by Jamie Magee
Those words cut right through her because they were the truth, all except the part about her not caring. She thought she was being brave by protecting his family from her mother, and by the time she figured out there was never a real threat, Dorcas helped her figure out she was too late…back then, her seventeen year old mind told her that as the was the only way to survive.
“Not in physical chains, no. My life was hell, Wyatt. I can’t say that it’s much better, beyond the fact that I just don’t care to care anymore.”
“You didn’t look like you were in any kind of chains or hell when you left the hotel with that boy. Looked like you were running away with him.”
She stared at him, trying to figure out how he knew she left the hotel after she had seen him on her birthday. She and Collin were sure he was gone. She had watched him call the front desk, over and over. They had even snuck downstairs and looked through the lobby and the front parking lot together. She never found Wyatt.
And if it weren’t for her father having another episode, she would have been on a plane to him and beat him home.
“I thought I was rushing to my father’s grave.”
Wyatt jerked his head in her direction. The emotion he saw her trying to hold back underlined the truth in her words.
“He had a heart attack a few weeks after they separated us. He was still not all the way well, had another episode.”
“I’m sorry.” It took all he had not to reach for her hand. He knew that man, even as intimidating as he could be, was the only sun in Harley’s life. Garrison had always given Wyatt respect, treated him like a man long before he was one.
They rode in silence the rest of the way to the barn. Harley was sure this was going to be harder than she had ever imagined, but it was already healing her. She was seeing that he had turned into a hard asshole, yet she was still able to justify her actions, even if they seemed ridiculous today.
He pulled right up to the barn, not even questioning if she wanted to go to the house first.
Danny Boy had his head out of his stall, neighing as loud as he could in Harley’s direction. He even paced down to the next doorway to get closer.
“Easy now,” she said, reaching up to him. Danny Boy let his head rest on her chest, blew out deep breaths as she ran her hand across him and whispered how sorry she was.
Watching her with Danny Boy, seeing that bond, was nothing more than a wicked wave of nostalgia for Wyatt. Something that brought the past forward, yet at the same time was a testimony to how much time had passed. Before, Harley was close to Danny Boy, but Danny Boy had his distance, his moods, would do the littlest things to defy Harley. Seeing this now, Wyatt knew that she had managed to master this ride, and he missed that accomplishment. He missed it, and that ass Collin was there.
Harley set her phone on the ledge of the stall, then slid under the stall guard into the stall with Danny Boy to check over his injuries. He was not putting weight on his back leg; there were lacerations all over his side.
“That’s from the partition,” Wyatt said to her. She glanced back at him. “I found him first at the scene. It had fallen on him, and he was rearing up.”
“I bet he was terrified,” Harley said, still keeping her hands on him.
Wyatt smirked. “No, he was pissed.” Danny Boy blew a gust of air out of his nose and basically grunted in agreement.
Harley let an ironic grin linger on her lips. Danny Boy had been ridden and trained by more riders than she cared to think about, but no one understood him like Wyatt. The only way Harley figured out how to handle him was by listening to the memories of Wyatt. Even when she wasn’t remembering his words, she remembered how well Wyatt had ridden Danny Boy.
Wyatt read his moods. Instead of trying to break him, not allow Danny Boy to feel those emotions that were bred into him, Wyatt played into them, used the energy he was putting off in a different way. Harley had tried to tell the other trainers that, but they all looked at her like she was insane and told her this horse would kill her if she didn’t rein him in.
Her phone started to ring. Wyatt reached back for it, gave it a glance, clenched his jaw as he handed it to Harley. She saw Collin’s image on the screen, his number. She almost didn’t answer but knew that would make this even more awkward.
“Hey,” she said as she answered.
“How is he?” Collin’s voice echoed through the stall. Danny Boy turned his head and nudged Harley. When she eased him back, she saw Wyatt walking away from the stall, felt her chest ache all at once.
“Pissed.”
“Which boy are we talking about?” Collin said in a half-amused voice.
“Apparently both.”
He hesitated for a second. “Is he close?”
“Yeah.”
“It will work out,” he promised Harley.
“I don’t know,” she said as she reached to run her hand along Danny Boy’s mane.
“I just wanted to check and make sure your mother didn’t know Ava’s name.”
“I don’t think she knew his until after all that happened. Why?”
“She called this morning. I didn’t answer. I’m going to steer the conversation when I call her back away from this, but if I have to say something I wanted to check the story. That girl you showed up with at school, Caroline, her farm is only a hundred miles from there. I didn’t know if saying her name would be better.”
For Christ’s sake, I’m a grown woman and still hiding from my mother, Harley thought to herself.
“Just try not to say one at all. You know the motto, never speak the truth but state it clearly at the same time.”
He laughed at that.
“Did I spoil your weekend?” Harley asked.
“No. Quinn wanted me to fly out to you, but when I laid it all out she saw your point. I think she’s rooting for you.”
“Because that will give you freedom,” Harley said with a smile.
“No, because she’s a romantic at heart. Believes in fate.”
“We’ll see.”
“Yeah,” he breathed. “Try and take it easy today, okay?”
