Chapter 5

Chapter Five

Hayden wandered through the crowd milling around the Turkey Trot’s starting line the following morning. The weather wasn’t as comfortable as the day before. The sun was nowhere to be found. Not only that, but the wind had shifted, and a stiff, chilly breeze now blew in off the Atlantic. It didn’t seem to dampen the spirit of the crowd, though. The donuts that Xander’s sister Tatum was handing out didn’t hurt either.

“You’re missing out, man,” Xander said around a mouthful of French cruller. “These are damn tasty.”

Hayden made a face. “How can you run with all that yeast in your belly?”

“It’s not the Olympics.” Xander licked his fingers. “Just a 5k with a bunch of townies.”

“I assume you’ll be handing out free weekend passes to all the stragglers again?”

Xander slapped him on the back. “Damn straight. They don’t call me the P. T. Barnum of gym owners for nothing.”

A couple of the high school track kids came over to smack talk with Hayden, who helped coach the team in his free time. He loved that the kids looked up to him. He loved it even more that no one had come close to his state record in the ten thousand meters in the decade since he graduated.

Xander’s low whistle had Hayden spinning around to see what his friend was jazzed up about. He followed his gaze to where it landed on Livi Turner. She was making her way toward them looking like she’d just stepped out of a Lululemon catalog—except for the headband with bobbing turkey legs she wore.

Elle walked slowly behind her wearing a similar headband and a mulish frown. The McAlister family were all athletic. Everyone except Elle. Sure, she was graceful from years of ballet, but she didn’t possess the ruthlessly competitive spirit of her siblings. The joy of a good run was lost on her. This morning was no exception, judging from her expression. Hayden couldn’t help it, he laughed at his best friend.

Livi mistook his grin as being for her. “Aren’t they cute? Elle and I found them at the dollar store yesterday. I got one for you, too. Pick one.” She held out a headband with the turkey legs and one that was a pilgrim hat.

Oh, hell nah.

Beside him, Xander cough-laughed. “You’ve picked the wrong guy for that, sweetheart. The deputy is the no-frills type. All he cares about is crossing the finish line before anyone else.”

Livi’s face fell. “Oh.”

Crap. Hayden took the headband with the pilgrim hat and planted it on Xander’s fat head.

“Mr. West didn’t want one, either,” she said.

Of course not.

Hayden watched out of the corner of his eye as West cozied up to Elle’s three brothers. He wondered if West knew Miles was also a seasoned triathlete as well as a congressman. Elle’s other brother, Ryan, was a professional athlete, so there was no disguising his skill. Gavin McAlister might have played college football had it not been for a knee injury. Not that it held him back now. The three men normally kept Hayden company at the front of the pack.

“Well, you two have fun. I’m going to head to the back and run with the stroller crowd,” Elle announced.

“No, you’re not.” Livi linked her arm with Elle’s and tugged her closer. “You can’t give up before it has even started. You really should consider joining a running club when you get back to New York. There are lots of fun people in mine. I’ll hook you up.”

When you get back to New York.

Their friendship might be mended, but the physical distance would still be there. He hated how the thought made his chest ache.

“Are you ready to kick everyone’s ass, Blade Runner?” Miles clapped Hayden on the back.

“Blade Runner?” West asked.

Miles pointed at Hayden’s left leg. The prosthetic blade he wore when he ran was partially obscured by Xander’s beefy calf. “Even as a wounded warrior, he smokes the field.”

West’s face paled. “You lost your leg? In Afghanistan?”

Gavin McAlister wrapped an arm over Hayden’s shoulders. “He gave that leg to save two other soldiers. And don’t think we let this guy win this thing every year. He kicks our asses fair and square.”

The bullhorn squeaked when Bernice turned it on, causing the crowd to grimace. “Okay, we are almost ready to start,” she shouted into it. “Everyone be safe and have fun.”

West shot Hayden a pained look as the others jostled for position along the starting line. Hayden swore. He hated the pitying looks he got when people found out about his injury. And it especially stung coming from this man.

