“Thank you for your help,” he said.
“You say that like we’re done,” Quinn said.
Drew looked at the other man. “Aren’t you? This is a lot more than just digging into the past now.”
“We don’t quit until you tell us to,” Quinn said.
“But Oliver could be dangerous.”
Hayley laughed, startling him. “Maybe you need to dig into the Foxworth past a little,” she said. “They’ve handled much bigger, and more dangerous fish than Baird Oliver.”
Drew glanced at Alyssa. She looked as surprised as he felt. “What exactly does Foxworth do?” she asked.
“A little bit of this, little bit of that,” Quinn said.
“Do you remember the headlines a few years ago,” Hayley asked, “about the American woman and her daughter who got kidnapped and held by a drug lord down in Mexico?”
Alyssa shook her head, which didn’t surprise Drew. At that time, she’d been struggling to survive, already sick and afraid. But he remembered.
“They were rescued, right? Snuck out right under the cartel’s noses? The husband hired some private security team to—”
He stopped abruptly. Stared at Hayley, then Quinn.
“You? Foxworth did that?”
Quinn gave a half shrug, as if it had been nothing more than a day’s work. And Drew found himself believing it. There was more, much more to Foxworth—both man and organization—than he’d understood.
“You realize,” Quinn said in that same calm, unruffled tone, “that if you pay Oliver off, there’s no guarantee he’ll go away.”
“Or not come back for more,” Hayley added.
He knew in his gut they were right. And for the first time in his adult life, he couldn’t decide what to do. He would do anything to protect Alyssa and Luke, but knowing what to do was something else. He knew how to design and build a house from the dirt up, he could handle a computer or a bulldozer, he could work twelve hours a day six days a week and still play with Luke on the seventh day, he could even throw a football pretty damned well, but this, this was out of his league. And he knew it.
“We can help you keep them safe,” Quinn said quietly.
Drew’s gaze shot to the other man’s face. His eyes were clear, an icy sort of blue that spoke of cool determination. Drew was used to assessing people, it was how he’d acquired the solid, steady work crews he had today. But this was about more than who would show up for work on time, who was a skilled carpenter, stoneworker or painter. Much, much more.
“That’s my job.”
“Yes,” Quinn agreed easily. “I would feel the same way. But let us help.”
“How?”
Cutter barked, sudden, sharp and startling them all.
“Well, there’s one quarter heard from,” Quinn said.
Cutter walked over and sat in front of Alyssa. He looked back at Hayley, his gaze intent in that way Drew had noticed before.
“I think he’s volunteering,” Hayley said.
Drew blinked. “What?”
“Consider him an addition to your alarm system,” she said. “He’s very good at it.”
“And there’s a lot to be said for an alarm system that can bite,” Quinn added.
“Wait. You’re giving us your dog?”
“Loaning,” Hayley said. “And frankly, when he does that—” she gestured at the animal “—we’re not really involved in the decision. He’s already made it.”
Alyssa was staring at the dog. Then, slowly she reached out to stroke his head, then scratch the spot the others had scratched, just below his right ear. Cutter leaned against her.
“Luke would love it,” she said. There was less stress in her voice, and that touch of panic was gone. What was it about that dog?
“And he will guard Luke with his life,” Quinn said.
Drew grimaced at the thought that might even be necessary. “He really barely knows Luke.”
“But he picked Luke,” Hayley said.
“You’re doing this because a dog wanted to play with a kid in a park?”
“Welcome to our world,” Quinn said with a grin. “We’ll send you some human help, too. Liam will be by later, and starting tomorrow he and Teague can trade off standing watch. Then when Rafe gets back from D.C. we’ll add him in.”
They must have looked startled, Drew thought. And frankly, he was. The dog was one thing, but guards?
“It’ll only be until we find Oliver,” Hayley said. “And that won’t be long.”
“You sound awfully confident.”
“I am,” she said simply. “Because I know Foxworth.”
Drew gave a doubtful shake of his head. “I’m still not sure Lyss and Luke shouldn’t go somewhere else, where he can’t find them.”
“That’s an option,” Quinn said. “We have a couple of safe houses available.”
His perception of Foxworth shifted yet again. A couple of safe houses? Just how big was this operation?
“I don’t want to scare Luke,” Alyssa insisted. “And I don’t want him to miss school. He’s getting so good at reading, I don’t want that to stop.”
“I want him—and you—safe,” Drew countered.
“Then keep us safe. Let them help.”
Drew turned back to Quinn. “Just who are you guys?”
“The best at what we do.”
“Not that I track stuff like this, but I’ve never heard of you before now.”
“Good,” Quinn said. “We work on referral only. Or lately,” he added with a wry quirk of his mouth, “upon Cutter’s insistence.”
“I looked at your website. It’s kind of vague.”
“Intentionally,” Quinn said. “You want references?”
Drew wondered if that was a gibe, but after a moment studying Quinn’s steady gaze, decided not.
“You have them?” he asked.