Feeling how bad her body hurt at that moment, that would not be a hard promise to keep. “I will.”
“If this conversation goes off course with your mom, I’ll let yet you know.”
Harley felt her breath catch, felt seventeen all over again. Then she told herself to get over it. “What was that you said about fate again? Maybe she needs to figure out she can’t control me anymore.”
“And she will, soon enough. We just need a little more time to line up our story.”
Always a story, Harley thought to herself. “I’ll call you tomorrow.”
“No, you won’t. You’ll forget, and I’ll call. I’m serious, take it easy, on all accounts. Don’t say anything you’ll regret. Ease into it.”
“Will do,” she said quietly, hoping the worst of the edge was over with Wyatt.
She stayed in the stall with Danny Boy, halfway expecting Wyatt to surface any minute, but he never did. Around 7 A.M., she heard Camille come in the barn, along with the lead farm hand, Johnnie. If Harley closed her eyes, listened to them, she was moved back in time.
***
How is he? Wyatt grumbled in his thoughts as he walked out the barn. The two of them all worried about Danny Boy. Like that asshole knew anything about Danny Boy. Like he was there to break him, like he was there when Harley went from barely staying on to jumping advanced courses.
He stormed right outside, found his four-wheeler, and roared it to life, peeling away, racing toward his father’s side of the farm. Right to one stall.
The first purse Wyatt won was used to pay for a stud fee, one that would allow his mother to breed one of Willowhaven’s mares to a sire in Danny Boy’s bloodline. It was a gift he wanted to use to apologize to his mother for losing Danny Boy.
Wyatt was clever about it, told his mom he wanted a horse to ride when he got home, a challenge waiting on him. He was telling he
r he would be home before she knew it and giving her the horse that she had never gotten over leaving this farm.
His mother proved to be more clever. Instead of breeding one of the mares with a strong bloodline, instead of placing two powerful bloodlines together, she bred Stolen Heart, the mare that Harley was in love with, that was dropped from a rescue mare.
His mother almost cracked a smile when she saw his What the hell were you thinking? expression.
In Wyatt’s mind, it was almost a waste, and without a doubt his mother was trying to prove to him that two bloodlines, one of caliber and one from an common background, should never be together. But when he saw the colt, the power he had as he dominated the paddock he and his mother were watching, he knew it wasn’t. He knew that horse was going to be a prized possession of Willowhaven Farms.
“It’s not always about blood, son; sometimes it’s about heart. There has to be a first in any great line.”
The colt, Avowed, was now a gelding that Wyatt spent every morning he was off shift with. There were things that Avowed would do that would remind him of Danny Boy, more than a few. That could have been why he was determined not only to break Avowed but also get him to the main barn so that his mother could ride him or use him in her lessons. His way of saying, Lesson or not, I still replaced the horse you loved so much.
As he walked into his dad’s main barn, everyone looked up at him. Normally it was jokes, some kind of tease, something from this crew every morning; not today. No. Today, they were looking at him like he was about to burn the place down.
He was livid when he figured out Avowed had been turned out already. He knew it would take him forever to catch him, and it did, almost thirty minutes. He was tacking him up in the crossties, easier said than done; Avowed hated the bays, would fight with any horse near him just to have someone to take it out on.
“He’s not scheduled to ride today, now is he?” Wyatt’s father Beckett said.
Beckett looked like an older version of Wyatt in the face, same eyes, near the same features. Even the same build. Truman was the one that had gotten Beckett’s dark hair and deeper skin tone.
Most times, Beckett would rather give you hell than have a normal boring conversation. He’d throw some comment off, then laugh like he just told the best joke in existence.
He was leaning on the other side of the bay, had set his steaming coffee on the ledge, and was slowly scratching his short beard and looking over his son, who all at once looked like a lethal weapon.
“He is now.”
“You have a long day in front of you, then,” Beckett said with a glance to his phone. “Your mother wants us to ride Ghost, Chopper, and Easy Money, and that new bay. See who’s handled enough, then haul them over to her barn.”
“For what?” Wyatt said, only halfway acting like he cared. He was basically at war at the moment with Avowed, trying to tighten his girth.
“For Harley.”
Wyatt had just gotten the girth on and looked right at his father.
“Is she trying to kill her?”
“No, challenge her, but apparently you are. What’s your deal? You think you’re gonna ride this bad boy today, knock some sense into him, and then prance over to Harley and say, ‘Ha, I replaced you’?”
“What the hell?”
Beckett chuckled. “Don’t act like that’s not in that head of yours. If you’re worried about Harley riding those horses, or any other students, then maybe you need to mosey on over to your mother’s side of things for a while, you know, to smooth the transition.”
“Is this a game to you?” Wyatt asked his dad. “Is it some running joke around here that the rich girl is back? Let’s put Wyatt and her side by side and see if he can stand it?”
Beckett stood up a little straighter, even lifted his chin. “You’re a Doran. We don’t play games with women. We say what we say. What we mean. What comes after is up to them.”
