“Are you okay?” Ronnie wanted to know. “Has he hurt you or are you afraid he’ll hurt you?”
“Of course not,” Jenna answered automatically. Gage would never hurt her-not physically, anyway.
“Then… I hate to do this to you, sweetie, but you’re on your own. We’re in the middle of a major meltdown over here.”
Jenna jerked slightly in surprise, her pulse kicking up in concern. “Why? What’s wrong?”
If possible, Ronnie’s voice dropped even lower. “We drove to Columbus to surprise Dylan and Zack, just like we’d planned. Except Grace was the one who ended up getting the biggest shock. She walked into Zack’s room and found another woman in his bed.”
Jenna gasped, her mouth falling open in disbelief, but before she could say anything, Ronnie went on.
“She was understandably upset. Insisted we leave, so we drove back home. She’s spending half the time sobbing and half the time raging. I’m seriously worried she’s going to hurt herself, hurt someone else, or make herself sick with grief.”
“Oh, no,” Jenna moaned. “This is terrible. I can’t believe he did this to her. What a jag-off.”
“To say the least,” Ronnie grumbled. “You should hear the creative names Grace has been calling him. I knew she had a mouth on her when motivated, but she’s been really imaginative today.”
“Where are you? Your place or hers?”
There was an uncomfortable pause on the other end, and in the background Jenna could hear the sound of crying, punctuated by the occasional screech, peppered with thumps, bumps, and crashes. And once in a while, the deep, heartfelt bellow of Bruiser, Zack’s mammoth Saint Bernard.
“Actually,” Ronnie responded after a moment, “we’re at Zack’s place. She wouldn’t let me take her anywhere else. And as soon as we hit the parking garage… she completely destroyed his Hummer, Jenna. Took a baseball bat to it. I should have stopped her. I tried a couple of times, but an armed and angry Grace Fisher is kind of intimidating.”
“Good God,” Jenna muttered.
“I hope there were no security cameras down there, or we’re both going to jail. And don’t think less of me for saying this,” Ronnie went on, “but part of me thinks the bastard deserves what he gets. The other is just downright worried about Grace. She’s acting crazed, Jenna. I’ve never seen her like this.”
“Yeah, well, she’s never had a fiancé cheat on her before.”
“True. I’d probably feel the same way if Dylan ever cheated on me. And I’d go straight for all his dearest, most prized possessions.”
Maybe it was shallow and petty, but Jenna concurred.
“I’m on my way. Don’t let her hurt herself, Ronnie. If she starts going off the deep end or things get truly scary-”
“Why do you think I haven’t left her alone? I can’t decide if I should worry about her committing suicide or homicide. If Zack were here, I swear he’d have a skate blade buried between his eyes by now. Or his groin.”
Jenna would have liked to laugh at that, but it simply wasn’t funny.
“Give me half an hour,” she said before disconnecting and racing back to the dining room to grab her purse.
After three steps, she came to a screeching halt and yelped in surprise. “Good Lord, Gage. Give a gal some warning next time, would you? Stomp your feet or whistle or something instead of sneaking up on me like that.”
He raised a brow. “I didn’t sneak. You just weren’t paying attention. What’s with the phone call?” he asked, indicating the cordless phone she’d left on the kitchen island.
It was clear he’d heard most, if not all, of her side of the conversation, and she was so thoroughly offended with Zack on her best friend’s behalf that she’d morphed immediately into “all men are scum” mode.
“Your friend”-she spat the word like it was cursed-“is an asshole.”
Despite her charge and bitter tone, his face remained impassive. “Which one?”
“Zack, the two-timing dickweed. Grace showed up at his hotel to surprise him and found another woman in his bed. I’m headed over to help talk her down before the police show up.”
She took a step forward and grabbed her purse, swinging the strap over her shoulder on her way to the front door. “They should arrest Zack for being a lying, cheating bastard,” she muttered, somehow deciding that if she couldn’t take out her derision on Zack himself, the nearest male-namely Gage-would do.
But when she banged out of the house, sans the satisfying slam of the front door, she frowned and turned around to find Gage standing on the porch behind her, gently closing the door she’d intended to rattle.
“What are you doing?” she wanted to know.
“Going with you.”
She made a completely unladylike noise somewhere between a scoff and a snort. “I don’t think so.”
A slow, humorless smile stretched his lips until two rows of straight white teeth were visible in the glow of the porch light. Jenna took a breath, her heart skipping a beat as she realized he looked eerily like a rabid wolf, baring its fangs just before going for the jugular.
“I do,” he replied, his tone remaining soft and perfectly regulated. “When I said I was sticking around until I knew for sure whether or not you’re pregnant, I meant I’m sticking to you. Consider me your new best friend.”
“I already have a best friend,” she countered, crossing her arms beneath her breasts and belatedly realizing she’d forgotten to grab a jacket.
Not that she’d attempt to get past him and back into the house now. Not even if they were in the middle of a blizzard, in Antarctica, and her nose had just fallen off from frostbite.
“Two, in fact, but neither of them follow me around like my shadow day and night.”
“A shadow,” he repeated. “That’s better. Consider me your shadow until you get your period or the stick turns blue, whichever happens first.”
She narrowed her eyes, but couldn’t think of a logical retort to his argument. Considering the determined tilt of his jaw, it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. Nothing she said would budge him, not when he got like this.
“Fine,” she said, trying not to let it sound too much like a huff, even though she was frustrated enough to kick him.
Turning back toward the car, she slid behind the wheel, then stifled a grin as Gage struggled to climb into the passenger side and find a comfortable position.
He was so tall, his head brushed the roof of her tiny VW, and even after pushing the seat back as far as it would go, his legs were still bent nearly to his chest and bumping the dashboard.
“We could take my bike, you know,” he told her, sounding slightly aggrieved.
“But you’re my shadow, not the other way around, and I don’t drive a motorcycle,” she quipped, turning the key in the ignition and putting her little Volkswagen in gear.
For several long moments, Gage didn’t say anything, but she could almost feel him mentally grumbling. Good, it served him right. If he planned to follow her around for the next few days, making her life an abject misery, then she deserved to make him moderately uncomfortable from time to time, too.
She zipped down the gravel lane and picked up even more speed when she hit the main road. She didn’t go over the speed limit, but she wasted no time in getting back to the city, wanting to reach Ronnie and Grace as quickly as possible.
Her mind was still spinning over the fact that Zack had cheated on Grace. Oh, he was handsome, and a jock, and famous to boot; and she knew professional athletes had gorgeous women hanging on them practically everywhere they went. But she’d thought Zack was different. She’d thought he’d sewn his wild oats already and was truly in love with Grace, ready to settle down and be a one-woman man.