Her eyes flew open, and she pulled herself up, ready to run.
“Shh,” she heard someone say, felt their calloused, warm hands on her arm as they reached past her and pushed a button on her bed.
It was Camille Doran. Before Harley could say a word, two nurses and a doctor came in.
They had their little flashlights and pointless questions that Harley answered without thought. She was trying to read the look on Camille’s face. For an instant when she woke, she thought she had dreamed of seeing Wyatt, seeing all the boys. Seeing Camille told her there was a good chance it wasn’t a dream, sent a shock of hope through her - but it also terrified her.
Camille never showed emotion, but Harley could see pain in her eyes. She was sure she had lost Danny Boy, that something irrevocable had happened.
“We think you may have a slight concussion,” the doctor said to her. “Nothing beyond that. You’re a lucky girl.”
Harley only swallowed in response.
“We are going to keep you here for the rest of the night. I’m not going to admit you, but I want to monitor you, measure any pain you have. You’re sure to be sore.”
Once the nurses and doctors cleared away, Harley looked nervously to Camille. “Where is he?”
Camille let no expression come to her face as she crossed her arms. “My son, or Danny Boy?”
Harley’s eyes welled, but she refused to cry, to apologize for loving Wyatt when she was just a girl, but she had no qualms with apologizing for hurting Camille.
Camille was more of a mother to Harley than her own. She never doted on Harley or was sweet, but she was honest. She encouraged Harley, pushed her to be a better rider, a better person. Told her it was okay to live, to smile.
“I never meant to hurt you. To lie to you.”
Camille let her stare move over Harley. She looked so weak, fragile in that bed. More fragile than the first time she had seen her, a young girl who was accustomed to being alone, accustomed to hiding what she really wanted in life.
Through all of it, through all the times Beckett had to go out and get Wyatt when he drank too much, all the times she had to go to the school and convince them to give Wyatt one more shot, through the moment Beckett told her he was sending Wyatt on the road, she blamed herself.
Camille had always seen herself in Harley, and it wasn’t just because her mount was the spitting image of the first horse she had loved. It was because of her background. Camille came from southern money. High standards. When she was just a girl, she fell in love with a blacksmith-slash-bareback rider that came to her farm every week. They had a torrid love affair, wild and free. She knew her parents would never let her marry him, so she ran, they eloped.
She and her husband worked their asses off, proved everyone wrong day by day. The day Wyatt was born, her father found a way to accept Beckett. Two families became one, a legacy was built.
Camille should have known her son was just like his father, that he would not give a damn about any restrictions in front of him, that if anything, that would only push him to fight harder. In Camille’s mind, not only should she have seen this love affair, but she should have found a way to help Harley through it, gave her the courage, told her that if she really loved him, nothing mattered but that. But she was too stubborn to say any of this aloud. Her son didn’t even know this story; only Beckett understood where Camille was coming from, how she felt.
“Is that a fact?” Camille stepped forward. “Then why did you return to my barn and leave without saying a word to me?”
Harley thought she was going to be sick. She could still see that satisfied look on Dorcas’ face.
Her mouth gapped before she spoke. “Life had moved on,” she managed to say, still wondering if she really had seen Wyatt at that accident or if somehow her mind had put that together with the voices around her. She knew if he really did see her, he’d held her back, he’d stopped them. He was doing his job, nothing more, and that, in some way, mortified her.
Camille lifted her chin. “It had.” She let those words settle for a minute, seeing them wash over Harley. “After getting into every ounce of trouble that a boy could get into, after running away to crash your birthday, only to figure out that he’d been replaced, my son hit the road, rode professionally. Bareback. While managing the Doran bulls and working to gain his degree in business.” Camille paused. On the outside it looked like she was furious, but really it was emotion that was stopping her. “He said the farm hurt him. That you were haunting him. He had no choice.” Wyatt said all of that to his father, not Camille, but that didn’t matter right then.
Harley sat up, sure she did have whatever concussion they thought she had.
“Dorcas—”
“Dorcas’ parents were going through a divorce. She rented out the apartment.” Camille tilted her head. “Of all people, you should know I raised my boy with more class and sense than to mess with the likes of Dorcas.”
Harley was speechless.
“You see now, Harley, when you’re afraid and you run, you quit. You put it all on the table and walk out. When you don’t run, when you decide to be brave and fight for what’s yours, you find out that the fear was inflating everything you saw.”
Harley looked away. At seventeen, she was sure her mother could have destroyed the Dorans—there was not a doubt in her mind. It was her father that let her see that was a fallacy, and Collin backed up that point every time her mother let her dark side out in present day when he’d say, “What’s the worse she can do?”
“How different would your life be right now if you had walked out of that barn and up to my front porch? If you had even dared to stop and listen to Ava as she called your name?”
“A lot,” Harley admitted.
“You gonna marry that boy?”
