by A. M. Mahler
Ryan hung in for the first thirty laps. The race was thus far uneventful. No cautions, no funny business—just good, clean racing. But fans didn’t come for that. When he heard the familiar sounds of a wreck, his heart started to pound, as it always did. Safety technology in race cars had come a long way, but nothing was completely foolproof. He looked up at the jumbo television above the leaderboard and saw immediately that his father wasn’t in the wreck.
But Jimmy Reilly was.
Ryan began to walk toward Reilly’s team. Les was frantically shouting into his microphone, trying to reach Jimmy on the radio. Ryan’s heart rate picked up speed as he realized Les wasn’t getting a response. He saw Jackie pull off the headphones as she clambered down from the stand. The number 23 car was on its roof, and there was no driver crawling out to wave at the crowd. As Jackie took a couple steps forward, so did Ryan. He couldn’t say why he felt the need to be close to her then, but he couldn’t shake the urge to protect her.
When the car caught fire, Jackie screamed and began to run. She got all the way across pit road to the infield before Ryan caught her around the waist and held tight. She continued to scream and cry. Each second that went by without Jimmy getting out of the car, the inevitable began to sink in.
Every gut-wrenching sob she released tore through Ryan as he held her tight. They dropped to their knees. He wished with all of his being that he could absorb even a little of her pain, but as she began to heave, he knew he couldn’t. It wasn’t until they were surrounded by both their fathers’ crews that Ryan understood the cameras had found them and were splashing the most painful moment of Jackie’s life on television for the world to see.
How long they stayed like that, Ryan didn’t know, but he was never more relieved than when he heard his father shoving everyone aside to get to them. “Get out of my fucking way!” Toby yelled, bursting through to the center of the circle.
He knelt down next to the two teenagers and ran a hand over Jackie’s hair. She had stopped her screaming and was now trembling in Ryan’s arms. “Let’s go,” Toby ordered Ryan. “Let’s get her back to her trailer.”
“It’s all right, Jackie,” Ryan whispered. “I’m here with you. I won’t leave your side.”
She didn’t answer, but neither did she fight Ryan as he rose and tugged her with him. Toby came to her other side, and together, they flanked her and kept her hidden as best they could as they jumped into a waiting security truck.
A crowd had already gathered around Jimmy’s private mobile home. The police pushed everybody back as Jackie dug her key out of her pocket and handed it to Toby. They hustled her inside and Toby moved around closing all the blinds while Ryan settled Jackie down onto the couch. Like Toby’s private bus, Jimmy Reilly’s was large, outfitted in luxury. They were not the typical trailers you saw on campgrounds across America but traveling five-star accommodations. All the top drivers traveled in style. It kept them isolated from excited fans at hotels.
Toby turned the television on as Ryan got Jackie a glass of water.
“Did they get him out of the car?” she whispered, her throat raw from screaming.
“Yeah, baby,” Toby said. “They flew him out.”
“What am I going to do?” She dropped her face into her hands and took a deep breath. “He’s all the family I had.”
“That’s not true,” Toby said forcefully. “You got us, and we’re going to take care of you.”
“He was sorry about whatever happened between you two, Toby. You should know that,” Jackie said, as fresh tears began to slide down her cheeks.
“I know he was.” Toby reached over and squeezed her hand. “So was I. It was stupid and I overreacted.”
Before either Jackie or Ryan could respond to that, there was a quick rap on the door.
Toby cracked it open just enough to see Les Gordon standing next to the police officer stationed at the door. Just behind him stood two racing executives. Toby stood back to let them in, then slammed the door on all the yelling reporters and flashbulbs outside.
“Ms. Reilly.” A tall, balding, impeccably dressed man nodded solemnly to her.
Jackie recognized him as Clint Marcus, the commissioner of racing.
“He’s gone,” she nodded. “I know. I knew as soon as the car stopped rolling.”
“You have all of racing’s condolences, Jackie.”
