The Pregnancy Plot (Brothers In Arms: Retribution Book 2) (7 page)

Chapter Eight

Nina stood on her tiptoes on the chair to shove the package of thirty-six rolls of toilet paper onto the top shelf in the storage room. She didn’t need them now, but once guests started checking in on a regular basis, they’d come in handy. They’d probably come in handy once this baby started crowding her bladder, too.

A pair of strong hands clasped her around the hips. “What the hell are you doing?”

She glanced down into Jase’s face, lined with worry. “I’m putting away some toilet paper.”

“This chair isn’t exactly steady, and if you have to go up on your tiptoes, it’s not high enough.”

“Okay, but it’s not like I’m twenty stories high.”

He took her hand. “Let me help you down.”

She stepped down in front of him, facing him only inches apart. “I can’t figure you out.”

His dark eyes deepened to inky unfathomable depths. “What’s to figure out?”

“Either you grew up with sisters and were very protective of them, or you were in a house full of boys and treated your mother like a queen.” She bit the end of her finger to lighten the mood, since she could feel the tension coming off his taut body.

He cracked a smile. “Neither. I have one sister and we fought like a couple of boxers circling each other in a ring, and everyone else treated my mother like a queen, so I was spared Her Majesty’s service.”

“Must be a military thing, then.”

“Probably.” He lifted a shoulder and stepped around her. “I’m going to clean up for dinner.”

“You don’t have to go, Jase.” Would he really want to sit through a litany of Simon’s accomplishments and virtues? “I know you have writing to do, and you’ve gotten precious little of that done since you’ve arrived on Break Island.”

“I think it’s a good idea if I tag along.”

“Why? Do you suspect Chris of some ulterior motive?”

“Do you?”

“Why would you ask that? He looks very much like Simon. For that reason alone, his story rings true.”

“Something about all of this—” his hands framed an imaginary ball “—seems off.”

She swept her tongue along her dry bottom lip. “What do you mean,
off
?”

“You’re a woman who ended an engagement with a man and then haven’t laid eyes on that man for months. When you think you see him, your response isn’t curiosity or even anger. It’s fear.” He put out his hand, palm forward. “Don’t even deny it, Nina. I saw you. I held you. You were trembling like a petal in a rainstorm.”

“I told you. Simon was suffering from PTSD. He was acting crazy before we split up. It’s why we split up. He wouldn’t get help, denied anything was wrong.”

“Do you think he’ll track you down?”

She spun away from him and grabbed the storage room doorjamb. “I’m not sure. When I was in LA, it felt like someone was watching me.”

Jase sucked in a noisy breath. “Simon?”

“I don’t know. I never saw anyone, could never pick out a face in the crowd, but I felt a presence.”

Jase’s angular features had sharpened even more. “You never told me this.”

“Uh, we met yesterday, Jase. That’s not something you generally spring on a stranger. It’s bad enough that you got the full force of Hurricane Lou, and now my ex-fiancé’s brother has come calling. I’m surprised you haven’t run for the hills yet.”

“That’s serious stuff if you think your ex is stalking you, but why wouldn’t he just approach you?”

“I don’t know. I told him I wouldn’t see him again until he got help. He probably hasn’t gotten help.”

Jase took a step toward her and threaded his fingers through hers. “It’s not Simon.”

She whispered, “How do you know that?”

“It just doesn’t make sense.” He toyed with her fingers. “I don’t think he’d creep around stalking you. If anything, he’d confront you head-on. The way you describe him, he sounds like that guy.”

Her nose tingled with unspent tears. Jase made her feel so good, so safe. Should she tell him now about her pregnancy? It might be the last straw to send him running for the exit, but she wanted him to know everything. She’d be making the switch to maternity clothes in the next week anyway. Much better to tell him than announce it with a maternity shirt hugging her visible baby bump.

He chucked her beneath the chin with his knuckle. “Let’s go meet Chris and give him a glowing report of his brother. It’s the least you can do for the guy.”

She blinked and nodded, not even trying to recapture the moment between them. Jase was a nice guy, a protective guy—a hot guy—but what did she really owe him? He might find it too intimate for her to tell him about her baby as if it was some kind of special announcement. Better to mention it in an offhand way.

