Because she wasn’t sweet or loveable or trustworthy.
* * *
“I LIKE HER,” Grandpa Ed said once Flynn had him settled in his recliner in the living room. “Hire her.”
“Slow down.” Flynn opened the ancient gold brocade living-room curtains, letting in the afternoon sunlight. It did nothing to cheer him. Instead, it aggravated the sledgehammer-like pounding in his head. He’d seen something familiar in Becca’s expression. He just couldn’t put his finger on it, not while he was preoccupied with his grandfather.
“I like her,” his grandfather reiterated.
“It’s time for your pills and to check your blood sugar.” Flynn changed the subject, ignoring the light blinking on the answering machine. It was most likely the usual messages from Grandpa Ed’s friends in town—help with a leaky faucet or something heavy that needed lifting. He’d become a go-to resource for the locals.
Flynn rummaged through the bag of medicine and paraphernalia they’d brought home from the hospital, searching for his grandfather’s pill box and the flap that said Sunday lunch.
As he did all this, his mind flashed to the past, to a time without worry. To warm nights out on the back porch overlooking the Harmony River, while Grandpa Ed regaled him and his friends with stories of loyalty, honor and espionage.
How he longed for those days.
Flynn and his business partners had made millions in the dot-com world, but money couldn’t buy health or happiness. Not for an eighty-year-old man with advanced heart disease.
“Why not hire her?”
“Because.” Because people had tried taking advantage of Flynn’s wealth already. He’d had to change his cell phone number twice and Grandpa Ed’s home number. There’d been too many calls from out-of-the-woodwork entrepreneurs and college buddies wanting to manage, or rather, spend his money. Not to mention the temporary reconciliation with his mother. She disappeared after he’d written her a check. Only his ex-con father hadn’t shown up for a handout. “If it’ll make you happy, I’ll call Agnes later. She’s the one who recommended Becca.”
“And then we’ll hire her.” Grandpa Ed sounded as if it was a done deal.
But there was something about Becca MacKenzie that poked at Flynn’s subconscious. He could see how his grandfather might be charmed by her warm smile and heart-shaped face. He could see how a man could be distracted by her sleek curves and ribbons of long black hair. But he’d been caught by something in her walnut-brown gaze. Something he had yet to identify. Something that was simultaneously familiar and unfamiliar.
“Knock, knock.” Slade Jennings, Flynn’s friend and one of his business partners, opened the screen door. “There’s the big man.” Slade crossed the living room and shook Edwin’s hand, looking as if it was casual Friday in his black slacks, button-down shirt and yellow paisley tie. That was just the way the financial guru presented himself, even on weekends. “How’re you feeling?”
Grandpa Ed’s smile looked sad. “I’ve been better.”
Flynn handed his grandfather two pills and a bottle of water. “He’ll get better.” He had to.
Grandpa Ed had raised Flynn since he was eight. That was the year his father had gone to prison for armed robbery. The year his mother decided she’d needed a new start in life, one that didn’t include a son who looked exactly like his criminal father. The year Flynn learned that no matter what he did, his grandfather wouldn’t leave him on someone else’s doorstep.
If only Flynn had proven how much that meant to him before this, taken Grandpa Ed on the trip of his dreams to the cities and countries where the old man had made a name for himself in the intelligence community, instead of postponing the trip year after year while Flynn made his fortune.
“I picked up the bed.” Slade smoothed his tie. “Are you ready to move it?”
Grandpa Ed turned questioning eyes toward Flynn.
“I ordered a new bed for you.” One with rails and adjustable positions to keep the swelling in his extremities down.
Years of his grandfather’s military service appeared in the form of stiff shoulders and a commanding tone. “My bed is fine. Just because you’ve made a lot of money doesn’t mean you need to spend it on me.”
The pounding in Flynn’s head intensified. He exchanged a frustrated look with Slade. “I didn’t buy you a hospital bed as a homecoming present. It’s what the doctor ordered. If you don’t manage your edema, you’ll go into congestive heart failure.” And die.
Grandpa Ed’s weakened state from a fall a year ago plus the trifecta of diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol had already tried to shut down his heart twice. The doctors didn’t think he’d survive any heart procedures or live to see Labor Day, less than two months away.
“Oh,” Grandpa Ed settled back down. “In that case, you can put the new bed next to mine. I don’t want my bed moved out.”
Impossible. “There’s no room in there for two beds.”
Grandpa Ed reached for the remote. “Slade, take it back.”
“And while you’re at it, Slade, take my grandfather and drop him off at the nearest hospital. He’s going to need it.” Flynn glared at his grandfather.
His grandfather glared back.
Flynn belatedly remembered stress could end things permanently for Grandpa Ed, as Slade backed slowly toward the door.
“Oh, all right.” Grandpa Ed shook the remote at Flynn. “But don’t you get rid of my bed. I’m going to need it when I get better.”
Slade walked down the hall. “That’s the spirit, Edwin.”
His grandfather had spirit all right and he showed it to them. He showed it when they brought in a new recliner, one that helped him stand and sit. Unnecessary, he maintained. He showed it as they rearranged the furniture so he could navigate the house in his walker. Not how his wife wanted it, he declared.
At one point, Flynn pulled Slade into the kitchen, needing to vent. “Months spent trying to convince Harmony Valley that change is good and I can’t even get my grandfather to accept little changes in his own house!” Ones that would help keep him healthy and safe and alive.
“He’s been in charge most of his life.” Slade peered through the kitchen archway at Edwin, who was snoring almost as loudly as the television news droned on. “This has to be hard.”
It felt harder on Flynn.
“It’s only short-term,” Slade reminded him. “A little change to his diet, a little physical therapy, and he’s back on his feet, right?”
Flynn couldn’t look Slade in the eye as he mumbled, “Right.” He’d made his grandfather a promise—no one else would know the end was near.
As the job candidates started showing up, his grandfather found something objectionable in each one.
“I want Becca,” he’d say as soon as one left.
And Flynn would always reply, “Keep an open mind. The agency stands behind their staff.” He had no idea who stood behind Becca, other than Agnes, who was on the town council.
“I should be allowed to choose,” Grandpa Ed wheezed after the last interview, clearly spent. “She’s not going to be wiping your bottom.”
“And on that note—” Slade gathered the paperwork they’d been reviewing “—I’m outta here.”
After Slade left, Flynn counted ten sledgehammer strikes in his head before speaking. “I’ll ask Becca to come by for an interview tomorrow, after the last interview we have from the agency.” But when