She saw how difficult it was for the men in the trailer to maintain their composure, and she appreciated how strong they were being for her. A day like this was a loss for them all.
“There will be a full investigation into the accident, I promise you,” Clint said.
“Did you hear anything, Les?” Jackie asked, turning to her father’s crew chief. “Did he say anything at all while it was happening, or right after?”
“Well, he cussed like a champ while he rolled, but he stopped just before the car did,” Les said gently.
Jackie nodded and took a deep, shuddered breath. “Maybe it was fast then.”
“I’m sure it was,” Ryan jumped in. He slid closer and put his arm around her.
On instinct, Jackie dropped her head to his shoulder.
As the men moved back to the door, Toby pulled Les and Clint aside. “All updates on the investigation come to me,” Toby said firmly. “Not Jackie.”
“Of course,” Clint said. “But we need to speak to her next of kin.”
“And you will,” Toby replied. “I’ll be in tomorrow with everything you need.”
Les gave Toby a questioning look but followed the commissioner out without a word.
“I think I’ll go lay down for a bit,” Jackie said. She pulled away from Ryan and headed back toward the two small but comfortable bedrooms at the back of the bus.
“Goddamn, Dad,” Ryan said, running his hands over his face.
Toby moved to the refrigerator and pulled out two beers. He slid one across the table to his seventeen-year-old son. Ryan arched a brow in question, but Toby just popped his bottle open and took a long pull.
“Go ahead,” Toby said. “You’re not driving anywhere, and you’re under parental supervision. I won’t let you have another, but we could both use one right now.”
Ryan shrugged and pulled the top off his beer. It wasn’t like he’d never had one—or several—before, but he’d certainly never had one with or near his dad.
“Jimmy Reilly’s dead.”
“Yup,” Toby replied, taking another long sip of his beer. “And that girl is our responsibility now.”
“How do you figure? Clint said he was going to notify Jackie’s next of kin.”
“Well, he’ll be in for a real shock when he pulls Jimmy’s records and discovers that’s you.”
Two
“I’M SORRY,” JACKIE said from the doorway. “What did you say?”
Toby’s eyes widened when he saw that she had returned. He hadn’t intended to drop that particular bomb on her just yet—and certainly not in that manner. He hadn’t been thinking when he’d blurted it out to Ryan.
“I thought you were going to sleep,” Toby said defensively.
“I came back for some Tylenol,” Jackie replied. “I have a headache.”
Ryan jumped up and began rummaging through kitchen cabinets before he found the medicine stash. Then he shoved the bottle at Jackie, who seemed a little stunned. She opened it, shook a few pills out, and washed them down with the glass of water Ryan handed her.
“I don’t think I’m following.” Jackie shook her head in confusion. “My brain is pretty fuzzy right now. Ryan and I are related?”
“Yes,” Toby confirmed.
“Am I related to you?” she asked Toby.
“No.”
“How exactly are we related?” Ryan demanded.
“You’re brother and sister,” Toby replied.
Ryan’s eyes grew wide. He sat down at the table when his knees gave out and took several long swallows from his beer.
If Jackie thought it was strange tha
t Ryan was seventeen and drinking alcohol, she didn’t say anything.
“How is that possible?” Ryan asked.
Jackie seemed to no longer be able to speak. In one day, she’d lost her father and gained a brother.
“You share a mother.” Toby sat down at the table and motioned for Jackie to join them, but her legs wouldn’t move. “That’s what happened between me and Jimmy. Daisy Dolan and I were engaged, and she got pregnant with Ry. But after she had the baby, she broke it off and left me. She walked away from me and Ryan. Shortly after that, she took up with Jimmy. They spent exactly one night together after getting drunk at a bar after a race. She got pregnant again with you, Jackie, then she pulled the same stunt. Left you and Jimmy behind. Neither one of us has heard from her in all this time. I’m not even sure if she’s still alive.
