11. Time to Make Bread
ELEVEN
Time to Make Bread
Lillian
I woke up instantly knowing I felt refreshed…
And happy.
The second one took my attention because, as sad as it sounded, I didn’t remember the last time I felt happy.
Really, truly, genuinely happy .
It was a miracle, especially in light of all that was going on.
And it was because my date with Harry had been amazing .
I turned to my side, curled my legs into my belly and aimed my eyes out my back window.
It was late, the sun fully out, so I had definitely slept in.
I saw the line of sunflowers I’d planted outside the window, and I again felt the loss of Sparkles, my cat, who was a morning cuddler.
I was seeing, with all that was happening, it was time to let her go and add to my family.
It was time to do a lot of things.
Primarily basking in the goodness of the memories of last night.
Just to say, Sheriff Harry Moran didn’t mind looking at pictures of Sparkles (more than one of them), and I could tell he was totally sincere when he said how cute she was.
He also didn’t hesitate pulling out his phone to show me snaps of his pups: the gray pit bull he’d confiscated during a case he was investigating and then kept, and his two chocolate labs, Linus and Lucy.
Yes, Harry liked Peanuts .
Another for his plus column (and FYI, so far, there didn’t seem to be a minus column, but the plus column got longer and longer as the night wore on).
He told me more about his dad, and his younger brother, who was an attorney in Olympia, had been married for five years, and had given Harry a niece and nephew.
He also told me how close they all were. How the three men had a tradition to vacation together each year, just the Moran boys bonding, taking a long weekend on a houseboat on Lake Powell, or a full week fishing in the Florida Keys, whale watching in Maine or hiking in Alaska.
Though, his brother’s family wasn’t left out. Harry and his dad always went to them for Thanksgiving and Christmas (if Harry could get away from work, something he said he often didn’t do so his married and partnered up deputies didn’t have to work the holidays). He and his dad did this so the family didn’t have to travel with two little kids or be away from home on the holidays.
And no matter what was going on at work, Harry never missed any of his niece or nephew’s birthday parties.
I adored how close he was with them. I adored that he also had copious pictures of them on his phone and showed them proudly.
The only snag with this was when he shared his mother had passed away when he was eleven, “eaten up by cancer” (his words).
That meant the two most important women in his life had died way too young.
But even though I grabbed his hand after he shared that and gave it a strong squeeze, studying him closely as I did, he only smiled at me. It was soft and gorgeous, but it wasn’t melancholy, just solemn.
Then again, he’d had a long time to get used to living with those losses.
Though, obviously, I didn’t like he’d had to.
I shared more about Ronnie, George, Sherise and Shane, as well as Janie, Jenna, Molly and Kay, and yes, I scrolled through my phone to show him pictures too.
Conversation was never stilted, nor did it wax and wane.
I knew he skirted around too much talk of my parents, and I appreciated it, but other than that, he chatted freely about his work (or as freely as he could, some stuff he couldn’t tell me), his friends (he was tight with Doc Riggs, Rus Lazarus, Jaeger Rhett and Cade Bohannan), and admitted openly he wouldn’t be able to do his job without Polly Pickler.
And he asked questions about me and listened to my answers.
Further, he was interesting, always, but especially when he talked about his job.
He shared about Ray Andrews (MP’s first serial killer), Richard Sandusky (the second one) and the whole sad affair that happened with the Whitaker family (the author and his wife who were murdered by his personal assistant, who turned out to be his lethal fan).
What Harry did for a living could be morbid, and definitely gloomy, but I could tell it fed something in him to do it, and it couldn’t be denied that was attractive, and what he shared was fascinating.
He took a bite of my chicken piccata and warned me not to have dessert because, “Four and a half hours of movie watching means a visit to the concession stand.” He also chuckled good-naturedly at my lame quips about him eating only his salad.
Through all this, he’d clearly found his groove after being out of practice with dating. He was teasy and flirty and made me feel pretty and desirable, the way his chocolate gaze heated when he caught sight of the skin of my shoulder, or got hungry, when it dropped to my mouth.
Gah!
It was everything !
More everything, after we left the restaurant. Even before we got there, it was clear I broke the seal on touch with our kiss, and I learned Harry was a touchy guy (I adored that too), and a gentleman to boot.
We held hands when we walked together or he put a gentle guiding touch on my waist, back or hip when he wanted me to be somewhere. He opened doors. He waited for me to precede him. He pulled my chair out for me. He reached out and tugged my hair playfully when he’d tease me. He paid for everything.
And he bought me a tub of popcorn and some Milk Duds during intermission (he had some popcorn, just a little bit, but no Milk Duds).
All of that was great.
All of that was perfect.
All of that was built on the foundation of the insanely delicious kiss we shared.
And all of it ended after we shared many more insanely delicious kisses just inside my closed door when he took me home.
We did all of that standing, necking, with a wee bit of mild groping, and there was something about it that was sweet and throwback and thoughtful as all heck. It was like, if we took one more step in, or moved the festivities to my couch, it would be pushing it too far, taking too much, and Harry wasn’t about to do that.
This, what we were doing, was happening. We were both all in.
But Harry made it clear he was going to see to me while we explored it.
Mom and Dad and that unknown were underlying all of this, and if I allowed myself to think about it, I might start weeping again. Because he knew that, had a mind to it, and like he’d promised from the beginning, he was seeing me through it.
It was just that, now, there was an added, and very welcome, nuance to it.
Before he left, while we were trading swift, soft kisses in my open front door, I offered, “Wanna chill out with me tomorrow?”