“Show me what you got,” Hayden challenged.

A slow grin formed on the reporter’s face. The horn went off, and the sea of bodies surged forward. West had the smooth stride of a man who ran for the joy of it. He easily kept pace with Hayden and Elle’s brothers.

The high school runners sprinted to the front. A rookie move. They’d tire out before the halfway point.

Livi wasn’t lying when she said she was in a running club. She kept an easy pace beside him without breaking a sweat. He glanced over his shoulder at Elle who was huffing and puffing several yards back. When their eyes met, she gave him a pathetic thumbs-up before waving her hand as if telling him to shoo.

At the halfway point, West had settled in with the high schoolers. The McAlister brothers peeled off—Miles for a photo-op with his constituents, and Ryan and Gavin for an iced coffee Lois was handing out. Livi lengthened her stride.

“Come on, Hayden. You don’t want to let that old man beat you,” she said, gesturing to West.

No way was that old man beating Hayden. Neither was anyone else, for that matter. Time to make his move. He let Livi have the front for a few strides before taking one last look back at Elle.

Just in time to see her go down in a heap.

“Ow!” Elle cried as her body hit the pavement.

Several hands were already reaching down to help her up when all she wanted to do was crawl away in embarrassment. Preferably back to the inn where her mother’s famous spiced rum waited.

“This is why I don’t run,” she muttered to no one in particular.

“Let me through,” a familiar voice demanded.

The crowd parted, and Hayden eased down beside her.

“Elle, where does it hurt?” He reached for her throbbing ankle.

She swatted his hands away. “What are you even doing right now? The race is that way, silly.”

He ignored her, aiming for her leg again. “Which ankle is it?”

“It doesn’t matter. My sister—the one with the medical degree—will be along in a few minutes. She’ll check it out. You need to get back in the race.”

“The strollers are a good fifteen minutes behind us. And judging by the way Kate was gabbing at the starting line, she’ll be the last one to come by.”

She let out a hiss when his fingers gingerly examined her tender ankle.

“That’s what I thought.” He scooped her up as though she were a sack of corn chips and not one hundred forty pounds of out-of-shape ballerina.

“Hayden, stop,” she protested. “You’re being ridiculous. You need to get back in the race. I can walk over to that bench and wait for my sister.”

“You can walk, huh?”

He set her on her feet, only for Elle to wince when the pain shot up her leg.

“Liar.”

He jerked her back into his arms and was striding to the first-aid tent before she could object again. Not that she could find the words. Hayden held her so close that it was impossible not to inhale his masculine scent. And it was doing idiotic things to her brain—like making her snuggle in closer.

“I need to commandeer one of these golf carts,” he called to the EMTs without breaking his stride.

“Set her down here, Deputy.” One of the paramedics indicated a gurney. “We’ll check her out.”

“No.” Hayden gently deposited her in the front seat of a golf cart. “She needs an X-ray.”

“I’ll run her over to the ER,” another EMT offered.

“Yes. Let him take me. You can still finish the race,” Elle insisted. “This isn’t anything serious. Just an old dance injury.”

He jumped into the driver’s seat and turned the key. The golf cart lurched into motion. “Stop worrying about the stupid race.”

Elle bristled at his clipped tone. “It isn’t a stupid race. Not to you, anyway. This is the one day you look forward to every year.” The lump forming in her throat grew painful. “This race—or the idea of running it—kept you going when—when you were hurt. When we thought you’d never walk again. It gave you a goal to work toward. And it brought you back here to Chances Inlet.”

To me.

Hayden had spent the bulk of his rehabilitation at a military hospital in Texas. Elle was in college at Elon at the time, but they’d kept in touch through email, texts, and phone calls. When Hayden deigned to talk to her, that was. He had a difficult time accepting his body was forever changed.

Running was his first love, and she’d tapped into that by dangling running the Turkey Trot together as an incentive for him to put his heart and soul into rehabbing his body and his mind. It eventually worked. For the past nine Thanksgivings, Hayden was the king of the Turkey Trot. Until today. And it was all her fault.

