Page 39 of Operation Protector
He snapped back to the moment. “What?”
Ali looked at him. “When Liz came over and started quizzing us about our days in college together. I was terrified, we hadn’t really talked about it, but she had me believing it.” She looked up at Hayley, who had just topped off their mugs of coffee with that delicious blend he kept meaning to ask about. “Made meunderstand exactly what you meant when you said Foxworth did their research.”
“Oh.” He wasn’t sure what else to say.
“She not only knew I’d gone to Washington State, she knew my major, and tossed off that we were both in about three campus organizations together.”
“That you were really in, I gather?” he asked. Ali nodded.
He glanced at Hayley, who nodded at him. “And Ty—he’s our head tech guy out of St. Louis—had me planted on the rosters within the hour,” she said, “so if she checked, or had someone check after she got back home, there I’d be.”
“And she would,” he said. “She never trusts anybody completely.”
“It makes me wonder how she trusted enough to even have a child,” Ali said.
Colby let out a disgusted breath. “That was her last shot.”
“At what?”
“She thought since nothing else had in nearly five years, that having a child might wake me up.”
Ali drew back. “Wake you up?”
He nodded. “Make me realize I needed to give up this silly idea of what to do with my life and take what her family was offering. For the sake of the child.”
She seemed to go very still before saying, with a note of near-disbelief, “So she used your sense of responsibility against you.”
“From what we’ve found,” Quinn said as he sat down opposite them, “she—and the rest of her family—use any tool at hand against anyone who’s not following their plan.”
“Pretty much,” Colby agreed. “I’m sure that’s why she…picked me. She figured I’d jump at the chance to be on their level. I was supposed to leave my stupid, useless life behind and grab the opportunity I didn’t deserve but they were going to give me anyway.”
“Because of course, anyone would,” Ali said, and he felt a kick of warmth at the utter disdain and sarcasm in her voice. And for a brief second he wondered what it would be like to hear that low, husky voice under other circumstances. Intimate circumstances.
He reined it in and went on. Admitted something he rarely did, even to himself. “If I had it to do over again, knowing what I know now, knowing Grace and the kid she would become…maybe I would have done it.”
As if the dog had sensed the change in his voice, Cutter came over and sat at his feet, resting his head on Colby’s knee. He reached out to stroke the dark head, and oddly, felt a sort of calm, as if it were radiating from the dog through his fingers. He looked up, a little disconcerted, to find Ali staring at him.
When their gazes locked, she said quietly, “I’ll bet you would. For the sake of the Grace you know now, you’d have given up your life. Figuratively…or literally. You’d die for her, wouldn’t you.”
It wasn’t really a question, but he answered as if it had been. “I would. To save her I wouldn’t hesitate a minute.”
“And deep down, even though she might not think of it in those words, she knows it. What a gift to give your child.”
Her words warmed him in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. The kind of warmth he’d felt the first time his baby girl’s tiny hand had reached up to touch his face as he held her, the first time she’d piped out “Da-da,” the first time he’d made her laugh in delight. Something deep, deep down and glowing, some sense of value and worth he’d lost.
Or Liz had trampled out of him.
“But think about this,” Ali said quietly. “If you had given in, if you hadn’t had the courage to fight and had gone down that Hollen road… Grace very likely would not be the girl she is now. They would have smothered her with their wealth, power andattitude just as they tried to do with you. The child you love so much, and who adores you, probably wouldn’t exist.”
He had never, ever thought of it that way. He stared at this woman who had, in the space of a week, become an integral part of his existence, part of the operation that gave him, for the first time in so long, hope.
Even the usually brisk, businesslike Quinn seemed to have been moved by her words. “And there you have it, Colby. The wisdom of the world, given to you on a platter.”
Colby nodded slowly, unable to speak. Then Liam came down from what he’d gathered was their meeting and computer level upstairs, and Quinn was back to his usual job of solving problems.
“I think we can get away with Liam going with you again tomorrow,” he said.
Colby shifted his brain to the issue now at hand. It was an effort. This emotional crap drained him faster than anything else.
