She filled pages with her notes, the ideas coming so quickly her hand cramped from trying to write them all down.
She heard Ray’s car pull up outside. She stayed where she was, hoping against hope she’d hear his tread across her porch, his knock on the door. When she didn’t, she bit her lip and stared down at her notes, the words blurring in her vision.
Ray didn’t understand. He couldn’t. It didn’t matter anyway. She put her checkbook back in the drawer and tidied the table. She had to go pick up Fletcher.
When she returned with Fletcher, he headed to Ray’s side of the duplex without looking to her for permission. Hayley watched, perplexed, as he stood on tiptoe to open the screen door to Ray’s porch.
“Hey, Fletch, what do you think you’re—”
Ray’s door opened at that moment, and he crossed to the screen door just as Fletcher got it open. Ray held it for him and Fletcher went in, wrapping his arms around Ray’s legs. Oscar came bounding out and jumped up on Fletcher and Ray both, swiping his tongue across Fletcher’s cheek.
Dumbfounded, Hayley stared at the scene before her. Her gaze clashed with Ray’s, and she found herself spellbound, unable to look away. She didn’t know what to say, what to do. “I told him we’d walk Oscar when he got home,” Ray said with an easy smile.
Hayley cocked her head. As far as she knew, Ray hadn’t seen Fletcher all day, not until now, to tell him anything. “Oh? When did you tell him that?”
Ray hesitated. “I mean, you know, like how we walk Oscar every day when he gets home.”
Hayley had the distinct sense there was something going on, something Ray wasn’t telling her. But she could hardly question him. She was too relieved he was still speaking to her.
Fletcher released Ray and directed his attention to Oscar. He retrieved Oscar’s leash and attached it to his collar.
“Want to join us?” Ray invited as he followed the two out the door.
Hayley didn’t see how she could say no. It was the first time she’d been invited. Walking Oscar had always been a Ray and Fletcher thing. She found herself ridiculously giddy at being included in their tight male circle of three.
“Okay,” she agreed. She locked her purse in her car and pocketed the keys.
Her giddiness turned to near delirium when Ray reached for her hand. Maybe she hadn’t lost him after all. She eyed Fletcher, who was a couple of feet ahead of them, trying to keep up with Oscar’s excited puppy lope. Fletcher, she knew for certain, she had lost.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The following week Callie called her. “Fletcher doesn’t need to attend any more of the adoption parties,” she informed Hayley. “We’ve got what looks like a viable party to adopt him.”
“Already?” Hayley gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white. Her heart dropped to her stomach.
“Looks like. I’ve got some more paperwork and a couple of home inspections to do, but initial background check looks good. Just thought I’d let you know.”
“I didn’t think it would happen so fast. And they’re, the people who want to adopt him that is, they’re aware of his language issue?”
“Yes, but it doesn’t seem to be a problem.”
“Callie, I know you wouldn’t give Fletcher to just anybody, but is this the right family for him?”
“I guarantee Fletcher’s being adopted by someone who’ll love him. In fact, I think they already do.”
“From just that one meeting?”
“Sometimes when it’s the right thing, people know it. I think that’s what happened here.”
“Thanks for letting me know, Callie. I appreciate it.”
“You’re welcome. I’ll be in touch.”
That evening while they were sitting on her porch, she told Ray about the phone call from Callie. Ray slid his hand under hers and squeezed. “You know, it’s not too late to change your mind,” he told her gently.
She blinked back the tears that filled her eyes. “I can’t.”
He didn’t argue with her. Ever since Fletcher’s outing to the adoption party, Ray had seemed quietly resigned to her decision. He’d been solicitous, but more withdrawn, as if he had something weighing heavily on his mind. Their evening routine hadn’t changed much except for one notable exception. Once quiet time was over, Ray left.
