Page 41 of Operation Protector
Grace had been looking from one speaker to the other, her brow furrowed, as if she weren’t sure she was getting this right. But it only took her a moment to figure it out. She stared at Ali. “You mean you and I could walk the dogs here and Daddy would be here already?”
“Yes,” Ali said quietly.
Grace turned sharply toward him, got up on her knees and threw her arms around his neck.
“Daddy! We could see each other every day!”
“Well, not quite that often. But…more. If, I mean really if, you can keep it secret.”
“I won’t tell her. I won’t even talk to her!”
“Can’t do that,” he cautioned. “She’ll figure out you’re hiding something. Maybe just yes or no answers.” He grimaced. “Make that yes, Mother, or no, Mother.”
“Less said, the better,” Quinn agreed.
Grace’s brow furrowed. “She’ll ask. Pushy. Like she always does. Not like she cares, but like…”
“Like she’s the boss and you have to report in,” Colby said, having been on the receiving end of that himself.
“Yeah,” Grace agreed.
“Maybe,” Ali suggested, “just three-words-or-less answers. Like ‘I’m reading,’ or ‘I have homework,’ or ‘walking the dogs,’ or most importantly, ‘I don’t know.’”
“And always, the last time you saw me was our last official time,” Colby said, “when I came to pick you up and she knows it. Can you keep that straight?”
Grace gave him an eye roll. “Of course I can. I’m—” she slid a glance at Liam “—bright as a new penny.”
All five adults in the room, including him, burst out laughing. Ziggy let out a string of happy yips. And Cutter looked at them all as if he were saying, “I told you so.”
Colby thought maybe he’d underestimated the dog he’d already admitted was very, very smart. Then he realized Grace was staring at him. Then she threw her arms around him again and gave him a fierce hug.
“What, baby?” he asked, hugging her back.
“You laughed. Really laughed.”
He lowered his chin to rest on her silken hair. “I love you, Gracie.” It came out a little gruffly, his throat was so tight.
“I know, Daddy. I know she’s wrong.”
“Wrong?”
“When she says you only pretend to love me, to get back at her.”
He felt every muscle he had tense. He heard a tiny sound he thought had come from Ali, and at the same time sensed the Foxworths go very still.
“That,” he said, “is the biggest lie she could ever tell.”
When he finally looked up again, he saw Ali looking at them, her eyes shining even in the indoor light. She was blinking rather rapidly, and he realized the shine was tears. And that made some deeply buried, frozen part of him begin to stir.
“Liz Hollen could tell me grass was green and I wouldn’t believe her,” Ali said.
Grace laughed at that. He felt it as much as heard it, that sweet, beloved sound, and it let him regain some kind of control over the emotions that were rocketing around inside his brain.
“I don’t know how to thank you,” he said to Ali.
She gestured toward them. “Seeing this is a pretty good thank-you.”
“That it is,” Hayley said quietly.
