“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.
He envied the man that.
“Yes,” he said finally. “And Doug was all about the easy way. But Lyss still insists he was trying to get money to take care of them both when he was killed.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
“More likely he was trying to get enough money to run from the responsibility. He didn’t have it on him when he died, so I’ve always thought he didn’t want to get caught with it and it was stashed somewhere for him and his scumbag partner to retrieve later.”
“The partner that went to prison?”
Drew nodded. “Baird Oliver. That robbery wasn’t his first foray into crime.”
“And they never found the cash?”
Drew shook his head. “Wasn’t in the car when Doug crashed and Oliver didn’t have it on him, either.”
“So your brother’s motives are what you were fighting about?”
Drew sighed, looking again at Luke, glad simply to see the boy so happy. “More who he was. Or wasn’t.”
“And you each have your own version.”
“Yes,” Drew admitted. “But mine’s based in fact, hers is based in...fantasy. Some sort of dream image she’s always had of him.”
“Incompatible visions.”
“Exactly.” He let out a compressed breath. “We agreed early on to not discuss it, because it just degenerated into scenes like last week. Our marriage may be...just a business arrangement, but the fighting isn’t good for Luke. And he’s old enough now, he’s starting to ask difficult questions.”
Quinn studied him for a moment. “About his father?”
“Yes. I wanted to settle that as soon as he was old enough to understand, to tell him the truth, but Lyss kept putting it off.”
“Because she didn’t agree that what you wanted to tell him was the truth?” Quinn suggested.
“Probably,” Drew said with a glum expression. “I didn’t mind that she wanted him to know about Doug, he is his biological father. But she didn’t want him to hear anything negative, anything at all.”
“Which makes a dead man the perfect father. He can do no wrong.”
Drew’s breath stopped in his throat. He stared at Quinn. How many times had he thought just that, and then hated himself for it?
Quinn shrugged. “I tended to idealize my own father, after he died. And it took a while before my sister could get me to remember he hadn’t always been perfect.”
“She’s older?”
“A little.” Quinn grinned then. “Or a lot, sometimes. Our parents always said they had a wise, brilliant kid and a smart but stubborn one. I’ll let you guess which was which.”
Drew smiled, an odd enough occurrence while talking of his family situation that he was acutely aware of it.
“So what do you do about it?” Quinn asked.
“What can I do?” Drew answered wearily. “I kept hoping she’d eventually realize that what she thinks she knows isn’t the truth, but she’s determined to hang on to that idealized image.” He shook his head sharply. “But it’s not all her doing. I let her most of the time, because I just don’t want to fight that fight. I don’t want to fight with her at all.”
Quinn’s steady gaze sharpened, and Drew wondered if he’d let too much show. He wasn’t sure why he was talking so much to this guy he’d just met a week ago anyway. He never talked about all this to anyone.
“So, this is just a business arrangement,” Quinn said, not even making it a question.
“It
