Only making it as far as Grayson, a tiny northern Louisiana town nestled in Caldwell Parish, a blown-out tire and no usable spare put the frantic nineteen-year-old at the mercy of strangers, who not only took her in for the night, but insisted she stay with them in their home for as long as she needed to, while she rested and worked through her ordeal. It was here that Meredith, who had never known her father and who lost her mother when she was only a child, discovered what it was like to belong to a real family. It was here that she found that she could still laugh, that she could cry the kind of tears that brought healing, that she could share the gift of music with a nine-year-old little girl who loved her as much as if she were her own sister. It was here that Meredith met Father. Father's Friend, although not part of the Father Series, which is comprised of Father's Choice, Father's Wings, and Father's Song, is a linked novel that takes the reader back to the beginning and peels back the layers of who Meredith Clark really is. It allows us to understand how someone who is her own deepest hiding place is able to reluctantly venture out into the open, while desperately clinging tightly to her Father's hand. She is slow to heal, slow to trust, slow to confide, but the music Father breathed into her has a life all its own and is stronger than Meredith's desire to remain hidden. Although Meredith maintains a tough exterior and brandishes a dry and sometimes caustic wit, along with a sharp tongue, Father sees through it all, and will one day bring a man into her life who sees what He sees.