Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(67)

Looking up into the mirror across from her bed, she studied her face. She didn’t even recognize herself anymore. She looked older, wiser, and none the better for it. Dark rings still lived beneath her faded blue eyes. A permanent crease had settled itself between them. Her lips were dry and cracked from constantly biting them.

I’m a mess, she thought to herself. A complete and total mess.

After a long, hot shower, she went to Kyle’s closet out of habit. She pulled a faded, long-sleeved Hope’s Grove High School T-shirt down off a hanger and pulled it over her head. The hanger dropped from the bar onto the floor. Reaching down to pick it up, her hand found a wide shoebox instead.

Belle, it said on top in his handwriting.

He’d never called her Belle. But judging from the designs on the outside of the box there were women’s shoes inside. She flipped the lid open and saw an expensive pair of never worn leather cowgirl boots. A small white square of paper was tucked between them. Reading the words on it caused her to gasp and drop the box.

She knew exactly who they were for. The one girl at Summit Bluffs that surprisingly hadn’t run out and bought a pair of boots when the Hope’s Groves students had made them strangely trendy.

Ella Jane wanted to confront her, but she knew she had to talk to Cooper first. He and her brother had a pact, one she knew neither of them would ever break knowingly.

So it was time for Cooper to know.



Ella Jane hadn’t been to the Coopers’ farm in months. It had once been her second home, but it felt strangely foreign now. Most of the barns and stables were still half rebuilt with tarps over parts of roofs. A decrepit old tractor sat to the far corner of the driveway. Cooper’s dad’s truck sat beside the house, parked at an angle that she assumed meant Cooper had driven it last.

She knew he was likely in his loft so she decided to check there first. Walking over to the barn, she practiced what she was going to say.

Cameron was with Kyle last summer. She was the mystery girl.

Blurting it out seemed kind of harsh.

Cooper, I know you really like her and I’m happy for you. Or at least I’m trying to be. But there’s something you should know…

She climbed the ladder to the loft still contemplating the best way to break the news. She couldn’t help but wonder if he would even care. Kyle was gone after all. The Cooper she used to know would’ve cared, would’ve dropped Cami in a heartbeat. But what she saw when she topped the ladder confirmed her suspicions. She wasn’t the only one who’d changed. And she didn’t know Brantley Cooper at all anymore.

“Oh God,” she blurted out when a naked Cooper came into view.

His left side was almost as exposed as Cameron Nickelson’s bare right leg and breast. Cooper’s blue plaid comforter and a navy sheet tangled in a knot between them, covering parts Ella Jane did not care to see.

Cooper sat up, startled, before she could move deftly back down the ladder.

“Ellie? What are you doing—”

“Nothing. I’m going. I’m sorry. Forget I was ever here.” She squeezed her eyes shut. But some things you just couldn’t un-see.

Her foot missed the second rung and she slipped most of the way down. Unable to grab anything substantial, she got a fistful of splinters and landed hard on the barn floor. It hurt. God it hurt. But she didn’t have time to process just how much so she stood and bolted to her truck.

Tears hit her eyes as if it were windy out, but it wasn’t. She told herself it was dust from the barn and the driveway.

She didn’t care who Cooper had sex with.

She didn’t care.

She didn’t.

But her heart did. It pounded hard, beating the hell out of her chest in complaint, thrumming so loud she could hear and feel it in her skull. It had not wanted to see that. It wasn’t taking it well at all. Over the thunderous beat, she could hear Cooper calling her name. She swiped the tears from beneath her eyes.

I’m upset for Kyle. Because that was Kyle’s girl and his best friend slept with her. This is not about me.

So that wasn’t entirely true. She knew this, and yet, she had to at least try and believe them to stay focused on getting out of there.

“Ellie May. Dammit. Wait.”

She turned, almost entirely out of curiosity to see if Cooper was chasing after her in his birthday suit.

He wasn’t. He had jeans on. But apparently that was all he’d had time to throw on.

“I should’ve called first,” she said on a shaky breath. She waved her hand toward the barn. “Let’s just forget this ever happened.”

“Fine. It’s forgotten.” Cooper eyed her skeptically. “What brings you here so early in the morning? You must’ve wanted something.”

Her eyes fell involuntarily to his bare chest. She blushed and looked away.

“I, um, needed to ask you something. But it can wait. It will wait.”

“Something about…”

“Nothing.” EJ shook her head. “It’s nothing.”

“Sure as hell didn’t look like nothing. Let me see your hand.”

Please stop pushing.

Adrenaline pumped hard through her veins as he took a step closer.

“So, you and Cameron Nickelson,” she said softly as he inspected her injured palm with careful hands. “I didn’t know…for sure, I mean, that it was like that with the two of you.”