word around, it meant he was unglued. By showing up unexpectedly for a visit just hours after she peed on a stick, he’d unknowingly walked face-first into her having an emotional meltdown. What followed was him losing his shit.
“Stop yelling, Reed. Please.” Her lip quivered, but she valiantly fought off a threatening shower of tears.
He lowered his voice, but the anxious, painful confrontation continued.
“What are you going to do?” Being in uniform and wearing a fierce expression didn’t help.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you keeping it or what?”
Her instant reaction was more of an explosion. She hurled the pillow at her brother’s head and snarled.
“Shut your fucking mouth, Reed. There’s no it, goddammit! I’m having a baby, not an it. And I’m not our mother, okay? Does that answer your vile question?”
He clutched his head with both hands and let out an angry growl. “Fuck.”
“Sit down.” She smacked the cushion beside her. “I’m the one who should be freaking out, not you.”
They sat in silence for a few minutes.
“Shit. I’m going to be an uncle.”
Summer wrapped her arms with his and leaned against him. Of all the things he could have said, those few words meant the world to her.
“Okay,” he muttered after a while. “I’m calmer now. Please fill in the blanks, sis. Explain what you’ve gotten yourself into.”
She didn’t like what he said, but choosing her battles had to take precedence over sibling snark.
Well, Summer thought with a total lack of enthusiasm. She might as well come up with a standard reply for a question she was going to hear a lot.
“I, uh, met a guy. We hung out, things got serious, and you know,” she muttered with a shrug, “shit happens.”
“Shit happens?” Reed snarled. “That’s how you explain an absent baby daddy?”
“I can’t explain the absent part. That’s on him. All I can attest to is my part in what happened.”
“And does your part include failure to take proper precautions?”
“As I said, shit happened.” She squirmed at the disappointment on her brother’s face. “Don’t judge me.”
Thankfully, he gave her a side-hug and kissed her forehead.
“I’m sorry, twerp. You have to grade me on a curve and give me time to catch up. What happened to the life plan? The career?”
How in the world could she ever possibly explain absolutely none of that meant anything after she fell under the spell of a golden Adonis with beautiful blue eyes and an easy laugh?
“Haven’t you ever been in love, Reed?”
The vehemence in his direct answer reminded Summer how much older Reed was when their mother left. His view of Marie Warren’s heartless defection wasn’t the same as hers.
“No. A bunch of romance crap isn’t for me. When your emotions get involved, you end up like Dad. Wake up one day to discover it all meant nothing, and your heart got trashed for the shittiest of reasons. No thanks.”
“Ouch,” she muttered.
“Did you want me to make something up?”
“No.” She shook her head. “I get it. But it’d be easier to plead my case if you ever let down your guard and gave free rein to your emotions.”
“Is that what happened? You let your guard down?”
“I let my emotions out to play. There was no guard to let down.”
“This isn’t one of those Prince Charming fantasies, is it? Please tell me it’s not.”
She rolled her eyes and sat back. “Fantasies don’t make babies.”
Reed’s scowl told her it was the wrong thing to say. “But real guys get young girls pregnant and then disappear?”
“He didn’t disappear.”
“Then where is he?”
She frowned and flipped her hair behind her shoulders. “Just because I don’t know where he is doesn’t mean he disappeared.”
“Do you hear yourself, sis?” Reed scoffed. “Make some sense, would you?”
“Look, I don’t know what happened, okay? Things were great, and we had plans, but he never showed up. In a way, he vanished, yes, but something else is going on. I can feel it.”
“Meaning?” Reed growled.
Her brother was Army through and through. In his time with the military, he’d seen battle, been decorated, given a top-level security clearance, and installed in one of the Army’s elite training bases. He wasn’t naïve or stupid.
“He does security stuff.” Her shrug wasn’t very convincing, but she gave it a shot anyway. “You know,” she tried to explain. “The usual stuff the former military do. Surveillance and, um, body guarding.”
This tidbit of detail got Reed’s full attention. “Are you saying he was military?”
“Well, no. I don’t think so. Not the way you are. But he did say