over and over as she traveled to him; she was terrified that he had moved on, that she was too late.
It was just before dawn when she reached Willowhaven, a time of day that she knew he would be up, that the others would still be sleeping. Even if he had stopped feeding the first lesson horses, he should be in that apartment. She would have time to talk to him alone.
Her hand brushed across the body of his truck, which was parked out front. The memory of that one night, that one night that had changed everything, reached out for her, made her hear
t race; the memories were near suffocating, strong enough that she could taste his kiss on her lips, feel his hands pull her closer, she could smell him. She was home. The only place she ever wanted be.
Harley’s eyes were welling with tears as she knocked on his door. She knew without a doubt that she was going to throw herself in his arms, steal at least one kiss before she explained everything to him.
She dared to knock again, then all at once the door opened.
It was a wonder she managed not to faint. Dorcas was standing there in nothing but a skimpy teddy. She leaned into the doorway with a sleepy, sinful smile on her face.
“What are you doing back in town, Miss Priss?”
Harley was speechless.
“You’re not looking for Wyatt, are you?” She laughed. “Right now, I doubt he remembers your name. Best crawl back into whatever castle you fell out of.”
Harley turned and rushed down the stairs, simply because she was sure she was going to vomit. When she reached the doorway to the main barn, Ava was walking in. “Harley?” she gasped.
Harley ran past her with tears streaming down her face, ignoring her as she yelled her name. She only paused when she reached her car. At the end of the driveway, she saw a Lincoln Town Car pulling in. The only thing that could possibly make this worse was knowing that her mother was right, that Wyatt was everything she had said he was. She’d be damned if she let her mother see what kind of girl Wyatt was sleeping with now.
Harley died a little that dawn as she sped away from Willowhaven Farms.
Chapter Nine
Being on the road, moving city to city, riding near constantly was exactly what Wyatt needed. No day was the same; a new face, a new challenge was before him, driving him forward.
As if it were meant to be, Wyatt managed to draw every bronc that reeked of danger, ones that could destroy a man’s life in a heartbeat. At times, his uncle cut him off from the outside world so he would focus on what was before him. It had happened in more than one city. The draw would come after they arrived, and Duke would call home and tell them they were on radio silence until Wyatt was done with that rodeo.
Which was why it took Ava two days to tell Wyatt that Harley had been at Willowhaven, that she’d found Dorcas in his apartment, and that Dorcas may or may not have had clothes on. Ava said Dorcas swore she didn’t say anything bad to Harley, but she left crying anyway.
Wyatt hung up as Ava was talking and called Harley’s home. He managed to get Donald, a man that worked at her house, to tell Harley he was on the phone, that he had to talk to her, but Wyatt didn’t like what he had to say when he came back to the phone. “Mrs. Tatum asked that you never call again.”
“Tell her to tell me that,” Wyatt bit out, sick of these games.
“Mr. Doran, she is currently entertaining Collin Grant, and I was told not to disturb her any further. Is there a number that you’d like to leave? A different message?”
Wyatt clenched the phone in his hand for an instant before hanging it up.
He called every day for months, getting the same response or one that said she was not in at all. He left every number he had with that Donald son of a bitch. Not one call came back to him.
He told himself he should not be surprised. Harley avoided confrontation like it was the plague. He was a fool to expect her to tell him goodbye.
He put his entire self into the career he had enlisted into. He and Easton, side by side, became men, went down a few dark roads, walked through a few hells, but all of that was enough to dull the pain to the point where he could force himself not to think about it; yet, at times he couldn’t help it. He’d pick up the phone and call her home, each time some anniversary of theirs would pass, some epic moment they had shared. Sometimes just because it was late at night and he was either drenched with guilt or grief for both the present and past. Same answer every time: “She’s not in, would you like to leave a number?” He only responded by hanging up.
Half the reason he called was to prove to himself that she was real at one point. No one said her name around him, mentioned her. That asshole Donald said it, though, said she was not in. Sometimes that was enough.
After two and a half years on the road, Wyatt finished on a high note, earning the same titles his father had when he was his age. He only had a few semesters left before he gained his Bachelor’s degree; he doubled his courses for a semester and a summer, finally showing that prize to his mother as well.
He managed to make both his parents proud. It was then time to do something for him, the fire department. He trained his ass off alongside Easton and made his way onto the squad at Station 32, the same one as Easton, the one the Memphis was now a lieutenant with.
