Storm Warning (25 page)

“Get that cheating whore out of my house! Get her ass out now!”

Holy hell. Hayden was starting to suspect his gran might need an exorcism. She never cussed. Ever. Much less called anyone a whore
—
and certainly not Ella Jane. “Gran, calm down. Remember Ella Jane helped you make pie?”

His grandfather flinched as the woman in his arms stuck him hard on the chest.

“She’ll break his heart and run off with that Cooper boy.”

Now Hayden was really confused. What did his grandma know about Ella Jane and Cooper?

“What is she talk—”

“You kids get out of here. Hayden, take EJ somewhere and calm her down. Give me an hour or so,” Pops ordered.

Calm her down?
Glancing over, he saw that Ella Jane was trembling, frozen where she stood. Hayden placed his hand on her lower back and guided her gently out the front door to the soundtrack of his gran screaming about hussies and harlots, whatever the hell those were.

“What in the world was that all about?” Ella Jane’s voice shook. Once they were all the way out of the house and standing next to her truck in the driveway, Hayden wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on top of her head.

“She’s sick. She has dementia. It’s getting worse.” He sighed, enjoying the way her arms felt around his waist. Despite the bleak situation with his gran, Ella Jane’s touch affected him. Being wrapped up in her both comforted and unsettled him all at once.

A screeching cry from inside the house caused them both to flinch. As they clung to each other tightly for support, their gazes collided and the tension between them sparked in the darkness.

“Let’s go to The Ridge,” Ella Jane whispered up at him. “Please.”

Hayden hated to leave Pops alone to deal with his gran, but he’d been ordered to do so. And when Pops gave orders, people listened. And when Ella Jane Mason looked up at him with those blue pools of pain and need and said please? Yeah. There was no saying no to that either.

E
LLA
Jane had no idea what had gotten into Grandma Prescott. She’d known the woman her entire life. Gran had treated EJ like one of her own grandkids. Always.

Seeing one of the strongest women she knew breaking down like that, seeing that look in her eyes… Lost. Confused. Angry. And the worst one of all
—helpless
. It was more than she could handle.

She shuddered as Hayden backed her truck out of the Prescotts’ driveway.

“You cold?” he asked, turning on the heat before she even answered.

“How bad is it?” Ella Jane whispered. She watched him take a deep breath. Guilt and despair filled the small space in the cab of the truck. Hayden stretched an arm over the back of the bench seat. She decided to take it as an invitation. And after what she’d seen, she needed…something. Closeness. Contact. Sliding over on the worn leather seat until she was nestled in the crook of his arm, she sighed. “I’m sorry…I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to tell me.”

With her head so close to his neck, she could feel him swallow. “She’s dying.”

Her intake of breath was so loud she was embarrassed. “No,” she said, her eyes filling as she sat up straight and shook her head. “She can’t be. Gran and Pops are—”

“They’re in their seventies,” Hayden said softly. “Doctors give her a month or so. She doesn’t eat. She doesn’t always know who we are. Who she even is.”

Her head began to shake back and forth. No. No more of this. She couldn’t take any freaking more.

Her dad, her brother, her best friend—who she was starting to think wasn’t much of a friend at all
—
and now Gran. The woman who’d taught her to make pie, who’d told her it was okay to be a tomboy, who’d told her she was special and perfect just the way she was.

“Pull over. Now,” Ella Jane practically shouted at him.

“Okay, hang on. We’re almost—”

“Now!” she screamed, suffocating from the lack of oxygen in the cramped space.

Her body jerked forward as he slammed the truck into park. Bailing out the door, she saw that a train was coming through, its headlight cutting into the darkness the way the pain of change was cutting into her soul.

Once upon a time, she’d been young and innocent. Childhood had been a magical place where nothing changed, no one left, and no one died.

That time had ended without anyone asking her if she was ready. Racing into the wide-open darkness toward the train, she didn’t think about what she planned to do once she reached it. She just knew she had to.

The sound of Hayden calling her name was lost in the wind behind her.

Tears streamed down her face, hot trails of her refusal to accept what the world had decided shone in the moonlight. She cried for Gran, for her mom, for herself.

“Dammit, Ella Jane.” Strong arms wrapped her waist, lifting her from the ground and turning her away from the rickety boxcars flying past her face.

She screamed into the night, releasing everything that had been building inside of her since the day her daddy left. The train’s horn blared, drowning out her pain.

“It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.” Hayden’s deep voice thrummed low in her ear. She didn’t fight the shiver it sent tingling through her spine.

“It’s not,” she whispered. “My dad quit our family. My mom is practically in denial. Gran’s dying. You’re leaving in a week. Nothing’s going to be okay.” She choked over the last few words.

He released his hold around her waist to grip her shoulders and turn her to face him. “I know, okay? She’s dying, and I’ve spent the last ten years being a selfish ass.” She watched him run a hand through his hair. “I don’t know what to do. God, I wish I did. Tell me how to make it better. How do I get that time back? How do I make up for not being there for the one person who was always there for me?”

