The sleek little car responded like a dream, narrowly missing the rail that wouldn’t have been nearly strong enough to keep them from plummeting down the side of a cliff.
When he had the car under control again, he pulled in a deep breath, dropped their speed and drove on. “That was too close.”
“Too much talking, not enough concentrating.”
“Damn it, Mike. You don’t understand.”
“Don’t want to, either.” Her insides went cold and stiff. Her heart ached and what was probably a good dose of self-pity was already setting up shop in one corner of her soul. Fine. She’d deal with it later.
“Just shut up and drive, okay?”
Lucas dropped her off at the hospital.
He watched her drag her suitcase behind her as she walked away without a backward glance. His chest tight, he thought about following her. Grabbing her. Making her listen.
But what the hell could he say?
“No.” Better this way. Better that they both back off and try to get a little perspective.
Steering the car back out onto the street, he headed through the quiet town of Chandler, which was just beginning to wake up, and tried not to think. Hell, it’d be best if he could just wipe the last twenty-four hours from his memory.
But somehow, he couldn’t make himself want that.
What he’d found with Mike in those few hours had been better than anything he’d experienced in the last four years. Hell. Five years.
He drove down Main Street and noticed the lights on at the Leaf and Bean. He almost stopped for coffee, but he’d have had to be civil and, at the moment, that was asking for a little too much.
Damn it.
He shouldn’t have shut Mike out like that.
But it was instinctive.
He’d been keeping his life his life for so long now, he didn’t know if he could let anyone else in. Because the last time he had, tragedy had taken a chunk out of him that he’d never really gotten back. And because he was so busy pulling back from her, he’d damn near sent them both over a cliff.
“Good job,” he muttered and scraped his hand over his face.
Once off Main Street, he made a left and passed the darkened movie theater on the way to the lake road. Lamplight glimmered in a few of the houses he passed and he welcomed each one. Nothing worse than feeling completely alone in the dark.
But then, hadn’t he chosen to be alone?
“Too damn early for self-examination,” he said firmly and squeezed the steering wheel tight enough to break it in two.
He worried about Mike.
About her father.
About what he’d done to her with a few harsh words.
But he quashed the beginnings of guilt. He’d already done enough of that to last a lifetime and he was done with it.
Above him, dawn lightened the sky into pale shades of rose and gold. On either side of the road, trees loomed close like silent sentinels watching him pass. He pulled the car into his drive, drove straight to the side of the house, and turned off the engine. Leaving his bags in the trunk, he headed around to the front door, steps dragging, mind racing.
All around him, nature was waking up.
He heard the ducks on the lake.
The birds in the trees.
The lap of the water against the shore.
And a too familiar voice.
Cold splintered inside Lucas and the jagged shards sliced at him. He felt as though he were breaking into pieces. He almost expected to rattle as he took first one step then another, forcing himself to move forward even when everything in him was telling him to leave. Get back in the car and drive away.
He rounded the corner of the house and stopped dead.
“Justin.”
The man and woman sitting on the front steps turned to look at him. The woman, a tall redhead, with loose curls flowing down her back, stood up slowly and moved to stand in front of his brother in a protective gesture that was unmistakable.
“Hello, Lucas,” Justin said and reached for the woman’s hand, pulling her back to his side. “You really should’ve answered those e-mails.”
Lucas swallowed back the rising tide of fury that was nearly choking him. His gaze locked on the twin he hadn’t seen in four years and his hands curled into fists at his sides.
In the first, gentle light of dawn, Justin looked hideous. His face was drawn, his eyes deeply shadowed, and his clothes were hanging on him as if they’d been made for a much bigger man. Quickly, Lucas looked at the woman, and even in the soft light, he saw and noted the glint of battle in her narrowed green eyes.
He swallowed hard and shifted another look at his brother. When he thought he could force the words past his tight throat, he said, “Justin, you look like shit.”
A brief ghost of what had once been his twin’s charm-filled smile crossed his face. “Yeah, well,” he said with a shrug, “that’s what dying will do for you.”
11
“Are you going to stand there staring at us all morning as though we’re animals in the zoo?” the redhead asked, one hand at her hip. “Or, now that you’re finally home at the very creak of daybreak, will you invite your brother in to sit down?”
Lucas blinked, and shook his head as if that might help him understand what was going on. It didn’t. The tall, pretty woman was staring at him as if she already hated his guts. “Who’re you?”
“This is Bridget,” Justin said, giving her a half-smile. “Bridget Donohue.”
“Just Bree,” she said, returning that smile before shifting to give Lucas a look most people reserved for a rabid dog just before they shot him. “Now, will you be opening that door or must I put a brick through a window?”
He didn’t doubt she’d do it. She looked like an Irish Amazon. Long red hair in thick, heavy curls fell nearly to her waist. She had a stubborn chin and creamy white skin scattershot with golden freckles. Her mouth was pinched and thinned into a razor-sharp line and her eyes were still shooting arrows at him.
Chest tight, Lucas stalked past the couple, taking the steps two at a time and muttering under his breath. Last night had started out great and ended with a thudding crash. Looked like his morning wasn’t getting any better. He unlocked the front door, pushed it wide, then stepped back. He didn’t want to look behind him at Justin.