Harley’s eyes moved to Camille’s, not sure what boy she was talking about. Even if that Dorcas business was nonsense, it had been years. Wyatt had to be with someone; she had seen pictures of girls with her own eyes.
The only people on the planet who knew she and Collin were not in a real relationship were them and Quinn.
Harley only barely stopped herself from saying no, and that was just because the habit of acting like she and Collin were more than friends was ingrained her mind.
“Yes, I know about him,” Camille said, reading the question in Harley’s eyes. “You see, my son, the bronc rider, the fireman, he reads articles every day. Ones about charities, about political events, all topics that should be of no interest to him. I read them, too; I read them to gauge his mood. I know if your name appears, if Collin Grant’s is there, if there is some high society photo, that I need to make sure he stays away from every dangerous ride until that aggression of his is gone - for if I don’t, he’s going to end up killing himself.”
“I’m not engaged,” Harley said after a moment, finding an honest way to answer the original question.
“You love him?”
“There are a lot of definitions to that one word,” were the words that left Harley’s lips, her silent way of saying that she had not given her heart to Collin or anyone else that came along. She didn’t have one to give.
“Harley, I have no idea why you were driving that rig with that horse, alone, past my town. I don’t know how you survived. I don’t know how he did. But this is a pause. This is the only chance life is going to give you to set things right. To burn bridges, close doors. Figure out what you want.”
Harley was sure she was telling her to burn the bridge with Wyatt, to be an adult, the thing was, Harley didn’t want to burn a bridge, deep down she knew the reason she wasn’t over Wyatt by now was because she didn’t want to be.
Then the other words Camille had said started to register in her mind. “Danny Boy’s alive?”
Camille winched when she assumed that her son was not even daring to cross Harley’s mind, she nodded tensely. “He’s hurt. Lame, a few lacerations. Doc Knox said if he were any smaller, he wouldn’t have
survived, that his size stopped the trailer from tossing him. He’s on stall rest for thirty days.”
“Where?”
“In his stall,” Camille said firmly. She had never once filled Danny Boy’s stall, the largest one in the farm that sat right next to her office. She could have divided it up, made three stalls, brought in three new boarders, but she never did. In fact, his nameplate was still in place.
Harley let her head fall, trying to process everything, trying to pick an emotion to feel. She felt like she had been thrust into her past, and it would be so easy to fall into that. But there was a present life that she was stuck in, a lot of time with a lot of pain between one point and the next.
“I called your father,” Camille said.
Harley’s eyes went wide.
“I explained how lucky you were, what was being done with Danny Boy, your condition.”
“What did he say?”
“He tried to send me a check for your and Danny Boy’s board.” Camille pursed her lips. “Personally, I’m not taking another dime from your family. When you’re discharged, your room will be there. If you have somehow turned into the coward your mother wanted you to become, I’ve also told the hotel twenty miles away to hold you a room.”
“I’m not a coward.”
Camille stepped forward in what looked like anger, then hesitated, stood up straighter, and after a sharp breath said, “Harley, the only thing I fault you for is not coming to me when you found Dorcas. Life would have been easier for all of us if you’d done that.”
Camille handed Harley her phone. “I told your father you would call as soon as you woke.” And with that, she left the room.
Harley looked down at her phone. Collin had called her three times, sent twice as many texts.
Her father answered on the first ring.
“Harley?”
“Daddy.”
“You all right?”
“Yeah, I think. Sore, but they said I was fine.”
“What do you need?”
“Nothing. I’m fine. Danny Boy is at Willowhaven. As soon as I leave here, I’m going to check on him. I need to call and get someone to come out and look at the rig when I figure out where it is.”
“I’ve already done that. Camille said it was towed to her farm. An adjuster will be out within forty-eight hours.”
“Perfect.”
“Do you need me to find a home to rent there for you?”
Harley paused. “Camille said I had a room.”
“She told me the same. I wasn’t sure if that would be good, but then again, I knew you would want to be close to Danny Boy.”
That horse meant everything to her; it really did. He was her first possession, her first challenge. He made her stronger. Losing him...losing him would be like putting her past in the grave. “I can still hear him during that accident. He sounded so scared.”
“I’m sure he was. I heard it was a miracle he and you barely had a scratch.”
The magnitude of the wreck, walking away from it, was in the pile of emotions she was trying to process.
“Did...um...did you speak with Mother?” Harley had to figure out what she knew, had to know everything so she could call Collin and they could figure out their lines, their roles.
“I did. Yesterday, I believe. She wanted to tell me that the governor was coming to my birthday party, and some senator that I’ve never met. I suppose I was to be elated about that.”
“That’s all she said?”
“All that I can recall.”
Harley and her father had the same kind of relationship; they were close, but at the same time he never really spoke clearly to her. She had learned to read through his words, especially after she figured out if she had said something sooner to her father, she would have made it back to Wyatt before he moved on to Dorcas…a Dorcas that was never an issue, apparently.
