Operation Unleashed

Luke’s voice had taken on the wheedling tone that made Alyssa laugh but drove Drew nuts. But he didn’t react. He knew it was because it reminded him of Doug, who had had that perfected at Luke’s age. He hated to think there was anything of Doug in this boy he thought of as his son, although he knew there likely was. It was bad enough that he looked so much like him, but any hint that he’d inherited other things worried him.

But now he made himself chalk it up to typical six-year-old behavior and not a sign of hereditary, blatant self-absorption. And he told himself the actions of a six-year-old were not a predictor of the man Luke would become.

But he had less luck telling himself that the very thing that irritated him about that tone was what made Alyssa laugh; it reminded her of the man she’d loved. Still loved. Didn’t the fact that she still wore that damned necklace that Doug had given her prove that?

“Dad? Can I?”

“Not by yourself, if that’s what you mean,” he said.

“I should say not, young man,” Alyssa said, her tone so heartfelt in its agreement that Drew felt his irritation ebb away. Luke was just a six-year-old boy who wanted something, not a fledgling narcissist.

“Well, you could come,” Luke said. “We can even walk on the sidewalk if you want,” he added generously.

“Well, now, there’s a selling point,” Drew said drily.

Alyssa laughed. She did so easily now, and Drew caught himself again remembering the days when she had been too ill, and too frightened for herself and her son to laugh at all.

Seems like we switched places, he thought. She’d blossomed, while he’d...retreated. He supposed he should be thankful she wasn’t the nudging, prying sort, or he’d lash out even more; a public display of his private pain wasn’t in his nature. Or hadn’t been, until lately.

Of course, maybe she wasn’t the nudging, prying sort because she didn’t care. She might appreciate him—yeah, he hated the word all right—but that didn’t mean she felt anything more.

“Please? He might be there already.”

Drew snapped himself out of his useless reverie. “Or he might not be at all,” he warned.

“He will be. I just know it.”

It wasn’t what he’d planned on doing this Saturday morning, but Drew found himself assenting anyway. He didn’t want to take any chances. Things had been peaceful, relatively, even pleasant for the last week, but they’d been kind of walking on eggshells, too.

“All right. I’ll go with you.”

He felt rather than saw Alyssa’s startled glance. Usually she was the one to give in first.

Luke crowed. “Yahoo!”

“But you’re still restricted,” Drew warned. “You stay in sight at all times, no running off on your own.”

Usually Alyssa thought his penalties a bit too strict, but she had no quibble with this one. Which told him how scared she’d been last week. She’d already been on edge, thinking somebody had been watching her. And Luke taking off had been the tipping point.

“Go get your duck boots on, a sweater, and your blue jacket,” she instructed.

The boy grimaced, but was wise enough even at six not to push his luck. He darted up the stairs.

“I can go with him,” she said when he was out of earshot.

“I think we both should,” he said.

Her brow furrowed. He frowned; was just the idea of a walk with him so bad?

“I’m sure you have other things to do,” she said.

Was there annoyance in her voice, or was he imagining it? There had been a time when he’d been able to read her better. But she wasn’t the same foolish girl she’d been when she’d run off with Doug at seventeen, believing they were eloping, only to find he had no intention of marrying her. Not even—or rather especially—when she’d gotten pregnant.

Nor was she the same shattered woman he’d found two years after Doug’s death, alone, in a hospital and seriously ill, and unable to care for herself or her toddler son. Alyssa had been a broken woman. And the nephew he’d never even met was in the custody of Child Protective Services.

No, she’d healed, gradually, gotten stronger. And she’d grown up. Rather quickly, once she saw the chance to get her son back. Then she’d sacrificed everything to keep Luke safe and happy.

She’d even married him.

She was staring at him now. “Two sets of eyes to keep on him,” he said.

“You don’t think he’ll run away again?” Anxiety spiked in her voice.

He hadn’t meant to do that. “No. But it can’t hurt, can it?”

He wanted to ask if the idea of a walk with him was that horrible, but he didn’t want to hear the answer so he kept quiet.

“No. It’s a good idea. If he sees us going together, maybe he’ll think—”

She broke off suddenly, as if she’d realized what her next words would have sounded like.