Didn’t want to face the brother he hadn’t seen in four years.
Didn’t want to have to acknowledge the change in the man who’d once been considered the most eligible bachelor in San Francisco.
Because Justin was dying.
Even if he hadn’t said so, the truth was plain enough.
And there was only one reason Justin would come to him now.
He’d come to be forgiven.
But Lucas couldn’t—wouldn’t—give him that.
“There now, love, just a few steps and you’re inside, out of the damp.” The song of Ireland laced Bridget’s voice, words sliding one after the other with a kind of rhythm and music that no other country could claim.
But more than her accent came through in her tone. It was affection, concern.
Love.
A cold fist tightened in the pit of his stomach. Even now, dying, Justin had found something Lucas had given up on four years ago.
Bitterness roared into life and his brain raced with memories he usually shut down the moment they appeared. This time, though, he let the images come, flooding him with remembrance, strengthening his resolve against his brother. He’d allowed himself to be talked into trying to bridge the gap between them once before—four years ago—and it had cost him more than he’d ever thought possible.
He closed his heart to whatever was coming next and walked into his house. Each footstep sounded out against the dark red tiles like a solitary heartbeat. But when Justin and the woman followed him inside, that solitude was shattered.
“Nice place,” Justin said breathlessly.
“Thanks.”
“Come on, love, onto the sofa.” Bridget
steered Justin toward the main room and the pair of forest-green sofas facing each other. Sofas Mike had picked out, sitting on a patterned dark green rug he’d had to fight her to keep. Even when she wasn’t here, Mike’s presence was felt. At least by him.
“Rest a minute and I’ll make you some tea.” She lifted her sharp, accusing gaze to Lucas. “You do have tea?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged one shoulder. “I, uh, think so.”
Justin chuckled. “Luke’s a coffee man, honey. Tea’s for girls and grandmas, right?”
Luke. Justin had always been the only one to call him that. And as a kid, Lucas had liked it. Made him feel less a nerd and more like one of the guys. But that was a long time ago. They weren’t those two kids, joined at the hip, facing the world down together anymore. And hadn’t been for a long time.
And he resented the hell out of the fact that Justin was acting as if he still knew him.
“There’s tea,” he said and tossed his car keys onto the closest table. They skidded across the polished surface and fell to the floor, clattering against the tiles. He left them there and shoved his hands into his pockets. “In the pantry.”
“Fine, then,” Bridget said, with a studied look at him that clearly warned him to watch his step. “I’ll just go and make some.”
Lucas stared her down as she passed him. Damn it, how had his life come to this? That two strong-willed women stomped all over his world and made him think about looking for cover? And this one, he didn’t even know.
“Watch out for her,” Justin said on a laugh as she stalked away. “Got a head like a rock and a temper that’ll singe the hair off your head.”
“Who is she?” Lucas asked, stepping into the living room. Not because he wanted to talk to his brother, damn it, but because he’d be damned if he’d stand hiding in the hallway while Justin made himself at home in his house.
“I told you—”
“Yeah. Bridget. But who is she and why is she in my house?”
Justin sat up straighter on the overstuffed cushion, but still looked as if it took all his will simply to hold his head up. “I met her a few months ago. In Ireland.”
“You were in Ireland?”
He nodded. “Went to see where our folks came from. Mom and Dad never really wanted to go back, but remember how we used to talk about going?”
He did. They’d once planned grand adventures together. Then those plans had been lost in time as goals changed—hell. As they’d changed.
“I was staying at Ashford Castle. Great place, by the way,” he said, with a hint of the smile Lucas had once known. “Grand fountains, its own golf course, and right next to this tiny village where they filmed that old movie, The Quiet Man. It’s called Cong.”
Lucas snorted. “As in King?”
Justin laughed quietly. “Trust me, they don’t like that pun. Anyway, Bridget worked in a pub there and we got to be . . . friends.”
Not surprising. Justin’d always had a way with women. All women, he remembered tightly, feeling a flash of old pain and envy reach up and snag him around the throat. He tried to let it go. He glanced around the living room, enjoying the play of early sunlight streaming through the leaded windows to fall in diamond-shaped patterns across the furniture.
He reminded himself that a lot of things had changed in the four years since he’d seen his brother. He wasn’t the same man he’d been then. He didn’t have to let Justin—dying or not—come back into his world just to shake it up.
Scraping one hand across his face, he looked down at his brother and tried not to notice how worn and tired the other man looked.
More, he tried not to care.
“She’s really something. Bree, I mean. Never took any of my shit. Gave it right back to me every time.” He shook his head slowly, obviously lost in memories he enjoyed. “All my best lines fell flat. She laughed at me, Luke. And finally, when she found me after a long night of drinking toasts to my dwindling health, she told me I was a disgrace to myself and my good Irish name.”
Hmm. Maybe he and Bridget would get along, after all.
“And after she got finished reaming me,” Justin was saying, “she kissed me and said she thought there might be a man inside me somewhere and she was just curious enough about it to stick around and find out.” He shrugged. “She’s been with me ever since.”
