Storm Warning (Broken Heartland)

by Quinn, Caisey

  “Close your mouth, Ella Jane, or you’ll catch flies,” her mother said that Saturday afternoon.

  EJ jumped, startled by having been caught, and resumed updating the payroll sheet she was working on. “No idea what you’re talking about, Mama,” she mumbled under her breath.

  “Mmhm,” her mother said, pausing in the doorway. “He seems nice enough. Lord knows he’s trying his best to impress you.”

  She snorted. “Uh, no he’s not.”

  Her mother sighed and cocked a hand on her hip, a trademark gesture of both the Mason women. “Oh he is. Looks like Coop might finally have some competition.”

  Her face reddened at the mention of Coop. Sure, their parents and grandparents liked to tease them about one day getting married, but her mother had never brought it up one on one like this. EJ forced an eye roll. “Did you take up smoking crack as a hobby recently?”

  “Oh yes, it’s lovely. Just a shade less hazardous than the meth.”

  “I can’t believe you just referred to crack as lovely. Wait, no, yes I can.”

  Her mother had always been unshakable. EJ and Kyle often practiced straight-faced speeches involving admitting to being pregnant or gay in hopes of seeing her lose her cool. Her response to Kyle’s false claim that he and Coop were secret lovers barely earned a raised eyebrow and an “I suspected as much.” Which made Kyle freak out instead.

  EJ’s big pregnancy news received a chuckle and a “I hope you kissed the father goodbye because Kyle is going to murder him.” Yeah, the woman had nerves of steel. Or titanium. Or whatever was tougher than steel.

  She even delivered her own “kids, your father moved out today” speech with a straight face. EJ had hoped she was kidding—giving them a taste of their own medicine. But no, he’d moved out last month and only called once to say he was sorry he didn’t get to say goodbye but figured this way was easiest on everyone.

  Sure didn’t feel easy to her.

  Kyle hated him. He’d told his little sister more than once that a man—a real man—didn’t run out on his family. And she certainly felt like she was supposed to hate him—solidarity sister and all that on her mom’s behalf. But EJ just couldn’t bring herself to. She’d wondered for a long time if her parents were in love. They barely spoke, never kissed, and had always seemed more like business partners than a married couple.

  EJ wasn’t twelve years old anymore. She got it. She knew love wasn’t all hearts and flowers. But surely if two people were really in love they acted like it. There had to be some romance involved, didn’t there?

  She hadn’t missed the fact that she’d never seen her mom cry over her dad leaving. But lately she had noticed her once unflappable mother sleeping later than usual. And baking like her life depended on it. There were enough frozen casseroles in the deep freezer to feed all of Hope’s Grove every Sunday for the rest of summer.

  “Big plans tonight? Showing Mr. Prescott around Hope’s Grove perhaps?” Her mother’s question pulled her back to the present.

  “Um, no. Definitely not. Actually, I thought I might go with Kyle and Coop over to Hillside. If that’s okay, I mean. I hate leaving you here all alone.”

  Her mother raised her hand and waved it as if her concern were silly. “Please. I enjoy the peace. I’ve got smutty romance novels to catch up on.”

  “Oh God.”

  Her mother winked. “Everyone’s got to have goals for the summer.”

  As if he’d been conjured by their conversation, Brantley Cooper pulled up in the driveway. Speaking of goals. EJ had one. A big one. She was sixteen. Since she was nine years old and had learned what a boyfriend was from a babysitter, she and Lynlee had been saying that as soon as they turned sixteen they were going to get them. Honest-to-God, kiss-you-on-the-mouth, hold-your-hand-in-public boyfriends. And her fantasy boyfriend back then was the same one she wanted now. No matter how good City Boy looked with his shirt off.

  Coop would always be the guy for her. Always.

  And judging from their almost kiss a few weeks ago, he was finally starting to realize it too.

  “Kyle and Coop are here,” she announced, practically skipping toward the door.

  “Tell your brother to come in and hug my neck before y’all head to the track, okay?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” she promised, only half-paying attention. Her thoughts were already on the brown-eyed guy with the adorable dimples when he smiled walking toward their barn.

