Chapter 11
“I have only one question,” Ali said as she took a seat next to Colby on the sofa, her last—truly it was—slice of pizza in her hand.
He was wiping his fingers with the napkins that had come with the delivery—albeit it had been another Foxworth man called Teague, not the guy from the actual pizza place—and now stopped to look at her.
She had the feeling he hadn’t been eating well lately, or maybe at all, judging by how much and how fast he’d bolted that down.
“Only one?” he asked, with a half laugh that was clearly self-directed. Lord, that woman had done a number on him.
She glanced from where they were seated at the counter back toward the table, where Quinn and Hayley were working out whatever planning they had left to do, although she couldn’t imagine what they could possibly have overlooked.
But once certain they wouldn’t be overheard, and because she genuinely wanted to know, she asked her question.
“How did you end up with her?”
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly, audibly. “I claim ignorance. I met her my freshman year in college. I had no idea who her family was. All I knew was she was a couple of years ahead of me, she was…well, gorgeous, and she took an interest in me. Much to my surprise.”
She tilted her head as she looked at him. “I don’t find it surprising at all.”
His eyes widened. He stared at her for a moment, opened his mouth, then closed it again, as if he could think of nothing to say. He lowered his gaze to the crumpled napkin in his hand.
How could such a simple thing flummox him so? He had to know he was a good-looking guy, who would catch any woman’s eye. Even Liz, bi—she caught herself, she’d meant what she’d said about not liking to use that word—witch that she was, had seen the appeal.
“So she was gorgeous, practiced, a little older, more experienced in manipulation… No wonder you fell for her.”
“If that’s your way of saying I was a gullible, naive idiot, then yeah.” He grimaced. “I was stupidly happy that she wanted to get married. But it was…miserable. I knew it wasn’t working. But then she got pregnant with Grace. After telling me she was on the pill.”
She knew she hadn’t mistaken the bitter tone that had come into his voice. She remembered the call Quinn had made, to the contractor whose name she’d seen on such beautiful work.
My take is that Colby Kendrick is a great guy.
Then, even stronger, what Colby himself had said hit her… She was embarrassed when she had to introduce her husband, the carpenter, to their ritzy friends.
A fierce sort of anger began to bubble up inside her. The impression she’d gotten in person added fuel to it. It was quite clear Liz Hollen was the kind of woman she had to try very hard not to hate.
“She really did a number on you, didn’t she?”
He let out a long sigh. “I was supposed to join the family firm. Rise to the top and all that. But I had no interest in that. Which is why she divorced me.”
She thought again of what Drew Kiley had said, about his idea that saved one of her favorite places. “Why would someone who can do what you do want to become a paper pusher?”
He blinked. And again his mouth opened as if he were going to speak, then closed again as if there were no words to be found.
She wished he’d stop doing that. Not just because she didn’t like the idea of him being too wary to talk to her, but because darn it, it made her keep looking at his mouth.
And that was something she was not used to even thinking about.
But something in the way he was looking at her, something in those blue eyes, made her add, “Paper pushers who deal with other people’s products or property are a dime a dozen.
People like you who can build or make those things, now, they’re worth something.
A lot, because it seems like we have fewer of them all the time. ”
She saw him swallow as if his throat was tight. He looked away then, but she heard a low, rough-sounding, “Thank you.”
A phone across the room rang, and when she looked over, Quinn was pulling his phone out yet again. She wondered what it must be like to run an operation with as many threads and connections as Foxworth obviously had. He listened for a moment, then said, “Thanks. Nice to know.”
She felt a little nervous suddenly, because when he’d said that he’d been looking at her. And when he slid the phone back into his pocket he came toward them.
“Seems you two have a connection,” he said, looking from her to Colby.
She shot a glance at the man sitting on the stool beside her, just in time to catch him doing the same to her. For a moment the only kind of connection she could think of was the one she’d been pondering before, when she’d caught herself watching his mouth a little too much.
