Operation Homecoming

by Justine Davis

  Pain dug at him, burrowing deep. He’d thought himself prepared for this, but he’d been wrong. Very wrong.

  He looked at Hayley, made himself face her even knowing she couldn’t miss the wetness in his eyes. The initial shock was ebbing and she held his gaze, her expression unreadable even to him, who had once been able to read her so well. He knew there was every chance he might never earn her forgiveness, that he may have lost his sister forever.

  Along with his mother. For an instant the house seemed empty despite their presence. She had always so filled this home she and his father had built together.

  “Why did you stay?” he asked, barely aware of saying it aloud.

  “This is home,” Hayley said, her voice tight. “I feel closer to her here. Not that you’d understand. Running away is more your style.”

  He winced. As far as she knew, she was right. Once, his first instinct would have been to get away from the constant reminders, as it had been when his father had died.

  “That was before I realized there is no getting away from some things,” he said quietly.

  For an instant something shifted in her gaze, as if she’d sensed the pain behind the words. Whether it mattered to her or not, he couldn’t tell. His sister had ever been kindhearted, but even the kindest heart could only take so much desertion.

  Her expression went cool again, and he had to look away. He glanced around. This was Hayley’s home now, and their mother’s taste and Hayley’s had never been the same, Mom being more the floral print and ruffle type and Hayley not. Or maybe it was Quinn’s influence. But he liked the look of the blues and greens, the solids and stripes, even as it saddened him to no longer see that huge, ugly sofa on the far wall, with the big orange flowers that had always looked kind of alien to him. But mom’s big chair was still in the corner, and...

  There was someone else here.

  He stared at the woman, who seemed familiar. Not a neighbor, he thought. Must be a friend of Hayley’s; they looked about the same age. Tall, with beautiful blue eyes behind stylish red-framed glasses, long waves of shiny auburn hair, a turned-up nose and, he assessed, a great shape. Just enough curves, and those jeans and sweater hugged every one of them. And her mouth...the way she was biting her lip as she looked at him...

  He felt a kick of interest. Quashed it swiftly. Not just out of habit, as something he hadn’t dared risk in a long time, but with Hayley already angry at him that was hardly the way to go ten seconds through the door.

  “Hi, I’m Hayley’s nominee for worst brother in the world,” he said wryly to the woman. “And I think I’ll win.”

  “Walker,” she said, her voice oddly tense.

  His brow furrowed at her use of his name. She knew who he was? She had been staring at him rather intensely for a stranger. Belatedly, he realized what else had been in her tone. She didn’t just know him, she expected him to know her.

  “I’m sorry, I...”

  “You don’t even recognize me, do you?”

  He tried to judge if there was hurt, or maybe anger, in her tone. Everybody else here was ticked at him, why not this one? When he caught himself assessing threat, trying to decide what answer would turn the situation the right way, he had to rather fiercely remind himself he wasn’t in that hole anymore.

  “I... You look familiar,” he said, feeling a bit helpless, a sensation he didn’t care for; he’d been there too often. But he wasn’t there anymore, he told himself again. And here, it wasn’t likely to get him killed.

  Unless he pissed Quinn off enough and he went for that pistol he’d seen on the table just inside the door. He had no doubts the man could and would use it if necessary. He’d come to know a bit about that kind of steel in a man.

  “She has changed a bit since you last saw her,” Hayley said. “But I would think you’d still recognize your little shadow.”

  That quickly, an image flashed through his mind. A girl, at least six inches shorter than this one, unnaturally quiet, with unruly, bright, almost-orange hair in a clasp at the back of her neck, and big, heavy glasses that masked her eyes.

  “Amy?” He knew he sounded astonished, but who wouldn’t be? Who would ever have expected this dazzling creature to emerge from that shy child who tried so desperately not to be noticed? What had happened to the orange hair and the huge glasses she’d hidden behind? “Quiet little Amy?”

  “Not so little anymore.”

  “I can...see that.” He barely managed not to let his gaze slide over those rich curves. Damn, what was wrong with him?

  He was off balance, that was all. He’d known this was going to be difficult, even painful if his sister reacted as she had every right to, with anger and rejection. But he hadn’t expected, of all people, the girl who had been so infatuated with him in high school to be here. The girl who had, on occasion, trailed him like a clumsy but loving puppy. The girl he’d tolerated because she was his little sister’s best friend and he didn’t have much choice. The girl he remembered as studious, reliable, responsible and a few other things that were, at the time, the most boring attributes he could think of.

  The girl whose innocent adoration, to his own considerable shock, had floated into his mind at odd moments over the years as the last purely sweet thing that had happened in his life.

  “Did you expect nothing would change?” Amy asked, an edge in her voice.

  “No, I...”

  “Everything’s changed,” Hayley said, and he couldn’t miss the undertone that had come into her voice; he’d grown up with her and he knew when she was on the verge of breaking. The sound ripped at him. “And you never cared.”

  “Hayley, no, I...” he began, but before he could get out another word his sister had turned and disappeared into the kitchen. Quinn gave him a hard look, then followed.

