When We Collide Read online

  I really had begun to hate this life.

  ~

  Kristina slept curled up on her side, once again facing away from me. Her blond hair gleamed in the moonlight that streamed in through the window. Mimicking her pose, I allowed my eyes to trace over her bare skin, down her back where it sloped and met with her hip—and tried to feel something—something other than disdain.

  A bitter taste soured in my mouth when I realized there was nothing.

  Exhausted, I sank further into the mattress, further into my pillow, and drifted.

  Laughter was his call, lost somewhere deep in the forest. The wind came fierce, blew across William’s face, stung as he lumbered through the desolate play yard.

  William tripped into the jumbled wood.

  A flash of blond hair.

  “Bet you can’t find me.” The boy giggled and ran.

  Fear surged and twisted in William’s gut, pushed him forward.

  “Wait,” William called, stretching his hand out in the child’s direction. Please.

  He peeked out from behind a tree, the boy with William’s face.

  The child was on the move again, hiding, laughing, stirring the unknown anxiety into a frenzy that beat like a drum against William’s chest.

  Please, wait.

  The laughter dimmed and waned. The boy’s sudden fear hit William like a knife to the chest. Somewhere in the deepest recesses, far beyond his reach, William heard him scream.

  I jerked awake. Gulping for air, I clutched my head and tried to press the dream from my thoughts, but it dug its fingers deep, bored beneath my skin as the seeds of fear I’d felt for months firmly took root.

  Chapter Two

  Maggie ~ Present Day

  Lightning flashed outside the living room window. It lit up the sleeping street and silhouetted the long, barren branches of towering trees. I stood in the quiet of the darkened room and flattened my palm on the cool glass pane.

  So many years had passed, but I would never forget.

  I would never forget his touch. The way he made me feel or what he made me see. Would never forget the gentle kindness in his eyes.

  Another spark of lightning blanketed the night sky, and if I focused hard enough, I could almost see him standing in the middle of the vacant street. Tufts of his dark blond hair were whipped up by the wind, framing the intensity of his startling brown eyes. He was staring directly back at me.

  William had been the only one who had ever cared enough to really see me.

  Pressing my hand harder on the window, I wished to somehow draw him near, yet I knew I would never be brave enough to face him if he were to return.

  Startled, I jumped when the back door rattled as it was unlocked, and I slowly stepped away from the only one I wanted. And like I’d had to do so long before, I let him go.

  Chapter Three

  William ~ Present Day

  Straining to focus, I tried to make sense of the mess of numbers that seemed to swirl across the page. The harder I tried, the more jumbled they became. Three hours sleep, Kristina’s bullshit, dealing with the financial disaster her father had created for this company, and I was about to snap. I was so tired of it all.

  Tossing my pen onto the spreadsheet, I rocked back in my leather chair and massaged my temples as if it could silence last night’s dream that was still screaming in my ears.

  “Damn it,” I groaned, rubbing my eyes and trying to shake myself out of it. “This is ridiculous.”

  “What’s ridiculous?”

  My skin crawled with the grating created by Kristina’s voice coming from my office doorway. I blew the air from my lungs in an attempt to gather myself enough to deal with her.

  She stepped forward and the door latched behind her with a soft click.

  “All of this.” My hand flung out in a flippant wave in an overt show of frustration.

  Just everything.

  Kristina took in the disaster upon my desk. My laptop was angled off to the side and papers were strewn in unorganized piles around it. She narrowed her eyes back at me.

  “What is wrong with you, William?” Dissatisfaction dripped through her every word. “Dad needed this days ago. You have got to pull yourself together.”

  I wasn’t exactly sure what they expected, because I could only move numbers around so much. But it was senseless to point it out. Making Mr. Crane’s questionable business practices legal was what I was paid to do. Besides, six months ago, I would have had it done days ago. In the beginning, it hadn’t been that bad, just some mixed up numbers that didn’t quite match, but the longer I stayed and the deeper I dug, the more I uncovered.

  Suppressing my resentment, I glanced to my left and out the window to the view of the skyscraper next door. Idly, I wondered if anyone there felt as trapped as I did here.

  I turned my attention back to Kristina and wished I didn’t feel the surge of animosity that came with it, my tone tight with restraint. “I’ll get it done as soon as I can.”

  ~

  So absorbed in trying to make the numbers match, I jumped when my cell phone vibrated and buzzed on the desk. Two hours had passed and I hadn’t even realized it.

  Grabbing the phone, I cringed when I saw the name that lit up on the screen.

  Damn it.

  I gave myself a couple seconds before answering, needing the time to curb the wave of guilt I felt every time I talked with one of them, and then brought the receiver to my ear.

  “William Marsch.” My standard greeting, all part of the façade, as if I weren’t already aware of who was calling. It spoke volumes of the asshole I’d allowed myself to become.

