Blaze (Drive Me Wild 3)

earing onto the deck.

When I stepped outside, her back was to me as she stared out at the water. As soon as I reached her side, she let out a long sigh.

“I’m not one to get into your business, but seeing as we live in the same house and all . . .” She looked over at me and twisted her mouth in contemplation. “Okay, I’m just going to ask it. What’s going on between you and Blake?”

“Whaaa . . . what?”

“You know what I mean. All the time you two spend together doesn’t go unnoticed. Did you forget that you confessed to me that you had a thing for him?” She raised an eyebrow and I winced. She knew more than anybody else the secrets that Blake and I tried hard to hide.

“It’s complicated.” I shrugged.

“Trust me, I know a lot about complicated. I also know that the two of you are miserable. I wish there was something I could say that would help, but I’m still trying to figure out my own shit. The only thing I can offer is this. I wasted a lot of time with things I thought were complicated when it turned out the choice was simple. I followed my heart and it led me here.” An unexpected tear fell down my cheek.

“I really wish I were more like you, Harley. Bold and brave.”

“Brave? Hell, I’m scared of everything. I spent so much time hiding from my life before I realized that all the running in the world wasn’t worth a life without Drew in it.”

“It’s not me. I want to be out in the open. It’s him.” My shoulders slumped. “He promised me that we would tell our parents, and when we had the opportunity, he chickened out. He thinks the minute the secret is out it will be the beginning of the end for us. That nobody will understand—not even our family—and it would tear us apart.”

“Do you agree?”

“No, but even if people don’t agree, it shouldn’t matter. It should be about what we want.”

“Yeah, but it’s a little more complicated than that, don’t you think? There has got to be a happy medium. You both need your family.” What she’d said was true. I couldn’t ask Blake to choose between his family and me. Maybe I was being naïve and not really understanding the gravity of it all. I did know that nothing was going to be resolved tonight.

“Harley, I—”

“Listen, I don’t want you to feel like I’m judging you because I’m not. I really hope the two of you can work something out. You and Blake are very important to me and have put up with my crap for the past few months.”

“Well, you’re not so bad.” I nudged her with my elbow.

“I’ve heard worse.” She smiled briefly before leaning forward on the railing. “I never imagined this would be my life. You want to know where I was this time last year?” I nodded, wanting to know more about her life as a drifter. “Sleeping on a chair in a bus station somewhere in Florida.”

“Florida? Why were you in Florida?”

After a long pause, I was certain she wasn’t going to answer. She reached into her apron and pulled out something flat and white. As she held the object between her thumb and forefinger, I realized it was a piece of paper. She flapped it up and down, staring at it with an unreadable expression.

“What is that?” I asked.

“A letter.”

“A letter from who?”

“My mama."

I knew the story of Harley’s parents, Kurt and Lizzie Wyatt. They were the infamous Love Bird Bandits. They’d gone on a ten-year crime spree involving intricate cons that had made them very wealthy. This also made their fall that much harder once they were captured. I couldn’t imagine how much Harley was affected by it. Having that sort of history to deal with in a young life was hard to escape.

I reached for the letter and she loosened her hold. When I unfolded the paper, I immediately noticed the address on the envelope was from a prison facility in Florida, dated from the previous year.

“Your mother wrote you a letter?”

“Yeah.”

“How did she find you? I didn’t think you stayed in one place very long.”

“I don’t know, but I can’t imagine it would be too hard to find me if you ask the right people. Besides, it was delivered to my job.”

“So, you went to visit her?”