“From around the country,” Hayley said proudly. “In fact...” She looked thoughtful as she pulled the laptop back toward her, quickly typing something into the location bar of the browser already open. “I thought I saw...”
Drew’s brows furrowed as the Kiley Construction website came up. She clicked through to the video he’d had done a couple of years ago on the arts center project. The finished building, with its soaring front facade and glass-fronted lobby that looked out over an inlet had become a landmark in the county, and it was their best advertising. As he often did, he took video of the entire process, and it had turned out so well he’d handed that off to a local company that did high-quality promotional videos, and they’d turned out an impressive bit of marketing.
“I thought so,” Hayley said as the credits rolled by at the end of the piece. “Sound Digital Video.”
Drew had no idea what that had to do with anything, but nodded. “Yeah. Sergei and Dane, the guys behind SDV, are great. And they’re local. I try and stay local whenever I can.”
“Dane Burdette is one of those references you wanted.”
Drew blinked. “What?”
“In fact, it was his now wife’s brother we went looking for,” Quinn said. “Same sort of situation. Differing views, as it were.”
“How’d that one turn out?” Drew asked drily.
“Why don’t you call and ask him? That’s how we work.”
“You let other people blow your horn?”
“Pretty much,” Quinn said with a shrug.
“Word of mouth,” Drew said.
“The best advertising. Not that we need it.” Quinn grimaced in turn. “There is, sadly, no shortage of people getting screwed over in the world.”
Drew made the call. All he had to do was mention Foxworth, and Dane was on the phone instantly. His praise was effusive and clearly heartfelt
. And he told Drew of all the others he’d talked to before he’d agreed to let Foxworth get involved. Told how they’d helped everyone from a man up against a crooked zoning official to a grieving family dealing with a suicide, to a stolen locket that was the only memento a girl had from her deceased mother. And Foxworth had put their full force into righting the battered worlds of many varied people.
When the man got to the part about Foxworth having trackers and a sniper Drew turned to stare at Quinn. When Dane told him about Cutter being installed in their motel room as a living burglar alarm, his gaze shifted to the dog, and he found himself shaking his head.
But most of all, they had kept Kayla safe, Dane told him.
And that, Drew thought, was the bottom line.
“They were really Cutter’s first case,” Hayley said when he hung up, smiling at what was probably a boggled expression on his face. “Well, after Quinn and I, anyway.”
“How’d he find them?” Alyssa asked.
“At the post office,” Hayley said. “It’s a long story.”
“Like you being kidnapped?”
Hayley grinned. “That story’s ongoing.”
“Not for long,” Quinn said rather fervently.
Hayley lifted a brow at him. “Counting down the remaining days of your bachelorhood?”
“Counting down the days till my real life starts,” Quinn said.
The air between them was suddenly charged, electric. Drew wondered what it must be like to have that kind of connection.
He stifled the urge to look at Alyssa. It was pointless. They would never have what Quinn and Hayley had.
Doug had seen to that.
Chapter 12
“Really? He’s going to stay with us?”
“Just for a while,” Alyssa reminded her son, who was hugging Cutter with obvious delight. They sat in one of her favorite spots, the front porch swing Drew had built for her by hand. She’d never asked for it, but he’d noticed how often she sat out there, watching Luke play, and without a word he’d set about making it more pleasant. It’s something Doug would never have thought of, and even if he had he could never have done it. He’d had to ask her for help putting together a cardboard box once.
“You’ll have to help take care of him,” Drew said to the boy. “Are you big enough to do that?”
Luke drew himself up to his full three foot eleven and stuck out his chest. “I’m big now, Dad. I can do it.”
“I’ll bet you can,” Drew said, tousling the boy’s hair with a gentle hand.
Alyssa turned slightly, not wanting either of them to see her eyes glistening with tears. Luke was getting so big. She needed to measure him again, he was probably even taller than three-eleven now. And Drew was so good with him. There was just something about that big, strong man being so gentle with a little boy that tugged at something deep and primal in her. It really was boiling things down to their essence. And for all their disputes, she had never once doubted Drew was a good man. He was the best thing that could have happened for Luke, and she’d long ago decided she’d gotten the best of the deal.
“Are you all right?”
Alyssa sighed. Drew put an arm around her, and she leaned into his steady warmth as Luke and the dog began their unique game of tag once more. She didn’t know how long they’d been sitting there when it occurred to her that it was a weekday, and for Drew a workday. Not that he didn’t work more than his share of weekends, too, during the high season. Which this was not, but still, she knew there was paperwork to do, designs to work on, permit forms to handle, it never seemed to end for him. He’d taken the rest of the day off after Luke had run away, but except for the visits to Foxworth, he’d been back to working normal—for him—hours since.
Until now. After Baird had called.
“You’re not going back to work?” she asked.
He shook his head. “No.”
“Drew—”
He held up a hand. “Brilliant though that dog may be, I’m not putting my family’s safety entirely in his...paws.”
She smiled in spite of herself. “But won’t you get behind?”
“I can do a lot of the paperwork from here. Kevin is taking over at the Harkness site.”
