Before she could respond, both Ava and Kate fell from the rope, splashing the pair of them, dividing them.
Everyone splashed each other at that point; it was an all-out war filled with laughter.
“Fire?” Easton said from the bank. He pointed to the sky. “It’s getting dark.”
All the girls rushed from the creek giggling.
Wyatt went to follow them, but Harley pulled him closer. Under the water, her hands moved over his chest. “I want to spend time with you…I want…Wyatt, I think I’m ready.”
If Wyatt weren’t tall enough to stand in that creek, he was sure he would have drowned. They never talked about how far they went; it just happened. This summer, it had been harder and harder to stop. The night before last was the closest they had been. She had pulled him closer, but when his hand rushed across her chest, he felt her heart thundering, he felt her body trembling, he knew she was afraid - and truth be told, he was terrified himself. He was sure he had no idea what to do in the first place, at least not how to do it right. He also knew that would double or nothing every risk he was taking with Harley.
“You’re sure?” he asked, hearing how broken his voice was.
“If you’re sure, I’m sure.”
His blue eyes raced across her beautiful face. “You’re not scared?”
“I’m terrified.”
Now he was confused.
“Don’t laugh at me, but I know that no matter what…this way, a part of you will never leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere, Harley. We have nothing but time.”
Harley had her doubts about that. Next summer was anyone’s guess; her mother had been planning to prepare her for school and was determined to take Harley abroad before she started. With the class load Harley was set to take on, along with the charity events her mother had slated her to attended, riding would be a hit or miss event. Harley feared this was their last summer together, but she knew if she told Wyatt that it would break him. She’d rather feel that fear alone.
Their names were being yelled from above, and they could hear the sound of the four-wheelers roaring to life.
“I never want to forget this summer, Wyatt. When you’re ready, I am.” And with that, she rose from the bank.
She was too nervous to look over her shoulder and gauge the look on his face. She had been daring to say that to him for the past two months, almost said it the first night she made it here. That night was hot, intense; they had been apart for months, which seemed to make the want that much more painful, but she chickened out.
She had figured out over this summer that though he flirted, he was the one that found the lookouts, or the safe places. He let her pace them. She knew if she weren’t blunt, he would never dare to push her, and even if she was, it would be like their first kiss, their first everything; there would be a question lingering in his eyes, asking if she was sure.
Ava and Kate had opted out of the four-wheeler ride back and had piled into the Jeep. Ava begged to drive, but Harley told her no as sweetly as she could.
“Hurry, Harley, I want a shower before the fire,” Kate, Easton’s sister, yelled from the back seat.
Before Harley turned the wheel, her stare caught Wyatt’s. His hands were rushing through his hair, pushing out the creek water, and every muscle in his arms and chest was flexed. He stole her breath, and that was before she saw the reverent gaze he was giving her, before she saw him taking what she said to heart.
She bit her lip, tried to smile, then drove away, feeling a little foolish, wondering if she had pushed him into this. If he would only do this because she asked him.
Chapter Three
“Why do you look like you’ve seen a ghost?” Easton asked Wyatt as he turned off his four-wheeler. Truman and Memphis never noticed; they were not following them as the pair of them tore off after the Jeep, even daring to race Harley and the girls.
Easton’s first thought was that Harley had broken it off with his boy. If that were the case, they were going to have to steal more than a few beers from his daddy’s fridge. Easton was sure Wyatt would never overcome a blow like that.
Wyatt wasn’t one to kiss and tell. Even if he didn’t have to keep him and Harley on the down low, he wouldn’t have been that type.
But Easton was different. Their fathers were best friends when Easton’s dad was alive, so neither of them had known life without the other. Every terrifying aspect of growing up, from their first steps as toddlers on, they had accomplished together.
They were there for each other through the best times, and the worst.
Easton was spending the night at Wyatt’s when they were just boys. Wyatt’s father came in, woke them both, and told Easton his father had been lost in a fire that night. Before Wyatt’s father broke that tragic news, he sat on the edge of the bed in the middle of the night, telling both of them how much honor and pride firemen had, how they were guardian angels and sometimes they were called home before we wanted to let them go.
Easton never cried, not that Wyatt saw, but a part of Easton died that night, too. At least the part that always teased, laughed and joked. Wyatt assumed that because of that life-altering moment Easton was forced to grow up faster than the rest of them, meaning he dared to do more first - at least with girls.
Easton was the one that told him to stop being a chicken and kiss Harley way back when, told him to screw whatever barriers were around him. If you wanted something, you had to take it because tomorrow is never promised.
That was just the type of guy Easton was. He knew how to charge forward but be safe at the same time. In most cases, Wyatt only knew how to do one or the other and counted on Easton to balance him out.
“She...um...” Wyatt cleared his throat as he sat astride his four-wheeler. “She’s wants to—she said she was ready.”
Wyatt didn’t have to explain what he was talking about to Easton, and honestly Easton was halfway sure the pair of them had been down that road already. A slow smile came over his face as he held Wyatt’s gaze. “That’s not a bad thing. You just need to be careful.”