He’d embrace her and kiss her like he meant it, his kisses never failing to light a fire inside her. But then he’d draw away, bid her goodnight and retreat to his side of the duplex. Perplexed, Hayley let him go. He was sending her a message she couldn’t quite read. He didn’t seem angry with her, yet something had changed. She knew he wanted her, but he wouldn’t let himself have her. She didn’t understand it, and each evening her frustration mounted. He gave just enough of himself to get her motor running and then he’d walk away when everything inside her begged him to stay.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, holding hands, then Ray stood. “I’m going to get going.”
Hayley rose as well and he drew her into his embrace. She twined her arms around his neck, welcoming the heat that rose between them. Pressing herself against him, she kissed him hungrily, sending him a message she knew he could read. Stay with me.
They were both turned-on and ready. No way would he walk away tonight, she was sure of it. She tried to back toward the door with him in tow, but he didn’t budge. Instead, he ended their steamy kiss, reached up and unlocked her arms from around his neck. He set her a little away from him and took a deep, unsteady breath.
“Why?” The anguished, one-word question escaped her lips before she could stop it. Her entire body vibrated with need.
“Because,” he began then stopped.
“Because why? It isn’t because you don’t want to.”
“No.”
“Ray, please…”
“Hayley—”
“Are you punishing me? Because of Fletcher?”
“No, for God’s sakes, no, it’s got nothing to do with that.”
Panic swept through Hayley. She felt as if she’d been running for hours and could hardly catch her breath. Ray was slipping away from her. “Then what?” she said dully. “Just tell me.”
“I want you to miss me.”
“What?”
“Let me put it another way. I want you to know what you’ll be missing if you leave.”
“Ray, that’s just—”
“I already told you, I don’t want you to go. But you seem so dead set on sticking to your damn plan.” He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. Hayley stared at him. He wasn’t playing a game with her. He wasn’t withholding sex to punish her, exactly. But he was sending her a message, finally, that she could read loud and clear.
He held up a hand as if to stop her, though she hadn’t moved or said a word. “That’s not the only reason.” He coughed. “If there’s even a chance that you’ll change your mind, I don’t want anything to cloud your judgment. I don’t want you to leave, but I don’t want you to stay here because of me. This isn’t about what I want. If you decide to stay, it should only be because it’s what right for you.”
For long seconds they stared at each other across the few feet separating them before Ray pushed open the screen door and walked through it. It closed with a soft whoosh behind him, and Hayley listened to the same sound as he entered his own porch and the softer clicking sounds of his front door opening and closing. She let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.
Instead of going inside, she sank down into her chair once again, her mind replaying everything that had just taken place. Every nuance, every word, every expression that had crossed Ray’s face.
She had no idea how to respond to such blatant honesty. She didn’t think she’d ever been faced with anything like it before and certainly not from a man. She and Trey had traded words and made assumptions about the other’s feelings. Maybe they’d both been too scared to lay it all on the line like Ray just had. Where had he learned that? How, why, did h
e let himself be so vulnerable? He’d handed her the power to hurt him, and having it wasn’t something she relished.
Unlike Ray, she made sure to wrap her feelings in lots of layers and bury them deeper than she ever had before because those last couple of years with Trey had taught her to protect herself. She didn’t welcome the possibility of being stabbed through the heart again.
Another uncomfortable thought pushed its way into her head. The only reason Ray would be so open with her was because he trusted her. He’d given her the power to hurt him because he didn’t think she’d use it.
“Wow,” she murmured softly to herself. “He’s got a lot more faith in me than I do.”
She rose and strode purposefully to Ray’s door. He answered her soft tap almost immediately. She took his hand and drew him through the doorway. Then she hugged him. No steamy kiss. Nothing sexual. She held him close until he seemed to get her intention, and he hugged her back. They stayed that way for long minutes before she finally let go.
After Hayley left, Ray took a cold shower, which did nothing to cool his raging libido or calm his wayward thoughts. Caroline had never gotten to him the way Hayley did, and lately he’d been asking himself why that was. He’d loved Caroline, hadn’t he? Why else would he have married her? Had they merely been part of the same twenty-something crowd whose members had gradually paired off and married each other until it seemed they were the only ones left? He hated to think he’d married Caroline simply because it was convenient. Surely there’d been more to it than that.