  “I never got the chance to really thank you,” Amy said, snapping his head back around.

  He blinked. “Thank me?”

  For the life of him he couldn’t think of one thing any of the three people in this house would want to thank him for. That he’d had no choice, and worse, couldn’t explain, didn’t matter in the long run. He’d shattered the one tie in his life he still valued. He doubted from the moment he’d been free to come home that it could be repaired, but he had to try. That he was feeling a bit battered at the moment didn’t change that.

  “For saving me from those nerd-hunters my first week of high school.”

  It took him a moment; it seemed so long ago. But then the memory was there—a small, quiet figure with the too-vivid hair backed into a corner, tears on her cheeks as she stared at the ground rather than the trio of girls who were jeering at her. He’d groaned inwardly when he realized it was Hayley’s friend, but he’d waded in anyway, telling them to back off. And stay backed off, this girl at least.

  She had just stared at him with that awestruck look that was so embarrassing. And, admit it, secretly flattering, he thought now. If he’d known she’d turn out like this, maybe he wouldn’t have been so embarrassed by her tween-age devotion.

  And a few months later it was all gone. Everything had changed.

  He shook off the old weights. “You’re welcome,” he said.

  “I’m glad I got this chance,” she said sweetly. “Now I never have to speak to your irresponsible, cruel, heartless ass again.”

  She turned on her heel—giving him what normally would have been a pleasant view of a curved backside—and headed for the stairway. He stared, a bit confused by the sudden shift.

  “Ouch,” he muttered, feeling nearly as walloped as when Quinn had decked him. Still, this overt hostility was better than the pain in Hayley’s voice.

  Amy looked back over her shoulder, clearly having heard him. “You expected a warm welcome? After you abandoned your mom and my best friend, your own sister, to deal with the aft
ermath of your father’s death while you went gallivanting around the country on some teenage quest, with only a call or a note and a visit maybe twice a year?”

  “I waited until I graduated high school,” he protested. “She understood. And Mom. They told me to go, that they’d be okay.”

  “You left them still grieving! You think that they didn’t beg you to stay makes it right? When have you ever done what was truly right, Walker Cole?”

  At least once. And it may well have cost me everything.

  But Amy wasn’t nearly done yet.

  “She had to deal with the long horror of your mother’s cancer alone, you don’t even come home for your own mother’s funeral and you entirely skip Hayley’s wedding, with nothing but a few stupid texts? And then turn up three months later as if you’re just late to the dentist, and you have the nerve to be surprised that I’m angry?”

  Quiet little Amy Clark had definitely grown teeth. Yet he couldn’t help being glad of it, because it was for Hayley. It seemed he’d forgotten something on that list of her attributes. Loyal. Fiercely, completely loyal. And unchanging. People like Amy never changed.

  And in an ever-changing world, perhaps he hadn’t valued that enough.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “You’re right. About everything. All of it.”

  “Yes,” she said flatly. “I am. And I’m leaving before I slug you myself.”

  She vanished up the stairs, and Walker Cole chalked up yet another casualty to the chaos his life had become five years ago.

  They’d told him the price would be high.

  He hadn’t expected it to be everything.

  Chapter 4

  By the time she closed the guest room door behind her, Amy was shaking. She hadn’t realized quite how much anger she’d been harboring all these years.

  It was mostly for Hayley’s sake, and if she was honest, it was in part because Hayley herself didn’t seem angry enough. She never had.

  “I don’t hate my brother. He’s just...Walker. Aptly named.”

  “That’s okay, I hate him enough for both of us.”

  How many times had they had that exchange?

  She wondered if Hayley was saying the same thing to her husband right now. She was doubly glad Quinn was here, both because he’d done what she would have liked to do in decking Walker, and because he was probably the best comfort Hayley could have just now.

  If she didn’t love Hayley so much she might have envied her that kind of support. Because now here she herself was, under the same roof with her adolescent crush. The perfect name for it, since he was the one who had crushed her heart. And who had come perilously close to being the last straw that destroyed any faith she ever had in the male of the species. No matter how many times she reminded herself that not all men were utterly irresponsible like her father and Walker, it was sometimes a hard belief to hang on to.

  At least Walker wasn’t a drunk, she thought as she made herself finish her unpacking. Or maybe he was. He did look a bit haggard, and while all the good looks were still there, his eyes looked different. Still beautiful, with unfairly long and thick lashes, but more world-weary somehow. And that thick, espresso-brown hair needed a trim. She didn’t mind longer hair, if it at least looked intentional. This looked like he’d just neglected it.

  Or like her father’s had, when the money for haircuts had gone for booze instead. And caused nights filled with furious arguments between her parents. That was part of the reason she’d escaped so often to the warm haven of Hayley’s home. Both Hayley’s parents had looked out for her, and she’d found in them the steady caring and consistency that had been so lacking in her own life. When Christopher Cole had been killed by, horribly, a drunk driver while on duty as a police officer, and then Nancy had died just over two years ago, Amy had grieved fiercely right alongside her friend.

