“Uh-huh,” his mom said, sounding amused. “So we’ll see you in a few then, yes?”

“Absolutely.” Cole disconnected. “Shit,” he said, and called Tanner.

Tanner’s phone connected, but he didn’t speak. Through the phone Cole could hear the same party sounds he’d just heard from his mom’s phone. “Shit,” he said again.

Tanner laughed. “Need a hint?”

“No!” Cole disconnected. He stared off into the distance, racking his brain, but nothing came to him. On the off chance Sam was in bed with Becca—which was where any red-blooded man would be if he were engaged to the gorgeous brunette—Cole texted him instead of calling, and went with casual. He had to, because if Sam sniffed out that Cole had forgotten tonight’s gig, he’d laugh his ass off and not respond.

So what’s up?

Cole was pretty confident that Sam would know, as they’d had Sam as a foster kid on and off through his teen years and he was part of the family. And sure enough, Sam responded almost immediately:

You forgot, huh?

Hell. Cole stared down at the phone, pride warring with good sense. Good sense won, and he texted:

Just %#!#$@# tell me.

Again, Sam responded within seconds.

Your great-aunt’s second husband’s retirement party.

Cole’s eye twitched. He pressed a thumb into his eye socket and got into his truck to drive over to his mom’s house.

She lived on the bluffs overlooking the bowl shape of the town and the harbor, and the house was lit up bright as day. He no sooner entered the place than he was pounced on by everyone.

“Darling,” his mom said, and pulled him in for a hug. She was petite and fit, making her look a decade younger than her fifty-one. “So sweet of you to finally show up.”

He sighed. “Who ratted me out?”

“Tanner.”

Cole lifted his head, searched the crowd, and found Tanner leaning against the mantel nursing a drink, which he lifted in a mock toast to Cole. “Ratfink bastard,” Cole muttered. “He could have told me at the Love Shack earlier.”

“Don’t blame him,” his mom said. “I withheld my meringue pie until he squealed. Not even a Navy SEAL can hold back from my pie.”

This was true.

Amelia ran a hand over Cole’s shoulder. “You’re going to get this looked at again before you go back to work, yes?”

“It’s fine.” Judging from the sounds of laughter and talking and music coming from the living room, the party was still raging. He ignored it. “How are you doing, Mom?”

She smiled with no little amount of irony as she repeated his earlier words back to him: “I’m fine.”

He rolled his eyes, and she laughed as they entered the fray together. His sisters Clare and Cindy were there, with their rug rats and husbands, and it took him twenty minutes to wade through them.

“Where’s Cara?” he asked.

Clare’s smile faded, and she jerked her chin toward the back of the house.

“She alone?” he asked.

“Yes. She said she broke up with that guy she was seeing. Ward.”

If only it were that simple, Cole thought. He took in Clare’s worried expression and tugged on a strand of her hair. “It’s going to be fine,” he said.

His mantra tonight, apparently.

He went through the house, stopped along the way by what felt like a billion people, including Sam and Tanner, but he didn’t find Cara anywhere. The house was a sprawling one-story ranch-style, shaped like a big U. The party had spilled out into the courtyard that the house surrounded on three sides. Beyond the courtyard was a small grove of trees, one of which held their childhood tree house. His dad had built it for him.

For most of his childhood, that tree house had been his escape from pesky sisters who couldn’t, or wouldn’t, be bothered to climb it and get at him.

He walked through the courtyard, past the pool, and to the grove, stopping at the base of the biggest tree. He drew a big breath, preparing for battle. Because it was always a battle with Cara. “Hey,” he said upward to the flicker of light he could see between the wood slats.

No answer.

“Aw, come on,” he said. “Don’t make me climb up there.”

More nothing.

“Shit, Cara. Really?”

The tree house door creaked open and a head peeked out. “Go away!”

There she was. “I’d love to, but my sister’s miserable and sharing that misery with everyone in the family, and they’re all clueless as to why. Only I know that she’s a big, fancy liar and her guilt’s eating her up. If she’d stop being an idiot, then yeah, maybe—”

“Must be nice to be perfect!” she yelled down at him.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “There’s something seriously wrong with you if you think my life’s perfect.” No answer, and he sighed. “Look, I think you—”

“Stop thinking for me! You think you know everything, but you don’t!” With that, she slammed the door shut.

“What the hell,” he muttered. He looked around, but not a single tree or breeze or jackshit offered to help him out here.

Then he heard it.

The sound of Cara’s quiet sobs.

He tipped his head back and stared at the stars for a beat, but nothing came to him, no miracle cure. Grinding his teeth, he began to climb. Which, thanks to his shoulder, hurt like a son of a bitch. It wasn’t an easy climb, either; that had been the beauty of the design, and his dad had done it on purpose. No ladder, no easy steps. If you couldn’t climb a tree, you didn’t get into the tree house. That simple.