Adder and Willow (The Rowan Harbor Cycle Book 6) by Sam Burns

Author:Sam Burns [Burns, Sam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-10-10T16:00:00+00:00

6

Kept in the Dark

Fletcher had barely gotten down Madame Cormier’s drive when he decided to check in with Conner before walking the two miles to his house. It would be a pain to get there and find that they had gone out.

“Hey,” Conner answered, and his happy voice made Fletcher feel even worse. “How did your meeting go?”

Fletcher sighed.

“That bad? You want to come tour the brewery with us? Andrei set it up, and we’re on our way out now. I figured that by the time we’re done, we can drop by the wharf to grab some fish for dinner, since it’s right next door, and head home.”

“I’m at Madame Cormier’s. It’s going to take me a while to—”

“We’ll come pick you up,” Conner said cheerfully. A moment later, much more quietly, he asked, “Fletcher? What’s going on? Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”

Somehow, he wasn’t surprised that Conner knew something was happening. It was telling that he jumped to the conclusion that something serious was wrong. Did things go wrong that often in Rowan Harbor? This year, they sure seemed to.

“Yeah. They want me to ask you to do something.”

“Anything, babe, you know that.” Conner was back to sounding cheery.

“Your parents are in town,” Fletcher said, with a little more hostility than he intended. He didn’t want Conner to think it was directed at him, so he added, “It’s rude for us to expect you to drop everything and do something else.”

“Fletcher, you’re worrying too much. I know you wouldn’t ask if it weren’t serious. We’ll pick you up, I can leave Mom and Gary to take the tour, and you and I will go take care of it.” He made it sound so simple, and for him, it seemed to be. Of course, Fletcher hadn’t dropped the real bomb on him yet, so it made sense that he wasn’t worried. One errand while his parents were in town wasn’t like being trapped in one place for the rest of his life.

Fletcher might not see it as being trapped, but he wasn’t oblivious to other people’s reactions to the idea.

He started walking down the road, hoping he didn’t look as pathetic as he felt. It didn’t work, since when Conner pulled up next to him in his shiny black Lexus, and Fletcher climbed into the passenger seat, Gary asked from the back seat, “Is everything okay? You look like you’ve gotten some bad news.”

Once again, he had to dance around the answer. “It’s more work. I didn’t want it to interrupt your weekend. I’m so sorry for this.”

“Hey, no,” Gary answered. “You’re a deputy. You don’t get to pick when things happen, right? If only we could decide when the bad guys chose to do bad things.”

Mrs. Mason nodded and met Fletcher’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “Are you sure everything is okay?”

She had Conner’s soft, earnest brown eyes, and she was giving him the same expression he’d seen on his boyfriend’s face so many times when he was worried. He found that he absolutely couldn’t lie to her.

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