Chapter 33
“You don’t seem surprised,” Quinn said.
Colby grimaced as he stopped pacing the Foxworth headquarters. “I’m not. I’ve been expecting this.”
Hayley tilted her head slightly as she looked at him with that intensity he’d come to expect from the woman.
The intensity that meant she was hearing much more than his actual words.
Then she looked at Ali, who was sitting almost huddled in on herself, hugging Ziggy close as if the pup could ease the pain.
As if she were hurting as much as he was.
“You answered her?” Hayley asked.
Ali nodded. Managed a small smile and a nod toward Cutter.
“That dog of yours… I wrote that I was calling right away—I figured she would know who—folded it up and gave it to him. Not in the note holder, since Grace couldn’t get to it without getting into more trouble.
And darned if he didn’t run over there, plop it on the window sill and nudge it with his nose until it caught in that tiny sliver of an opening she left, right where he picked up her note. ”
Colby had no words for the amount of amazement and gratitude he felt for this animal, so settled for a stoke of the dark fur on his head. And felt yet again that odd, calming sensation, as if somehow things would work out.
Ali let out a long breath before going on. “I thought I’d best stay out of sight, so I just watched on our monitors. It was maybe five minutes before she came back to the window and found it. Once I knew she had it, I headed here.”
Hayley nodded, then she and Quinn walked over into the office area, and started to make calls. That was one thing he’d learned about the Foxworths, they didn’t waste any time when the ball needed to roll.
Ali shifted her gaze from Hayley back to him. “You’ve been expecting this? That she’d clamp down like this?”
He nodded. “Ever since the day you hugged her outside, in the clear.”
She drew back, her eyes widening. “You think she saw me do that?” He nodded. “And that…that’s all it took?”
“For her to be wary of you, and of the influence you have with Grace, yes.” He grimaced again. “No one, but no one, owns her child except her.”
“‘Owns’?”
“That’s how she thinks of her. A helpful possession.
Something to make her seem more human to the people she wants to manipulate.
Same reason she allowed the dogs.” For a moment Ali just stared up at him, her expression pained, as if she were feeling queasy.
He shrugged one shoulder as he shook his head.
“I can’t explain her. Any more than I can explain how I was so stupid for so long. ”
“I should have thought,” Ali said, her voice even more troubled now. “We always wait until we’re past the trees to pick up Ziggy and start to head here fast. I should have thought first, shouldn’t have hugged her out where she could see.”
Colby sat down on the edge of the big coffee table directly opposite Ali. He took her hands in his, squeezed them. “You couldn’t have known. You’re sane, normal, your mind could never work like hers does. Thank goodness.”
She managed a slight smile. She looked at their clasped hands. Then, with a tiny gasp, her gaze shot back to his face. “You don’t think she knows, do you? About…us?”
Now, that hadn’t occurred to him. He thought about it, trying to see from all angles, then said with some certainty, “I don’t see how she could. Not already.” She looked nervously over at the Foxworths, and his mouth quirked. “Oh, they know.”
Ali drew back slightly. “What?”
“They’ve been expecting…what happened.” She blushed. And he kind of liked it. “Remember what they said about Cutter’s matchmaking?”
She blinked. “That was a joke, wasn’t it? Or anthropomorphism?”
He shrugged. “I don’t know. But Hayley insists he knows when people…should be together. And does what he has to do to make it happen.”
“I know they say he brought them together, but…”
“And Liam and his wife. Teague and Laney. Even Gavin de Marco and his wife. Who is, by the way, your local librarian.”
Her eyes widened. “Katie? I met her when I went in there right after I moved in, when I needed an internet connection and mine wasn’t hooked up at home yet. She’s married to Gavin de Marco?”
He nodded. “Hayley said his most extreme case was that sniper I told you about. He tried to walk away and Cutter literally put him on the floor. Now he’s about to marry Quinn’s sister.
And that’s just the Foxworth part of the list, apparently.
All of it thanks to this guy,” he said, reaching out to give Cutter a scratch behind the ears.
When he looked back up at her, she was staring at him, still wide-eyed. More than this amusing but silly idea warranted. Then her eyes darted away quickly, as if she felt…caught? Embarrassed? Simply upset?
