by Meg Maguire
“Nah. Enjoy your afternoon. Drive safe. And slow.”
Annie waved again and departed.
Colin put the bag down, unstrapped his niece and wobbled her in the air. “Ooh, you’re so pretty.”
A smile quirked Libby’s lips. She wouldn’t have guessed it and she certainly wasn’t happy about it, but it was a relief Colin’s “date” had turned out to be a ruse. Steady now—one Nolan is plenty. That wasn’t quite it, though… It was Colin’s company she felt possessive of, wasn’t it?
Colin turned the baby to Libby, and it gaped at her in an adorable, vacant baby fashion for a second. Then it frowned.
“Libby, this is my niece, and your future niece-in-law, if your evil plan succeeds. Coleen. Named after yours truly,” he added, smug.
“Pleased to meet you.” Libby waved at the now-angsty, sputtering baby. “I don’t know anything about kids. How old is she?”
“Seven months, give or take.” Colin bounced her on his arm and fixed her with an adoring smile.
“I’m surprised she’s not named for your father.”
“I think Annie’s holding on to that distinction in case she and her husband have a boy someday. But this one here”—he nodded down at his niece—“she’s the genius. Wait and see.”
Libby watched out of the corner of her eye as he fed the baby from a tiny bottle his sister had packed, trying to square it with the version of Colin who could weave through traffic at breakneck speed, or the one who physically threatened that asshole who’d creeped her out after karaoke two weeks ago. She came up stumped.
Eventually Colin excused himself to change his niece’s diaper, and Libby wandered to the window, staring at the storm.
Colin’s voice sounded from the bathroom. “Oh, dear God. What is she feeding you?”
With a guilty glance back toward the front of the flat, Libby padded through the kitchen to the threshold of Colin’s bedroom door. She hadn’t seen his room before and found herself surprised yet again.
It was a bigger room than his brother’s, and it looked lived in and cared for, unlike Reece’s. The walls were painted a deep oxblood red, a color that managed to not be gloomy in its darkness, but calming. Sensual. Colin was clearly the homebody around the apartment. Only a sweater tossed across his black bedspread threatened the order of the space.
Normally Libby preferred clutter—not filth, just a healthy dose of disorder. Growing up in an immaculate house, she’d been the chaotic one in her family, the whirlwind tearing around the otherwise placid, cleanly corridors of their WASPy New England estate. She could never live the way her mother did, worrying about the angles of the just-for-show throw pillows, buying books not to read but to leave lying strategically on the coffee tables their housekeeper kept gleaming with wax. No matter how hard Libby had worked to keep her bedroom in disarray, each afternoon when she came home from school, she always found it returned to a state of maddening tidiness.
She studied the two art-deco prints on Colin’s walls—poster reproductions for the Tour de France from some indeterminate year, matted and framed. Against another wall was a shelf lined with LPs, a record player set atop it, all beside a more modern sound system. Books and newspapers were stacked on his bedside table.
Libby gazed across his bed, a queen-sized one, bigger than Reece’s. Her imagination was taken by a potent vision of the sorts of things a man as forward as Colin might get up to on such an inviting surface…happy, greedy bodies moving beneath the dark red sheets she saw peeking from under the duvet, sounds and smells she couldn’t begin to conjure—
“You’re a nosy one.”
Libby jumped. Colin stood at her side with his wide-eyed niece tucked into the crook of one arm.
“Serves you right,” he added, addressing her start. “Want a guided tour?”
“No, you were right—just being nosy.” She gave his room a final scan and stepped back in the kitchen. “Reece could stand to get a few decorating tips from you.”
Colin followed. “Well, I’ve lived here for ten years now. He’s still got some moving boxes he hasn’t opened yet.”
“I saw. When did he come back to New Zealand?”
He frowned, thinking. “Three months ago, maybe.”
“And he still hasn’t unpacked?”
“I don’t think he’s ready to admit he’s back. Or that he plans on staying.” He bounced the baby, smile fading.