“At first, I was too blinded with anger to hear anything Jimmy had to say. After a few years, there were too many hard feelings over the things each of us had said about the other. Nothing but stupid pride kept us from clearing the air. Jimmy and I only spoke one time since you were born, Jackie. We made an agreement and handed over the whole thing to our lawyers, who drew up the necessary paperwork. If something happened to one of us, the other would make sure you two kids were together. Then—and only then—would we tell you the truth. Unless, of course, you tried to date. Not too long ago, Jimmy updated his paperwork and sent me copies. He wanted Jackie to stay with Ryan and go to Trent Academy with him, but that’s not something we have to think about right this minute.
“For now, Jackie, just know that you have family, and we’re going to take care of you. We’ll be with you from here on out, and there’s nothing you will have to worry about or want for. I’ll handle all your father’s affairs. I owe him that much.”
Ryan dropped his face into his hands. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t think. A sister? Jackie Reilly was his sister? He felt a soft hand on his chin and lifted his head.
Jackie was studying him.
“It’s true,” she said with wonder. “We have similar features. I always wondered why you never asked me out on a date. Oh, every other thing in a skirt, but never me. I thought I must look funny, or maybe I was boring.”
Ryan took her hand and smiled. “No, you’re neither. I used to try to make myself interested. I thought it would be so convenient if we got together in the summers, but it never worked.”
“It’s nice to know there’s nothing wrong with me.”
“Or me,” Ryan said. When Jackie stayed silent, his jaw dropped. “Oh, there is nothing at all wrong with me, honey.”
“I didn’t say there was,” she finally laughed. “I just could never see us together that way, either.”
“All right, that’s enough of this talk,” Toby interjected. “You’re giving me the creeps. Jackie, why don’t you go get some rest? We have a lot of ground to cover, but we’ll leave that for tomorrow.”
She sighed but took Toby’s advice. This time she closed her door. After a few minutes, her crying could be heard.
Ryan and Toby left her to grieve.
Three
RYAN STOPPED THE car at the gate of Trent Academy and let his sister take her first look at their home for the next ten months. He watched her as she surveyed her surroundings, which were similar to the old, towering universities like Harvard and Yale. Trent didn’t have quite the august history of those schools, but Jackie knew the rich and famous sent their kids here—actors, politicians, athletes, CEOs, writers, filmmakers—even two Presidents’ children had attended Trent Academy. The physical fitness program produced Olympians. As Toby had told her, she was lucky to get squeezed in.
For Jackie, it was just another huge change in her life to get used to.
She knew Ryan was watching her closely. How strange that after all these years, she suddenly had a brother just about her own age. She could even see a resemblance between them. They both had striking blue eyes, blond hair, and healthy tans. Jackie’s hair was sun-bleached, while Ryan’s was more dirty-blond. They looked like they had wiled away their summer on the beach, instead of where they’d actually spent it—on the stock car circuit.
“Jacks,” Ryan said, squeezing her hand and then letting it go.
Jackie looked over and gave him a smile, but Ryan could see she was terrified.
“It’s going to be okay. Dad made them give us a two-room suite. They’re usually reserved for visiting teachers, but they accommodated him.”
“How’d he get the suite?”
“Are you kidding?” Ryan laughed. “I’ve been coming here for eleven years. My father donates crazy money to this school, and he spent a chunk of that time serving on the Board of Trustees. The boys’ dorm is even named after him.”
“Do you like it here?” Jackie asked. “I mean, really?”
“Usually,” he admitted. “Sure, it sucks being away from family, but that’s not the case anymore, right?”
“Do you have a lot of friends here?”
“Well, I have a lot of people that want to be my friend here. There are few I consider my actual friends. Those that I do, you’ll like.”
“What do you mean, there’s a lot of people that want to be your friend?”
“Well, at the risk of sounding egotistical, I’m kind of the popular guy here. Which is precisely why I don’t have a lot of real friends—too many of them are just trying to use me to climb up the social ladder, especially the kids on scholarships, or the kids of non-celebrities. They’re looking for a way in. Some of them are cool, but some you just know aren’t genuine. So, I keep my friends close. Has that ever happened to you?”
