LITMIR.BIZ

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up would have been the answer to many prayers. When it would have eased my pain, soothed my aching heart.”

      She was killing him. And he deserved it.

      “I...” He stopped when she waved a hand that was none too steady.

      “You being here now has made me remember all over again how much I needed you when she got sick. How much she needed you.”

      He tightened his jaw against a new wave of pain. But he held her gaze, didn’t fight it. Looking at his sister, the one who’d lived through every day of it alone, he didn’t feel he had the right to dodge one ounce of it now.

      “Hayley, please, let me...”

      “I need some time, Walker. Time to absorb, figure out how I feel.”

      He sucked in a long breath. He had no right to demand more of her. No right to demand anything. He nodded. “I’ll wait.”

      “You might want to do it elsewhere. Amy will be out in a moment. We’re going for a walk.”

      He grimaced, thought of several things to say to that, discarded all of them. “Enjoy,” he said, figuring that was safe enough.

      “Doubtful.” Concern flickered in her eyes. “She has a problem to deal with. It’s why she’s here from LA.”

      He frowned. Amy had a problem big enough to warrant coming over a thousand miles?

      None of his business, he told himself. And took his sister’s advice and vacated the hallway.

      * * *

      “Don’t you think it’s time you told me?”

      Amy looked at Hayley as they walked up the long driveway. Cutter was trotting along beside them, occasionally pausing for a sniff of something, but never letting them get too far ahead of him.

      “You have enough on your plate with your brother,” Amy said, thinking of what Hayley had told her of their encounter in the hallway.

      They reached the road at the end of the drive. Cutter’s demeanor changed, she noticed. Instead of racing around, checking all corners of the yard, once they hit the road he was at their side, as if he completely understood walking along a roadway, even here where traffic was very light, was a different matter.

      “Just because Walker shows up out of the blue without a word doesn’t mean I’m going to drop everything,” Hayley answered. “Especially when it’s you. Now quit dodging.”

      Amy sighed. When she wanted to be, Hayley could be tough as nails. Probably a good thing when dealing with a man the likes of Quinn.

      “I’m not sure it’s anything, really.”

      “But it bothers you.”

      “It’s just a...tiny niggle.”

      “You said it was your boss.”

      “Yes. It’s something I found, by accident, when I was pulling up a file he had me working on. I wasn’t snooping or anything.”

      “I never would have thought you were.”

      Amy stopped as they reached the corner. For a long moment she stood just looking at the house there, the two-story shaded by huge evergreens, and the big yard on two sides. It looked so different now, tidy and well-kept by the current owners, painted a cheerful blue with white trim.

      “Do you know what my mother used to say was the best part of living on a corner?” She was barely aware, as the memories stirred, that she’d said the words out loud.

      “What?” Hayley asked.

      “That when Dad came home drunk he had a fifty-fifty chance of not parking the car in somebody else’s yard.”

      For a moment Hayley didn’t speak, and the words seemed to echo in Amy’s head. And although Hayley had long ago told her she would go insane if she let every mention of a drunk driver bother her, Amy still said, “Sorry.”

      Hayley shook her head. “I wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about the hell your life was, compared to mine.”

      Amy turned to stare at her. “Your father died.”

      “Yes. But while I had him, he was wonderful. Loving, kind, supportive, always there for me. You never had that.”

      Cutter had come back when they stopped, and now he was standing in front of her, in fact leaning against her legs. The furry warmth of him was again comforting. And it seemed to crystallize her thinking, as well. Amy stroked Cutter’s head as she looked at the house again, then back at this woman who had so often been her lifeline.

      “What I knew of real fathering came from yours,” she said quietly. “He always put up with me hanging around. He laughed with me, not at me. He hugged me, gave me advice, fixed my bike.”

      “That was Dad,” Hayley agreed.

      “I used to...wish he was mine, too.” Amy sighed. “But you know that.”

      “Yes.” For a long moment Hayley looked at her, then smiled gently. “So did he.”

      Amy didn’t know whether to feel embarrassed or grateful.

      “You know, he kept a close eye on you. If there had been the slightest sign of physical abuse from your father, if he’d even seen so much as a bruise, he would have had you out of there in an instant.”

      Amy blinked. “What?”

      “He had it all figured out. He knew who in CPS he’d talk to, someone he had good rapport with. And which judge, if they needed one. He wanted it all mapped out in case he had to move in a hurry.”

      “I...I never knew that.” Her heart ached for the loss of a man who had cared even more than she knew.

      “Mom told me one day when I needed distraction, when she was sick. She’d asked how you were, and that got us started.”

      “My father was never that at least. Abusive, I mean.” She grimaced. “Just silly, and pretty much useless. And he only argued with my mother.”

      “No wonder you hated going home.”

      “I so often wished I could just stay at your house.”

      Hayley looked at her consideringly. “They talked about that, too, Mom and Dad. That if he had to pull you out, if maybe you could live with us.”

      Amy stared at her. “I never knew that, either.”

      “Neither did I. They didn’t tell me back then. They were afraid I’d get my heart set on it.”

      “And if you’d told me back then, I would have gone crazy, wishing for it to happen.” She looked back at the house once more. “And I hope the people that live here now are happy. It was a nice house once, and now it looks like it is again.”

      Determinedly, she shoved the past aside. She didn’t let it define her. “Your father told me once that bad examples could sometimes teach you as much as good ones,” she said as they resumed their walk.

      Hayley laughed. “That was Dad. He told Walker the same thing when his buddy Joe got in trouble for shoplifting.”

      Amy looked at her friend. It was, she told herself, past time that she thought about Hayley’s situation rather than her own silly emotions. She was merely dealing with the reappearance of a schoolgirl crush. Hayley was dealing with something much more painful.

      “I can’t imagine how you must feel, him showing up like this.”

      Hayley grimaced. “It was a shock.”

      “I hope you told him off last night.”

      Hayley grinned then. “Actually, you did that quite nicely. I didn’t have to add a thing. I think ‘What she said’ was about the extent of it.”

      “I

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