Page 65 of Operation Protector
“Why do I get the feeling she was even worse about you than Mr. Hollen was?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Because you never miss a trick?” He let out a long breath. “If that woman ever said a civil word to me, it was because she didn’t realize it was me until after she said it.”
“Sweet.”
“If it hadn’t been for her husband’s orders—he wanted the tool of having a grandchild—she would have wiped the marriage off the books, somehow.” His mouth twisted. “But I’m actually glad about Liz’s father. Otherwise Grace might never have been born.”
He watched until Hayley shut off the video when the entrance slowed to empty, but only came up with a couple more IDs, and most of them sketchy.
“No,” she assured him, “that’s good. You confirmed a couple we weren’t sure about.”
“Looked like a pretty standard Hollen power meeting,” he said. “Full of people they already own, and people they want to.”
“So, tell me, what does Grace do during all this?”
“She gets paraded around in some dress she hates that her mother picked out, to show what a loving, family-oriented group they are, then stuffed in a hotel room with a sitter.”
“Such fun,” Hayley said dryly. Then with an entirely different expression on her face, she leaned back in the chair. “So, how are you and Ali progressing?”
He blinked. Swallowed. “What?”
Hayley laughed. “Did you think we wouldn’t notice?”
He shifted his gaze away from her, not knowing what to say and afraid if he kept looking at her she’d read his mind. If she hadn’t already.
“Ever notice Cutter getting in your way when you go to sit somewhere, or nudging you when you’re standing?”
“Well…yeah, but…”
“Let me tell you about my brilliant dog’s other talents,” Hayley said, smiling so widely it was hard not to smile back.
He couldn’t even guess at what was coming, but after a mere two and a half weeks of dealing with Foxworth, he thought nothing would surprise him.
He was wrong.
Chapter 29
Ali leaned back, stretched, took one final look and closed the file, satisfied. She’d been worried about this one, since it was for one of her most loyal clients, and she hadn’t been able to really focus on it—or much of anything—since that day a bloodied, desperate Colby Kendrick had tumbled into her life.
But Grace had given her the inspiration for the project—a redoing of the client’s daughter’s bedroom. Ali had already redone their living room and kitchen, and that they’d come back a third time made them invaluable in her book. And like Grace, the child, who was a year older, loved to read. So Ali had taken something Grace had said—that she would love a secret place with her books so she could live in that story world—and designed it, raising the bed to give a cave-like spot beneath it, lined with bookshelves and pillows. The parents had been a trifle iffy, but the child had practically shrieked with delight when she’d seen the mockup, and that had decided it.
Unlike poor Grace, who had learned so young not to show enthusiasm for anything she truly wanted, because it would guarantee she would never get it. And if it was for something she already had—like her father—her mother would do her best to take it away. Ali couldn’t imagine what it must be like, but to see clever Grace fight back however she could was…well, inspiring.
As for her father…
She sighed. Ran a hand over Ziggy’s soft fur. The pup had been snoozing in her lap after a morning spent romping with the big dog who made such an excellent puppy sitter.
She stood up abruptly, feeling the sudden need to move. Ziggy woke, swiped his tongue over her chin, then made the tiny sound that she had a suspicion meant it was time for a trip outside. Cutter was on his feet the moment she was. She looked down into the dark, amber-flecked eyes. In a movement that was almost automatic now, she reached out and stroked the dark head. That same, soothing calm seemed to flow through her fingers to her heart.
“If you can teach him to be one quarter as smart as you, I’ll be happy. Not as smart, mind you, because I’d be exhausted just keeping up.”
Cutter’s mouth opened and his tongue lolled out to one side, and he looked for all the world as if he were laughing.
“Hayley and Quinn must miss you like crazy, but I’m so glad you’re here. And so is Grace. We’re going to make her life better, aren’t we?”
Cutter let out a sharp bark, echoed by Ziggy.
“I’m going to take that as two yeses,” she said, laughing herself now.