“And you’re okay with that?”
While she wouldn’t call Drew a control freak, he did like to stay on top of everything they did. It was his name on the company, he always said, and he was responsible. And she could hardly complain about that, or the long hours it required, when in essence the same applied to her and Luke. His name was on them, therefore he was responsible.
“Kevin is due to step up. I think he’s ready. Now we’ll find out.”
“It’s a good thing you did, taking him on like that. A lot of people wouldn’t.”
Drew shrugged. “I knew he was a good kid. He just got way off track there for a while, after his father died.”
Alyssa opened her mouth to say that she wished he’d given his own brother that much consideration. But she didn’t. He would just say Kevin had an excuse, Doug had none. And no amount of her telling him he’d changed, that he’d grown up in the years after they’d run off would get through to him. He had those last images of Doug etched so deeply into his memory they were probably unassailable.
Just as she had the memories of those videos now, videos of the man she’d adored seeming like someone completely different.
Or had it been when he was with her that he was different? Which one had been the real Doug, and which the act?
She didn’t know. She knew what she wanted to believe. And that alone scared her. She wasn’t a teenager anymore, and that she wanted to believe so badly made her wonder just how well she’d left that foolishness behind.
“At least he’ll be so tired he’ll sleep like a rock tonight,” Drew said, watching as Luke shrieked delightedly as Cutter wrestled with him, then pulled back to run around him in swift circles, and barked happily.
Alyssa smiled. She’d been smiling quite a while now, taking as much delight in seeing her son so happy as Luke himself was in the play with his new-found best friend.
“That alone might be reason enough for a dog,” Alyssa said.
Drew chuckled. It wasn’t quite a real laugh, but it was as close as he’d come for a while, so she’d take it. “Maybe we should talk to... What was her name? The lady from the groomer’s?”
“Laney, I think Hayley said. Yes, maybe we should. She might know a good dog from the shelter, one who would be good with Luke. He—”
She broke off midsentence. Cutter, one instant crouched down in the front-down, tail-up universal dog play signal, in the next was upright and rigid, a fierce, terrifying snarl ripping from his throat. Alyssa cried out, for a split second fearing the dog had turned on Luke, but it was clear the animal’s attention was elsewhere. He was staring toward the trees, where Luke’s path to the park was.
Drew had leapt up instantly, vaulting over the porch railing and hitting the ground running. In that moment, as if he’d only been waiting to be sure the human protector had realized the danger, Cutter took off. Head down, tail out, barking in fierce warning, he headed toward those trees at a dead run.
“Get Luke inside!” Drew yelled, and headed after the dog. Alyssa ran to the boy, who seemed bewildered.
“What happened, Mom? Why did Cutter get mad?”
“I think he smelled something that could be dangerous,” she said.
Luke’s eyes widened. “You mean like a bear or something?”
“Or something,” she said grimly.
“Dad will scare it away,” Luke said confidently.
She picked him up and started backing toward the house, her gaze fastened on where her husband and the dog had vanished into the trees. She felt like she should do something, anything. Call
the police? Call Foxworth?
Idiot, she told herself. Get Luke inside and lock the door. Doors. Windows. Everything.
Luke protested as she headed up the porch steps, having to tug him every step of the way.
“No, we need to help!” the boy said, squirming mightily in his effort to escape. He was getting so big it was all she could do to hold on to him.
“Luke—”
“Mom, we have to go, Cutter and Dad might need our help!”
She heard a car in the distance, the bark of tires on asphalt as somebody took a turn too fast.
“Trust them,” she told Luke as she pulled him inside.
They waited, her anxiously, Luke rebelliously. He clambered up on the chair that sat by the front window and looked out in the direction his father and new companion had gone. Alyssa kept her gaze on her son, half-afraid he’d bolt out the door if she turned her back. If it was just her she would go after Drew, but it wasn’t, she had Luke and it was her job to keep him safe.
Minutes ticked by, and she was on the verge of calling for help when the pair emerged from the same spot they’d gone in.
“There they are!” Luke yelled and ran for the door. Alyssa let him go, and followed.
Cutter was trotting beside Drew, looking up at him intently. Drew reached down and rubbed that spot that seemed to be the dog’s favorite. Her gaze sharpened as she realized he was holding his other arm, the left, rather oddly. And the shirtsleeve was rolled up, on that side only. Was he hurt?
Luke burst through the door, running toward Drew and the dog. Cutter spotted him and erupted into an equally fast run. They collided and went down, Luke on top of the dog, who seemed to have twisted so the boy would fall on him and not the rocky ground. The dog inspected the boy as if to be certain he was all right, then proceeded to make him giggle by licking every bit of skin he could reach. And for that, she owed that dog a hug herself. But first...
“Was it...him?” she asked as Drew arrived on the scene of the happy reunion.
“I don’t know. Only person I saw was over by the park, not even near the house. I didn’t get a good look at him.” He glanced at Cutter. “That guy’s got one heck of a nose. Or set of ears. That’s nearly a mile away.”
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