Yet he knew he’d never had this sense of joy and peace he got every time he saw Hayley. All he wanted was to be with her. It was as simple and as complicated as that. She calmed him down and revved him up at the same time.
He’d never thought about how it would feel to lose Caroline until it actually happened. But the idea that he’d lose Hayley, that she’d go ahead with her plan to move to L.A., that she’d leave him behind without a backward glance, scared the hell out of him. He’d have Fletcher, of course, but it was hard to imagine creating the family he wanted without her.
He hadn’t told her the whole truth earlier, either, about why he’d put a hold on spending the night with her. He didn’t need any more memories of what it was like to be with her, anything else to torture himself with or to miss if she left. He was in deep enough as it was.
He puttered around the kitchen, cleaning up a few dishes he’d left in the sink, emptying the leftover coffee from this morning. He’d let Oscar out and then try to get some sleep.
Ray flipped on the outside light and stepped onto the concrete pad at the rear of the duplex. The evening rain had abated but the air held that special, cool hint of moisture like it always did after one of the summer downpours. Oscar padded out behind him, sniffed the air then stepped into the grass to nose around before he squatted to do his business. Ray glanced across the narrow alley to the back of the shop where a single security light burned. Oscar continued to nose around in the wet grass beneath the swingset before he hopped up on the pad behind Hayley’s half of the duplex. He froze midstep, and a low growl emitted from his throat. The light outside Ray’s door barely illuminated beyond the immediate vicinity, so Oscar’s outline was all Ray could see.
The old vertical blinds were closed, covering the sliding door into Hayley’s apartment, and very dim light shone against them. Perhaps Oscar sensed a rodent of some sort, an opossum or a field mouse or an armadillo. Ray took careful steps through the grass separating the sections of concrete and came up next to Oscar. “What is it, boy?” he whispered, squinting into the shadows. Another low growl emitted from Oscar’s throat, and when Ray bent to soothe him, he realized Oscar’s hackles were up, his whole body tense, the hair along his back standing at attention.
If he sensed another animal, surely he’d have pounced by now or pursued it if it ran. But Oscar’s focus was on the sliding door, not the ground. He’d frozen in that position, and Ray stared at the door as well, trying to see whatever it was that Oscar saw or sensed. The door itself. That’s what Oscar had noticed. It was off its track, out of position, popped out of the frame. Someone had broken into Hayley’s apartment. He knew for a fact the alarm system was wired to the sliding door yet he’d heard no siren. For a split second Ray froze just as Oscar had. Then he heard the murmur of voices, Hayley’s and an unidentified male. The intruder, surely. He couldn’t make out the words. He had to make a decision. Barge in unarmed and take his chances or take a minute and be smart about it. He listened a few seconds more. For the moment at least, it didn’t seem like Hayley was in imminent danger. At least he hoped not. There was no screaming, no sounds of struggle.
He turned, scooped up Oscar and ran back into his apartment. He set the dog down, dug his cell phone out of his pocket and grabbed his softball bat from the laundry room. He accessed Tim Reichard’s number from the cell phone’s memory, and when he answered explained the situation as succinctly as possible. Perrish was unincorporated and relied on the county sheriff’s deputies, of which Tim was one, for peacekeeping and protection. Tim worked out of the sub-station on the north end of town. He’d know what to do. “I’ll probably be inside by the time you get here, just so you know.”
“Ray, don’t—”
Ray disconnected Tim’s warning, turned the phone off and stuffed it back in his pocket. Softball bat in hand, he stealthily made his way back to Hayley’s apartment. The glass door had been relocated just enough to allow entrance. Ray edged the vertical blinds over so he could see in. He’d kind of like to know what he was dealing with beforehand. The light over the stove glowed to his right, barely illuminating anything other than the stove itself. At the far end of the living area, the hall light was on. He saw the hulking form of a man dwarfing Hayley. They were face-to-face at the hallway entrance, the man’s back to Ray.
