Home for Christmas (19 page)

Dabney settled deeper under his lap blanket, a morose expression pulling at his lined, weathered face. “When you get to be as old as I am, missy, you'll see the value in not wasting any effort.”

Libby was starting to get a better idea of how her grandfather had alienated his entire family. It made her think twice about asking him for help on Uncle Ray's behalf, especially knowing how much Ray would hate it. She bit her lip.

Maybe if she made it seem like the money was for her, she'd feel less guilty about ignoring her uncle's wishes. “Grandfather. There is a way you could help me.”

“Oh?” He perked up a little, and Libby's heart constricted. Yes, he could be grumpy and demanding, critical and too quick with a harsh word—but how could anyone miss the fact that Dabney Leeds would do anything for the people he loved?

“Yes,” Libby said with more confidence. “There's this health issue that … that I have. It's ongoing and—oh, don't worry, it's not life threatening! But it does require specialized treatment. Expensive medications. That kind of thing.”

The concern faded from Dabney's face to be replaced by a disconcerting look of calculation. “So that's why you agreed to this charade. You need money.”

“That's part of it,” Libby said honestly, surreptitiously crossing her fingers that he wouldn't ask too many questions about the medical issue.

“But now that you're here, and you see how I live and how important our family is on the island, you think maybe there's an easier way to get that money.” Dabney planted his feet on the floor and clutched at his cane to help him stand up. “Well, too bad. I'm not giving you a red cent just so you can scoot on out of here and never speak to me again!”

“Grandfather!” Libby reached out to steady him, her skin prickling with humiliation and regret. “That's not what I meant—I don't want to leave, and I certainly have no intention of cutting you off.”

“Well, I'm not giving you the chance,” Dabney yelled, jerking free of Libby's helping hands and hobbling to wrench open the door. “You're sticking around through Christmas, like we agreed, and that's final.”

She flinched at the slam of the door behind him and all the air that seemed sucked out of the room with him. Shoulders drooping, Libby pressed her hands to her eyes and wondered how that conversation went so very wrong.

*   *   *

Owen had never understood people who refused to apologize for anything. He'd known a lot of guys like that in the army—men who thought that saying they were sorry, that they'd been wrong, was the same as admitting a weakness. Owen's father had been like that.

But in Owen's experience, a sincere apology could clear the air and give two people a whole new foundation to build on. It was a mark of strength, not weakness, to own up to mistakes and commit to doing better. And it had the added tactical advantage of taking most people off guard. Owen had no issues with apologizing when he'd screwed up.

And today, he'd screwed up big time.

The ravaged muscle in his upper thigh knotted with pain as he stumped down the hall toward the light spilling out from under the study door. He'd worked hard in his physical therapy session. Maybe a little too hard. It was possible he'd been punishing himself.

Grimacing, Owen kneaded at the clenched muscle, but he didn't falter in his mission. He had to tell Libby he was sorry for biting her head off and shutting her out.

But when he shouldered open the study door, all he could manage to say was, “What's wrong? Are you all right?”

Libby lifted her head from her hands, tear tracks shining on her cheeks for a moment before she turned away to hide her face. “I'm fine. I mean, I'll be okay in a minute.”

You don't have to stay,
said her hunched shoulders and averted gaze. But Owen watched her carelessly scrub the backs of her hands over her damp cheeks and he could no more have left the room than he could have stopped his next heartbeat. The aches and pains in his leg and hip vanished in the rush of adrenaline that got him across the floor and next to Libby in seconds.

“Please don't cry,” he said, low and sincere. He reached out a hand to smooth her tousled hair, but drew it back before he could touch her. If she was crying over what he'd said to her … “I hate how I talked to you, back at the barn. I'm the one who invited you into my family drama and took advantage of your generosity in helping us through the holiday. You have every right to your opinions.”

Libby's shoulders straightened and she lifted her face to his with a defiant tilt of her chin. “I'm not crying over you,” she told him with great dignity. “Well, okay, that didn't help—but I know the stress you're under. The choice you have to make is pulling you to pieces. I get why you're on edge about it.”

