Page 83 of Fallen Rook

Out of sight, out of mind.

“I’ll be here Monday at six in the morning,” I warned Zeke.

He waved me off. “I don’t doubt it.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Tom

“So, who are they?”

My grandmother wove her arm through mine as we sauntered along the clearing in the woods behind her house. Sunlight sliced through the thick branches and treetops. It was a beautiful, lush piece of land, a quarter of which belonged to her in the property deed. It was also one my father—her son—had tried converting many times into many things: a playground for me, a greenhouse, a berry field. The small slice of the forest had not bent to his will, much to my grandmother’s amusement, until he finally gave up and moved to an urban part of the island.

“One cannot alter and twist anything out of its true shape,” Grams always said. “That is true about people, and that is true about land.”

I carried these words in my pocket everywhere I went.

Her gray hair was stylishly coiffed into something loose and French, and she wore an oversized designer sweater, comfortable shoes, and bright red lipstick.

“Who’s who?” I grumbled.

“Why, the person who threw you off-kilter, of course.”

“Nobody threw me off-kilter.”

“I beg to differ. This is the first time you’ve taken unplanned time off since Matt’s funeral,” she tutted. “Even then, you only took one day, sulked a little, and returned to work, twice as stony.”

“Is it a crime to move on from tragedy?”

“No, but it is ill-advised not to allow yourself to feel pain at all. When one trains oneself to ignore a singular emotion, it usually deprives them from feeling all the others.”

“I’m single,” I said shortly.

“Zeke tells me otherwise. Why are you keeping them under wraps?”

I pressed my lips together, determined not to entertain this nonsense.

“And Iris told me you smiled the other day,” she continued doggedly. “That you couldn’t wait to get back to the city—you almost ran over her foot!”

Another grunt. “Is there anyone in my life you don’t gossip about me with?”

“Why, of course.” She gave me an incredulous glare. “Your mystery lover. But I intend to change that soon enough. So?”

Better get it out of the way so I could focus on moving on this week, rather than rehashing my three-day relationship with the mobster.

“There was someone, briefly. It ended. I’m here because I need a breather from the city, that’s all.”

“I take it he or she doesn’t let you steamroll them like Matt did.” She smiled to herself.

“Matt didn’t—”

“He did. He reckoned you got the short end of the stick, because of Iris, and went through great lengths to appease you. This is not the case here, I assume?”

Nothing escaped this woman.

“He busts my balls on a daily basis,” I muttered with a groan.

“So it’s a he.” She grinned. “I like him already.”