“Why? Why do they get to decide? They can just march around, smile all sweet, then like a beast they rip you in two. And what are we supposed to do? Beg for more? Not this cowboy. Hell no. I don’t have time for that shit,” Wyatt said, turning from his father and giving all his attention back to Avowed.
“I thought you loved the girl?”
Wyatt stayed quiet.
“I’m speaking to you, boy.”
Wyatt turned to face him. “Dad, this is some fluke. Some kind of twisted sense of humor from the Man upstairs. She’s so far past us that I doubt she remembers any of it, or cares to. She has some rich son of a bitch that can give her the world. Nice and cozy with a boy her mother handpicked for her.”
“Did you knock your head when you got thrown the other day? Lose your sense somewhere? That boy can’t give her the world; he’s not a Doran.”
Wyatt shook his head in fury, even looked away.
“I’m still speaking to you,” Beckett said. Wyatt met his eyes like a man, like his father always taught him to speak to others. “Willowhaven Farms is Harley Tatum’s world, it’s her heaven. No Grant boy can give her this farm. A Doran one can.”
“Maybe four years ago, Dad. Not today.”
“You need to get your facts right, son. Your mother has been on the phone with Garrison Tatum for at least four hours across last night and this morning. Harley’s flown through farms and trainers since she left here. This place being her heaven, that was her father’s words. I heard the man, I saw your momma smile when she heard them.”
“There’s more to it.”
“Like what?”
“She’s with him, Dad. He may not have this place, but he has her.”
“Oh, so four years ago her momma - hell, maybe yours - was your excuse. Today, it’s some Grant fella? I don’t recall teaching any of my boys to makes excuses. I believe I told you when it got hard to dig a little deeper, fight harder.”
Wyatt held his stare but didn’t say a word.
“Your problem, boy, is that you have promised yourself a fail. You always thought you couldn’t give her what she wanted or that someone could give her more.” Beckett lifted his chin. “Maybe you ot’ to ask her what it is that she does want.”
“All of a sudden you’re the matchmaker?”
“Nope. I’m just telling you how I convinced your momma to run away with me. Long day, get to work,” Beckett said as he took his coffee and made his way to his office.
Wyatt was almost sure he saw him grinning.
He didn’t know much about how his parents got together. He knew they grew up close to each other, that around the time Wyatt was born their families merged their farms. That his father brought out the rebel side in his mother, and when Beckett had no other choice, she brought out the charm and class in him.
Wyatt’s mother’s parents passed away when he was five or so. All he really remembered about them were the suits he had to wear to the banquets. He hated those suits. To this day, he hated them, the ones he had to wear to all the dinners at the horse shows or when the Dorans held a gathering at the main house to raise money for local farms or the rescue shelters they had established for more than just horses across this state and nine others.
Wyatt was sure his daddy was trying to tell him that there was nothing stopping him from getting back the only girl he loved. But he and Harley were not his parents. This was not merging two different sides of the horse world. It would be merging two different classes of the wealth in general. Beyond that, their backgrounds were not keeping them apart; it was the fact that she had someone else. She outright replaced him like he was some backwoods horseman she once knew.
***
It didn’t take Harley long to figure out life had moved on at the barn, a new generation was there. She didn’t recognize the A.M. riders that filtered in. The ones that came after school were all new, too. She hadn’t seen Wyatt since that morning, and Camille didn’t bother to look in her direction.
The adjuster spent forever going over the rig, asking Harley question after question.
That took up most of her afternoon. Looking at the rig made Harley’s bones hurt even more. She wasn’t sure how that whole ordeal didn’t end far worse; however, she was sure the truck was totaled. The hitch on the trailer was ruined, the tires on the left side were bent in, the rims were barely hanging on.
“Can we get his gear out now?” Harley heard Camille say from behind her, but when she turned it was Wyatt’s eyes she met. That tension, that heat was there, enough to steal her breath.
Harley vaguely nodded. Wyatt and a few guys started to unload the trailer as Camille asked her question after question about what feed Danny Boy was on, what hay, what supplements. Where he had been, what they worked with him on.
Harley couldn’t figure out if Camille was seeing Danny Boy staying after his 30-day stall rest or if she was just looking for any new tendencies she needed to worry about.
Harley helped feed all the horses in the main barn but lingered at Danny Boy’s stall.
“Dinner is ready.”
Harley felt Wyatt’s voice vibrate through her body, felt her core clench. Time had done nothing to quell the effect he had on her; if anything, it made it worse.
She silently walked at his side to the golf cart that was parked in front of the barn. Getting in made her remember that last night, how he held her hand, told her she was safe as they rushed into hell side by side - and of course, what had happened before it on that creek side. She squeezed her legs together, feeling her body respond to the memory alone.
“What did you mean your dad wasn’t much better?” Wyatt asked.
She glanced up to read his expression. His words sounded harsh, and she halfway thought he was calling her a liar.
“He’s going to be eighty in a few months. With a weak heart. I was stating the obvious.”
“And your mom?”
“Evil as ever.”
Wyatt nearly smirked, but his glance, that embellish blue stare, met hers. “She’s not hurting you anymore.” It was more of a question than a statement.