Drew didn’t need to hear them to know what she’d been going to say. Maybe Luke will think we’re okay, that we’re a real family, that the only parents he’d really known were really together.

When in reality they were anything but.

Without a word, he walked over to the coatrack by the door and grabbed his rain jacket. He took Alyssa’s down as well and held it for her as she slid her arms in. A nice, husbandly gesture.

Right.

He knew too well he would never be able to make Alyssa happy, not in the way Doug had. No amount of telling himself it had only been teenage infatuation could change that.

They walked, slowly since the rain had for the moment lightened to more of a heavy mist. He wished he could kid himself that they were a normal, ordinary, happy family out for a Saturday morning walk. But his own actions, calling out to Luke to remind him to stay in sight, were a reminder they were not. As was his wife’s nervous edginess, the way she keep looking around, over her shoulder, as if she expected something or someone to jump out at her.

She must still be having that feeling of being watched. He didn’t sense anything, but he wasn’t sure he would. He was just a guy who went to work every day and tried to keep things together. Alyssa had the imagination in the family. Maybe that’s what had drawn her to Doug, who had always been full of wild, impossible plans.

But he didn’t discount her feeling. Because he knew something she didn’t yet, because he’d only found out the week before Luke vanished. He hadn’t been sure how to tell her, had been working up to it, and then the whole thing with Luke had happened, and even though that had turned out fine, she was still shaken. So he’d held off telling her what he’d learned. But he’d renewed the vow he’d made on the day she’d agreed to his plan. He would keep both her and Luke safe. And he would. No matter what.

* * *

“He is here!”

“Yes, it seems he is,” Alyssa said to her delighted son. “How did you know?”

Luke slid her a sideways look. “He told me.”

“Who told you?”

“Cutter.”

She had no idea what to say to that piece of fancy, so she merely laughed. In her heart, she was happy the boy could even manage such fanciful thoughts still. Because of his rocky start in life, he was ahead of many kids his same age in leaving childhood behind. But he was clearly able to still indulge in wild imaginings, and somehow that comforted her.

“Can I go now?” Luke asked, trying to tug his hand free from hers.

“No,” she said. “We need to talk to his people first.”

But it seemed the decision was out of her hands, the dog was already racing across the park toward them. She saw Hayley and Quinn spot them, and Hayley gave a friendly wave as they started their way as well.

The approach of the happy dog was too much for Luke, and he broke loose to run toward him. The dog yipped in greeting, and immediately dropped into what was clearly play mode, front end down, tail up and wagging.

“Hello,” Hayley said cheerfully as they joined them. Quinn merely nodded at them both. “I should have known there was a reason Cutter wanted to come here this morning.”

Drew blinked. “What?”

“He was determined,” Quinn said drily.

Alyssa laughed. “You say that like it was his idea.”

“Oh, it was,” Hayley said. “He made it quite clear.”

“He’s a dog,” Drew said, rather pointedly.

“Maybe,” Quinn said in the same tone.

Hayley laughed, probably at their expressions. Alyssa guessed she looked as skeptical as Drew did right now.

“It’s kind of hard to explain,” Hayley said. “He’s kind of hard to explain. But trust me, he brought us here, not the other way around.”

Drew was looking at them in that assessing, considering way of his. “He brought you,” he said slowly.

“He’s got his ways,” Quinn said. “He usually just makes your life impossible until you do what he wants.”

“But he’s helpful, too,” Hayley said, still chuckling. “He brings us our outdoor shoes. That’s usually our first clue we’re going somewhere. Then we wait to see if we’re walking or going in the car. Today was the car.”

“I suppose he gives you directions, too?” Drew sounded more amused than sarcastic, Alyssa thought. Thankfully, since he could carve a turkey with that sharpness sometimes.

“Actually, he does,” Quinn said. There was something, Alyssa thought, about this big, strong and clearly tough man accepting the eccentricities of a dog that warmed her. “It sort of consists of blessed silence when we’re going the right way and booming barks if we dare make a wrong turn. If we’re lucky, we figure it out before we go deaf.”

“We figured this one out fairly quickly,” Hayley said.

“Which is why we can still hear well enough to have this conversation,” Quinn said, his mouth quirking.

