“Sure you have. Fair enough, you can hold on to it for another while, but I’ll get it out of you eventually. Cake?” Rowan said and offered her the plate of cake slices. His ability to bounce back didn’t cease to amaze Emily.
* * *
Emily did have a secret. She had a secret, but she couldn’t tell Rowan; she couldn’t tell anyone. The only one around her who knew her secret, or at least some of it, was Sergeant Ferris, and it was her job to know.
Emily thought about it as she lay in her bed the morning after their picnic, stroking Munchkin’s fur as the animal rubbed herself against Emily’s side through the duvet. She hadn’t slept well, haunted by the story of Rowan’s brother. She didn’t understand how he could keep such a sunny outlook on life when he had lost someone so close to him at suc
