Page 95 of Galen's Redemption
He tilted his head back until he was peering up at Robert. “Would you believe I love her?”
“No one would ever be able to tell, and I promisenot to let anyone in on your secret.” He bent and kissed Galen’s nose. “I’ve got quotes on the repair work from five companies. Can I get you to check them?”
“Sure. How does it look?”
Robert sighed. “Some of them are pretty steep, but I know the work needs to get done. One of them says the foundation needs to be looked at too.”
“Ouch.” Galen had been afraid of that. “What kind of pricing arewe looking at?”
Robert winced.
“Oh, that bad, huh?”
“Probably worse. I’m not up-to-date on things like this, so I can’t really say.”
Galen stood and grabbed Robert’s hand. He loved when they touched, because it reminded him that this was real. It wasn’t just a dream he’d been having and would have to wake from eventually. Then again, with the bills, maybe it would have been better if it wasa dream.
“Let’s go see what we can do.”
As they headed for the office, Galen’s phone rang. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his pants and pulled it out. “It’s Olivia.”
“Oh, go ahead and take it. I’ll wait in the office for you.”
Galen answered the phone and held it to his ear. “Hey, how’s it going?”
“You’re not going to believe this!”
“Try me.”
“I’ve contacted as many women as I couldfind and told them what we were doing. A lot of them said they wouldn’t be part of it because they were afraid of your father retaliating, but I got twelve who were willing to put stories up on the site. Then they must have told some other people, because now we’ve got twenty-seven. They’ve already sent me the details of what they remember, and I’ve got them formatted and ready to go up.”
Galenexpected it would take months, maybe years. Hell, he wasn’t even sure it would work. Now, though? His confidence was much higher.
“Go ahead and post them.”
She drew in a sharp breath. “Are you certain you want to do this?”
Was he? Did he want revenge for the wrongs done to him or justice for the things his father had done to those women? Did it have to be mutually exclusive? The thing of itwas, he was happier working at the shelter than he had ever been at Primal. There were no cutthroat deals, no companies being bought that forced people out of a job, and there weren’t families being torn apart, some of them forced to live like Jeff, huddling in their car, hoping to survive another day. No. It wasn’t revenge. At least not anymore.
“Every one of those women had a right to workwithout fear of harassment or losing their job because they said they weren’t interested. Post them.”
“I was hoping you’d say that.” She tapped some keys. “Okay, they’re up.”
“Thank you for everything. You don’t know how much of a help this has been.”
“What? You think I’m done? Oh no. I’m going to be spreading the word. It does no good to post them if no one reads them.”
“I’m not sure that’sa good idea.”
“Galen… I know you’re trying to protect me, and I appreciate that, but I’m a big girl and I can take care of myself.”
Of course she was but…. “I’m not trying to protect you. I’m worried about my friend.”
There was a pause. “Thanks for that, really. Still, I started this because he’s been getting away with it for years. I don’t want him to be able to hurt anyone else. So, I’m goingto do this, and you’re going to say ‘thank you, Olivia.’”
“Okay. Thank you, Olivia.”
“You’re welcome. Now, I’m going to go get to work. If I hear anything, I’ll let you know. You do the same.”
