9. Let’s Start Here
NINE
Let’s Start Here
Harry
T hat same night, when his phone went, Harry was having a beer, his feet in warm socks resting on top of the old tree stump on his porch, a fleece jacket on, his three dogs lying around his rocking chair, his eyes to his empty stables, and his thoughts yet again on having them knocked down.
He looked at his phone screen expecting it to be Cade, considering he was right then on a lecture tour, his woman Delphine with him. He was doing courses for law enforcement officers down the east coast, returning in a couple of days.
Those two had a busy schedule, and Cade had said he’d call when he had time. But they’d exchanged some texts about the Sonny and Avery Rainier situation, and what Cade’s boys said held true.
Cade knew Sonny, also Avery (just not as well), and he was dead set there was no chance they were involved in the Dietrich situation. So much so, at the time, he’d been preparing to wade in if Dern took it too far.
They hadn’t been able to discuss it fully, and since Sonny was a friend of Cade’s, Harry hadn’t had the heart to share about the two bodies in Idaho.
But the call wasn’t from Cade, or any of Harry’s deputies sharing something had sparked off and he needed to head back into town, which comprised the vast majority of calls Harry received.
It was from Doc.
“Fuck,” he muttered, knowing what this was about.
Doc wasn’t a caller, he was a texter, usually.
Unless he had something to give Harry shit about.
Even knowing this, considering he was the sheriff, they were friends, and Doc, his woman and his son went through some serious shit last year, he took the call.
“Hey.”
“Nadia wants her over for dinner.”
Just as Harry suspected.
He blew out a sigh.
Nadia was Doc’s (now pregnant) wife.
And Harry’s breakfast with Lillian was one hundred percent making the rounds.
“We’ll be nice,” Doc said. “We won’t scare her off.”
“With her, it isn’t that.”
“Bullshit.”
It was.
It was bullshit.
It was such bullshit, Harry had been wracking his brain for two days for some excuse to call Lillian, stop by her house, anything to get in touch with her, see how she was doing, try to make her smile.
As a matter of ongoing police work, but also as his only reason to talk to Lillian, he’d phoned her parents’ dentist office to ask after their files, only to find it was “busy season” (whatever the fuck that meant) at the office and they hadn’t had time to send anyone out to the storage unit to check. But considering the weighty matter at hand, they promised to do it the next day, even if it was a Saturday.
“Where did you find her?” Doc asked. “Jess says she’s a knockout.”
So it wasn’t the breakfast for Doc, it was Jesse who had the big mouth.
“She’s lived here decades.”
“Whatever,” Doc muttered. “Glad you’re finally pulling your head out. Nadia’s beside herself. She’s got Ledge poring over cookbooks, trying to decide what to serve when you two show. And we can just say my eleven-year-old son is pretty pleased about this too, considering normally he’d probably break out in a rash if he even touched a cookbook.”
“I met her because we’re waiting on the identification of two sets of remains found in Idaho, and there’s a very good chance they’re her murdered parents,” Harry told his friend.
“Fucking hell,” Doc whispered.
“So…yeah. Now is not the time for me to make a move.”
“You got too many scruples, brother,” Doc said. “Most men would think now’s the perfect time to make a move.”
“I’m not most men, and that shit is fucked if most men think that way. She’s vulnerable.”
“This is what I know, Harry,” Doc started. “Most men would look at this as a way to use a woman’s weakness to get in her pants. And you’re right. That’s fucked and you are not most men. So if you’re into this woman, it isn’t about that. Or not just about that.”
It wasn’t.
Not just .
It had been a long dry spell since Winnie.
But even if that was the case, what he wasn’t allowing himself to come to terms with, but he still knew it was there, was that wasn’t all there was with what he felt for Lillian.
Though, he definitely felt it.
Definitely.
He could spend a very happy week just thinking about what it would feel like to have two handfuls of her sweet, round ass.
But that absolutely wasn’t all this was about.
Doc continued, “And she lives in this town, she’s gonna know that about you. So bottom line, we can’t always pick our times. Sometimes, the time picks us.”
It hit Harry then that Doc had met Nadia just months after Nadia’s mother was brutally murdered by her father. And Doc was even more of a confirmed bachelor than Harry was.
But those two fell fast, fell hard, and stuck.
Cade and Delphine. His other friends Rus and Cin. And Doc and Nadia. All second chance, all later in life, all fell quick, and now all solid.
Shit.
“I get it, whatever you think you gotta do,” Doc stated. “But you’re a good man, Harry, and one thing I know is true, when the shit hits the fan, you need as many good people around you as you can get. Think about that.”
Harry made no reply, because he was thinking about it.
“I’ll tell Nadia she’s got time to figure it out, and we’ll see you when we see you,” Doc concluded.
“I wouldn’t say no to being invited over for Nadia’s cooking in the meantime, or your beer brats,” Harry replied.
Doc’s voice held humor when he said, “Okay then, I’ll talk with my woman and let you know. Later, Harry.”