“I’m going to hit the shower. Meet you in the sitting room in about twenty minutes.”

She allowed him to escape the storage room without embarrassing him with any more personal revelations.

She showered and shimmied into a pair of black leggings that she topped with an oversize blue sweater that hit the top of her thighs and a pair of black knee-high boots.

When she entered the sitting room, Jase turned from studying pictures on the mantel. “Your mom and stepdad look like a young couple experiencing first love.”

“Yeah, and that was taken after they’d been together for ten years.”

“Isn’t it what every couple aspires to?”

“At the expense of their kids?” She flicked her fingers in the air. “I don’t think so. You have to be a family unit first.”

“Family units are not all they’re cracked up to be.” He slipped her keys from the hook in the kitchen. “You ready? I think we should take the truck into town and skip the late-night walk.”

“Afraid of running into my crazy sister again?”

“Would you think less of me if I copped to that?”

“I’d think you had your head on straight.” She winked at him.

Jase insisted on driving the truck and she let him. He parked half a block from Mandy’s.

“Looks like more people in town tonight.”

“I think it’s the big storm.”

“People are heading to the island because of the storm? You’d think they’d want to stay away.”

“Once the storm starts blowing full force, there’s no fishing. Most of these guys have to get their fix in before the moratorium.”

“The storms pretty bad here?”

“They can be. This one’s supposed to be coming down from Alaska. It can shut down the island—nothing coming, nothing going.”

“Do you have a generator at Moonstones?”

“I don’t have a working dishwasher at Moonstones.”

“Got it.”

Chris was waiting in front of Mandy’s like an eager puppy dog. In that way, he resembled Simon not at all. Simon had nothing of the puppy dog about him. He had the intensity of a jungle cat, sort of like Jase.

Chris grinned and pumped their hands. “I like this island—friendly town.”

“Where did you say you lived, Chris?” Nina crossed her arms low on her waist, cupping her elbows. She hoped he didn’t have any plans to settle here.

“Arizona—going back there once I finish my search for my brother.”

Jase got the door and held it open for her and Chris. “You’re continuing your search after this?”

“Sure, why not?”

Jase caught her eye as she passed him and raised one eyebrow.

They were seated by the window again, and Jase tapped the menu. “Fish-and-chips two nights in a row?”

“Go for it. Live dangerously. It’ll be good for your book.”

Chris looked over the top of his menu. “You’re writing a book?”

“Trying to.”

“What’s it about?”

“War story, fictional account.”

“Were you in the service?”

“Marines.”

“Ah, sorry to hear that.” Chris chuckled. “Were you deployed in Iraq or Afghanistan?”

“Two tours of duty in Afghanistan.”

“I’d read that book.” Chris downed half his water. “From what I got out of the navy, Simon did a couple of tours in Afghanistan and then seemed to drop off the radar—just like now. Makes me wonder what he was into. The navy wouldn’t tell me anything more.”

“Lotta stories to be told.” Jase closed the menu and dropped it to the table. “I have to go with the fish-and-chips again.”

Nina took a sip of her own water, eyeing Jase over the rim of the glass. He didn’t seem all that eager to talk about Simon. Maybe he should’ve stayed home to write, because she planned to give Chris a glowing report of his brother to make him that more anxious to find him and send him on his way.

The waitress approached their table and flipped open her pad. “You ready?”

They all ordered the fish-and-chips, and the men ordered beers. Nina stuck to water.

When the waitress left, Chris hunched over the table. “Tell me about Simon. Do you have any pictures?”

Of course she had pictures. After the breakup, her inclination had been to delete all pictures of Simon from her phone. She’d gotten rid of a few, but stopped when she found out about her pregnancy. Her child deserved to know what his father looked like, even if he never saw him or met him.

She pulled her cell from her purse and tapped her photos. She’d moved them all to a separate album. Another tap and Simon’s face filled the screen, his megawatt smile and bright red hair causing a lump to form in her throat.

He’d been a good man, full of joy and ridiculous impressions. Why did he change?

She handed the phone to Chris. “That’s Simon.”

“Wow, we do look alike.”

“You can scan through that whole album. All those pictures are of Simon.”