Something about this made Drew grin suddenly. Alyssa’s breath stopped in her throat. She tried to remember the last time she’d seen it, and couldn’t. Doug’s smile had been easy, his grins frequent.

And worth less because of it?

Alyssa blinked. What an odd thought to have.

“Can we go now?” Luke said, on the edge of a whine.

“Is it all right if they play for a while?” Alyssa asked.

“I think that’s why we’re here,” Hayley said.

Taking that as assent, Luke dashed off, Cutter at his heels.

“In sight!” Drew called out the reminder.

“A little fallout from last week?” Hayley asked.

Drew nodded. “He scared his mother half to death. I don’t want him forgetting that any time soon.”

It was such a simple statement, Alyssa didn’t know why it made her throat tighten up. She had appreciated the edict Drew had lain down, even appreciated the way he’d done it, approaching Luke for a man-to-man talk in a way that had the boy listening carefully, wide-eyed and intent. And for a six-year-old, Luke had followed the rule pretty well.

“At that age, boys need rules,” Drew had said after he’d sent Luke to bed that first night, telling him to think about it until he went to sleep. “They need to know where the boundaries are.”

“What about girls?” she’d asked, grateful enough at his reaction to this entire episode to merely tease.

Drew had given her a sideways look. “No idea,” he said. “I never was one.”

No, Alyssa thought now, you certainly never were.

“—in construction?” Quinn was asking Drew. “Mind if I pick your brain a little? Thinking about some remodeling of our building.”

“Sure,” Drew said.

“We’ll keep the rascals in sight,” Quinn promised Alyssa as they walked toward where boy and dog were romping in some self-invented game of tag that had no rules Alyssa could discern.

“It’s silly, I suppose,” she said to Hayley as the men walked away, talking. “But I’m still nervous.”

“Not silly at all.”

“I think Drew thinks I’m too jumpy, or imagining things. But I’d been feeling like somebody had been watching me, and then Luke vanished....”

“Someone was watching you?”

“No, probably not really. It was just a creepy feeling.”

“Quinn taught me that those feelings are often just your brain interpreting signals so fast that what’s really a logical process seems like a leap of intuition.”

Alyssa blinked. “Really?” She wasn’t sure if she was referring to the idea, or Quinn saying it.

“I’ve learned he’s right. If you go back over the details of what made you feel that way, you sometimes find there were a lot of little things that, added together, made your brain make that jump.”

It made sense to her, and she promised herself when she had a quiet moment she’d try to do that. In the meantime, she was grateful to Hayley for not simply brushing it off.

“Drew obviously cares a great deal about you and Luke.”

Alyssa said the one thing she was certain was true. “He feels responsible for us.”

“You have an...interesting family relationship.”

“Ya’ think?” Alyssa responded with a laugh. “I know, it seems weird to those on the outside, me being married to the brother of my son’s father. But I don’t want to think about where we’d be, where Luke would be, if he hadn’t found us when he did. I can honestly say he saved us.”

“Quinn kidnapped me.” Hayley said it as casually as if she’d said they’d met at a community picnic.

Alyssa blinked. “He what?”

Hayley explained about the night the proverbial black helicopter had dropped into her life and changed it forever.

“What,” Alyssa said, her eyes wide, “exactly does your fiancé do?”

“He fights,” Hayley said proudly.

So he was military? Alyssa had thought he might be—something about the way he carried himself. “Navy?” she asked, since this was Navy territory around the Sound. She thought he might even be a SEAL, he was just that impressive.

“Former Army. He used to be a Ranger. But he’s still a fighter. Only now he fights for people in the right who can no longer fight for themselves.”

Chapter 5

Alyssa blinked. She glanced across the park to where Drew and Quinn Foxworth were watching Luke and the dog play. It sounded so...noble, that sentiment. No wonder Hayley sounded proud.

“Why?” she finally asked.

“Because once he was helpless in the face of tragedy. He lost hope. He made it his mission to help others who were feeling that way. And I’m proud to be part of that now.”

Helpless. Oh, how well she knew that feeling. She would never forget, never wanted to forget, and was determined she would never be in that position again. It made her even more curious about these people.