“You don’t look happy about that.”
He pursed his lips. “I don’t care what he does. Nobody asked him to come back, but he seems to think it’s his responsibility to be the man of the family now or something… But you know, we’ve been okay without him for the past seven years.” Colin paused. “Sorry, that’s probably more than you felt like having dumped on you.”
Libby shrugged, pleased simply to hear about the Nolans, the breed of family she’d have killed to be a part of when she was a kid, flawed or not. “I don’t mind.”
“Well, anyway. I’m going to order some lunch.” He opened a drawer and handed Libby a stack of takeout menus. Soon there was Thai food on the way, and the station they were watching announced Dirty Dancing was coming on at one thirty. Libby didn’t suspect life could get much better…then she wondered what time the other Nolan would be getting home.
Chapter Five
Before he even laid his hand on the pub’s door handle, Reece knew trouble was afoot. No one used their jukebox, though it did apparently work. And none of their afternoon customers would ever play ABBA. He hadn’t even known that album was in there.
He stepped inside and found himself joining a party attended by just about his entire family. His mother was smiling skeptically, standing behind Libby as she attempted some sort of dance with Colin. She interrupted Libby’s movements to adjust her shoulders and arm. The baby was propped on the bar in her car seat, sleeping in spite of the music and excitement.
Colin noticed Reece as the door closed and waved.
Reece dropped his bag on a table and sat near the front to watch the proceedings. He felt a swish of cold air and turned as his sister stepped inside.
“All right, Reece?” Annie stopped behind him and tousled his hair the same way she’d been doing for twenty-five years. “Just saw you pull up and take the good space from under my nose.”
“What in the hell do you make of this?” he asked, wanting his suspicions about how wrong this was confirmed.
Annie smiled at the festivities. “I think it’s the Hustle. Mum used to love doing that when I was little. Look at Colin—he’s not half-bad. Libby’s rubbish, though.”
Reece looked over his shoulder at her to express his surprise.
“I met her earlier, when I dropped the baby off. That’s her name, right?”
“Yeah.” The word tasted sour in Reece’s mouth.
“Why do you sound so annoyed?”
“I don’t want her here.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“She’s trouble.”
“This doesn’t sound like you at all. Did she break your heart or something?” Annie grinned, clearly thrilled to have found a subject that could make Reece squirm.
“She’s a nutjob. And all this is her fault, mark my words.” He circled a finger in the air to indicate the music and the activity.
“Maybe, but how’s that a problem? I mean, when’s the last time you saw either of them having this much fun?” Annie nodded to their brother and mother.
Reece frowned.
“Come on. This place has been Depression Central for the past year. Don’t knock the woman if this is what she’s doing to the family.” Annie mussed his hair again and went to join the nonsense, adding over her shoulder, “Lighten up, Reecie.”
After a few minutes, the jukebox ran out of songs and the excitement wound down. Reece rose and approached the partygoers.
Colin grinned. “Gidday, Reece? Mum was showing us how to do the Hustle. Libby is an atrocious dancer.”
“It’s not my faul
t my legs are like ten feet long,” she cut back.
“How did this…materialize?” Reece asked.
“We were watching Dirty Dancing on the telly after lunch, and you know that lift-thing in it?” Colin asked. “We were trying that out down here when Mum got in.”
Here their mother piped up. “And I said, ‘You want to see dancing?’ Oh, your father and I used to have a knees-up every weekend before you kids came along. Those were the days.”
Annie was right… Reece couldn’t remember the last time their mother had looked this happy, nor the last time there’d been this much life and energy in the pub. He surrendered a small, grudging scrap of gratitude to Libby.
Around four thirty the storm let up enough for Annie and the baby to finally make a run for their car. Libby strolled to the door, prepared to hold it open for them. She got distracted by a framed portrait on the wall of a handsome, smiling man with beefy 1970s sideburns, surely the Nolan family’s late patriarch and the pub’s namesake. She turned to where Mrs. Nolan was tidying up around the bar.