“None of that excuses the way I spoke to you,” Owen said firmly, ignoring the ball of relief expanding under his lungs at the fact that she'd stopped crying. “But if you're not upset about our fight, what's going on? If there's any way I can help you, I will.”

To Owen's dismay, that made the moisture well up in Libby's eyes all over again. She made a face and dashed at the tears caught in her lower lashes. “Oof. Once I start, it's hard to stop. Thank you, Owen. You don't know how much that means to me. But it's just … what did you call it? Family drama.”

Flipping his cane up and around like a baton, Owen used the crook end to hook the leg of the armchair and drag it closer. He sat down, close enough to Libby that their knees kissed. “My guys tell me I'm a pretty good listener.”

“Oh, it's only…”—she ran a distracted hand through her hair, tumbling the curls around—“grandfather. He's so stubborn and so sure everyone in his life wants to leave him. Which, to be fair, a lot of people in his life
have
left—but that's partly because he runs them off!”

Owen frowned, juggling the family relationships in his mind. Wasn't Dabney Leeds
Nash's
grandfather, making him Libby's grandfather by marriage only? But maybe that didn't matter to someone as loving and family-oriented as Libby. “What did he do this time?”

“Oh, it's all a mess.” Drooping like a poinsettia after too many days without water, Libby rested her elbow on the arm of her chair and propped her forehead on her palm. “Family secrets and longstanding fights … I hate secrets. How have I gotten myself embroiled in so many of them?”

Was there more than the secret of her separation from Nash? Owen understood their reasoning for keeping it from Dabney Leeds, up to a point, but not if it was upsetting Libby to this extent. “Tell me what to do.”

Despair shook her voice. “I'm not sure there's anything anyone can do. Some problems are too big, too entrenched to solve. Families can get like that, don't you think? Hard as rock, unchangeable.”

Owen thought about his family—the years he'd spent estranged from his father, and how distant he'd allowed himself to become from his sister, even though she'd done nothing wrong other than to exist as a reminder of the family Owen had left behind. “But families can change,” he said slowly. “In the most unexpected ways, and in the blink of an eye. Andie and I lost touch for a long time, but a daughter I didn't even know I had brought us back together. And now that we're talking again … it's rough, but being honest with each other is the only way we're going to keep this going.”

“I want to be honest with everyone,” Libby cried. “I feel so … trapped.” Another tear slipped unnoticed down her flushed cheek, and Owen couldn't hold back. He reached out, cupped her soft jawline and brushed the tear away with his thumb. Libby caught her breath with a sweet gasp that went to Owen's head like a shot of whiskey.

“So be honest,” he told her, leaning in close. “Get yourself free of whatever's holding you down. There's a whole world waiting for you.”

A spasm of something like fear tightened Libby's features, but it was the pure longing in her eyes that wrapped itself around Owen's heart and refused to let go. “I want to,” she gasped. “Oh, please believe me, I do want to. But there's more at stake than just what I want for myself. There are other people to consider…”

Fire lit under Owen's breastbone, tightening every muscle and filling his lungs. “Oh, yeah? What about what I want, then?”

Libby's lips parted, and Owen surrendered to his burning need to kiss her senseless.

 

Chapter Seventeen

Desire stole Libby's mind. She forgot how to breathe. She forgot that she needed to breathe. All she knew was the deep, consuming passion of Owen's mouth against hers, his fingers sliding into her hair and raking gently across her scalp, the crush of her soft curves against his hard-muscled chest.

Owen Shepard was everything she'd ever wanted in a man, a combination of elements from every girlish daydream and every adult fantasy Libby had entertained in her entire, fairy tale–loving life—except Owen was the real thing.

And of course, she'd ruined her chances with him before she'd even met him. The memory of her deception was like a dash of cold water in the face. Libby pulled back, regret and shame heavy on her chest.

She saw that same regret and shame reflected in Owen's deep blue-green eyes. “Damn it,” he cursed, drawing himself up rigidly straight. Libby missed his hands on her as soon as they were gone.