“I’m always careful.”
“I mean careful,” Easton said, lowering his head, holding a knowing stare on Wyatt.
Wyatt’s head was spinning too fast to figure out what kind of careful he was talking about...careful because of the trouble they could get in if they were caught? Careful with her? Or careful…oh yeah, that’s what he meant.
“You want me to get some stuff for you?”
Easton’s mom was a nurse; Wyatt wasn’t sure what kind, but he knew she worked with women. Easton was always around the floor she was on or the office she worked in a few days a week. He had snagged protection not only for him, but also Wyatt’s cousin, Brant, and a few other guys at school before. If any one of them had dared to buy it themselves, someone in town would have seen them, or at least they assumed they would have.
“I don’t know how serious she is,” Wyatt said, moving his hand down his face. Harley was always a mystery to him. Most times, her words didn’t add up to what her body language or shy smiles would say, at least around others. When they were alone for more than five or ten minutes here or there, he thought he saw the real her. He wanted to talk about this with her, but at the same time that made him feel like a total girl. Was this even something that you talked about? He didn’t know, and that was his issue.
“What exactly did she say to you?” Easton asked, reading Wyatt like a book.
Wyatt hesitated. “When you’re ready, I’m ready.”
“Are you ready?” Easton asked.
Was he ready? He downright craved Harley. The sight of her alone picked up his heart rate. He had been waiting for this for years, felt like lifetimes to him.
Instead of saying that, he gave Easton a what the hell do you think? glance.
Easton let a laugh burst through his stoic image. “Look, man, you’re walking this path alone. I haven’t been down this road. I can’t tell you what to ex
pect, what to watch out for, nothing beyond be careful.”
Wyatt pulled his brow together in confusion.
“It’s gotta be different when you have feelings for them. I don’t have a clue about that.”
He wasn’t saying that to be an ass, and Easton was definitely not a player; he was just a blunt son of a bitch. Girls at school would fall all over him, flirt like crazy. When the mood struck him, he would hang around one for a bit. Whether it went somewhere or not, it was nothing to him. He made no bones about it; they knew he didn’t have feelings for them. Wyatt was pretty sure that Easton’s first thought if they went down that road that Easton would magically spawn emotions; she figured out real quick that nothing and no one could change him.
Wyatt roared his four-wheeler to life, ending the conversation, only giving Easton one nod, a nod that said yes, it’s gotta be different, and yes, steal me some protection.
***
Harley was still mentally berating herself as she walked up the back steps to the plantation home.
Camille pulled up in the golf cart that she drove from barn to barn. “Good night, girl, why do you look even more tense?”
Harley gave her the best smile she could without looking the woman directly in the eyes. “Still working on the mechanics of having fun; bonfire is next on the list.” It was a dry joke, but Camille smiled anyway. Harley took that as her cue to run for her life, and she did.
After a shower, she called her dad; it was a normal routine. He heard the other girls in the background laughing and running from one room to the other.
“Sounds like you are having fun,” her father said.
“It’s Ava and her friends.”
“And they’re not your friends?”
“A bit younger,” she said. Harley was close to eighteen. Ava was just gearing up for her first year in high school, and boys were her only focus - boys and fun. Harley adored her, but they had little to nothing in common. Harley had never known how to just be a kid, was never really allowed to be one.
“Not by much,” her father said with a laugh. “How was today?”
“Better.” Her father knew every skill Harley sought to conquer, knew every challenge with her horse. “He was a bit wild this morning, but Wyatt rode him, worked through that. By the time I got back on him, he was smooth as glass.”
“Good to hear, good to hear. Your mother told me that she feels she has found the perfect trainer here at home.”
After that first summer Harley took Danny Boy home with her, a trainer at the school worked with him through the fall. Danny Boy went backward, threw Harley twice, broke her wrist once. When Danny Boy made it back to Willowhaven, it took Wyatt three months to get him back to where he was. Camille basically told Garrison that she had serious riders and serious horses and she did not care to take one step forward and two back. Danny Boy had been in Willowhaven since then.
It was a win and a loss for Harley. The win was that she always had a reason and excuse to go to Willowhaven, a place that had become her heaven, a sweet reward her mother could not logically take away from her. The downside was going without riding Danny Boy for so long. She had a horse at the school her father had purchased for her, and two at her home, but they were not Danny Boy; they didn’t push her, challenge her.
“That was a fail last time.”
“I understand. What you have to understand is that with school and the dates you have committed to, getting to Willowhaven will not be easy over the next few years. I’m trying to make it where you have what you want with you, what you told me you wanted. Camille knows about this. I’m not going to commit to any trainers unless she approves them.”
“When is she supposed to do that?”
“Most, she knows by reputation. She wants to meet the two your mother has found, watch how they work. We’re still working out the dates.”
“I don’t want anyone to hurt him, Daddy.”
The thing about Wyatt riding Danny Boy was that he had patience, he never rushed. He saw horses as living souls. That was what Harley’s horse responded to, what Harley responded to.