  She nearly ran over Hayden as she hopped off the porch. “Whoa, easy there, angel face.”

  She gaped at him as he caught her by the upper arms. “You did not just call me that.”

  “Oh I did. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think?” He smirked as he released her.

  Ella Jane had only felt this conflicted once before. To hate her father or not to hate him. Hayden Prescott summoned a similar burn in her belly. And her skin was on fire where he’d touched her. “No, I don’t think.”

  “You don’t think? Funny, you seem pretty intelligent, for a country bumpkin anyways.”

  The warmth of attraction flared to a scorch of irritation. “Oh I think plenty. And right now I’m thinking you’re an asshole.”

  “Nice. You kiss your mama with that mouth?”

  Now it was EJ’s turn to smirk as he glanced at her lips. “It’s really not any of your business what I do with my mouth.”

  “What if I wanted to make it my business?”

  His words caught her by surprise. Almost as much as the hunger in his gaze did. She felt like Little Red Riding Hood being eyed by the Big Bad Wolf. Except…he was kind of a hot wolf. Hayden took a step closer, and even though everything in her screamed for her to back up, to go back in the house and hide where she was safe, she just couldn’t talk herself into moving from where she stood.

  “EJ, you coming to the track with us or what?” Coop called out from over by the barn, effectively breaking the trance Hayden had somehow put her in.

  She released the breath she’d been holding as discreetly as possible. “Be right there,” she hollered back.

  “You like his groupie or something?”

  Her neck nearly snapped from all the abrupt emotional changes Hayden caused. Irritated. Embarrassed. Turned on. Nervous. Back to irritated. She pinned him with a glare as she passed. “You like jealous or something?”

  He shrugged as he pulled the screen door open. “Or something.”

  With one last huff of obvious annoyance, she left Hayden to go inside and clock out. Her expression eased into a familiar smile as she walked toward Coop. This was the boy she was supposed to be walking toward, instead of the jerk who’d distracted her on the porch.

  “You gonna keep time for me tonight?” Coop asked as she approached.

  She nodded, trying her best not to get all beside herself just because he was paying attention to her. “You know it. Try not to suck.” She winked as they walked to the barn, where her brother was unloading bags of mulch and pallets of brick pavers.

  “I almost beat my record last week. What do I get if I beat it tonight?”

  “I don’t know.” Anticipation fluttered in her belly. He’s flirting with me, isn’t he? She took a deep breath and nudged his arms with hers. “What do you want?”

  “Oh I’m sure you can think of some—”

  “What the hell, EJ? I thought you were going to Hillside with us?” Her brother’s questions interrupted whatever Coop had been about to say.

  “I am,” she answered. “I’m ready when y’all are.”

  “Like hell you are. Get your ass in the house and get some real clothes on. And hustle up. We need to get moving.”

  EJ fought the urge to glance down. She knew what she was wearing. A navy blue Mason Landscaping tank top that was just tight enough to hug the new curves she was so proud of and cut-off shorts she wore all the time. She raised a hand to her hip and stared her older sibling down. “I’m not changing. You’re being an idiot.”

  Kyle took a step in her d
irection. “Then you’re not going with us. Plain and simple. Throw on some jeans and a T-Shirt and you can come. Otherwise, you can stay your ass here.”

  “Get a grip, man,” Coop said barely loud enough to be heard.

  “What’s your freaking problem?” EJ asked her brother, shamed by the tears stinging in her eyes. Coop was never going to see her as anything but a kid sister if Kyle kept insisting on treating her like one in his presence.

  “My problem is—”

  “Hey, sorry to interrupt. Uh, Mrs. Mason asked for whichever one of you is Kyle to come in the house. She said she’s posting your naked baby photos on Facebook if you don’t make it in there in the next two minutes.”

  Kyle turned the force of his angry laser beam stare from EJ to Hayden.

  Hayden grinned and held his hands up. “Just passing the message along. I’m Hayden by the way. Your shitty stand-in according to most people around here.”

