Hero (Hero 1)

“So.” Mrs. Flanagan poured tea into the gorgeous china cup she’d put in front of me. “Were you running errands for Caine again?”

I snorted. “When am I not?”

“Tsk. That boy.” She shook her head, eyes bright with humor and affection. “He’s certainly going out of his way to piss you off.”

I gave a huff of laughter. “And I bet you think that’s deserved.”

“Well, you did ambush him at a photo shoot and once again in his office.”

My suspicions were correct: Caine told the old bird everything! Intrigued, I leaned forward. “How did you and Caine become friends?”

“Caine, is it?” She threw me a cheeky smile.

“Mr. Carraway,” I corrected myself, holding her steady gaze and refusing to give anything away.

She chortled. “You can call him Caine, sweetheart. He’s not a god.”

“Do you think you could tell him that? Because I don’t think he knows.”

Mrs. Flanagan threw her head back in laughter. “Oh, Caine was right. You are a smart-ass.”

I wrinkled my nose. “I can’t help it. He brings it out in me.”

“Well, I can see how that might happen, what with him trying to piss you off every chance he gets even though he says he’s not.” She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do with that boy.”

“I can take it,” I assured her. “I get it.”

“You do?” She raised an eyebrow. “Because I don’t think you do. I don’t even think Caine gets it yet.”

“It’s about our history. About my father and his mother.” I was suddenly suspicious. “I thought you knew all this.”

“Oh, I know all about that, and I know it’s not your fault, so get that out of your head right now.”

“I know it’s not my fault, but I get why it’s hard for Caine to separate me from it,” I admitted. “He’s been through so much because of my father and what he did to destroy Caine’s family. I guess it would make me feel better if I could see Caine happy. He deserves to be happy, even when he is being a grumpy, relentless, unbending pain in the ass.” I took a sip of tea. “Did you meet Phoebe?”

Mrs. Flanagan seemed amused by the question. “Oh no. I’ve never met any of Caine’s lady friends. But Caine told me about her.”

“She was perfect for him. He just dumped her,” I huffed. “I do not understand that man.”

“Well, from what I heard she was all wrong for him.”

Shocked, intrigued, I leaned forward. “What did you hear?”

She laughed at my curiosity. “Phoebe was intimidated by him. She downplayed her intelligence around him. Drove him nuts.” She leaned forward, her eyes boring into mine with a fierceness I didn’t quite understand. “What Caine needs is a woman who is not easily intimidated, persistent, and pretty much okay with bulldozing her way into his life. That’s how I struck up my friendship with him. I wouldn’t let him take no for an answer, and now that boy is the closest thing I have to a grandson and I’m the closest thing he has to a grandmother.”

Uneasiness moved through me. “Maybe he wouldn’t want us talking, then. Especially about private stuff.”

“Isn’t that why you’re here?” She gave me a knowing look. “You’re digging for some reason. Otherwise you wouldn’t be spending your Saturday afternoon with your boss’s kooky neighbor lady.”

I gave her a sad smile. “Maybe I have nowhere else to be.”

Mrs. F looked concerned. “Okay, if that’s true, why haven’t you got anywhere else to be?”

“My social circle grew smaller when I lost my former job. My friends from college all have kids now and …” I shrugged. “You know how it is.”

“Alexa, you’re a gorgeous, funny young woman. You should either be able to strike up friendships with other charming women or have a man on your arm showing you a good time at the weekend.”

A man on my arm. Right. “I haven’t had one of those in eighteen months and haven’t even been interested in looking since my mom passed.”

She reached across the table and covered my hand with hers. “I’m sorry about your loss, sweetheart. Caine told me about it after he looked into you.”

What the hell? “Caine looked into me?”

“Yeah. After the photo shoot. Found out your mom had just passed. Boating accident, was it? How are you coping with all that? You okay? It must be tough trying to deal with her loss now that you’re having to deal with Caine.”

To my surprise everything rushed up within me at Mrs. F’s genuine sympathy. It was like she really wanted to know, and I guess I hadn’t realized until that moment how much I needed someone to care. “You know I haven’t been able to talk about it because no one knows the truth about what my father did. The only one who does is Grandpa, and he rarely talks about it. He doesn’t want to.”

She squeezed my hand. “Well, I know the truth. You can tell me.”

I smiled gratefully and put my other hand over hers. “Thanks, Mrs. F.”

She smiled encouragingly.

“I guess …” I exhaled. “It’s been rough because of all the resentment I carried toward Mom.” I went on to tell Mrs. F all about how much I hero-worshipped my absentee father as a kid, and how I clung to that for as long as I could and when I couldn’t anymore I just pretended. “But he shot that to hell when he told us the entire truth. It was Thanksgiving. I was home from college. He sat us down, and he cried as he told us about Caine’s mom. And all his secrets came out because of that. I found out I had been illegitimate, that he’d had a wife and son that I knew nothing about, that my mom was just his piece on the side until he had nowhere else to go after his father turned him away. I was disgusted, betrayed, ashamed. Mom was just quiet. Of course she’d known all about the other family, but she knew nothing of Caine’s mother or how he’d let her die, or even how that was the real reason he’d come back to her. I asked Mom what she was going to do, if she would leave him over it, and she told me she didn’t know. She was shaken up and I had hoped that maybe it would be enough to make her see him for who he really was. My mom spent my entire life giving that man everything he wanted, and he never once tried to give back. I couldn’t pretend that wasn’t true anymore.