Wyatt’s hand brushed across Harley’s as he pulled Danny Boy’s halter off. Harley’s breath caught when she knew it wasn’t an accident, when she glanced up to see his bright blue eyes raining down on her. “Is he still pulling too hard?” he asked in a ghost of a whisper. Remembering the night before, when his calloused hands had moved across her shoulders easing the tension there, she replied in a whisper of her own.
“Not so bad.”
“Anything else hurt?” he quipped as his stare moved down her body.
He had watched Harley evolve into a woman. Even though she was only seventeen, her body indicated otherwise. Every day, Harley was in riding pants and a tight tank, a walking fantasy to him.
She elbowed him, daring to laugh before moving to take off Dan’s girth.
Wyatt moved behind her; she barely reached his shoulder. His long arms were over her, reaching for the saddle. Once again, they both hesitated, feeling the sensation of their bodies so near to each other. Harley had no idea how Wyatt had the power to stop time, but he did, at least in her mind; the world would stop when they were this close.
“There you are,” Ava, Wyatt’s fifteen-year-old sister, said causing both Wyatt and Harley to step away from each other a bit quickly. It was masked, though. He pulled away with the saddle in hand while Harley was whisking away the saddle pad.
“We’re ready to go to the creek,” Ava said.
“I already told you this morning I had chores. I still have to ride Boss Man,” Wyatt protested.
Ava and her friends were not allowed to swim in the back creek without Wyatt there. He hated that babysitting gig. It took him away from the barn, from the seconds he stole throughout the day.
“Boss Man pulled a shoe, and we unloaded the hay, dropped flakes in the pasture. Everything is done. Mom said so,” Ava countered.
Her two friends from school had come to her side, both repeating the same plea. All of them were drenched in the summer heat and looked exhausted, like they had earned some kind of escape.
“Is Easton here?” Wyatt asked one of the girls, Kate. Easton was one of Wyatt’s best friends, and Kate was his younger sister.
“Him and Truman are getting the four-wheelers. Come on. Memphis is here, too,” Ava said.
Memphis, Easton, and Wyatt were all around the same age. Memphis was a little older, but nevertheless the two of them were Wyatt’s boys. Most times, Harley rarely saw Memphis because he was always on the road with his father, a fairly famous racecar driver, Lucas Armstrong.
What she did see of him, she liked. He always made sure everyone was happy around him, he had a way to calm an already mellow world. Easton, he was downright stoic. Quiet for the most part, he turned as many, if not more heads than Wyatt and Memphis, but the boy was too blunt for many girls to stick around. Wyatt’s personality was a little of both of theirs, a fun loving guy unless circumstance caused his dark or wild side to come out, a side he’d yet to show Harley and doubted he ever would.
Harley softened the edges around Wyatt, and somehow he brought out the sharp edges in her, at least for brief moments.
“Help untack the last lessons first,” Wyatt said. It was the best delay he could come up with.
In the peak of July, the heat was so heavy that you felt like you were wearing it, which was why Camille had back-to-back lessons in the A.M. Harley went first each morning, had her own private lesson, then would walk through the other lessons. Oftentimes she learned just as much by watching as she did doing. Harley always came in first, though. Danny Boy was territorial, so she wanted him untacked and bathed before the others came in.
During the back and forth between Wyatt and his sister, Harley had attached her lead and was guiding Danny Boy to the back wash bay. She had barely rinsed him when she felt Wyatt’s hands slide around her waist. She looked up, a bit apprehensive—that was when he caught her lips with his, when she lost all of her senses, when it would not have mattered if the world itself came crashing down. She turned in his arms, only barely breaking their contact, and when the flesh of their lips met again, with a gentle force his lips urged hers open, his warm tongue slid across hers, and those long, strong arms of his pulled her against him.
She had never kissed another boy besides Wyatt, but she could not imagine a sensation that could be any more heart-racing. They had figured out this maneuver together, summers ago, made it through the awkward stages and somehow had managed to find sensuality, a burning passion that only grew hotter with each day.
Wyatt urged her against the wall. “Wyatt,” she whispered in protest, scared they would be caught.
“You’re safe,” he promised as his lips met hers again, as his hands slid down her sides, his thumbs grazing her chest.
She knew then that they were safe. They were each other’s safety net. Sometimes when she cautioned him, he would pull away, knowing he had been swept away in the moment, in the touch; others, he would just say, “You’re safe,” which meant he had made sure they were alone.
Her hands rushed up his chest as his fell past her waist, squeezing and pulling. There was not a sound beyond their elevating breaths.
Just as his lips moved from hers, reached her jaw, they both heard, “It might rain tonight,” from a deep, baritone voice. Easton’s.
Wyatt pulled away, gave Harley a sly grin, and mouthed, ‘Safe,’ as he picked up the hose that Harley had dropped and sprayed it out in the aisle. He then turned and held the stream of the hose up to Danny Boy’s mouth, who lifted his lip, then swayed back and forth across the stream. It was Danny Boy’s trick, and in truth, unless you let him do that as you hosed him, he would protest any water on him.
Easton rounded the corner a second later and leaned against the wall as if he had been there the entire time. Thirty seconds after that, Ava and her friends ran down the aisle, yelling all the while for Wyatt.
Easton had that same build as Wyatt—tall and stoic with a strong frame and haunting green eyes and dark hair. He was the only one outside of Memphis that knew for sure about Wyatt and Harley, and that was simply because outside of Harley, no one knew the real Wyatt like Easton and Memphis.
Wyatt knew how to be his father’s son, how to be his mother’s son, how to be a rider, how to be whatever, and he knew that manners and respect were expected, demanded—but under that there was a boy, a boy that was still figuring out who he was. Harley knew that boy.
Harley knew without a doubt that Wyatt had asked Easton to be the lookout for that stolen moment.
Knowing that, it was hard for her to look at Easton, but she gave him a shy smile anyway. He responded with one straight face nod and a wayward wink.
“Come on, Wyatt,” Ava said again. “No more excuses. I’ll tell Mom.”
“You got this?” Wyatt asked Harley, hoping she had come up with another excuse to keep him there.
“Have fun,” she answered.
The girls squealed, then took off running. Both Easton and Wyatt shook their heads. Easton walked on, but Wyatt brushed his lips across Harley’s forehead and breathed, “I love you,” before he vanished from her side, leaving her breathless as always.
The Five Stages of Falling in Love Page 31