Page 3 of Best Laid Plans (Rock Harbor #1)

CHAPTER TWO

CAM

C am Devers only had a split second to react. When he heard a scream that could rupture his eardrum, loud as a fucking banshee warning of his impending death, he brought his arms upward to cover his face, twisting his tall frame so that he made a smaller target.

It was muscle memory, the way he dipped his head and rolled with the impact, the object knocking him squarely–and luckily–in the delt.

He grunted and moved away, trying to find a light switch in a house he’d been in hundreds of times over the years. “What the fuck?” he growled, pain reverberating down his arm. He opened and closed his fist, flexing his fingers. Features tight, he clenched his jaw and rubbed at his shoulder.

“Not in my house,” the voice screamed, and he could see the silhouette of a bat being raised again.

Had Wyatt gotten a girlfriend he’d failed to mention to Cam in the past few months? Because there was only one apartment at the top of these stairs, so he knew that he hadn’t walked into the wrong one.

“This isn’t your house,” he said through gritted teeth. His fingers found the light for the entryway and he flipped it on. What the fuck was happening?

His eyes adjusted, and he was confronted with a figure covered in a ridiculously oversized blanket. The material was pulled around them like they were doing some kind of poorly executed Jedi cosplay.

It was a woman. She was smaller than him–which most people were–and she wielded the bat like it was a lightsaber.

She stared at him with a crazed look, eyes that were suddenly so familiar it was like a punch in the gut. “Elle?” he asked, still keeping his arm up in case she wasn’t done with him.

And still holding that damn baseball bat that she looked like she was absolutely willing to use again.

Elle Pierce. All grown up.

Cam had at least half-a-foot on her, which she seemed to realize as her focus moved all the way up his body.

She studied him, her bottom lip pulled between her teeth as she warred with what to do next. He could see it happening in real time, recognition dawning as her gaze drifted from the hoodie-clad bicep where she’d hit him over to his face, her big, dark eyes locked on his.

He would have found the whole scene kind of hot, electricity crackling between them, if there wasn’t a fifty-fifty chance that she’d take another swing. And if she wasn’t his best friend’s little sister.

“Cam?” She finally responded, taking a step closer like she didn’t believe him. Granted, it had been at least a few years since they’d seen one another. And shockingly, these days, it was Cam that spent far more time with the Pierce family than Elle did.

“What are you doing here?” They both asked at the same time. Accusingly. It should have been funny, but neither of them laughed.

Cam was still too keyed up from everything that had happened tonight. He rubbed a hand over the closely cropped hair on the side of his head, wincing at the pain. His lip was a little swollen too, he noted, as he ran his tongue across it and felt the sting.

“Holy shit. Did I do that?” Elle asked, now standing directly in front of him. Dark eyes scanned his face, and he didn’t like how closely she was looking. He didn’t know what she’d see.

He thought about lying to her. Telling her that she was in fact the cause of his injuries. God knows, she could have cracked his skull with that baseball bat, and it would serve her right for what was an attempted assault in a home that he had a standing invitation to come to whenever he pleased.

And after the night he’d had, he’d needed to get out of Boston as quickly as possible.

She moved her hand closer to his injured forehead, but he pulled back. He stood up to his full height so that she would have had to stand on her tiptoes to reach his face “No. I had it when I got here,” he admitted gruffly.

Her chest was still rising and falling, and the blanket slipped as her fingers loosened around it.

Cam was greeted with a view of her cleavage, a flush running up her neck like a vine before splotching flames of color across her cheeks.

Her dark hair, pulled up and messy as hell, made her look like she’d just been thoroughly fucked.

The thought that he wanted to run his fingers through her hair and mess it up even more whipped through him, and he took a steadying step backward.

Because that was not happening. In any universe.

Elle had always been Wyatt’s younger sister to him–whip smart and going places in this world.

He hadn’t expected seeing her like that to hit him like a freight train, and he pushed the feeling away. With a considerable amount of effort.

Elle stood up straight then, placing the bat down next to the door and putting her hands on what Cam assumed were her hips, though it was hard to tell through the blanket. “So, you’re telling me that you got into two physical altercations tonight?” she said, the judgment unmistakable in her voice.

Yep, that was more like it. Gone were the traces of arousal that he’d been feeling with the intensity of the situation–of the way Elle had looked at him like she hadn’t known if she wanted to fight him or fuck him.

He’d been looking at her the same way.

Elle Pierce didn’t know him. At least not anymore. And clearly, given how quickly she’d jumped to assuming tonight was his fault, he didn’t know her, either.

And hate fucking wasn’t his thing. He’d had enough anger and violence in his life. In his night, even.

“Well, this one’s definitely not my fault, and for the record, neither was the first one.” Which wasn’t a story that he’d be regaling Elle with tonight–or anytime soon. He had no regrets about what he’d done, but there would be consequences. Definitely his job. Maybe his career, too.

Elle gave him a completely disbelieving look and threw one of her arms out to the side.

She gestured between them and then down at the bat.

“This is absolutely your fault. I’ve been staying with Wyatt for days.

I’m sure if he’d known you were coming, he’d have told me.

