Headstrong

by Meg Maguire

  “Bull.”

  “She gets off on causing chaos for other people. She flits from one whim to the next on other people’s money.”

  Colin let silence settle for a moment before he spoke again. “Do you even know what Libby did to piss her father off? Aside from accidentally getting pregnant and thrown into an institution?”

  Reece said nothing. The news of a pregnancy gave him pause, but nowhere near enough to soften him.

  “No? Well, I do. I looked her up.” Colin glanced back at Libby, searching for a sign that she wanted him to stop talking. She looked frozen.

  “She’s an inciter, Reece. She helps start riots. In South Africa, and in India and South America. In the States. She finagles grants and invitations to other countries for academic projects, and then she helps organize people.”

  Reece stared at Libby like he was seeing her for the first time. He’d known she must have done something significant to worry her father, but he’d assumed it had been something embarrassing, or mildly illegal. Not downright dangerous.

  “What over?” he asked, looking at her but addressing his brother.

  “Workers’ rights, female circumcision, child trafficking. You know, just silly, frivolous things.” Colin’s casual tone did nothing to mask how angry he was. “Just the sorts of selfish things you’d expect, Reece.”

  “Why aren’t you in jail?” Reece asked her. “How come you’re still allowed to travel?”

  Libby opened her mouth but no words came out.

  “Because her father waves his magic wallet and makes it all go away,” Colin supplied. “And some crooked government official somewhere suddenly has a new car. Google her. She’s been acquitted of about a half a dozen charges of riot incitement. It’s mighty mysterious. You want to see some pictures of Libby? She’s out there, waving signs and shouting into bullhorns and smiling from jail cells, and then poof, she gets yanked out, record clean again.”

  Reece forced a laugh. “And I’m supposed to find that admirable? Breaking the law, then letting your father fix it all for you?”

  Libby finally stepped forward. “I didn’t let him do anything. I wanted to get arrested.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if the daughter of a powerful American university head gets thrown in a foreign prison, the media might want to know why. I thought I could help expose things. Corruption or abuses. I used to believe in things like that,” she said, voice fading.

  “What are you planning to do here?” Reece demanded, his eyes narrowing.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. I gave up. I spent five years trying to make a difference, and I didn’t fix a damn thing. I couldn’t help myself when I was sixteen and I haven’t helped anybody since then. I just make a big mess, wherever I go. I make things worse, the harder I try.” She tossed her hands up. “I just…I wanted to help your family, I guess. I thought maybe I could manage to do that—”

  “This family doesn’t need your fucking fix,” Reece spat.

  His opinion of her hadn’t improved. If anything, with her posture changed, her expression uncertain and vulnerable, she struck him as rather pathetic.

  “I’m off ’til the afternoon,” Colin announced. “When I get back, I don’t want you here.”

  Reece said nothing. He stared at his brother until he left, Libby lingering limply in his wake.

  “Go, Libby.”

  The slam of the front door made her jump.

  “I didn’t want that. For you two to fight.”

  “Well, how upsetting for you. Too bad no one ever thought to warn you not to fuck with my family.” Reece turned his back to her, beginning to toss his few unpacked possessions onto the bed.

  “Sometimes I wonder if your father isn’t right about you,” he added a few moments later, nearly regretting it but still wanting to hurt her. “You come crashing into people’s lives and disrupt everything, to get your fucking kicks or whatever. I used to think maybe I wished I’d never met you,” he said. “But now I know it.”

  She didn’t reply.

  “I’m meeting with your father this afternoon. I’m going to tell him I can’t do this anymore, and that you’re fine. I’m going to tell him to leave you alone. And maybe he’ll even listen, but you know him better than me.” He overturned a drawer onto the bedspread. “I hope you won’t ever tell him that I betrayed his trust, because believe it or not, I do care about my family. I need my record clean so I can join the police and try and help save the bloody business and my mum’s house. So please do that.”

  Her voice was small. “I will.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Reece.”

  He didn’t respond.

  “I wasn’t trying to come between you two.”

  A pause.

  “Close the door behind you, Libby.”

  Chapter Twenty

  Reece knocked three times and waited on his sister’s back step.

  “Reece,” she said as the screen door swung open. “You have to be quiet. I just put the baby down.”

  He stepped inside and Annie pulled out a chair for him at the kitchen table.

  “Tea?”

  “Nah. I have a favor to ask.”

  “All right then.”

  They sat and Reece blew out a weary breath. “Can I stay here for a few days?”

  Annie’s brow furrowed. “Well, yeah, of course. As long as you’re willing to change nappies. But why?”

  “Me and Colin.”

  “Ah. Too cozy in that flat?”

  He nodded. “You could say that. I think it’s best if I find a place in town.”

  “Can I ask what brought this on?”

  “We had a row. An ugly one. About my being gone, and some other things. About how I treat him, I guess.”

  “Like he’s still a kid?”

  Reece blinked, surprised. “Do I really do that?”

  “Yeah, you really do.” Annie might not be comforting, but at least she was frank.

  “Well, he gave me a lot of shit about not being here for the family.”

  “We know you had good reasons, Reece.”

