Operation Unleashed. Justine Davis

it did,” Quinn assured her. She appreciated that. “He wasn’t about to let either of us near him. That’s why we had Cutter backtrack him here. That interested him enough to get him to come home.”

      Drew glanced once more at the boy and dog, who were rolling around on wet grass as if it were a warm, sunny day. “That must be some dog.”

      Hayley laughed. “We could tell you stories. But now, I think we should leave you to...resolve this.”

      Drew nodded. “We need to talk to him some more.”

      “Don’t you need to get back to work?” Alyssa asked.

      “This is more important,” Drew said, and started across the yard to collect Luke.

      “Nice that he puts that first,” Hayley said, sounding as if she were making an effort to be noncommittal.

      “He always puts Luke first,” Alyssa said.

      That was our deal, after all, she thought. And Drew kept it. Of course he did, he was Drew.

      She’d made the best bargain she could, at the time. Her choices had brought them to the brink of disaster, and Drew had saved them. He’d promised them safety, a home, and to love and care for Luke as if he were his own. And he’d delivered on every one of those promises. Unlike his brother, Drew Kiley’s word was his bond, and he lived up to it.

      And if things had changed, if she had changed since then, it wasn’t Drew’s fault. It was hers.

      As usual.

      Chapter 3

      “That has got to be an interesting household,” Quinn said as they walked back to the park, taking the same shortcut through the trees, since Drew had told them it was a good mile if they went by road. Plus it offered some protection from the suddenly increased rain.

      “Indeed,” Hayley said, looking back to be sure the reluctant Cutter was actually with them. The dog had been very hesitant about leaving his new playmate. “But Luke wasn’t scared. Of either of them.”

      That had been her first fear, that the boy had run away to escape some kind of abuse. But the way he’d been with his mother, and his...uncle, had clearly negated that idea.

      “No. Nervous about being in trouble, but not scared.” Quinn grimaced. “No love lost between those brothers, though.”

      “No. Even with one of them dead. Sad.”

      “He’s doing the right thing.”

      “Drew? Yes, he is.” She dodged a low-hanging branch. “But I have the feeling things are going to be very interesting around there this afternoon.”

      Cutter woofed, low and with emphasis.

      “I know, dog,” Quinn said. “But we don’t mess in people’s private lives, buddy. Not what Foxworth does.”

      The dog made another sound, one Hayley thought sounded rather disgusted.

      “But if Luke had been afraid...” She was still fairly new to all the ins and outs of the Foxworth Foundation, and wasn’t sure exactly where the line was in some situations. And this situation was certainly unique. She couldn’t imagine they’d come across a family like this one, consisting of a boy and his mother, who was married to his dead father’s brother.

      “We don’t do domestics,” Quinn said. “But if there was reason to suspect he was being abused, we would at least look into it and then turn it over to the right people,” Quinn said. “We’d never walk away from something like that.”

      Hayley looked back once more. The trail through the trees had turned westward, and Luke’s home was now out of sight.

      “I wonder what kind of argument’s going to break out next,” she said.

      “Let’s just hope it’s out of that kid’s earshot,” Quinn answered.

      With a sigh Hayley nodded. Then they cleared the trees and stepped back into the open space of the park. Rain was pelting them now, hard and steady.

      “We’re going to get soaked,” Quinn said.

      “I think that ship already sailed,” Hayley retorted.

      “Guess we’ll have to go home and change clothes.”

      She flicked him a glance, saw nothing but obvious innocence in his expression. For a guy who had a poker face that wouldn’t quit, she knew exactly what this meant.

      “You just want my clothes off,” she accused, but laughter broke through in the middle.

      “Damn straight,” he said.

      “You go first,” she teased.

      “My pleasure,” Quinn said, and there was so much heat and outright need in his voice she was surprised she wasn’t already steaming.

      She spared another thought for Drew and Alyssa Kiley, wondering if they ever shared moments like this in their odd relationship. If she had to guess, she’d sadly say no. They didn’t have the air of a couple that was intimate at every possible moment. She wondered if they were at all, given the nature and circumstances of their being together.

      And then they were in the car, Cutter loaded in the back where he promptly sprayed the interior with a hearty shake, and all she could think about was getting her man home and licking every raindrop off the body she knew so well.

      * * *

      Drew was thankful Alyssa didn’t seem inclined to fight with him. Maybe she was just so thankful Luke was home safe, thankful that they’d dodged a large bullet, that her relief made her more forgiving. Or maybe, as he had, she’d just learned the futility of it. All they did was go round and round in the same old rut, digging it deeper and deeper with each circuit.

      More likely she just felt like he did, now that the adrenaline that had spiked when she’d called to tell him Luke was missing had begun to ebb. The thought of Luke out there, alone, lost and maybe scared, had knifed at him. That it was probably his fault had only driven that knife deeper.

      He paced the living room, seeing nothing of the familiar surroundings. He’d built this house for them, done much of the labor himself, but it all meant nothing. None of his success, his work at building the business his grandfather had begun, of hanging on to it through the toughest times, and now building it again, meant anything next to the biggest job he’d ever taken on.

      He worked hard at being a father. Harder than at anything in his life. It wasn’t in his nature the way it seemed to be in Alyssa’s. She was automatically loving and understanding and generous—too generous in some cases—by nature. And it was that generosity that got them into trouble. Or more accurately, his reaction to it. Because that generosity made her excuse Doug even after what he’d done. And that clawed at something buried deep inside him. Made him, to his shame, lash out every once in a while.

      And if he sometimes wished for a little more of that generous understanding for himself, well, that was his problem. She’d agreed to this arrangement for Luke’s sake, because at the time she’d had little choice. She wasn’t the one who was now chafing under the terms.

      She hadn’t asked him to fall in love with her.

      She still loves Doug, he reminded himself. For all his sins, she still loves him, and probably always will. It didn’t matter that he didn’t understand it, didn’t understand what she’d seen in his brother that had made her willing to throw her life away for him.

      He’d long ago admitted he knew what Doug had seen in her, although he had his doubts whether his feckless little brother had seen the real woman behind the sweet face and the big, innocent blue eyes. In his more sour moments he suspected it was that innocence that had drawn Doug; it took a certain amount of innocence to be taken in by his act.

      And there he was again, striking out even in his mind. Doug was dead—and