Harley shook her head, trying to find some kind of thought balance.
She was sure her father was telling her that he saw no need to tell her mother what had happened, where Harley was. If Harley saw a need, she was welcome to tell her.
Her phone beeped, and she pulled it away to see that it was Collin. “Collin is calling,” she said into the phone.
“That one keeps some odd hours, now doesn’t he?”
“I suppose,” Harley said with a furrowed brow. Sometimes she questioned if her father knew what she and Collin were up to. Honestly, Harley was still supposed to be in Wellington. They had told their parents she was leaving a few days later than she was, which was going to give Collin a long weekend with Quinn at the condo.
“Call me when you get settled tomorrow.”
“I will. Love you.”
She hesitated another second, glanced to the sheet that was a wall around her bed, wondering who was close, who could hear this conversation.
“Hey,” she said when she answered.
“You’re scaring the hell out of me. When you didn’t call, I tracked the truck. You’re at a standstill six hours from where you should be, not answering the phone. If you didn’t answer this time, I was calling the police to tell them where the truck is sitting.”
“They may still be with the truck.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked in his deep, concerned tone.
“I had an accident.”
“What!”
“I had to detour, then I had an accident. A truck in front of me lost its load.”
She heard him cuss. “Are you hurt?”
“They said a concussion. I’m fine.”
“Danny Boy?”
“I haven’t seen him yet. They said he was on stall rest, had a few cuts, lame, but was okay, lucky.”
“Where?”
She turned her head and quietly said, “Willowhaven.”
“You’re serious?” Collin was confused. If Harley wanted to go there, he would have made it happen. Detouring on a whim? That was out of character. If he weren’t terrified that she was hurt, he might have found a second to be proud of her.
“I had just passed the town when I had the accident.”
“How did they get involved?”
In a whisper, she answered, “Wyatt’s a fireman. He responded to the wreck.”
Collin was quiet for a second. “And you’re all right?”
“I only saw him when he pulled me out of the truck.”
“Pulled you out? What kind of accident was it?”
“I’m fine; the truck, not so much. I don’t think.”
“And they took Danny Boy to his place?”
“Apparently. I just came to a little while ago.”
“And you’re just now calling me?”
“They had to look me over. I talked to Camille, then Dad.”
“What did he say?”
“He knows where I am, tried to pay them for us to board there through the thirty days.”
“Both of you?”
“Yeah, and if I’m reading him right, he’s not going to tell Mother where I am.”
“Okay,” Collin said with a sigh. “What’s that sister’s name?”
“Wyatt’s? Ava.”
“All right. If it comes up, I’ll tell them you’re at your friend Ava’s...I should come there.”
Harley let out a deep breath. “I think that will be bad.”
“Why?”
“First thing his mother asked me was if I was going to marry you.”
“What is it with people all of a sudden? Why is that always the question?”
“I don’t know,” she breathed.
He was quiet for a second. In her mind, she could see him leaning back and taking this all in, plotting his strategy. “You’re fine, Danny Boy is, you have a place to stay. The question is, can you handle it?”
Harley swallowed. “I don’t know. But I know I need to.”
“Right.”
“If Mother ever figures out I’m here and we don’t do that thing…”
“What is the
worst that could happen, Harley? I told you before, she cannot hurt you.”
At least Collin was going to do everything in his power to stop that. The worst that could happen would be that Garrison passed away and Claire stood before Harley’s inheritance.
Harley could not give a damn about the money, but she had four horses to her name. She had to have a way to support them and herself. As far as Collin was concerned, the daughter of Garrison Tatum should never have to worry about having a roof over her head. If worse came to worst, Collin would support Harley and her horses and fight any legal maneuver her mother put before her.
They never talked about any of this. For one, Harley could not stomach the idea of her father passing for long; and two, Collin didn’t even want to give Harley the idea that her mother could do any damage, at the very least force her to give up her horses, give up Danny Boy.
That’s why he had to make this separation his fault when it came to their families. It had to be his fault, and it had to be clean so he would still be hip-to-hip with her and keep her safe, fight her legal battles if they happened to arise.
“I tell myself that, too. I just don’t want to give my dad stress. Mess up,” Harley said after she clearly thought over the same risks that were swimming in Collin’s mind.
“If that man didn’t want you there, he would have said as much. Old age has made him care even less what others think.”
“Right.”
“Harley, I can fix this, I can manage it. I’ll find a way to make it my fault, but I can’t fix that. I can’t stop you from figuring out if it was over for him long ago, or that he is even a different person.”
“I think I need to see that. I think that will help.”
“Harley…” he said in a sincere tone. “You’re different, too. I knew you at seventeen, and I know you now. You’re bolder, in some way you are.”
“Because of you.”
She heard him smile. “Don’t back out of that. Be who you are, take care of your horse, and we’ll figure out the rest, just like before.”