Ray slipped off his flip-flops and slowly, carefully, pushed the vertical slats of the blind aside and stepped inside. He saw no reason why he couldn’t sneak up on the guy, konk him over the head with the bat, and ask questions later, because now he could hear the threatening tone of the man’s voice as well as his actual words. Hayley’s tone in reply was both adamant and pleading.
“What are you going to do, Carlos? Take him on the run with you? You know you won’t get far.”
“That’ll be my problem,” Carlos sneered. “You want him to remember you cut up and bleeding out on the floor, or in one piece waving good-bye, that’s up to you.”
“You signed away your rights to him. You’re not taking him. Not unless you kill me first.”
Ray caught a glimpse of Hayley over the guy’s shoulder. Her chin was up, her posture defensive, ready as she could be in case Carlos came at her.
“Niko told you what would happen if you kept him. He told you I’d make you pay.”
“I’m not keeping him. Someone else is adopting him. People I don’t even know. As soon as it’s final, I’ll never see him again. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
Ray took another silent footstep forward, his entire future flashing before his eyes. If he screwed this up, Hayley might end up dead. And Fletcher might be gone forever. He had to be careful. He had to—
A ripple of resignation ran along Carlos’s shoulders. “You think I give a shit about what happens to that kid? This is about you and me. You should’ve stayed out of my business like I told you. But you didn’t so now we got a score to settle.”
He sprang at Hayley and she wisely dove to his left, landing hard on the tile floor. She was down and crab crawling backward away from Fletcher’s bedroom and toward her own. Ray saw the knife Carlos held, a nasty-looking butcher knife that looked suspiciously like one he’d seen in the drawer of Hayley’s kitchen.
He charged Carlos then, letting out a guttural war cry, the only thing he could think of to deflect the man’s attention from Hayley. He raised the bat and took a swing, but to Carlos’s credit he was quicker than Ray thought he’d be. He turned in the nick of time and gr
abbed the bat, nearly wrenching it out of Ray’s grip, then shoving it back in Ray’s direction, causing him to lose his balance. Ray collided with an end table and almost went down. Carlos took the opportunity to come at him, slashing the knife in his direction as Ray regained his footing. The knife caught in his shirt and opened a gash in his side before Ray could get it together enough to deflect it.
The white-hot pain and the indignity of having the other guy draw first blood made him see red in a way he never had before. No way was this guy getting away with threatening or hurting Hayley. No way would he get his hands on Fletcher.
Carlos smiled while he brandished his weapon, almost as if he were enjoying himself. Ray immediately saw the physical resemblance Fletcher had to his father. The dark eyes and hair, the olive complexion. But Carlos exuded evil intent, his skin covered in a variety of garish tattoos, muscles bulging out of the ill-fitting clothes he wore.
Ray switched the bat to his left hand as they circled each other in the small space just outside the hallway. Carlos was right-handed. The knife as sharp as the bat was dull. But Ray was taller, and the reach of the bat was longer. All he had to do was get one good shot at Carlos from the right side, and he could disarm him.
He kept his eyes on Carlos, the two men staring each other down, each waiting for the other to make a move. A door clicked open in the hallway. Fletcher’s bedroom door. Ray heard Hayley whisper to him and shortly afterward he became vaguely aware of Hayley edging along the wall toward the kitchen with Fletcher perched on one hip. He didn’t want to take his focus off Carlos for even a second to warn her away or alert Carlos to her progress if he hadn’t already noticed it.
“I already called the cops, Carlos,” he said in a conversational tone. “You might as well give this up now and make it easy on yourself.”
Carlos shook his head. “I don’t think so, white bread. I think I’ll carve you up first. Then her.” He jerked his head in Hayley’s direction, his gaze never leaving Ray’s.
A Forever Kind of Guy: The Braddock Brotherhood, Book 2 Page 27