Hayden steered the golf cart right up to the ER doors. He jumped out and nabbed a wheelchair from the lobby, pushing it over to the cart before he tenderly transferred her into the chair. Leaning over her, he braced his hands on the arms. The blue eyes boring into hers were unfocused and wilder than she’d ever seen them.

“You listen to me, Elinor. Nothing is more important to me than the people I care most about. Not even a race. Nothing,” he repeated. “You hear me?”

She nodded, his use of her given name startling her into silence.

“Well, if it isn’t Handsome Hayden,” a tall, dark-skinned woman wearing a white coat said when they entered the ER. “My wife’s work-husband. And who do we have here?”

“Hey, Gabby. This is Elle McAlister. She needs to have her ankle X-rayed.”

Gabby quirked an eyebrow at Hayden. “Not the Elle McAlister?”

“Wait, Simone got married?” Elle asked, ignoring the death glare Hayden shot at the PA.

The other woman grinned. “It was one of those whirlwind romances this past summer.” She pointed to a room down the hall. “Take her to room two.”

“I missed a lot staying away,” Elle mused.

“Mm-hmm,” Hayden replied.

Gabby followed them into the room. “Is the race finished already?”

“No,” Elle and Hayden said at the same time.

“Seriously?” Gabby leveled a stunned look in Hayden’s direction.

“Hello?” He snapped his fingers at his friend. “She needs an X-ray.”

Mumbling something about someone needing their head examined, Gabby sat on a stool and began untying Elle’s sneaker before carefully pulling it off. Elle tried not to wince as the other woman probed the tender muscle with her fingers.

“I don’t think it’s broken. But we will appease Captain America here by taking some pictures just to be sure.” Gabby stood and went to the sink to wash her hands. “A nurse will come in to take your vitals while I send for the portable X-ray machine.”

“Told you it wasn’t broken,” Elle mumbled when the doctor left the room.

“We still don’t know that,” he bit out.

“Great. And now you’re angry with me because you couldn’t finish the race.”

Before she could blink, his hands were back on the arms of the wheelchair again, bracketing her in. His lips were inches from hers. His breath washed over her cheek.

“No, Elinor. I’m angry because I goaded you into running today. Livi did, too. At least I knew you had no business running a 5k. You could have been hurt. Hell, you are hurt.”

She could see the pulse throbbing frantically in his throat. An unexpected urge to place her lips to his skin there had her nearly passing out. She lifted her hand to his cheek as much to steady herself as to comfort him.

“It’s really nothing. I’m going to be just fine. You’re being silly.”

Clearly, it was the wrong thing to say. A tremor coursed through him, and he jerked back to standing. His eyes roamed her face.

“Yeah,” he eventually said.

And then he was gone.

Thirty minutes later, her sister, Kate, strolled into the room. Gabby and another man wearing a white coat hovered in the doorway behind her.

“Nothing’s broken,” Kate announced.

Elle adjusted the pillow on the bed behind her. “I could have told you that. Where’s Hayden?”

“That is the question on everyone’s lips in town.” Kate crossed her arms over her chest. “Him not crossing the finish line first—much less at all—has created quite the stir.”

“Who won?” Gabby asked.

“One of the college kids in town for the weekend.” Kate chuckled. “He promptly cast up his accounts on the mayor’s shoes.”

Elle groaned. “Thanks for the visual.”

“How’s the pain?” Kate had on her unscrupulous head-of-the-hospital face, so there was no point in lying.

“Five out of ten. But only when I put weight on it.”

“This should help.” The other doctor handed Kate an orthopedic boot.

Elle sat up and began strapping it on her swollen ankle. “I need to go find Hayden.”

“Not happening, little sister. We are going straight back to the inn where you will elevate your foot and decorate it with a nice bag of frozen peas. If you’re lucky, I’ll prescribe some spiced rum to go with it.”