He blamed Dorcas for the final straw between him and Harley. She may have claimed to be innocent, but he had seen her online bragging about scaring Harley off.
The first thing he did was kick that girl off his farm when he came home for good. His mother made no effort to stop him.
It seemed the time he was away had quelled the distance between the pair of them as well. He fell back into a routine with his mother, with his family. Breaking the horses that were too harsh for his mother’s students, daring to climb on a bronc every chance he got, that rush, alongside the calls he went on with the fire department, got him from one day to the next, gave him a surge of life, enough that he didn’t have to force his carefree smile.
It had been just at four years since that last night at the creek, and sometimes he could close his eyes at night and not see her face.
He’d been with other girls since Harley. Never in another relationship, though, rarely for more than a night - and never sober. Every time he tried, his chest would clench, his head would spin. Most cases, he kept to his dangerous hobbies and embraced his heart-racing career. When he needed a girl or wanted one, he found one.
He’d learn to put on a smile, joke, relax around everyone. Only those that knew him best, Easton, Memphis, and his family, could still see the scars in his haunted blue eyes, but they never dared to mention the reason they were there.
***
Harley’s mother sat right next to her on the plane ride home to New York, but she never said, “I told you so”; instead, she plotted aloud Harley’s schedule, the goals before her, acting as if Wyatt Doran never existed.
Life moved by in a haze after that point. Harley was only home for a day before she flew out again, overseas that time. Her mother waited two weeks before she followed her; she had said she was staying behind to finish up the charity project she had started with the Grant family, but Harley assumed she was giving her space to grieve, the only mercy her mother had ever given her.
Month by month, class by class, one event after another, a life built around Harley. It took her six months before she dared to ride again, and Danny Boy crashed through four trainers before she had no choice but to send him to a prestigious barn in Wellington Florida, to be trained. She flew down there when she could, moved through the lessons and the trainers, fighting emotions until the point where she could not feel them. She became a better rider, simply because she could not handle it when someone told her to use more leg or soft hands. That was the only good thing that came from her broken heart: mastering the sport she loved.
Collin had become her best friend, an ally. They were always at the same functions together. A wayward press release had stated that Collin Grant had attended an event with longtime companion Harley Tatum. Their mothers were ecstatic, thought they had given that title to whomever that night. Neither one of them ever denied it publicly or to their family, but they joked about it privately.
Basically, that assumption made their lives easier. Harley’s mother treated her like a human being around Collin, and Collin’s mother gave him space. He was three years older than Harley, and in his mother’s eyes he should be plotting his five, ten, fifteen-year plan, and in that plan he needed a woman with a distinguished background at his side.
One summer n
ight, almost two years after she had been ripped from Wyatt, she and Collin had a bit too much to drink, had fallen a little too deep into the public roles that they played.
That night as Collin held her, somewhere in the middle of the onset of passion he felt the tears on her face. It took him a second to understand that. Every once in a while, Collin would think to himself that of all the girls in their world his mother could have pushed him to, he had lucked out with Harley. She was real, knew how to play her part but never committed to the socialite scene enough to care what others thought of her, which made her all the more desirable, all the more powerful.
When her hand would linger in his a moment after they were alone or when she would fall asleep on his shoulder as he studied, he’d think to himself that he may have been reading her wrong, that maybe she did have feelings for him that were more than friendly, that maybe he did, too. But that night, as he held her just after they had crossed that line, he knew she would never love another person beyond the horseman that had broken her heart.
In that beach house they were sharing for a few weeks, in the middle of the night he decided he was going to track that boy down, either help Harley get back to him or help her get over the memory. It wasn’t as easy to track down the Doran family as it was to track down his or the Tatum’s. He had found the farm’s website, seen a few images, caught a few names.
He searched through social media after that, but he never found Wyatt. He found his brother, Truman, his sister Ava. They had next to no privacy settings blocking Collin from seeing images that had been posted. He had come across what looked like a party at a pub or something. Click after click, group shot after group shot he saw Wyatt in the middle of a group of friends, in some cases more girls than guys. In one image, one girl was even leaning over his shoulder, kissing his cheek; you couldn’t see her face, but you could see his grin, his arms reaching up like he was about to pull her in his lap.