You’re the one who barged in here and would have completely deserved it if something had happened to you. ”

Cam was equal parts wired yet exhausted as the adrenaline from the last few hours seeped out of him.

He felt wrung out. Elle was wrong, but he didn’t have the energy to fight her about it.

That was another lesson he’d learned in life.

People never changed, even if he still held onto a sliver of hope that his own rule didn’t apply to himself.

Instead, he closed his hands into fists, pain radiating from his split knuckles. He squared his shoulders and waited to see what Elle would do next .

She didn’t speak, but he could practically see her brain working, remembering all of the fights he’d gotten into in high school.

When he’d show up at the Pierces’ restaurant downstairs with a busted lip or a black eye.

Mrs. Pierce would clean his wound with a kind of tenderness that didn’t exist in his home, and then Mr. Pierce would put him to work in the kitchen to help blow off steam.

He’d grown out of his fighting phase, generally, but his love for cooking had stuck. Tonight, using his fists had been the only way to get his message across. He wouldn’t apologize for that.

The day, and the punches he’d taken, hit him like a crashing wave. Suddenly, the idea of standing in this room for another second seemed impossible. They could work out whatever the hell was going on tomorrow, but tonight, he needed to fall onto a horizontal surface as soon as possible.

He swung the door open fully so that he could pick up the duffel bag he’d brought with him.

“Oh good, you’re leaving,” Elle said, following him.

He turned quickly, so quickly, in fact, that Elle ran right into his broad chest, bouncing backward. Instead of continuing through the doorway, like Cam could feel her mentally willing him to do, he reached down and picked up his bag. “I have an open invitation here. I’m not going anywhere.”

“I’m already set up in the guest room,” Elle argued, her eyes flicking across his face, trying to figure out if he was serious.

No one would ever accuse him of being a light-hearted, fun-filled kind of guy. He had every right to be here, and he wasn’t ceding an inch. He’d had enough of assholes tonight who thought they could take whatever they wanted without repercussions.

He cocked his head toward the larger bedroom in the front of the house, which Wyatt used. “Well, isn’t it great there’s a whole other bedroom that’s going to be unused for the next two weeks. ”

“You’re staying here for two weeks?” Elle screeched, her big, doe eyes going wide in a way that he was too tired–and annoyed–to appreciate.

“Not really sure.” He stepped back into the apartment and brushed past her. “I’m going to bed. I’ll stay out of your way and you stay out of mine.”

He walked into Wyatt’s room, knowing that his best friend had freshly washed the sheets, planning to come home to a clean bed after two weeks of roughing it at a training camp with his team. Wyatt was nothing if not predictable, and Cam appreciated the hell out of it right about now.

Except, apparently, when it came to mentioning that his little sister had decided that his apartment was also going to be her sanctuary to get away from it all.

He dropped his duffel bag on the floor with a loud thud. God. This fucking night.

That woman out there was not the Elle Pierce of his childhood–who’d had gangly limbs and braces. Who’d thought that there was no better way to spend the day than trailing after Cam and Wyatt.

No. This Elle was a woman in control, as she’d stood in front of Cam with a baseball bat, more than willing to prove it. Dressing him down with lips that looked way too inviting even while they were hissing judgment at him.

But it didn’t matter. He lived with three roommates in the city, who he barely ever saw. And they were far weirder and more annoying–and definitely less enticing–than anything Elle Pierce could throw his way. He could cohabitate with an uptight, know-it-all for as long as it took.

Rubbing at his bruised face, he only gave himself a passing glance in the mirror next to the door. He didn’t want to see what Elle saw. He didn’t want to prove her point.

Cam knew her type. She’d moved to Boston, an hour away from Rock Harbor, and had never looked back. Elle, as far as he could tell, breezed in and out with the holiday calendar.

She’d get bored in Rock Harbor in a few more days. He could guarantee it.

The best thing that he could do was pretend that she didn’t exist. Wait her out.

Except that he couldn’t even seem to manage that as he skulked across the bedroom, biting back a growl of frustration.

The way she’d acted tonight still rankled him, and anger flared through his chest at her implication that he didn’t belong here.

He knew bits and pieces of her life from Wyatt’s updates.

She was some high-paid consultant at a big firm in the city.

The exact kind of asshole that kept the restaurant where he worked as the executive chef in business, which he hated admitting.

A person who was used to getting exactly what they wanted.

When they wanted it. How they wanted it.

Or at least, the restaurant where he used to work. He wasn’t exactly certain about his employment status right now.

What he needed to do was to stop thinking about Elle, even if his lips tipped into an unexpected smile at the idea of her on the other side of the apartment, fuming so hard that smoke was coming out of her ears.

If he was spending so much ill-advised energy on her, he hoped that at least she was in the same boat. Mutually assured destruction.

Hit with another wave of exhaustion that almost knocked him off his feet, he managed to strip down to just his boxer briefs and fall into bed. When tomorrow came, he’d have to take inventory of the various injuries that he’d sustained today.

And even still, cataloging how royally he’d fucked up his life and his body seemed like a far preferable activity to whatever Elle Pierce was going to have in store for him.