She looked across the green expanse toward the swings, where Luke was weaving around the uprights with Cutter hot on his heels. Drew and Quinn were right there, deep in conversation but clearly with an eye on the boy.

“Is that why he joined the service?”

Hayley nodded. “But things changed. He was butting heads more than he was seeing eye-to-eye. So he left, and that was the beginning of the Foxworth Foundation.”

“He has a foundation?”

“Started by him and the only other Foxworth left, his sister. Now it covers most of the country, from five regional locations.” Hayley glanced over to where Luke and Cutter were now wrestling happily. “But we’re the only ones with a dog as a team member,” she added with a grin.

Alyssa, still nervous about Luke, had been doing the same regularly, checking on the pair. “He’s...quite something, your dog. Where did you find him?”

“I didn’t. He found me. Turned up on my doorstep when I needed him most, after my mother died.”

Alyssa’s gaze shifted back to Hayley. “Like he found Luke when he needed him most?”

“Exactly. It’s what he does. He finds people who need his—or Foxworth’s—particular kind of help.”

Alyssa sighed. “I’ll be forever grateful to him for bringing Luke home.” Hayley met her gaze, and there was something warm and understanding in her eyes, something that made Alyssa add rather pitifully, “I wish he could help us.”

“Don’t be so sure he can’t,” Hayley said.

“Can he help Drew stop hating his brother?” Her tone was bitter, but she couldn’t help it any more than she’d been able to stop the words from slipping out.

“Does he? Really?”

“Close enough.”

“Seems rather pointless to hate someone who’s dead,” Hayley said, her tone so neutral Alyssa knew it was intentional.

“It is, but he can’t let go. It’s the only pointless thing he does in his life.”

“Why?”

“It’s a long story.”

“We have all morning,” Hayley said, gesturing toward the romping dog and child. “I think they’re having so much fun it would be sad to interrupt them.”

Alyssa smiled. Luke was having fun, and it warmed her heart. Plus, there was something about this woman that made this feel more like sharing with a trusted friend than airing dirty laundry. So Alyssa answered her.

“Doug was very different from Drew. He was sunny, happy, carefree. Drew’s always been so serious, responsible.”

“Some would say,” Hayley said in that same, neutral tone, “the latter makes the former possible.”

“That people like Doug can only be carefree if people like Drew do the serious stuff? Yeah, I’ve heard that. Repeatedly.” At Hayley’s look, she added quickly, “Oh, not from Drew. He doesn’t say stuff like that, at least. I’ve heard it from other people. Even from guys who were supposedly Doug’s friends.”

“What does he say?”

Alyssa supposed she wanted to know what their fight had been about. Her instinct was always to keep quiet, if only because she didn’t want to whine. She’d been that way for too long, and she was determined not to revert.

“That Doug was lazy, always looking for the easy way. That he’d slid through life on looks and charm. That he wanted to be rich without putting in the work. That he was irresponsible.”

“Any of that true?”

Alyssa shrugged. Contrary to what Drew believed, she’d come to terms with many of the realities of Luke’s father a while ago. “Probably most of it.”

Hayley’s brows rose. “If you agree, then what is there to fight about?”

“Because Drew also thinks Doug never loved me, not really. That he abandoned me when I got pregnant. Because I got pregnant. It’s not true.”

Alyssa stopped herself when she heard her voice rising.

“It’s okay,” Hayley said gently. “An understandable hot button.”

Odd how her voice was so comforting, Alyssa thought. She felt like she could tell Hayley the whole story and she would understand. Maybe because she’d suffered the loss of someone she loved, too. Whatever it was, she found herself pouring out the whole story.

“I fell in love with Doug Kiley when I was fifteen. The way only a teenager can. A year later, he finally noticed me. My parents hated the idea because he was four years older. His parents weren’t too happy either. So they tried to break us up.”

Hayley rolled her eyes. “Oh, and that always works so well.”

Alyssa smiled, surprising herself. She rarely spoke of that time anymore, and it never made her smile, but somehow with Hayley it was different.

“We ran off together when I was seventeen. For a while it was fun, we had adventures, he called them, up and down the west coast. And then I got pregnant.”

“Where were you then?”

“California. It was the end of summer, and we were broke. Doug said you could practically live off what people left on the beaches.”

