Path of Destruction (Broken Heartland, #2)(9)

“Today, after practice, I’ll install the alarm on the doors leading to the pool. And I’ll call about getting a better gate. I’ll use the money I made this summer.”

Having decided to trade his Bentley in for a Jeep Wrangler, Hayden had money left over from his summer at Mason Landscaping & Lawn Care. Plus the souvenir broken heart from the girl who still wouldn’t return his calls.

“It’s sweet that you care so much,” his mom said as he grabbed his keys from the basket on the counter. “But at some point, caring just isn’t enough.”

He was realizing that. Not that he wanted to talk about it with his parents. All his mom wanted to talk about was sending his grandma to a long-term care facility, and dear old dad wasn’t much better. The night before, his grand words of wisdom for his son were about the bets he wanted him to take on upcoming football games.

He sighed and tossed them a brief goodbye before heading to school. He couldn’t help but wonder if she’d be there. When he’d overheard his dad tell his mom that the school board had announced that the Hope’s Grove students would be joining them, he’d felt as if his entire universe had been flipped upside down.

A part of him fist pumped the air because, hell yeah, Ella Jane Mason wouldn’t be left behind in Hope’s Grove with Joe Dirt. She’d be with him too, would have to face him. She couldn’t ignore him in person the way she’d done by phone. So far, he hadn’t been brave enough to get online and check out his social media pages because he’d been constantly helping with his grandma and he wasn’t up for perusing pictures of Ella Jane and Cooper. But when he saw her in person, he would explain. She would listen. And understand.

He hoped.

But another part of him was terrified at the many ways this could go wrong. She hadn’t even come to his grandfather’s funeral, which he thought was odd. If she had been there, he hadn’t seen her. The fact that she couldn’t even say hello to him told him the damage from his brief encounter with Cami was much worse than he’d originally estimated.

And holy hell, Cami and Ella Jane in the same school was pretty much a recipe for disaster. In his mind, Ella Jane didn’t belong in any mundane school anywhere. She was wild and free like a dandelion growing wherever it chose. Sticking her inside a confining school building was like planting a flower in the middle of concrete.

He was still contemplating this when he literally bumped into Cami in front of the trophy case in the front hallway.

She turned to him, her eyes wide in horror as if she’d seen a ghost.

“You okay, Cami?”

For an awkwardly long moment she gaped at him like a fish in search of water. Finding none, tears filled her eyes and he reached out, unsure what could possibly have upset her this much before first period had even begun.

“Cami-girl? You all right?”

She was dressed normal. Normal for her, anyways. Short skirt, tight top, shoes that looked uncomfortable as hell. But the look in her eyes was all wrong. Broken. Panicked. Desperation rolled off her and onto him. In all his years knowing her, she’d never been one to allow herself to appear vulnerable in public—or ever for that matter—but in that moment, that’s exactly what she was.

“Cami? Are you with me?” He looked around for anyone who might be able to help if she fainted.

“With you,” she choked out, shifting her purse on her shoulder. She nodded and licked her lips. “Yes, Hayden. I want to be with you. Let’s just forget the past few months, okay? Pretend this last summer never happened.”

“Wh—”

She cut his question off by brushing her lips across his. It wasn’t the excitement of an unexpected kiss that caused him to pause and allow it. There was a sort of desperation in her actions that led him to believe if he didn’t hold on to her she might collapse in his arms. Something had her desperate for his touch and he would have bet his last dollar that it had little, if nothing to do with him.

Whistles and catcalls rang out around them. Cami tucked her face into Hayden’s shoulder and he felt her shiver as she took in a ragged breath.

“Get it, girl,” a female voice said while several male ones chanted his last name.

Hayden pulled back as firmly as possibly without rudely rejecting her in front of a live audience. “Whoa, there. That was, um, unexpected.”

She kept her hands on his waist, and he felt the forward pull from her as if she were using his body to keep herself upright.

“I changed my mind, Hay. About everything. I just…I need to forget the entire summer, okay? Let’s just go back to how it was. Please? Can we do that?”

It should’ve have been easy enough. It’s what they’d done every year. But Ella Jane’s face was burned into his retinas or his brain because even though he was standing in front of a brunette with brown eyes, it was a blonde with blue ones that he saw.

“We could, Cami. It’s just—”

“We can. I know we can. It’ll be just like it was. Better, even. You’ll see.” Cameron Nickelson lifted on her tiptoes and pressed another firm kiss to his lips before disappearing down the hall.

Shaking his head and trying to figure out how to disentangle himself from that particular situation, he turned and saw the one person he wanted to see the most and the least in that moment.

Her arm linked with Brantley Cooper’s, Ella Jane regarded him with guarded eyes. Judging from the set of Cooper’s jaw, they’d witnessed his strange encounter with Cami.