  “He doesn’t seem to agree.” Reece wasn’t sure he agreed, himself. Colin was right—he’d missed the final months of his father’s life, too scared to come home, always putting it off until next week, then the week after that, until it had been too late. But for Colin, he’d come home. He flew back after the accident, and if he’d only been deemed worthy of knowing about the suicide attempt, he sure as hell would’ve been on the first plane out of London.

  “Colin feels passionately about things,” Annie offered. Another thought flashed across her face for a moment, and Reece waited as she decided whether or not to share it. “You don’t know how things were,” she said with a tight smile. “With Dad. It was really terrible. And Colin was the only one who could handle it sometimes. He was the one who kept it together when Dad was…bad. And he drove him to his treatments, and stayed with him overnight—”

  “Colin drove?”

  “Yeah, he did. Mum couldn’t do it. She was too… She just couldn’t. Not at first. I’m not taking sides or anything—I don’t think there’s any to take. But you don’t understand how much Colin did for this family when you were away. For me, too. And he still does. He worked about a hundred hours a week when you were gone, and did everything for the pub while Mom was a wreck, and all that hospital stuff. He took me to my bloody birthing classes, when Mark had to go out of town for work. He must be like sixty years old now, for all the shit he’s been through.”

  “Why didn’t anybody tell me?” Reece asked.

  “I don’t know. I guess none of us wanted you to feel guilty.”

  “Well, I felt pretty bloody guilty now—”

  Annie pressed a finger to her lips.

  He lowered his voice to a loud whisper. “Sorry. But I wish I’d known.”

  She shrugged. “You know now.”

  “Yeah. And at least this time I didn’t hear it from a fucking
acquaintance—”

  “Reece.”

  He shook his head, trying to clear it. “I said some things about Libby. About her using him. And getting too involved in our problems.”

  “I can see why you’d feel threatened by that.”

  Reece hated his sister’s choice of words but he couldn’t deny them. “Anyhow, Colin’s pissed.”

  Annie nodded. “He’s got it bad for her. Like, really bad. And I’ll be honest with you, Reece, I’m happy about it. Colin deserves to get attached to someone. It’s been ages since he trusted himself like that.”

  “I should talk to him,” Reece said.

  “You should give him a day to cool off, if it was nasty. Stay here tonight. Talk to him tomorrow.”

  Fuck fuck fuck.

  Libby sat on a bench in the little brick park by the post office in Courtenay Place. She clutched the letter tight, as if that might change the words on it. It was drizzling and the paper softened until it finally ripped, and she shoved it into her jeans pocket.

  She hadn’t seen this coming. She’d felt so sure that what had happened between her and Colin was going to change things—make everything okay, somehow. She’d wanted to help these people but now everything was a million times worse. She was cursed. Wherever she went, she wrought chaos and solved nothing. All she ever managed to do was hurt people.

  She needed to get away. Run far, far away from what had happened last night. She needed to run so far away that even the memory of it couldn’t find her.

  Reece had been right all along. She should have stayed the fuck away from him.

  Across the table from Reece, Tom Prentiss interlaced his fingers beside his coffee cup and nodded his acceptance. “I’m very sorry to hear that, Mister Nolan.”

  Reece exhaled, relieved their arrangement seemed poised to end smoothly. He’d entered the restaurant that afternoon with his heart pounding, scared witless, knowing he could walk out with his future ruined if he managed to displease this man.

  “I’ve been very grateful for the position, like I said. But I’m going to be starting a new career in a few weeks, and I really need to focus my attention on it. For my family’s sake.”

  “I can appreciate your priorities,” Tom Prentiss said. “But I can’t say I’m not disappointed. You’ve done a good job. What you’ve shown me has been very encouraging.”

  “Well, good.”

  “With one exception.” Prentiss’s tone went cold.

  “Oh?”

  He ran a hand shrewdly over his chin. “My daughter brought a man to dinner with her last night. A man she seems very close to. A man who seems to feel quite strongly about her.”

  “I see.”

  “I fail to understand how it is you never happened upon this relationship.”

  “Well—”

  “And I fail to understand, furthermore, how you could fail to realize my daughter is involved with your brother. I find that fact particularly unbelievable.”

  “Mr. Prentiss—”

  “You have been lying to me,” he said, point-blank.

  Reece could just about see the dust rising as his future crumbled down around him.

  “And I’d like to know why you lied to me.”

  Reece swallowed. “Your daughter…”

  “Yes?”

  “She’s not that bad, Mr. Prentiss,” Reece said with a tiny smile, feeling ridiculous. “She’s fine. She’s really not getting in trouble at all, here. I know her. She found me out, straightaway. We’re friends. Or were. I know she used to be a lot more reckless, but she’s not looking to start anything here, or anywhere else, again.”

  “Go on.”

  “Libby’s too smart and she’s…frankly, she’s too old to be protected. And the simple reason I lied to you was because my family needs the money. I’ll give you back every dollar. But I’m asking you, as one man to another, please don’t make this more difficult than it has to be. For me. Professionally. I’ve got no right to ask that of you, but I’m going to anyway.”

