Busted (Promise Harbor Wedding)(50)

He froze, then took off.

Going on the assumption she’d just stumbled upon her thief, she knew there was no way in hell he was slipping through her fingers a second time. Hayley bolted after him, closing the distance much quicker than she had the last time. She snagged the back of his shirt, yanking hard enough to pull the hood down.

“Cody?” Shock nailed her square in the chest.

Wide-eyed, the teen stumbled away from her and jerked a handgun from the front pocket of his hoodie, pointing it at her.

“Don’t come any closer.” His gaze darted around.

He was panicking and searching for an escape route, Hayley knew, and limiting her options. She didn’t want to give him any reason to pull the trigger, but she couldn’t let him take off on her, not armed.

“What are you doing, Cody?” She kept her voice neutral, calm.

“He needs the money, Hayley.”

She frowned. “Kyle,” she guessed.

Cody nodded, his hand trembling around the weapon. “He still needs another twenty thousand for his surgery that insurance won't cover.”

“You’ve been stealing and giving the money to your brother.”

“I have it all set aside to make an anonymous donation. He needs the money more than they do.”

The people he stole from.

“That doesn’t make it right, Cody. And you’re making things a whole lot worse by holding a gun on a police officer.”

“I’m sorry about what I did to your house. I was drinking and so mad. I didn’t mean… Kyle can’t die, Hayley. He can’t.” He started to lower the gun, then looked at something over her shoulder.

He backed up, tripping as he turned to flee. Hayley lunged forward, catching hold of Cody and dropping to the ground with him.

A second later the gun went off.





Jackson spotted Hayley’s truck on the street the moment he pulled into the driveway. Grinning, he jogged up the stairs to the front door, so damn relieved that she was here he couldn’t get the door open fast enough. She wasn’t outside, so she must have let herself in somehow.

But why had she locked it behind her?

Jackson checked the side door, then walked back to Hayley’s truck, wondering if he’d mistaken someone else’s vehicle for hers. Maybe he was getting his hopes up for no reason whatsoever.

Halfway to the parked vehicle, he heard voices and glanced around in search of them. He spotted two people in the middle of the yard next door. Hayley’s blonde hair and trademark legs made her easy to pick out even though she had her back to him.

He opened his mouth to call out, snapping his jaw shut when he saw the gun. His heart punched down into his stomach, adrenaline flooding his system.

He ran toward them, wanting to yell at Hayley to get out of the way, all the while knowing it might only make things worse.

The teenager holding the gun spotted him, and Jackson slowed, recognizing Cody. Why the hell did he have a gun? And what the f*ck was he doing pointing it at Hayley?

Jackson had already spooked him, though, and Cody turned to run.

Hayley dove after him, and they hit the ground together. The sound of a gunshot turned Jackson’s insides to ice. He sprinted forward, dropping next to Hayley. She reached around him, tossing the gun out of Cody’s reach. He noticed the blood on her hand at the same time she did.

“You’ve been shot.”

She shook her head, but he was already pulling her shirt up in search of the wound. “It’s not my blood. Jackson,” she grabbed his hands, “I wasn’t shot.”

They both glanced at Cody.

The teen stared up at them, fear and tears shining in his eyes. “I think it’s mine. I scraped myself climbing the fence the first time.”

Hayley told him to turn over and checked his back. The scrape on his back was still oozing blood.

“Do. Not. Move.” The authority in Hayley’s voice left no room for negotiating, and Cody was smart enough to keep his mouth shut. She rocked back on her heels, drawing a shaky breath.

Jackson yanked her into his arms. “You scared the shit out of me. When the gun went off I thought…” He drew back enough to look her over. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.”

His entire body felt primed for a fight, his pulse thumping out of control.

“Don’t hit him.”

She hadn’t meant it as a joke, but some of the tension loosened inside him, and he hugged her again. His attention fell to her mouth and all he wanted to do was kiss her senseless for taking ten years off his life.

“Stay put.”

Cody gave up on moving to a sitting position as Hayley pulled free of Jackson’s arms and stood.

“Do you have your phone on you?”

Jackson dug it out of his pocket, listening as she called in to the police station, asking them to send a car and notify Cody’s parents that they needed to meet them at the police station.

“What happens to the money?”

Money? Christ, Cody was the thief Hayley had been looking for?

“It goes back to its rightful owners.” Hayley crouched down opposite him. “We’ll find another way to raise the money Kyle needs.”

Cody sniffed and wiped his sleeve across his eyes.

Jackson might have admired the teen’s determination to do anything to help his kid brother if he hadn’t gone about it in the most monumentally stupid way possible. And nearly killed Hayley in the process.

Hayley retrieved the weapon and they helped Cody to his feet. A few people living nearby, along with the homeowners of the property where the fight had taken place, had emerged to see what was happening. Assuring everyone that everything was fine and to go back inside took the kind of patience and authority Hayley excelled at.

She also excelled at holding Jackson at bay. Two hours later he’d only managed to catch glimpses of her at the police station. He tried to stay out of her way but refused to leave altogether.

He wasn’t convinced she was okay. She’d dealt with a lot in the last few days, and bringing in one of her hockey kids on top of everything else had to be eating her up inside. He’d seen and heard what she did for those boys when Coach got sick.

And she’d figured out that those teenagers were the key to making Jackson realize he wasn’t the washed-up has-been he’d convinced himself of.

So he stayed out of her way, content—for now—just to keep an eye on her. He’d come far too close to losing her tonight, and it took serious effort on his part not to reach out every time she passed and pull her into his arms.

He was in love with her.

A police station wasn’t the place he would have expected to have that particular light-bulb moment. Worse was feeling it all the way down to his f*cking toes and not being able to do a damn thing about it while watching Hayley go through the motions of dealing with Cody.

Unfortunately, it also gave him way too much time to think. What if he was the only one who felt this way? Would she have referred to it as fun if she had feelings for him too?

“Jackson, go home.” Hayley stood a few feet away, flipping through her notes.

The sight of the blood on her shirt made his gut knot up all over again.

“I’ve got a ton of paperwork,” she continued, “and Cody is being released to his parents for the night under the provision he turns over everything he stole.”

Jackson stood. “Can we talk for a minute?”

She shook her head. “I really need to get back in there.” She nodded to the room down the hall where Cody waited with his parents.

“Then breakfast in the morning.”

“I…”

“I’m not leaving until you say yes.”

A flicker of a smile touched her lips. “At least you didn’t bother with bribery or blackmail this time. Okay,” she relented, then walked away, making him wish like hell he’d insisted on talking to her now.

And then what? Tell her he loved her and send her back in to finish up with Cody, without a clue how she’d process the new development? He’d been clear from the start that he planned on leaving, never expecting he’d find everything he was looking for in Promise Harbor. There was a chance she hadn’t been as blindsided by their attraction as he was, though he was fairly certain he hadn’t imagined the relief and emotion in her eyes earlier.

Just caught up in the moment? Or had she needed him as desperately as he needed to hold on to her?

Either way, he wasn’t taking any chances. He was done living his life on the sidelines and would do whatever it took to win her over. There was a good chance she’d only agreed to breakfast to get him out of there. He needed to be prepared in case she put him off in the morning. He needed a backup plan. Something she absolutely could not ignore.

Although it was nearing two in the morning, Jackson looked up the directions he needed on his phone and headed across town. He knocked on the front door, waited and knocked again.