Had she been that obvious? True, she was out of practice, focusing entirely on her work now, and building her business. But—
Quinn looked at her. “The name Doug Rockford ring a bell?”
“Yes,” she said.
At that, Colby gave her a startled look. “You know Sarge?” he asked.
She nodded. “I designed the interior of his new building at the veterans’ camp.”
Colby was smiling when he said, “I built it.”
“And both of you did it for nothing,” Quinn said.
“I love it,” Hayley said, beaming as she came up beside her husband, “when we’re proven so thoroughly right about our people.”
Quinn grinned at his wife. “You mean when he is,” he said, nodding at Cutter, who was lounging near the fireplace.
“That, too,” she answered cheerfully. Ali saw Hayley realize both she and Colby were looking from her to the dog and back, and she laughed. “You’ll get used to it. We had to. Because he’s never been wrong. Confused once, but never wrong.”
“Confused?” Ali asked.
“That was the first time he met my brother,” Hayley said, still smiling, “whom I was very angry with at the time. So Cutter was a bit torn.”
Ali found herself smiling again. And thinking about what the woman had said about “our people.” As if, once they’d decided to help you, you were family.
She glanced at Colby. He could use that kind of support.
And so could adorable little Gracie. And helping them help him was making her feel better than she had in a very long time. Since Josh’s death, in fact.
“Now,” Hayley said briskly, “we need to work on timing and details. Colby, it’s clear your daughter is a very smart young lady, but—and we need the most honest answer you can give—how good is she at keeping a secret?”
He took in a deep breath and let it out slowly.
She could almost sense him turning from the lighter topic of Cutter’s apparent skills back to the matter at hand.
She wondered briefly if the Foxworths had lightened things up for those moments intentionally.
She wouldn’t be surprised; they were obviously very good at what they did.
“She can do it, as long as she understands why,” Colby said, sounding cautious. Then, in a more depressed tone he admitted, “But if she gets mad enough, sometimes she’ll blurt something out before she thinks.”
“Why, you’d think she was human!” Ali put all she could of mock astonishment into her voice. Colby’s gaze flashed to her, and one corner of his mouth twitched.
“Can’t picture you getting that mad,” he said.
A chill went through her at the words. “Oh, I can,” she said, and now her voice was grimly level. “Unfortunately uselessly.”
He tilted his head slightly, clearly wondering, but Hayley called them back to the current situation and Ali silently thanked her for it.
“If you think she’d let it out that Ali’s helping,” she began.
“She just needs to understand,” Colby said. “How important it is not to tell her mother…anything. Then she’ll keep it secret forever if necessary.”
“We need to lay out some boundaries,” Quinn said, clearly on his wife’s wavelength. “Grace coming here doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll see a lot more of her.”
Ali frowned. “But he could be here.” She glanced at him again. “You could come any time. Or stay.”
And again he looked a little stunned, and she wondered what it must be like to feel so beaten down, so abandoned, that the concept of someone willingly helping was utterly foreign. Even in the worst days after Josh’s death she’d never felt that.
Hayley’s tone was understanding but firm as she explained. “It would be nice if you could see more of her while we’re working this out, but if she might let it out at an inopportune moment, it could blow everything.”
“But she already knows I’m involved,” Colby said. “That note…”
“Yes, but keeping a note quiet versus seeing her beloved daddy in person are two very different things,” Hayley said. “Plus, we don’t want Ms. Hollen or her helpers to see him here.”
Hayley was still watching Colby, and Ali knew she was sensing the same current of tension in him.
“We’ll get there, I promise,” Hayley said to him, “but we have to start slow. We have a lot of work to do, and some of it will be dead ends, until we find the right path. Are you okay with that?”
He grimaced. “You mean can I keep it reined in?” He looked from Hayley to Quinn and then to Ali. She thought she saw something flash in his eyes then, something she could only label as hope.
Then he looked back to Hayley. “I think I can. Now.”