The Foxworths came back to join them in front of the fire, interrupting his rather crazed string of questions.
“Let’s get the dogs outside for a bit,” Hayley said. “We have some planning to do. Cutter, outside?”
Ali set Ziggy down on the floor, and the moment the bigger dog headed for the back door, the black-and-white puppy scrambled after him, as if he remembered it led out into that expansive meadow.
“We need to know,” Quinn said to Colby in a businesslike tone as the door closed behind the dogs, “that you’re still up for going full bore on this.”
“I won’t let her steal Grace out of my life, if that’s what you mean. No matter what it takes.”
“You trust us to get it done?” Hayley asked. “Even if it means you may have to pretend a bit?”
He flicked a glance to the woman in front of him. “I trust you and Ali, yes.”
Ali’s head came up, and she was smiling now. And he had the thought that he would give a great deal to see that smile often, and for a very long time. But then he made himself focus.
Quinn nodded. “All right. We’re going back to our old friend Sun Tzu, then. When in conflict, don’t rely mainly on physical and material power, but on mental power.”
Colby drew back, his brow furrowing. “Mental power?”
“They’re not used to having people stand up to them, especially people they feel beneath them. So you convince her you won’t…before you do.”
“So…she’ll be surprised. Off-balance maybe.”
“Yes. You’ll have to judge carefully, you can’t roll over too easily or she’ll be suspicious. But at the same time let her think she’s won, that there’s nothing you can do.”
Colby dug back into the memories of those days when his father had read the philosopher strategist to him. “When we are able to attack, we must seem unable…”
“Exactly.”
He nodded slowly, but with a wince. As if she’d read his mind, Ali said softly, “What about Grace? She’ll think he’s giving up, too.”
His jaw tightened at hearing it put into words. Just the idea of his girl thinking he wasn’t going to fight for her, that she wasn’t worth everything to him, up to and including dying for her, made him even more determined.
“You still have your three hours tomorrow, right?” Hayley asked.
“Unless she tries to yank that, too,” Colby said grimly.
“Then we need to decide if we’re going to tell her anything about the plan,” Quinn said.
“I think we have to tell her something,” Ali said. “We can’t just let her think Colby’s given up on her. She already said she’d run away, and I think that might tip her over the edge.”
She already knew his girl so well. Much better than the mother did. “Ali’s right.”
“That’s putting a lot of weight on a seven-year-old,” Quinn said, sounding wary.
“But a very smart, very special seven-year-old,” Ali said firmly.
“All right,” Hayley said, briskly now. “But we have to keep it to a minimum. The less she knows, the less she can give away under pressure.”
“I’d say we should meet up here,” Quinn said, “but if she’s followed you on these visitation days before, she might be triggered enough to do it again now. We’ve been lucky so far, but…”
Colby nodded. “You’re right. If she’s edgy enough about Ali to tell Grace she can’t even play with a couple of dogs next door, she’s on guard and will be watching closely.”
“So you’ll need to take her someplace open, public, where people go,” Quinn said. “She still hasn’t seen Teague, or me, so we can be in the area without raising suspicion.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say without attracting attention,” Hayley said to her husband, with a glance full of a very pointed kind of heat.
Colby might not be the most tuned in to nuances, but even he didn’t miss the twitch at the corner of the imposing former Army Ranger’s mouth or the heat that flared in his gaze.
Colby risked a glance at Ali, who had one of the sweetest smiles he’d ever seen on her face as she watched the couple.
He couldn’t blame her, they fairly reeked of “this is forever.”
And suddenly, like a misguided hammer blow, it hit him. Why she’d looked so odd when he’d told her about Cutter’s track record in the matchmaking department.
Every couple he’d mentioned had gotten married or was about to. Did she think he was implying that the same thing would happen with them? Was that what had had her so rattled?
The images that thought paraded through his mind were breath-stealing. And unexpected. He’d never really thought about getting married again, had thought himself a charter member of the “once burned, forever shy” group.
But this was Ali. And Ali was different. Special. Real. True.
He could have gone on for ages with all the things she was. And somewhere down deep he knew that he was as right about her as he’d been wrong about Liz.
And what better to build a life on?