It was worth my grandmother teaching me to identify birds by their calls.
It was worth my grandfather letting me sit silently in his study while he handled business calls because, in his words, “A child who knows how adults behave when they think children aren’t listening will never be easily fooled.”
He had been right.
I simply wished I had learned the lesson sooner.
My parents died in a car accident when I was nine.
Grandfather raised me.
He was strict, private, occasionally infuriating, and fiercely protective.
He never trusted Flynn.
Not from the beginning.
“You love him,” Grandfather said once.
I was twenty-eight and newly engaged.
“Yes.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
I frowned.
“You didn’t ask a question.”
He studied me from behind his desk.
“Exactly.”
That was Everett Mercer.
He could make silence feel like an interrogation.
“What do you have against Flynn?”
“Nothing yet.”
