Justine Davis - Operation Homecoming

For a moment she just looked at him.

He sighed. “Go ahead. Say it.”

“Say what?”

“That I’m way too late to be in a hurry. I know that.”

Her green eyes, so like their father’s, seemed to zero in on his face. “There is one thing I would like to ask.”

He hadn’t wanted to have this conversation standing here in the hallway, but he had the feeling dodging it now would do even more damage than he’d already done.

“Ask.”

“Why?”

He’d thought of little else on the flight here, what he could tell her. Everything involved a lie of some sort. He didn’t want to lie to her. He never had, had never felt he had to, because Hayley always understood. But now he did have to, or say nothing.

“There’s a reason. A good one,” he finally said. His mouth tightened before he added, his voice rough, “And I can’t tell you what it is.”

“Ever?”

“Maybe.”

For a long moment his sister just looked at him. Then, “All right.”

But the way she walked past him to head downstairs told him that she was far from accepting his absence through what had to be both the worst and best moments of her life. Moments she’d gone through without him, the brother who should have been with her every step of the way.

“Well, that was just a beautiful explanation and apology.”

He spun around, saw Amy standing in the guest room doorway. Her arms were crossed in front of her, her mouth—when had her mouth gotten so luscious?—quirked with an emotion that looked unsettlingly like disgust.

“‘I can’t tell you what it is’? Really? She’s supposed to just accept that?”

“She knows I wouldn’t lie to her.”

“No, you just abandon her and—oh, never mind. This is pointless. You are who you are.” She gave him a look then that made his stomach knot. “Whatever happened to that boy, Walker? The one who rescued me that day, the one who would have stood with and for his sister through anything?”

His mouth twisted. “Life happened. Death happened.”

“It happened to Hayley, too. She didn’t run away.”

“Is that what you think I—never mind. You’re right. This is pointless.”

He couldn’t take this, the way she was looking at him. He turned around and followed his sister downstairs.

* * *

Amy shook off her upset at the truly pointless conversation, grabbed up her jacket and her big purse and headed down to the living room. Hayley was by the door, tucking her phone into a pocket of her much smaller purse. Walker was standing a couple of feet away. Maybe he thought she’d finally punch him herself, and so was keeping out of arm’s reach.

As Amy came in, Hayley was speaking to her brother.

“We’re going over to Foxworth,” she said. “Would you like to come along?”

Her tone was polite, composed and almost impersonal, as if he were just a casual guest, and the answer didn’t really matter to her. No, Hayley wasn’t as accepting as she’d first thought.

And right now, she stood there wishing the fact that he was still wearing only a pair of low-slung jeans didn’t unsettle her so.

Amy doubted he even knew what Foxworth was, other than apparently that family business Quinn had mentioned this morning in the kitchen. She doubted he knew just how much she’d heard. What she had heard had done nothing to change her opinion on either man. Quinn was everything she could have wished for her friend, and Walker was just what she’d been afraid he was.

When Walker decided to go along, she wasn’t happy about it. She doubted he wanted to know more about the work that had become a passionate calling for his sister. He was more likely already bored at being home, she thought sourly.

At least he got in the backseat, she thought, so she could ignore him more easily. And the shirt he’d put on helped, although the image of his bare chest and ridged stomach stubbornly stayed in her mind. He hadn’t gone soft in those years, she thought. He still looked like the star athlete he’d been, the holder of the state high school record for no-hitters pitched.

Well, minus the odd, squiggly line tattoo she’d noticed on his arm.

Cutter, now in the wayback, apparently still hadn’t decided about Walker. It was as if the dog somehow knew he was connected to his beloved Hayley, but also knew he’d hurt her. Amy wondered if he didn’t like him, but held it back because of that connection. And then laughed at herself for crediting the canine with human emotions and decisions.

She focused on where they were going.

“Foxworth really helps with such small problems?”

Hayley smiled. “Foxworth may have helped to practically take down a government—in our absence, mind you—but one of Quinn’s favorite cases was finding a little girl’s lost locket, the only thing she had left from her mother.”

Amy smiled back at that. “He was probably thinking of you and your mother.” And only a little bit of that was aimed at the silent passenger in the back.

“His own, too,” Hayley said softly. “He was a lot younger when he lost her. Just a child.”

Hayley had told her of Quinn’s parents, killed in the terrorist bombing over in Scotland, and how that event had led years later to the starting of the Foxworth Foundation.

As they passed the blackened spot, Walker asked about the missing house. As Hayley told the story of how she and Quinn had met, black helicopter and all, Amy smiled. Hayley was so clearly—and rightfully—proud of what Foxworth did. Foxworth helped people who were losing battles even though they were in the right and had nowhere else to turn. It warmed Amy all over again. And she realized suddenly that this feeling, this passion, this certainty that what you were doing was not just right but necessary, and incredibly important, was what was missing from her own life.

And yet, that feeling was exactly what she had hoped to find in her work. She thought she had found it. Her boss was—she’d thought—a good guy at heart. Kind of old-school, tough, a bit brusque, but fair. But now she wondered. Was afraid he wasn’t who she’d thought he was.

Just as Walker hadn’t been, she added as he reacted to his sister’s tale of danger and a midnight kidnapping.

“Damn it, Hayley, you could have been killed,” Walker said.

“Quinn wouldn’t let that happen.”

“No man’s infallible.”

“He’s pretty darn close,” Hayley said cheerfully, and Amy liked how she refused to let her brother’s supposed concern now, when it was far too late, matter. “And of course Cutter would never let that happen, either.”

On his name the dog let out a sharp yip, and Amy had the satisfaction of seeing Walker’s head snap around.

“He go with you everywhere?” Walker asked.

“Pretty much,” Hayley said.

“He’s a loyal sort,” Amy said.

She didn’t realize until she’d spoken the words that they could be interpreted as a jab at Walker. But he didn’t react, and she risked turning her head enough to where she could see him out of the corner of her eye. He was looking over the backseat at Cutter, who was staring back at him. But from that angle she could see his jaw was tight, set.

“He’s also an excellent judge of character,” Hayley said, and Amy gave her friend a startled look, wondering if she was taking a shot at Walker, as well. It was hard to interpret the timing of that comment as anything else. And another glance back at Walker told her he knew it.

But he didn’t protest. He said merely, “So I should be glad he hasn’t torn my throat out, is that it?”

“Oh, I don’t think he’s made up his mind yet,” Hayley said, her tone still cheerful as they reached the turnoff for Foxworth. Having visited it several times helping with the wedding, it was familiar to Amy.