Her father laughed. “Harley, I seriously doubt there is an offer I could put before Camille that would persuade her to let Wyatt move to New York and work with your horse and your horse alone.”
There was an offer, at least one that Wyatt would take, and that was Harley - but she kept that to herself.
“They’re the best, Dad.”
“Harley, we’ll take our time with this. You just need to think forward.”
“All right,” she breathed.
“I’ll let you go so you can have your dinner. I plan to be there in a few weeks. I have a heavy schedule, but I told them to find me at least three days. I’ll let you know as soon as I know.”
That made Harley smile and nervous at the same time. Her father was the only ray of light she had outside of Willowhaven. He was older, and she knew her time with him would not be as long as she wanted, but at the same time she knew he was sharp, that sooner or later on one of these visits he would figure out all of Harley’s secrets.
By the time she put on a simple summer dress and sandals and made her way downstairs, the house was quiet, still. Everyone was outside. Honestly, the Dorans never came inside unless they had to; every one of them thrived outdoors.
Harley lingered by the back door, staring out. In the distance, she saw a massive fire in the field, a silhouette before it; it wasn’t Wyatt, but Easton. She imagined that most would not be able to tell the difference, but she had studied everything there was to know about Wyatt, even something as simple as the way he leaned or held his head. Easton was still as a ghost, seemed to be entranced, lost in some way.
“You’re not afraid of fire, now are ya?” Beckett, Wyatt’s father, said. He was on his way out with a dish full of marinated meat.
“Is he all right?” she asked before she assumed that question made no sense. Around this farm, you never asked if the boys were all right; even if they were not all right, they were told to man up.
“Easton?” Beckett said as he shifted the dish he was holding. “The fire is in his blood.”
Harley looked up curiously. She spent the least time around Beckett, so all in all she was still trying to read him.
“His father was the best fireman that ever walked this Earth. Hell, the night he died, he saved an entire family before he did so.”
Harley felt a little sick to her stomach. She was terrified of the day she would lose her father, for more reasons than she could count. It was hard for her to imagine Easton without one as young as they all were.
“He’s not out there crying or anything,” Beckett said with a raspy laugh. “He’s studying it. One day, no doubt, he’ll follow his father’s footsteps, both of them will; probably Truman, too, if I’m reading that boy right.”
Beckett said that right as Wyatt pulled up on his four-wheeler with more wood, with Memphis right behind him. Truman was approaching the fire from the other direction. They all seemed to look at it the same way. Even though their backs were to Harley, she could sense the respect from where she stood. Brotherhood.
“Wyatt wants to be a fireman?” she asked, not meaning to say it aloud.
“Oh, no doubt. What?” he asked when he saw her shocked expression. “You didn’t think he was going to grow up and be some banker, now did ya?” Beckett said with a laugh. He teased her more than anyone for coming from the background she came from; it was all in good humor, but sometimes Harley took it to heart.
“I thought he’d do this, would want to do this farm. He seems to love it.” She was guarding her words. She knew Wyatt loved the farm, loved riding. She assumed that he would do this with spouts of some kind of rodeo here and there.
“Well, darlin’, I don’t plan on kicking the bucket anytime soon. Wyatt needs something to keep him occupied until such time. Those boys right there have been connected at the hip since they were crawling across the mud. Wyatt will sign up just to mak
e sure Easton’s safe. Memphis, he’s already on the volunteer.”
Harley only vaguely nodded. She knew how close they all were, but the rest of this was a shock to her - and honestly, it scared the hell out of her. It already made her nervous when Wyatt rode the horses he did, but she told herself that he knew what he was doing, he knew when to bail. Knowing that he planned on embarking on yet another venture that would put him in harm’s way didn’t sit right with her.
“There’s a whole mess of kids out there. Go on now, have some fun; Camille swears you’re going to get thrown if you don’t learn to relax. I’ll holler when dinner is ready.”
He opened the door for Harley and nearly pushed her outside; he knew her well enough to know she would stall a bit longer.
At home, everyone was on a stage. They moved a certain way, said things a certain way, everything was planned out. You always had to represent your family to the best of your ability. Here, it was different; you were just supposed to be you.
That was harder than it should be for Harley. The only one she knew she was herself around was Wyatt, and that was when they were alone, when she could joke about the life she had at home, talk to him about the things she loved, laugh every time he made a point to make her smile - but she couldn’t do that out in the open, so she was always a bit odd. That’s how she saw herself, rather.
Tonight, the girls must have invited everyone they knew; at least it seemed like that. A few of Wyatt’s cousins were there, but Trey and Blake were the only ones she’d ever really spoken to. Trey had a few friends of his from school as well; they were the youngest in the bunch, only in the eighth grade.
What bothered Harley more than anything was one of the girls that had been invited. Harley was horrible with names, even though both her parents had told her over and over it was rude not to remember a person’s name. They had even taught her tricks, like repeating the name after she was introduced, but it never worked. Harley, however, knew the name of one of the girls that were here tonight. Dorcas. And she didn’t remember that name because it was odd; she remembered it because Dorcas was clearly out to make Wyatt hers.