“And not get cold at night,” Hayley said.

Alyssa liked that she got that, and didn’t judge. “Yes. Anyway, I had to go to a free clinic to be sure, but I was pregnant.”

“That must have been a little scary.”

“It was. But I was...happy, too. I loved Doug, and I was young enough to feel like having his baby was a sign of that.” Her mouth quirked ruefully. “Shows you how stupid I was.”

“How did Doug react?”

Alyssa sighed. “I didn’t tell him, for a while. He was worried about just getting us enough to eat.”

“And when you did?”

Alyssa looked over at Luke, the single consistent light in her life since that awful day. “He got scared. He said we were broke, we couldn’t have a kid. He wanted me to get rid of it, so we could go on just like before.”

“Ah.”

The sound Hayley made was noncommittal, nonjudgmental. It enabled Alyssa to go on. “If it had been sooner, I might have done it. Probably would have. But I waited too long. I’d felt the baby move. And I couldn’t.”

“A tough decision.”

She didn’t tell Hayley Doug had become angry about it. He’d spent days trying to talk her out of going through with it. Then he’d turned on the charm full bore, sweet-talking her with stories about the future she was risking. She wasn’t sure where she’d found the strength to resist, but she had. And then Doug had lost it. She’d never seen him so furious, didn’t even realize he was capable of such anger.

And then he’d walked out. Just to cool off, she was sure.

And she’d never seen him alive again.

“Doug was killed a few days later. He’d gone out looking for a way to get money, to take care of us. He hooked up with this really creepy, shady guy we’d met on the bus to L.A.—Baird Oliver. It was all his idea. I know he was only able to talk Doug into it because he was so scared.”

“They did something stupid?” Hayley asked softly.

Alyssa nodded. “They robbed a convenience store. Baird got away, but he was caught later. Doug crashed running from the police. He was killed.”

“And you were pregnant and alone.”

She nodded. “I know it was wrong, the robbery. But he was desperate. And Baird was persuasive, in a slimy kind of way. Doug just wanted to take care of us.”

“You think he changed his mind about leaving?”

“I know he did. He didn’t have the money, so he couldn’t have been running away like Drew says he was. And he was headed back, not away. He was coming back to get me.”

“You must have been terrified.”

“I was. The next couple of years were hell. I knew I couldn’t come home, my parents hadn’t spoken to me since we ran off. Getting pregnant, having Luke, would only make it worse.”

“That’s sad.”

“Yes.”

“So what did you do?”

Alyssa laughed, only this time it was full of scorn, directed only at herself. “I brilliantly got so run-down trying to work three jobs and still take care of Luke that I got sick, which became pneumonia, and I ended up in the hospital.” She looked at Luke once more. “They took him away from me, Hayley. He was the only thing I had left of the man I’d been so crazy in love with, and they took him away.”

Hayley took in an audible breath. Alyssa liked her even more for her expression of genuine sympathy. “What happened?”

“Drew,” she said simply. “He found us. Saved us. Both of us. He took care of me when I could barely lift a finger to help myself for weeks. And he got Luke back, out of foster care. And I will always, always owe him for that.”

She meant it. Even though occasionally, after incidents like last week’s, she had to remind herself just how much she owed him.

And how impossible it would be to ever really pay him back.

Chapter 6

“Careless, foolish, and impossibly self-centered his entire life.”

Drew kept his voice low even though Luke was so raptly involved with his new playmate he doubted he would have heard anything short of a bomb going off. He didn’t care anymore how the boy had known the dog would be here in the park, he was just savoring the expression of delight on Luke’s face.

“And you’re obviously not,” Quinn said. It was so matter-of-fact Drew felt oddly pleased. “How’d that happen?”

Drew shrugged one shoulder. “Doug was kind of sickly when he was a baby. So everybody fussed over him. Then later he was so damn cute and clever, everybody spoiled him. He was smart enough to figure out early that he could charm people into just about anything.”

“And it’s a lot easier than working.”

Drew studied Quinn Foxworth for a long moment. He instinctively liked the man, for his brisk, businesslike manner, and the innate steadiness he sensed in him. And the obvious fact that he was crazy in love with his Hayley, and wasn’t afraid to show it.