Admiration flickered to life inside Lucas. She’d stuck with Justin even through this illness. Which made her a very special woman who loved him—or, he thought, a woman who was trying to get her hands on the Gallagher money quick, before her meal ticket could die on her.
Lucas determined to find out which.
“And before you start thinking she’s after the family money,” Justin said as if reading his mind, “forget it. She didn’t know about it when we met. And she won’t take anything from me now that she does know. Hell, I had to fight her to get her to come on the family jet rather than fly here on Aer Lingus.”
Lucas pulled his hands from his pockets and walked closer to the sofa. “You used the family jet? Why didn’t I hear about that?”
Didn’t surprise him any. Justin had been living the high life off their father’s invention for years. He hadn’t bothered getting an actual job. He much preferred the life of a do-nothing playboy.
Go with your strengths.
Justin shrugged. “Whatever you think of me, I’m still a Gallagher. I can use the damn plane without checking in with you first.”
“I didn’t mean—” Hell, he didn’t know what he meant. It was a lot to take in all at once.
Justin dying, a pissed-off Irish barmaid in his kitchen, Mike furious with him, her father in the hospital.
Jesus.
Could somebody just stop the damn world so he could catch his breath?
“Anyway,” Justin said, “Bridget’s the reason I’m here.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning,” he said on a sigh, “she wouldn’t give me any peace until I agreed to come and see you. To try to—”
“What?” Lucas interrupted, moving to take a seat on the arm of the sofa opposite his brother. “Apologize? Again? No, thanks. Not interested.”
His brother’s eyes, so much like his own, glittered with emotion, but Lucas refused to be drawn back in. He wouldn’t be Justin’s straight man again. He wasn’t going to give his brother the chance to fuck with his life. Not this time. Not when he’d finally found a little peace himself.
“Tell your girlfriend this is a waste of time.”
“I did.”
“She doesn’t listen real well.”
“Tell me about it,” Justin muttered. “Damn woman’s got a head as hard as those stone fences rambling all over her country.”
Hell. Lucas knew what dealing with a woman like that was like. And instantly, his brain shifted to Mike. Damned if he didn’t wish she were there.
“So we understand each other.”
“Hell, yes. It’s Bridget who doesn’t get it.” He shook his head slowly and a lock of hair fell across his forehead. He started to reach up to push it away, but then apparently decided he was too tired and let his hand drop to his side. “She comes from a big family. Four brothers, a mother, and a million or so cousins.” He smiled. “I swear, she’s related to half of County Mayo. Anyway, she thinks family’s everything.”
Definitely a lot like Mike, then, Lucas thought, remembering the stark panic on her face as they drove through the night to the hospital. Worry and love for her father had pulsed around her like a neon light blinking on and off. And when she’d tried to draw him out, get him to talk about his family as she did hers, he’d slammed the door in her face. Not just because he didn’t want to tell her about Justin and the long, miserable road of problems behind them—but because as close as she was to her sisters, he knew he’d never be able to make her understand how he and his brother could be so far apart.
And damn it, he didn’t want her pity.
Didn’t want her feeling sorry for
him because he didn’t have what she had.
Justin leaned forward, bracing his elbows on knees that looked bony right through the fabric of the too new jeans he wore. He stared hard at Lucas. “Do you think I wanted to be here?”
“Then why the hell are you?”
Justin smiled. “I told you. I’m dying.”
No doubt about that.
There was no way for anyone to fake looking as bad as Justin did. His skin was sallow, his hair lank, and weight seemed to have dropped off the man who’d once been athlete of the year in college. Dying.
Justin was dying.
And all Lucas felt was . . . resentment.
What the hell kind of dick did that make him?
“What is it you want me to say, Justin?” Lucas asked, congratulating himself on keeping his voice steady, even.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. Sighing, he added, “I know you don’t want to see me. But I guess I wanted to see you.”
“Typical.” Lucas slid off the arm of the sofa and landed on the cushion. Anger snapped and crackled inside him. “What Justin wants, Justin gets, and screw the rest of the world, is that it?”
A matching temper flickered in his twin’s eyes for a moment before it was replaced with the wry spark of humor that Lucas would always associate with him. “Damn straight. Leopards don’t change their spots, right? And bastards don’t earn halos by dying.”
“That what you’re shooting for?” A bark of incredulous laughter shot from Lucas’s throat. “A halo?”
“Hell no.” Justin laughed again, and this time, the laughter dissolved into a fit of coughing that had his face turning beet red as he gasped for air.
Lucas curled his hands into the cushion and fought his own instincts to go to him. His brother had been getting along without him for four years; he could make it through a coughing jag without him, too.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Justin caught his breath, held up one hand as if refusing help that hadn’t come, and said, “I don’t think there’s a halo waiting for me, Luke. Just a pitchfork and a front-row seat in front of the fire.”
Reaching up, Lucas stabbed his hands through his hair, dragging his fingernails across his scalp as if he could distract himself with pain. It didn’t work. And he had to know. “What’s wrong with you?”
A Crazy Kind of Love Page 14