  Despite my every effort to keep my family at arm’s length, they tried just as hard to keep me a part of them. Whenever I talked with my older brother, Blake was upbeat and asked me how I was, because he actually cared. He typically ignored the fact that I had essentially left them all behind.

  But not today.

  For a few painful moments, he was silent. There were just faint whispers and rustling in the background. When he finally spoke, his voice was strained. “Hey, Will...uh...it’s Blake.”

  A fear so similar to the one I had felt last night when I’d awoken from the dream erupted in my chest. I was already anticipating Blake’s words before he spoke them.

  “Listen...I have some bad news.”

  In a blur, the faces of my family rushed through my mind, people I loved but barely knew any more, those I’d pretended to forget. My chest squeezed as each face passed, and I struggled to draw in a breath. Moving to lean on my elbows, I pressed my thumb and forefinger against my eyes and held the phone tighter to my ear.

  Please...just not Mom. I chanted the silent prayer before Blake continued to speak.

  “Aunt Lara...her...the cancer is back.” Blake cleared the roughness from his throat. “It’s bad this time, Will. It’s spread too much. They can’t do anything else but make her comfortable. It came on so fast.” Blake choked over the explanation, and I tried to stop the spinning in my head. “They put her in home hospice and moved her to Mom’s so she can be close to the family. She only has a few weeks at the most.”

  The news penetrated to my core. My Aunt Lara was going to die.

  “God…Blake.”

  Even if I tried, this was not something I could push away. Not another thing I could bundle up and set aside and convince myself that it didn’t matter.

  There was a time when my Aunt Lara and I had been close. How many hot summer afternoons as a young boy had I snuck in her back door, sat at her kitchen table with a red popsicle in my hand, grinning while she asked me the little details about my day? Or the many Friday nights I spent in her den, on the floor buried under a blanket, watching movies over popcorn and soda. She’d never married, had never had children of her own, and she’d always considered Blake and me her boys. Yet another relationship I’d left behind.

  “We need you here, Will. Mom needs you.”

  I hadn’t been back to Mississi
ppi in more than six years.

  Aunt Lara had called me once and hadn’t hesitated to unleash her disappointment on me. She told me she wouldn’t stand aside and allow me to hurt her youngest sister by shunning my mother—my entire family—anymore. She’d accused me of thinking I was too good for them all and asked what any of them had ever done for me to think I could treat them that way.

  What none of them understood was I couldn’t go back. I couldn’t stand to see her, couldn’t stand to witness the life she had chosen. None of my family knew what had occurred that summer, the summer when my heart had come alive and then been crushed in what had felt like the same breath.

  The only thing I could do was leave, turn my back and act as if it had never happened.

  I’d buried it all in a place just under the surface where the memories of her touch ran rampant in my fantasies, freed only in the lonely moments of the night. She’d become a dream. I knew stepping foot back in Mississippi was going to make her real again.

  But even if it did, I refused to ignore my family when they needed me.

  “Yeah…” I slanted a hand through my hair and glanced at my desk, not sure how I was going to handle going back, but knowing I didn’t have a choice. I swallowed, then forced myself to speak, committing myself back to the place I’d run from so long ago. “I’ll be there.”

  Blake’s surprise was evident in his loss for words. Finally he rushed, “Good. That’s good. We’re all…” He paused and his voice lowered. “Everyone here misses you, Will.”

  I tamped down some emotion, hating that I’d caused my family to believe I didn’t want to be a part of their lives.

  “Let me get some work stuff rearranged, and I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow to let you know when I’ll be out.”

  Blake’s heavy breath was almost palpable through the phone. “Okay. Just hurry.”

  ~

  Tugging shirts from their hangers, I tossed them with little thought into the suitcase lying open across the bed.

  Kristina stood behind me, leaning against the bedroom doorframe with her arms crossed over her chest. “I can’t believe you’re doing this, William. Do you have any idea what we have riding on this account? How much money we stand to lose if you’re not here?”

  I cast Kristina a sidelong glance as I stalked back into the closet. She stood there fuming across the room. She’d been riding my ass since the second I told her I was leaving. I grabbed a few pairs of pants from the closet, pausing at its entrance on the way out. “My aunt is dying,” I said, drawing out the word. “What do you expect me to do?”

  “I expect you to honor your obligations.”

  I bit back a scornful snort.

  Honor? Working for Kristina’s father was the least honorable thing I’d ever done.

  Taking four long strides to the bed, I turned my back on Kristina and flung the rest of my things into the suitcase, cramming the clothing in and struggling to hold it closed while I zipped it. I stood up straight and spoke toward the wall. I offered her an explanation I thought any normal person would understand. “My family needs me.”

  I felt the shift, the tilt of her head, could almost see her sneer. “Since when do you care anything about what they need?”

  I balled my hands as guilt tensed the muscles in my back. Is this what the last years of my life had shown? Complete disregard for my family? Shaking it off, I grabbed the suitcase and dragged it from the bed and onto its wheels, realizing it was pointless to correct her. She had no clue about my past, how close I’d been to my family, or how close I’d come to living a life so different than this one.