“Later, Doc.”
They disconnected. Harry took a sip of his beer and resumed staring at the stables.
Winnie loved riding. They didn’t have enough land for her to roam free, but they did have permission from their neighbors on both sides for her to ride their land, which was where he found her, on his neighbor’s property to the east, after he came home from work, and she wasn’t home and didn’t come home or answer her phone.
But her horse came home without her.
Harry hadn’t entered those stables since. His brother had taken care of selling the horses and all the tack. His father and brother had spread the hay in the field so it would return to the earth. And they’d closed those stables down. Harry hadn’t even used them for storage.
They added value to the land. They were still in good nick.
But it was time for them to go.
On that thought, his phone buzzed against his thigh.
He glanced down at the screen to see an unknown number, and considering he was sheriff, he didn’t have the luxury of ignoring it.
He put it to his ear. “Harry Moran.”
“Hey, Harry,” Lillian greeted.
Harry scooted back in his seat and took his feet off the stump, causing all three of his dogs to come alert.
“Hey,” he replied. “Everything okay?”
“I just…do you have time? Is it all right for me to call you?”
Fuck yes to both questions.
“You can call me anytime. What’s up?”
“I talked to George—” she began.
“George?” he asked, and damn, it came out sharp.
“My neighbor. Dad’s best friend.”
Okay then.
“You talked to him about what?” Harry inquired.
“Well, I haven’t told my grandparents about what might be happening,” she stated, but said no more.
“All right,” he prompted.
“They’re all still with us. And they’re in Indiana.” Again, she gave him that, but no more.
So he said, “Okay.”
“They, you know, came out. Back when Mom and Dad took off. They used to come out a lot. They said it was because they had to replace the washer and dryer, or check on the roof, or fix the fence, which they did. Mostly, it was so they could look after me. They’re older now, it isn’t as easy, but I mean, obviously, they went through all of that with me.”
“Yeah, honey,” he said gently, deciding sitting out on his porch with the stables in his face was not how he wanted to have this conversation.
So he got up and his dogs got up with him. They all went into the house.
“I’m not telling them yet because we don’t know anything yet,” Lillian went on. “George said that’s the right thing to do. I was just wondering if you agreed.”
She knew he’d agree because her grandparents were probably at the very least in their seventies, they were too far away to provide the love and support Lillian needed right then, and if those bodies weren’t Sonny and Avery, there was no reason to upset them.
This meant Lillian didn’t want to know if he agreed.
She just wanted to talk to him.
Harry didn’t even try to ignore the warmth that made him feel as he stretched out on his couch, his head to the armrest, and his dogs jockeyed for position on the floor beside him.
“It was the right thing to do,” he assured her.
“Okay,” she mumbled.
They lapsed into silence.
Christ, it’d been so long since he did this, he didn’t know what the fuck to say. And he didn’t want to talk about the files in the dentist’s storage or anything about her parents that couldn’t help but distress her.
Though, Lillian knew what to say.
“Do you want to go see a movie?”
Harry’s entire body got tight.
Man, she put it right out there.
But it came out like she was blurting, and he knew that was true when she kept talking, doing it rapidly, at the same time backpedaling.
“Or is that not appropriate? With me being a witness and all. Or, um…you might not want to just because you might not want?—”
He forced his muscles to relax and said softly, “Yes, Lillian, I definitely want to see a movie with you.”
He could feel her relief come over the line and it made him smile.
Even so, he had to speak on.
“Though, first, you aren’t a witness. You’re a family member.” What he left unsaid was of two possible victims . “That said, even if there’s no policy against it in my department, it’s still not entirely ethical that I take you out. If one of my deputies did this, we’d be having a conversation about his or her intentions.”
“But, just to say, I asked you out.”
That coaxed another smile out of him, but he said, “Yes, honey, but the bottom line is you’re vulnerable at the moment, and it can be seen as me taking advantage of that.”
“What people see and what is are different most of the time,” she retorted. “But you’re not Dern and everybody knows that. And honestly, it’s not like half the town isn’t gabbing about it already. So if you haven’t received an avalanche of ethics complaints, we’re probably good.”
They probably were.
“I just want you to go in understanding where this is considering who you are and who I am.”
“I understand,” she said swiftly.
That didn’t make him smile, it made him grin.
She really wanted to go out with him.
Since he wanted that too, he was all the way down.
“In for a penny, in for a pound,” she mumbled, sounding nervous. And then she gave it to him. “Just so you know, this isn’t a he’s my rescuer situation. Just so you know…” There was a very long, heavy pause, then on a rush, “I’ve had a crush on you for a while.”
Harry didn’t know what to say to that, which was good, since she wasn’t done talking.
“Not in a stalkery, euw kind of way. I mean, you’re handsome. And, um… tall .”
“Thanks,” he choked out, trying hard not to bust out laughing.
“So, it stands to reason I would.” Another lengthy pause. “Have a crush on you, that is.”