  Kyle’s glare relaxed into a grin and EJ felt the tightness in her chest relax. “Hey, man. Yeah, Mom mentioned you. Hope they’re treating you decent around here.”

  “Eh, I can take it.” Hayden’s eyes flickered toward her. She wondered if Coop noticed. He was standing off to the side with his fists clenched.

  Kyle didn’t seem to notice, which made her wonder if she’d imagined it. Usually he got all ’roid ragey if a guy so much as nodded in her direction. But he shook Hayden’s hand and thanked him for passing the message along.

  “EJ, when you go inside to change, tell Mom to give me a few minutes to unload the rest of this mulch.”

  “I’m not going inside to change.”

  She watched as Coop stepped between her and her brother. “Dude, relax. She’s not dressed any differently than any of the other girls that will be there. It’s ninety damn degrees out here.”

  EJ was torn between watching Hayden leave and the interaction between Coop and Kyle. Maybe this was it. Maybe Coop was finally going to man up and tell him they were into each other. She sucked in a breath, praying she was right. She’d already named their kids—it was probably time for some forward progress.

  And this was good. They could tell him together, present a united front and all that.

  Apparently, her brother was ready to press the issue. “Oh yeah? What’s going on, Coop? You got something to tell me? Like maybe that you enjoy seeing my sister nearly busting out of her clothes?”

  Coop took a step back. “No. For God’s sakes, Mase, she’s like a sister to me. I’m not into incest.”

  He might as well have grabbed a bag of mulch and swung it at her with all of his might. The force of his words hit her just as hard.

  Incest. He thinks of me as a sister. Incest is repulsive. The thought of us together is repulsive to him.

  Now she knew why he’d looked so conflicted about kissing her not so long ago. Maybe he hadn’t been about to kiss her at all. Maybe he’d just been comforting her and she’d let her imagination run wild.

  The contents of her stomach threatened to rise into her throat. A far away ringing sound began to drown out whatever else was being said.

  “You know what? I’m going to skip the track after all. You two have fun.” Backing up so fast she nearly tripped over her own two feet, EJ beat it out of there as quickly as she could manage without full-out sprinting.

  She hated that she was in flip-flops instead of running shoes, but the tears were coming hard and falling fast. No way she could suck it up long enough to go inside and change shoes without her mother asking a million questions.

  Thankful that she had the path to The Ridge memorized, she made her way there, blinded by the moisture in her eyes.

  Dropping herself down onto the edge of the cliff above the steep incline to the railroad tracks, she let loose one loud sob before swiping at her tears with her hands.

  All these years she’d been dreaming of the day when Coop finally saw her. Finally looked at her in that way. And now it was never going to happen.

  She cursed herself for the hours upon hours she’d spent fantasizing about what it would be like to kiss him, to call him her boyfriend. God, Lynlee was going to laugh her ass off at her. A million times her friend had told her to grow a pair and make a move. While EJ was pretty sure she never wanted to “grow a pair,” she had been putting serious thought into making a move.

  She glanced over at the setting sun. If there was any type of silver lining to having her heart splattered all over the barn, it was that she hadn’t followed Lynlee’s advice. Because how horrifyingly humiliating would that have been? She shuddered at the thought.

  “You cold?” a deep male voice asked from behind her.

  For one stupid second, she let herself imagine that it was him. That he’d followed her to comfort her. To say he didn’t mean it.

  But a quick glance over her shoulder was enough to put the final nail in the coffin of any fantasy she’d ever had about being anything more than friends with Coop.

  “H-how long have you been here?” she asked the boy standing behind her.

  “Long enough to hear you imitating a wounded animal.” Hayden took two steps before he plopped down beside her. She was strangely reminded of a nursery rhyme her mother had read her as a kid. Little Miss Muffet sat on her tuffet…along came a spider and sat down beside her…

  He’s not a wolf and he’s not a spider, she told herself. He’s just a guy. She cleared her throat and took one last swipe at any remaining evidence that she’d been crying. “And you have a hard-on for damsels in distress or what? Because I honestly came out here to be alone.”