“Damn, Marjorie—Paul was a fox.”
Marjorie brightened in an instant. “Oh, that he was! That was taken the day this place opened, for a story in the paper. The same week Annie was born.”
“Careful, don’t date me, Mum,” Annie added, bundling up her daughter.
Marjorie rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes, thirty-four is such a scandal. All my girlfriends wanted to date Paul back in the old days.” She grinned, her expression warm and smug. “He was the best-looking bloke in Wellington, if I do say so myself.”
Libby looked back to the photo. There was a bit of both Reece and Colin in their father’s face. More of Colin. Reece lacked that easy, effortless charm. His smile rarely extended beyond his mouth, and those eyes always stayed glacial—always cold and just out of reach.
Libby held the door as Annie and the baby brushed past, tendering goodbyes. She headed to the table where Reece was sorting through the day’s mail and took a seat across from him. His eyes acknowledged her before darting back to the pile of envelopes and bar-supply catalogs.
“Have I overstayed my welcome?” Libby asked, in a soft voice that wasn’t her own but that she hoped might work on Reece.
He gave her another scan, and his mouth tightened with some emotion or other. “You’re not far off,” he said, but in a milder tone than she’d expected.
“I’ll head out soon. The storm’s almost let up.”
“Good.”
“Any thoughts about my offer?”
“I’ve heard what you have to say. Please stop asking me about it.” He slit open an invoice and made a grim face.
“Okay. I guess I better get my stuff together. See how my boat’s looking.”
“You probably should.” He kept his attention on the paper, though his still eyes told her he wasn’t reading.
“Well thanks, anyway. For putting up with me staying.” She slid off her seat and paused. “You’ve got a really great family, you know.”
“I know.”
“If I had a family like yours, I never would have left the States.”
He seemed to ponder this comment but didn’t reply or meet her gaze. Libby turned away, knowing it was the most sincere thing she’d managed to say in a long time, and praying it didn’t show.
Reece couldn’t decide if the ocean felt more or less threatening at night. More, judging by the way his heart was hammering his ribs. Or perhaps it was just the long, humiliating march down the main dock that made his stomach churn this way.
He found Libby’s boat easily—it was the only one lit, the glow from inside revealing it to be turquoise with white trim, some kind of converted fishing boat. Libby’s surfboard was locked into a rack along one side. Reece wasn’t sure of the etiquette for calling on someone who lived in a marina but after taking a ragged, fear-tightened breath, he strode up the little gangway to the side of the cabin and knocked.
Libby came to the door a moment later, her mouth dropping open when she saw who was calling.
“Well, this is a surprise.” She leaned against the doorframe with a cricket bat in one hand and scanned Reece lewdly. The softness he’d caught in her when she’d left the pub was long gone, flirtation back with a vengeance.
“Can I have a word?” he asked.
“Sure.” She winked, if he wasn’t mistaken, and propped the bat against the wall.
Reece followed her into the small cabin, most of which was taken up by a foldaway couch, which in turn had a table that folded out from its baseboard. There were books strewn across it, and a radio was quietly reporting the hour’s news. Reece glanced at a messy pile of papers with formulas scrawled all over them. Libby caught him and covered the pages with a notebook.
“What’s with the bat?” he asked.
She glanced at it and shrugged. “A girl’s got to defend herself. Never know who’s going to turn up at your boat late at night, looking to come aboard.” She batted her lashes with exaggerated innocence. “So, what can I do you for?”
She had on nerdy horn-rimmed reading glasses which she now pushed onto the top of her head. She was dressed to lounge in boxers and a long-sleeved T-shirt, flip-flops on her feet. Her wild hair was pulled back into a sloppy bun, pinned in place by what Reece could swear was a candy cane. He noticed another one, half-eaten, on the table beside a tired-looking cup of coffee.
Libby caught his puzzled expression and slid a large tub full of them toward him with her foot.