Jackie sighed and looked back at the school as Ryan started up the rolling driveway. “I’ve never had real friends,” she said, looking out the window.
“What do you mean, you’ve never had friends?” Ryan demanded. “How is that possible? You’re pretty, nice, and smart.”
“I think you’ve grown a little biased,” Jackie smiled, looking at him. “I’ve got eyes in my head. I may have blonde hair, blue eyes, and a beach girl’s tan, but the rest of my features are mostly plain. And I'm shy.” She looked down at her chest. “Besides, most boys tend to go for what I haven’t got.”
“Believe me when I say that’s fine with me,” Ryan said. “The less guys I have to beat back from you, the better.”
“I’m not a party girl, Ry,” Jackie replied. “I had a private tutor, a nanny, and a governess who traveled the circuit with us.”
“You know what? At least you were with your dad. I was stuck here.”
“I was only with my dad because he was convinced something horrible was going to happen to me.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know.” Jackie shook her head. “Maybe he thought our mother would come back, but he was always paranoid. My governess—I don’t think that’s all she was. She carried a gun.”
“Your governess carried a gun?” Ryan asked, astonished, as they entered the student parking lot.
“Yeah, that’s how paranoid my dad was.”
He thought about that as he found a spot and pulled his Mercedes SUV into it. A governess having a gun was strange, but maybe Jimmy Reilly wasn’t paranoid at all. Maybe he had a good reason for hiring security for his daughter. Perhaps there was a real threat that Jackie didn’t know about. Ryan knew security at the school seemed pretty good—after all, politicians’ kids came here. But he also wondered just how tight it actually was.
“You know, for a loner, you sure do travel with a lot of crap.” He pulled open the rear door and gestured into the back. “Three-quarters of that shit’s yours.”
“Hey, I may be plain and quiet, and what some might call a nerd, but that’s no reason not to dress nice.”
“You are kind of nerdy. You had your face in a book all summer.”
“I looked up enough to see you eyeing all the girls,” she shot back. “You had an awful lot of first dates there, big brother.”
“Get
your mind out of the gutter,” he said as he began to haul suitcases out, looking around for a school porter. “They weren’t all like that.”
“Oh, but some of them were?”
“Some might have been,” he smirked, looking at her out of the corner of his eye.
Jackie rolled her eyes and tugged on one of her Kate Spade suitcases. As it came loose, she staggered back under the unexpected weight.
Suddenly, a hand materialized out of nowhere and grabbed the bag. Another took hold of her arm.
“Whoa!” she heard Ryan call out as she stumbled back.
“Oh, sorry,” Jackie said and stood up. “Thanks.”
She turned to see who had come to her rescue and was surprised when it wasn’t Ryan.
“Take it easy and leave the heavy lifting to your boyfriend,” a deep voice said.
Jackie looked up and tried not to gape at the boy in front of her. He had deep green eyes and shaggy dark hair. His nose looked like it might have been previously broken. He was wearing torn jeans, a heavy metal band T-shirt, and a leather jacket. A tattoo peeked out from his collar.
“He’s my brother,” Jackie whispered, instantly stepping back and looking down at her feet. She cursed her shyness. She wanted to continue looking at this intriguing boy, but she just couldn’t bring her eyes up.
The boy looked over at Ryan, expressionless. “Willis,” he acknowledged coldly.
“McKenzie,” Ryan replied in an equally distasteful way.
“You didn’t have a sister last year.”
“Well, I have one this year.” Ryan stepped closer to Jackie and put his arm over her shoulder, a clear signal to the boy to keep his distance.
The boy named McKenzie looked at Jackie one more time, then turned away, slung his large duffel bag over his shoulder, hoisted up a guitar, and headed up to the school.
“You’re here three minutes and already you’re starting trouble,” Ryan muttered, nudging her to the side. He took over unloading the car, motioning over a free porter.