  She closed the closet door rather sharply. She hated that Walker was able to unsettle her so after all this time. That she was wasting so much time and thought on him. He didn’t deserve even the anger she’d vented on him downstairs. In fact, she was a bit embarrassed about her rant. She’d hoped, if she ever laid eyes on him again, to be cool and unaffected. In fact, she’d hoped she might be able to react just as he had, puzzled, not quite able to place him. Although she’d have to pretend it; there was no way on earth she would ever forget him, no matter what he’d done. Or not done.

  “When have you ever done what was truly right, Walker Cole?”

  Her own words rang in her head. She stopped in her tracks.

  ...done what was truly right...

  She sat abruptly on the edge of the bed.

  “Girl, you need to listen to your own rant,” she muttered under her breath.

  For hadn’t she been wrestling with that very problem in those moments before Walker had arrived to blast it all right out of her mind? Wasn’t the question that had driven her here in the first place how to do what was right, or whether to even try at all?

  You have no right to criticize him if you’re not willing to do it yourself.

  As for Walker’s annoying presence disrupting everything, she would just have to do what she’d always told herself she’d do if she ever encountered him again.

  Ignore him.

  * * *

  Walker had had some sleepless nights before, far too many of them in the past five years, but this was a doozy. He’d gotten through some of them then by telling himself he’d sleep when it was over—or when he was dead, which could well have come first—but now it was over, at least as far as he was concerned, and here he was. Still watching the seconds tick by in the dark.

  He grimaced into the darkness of the living room, where he’d crashed on the couch. His old room was a home office now, not that he would have asked to sleep in it anyway. This was crazy. He was as wide-awake as he’d been when his life hung in the balance. When a single wrong word or step could have meant giving himself away to men who would kill him without a millisecond’s hesitation.

  Then again, didn’t his life hang in the balance now? The rest of it, anyway? Having quiet, shy little—well, not so much any of those anymore—Amy Clark chew him out in front of Hayley and her new, intimidating husband was bad enough, but what if Hayley couldn’t ever forgive him? What if he truly had lost the only family he had left because he’d done the unforgivable? He hadn’t let himself think of that possibility in his drive to get here, but after this reception he knew he had to.

  He didn’t kid himself by saying he’d make it up to her. There was no making up for what he’d missed, what he’d left his sister alone to deal with. Amy was right about that. And the only thing that could possibly ameliorate it was something he couldn’t give her.

  It was barely light out when he finally gave up and staggered into the kitchen. But Quinn was up and, thank God, he had coffee on.

  “You look like hell,” Quinn said, sounding rather cheerful about it.

  “Feel worse,” he said, eyeing the coffeepot.

  Quinn noticed. “Everything’s where it always was.”

  “But this isn’t my home anymore.”

  He was a little startled at the bleak sound of his own voice, although after last night he supposed he shouldn’t be.

  “You’re the one who left,” Quinn pointed out flatly.

  For a moment, Walker studied this man his sister had chosen. He knew little about him. Nothing, actually, other than his name.

  “I thought I’d let you know I’m getting married. In January. His name is Quinn. I love him the way Mom loved Dad. You’d be welcome, but I won’t expect you.”

  That had been the entirety of the message. And the bitterest part of it was that of all the messages she’d left, that was the best one. Much better than “Mom has cancer. It looks bad. You need to come home.”

 
He rubbed his fingers over the sore spot on his jaw. Quinn watched him, and Walker didn’t think he was mistaken in thinking there was a certain satisfaction in his gaze. “You pack a hell of a punch.”

  “You deserved it.”

  “Yes.”

  “Still do.”

  “Yes.”

  Quinn lifted a brow, as if surprised at his lack of argument.

  “You may find this hard to believe, but I’m really glad Hayley found someone who loves her enough to...do that to someone who hurt her.”

  Quinn’s expression changed then, his brow furrowing just slightly, as if he hadn’t expected that. “And I’ll do it again, if need be. You’ve put her through hell. I won’t let you add to it. She needs time to figure out how she feels about you, and I intend to see that she gets it.”

  Walker had no doubt the man meant it. He adored Hayley. And vice versa. It fairly rippled off them both. And last night he’d made it clear he wasn’t going to leave Walker alone with his wife and give him the chance to hurt her all over again.

  “What is it you do?” he asked, wondering if Hayley had somehow ended up with a cop. He wouldn’t have thought that possible, given what had happened to their father, but then he wouldn’t have thought the turn his life had taken possible, either.

  “Family business,” Quinn said. “You?”

  He winced inwardly. “Currently unemployed.”

  “That why you’re here? Looking for a free roof?”

  Anger kicked through him. “You pushing for me to return your welcome?”

  “You could try,” Quinn said, clearly unconcerned.

  You might be surprised, Walker thought. He’d learned a bit since he’d left here.

  But then he realized that he couldn’t very well be glad Hayley had found a man who loved her enough to take down anyone who hurt her, and then expect him to act any other way, given what he knew. Or thought he knew.