  Tom Prentiss took a stoical sip of his coffee and stared out the window at the traffic for a full minute while Reece waited. His eyes were dark, gray-blue like his daughter’s.

  “Your brother,” he finally said.

  “What about him?”

  “I don’t like him. He treated me with a shocking amount of disrespect.”

  Reece nodded. “I gathered that. I’m sorry.”

  “But my daughter has not always chosen her lovers wisely, Mr. Nolan. She has been used and thrown away before, and I have done everything in my power to protect her and keep her future bright. To keep trash like that away from her whenever it was humanly possible.”

  Reece’s temper roused. “I assure you—”

  “And your brother isn’t like that, Mr. Nolan.”

  Reece sat back in his chair, pacified.

  “Though I find your brother extremely worrisome, I must admit. And I have read enough about him in the past twelve hours to understand that I am not the first father to feel that way.”

  Reece tensed. “I’m sure that’s true, but my brother’s accident was just that. It was an accident.”

  “So I read.”

  “My brother wasn’t drunk, and he hasn’t let himself have a drink since that night, it gutted him so badly. He doesn’t even drive, unless it’s an emergency—”

  “I—”

  “I’ll ask you not to interrupt me, please. My brother’s punished himself harder over that night than any prison sentence or any grief-stricken parent could ever dream to. He’s paid his penance. And it was an accident.” Reece paused before making a dangerous decision to keep talking. “Surely you’ve done things in your life that hurt people? Even though it wasn’t your intention?”

  “You don’t need to spell it out for me, Mr. Nolan. And I’ll suggest that you know as little about it as I claim to know about your brother’s…accident.”

  Reece drummed his fingers on the table. The waitress approached, and his companion waved her off with a gracious hand.

  “I’m not my brother’s keeper,” Reece said, flustered.

  “No, but I am my daughter’s father.”

  “Yes.”

  Prentiss leaned back and clasped his hands atop the table. “I’ll tell you what’s going to happen now, Mr. Nolan.”

  Eight thirty. No Libby.

  Too early to panic. So why was Colin panicking?

  When his shift had started, he’d been happy. Truly happy for the first time in years, even after the way he’d left things with his brother.

  Reece had been gone when Colin got home, his room as bare as it had been before he’d moved in. Their mother had been cheerful when Colin returned from the city, and he didn’t breathe a word of the fight. He hoped he and Reece could reach a diplomatic ceasefire and spare her the stress. Colin had been optimistic today. Uncharacteristically so.

  All day, thinking of Libby’s arms around him, the memory making him warm. Making him hot, thinking of the other contact they’d shared…

  Now the heat was waning. The glow he’d felt the entire day had started to dim as soon as the hour hand hit six. Colin needed her to show up. He needed the reassurance. The confirmation and the proof. He paced in the narrow space behind the bar, feeling caged.

  He’d wanted her to show up at six ten. No, at six, sharp. Smiling. Unwilling to wait any longer, unwilling to waste even those few minutes, knowing their time was ultimately limited. But now…nine o’clock?

  A torturous pattern set in. Greet a customer. Pour a drink. Stare at the door. Each time it swung in, a sick feeling of hope and dread rose in him, dread always prevailing. Each patron who came in and didn’t end up being Libby… Colin hated each of them a little more than the person before.

  Nine thirty.

  He wanted to call her, but the desire wasn’t enough—she didn’t own a fucking phone.

  Ten o’clock.

  Colin wasn’t a proud man. If this were reversed, he’d have been c
amped out like a dog by five, waiting for her to arrive. But he’d never expect her to do the same. For all her chaotic airs, she was a cautious woman, and she was the sort of woman who would make a man wait. Make him sweat. But last night had seemed stripped bare of politics and games. So had that morning in the kitchen.

  Ten thirty. What had gone on after he’d left? What could she and Reece have talked about? What terms had they parted on, and what threats could his brother have made? And what if… What if Reece did care for her? He’d certainly been pissed to high heaven that morning. What if seeing them together, Colin and Libby, what if that had been the one thing strong enough to get Reece to admit his feelings?

  No, that was madness. Or was it?

  Fuck, why wasn’t she here?

  Colin had known all along this would happen. She didn’t care for him that way. She’d told him exactly that, and he’d been able to accept it for the past month. One night of great sex wasn’t going to change things, not for good.

  It had been more than great sex for him, of course. It had been the single most desperately, painfully, heartbreakingly satisfying night of his life, and the closest he’d ever felt to another person. But that was him. Why assume Libby would feel the same? She’d been hoping to feel that too, but with Reece. She wanted his brother as much as Colin wanted her. God, he’d been right. He was a consolation prize. A pity-fuck, even, or a pale facsimile of the lover she’d really been after.

  Eleven o’clock.

  Midnight.

  One.

  One thirty, and he had to get the customers out before he risked a visit from the cops for serving past their legal hours. He was tempted to invite people to stay for a lock-in, just for the company. Hell, he was tempted to have a drink himself, for the first time in all these years. How about that. The things that woman could do…

  He’d been right, weeks ago—a siren. Luring men to their peril. Smart men like Reece stayed away, far from the waves, safe on shore with their hands clamped over their ears.

  Colin clicked the television off.