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“Why does she want Blake if she didn’t want me?” Holt looked to Marlow for answers I wasn’t sure anyone had. I felt for the guy. My parents had cut me out because they didn’t believe in me. Being straight up abandoned? I couldn’t deal. Not as well as he had.
“She doesn’t want him.” Wicked’s nostrils flared. “This is all to screw with us.”
“You brought her back into our lives.” Andrew stood, went to the liquor cabinet.
“She claims she was always there,” I defended as Marlow opened her mouth.
“And you believe her?” He slammed a glass on the quartz bar top. “How did we end up with a mother like her?”
“I said I was sorry.” Marlow shot from her chair and gripped the arm rest as if in unbearable pain.
I circled her wrist with my fingers. She glanced back at me, her disappointment etched on her face.
“Doesn’t matter who’s sorry for what if we can’t find Dad.” Holt joined Andrew by the liquor cabinet.
“Did anybody go by his place?” The room stopped. Everyone stared at me.
“Mrs. Quinn did.” Trish spoke quietly.
“He didn’t answer the door?” Marlow’s shoulders tensed.
“Wasn’t inside either.”
“How’d she get in?”
I tightened my grip on her in warning she might want to rein in her tone.
If Trish were fazed or annoyed, she didn’t show it. “With her key.”
Marlow’s silence said more than words on her opinion of that subject.
“Pop.”
I tickled Blake’s stomach. “Another new word? You are a vocabulary machine.”
“Pop.” He pointed out the window.
My eyes rounded. I ran to the front door and flung it open. A haggard Mr. Dixon trudged up the front walk.
He held up his hand when I opened my mouth. “Don’t.”
“You don’t have to answer to me, but there’s a lot of people in there that are going to want more than that.”
He peered around me hopefully. “Is Audrey here?”
“No,” I said hesitantly.
With a curt nod, he stepped inside.
“Where have you been?” Marlow led the pack from my study to the foyer. How she managed to get around as if nothing were wrong was a testament to her strength and determination.
“I had some things to take care of. What’s a man got to do to get a drink around here?”
“Why’d you come here?” Andrew side-stepped Marlow.
Mr. Dixon rubbed the back of his neck and glanced toward me. “I needed to talk to Patrick.”
I tilted my head. “Hope you didn’t mean privately.”
