Chapter 22
Colby wished it could have gone on and on, this time with his precious girl.
She was chattering so fast, so excited that this had worked and they were together, it was hard to keep up with her.
She’d always been so quick, and seemed quite able to think in multiple directions at once.
She’d been putting together four- to five-word sentences at just over two years old, which her doctor had said was a sign of how quick and smart she was.
He’d had a dream about her once, Grace as an adult, standing at some podium, receiving some big award.
He’d been there with her, cheering proudly, but Liz had been nowhere in sight.
He’d awakened feeling a bit guilty about that, given they’d still been married at the time.
Maybe he’d sensed what was coming even then.
Or maybe it was just wishful dreaming.
“—gonna fly somewhere in that?” Grace was pointing at the helicopter.
He smiled. “I don’t think so. But it would be fun, wouldn’t it?” She nodded, a wide smile on her sweet face. “They have an airplane, too, down south at the airport.”
“Wow.”
“Yeah. They’re a pretty big deal around here, these Foxworth folks.”
“And they’re helping us.”
“Yes. Yes, they are. So I guess we should go in and talk to them, huh?”
“And Ali. She’s helping, too.”
“I know.”
Ali was a woman going about her life, building her own business while recovering from a terrible loss.
That was enough to consume most people, but yet she was going out of her way, spending time, effort and emotion to help them.
And doing it well, given she’d been able to convince Liz to let Grace accompany her on the dog walks.
He was still pondering that when they rounded the corner of the main building. Cutter trotted ahead, raised up and batted at the automatic door switch with his front paws, and the door swung open. Grace giggled happily.
“He’s so smart.”
“He is.”
“And Ziggy is so sweet and snuggly.”
The memory of the dog snuggled between him and Ali on the couch rocketed through his mind, but it was seared away by the heated memory of that kiss. That kiss that had awakened feelings in him he’d never known, sensations he’d never felt before.
That kiss Ali had refused to let him apologize for.
“I really like Ali a lot,” Grace said with finality.
“So do I.” Oh, boy, do I.
As they followed Cutter into the Foxworth headquarters, he had to remind himself yet again that he had also agreed to put all that on hold.
He knew it was the right thing to do, for Grace’s sake in the main, but so many other reasons as well.
But obviously the wall he’d built in his mind to keep those thoughts at bay needed a bit of reinforcement.
And he tried. He was going to head for one of the single chairs by the fireplace, but Cutter got in the way.
And then Grace was tugging at him, and they ended up settled on the couch with Ali on the next cushion.
Grace was beside him, clinging to him—or maybe it was the other way around—Colby found himself wondering what on earth Foxworth would come up with now.
Liam came downstairs, nodded at both him and Ali, and grinned widely at Grace.
“How’s my favorite child genius?”
She rolled her eyes at him, but she was grinning back. “You’re funnier when you’re playing stupid.”
Liam laughed as he sat in one of the armchairs at the end of the big couch. He picked up the remote control from the coffee table and aimed it at the flat-screen. “Just some general research,” he explained with a glance at Colby. “You know this guy?”
An image appeared on the screen. The man, who looked about sixty, with a beard and what hair he had left both dark in color, seemed vaguely familiar but he couldn’t put a name to him.
“That’s Mr. Wells. He’s a lawyer,” Grace piped up cheerfully. Every adult in the room turned to stare at her. Grace shrugged as if it were nothing. “He was at the meeting the mother dragged me to. At her father’s office.”
Her father. Not “my grandfather.” No, Grace had never felt a part of that side of the family, and Colby couldn’t deny the fact that it warmed him. She was indeed a smart girl. Maybe even the child genius Liam had called her.
“Your mother,” Quinn said carefully, “met this man at the Hollen offices in the city?”
Grace nodded. “That’s why she went.”
“Why did she want you there?” Colby asked.
“She didn’t,” Grace answered with a shrug. “She just didn’t want me here.”
Colby looked at Quinn, whose gaze had narrowed, then back to his daughter. “Couldn’t Irene have stayed with you?”
“She would have, but the mother said she didn’t want us alone in the house overnight, without her there.”
He reached the only conclusion he could think of. He looked back at Quinn. “She suspects it was me who broke that window.”
Quinn nodded. “Looks like.”
Grace was looking at them both now, puzzled. “Of course she does. She always says you might try to steal me. When she’s pretending she cares about me.”
“What else does she say, Grace?” Hayley asked gently.
Grace shrugged again. “Just that I’d better not be stupid and go with him.” She shifted her gaze to Colby. “And that if you ever do, you’ll be really, really sorry.” Her brow furrowed. “But that the…undertaker? Is that a person? She said the undertaker will be happy.”
Colby felt a chill ripple over him. “Well, that’s a new one,” he muttered. As bad as she’d been, Liz had never threatened to kill him before.
“She’s escalating,” Quinn said, and his voice was grim enough that even Grace picked up on it and looked worried.
“Daddy, what does undertaker mean?”
He didn’t really want to tell her. But he didn’t want to lie to her, either. She was too smart anyway, and she’d know. But then Hayley spoke, in that quiet, gentle way she had.
“What your mother said means she wishes your father would go away and never bother her again.”
“Oh. She always says that.” She looked from Hayley back to Colby. “But if you go away, you’ll take me with you, won’t you?” she asked anxiously.
“I’m not going away without you,” he promised her.
“Okay,” Grace said, smiling now, as if that were all she’d needed to hear.
“Trust,” Ali murmured, just loud enough for him to hear. “A beautiful thing to have earned.”
He liked the way she put it, not that it was a gift—which it was, to him—but that he’d earned it.
But then, Ali always seemed to see things that way.
That he deserved any good thing that happened.
Like Foxworth being pulled into his life by her own little pup, via the apparently far too clever Cutter.
Who was now acting like a well-trained guardian for his precious little girl.
The Foxworths, Cutter and Ali. He’d never had a run of luck like that in his life before. He supposed that was why he was a little wary of trusting it now.
That word again. Trust.
I trusted you! I trusted you would see the sensible path, that you would realize what you had to do, the only possible thing to do. Not that you would cling to your pitiful former life. I trusted you would see the enormity of the gift my family is offering!
Liz’s long-ago tirade was etched into that part of his brain he tried not to visit.
But he’d never really had much ammunition to fire back at her accusations.
Because she’d been right about the size of the opportunity the Hollens were offering.
He could become a mover and shaker, someone of importance, of influence.
What she’d been wrong about was thinking he wanted that.
He supposed that was the moment he’d realized where they were headed.
Because it was the moment he’d realized that her shouted words about trust no longer meant much to him.
That he didn’t care anymore if she trusted him.
In fact, he’d even resigned himself to not caring if anyone ever trusted him, not if Liz’s kind of life was the price.
But now…
Grace trusted him. The Foxworths trusted him. Ali trusted him. If the value of trust was directly related to the value of the person offering it, then it meant something.
To him, them trusting him meant everything.
And he would do anything not to betray it.