Hosed (Happy Cat #1)(28)

Like Cassie Sunderwell, though it’s clear she has no idea how irresistible she is.

But even though she’s pretty much the only thing running through my head, I can’t fight the gut feeling that something’s wrong with Jace.

My brothers all joke about my “Big Bro-Dar,” but in all the years I’ve been keeping them out of trouble, it’s never steered me wrong. First, my shoulders get restless, then my stomach starts to ache, and before long I can’t stop pacing until I get whatever sibling is plaguing my thoughts on the phone.

Or, better yet, corner the kid in question in person.

Though, of course, they aren’t kids anymore. Hell, they haven’t been for a long time. I haven’t been a kid since I was ten, the day we almost lost my youngest brother, Clint, when he ran outside to play in the rain and ended up getting struck by lightning. I was supposed to be watching him.

He almost died because I hadn’t kept him inside.

From that day forward, I’d made it my mission to keep my brothers safe and to never, ever do anything to hurt them again.

Clint now credits his near-death experience for his dauntless, rise-to-the-challenge attitude that’s made him the most decorated young marine in his unit.

Which is fine and all—I’m proud of Clint, I really am—but I would rather keep the people I care about out of harm’s way.

As if summoned by my danger-avoiding thoughts, a red Jetta appears at the end of the road in front of me. Long before the car gets close enough to get a good look at the driver, I know who it is.

There’s only one red Jetta in Jace’s life, and it’s driven by his heart-breaker of an on-again-off-again girlfriend, Ginger.

I slow down even more, forcing myself to nod civilly to the redhead behind the wheel as our vehicles pass each other on the road. For her part, Ginger is smirking as she wiggles scarlet-tipped nails behind her closed window. She looks pretty satisfied with herself, which can only mean one thing—she and Jace are back together.

“Shit,” I curse, my heart sinking. For a moment, I consider heading back to town without collecting Jace or Blake for help with clean-up—I’m clearly too late to pull my brother out of harm’s way —but I keep going. Cassie really could use the help and my Big-Bro-Dar is still blaring out a code red.

It doesn’t take long to realize why.

I reach the circle drive in front of Jace’s split-level ranch to find him sitting on the porch swing, his head buried in his hands, and his dark hair sticking up in a dozen different directions. The slump to his shoulders signals that this is bad, even worse than the time Ginger allegedly played beer pong with Bart Tompkins, only with golf balls. And her cleavage.

“What’s up, brother?” I slam out of the door, scanning the porch and the vegetable garden beyond. “Blake around? He said he was going to be out here this morning.”

“He’s around somewhere, but you’re not here to see Blake,” Jace says, followed by a heavy sigh so tortured the worry twisting in my gut ratchets up another notch. “Your tail was tingling again, wasn’t it?”

“Maybe.” I climb the four stairs to the porch. “What’s up? I passed Ginger on my way up the drive.”

He lifts his head, pinning me with a hard look. “You didn’t flip her off again, did you?”

“I didn’t flip her off last time,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I was adjusting my visor. The sun was in my eyes.”

“Adjusting your visor with your middle finger stuck out?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t remember, which is why I apologized to Ginger for the misunderstanding.” I stop in front of him, leaning back against the porch railing. “You know me better than that, Jace. I believe in minding my manners, even with people whose behavior, in my opinion, isn’t always up to snuff.”

“My opinion either,” he says, surprising me. “Which is why I told Ginger it was over. For good.”

My jaw drops, but I snap it closed again before he can see my reaction.

“Wow.” I nod, fighting to keep my enthusiasm to a minimum. Jace and Ginger have been a couple for a long time. This can’t have been easy for him, no matter how sick he is of her head games. “So…how’d she take it? She looked all right.”

She looked weirdly happy, in fact, a condition that makes more sense when Jace says, “She took it just fine. We were back together again two minutes later so there wasn’t much time to get upset.”

I fight the urge to curse aloud. “Oh. Well then…”

“Yeah, I know.” Jace pushes to his feet, pacing restlessly away across the porch. “But it isn’t like all the other times, Ryan. I was going to go through with it. I was fucking done, I swear, and it felt so good.”

I shake my head. “So what happened?”

He turns to face me, his eyes tightening around the edges. “She’s pregnant.”

This time I can’t hold back the curse, or the question I know I shouldn’t ask. “Are you sure it’s yours?”

“Yes, I’m sure, asshole,” he says, his temper flaring. “She’s exactly two months along and you know where we were two months ago.”

I press my lips together. “In Mexico. At the beach.”

“At a deserted beach,” he adds, “without another soul in sight. For ten days. There’s no way that baby isn’t mine.”