Chris’s eyes met hers. “You’re not one of those exes who trashes and burns every picture? I had one of those. My girlfriend and I split up, got back together a few months later, and I’d come to find out she deleted every image of me off her phone. Then we broke up again. Are you holding on to these because you hope to get back together with Simon someday?”

Nina ignored Jase, even though she could feel his gaze focused on her like a laser beam. Was he jealous? Would she mind if he was?

“Simon and I won’t be getting back together, but he was a part of my history and I’m not about to rewrite history.”

“I like that attitude. Why’d you two break up, if you don’t mind my asking?” Chris thanked the waitress when she placed his beer in front of him and then returned to the pictures on the cell phone.

She shrugged. “We both changed, went our different ways. It was mutual.”

As he slid through each image, he peppered her with questions. She answered him with the vision of the old Simon in her head—the cheerful, fearless, protective man she’d fallen in love with, not the paranoid, angry man given over to fits of rage she’d kicked out of their house and her life.

Occasionally, Jase would lean across the table to look at a particular picture, his features sharp as if on high alert. Simon had that look about him at times, too, much more toward the end—always on edge, always expecting something to happen.

She must be drawn to that intense type, because she had to admit it to herself, pregnant or not, she was drawn to Jase Buckley.

Their platters of deep-fried fish and golden French fries arrived just as Chris had thumbed through the last picture of Simon. He placed the phone next to her plate and patted her hand. “Thanks for that, Nina. Makes me more determined than ever to find my brother.”

Jase rubbed his hands together and reached for the vinegar. “Best fish-and-chips I’ve ever had.”

Nina threw a sharp glance in his direction. Way to break a mood.

Chris didn’t seem to notice or care as he squeezed a lemon quarter all over his food. “Looks great.”

As they dug in to their meals, the conversation turned to fishing and the weather.

“I understand there’s a big storm heading down this way.” Chris took a sip of beer and the foam clung to his red mustache. “Do you ever get cut off?”

“Cut off, blacked out, flooded—you name it.”

“I should probably take off before all that happens.”

“Where are you headed next?” Jase ran his fork through a glob of tartar sauce before stabbing a piece of fish.

“I think I’ll go back to LA to see if I can pick up any more threads down there. That’s the last place I can track him to. I appreciate the pictures and all, Nina, but I was hoping you could tell me where to find him.”

“If I knew, I’d tell you.” She folded her hands around her glass of water. “We broke it off. He packed up his things, took his car and left. I didn’t hear one word from him after that.”

“Did you have a big fight at the end? Was he distraught or suicidal?”

She shoved her glass aside. “Look, Chris. Simon was suffering from PTSD. I wasn’t going to tell you because I didn’t want to concern you, but if you’re going to take up this search, you need to know. Simon was going off the rails. He was paranoid. I think he had delusions. People were after him. He was raging against some unseen enemy. I encouraged him to get help, but he refused. The day I gave him the ultimatum is the day he walked out.”

Chris whistled. “I’m glad you told me, Nina. Why did you think you had to hide it from me?”

“Because you wanted to know your brother, and that wasn’t Simon. Simon was all those things I told you about him.”

“You’re wrong, Nina. That was a part of Simon, too.” Chris shifted his gaze to Jase’s face. “Am I right, man? That was a part of him.”

Jase nodded. “You’re right, but maybe now’s not the best time to go searching for him.”

“There’s no better time.” Chris slapped the table. “Thanks for telling me that, Nina. It gives a whole new urgency to my quest.”

“Not happy with just one guy, gotta have two?”

Nina groaned and closed her eyes briefly before meeting her sister’s watery blue eyes. “I thought you’d be on your way by now, Lou.”

“Kip and I are on vacation. We’re going to hang out for another day or two, and you know how I love a raging storm.” She wagged her finger in Nina’s face. “But don’t think we’ve given up on Moonstones. Kip’s brother is an attorney in Seattle and he thinks I might have a case against you.”

“Kip’s brother thinks that or Kip? ’Cause Kip looks pretty out of it right now.” She pointed at her sister’s shadow swaying behind her.

“Whatever.” Lou batted her eyelashes. “Who’s this cutie?”