Page 2 of Won't Back Down

I couldn’t keep my eye on Willa without being obvious about it, but nobody else had a chaperone hovering, and I needed to find Jace anyway. Willa just wanted to be a normal high school girl for the night, and there wasn’t a guy on the island who’d lay a hand on her with all four us here. She’d be fine without me going all mother hen on her.

I scooped up a Coke and wandered toward a group of girls on the far side of the bonfire. Chances were, Jace would be at the center of them, holding court. It might’ve been easy to hate him for that, but for the fact that he was just such a damned good guy. He didn’t lord his position in the high school hierarchy over anybody, and not once, since we became friends in the first grade, had he ever made me feel like less. That wasn’t something I could say about most of our classmates.

Turned out, he wasn’t holding court alone. Rios sat on a picnic table, guitar in hand, singing and smoldering at Cara Conroy, the junior he’d had his eye on since midterms. She sat at his feet, clearly eating up all that Latino swagger and the smooth baritone of his voice. I did him a solid by not bursting into laughter. Who was I to interrupt his fun?

Instead, I came up beside Jace, keeping my voice low. “Need to talk to you about something.”

“What’s up?”

“Willa’s here.”

His head snapped toward me. “What?”

“She wanted to come.”

“This is no place?—”

“She’s fine.” I pointed to where I’d spotted her down by the shoreline, predictably playing with someone’s dog. Rios’s younger sister, Gabi, and another of their friends, Gwen Busby, were with her. “It’s not about drinking or hooking up. You know that, man. She just wants to be like everybody else. And there won’t be much of that once you leave for school.”

Jace’s shoulders came down a notch. I knew he worried about what would happen when he wasn’t there to run interference with their parents. “Alright. Fine. You’ll keep an eye on her?”

“Of course. The party isn’t gonna go on all that long, anyway. A storm’s rolling in.” Now that I wasn’t focused exclusively on Willa, I could feel the electricity in the air and see the boil of clouds in the distance to the east, a stark contrast to the sunset wash of sky behind us.

“Weather guys said that was going to miss us.”

“They’re wrong.” I knew it with the certainty of a fifth-generation fisherman who’d grown up as much on the water as on the island.

Jace searched out his sister again. “Hope they’re right, for her sake.”

We both watched her for a minute as she romped in the surf with the dog. Assured that she wasn’t in danger of an anxiety attack, and that she seemed content, I finally let myself relax a bit. For all I hadn’t wanted to be here, it was hard to resist the energy. This was a party, after all, and I was here with the guys who were brothers to me in all but blood.

As twilight gave way to dark, groups began to cluster tighter, and couples started peeling off to find a patch of sand away from the firelight to make out. It wasn’t the general air of horniness in the air that had me seeking Willa again, though my brain helpfully offered a flash of those lean, tanned legs. I hadn’t seen her for a bit, and I wanted to check in, make sure she was still okay, and that no guys had decided to try their luck with the shy little island princess. Not that I had any kind of claim. I was just looking out for her. Making sure nobody took advantage.

You keep telling yourself that, Malone.

All this noticing I’d been doing of Willa, as definitely not a sister, was a problem. That might be the only good thing about Jace leaving in two months: he wouldn’t be around to notice and call me on it. Not that I’d dare do anything about it. Shit, Willa deserved so much better than the likes of me. But I needed to get a handle on things and find some way to shove her firmly back into the sister column. Even though she hadn’t truly been there for more years than I was willing to admit.

Friends. We were friends. That was all we’d ever be. And that was fine. I was damned lucky to have her as that. A girl like her would’ve been well within her rights not to give me the time of day, let alone all the shy smiles and deep, quiet conversations we’d shared over the years.

The rumble of thunder had been moving steadily closer over the past hour or so. The air held an electric edge that told me things were gonna get rained out in short order. As if underscoring the point, a bolt of lightning split the sky, lighting up the beach like a beacon. It was enough to get everybody’s attention.

From somewhere closer to the fire, I heard Jace call out, “Storm’s coming in! Let’s get all this wrapped up.” Taking charge, as usual. And because he was still a Sutter by blood, folks listened.

He’d trusted me to keep tabs on his sister, so as people began gathering up their gear, I wove through, cursing the lack of light that kept me from seeing faces clearly until I was practically on top of people. Still, as kids began to stream back toward vehicles, I hadn’t found her.

Spotting Gabi, I grabbed her arm. “Where’s Willa?”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

She promised she wouldn’t leave without one of us.

“What about Gwen? Could she be with her?”

“Maybe. I haven’t seen her in a bit either. She said she was going to get food.”

I didn’t have time to track Gwen down on the off chance she knew where Willa had gone off to.

Where the hell was she?

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