  She watched him flinch at her words. “See, normally I would make a rude comment about you being interested in what gives me a hard-on. But since I know you’re upset about your brother’s wuss of a friend acting like such a douche back there, I’m going to give you a pass.”

  “Gee, thanks.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them.

  “So what’s the deal? You and your brother’s friend a thing or what?”

  She sniffled. “Didn’t you hear? That would be like incest as far as he’s concerned.” She tried to ignore the painful stab to her heart that word caused.

  “Yeah, I heard. I also heard enough to know he’s full of shit. And he’s given me enough dirty looks any time I get near you to let me know he’d like for me to back off. Too bad I don’t much care what he’d like.”

  “What? Coop doesn’t give anyone dirty looks. He’s like the nicest guy on the planet. Everyone loves him.” Some of us more than others.

  “Oh yeah? Well what does that make me? ’Cause I gotta say, I’m not all that impressed.”

  EJ bit her lip. Maybe Hayden was onto something. Maybe Coop thought of her as a sister now, but maybe, just maybe, a few well-placed interactions with Hayden would make him realize what he was missing.

  Hayden must’ve taken her contemplative silence for something else because he moved to stand up. “Hey, it’s cool if you want to be alone. I’ll leave you be.”

  “Um, wait.” She reached out to him without thinking. “Stay?”

  Darkening green eyes took in the sight of her hand on his arm. “Whatever you say, angel face. I got nowhere else to be.”

  WAY to go, dumbass. Coop cursed himself for not just telling Kyle the truth right then and there before Ella Jane took off like a bat out of hell. That would’ve been the best thing he could’ve done—just put all of his cards on the table. But nope. He had to go and make some stupid, completely false statement about him not even noticing how she was dressed. He’d noticed. He always noticed, and he didn’t mind it when her tank top was a little tight or her shorts a little too short.

  And then for the grand finale of his asshole show—the fact that the word incest had come out of his mouth. The last thing he pictured Ella Jane as was a relative. He saw the look on her face when he’d said what he’d said and it was comparable to the reaction a kid had when they found out their favorite pet died.

&nbs
p; He’d panicked and he’d crushed her. Especially after their almost whatever it was at the canyon the other day. He really wanted to backtrack, tell her he didn’t mean it, and tell his best friend that he was in love with his sister. But the don’t-you-dare look on Kyle’s face stopped him from following her like he’d desperately wanted to.

  “That girl needs to quit being such a big baby,” Kyle said as he and Coop climbed into the cab of Coop’s truck. “Everything is end of the world with her these days.”

  “She’s just having a rough time.”

  “So you’ve said,” Kyle replied, side-eyeing his friend with an accusatory look. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were hot for my little sister.”

  “Hardly,” Coop replied, baffled as the words came out of his mouth. Why can’t I just tell him the truth? He knew exactly why. Because he was stuck between a rock and hard place. When your best friend asked you not to do something, you didn’t do it. Bro Code. Plain and simple.

  “Better not be.” Kyle chuckled and punched him in the arm as they drove down the gravel and dirt drive and pulled out onto the road.

  It didn’t matter anymore anyway. The look on Ella Jane’s face told him that he had royally blown any shot he had of making any moves anytime soon. Maybe once he could explain to her—how he hadn’t meant it—she’d forgive him.

  Yeah right, he thought to himself. And maybe on the first day of school I’ll tell the guidance counselor I want to go to college after all so I can major in wishful thinking.

  “GRAB me a Coke,” Kyle said as they pulled into the gas station. He turned his hat around and gave his buddy a stern look. “Quit moping around and make it quick. We’re never gonna have your slow ass ready for the next race if you don’t pick up the pace.”

  “Ha-ha,” Coop deadpanned. “I can be around the track ten times before your slow ass makes it through the whoop section, and that’s on my worst day.” He headed into the station to pay but turned around to dig into Kyle one more time. “You need me to pick you up a couple wedding magazines, too?”