Wetness soaked her cheeks but it wasn’t tears. Well, not
just
tears. Rain had begun to fall in the midst of her breakdown. She looked up into his bright green eyes gleaming in the darkness, and for the first time all summer, she remembered. Really remembered.

Him chasing her when they were kids, the way he smiled at her back then. Like he looked forward to seeing her. He didn’t so much as flinch when Coop and Kyle had made fun of him for spending time with her instead of them. She’d cry when they left her out, and he would…he would make it better. Now he was hurting and she wanted to do the same.

She didn’t think, didn’t consider the consequences of what she wanted
—
or what it would lead to. Taking a page from the universe’s do-as-I-damn-well-please book, she launched herself recklessly into the arms of the boy she loved.

S
OMEHOW
they’d made it back to her truck without separating. Hayden’s breath was ragged as he held her to him, kissing her with the same heated need she was attacking his mouth with.

The groan of the metal door protesting as he jerked it open barely registered in her mind. Rain slapped against her bare skin as he lifted her higher on his waist. She fought to stay in the present, to memorize every single touch, every flick of his tongue against hers, the warmth and the wetness of it.

But the heady sensation of him possessing her, gripping her tightly and pressing hard against her, sent her floating into outer space somewhere.

“Hayden,” she breathed into his mouth as the tumbled clumsily into the cab of the truck. “I want you.”

A low tortured sound escaped from somewhere deep in his chest. “I want you too, angel face. But—”

“But nothing. Everyone else gets what they want. Because they take it. I’m taking it. I want you.”

Yanking his white T-shirt over his head, she paused her violent ravaging of his mouth to admire his body. He was lean and muscular, hard in all the right places. Running her hands over his firm pecs and then down to his rippled abs, she thrilled with pleasure at being able to touch him in such an intimate way.

“Ella Jane.” Her name was a plea, but she didn’t know if he wanted her to stop or proceed. The hardness beneath her answered that question. His head lolled back when she pressed her hips down against his. As his warm, wet tongue lashed against hers, she gave in to the urge to slip her hand down his pants. Gripping the thick, hard length she’d felt pressing into her, she pulled back and met his intense stare.

He closed his eyes for just a moment. When he opened them, they burned into hers.

“Wait. Stop for a second.” He gripped both of her wrists in one hand and tugged them upwards.

Ella Jane couldn’t help but pout. Wasn’t this what boys wanted? It was dang sure what she wanted. She was throbbing with need to the point of actual physical pain. He was panting, so she was pretty sure it was what he wanted too.

“Hayden, this summer…this summer I needed someone. Everything was so…” She stared into his handsome face as she tried to find the words to say what she needed to. “For the first time in my life, I feel like I’m doing something right. Something no one else can judge or ruin. Or take away.”

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he said so low she barely heard him.

Leaning into the hand he used to brush the hair from her face, she pressed her lips to his palm.
“So don’t.”

Leaning back to give him the choice, she held her breath and waited. Both of their hearts beating fast, in time together, measuring the seconds that passed as they stood on the edge of the unknown.

“We’ll go slow. If you want to stop, at any time, just tell me, okay?”

She smiled as he submitted to her. Nodding, even though she knew what she wanted and that she’d never want him to stop, she leaned in and kissed him again.

“I’ve never wanted anything the way I want you,” he said between kisses. His words burned into her heart, imprinting themselves onto her soul—where she planned to keep them forever.

They were the last ones she heard before she gave her innocence to a boy she loved in the middle of a dark Oklahoma night under a starless sky.

“C
AMERON,”
Sophie called from the doorway leading into Cami’s room. “Your mother is going to be home today. You might want to actually get up and take a shower. You know how she feels about wallowing in self-pity.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Cami answered with zero enthusiasm. Sophie was right though
—
she did need to bathe. She almost felt bad for Sophie when she came over and sat on the edge of her bed. She had to reek of sleep, sweat, tears, and regret.

“I don’t understand what’s gotten into you, Cameron Nickelson, but I don’t like it.” Sophie moved her hand up and tucked a piece of Cami’s greasy hair behind her ear. “Last week you were over the moon and this week you’re acting like OPI just discontinued your favorite color of nail polish.”

She forced a half-assed smile and shrugged. She wanted to tell Sophie exactly what had happened, but she was still reeling with guilt for letting her shallow, egotistical upbringing rear its ugly head again.

“It’s nothing,” Cami told Sophie, trying to appease her. “I’ll get up.” Maybe if she took a shower Sophie would drop the interrogation. She really didn’t feel like talking about what she’d done. As she rolled herself to the edge of the bed and dropped her feet the floor, Sophie kept prying.

“Is this about the landscaper? If he makes you happy then don’t let anything stand in your way.”