Read Online Liberation Day by Andy McNab - Free Book Online

dead apart from one, and he despised me. Apart from the clothes I stood up in when I arrived in Panama, my only other possessions were in a bag stuck in Left Luggage at a London train station. She had a point.
    “And no sooner have we settled down here than you take off again. Not much for a girl to brag to her mother about, is it?” She paused. “Then there’s Kelly. What if we don’t get along? What if she and Luz don’t get along?”
    I was Kelly’s guardian: she was the other woman in my life I was busy disappointing. She was thirteen and not nearly as grown-up as she liked to think she was. I’d be seeing her at Christmas down in Maryland. Not on Christmas Day itself, because she was doing the family thing with Josh and his children, her new family, but I’d be seeing her on Christmas Eve. “Carrie, I—”
    She placed a finger to my lips. “Sssh…” She turned and looked me straight in the eye. “I was worried, but I’m not worried anymore. I don’t care about the past. You’re a tour guide now, a barman, whatever—I don’t care, as long as you’re good at it. The last few weeks have been good for me. They gave me time to think, and I realized something. I can finally think about what’s ahead. It’s like I was just treading water the last year, my life was on hold.
    “That’s what I want to tell you, Nick. I want us to be together—really together.” She looked down, then up again and into my eyes. “New Carrie, new Nick, new life. That’s why I wanted to bring you here. Tucker’s Wharf, gateway to the world. Gateway to the future.
    “You’ve been so patient about Aaron. I know I’ll never get over him, but I am ready to move on, and that’s the important thing. I want the future to be about us.”
    “I don’t know what to say.”
    “Then don’t. You don’t need to say anything.”
    We stood up and walked arm in arm for about twenty minutes until we reached a small protected cove.
    “Little Harbor.” She swept her hand across the bay. “Mom always called this the place where it all began. The founders, some of them her family, put down their roots here in 1629. The settlers cut back the forest to build tiny thatch-roofed cottages and fishing boats. I can still hear Mom saying, ‘From here, strong-hearted men set out to fish uncharted waters.’ I loved her stories of the founding families. They were gutsy, venturesome, in search of personal liberty, a plot of land, a place by the sea…”
    “They had a point.” I was surprised to hear myself saying it out loud. “Marblehead is pretty much my fantasy, too, you know.” I hadn’t known places like this existed when I was skipping school in Peckham.
    “Tucker’s Wharf was about departures, Nick. This is about arrivals. It’s our new start. I feel we’re at the start of something, and I wanted to bring you here to tell you that. I’ve never shared this place with anyone, not even Aaron.” She smiled again. “Ready for some more history? Our ships traded with the known world, dried fish for clothing, tools, gold and silver. Everybody prospered and there were two big news stories—war with the French, and pirates. They harassed the coast for decades.”
    She hesitated for a moment, embarrassed. “I got you this.” From under her coat she produced a carefully wrapped gift, tied with shiny blue ribbon. She beamed. “Go on, open it. It won’t bite.”
    I removed the ribbon as delicately as I could.
    A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson.
    She could barely conceal her delight as I flicked through the pages, pausing at each illustration.
    “It was first published in 1724. I had to get this edition from a little place in New York. I know it’s not the Middle Ages, but there’s a whole lot about ships from New England being boarded en route to London. I knew you’d like it. And, besides, it’s to remind you of everything I’ve been boring you about just