“To put you out of your misery, sweetheart, I may have just met you a few days ago, so my crush hasn’t lasted that long, but it’s there.”
“Really?” she whispered, so soft, so sweet, so hopeful, he felt it in his chest and his dick.
“Really,” he whispered back.
“Can I go back to Willie and why I?—?”
Oh no, they weren’t going to do that.
“Lillian,” he interrupted her. “Let’s start here. You’ve had a life. I’ve had a life. And we can, and I hope we will, talk about those lives. I wouldn’t pick how we met as how I’d like to meet a beautiful woman I’m very attracted to and would like to get to know better. But we don’t have a choice but to work around that. So how about we stick with easy shit for a while and get into the heavier shit later?”
“That would be awesome ,” she breathed, causing Harry to grin again. “So what’s easy shit?” she asked.
“I have no clue,” he admitted.
He heard her soft, pretty laugh, and he wondered if her mother’s singing was as musical as Lillian’s laughter.
“So, I already checked, and tomorrow night the theater has a double bill of Murder by Death and Knives Out ,” she stated. “It starts at seven, and there’s a half hour intermission, so it might be a late night.”
“I’m an early to bed, early to rise guy, but I can make an exception on a Saturday.”
“I’m an early to bed, early to rise girl, too.”
“You wanna eat junk at the theater, or hit Luigi’s for some pasta before?”
“Let’s go for pasta before. I haven’t been to Luigi’s in ages.”
That meant more time. Time to chat. Time to get comfortable with each other.
He was so fucking totally down.
They continued to talk while he sipped beer and envisioned her sitting on her comfortable-looking couch.
He told her about his dogs and asked if she liked animals.
She told him about her cat, who she’d had for fifteen years, getting it for some company right after her parents went missing, but it had died the year before, and, “I’m still not ready to replace her.”
She also spoke about her parents missing like it was matter of fact, something Harry had no doubt it had become for her as the time stretched on.
But the loss of her pet openly gutted her, even if she lost her the year before.
Not that he wanted to even contemplate losing one of his babies, but how much she cared for her cat said good things to Harry.
She told him she loved mysteries, both books and movies, so she’d been wanting to go to this double bill since it was announced.
He told her he obviously got off on mysteries, considering his job, which made her laugh that pretty laugh again.
She told him about Ronetta and George, her neighbors, and Sherise and Shane, their kids who had left the nest.
He told her his father had moved down to Arizona after retiring, and that his brother was in Olympia, practicing law.
There was discussion about what they’d get at Luigi’s (she was going for the chicken piccata, he told her he’d get the caprese salad, which opened the door to her shoveling a slight amount of shit at him for finding the only somewhat healthy thing on the menu to eat). This led to them discussing their favorite restaurants in town, their favorite spots to hike, and them learning they shared a “favorite day.” That being renting a boat and going out on one of their lakes and simply being out in the fresh air, on the water, doing nothing.
In other words, they laid the getting-to-know-you groundwork before Lillian told him she had some proofing to do on one of her client’s manuscripts, so she had to let him go.
Once they got into the swing of it, there was something comforting and easy about shooting the shit with Lillian, hearing her voice in his ear, having her give him her time, giving it in return.
But work was work, so even if he didn’t want to, he let her go.
Then he got up, taking his empty bottle to the sink to rinse out before putting it in the recycling.
His dogs followed him.
He turned, and giving distracted head scratches to his pups, it occurred to him he hadn’t enjoyed a night at home since Winnie died.
Not one.
But that night, he wasn’t alone with a drink, his dogs, and a game, a show or a book, the night dark and closing him into a quiet, lonely house that had once, long ago, been full of life.
That night, he’d had something a whole lot more.
And fuck, but he liked it.
On that thought, Harry gazed around his kitchen.
Even if his mom and dad had plans when they’d moved into that place, they hadn’t gotten around to finishing them, so it hadn’t been updated in decades, only the appliances replaced when the others gave out.
It was a kitchen that was all he’d known, since he bought this house and land from his father, and he grew up there.
It was a kitchen he didn’t cook in very much, because he was a busy man with a busy job, and it sucked cooking for one.
A kitchen he didn’t realize until right then he didn’t like all that much. And it wasn’t about Winnie. She’d mostly only been in it to make toast, pour a bowl of cereal, grab a mug of coffee, or eat the food he made her.
It was that it was the kitchen of someone who didn’t give a fuck. The wallpaper was dated and looked like something out of Stranger Things . The countertops were nicked. The floor was linoleum, and it had held up, but it was butt-ugly.
It was a kitchen that was an indictment of the life he’d been living. The time he’d allowed grief to steal from him.
But standing there, after being asked out by a strong, sweet, beautiful woman, Harry refused to get mired down in these thoughts.
It was what it was.
But things were changing, he was changing.
And tomorrow, it would be Saturday.
Date night.
He was getting back in the game.
But he knew he wouldn’t be if it wasn’t Lillian doing it with him.
And he was all the way down with that too.