“My self control is usually better than that,” Owen told her, anger at himself roughening his voice.

Fretful and full of remorse, Libby wrapped her arms around her ribcage. “Don't blame yourself. Please, Owen. You haven't done anything wrong.”

His jaw went as hard as granite. “It doesn't matter how much I want you—and I do want you, Libby. But we can't always get what we want. I know better. You might be separated, but you're still married in the eyes of God and the law. It
was
wrong.”

His lip curled, all his scorn and recriminations directed inward at himself, and Libby couldn't stand it. He'd offered to help so many times—maybe that would extend to not blowing her story publically and maybe it wouldn't. But she couldn't let him hate himself for a sin he hadn't even committed.

“Owen.” Libby took a deep, calming breath and forced herself to meet his dark gaze. “I have something to tell you.”

His lip curled. “Is it something about how we're adults and we ought to have a better handle on our impulse control? Because I know that already.”

“No.” Libby clasped her hands in her lap to still their trembling. “It's about me. Who I am, I mean.”

Owen's harsh expression softened. “You're Libby Leeds. And you might be stuck in a bad situation, but you're a good person.”

Every word flicked over Libby's raw nerves like the tip of a whip, and she flinched. “I'm not,” she said raggedly, determined to get through this. “I promise, if you listen to what I'm about to tell you, then you'll agree with me.”

He sat back in his chair, one hand absently rubbing at his wounded leg. “Okay, shoot. But I reserve the right to disagree on whether or not you're wonderful.”

Libby couldn't take it anymore. She met his gaze squarely and said, “I'm not married. I never have been.”

Owen's hand went still, his entire body going from loose to taut in a single moment. “What do you mean?” he questioned tensely. “Who the hell is Nash, then, if he's not your husband?”

“Nash is my cousin. A cousin who, until two weeks ago, I hadn't seen in more than a decade.” Libby gulped in air, hoping this would get easier as she went along. “Don't blame him, or my grandfather, for the deception—I begged for their help.”

Shaking his head as if he had water in his ears, Owen knit his brows. “I don't get it. I mean, I'm glad—I think?—but I don't get the point of telling everyone you were married when you aren't.”

“It's all gotten so out of hand,” Libby said, knowing that was a pathetic excuse. “I guess I should start at the beginning. My parents died in a car crash when I was about Caitlin's age—that part is true. Before that, we lived here. But after they died, my uncle Ray became my guardian, and I moved to New York to live with him. He's estranged from Grandfather, so until two weeks ago, I'd never been back to Sanctuary Island … except in my dreams. It's always represented home for me, and a couple of years ago when Uncle Ray first got sick, I started fooling around with an idea for a novel based on my memories of growing up here. I wrote a bunch of short fiction pieces imagining how my life might have gone if I lived here. I imagined a home and a family, a loving husband and a warm kitchen, a chicken coop out back—it was a fantasy. Just for me, you know? But I put the pieces up on a blog, and somehow people started reading them. I don't know why they caught on, and it wasn't until an editor at the magazine called me out of the blue that I even realized people thought … it was all true.”

Every one of Owen's limbs had stiffened until he looked like a bronze statue of an avenging warrior, furious eyes burning in his impassive face. “But it wasn't.”

A tight, painful lump choked its way into Libby's throat. “No, it wasn't. And I wanted to come clean right away, to explain everything to the editor … but Uncle Ray had gotten worse. We went to a couple of different specialists, and they all confirmed the diagnosis of early onset Alzheimer's. He needed a lot of help, and we were okay on our own for a while, but ultimately he needed a lot more care than I could give him. I wanted to hire a nurse, but the apartment was too small—no place to put her—and in one of his lucid moments, Uncle Ray basically demanded that I find an assisted-living facility for him. He hated being dependent, hated feeling like he was holding me back and keeping me at home with him, and no matter how much I argued or pointed out that I hadn't exactly been a party girl before he got sick, he wouldn't listen.”