Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(40)

EJ laughed a little. One thing could always be said about Lynlee— she was a tough chick and she truly did what she wanted. Not that EJ always agreed with those decisions, but she admired that her friend had the courage and the ability to make them.

“I just don’t know how to be anymore. I feel like an alien has invaded my body and is constantly acting out and leaving me to deal with the fallout. I cry when I’m with Cooper because all I can feel is Kyle’s absence, and I snap Hayden’s head off every time he tries to talk to me because I can’t separate him from the night I lost my brother.”

Lynlee sighed. “So, what is the current climate with your two fellas?”

“Neither of them is mine, Lyn.”

The other girl made a noise of disagreement. “Well…maybe you should do something about that then. Grief and sexual frustration. Not a good combo.”

EJ snorted. Sex was the furthest thing from her mind, though it never strayed far from Lynlee’s. When she’d constantly analyzed her every interaction with Cooper, Lynlee had suggested she up and make a move, a bold one that involved touching him intimately and whispering propositions in his ear. EJ would’ve dropped dead of humiliation had she ever tried something like that. Well, the old her would have.

“I’ve only been with the one person the one time. I can’t imagine either of them would be interested in letting me work out my mixed-up feelings that way.”

Now her friend outright laughed across the line. “Oh, honey. If you announced you needed some grief counseling in the form of sex, a line would form.”

After they hung up, Ella Jane felt mildly better and yet tightly wound at the thought of returning home. So she stared at her phone until she found the courage to call him.

Jarrod Kent answered on the third ring.

“Where’s the party, Kent?”

Her inquiry was met with a low, dark laugh. “Same place it always is, sweetness. Wherever you want it to be.”





The track was overgrown since he hadn’t had time to clean it up. About half a mile past the creek that ran behind the barn, he and Kyle had run the tractor in circles until it was smooth. They’d even worked in some woops and a decent-sized jump for him to practice on. It had taken weeks to get it just right, but they’d done it, worked every spare second they had. And here he’d let it go overgrown. The new spring growth was trying to push through the clusters of dead grass and weeds. Half dead, half alive. Kind of like he felt on most days.

Hands on the bars, he walked the bike over to the start and stared at the dirt. He’d been so busy helping out at home, he couldn’t even remember the last time he’d ridden.

“It takes work, Coop,” Kyle had said when he’d bitched about his friend pushing him until long past dinnertime. “You don’t practice, you get hurt. You get hurt—you don’t ride. Simple as that.”

Kyle knew about hard work. He worked hard at everything he did, Cooper realized. He never complained. Every day that dawned was a day to bust his ass without fail. Cooper swallowed in an attempt to loosen the constant pressure in his throat.

Cooper worked hard, helped his parents with the farm and with his brothers. But he bitched about it a lot too. And he slacked off on riding, played video games, or drank beer and fished when he could’ve been cutting time on the track.

“You were the better man, my friend,” he said quietly to the setting sun dropping over the pasture.

Kyle was gone. The sun had set on his life and that was that. Cooper was a lot of things, pissed mostly, but he wasn’t delusional. But sometimes…sometimes he could hear him. Telling him to man up, to not wuss out, to work harder, ride faster. And it was so real, his best friend’s voice in his head, that he could almost forget that Kyle was gone while he was riding.

So he pulled on his helmet, cranked up his bike, and hopped on.



He didn’t know if he’d been knocked unconscious or just had the wind knocked out of him. Sitting up, Cooper saw the wheel still spinning on his bike when he removed his helmet. Just the air then.

He’d rode hard and fast, faster than was smart, but he’d been within a hair’s breadth of beating his time and he could hear Kyle cheering him on, telling him he had it and preparing to thump him hard on the back when he finished. But mid-jump, he realized he was doing it again, remembering. Just remembering. Kyle’s voice faded instantly into the darkness. The only thump on the back Cooper got was from the ground.

Pulling himself up, he lugged his sore ass to the barn to park his bike. Hanging his helmet on the board he’d nailed beside the door, he saw it. The blood drenching his forearm.

Grabbing a nearby wool blanket, he staunched the bleeding and tried to think. His parents didn’t need another insurance claim to deal with, and the last thing he wanted was to get some nasty infection. Who knows what had cut his arm—rusty metal and a tree branch. The storm had left all sorts of debris strewn about the county.

He had a couple hundred bucks he’d saved from money he’d won in his last race, the one before the storm. Cooper made his way up the ladder to his loft where the coffee can full of his cash was hidden from his brothers. Little punks would probably blow it all on pizza and video games.

After retrieving his money, Cooper tucked it into his wallet. Checking his wound, just a peek to see if he was overreacting or actually needed stitches, he pulled the skin apart and felt instantly lightheaded. The cut was deep. But at least he wasn’t lying on the ground paralyzed. Or dead.