“No thanks.”
“Suit yourself.” She flopped onto the couch.
“Looks like you survived the storm all right then?”
“Not too bad… You seem nervous,” she added, gloating.
Reece felt the boat move beneath him and decided to let her believe she was the sole cause of his uneasiness. He didn’t like the idea of Libby having too much personal ammo to use against him.
She picked up her candy and peeled the plastic down in an unlikely gesture of seduction.
Reece kept his face blank. “You’ll rot your teeth out on those.”
“Maybe, but I got two hundred of them for like a buck-fifty. And no offense to your hemisphere or anything, but you can’t eat Christmas candy in the summer. These are just coming into season.” She bit an inch off and set the rest down. “So, what can I do you for?”
“I want to discuss your offer.”
“Oh-ho! Well, do have a seat, then.” She patted the other end of the sofa and crossed her long, bare legs, ready to talk business.
Reece disliked that his body was interested in those legs and wished the boat might rock a bit more violently and distract him back into a more tasteful breed of discomfort. He was not attracted to this woman. For starters she was all wrong, physically. She was the sort of shape women thought men wanted—tall and bony and sharp-featured like a fashion model. Not at all to Reece’s taste. He was irritated to even catch himself thinking about it again. He stayed standing, tucking his hands into his pockets.
“How’s your current assignment structured?” Libby asked.
“Basically, your father’s asked me to follow you and take photos. About thirty hours a week of surveillance, as he calls it. If we decide to cooperate, I’ll just need you to give me a list of the places you’d like me to claim you’re frequenting, and what activities you’d be doing. Or want him to think you’re doing. And let me photograph you doing that stuff, maybe two or three times a week. Your dad’s real loose about the rules. He doesn’t care if the photos are time-stamped or any of that, so long as I don’t send him any emails worded in a way that might make him look shady.”
“Easy-peasy. And I’d add I that was never the one unwilling to cooperate.”
“And one caveat,” Reece added sternly.
“Go on.”
“You need to tell me now if you’re actually doing anything illegal. I won’t do this if it means I’m covering up something below board.”
“I’m as pure as the driven snow
, lover.”
Reece frowned. “I need a serious answer from you on that.”
“Don’t worry,” Libby said in a forthright tone. “I’m not doing anything bad.”
He nodded, deciding to believe her. “Fine. So how much are you offering me?”
“I said, what? Twenty percent on top of my dad’s offer?” She stood and went to stare out the windows at the water.
“Yes. And it has to be cash.”
“Obviously.” She turned. “Weekly?”
He nodded.
“How much then?”
“From you?” He’d already done the math. “Four hundred a week, US.”
Libby didn’t bat an eyelash. “Let’s round it up to five. I’ll give you the first installment this Friday.”
“You can…handle that?”
“Sure, lover. I’m loaded. Don’t you know who my family is?” she asked in a bored, flippant tone.
A deep pang of resentment stirred in Reece’s gut but he choked out, “Fine. But I have another term.”
“You said one caveat—”
“Don’t fuck with my brother.”
“Yeah.” Libby turned to him, hands on her hips. “You said already. Twice. So define ‘fuck with’.”
“Don’t…”
“What? Don’t fuck him? Is that what you’re trying to say?” She looked pissed.
“Don’t toy with him. Or lead him on.”
“Want me all for yourself, Nolan?”
“Just don’t. Can you promise me that?”
“Sure,” she said with a shrug.
“Good.” He reached for her hand, meaning to shake it roughly but hesitating when faced with her little finger cast.
“Excellent. I’m so glad you came by, Agent Nolan. Double Agent Nolan.” Libby relaxed as though an invisible switch had been flipped. “Have you eaten? You want to go for a kebab or something? Indian takeaway?”
“No, I just wanted to talk about this…arrangement.”
“Well, I’m very happy you did. Very happy indeed.” She glanced around the cabin with a look of distracted pleasure. “When do you want to meet for the first photo expedition?”