“But—”

“Doctor’s orders, Elle. Do as I say, and you’ll be out of the boot in a few days.” Kate dropped her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “If I were you, though, I wouldn’t rush it. I’d milk this so you not only get out of dishwashing duty this afternoon but also for the rest of the season. Let the guys pick up the slack.”

Elle rolled her eyes at her sister. When she put her injured foot on the ground, however, the idea of being pampered by her family while enjoying a nice drink was beginning to sound better and better. She hopped into the wheelchair, instantly recalling Hayden leaning over her, his lips so close to hers.

Nothing is more important to me than the people I care most about.

What did he mean by that? And he certainly had a funny way of showing it. He deposited her in the ER, then disappeared to God knows where. She knew he cared about her. He’d told her enough times. Yet something was different about the way he’d said the words today. Her heart skipped a beat at the thought.

“Let’s go enjoy Thanksgiving dinner,” Kate said as she took the handles of the wheelchair.

“Yeah, about that. I’d skip the cornbread dressing if I were you. Ginger made it.”

“Say no more, little sister. I’m pretty sure she forgot to put the egg in the cornbread last year. It was like eating sawdust.”

Hayden’s breath sawed through his lungs, burning more with every stride he took. He ignored the SUV crawling beside him, trailing his movements. He wasn’t running away. Just running to think. To try to understand why he’d made such a fool of himself today. His PTSD from his combat days was long under control. So why did the image of Elle crumpling to the ground affect him the way it did?

What if she’d been running in New York? With Livi’s running club? Who would have helped her then?

Except he didn’t have to worry about that. Elle’s idea of cardio was dancing at a nightclub for a couple of hours. Fuck. Just thinking that brought on the crazy images of what could happen to her in a nightclub. And now those scenarios were going to take up residence in his head where they would no doubt haunt him forever.

“Dude,” Xander said from the driver’s seat of his Jeep Cherokee. “You’re halfway to South Carolina. Your mom’s texts are getting more and more frantic. She wants to know if you’ll be back soon. Something about you needing to pick up Livi for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Hayden slowed to a walk. “This is crazy,” he said to himself.

“Pretty much,” Xander replied. “But then women seem to drive us to Crazy Town.”

Elle is fine , he told himself.

Xander stopped the vehicle so Hayden could climb in. They were quiet as Xander turned the Jeep around and drove back toward Chances Inlet.

“You haven’t had something trigger you in a long time,” Xander finally said. “Was it the way she fell or something?”

“I don’t know.” And that was the part eating at him.

He cared about Elle. Deeply. But she’d made no secret that her feelings didn’t go beyond friendship. No matter how passionately she kissed him. Her life was in New York. She was not his forever. He knew that.

Didn’t he?

“I can get the guys together if you want.”

“Nah. It’s a holiday. Besides, I’m good now.”

Maybe not completely, but he’d get there. The truth was, he wanted more with Elle. He hadn’t realized how much until today. The very idea had set him off.

Except it was time for him to stop harboring hope and admit it wasn’t ever happening. Elle was his friend. His best friend. And that would have to be enough.

“Funny how the mention of a certain blonde pulled you right out of your funk back there.”

Hayden turned to stare questioningly at his friend.

“Livi? The classy blonde you’re taking to Thanksgiving dinner at your folks’ house. I can see what you see in her. She ran well today. Finished in the top third. I think she was disappointed you weren’t around at the end for a victory kiss, though.”

“You’re reading too much into it.”

“Simone is right. You’re too closed off for your own good. You keep Elle as a best friend to have a security blanket. That way, you don’t have to let anyone else in. You’ve got a sure thing throwing herself at you, and you’re worried about your off-limits bestie who flits in and out of your life on a whim.”

That wasn’t what he was doing. Was it? He flipped his friend off.

“How did West finish?” Hayden asked in an effort to change the subject.

“He didn’t. The guy got a stitch in his side right after you left and dropped out.”

Well, at least the day wasn’t all bad.