  I crossed the room to her, stopping a foot away. Her expression was hard, her eyes blue fire, all pretenses gone—cold—just like I knew her to be.

  My anger dissipated when I took her in. I almost felt sorry for her. She allowed all this trivial shit to rule her world. It was the same shit I’d allowed her to center around mine. “When’s it going to be enough, Kristina?”

  Inching closer, I inclined my head to be sure I held her attention.

  “Will you ever be satisfied? Because I refuse to live like this any longer.” Somehow I knew I’d reached a turning point. I just didn’t know which way I was going to go.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Her stony resolve wavered, her eyes flickering with a moment’s uncertainty, before she set it firmly back in place. Of course she knew what I meant—the excess, when drive becomes greed.

  I scrubbed a hand over my weary face, forcing the air from my lungs and dropping the subject, because I already knew there was no chance of changing her—no chance of changing the way I felt about her. “I’m going home, Kristina…call Neil, have him take over the account.”

  I pushed past her and headed toward the garage.

  “When are you coming back?” Panic flooded her voice. For the first time since I’d known her, Kristina was on the verge of losing her carefully crafted control.

  I paused but didn’t look her way. “I really don’t know.”

  ~

  My hands were sweating as I gripped the steering wheel as I left L.A. I’d decided to drive, rationalizing the two-day trip to Mississippi would buy me some time. Time to decide what to do about the mess with Kristina. Time to delay my arrival back to the place I’d sworn to never return.

  A shock of panic raised my temperature by what felt like thirty degrees when I thought of going back. I laughed humorlessly. Nothing like living the life of a coward. But was that what I really was? A coward?

  I’d fought for her, would’ve given anything for her. I had to leave because there was no way I would have sat idle and watched her being torn down. I would have done…something. Chances were I would’ve ended up losing it like I’d done that night.

  Her smile flashed across my vision, the softest eyes, the sweetest mouth. “William,” she whispered at my ear as she wove her fingers through my hair.

  Chills shot across my skin and raised the hairs at the nape of my neck, spreading down my back.

  God.

  Old regret throbbed somewhere deep within my chest. Maybe I should have stayed. But what would it have ever changed?

  Chapter Four

  Maggie ~ Present Day

  His callused hand burned against my skin. He was asleep behind me with his palm set possessively on my thigh. Hot breaths crawled along my skin and wrapped around my neck like an invisible noose, stealing the air as I struggled to suck it into my lungs.

  My body felt like dead weight as I lay beside the last man I’d ever have chosen to give myself to.

  Had I been marked for this life before I was born? Fated before time to suffer at the hands of the ones who were supposed to care for me? Or was it the choices I had made that led me here? Did one fatal mistake send me on a collision course, or was this simply a consequence of a lifetime of naivety and fear?

  I retreated further into myself, seeking shelter in the shadows of my mind. There were few things there of comfort. But the small amount of comfort that remained shined bright.

  William’s face, laughing and kind. “Maggie,” he had murmured as he rolled to tug me on top of him. I giggled and relaxed into the firm body below me. William chuckled from deep in his chest and held me even closer as he buried his face in my hair.

  Leaning back, I trailed my fingertips down the side of his face. He smiled as I traced them along the lines of his lips. My skin tingled, and I was unable to make sense of how any person could make me feel this way.

  “You’re so beautiful...do you know that?” he had said.

  My heart thrummed wildly with joy, and I ached to feel more of his touch.

  William had been perfect, a gift.

  He’d changed me, deeply and in every way. When he found me, I was scared and insecure, and while those things still remained, they never looked the same. Every part of me had William written on it, the way I thought and what I saw.

  What I desired and where my dreams laid.

  No, I c
ould never have him. I’d made too many mistakes. I had stayed on the same path that he had tried to save me from.

  But I had never stopped wanting him.

  Loving him.

  He’d fought for me.

  And I’d let him go without putting up my own fight.

  Looking back now, I could finally see the glaring point William had been desperate to show me all along.

  I regretted it more than I could ever say, more than I could ever openly admit.

  I’d do anything to go back to the day when I’d let him slip through my fingers. Despite everything that happened, I had to believe now William would have accepted me.

  Troy stirred behind me, grumbling deep within in his sleep. His hand traveled to my stomach and his hold tightened.

  Nauseous heat filled my body and tightened my throat. I tried to swallow.

  I’d do anything to go back.

  But it was too late.

  Chapter Five

  William ~ Present Day

  After two days of driving, I finally crossed the Mississippi State line at dusk. Traffic was light as I exited the highway and headed south, speeding down the open country road. Tall trees whipped by in a blur of green, gave way to open fields where houses were set back off the road with their porch lights shining, and then drove back into heavy forest—the countryside so alien from what I’d grown accustomed to over the last few years.