“I was afraid you wouldn’t ask,” he replied, my belly melted, he kissed my nose and ordered, “Sleep in and text me when you wake up. We’ll make plans.”
“You don’t plan chillouts, Harry,” I educated.
He grinned (and dang , I loved his grin). “Right. We’ll plan for you to show me how not to plan a chillout.”
“Acceptable.”
He gave me a squeeze, let me go, walked down my path, and then we had a staring contest with him leaned across the cab of his truck, making gestures for me to get inside and close the door, and me standing in my door, making gestures for him to drive away.
I lost this contest when Harry got out of his truck, went to the side of the hood and called in his authoritative, commanding voice, “Inside, Lillian! Lock the door!”
“All right, all right,” I muttered, smiling to myself.
I went inside and locked the door.
I then walked to the window and watched him drive away before I turned and floated on air through my house, going through the motions of getting ready for bed.
Once in bed, I nodded right off (another miracle!) and slept like a baby.
That brought me to now, where I turned and took my phone off the magnetic thingie that displayed and charged it.
When I did, I saw I had a whole slew of texts from all of my girls, as well as group texts including all of the girls, a voicemail from Ronnie (she texted, but when she wanted to chat, she called).
And last, a text from Harry.
Hope you slept well. Hope you slept in. Call me when you get up. Later, sweetheart .
I giggled (actually giggled ) with glee at waking up to a text from Handsome Harry Moran as I hit his name on the top of the text and then made the call.
It rang twice before he greeted, “Hey, honey.”
There were background noises that sounded weird, but I replied, “Mornin’, Harry.”
“You sleep in?” he asked.
“Just woke up.”
“Good,” he muttered. Then louder, with those noises in the background trailing off, he said, “Lillian, I’m sorry. It’s going to be a while before I can get to you. There was a car accident early this morning.”
“Oh no,” I whispered, upset someone was having a crappy morning, but wondering why one of his deputies couldn’t deal with this so Harry could have some time off, something I’d noted in our talking last night he didn’t seem to take much of.
“I’ll call when this gets sorted, but it’ll probably be a lot later.”
“I can make us dinner,” I suggested.
“Does a chillout day include cooking?” he asked, sounding curious.
Yeah, the man needed time off.
“Considering the fact my chillout vibe was leading down the path of baking cookies and bread today, yes.”
“Right.” He sounded distracted.
“I should let you go.”
“Honey,” he started, and I braced at his tone. “I wouldn’t be here, I’d be getting ready to go there, but there was a fatality.”
“ Oh no ,” I repeated.
Well, that explained why Harry was wading in and not leaving it to his deputies.
“I’m sorry,” Harry said. “I’ll keep you in the know as the day goes on where I’m at.”
“You don’t need to apologize, Harry. Real quick, is there anything you don’t eat? I mean, I get you’re health conscious, but other than that.”
“I don’t tend to be picky.”
“Great. Now I’ll let you go. But I’m sorry this is how you started your Sunday.”
“It’s the job, sweetheart,” he replied, again distracted.
“Okay. Talk soon,” I said quickly. “Bye, Harry.”
“Later, baby,” he muttered and then rang off.
But I blinked.
Baby?
Oh my God!
Handsome Harry Moran called me baby .
It stunk Harry’s Sunday began like this, but oddly, it also felt right, because it was him, it was what he did, he was fulfilling his calling.
It absolutely did not stink that he called me baby and I got to cook for him that night.
I lay in bed, mentally scanned my inventory of food, decided on a menu and also decided, if I was going to bake bread, I needed to get going.
This was when my phone vibrated.
I looked down at it, expecting Ronnie or one of the girls.
It was an unknown caller.
With all that was going on, I’d been picking up the unknown calls, just in case. Of course, this meant I got a lot of marketers and other people whose sad job it was to waste your time and annoy you.
I couldn’t imagine, if there was news about Mom and Dad, Harry wouldn’t intercept it and give it to me himself.
But you never knew.
So I braced and took the call.
“Hello?”
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
I shot to sitting in bed.
“Willie?” I whispered.
“Yeah, it’s Willie , your fucking husband ,” he clipped.
“I—”
“You’re dating a cop ?”
“Willie—”
“ We’re a thing, Lillian. We’re the thing.”
I stared unseeing at my bedclothes because…
Was he insane?
“We’re divorced,” I snapped.
“Not my doing. Hello , woman. I did everything I could to stop your ass from pulling that off.”
Oh my God!
“We were together for six months,” I reminded him.
“Also not my doing.”
“Yeah, because I kicked you out ,” I bit off.
“And again, not my doing ,” he gritted.
“You’ve been married twice since.”
“Keeping tabs on me?” he drawled.
Lord!
“Leave me alone, Willie,” I demanded. “We’re over. We’ve been over for a decade and a half. We’re so over, you can’t describe it as over, because we didn’t even begin.”
“Oh, we began.”
“Nope, I’m not doing this,” I stated. “You’re the past. A depressing, stupid past. And I’m beyond it.”
“Lil—”
I didn’t hear what he was going to say because I disconnected, then I blocked him.
Flipping heck.
Was he really going to do this?
After I had the best date of my life with maybe the best guy I ever met and in the middle of maybe (probably) learning my parents were dead?
No, not dead. Murdered.
Yes, he was going to do this. Because he was Willie Zowkower.
And worse, I was probably going to have to tell Ronnie and (eek!) George about it.
Even worse!
Harry and I were just beginning, but even so, I knew if I didn’t tell him Willie had called, he’d be upset.
“Dang, damn, shit,” I whispered. Then, “Ugh!” I grunted.
With that, I threw back the covers and pulled myself out of bed.
It was time to make bread.