Hosed (Happy Cat #1)(55)

And then suddenly I’m waking up on a gurney outside under a pale blue morning sky with an oxygen mask covering my nose and mouth and Ryan staring down at me with a mixture of worry, pain, and disgust that breaks my heart.

Broken—crash, bam.

Right in two.





Twenty-Eight





Ryan





* * *



I hunch over the Wild Hog’s bar, head pounding, heart aching, gut roiling.

Dual images keep flashing in my head.

One of Cassie, dousing lighter fluid all over the factory.

The other of her ashen face when Jojo pulled her out of the building.

“Pour me another,” I order Jace.

He scowls at me, slams both hands on the bar, and leans across it until he’s right in my face. “I cannot serve you liquor until eleven. I told you that.”

He also filled my first glass with our grandmother’s lemonade, which would probably get him shut down if anyone knew what was in it.

I don’t give two shits right now.

“She set the fire, Jace.” The words are hollow, and they taste like burnt black licorice and raccoon shit. “She set the fucking fire.”

I still can’t believe it, but between that phone call recording, everything that’s gone wrong for Sunshine the last two weeks, and then finding her there, when she was supposed to be at my house, what am I supposed to think?

Something smacks the back of my head, and I realize it was my brother’s hand. “If you believe that,” Jace growls, low and tight, “then you don’t deserve her.”

“Whatever he’s having, I want something different.” Blake slides onto the stool next to me. “And can I order a shower for him? He smells like smoky ass.”

Jace hooks a thumb toward the john. “If you can get him in there, you can give him a shower in the sink.”

The Wild Hog’s pretty much deserted this early in the day, with just one small group of farmers back at the arcade games. Most of the town’s gawking at the carnage over at the Sunshine factory—happy name for a miserable place—or they’re busy telling the sheriff all the ways they knew Cassie wasn’t right in the head from the moment she got back.

Those Sunderwell girls were never really one of us. So stuck up, with all the Hollywood attitude. We should’ve known they were deviants—not too far a stretch from selling perverted toys to setting fires.

I thought they were wrong, that it was small-town pettiness. But then, never in a million lifetimes would I have suspected Cassie would set fire to anything.

But maybe Jessie was right about the lengths family will go to for each other.

What wouldn’t I do for one of my brothers?

I’d like to think I wouldn’t push too far. But I also know Jace and Ginger. My brother will be a damn good father, and if Ginger does anything to put my niece or nephew in danger, or to keep the child from Jace, the line between right and wrong might get blurry.

Maybe it got blurry for Cassie too.

But setting a fire, putting innocent people and her own life in danger? It’s a line I cannot stomach seeing crossed, not after everything I’ve been through in my life. Not after swearing to protect the people of this town, to give my life for them if necessary.

It’s too fucking much.

Jace pushes a Coke across the bar to Blake. “You want to talk some sense into him, or should we take him out back and do it the old-fashioned way?”

“I got him.”

“Good, because I can’t afford to get arrested again.” Jace jerks his head toward the kitchen. “I’ll be in back. Holler if you need me.”

“Nobody’s gonna arrest you,” I grumble. “They’re too busy arresting an arsonist.”

Jace flips me off before he disappears.

“Hey, man, how about we take a break from being a dick for two minutes.” Blake’s perpetual cheer is grating on my nerves, and Jace didn’t refill my lemonade.

“I’m not being a dick. I’m being broken.” Apparently one lemonade was enough on an empty stomach.

“No, you’re not. You’re being a chickenshit.”

I try to shove his shoulder, and fall off my stool.

But Blake catches me.

He’s my brother. That’s what brothers do. But usually I’m the one doing the catching.

How much vodka was in that lemonade?

“I’m not a chickenshit,” I protest while he puts me back into my seat.

“Then you’re an asshole,” Blake replies happily. Always happy, that’s Blake. He could bottle it and sell it as Moonshine. Happyshine. Sunshine.

Fuck.

“Not a hucking assfole either,” I slur. When did the bar move onto a boat, and why is it rocking?

“Jesus, Ry. When’s the last time you slept?”

I squint at the two Blakes. “Thursday? Had a shizzy bift. A biffy shitz. A—hell.”

“A busy shift?” he suggests.

I point a finger at him and cock it. “Thassit.”

“Gimme your keys, you idiot. We’re going home.”

“No. Not home. She was home. Not going home. Can’t make me.”

“Can and will. C’mon, big bro. You can thank me tomorrow.”