12. Planted My Flag
TWELVE
Planted My Flag
Lillian
I t was three o’clock in the afternoon when I opened the door to Harry.
He was out of uniform, wearing jeans and a sweater that were more casual than what he wore last night, but no less attractive.
I didn’t stare like I did (mortifyingly) the night before.
I was preoccupied by the pinched skin around his eyes.
He noticed me noticing and tried to throw me off the scent by rounding my waist with an arm and dropping a soft, hey-there kiss on my lips.
He smelled great and his lips felt even better, but his attempt didn’t work.
When he tried to pull away, I curled my fingers into his sweater.
“That bad?” I asked, knowing the answer because of the word “fatality.”
He tried to throw me off the scent again by saying, “I don’t think there’s a better smell in the world than baking bread, except your perfume.”
This had me melting into him, but I tipped my head to the side, a nonverbal demand for him to share.
“Lillian, it’s a lot,” he whispered.
“Can I take this opportunity to remind you that my parents disappeared sixteen years ago, and I had help, I had support, but I survived it. I pivoted from the life I thought I’d have and made a life that’s good. In other words, I’m not breakable, Harry.”
He gave me a look that said everyone was breakable, and he’d know.
So I added, “If we’re going to try to do this, I mean, like, explore us, and we are ,” I asserted, and was pleased to see some of the dreariness leave his gaze when I did. “It’s your job. You’ve got to know you can unload on me about it.”
“Okay, but maybe not on our second date.”
Left unsaid, While we’re waiting for news about your parents .
“It’s our third date, I’m counting breakfast. No, it’s our fourth. It was weird, but I figure if you vomit in front of a man, it’s a date.”
Some of the tightness dwindled around his eyes as he chuckled.
“Tell me,” I urged softly.
“I had to do a death notice,” he said quickly. “The wife was destroyed, but not surprised. Her husband had alcohol issues. We’d already picked him up for DUI twice, so he’d lost his license and shouldn’t have been driving. He didn’t negotiate a curve, ran off the road and slammed into someone’s garage, went right through the wall, and totaled their car inside. He wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. No one else was involved, but he not only had a wife, he also had three kids, all under the age of thirteen.”
“Oh, Harry,” I whispered, sliding my hand up to curl it around his neck.
He wrapped his other arm around me so he was holding me with both. “So maybe tell me about your day, because mine, until now, was shit.”
Okay, scratch telling him Willie called off my list.
“I made oatmeal cinnamon cookies, which you don’t have to eat, but you do have to take some into the station for your deputies. While doing this, I had an epic text session with all my girls about our date last night, and full disclosure, they’re my girls so they now know you’re a phenomenal kisser.”
That got me another chuckle, and the strain around his eyes seemed to lessen further.
“Though, I’ve sworn them all to secrecy,” I continued. “And you can trust that. It’s not anybody’s business how Sheriff Moran kisses, even if it would make him even more popular with his constituents. At least the female ones.”
More chuckles from him as he shuffled me in, all the way to the kitchen, where he let me go so he could pop open the tin on the cookies.
Cinnamon goodness wafted up to mingle with the yeasty goodness of the baking bread.
“I’ve decided it’s a splurge day,” he said.
Fantastic .
I smiled huge at him.
He took it in, his gaze heating, then he dropped his mouth to mine and kissed it off.
When he lifted his head, breathily, I continued, “Ronnie came over and I endured a ten-minute I-told-you-so lecture from her, considering she was the one who encouraged me to ask you out for a movie.”
His brows shot up. “She did?”
I nodded.
“Remind me to thank her when I meet her.”
He said when he met her.
I smiled hugely at him again.
Then I finished, “I read a little bit. I baked bread. And I decided we’re having taco salad for dinner.”
“That sounds awesome.”
“But now, I’m going to introduce you to We Are Lady Parts because it’s hilarious and heartwarming and romantic and I’m sensing you need all of that.”
“ We Are Lady Parts ?”
“It’s a TV show from the UK about a Muslim women’s punk rock band.”
At my description of the show, he let out a surprised bark of laughter.
“Trust me, you’ll be doing a lot of that while watching it,” I promised him.
“Then cue it up, honey, because I could use a few laughs.”
“You want something to drink first?”
“One of those La Croix?”
“You got it.”
I moved to get his drink, and one for me.
Harry moved to the couch.
I went right in for the cuddle.
Harry welcomed it.
We snuggled in, and he did laugh, a whole lot. By the third episode, that skin around his eyes was clear and the tension in his body was gone.
So I felt like I’d climbed a mountain and planted my flag on top.
This feeling dug deeper as we worked together to make the taco salad, and ate it like any couple would, sitting in front of the TV.
It dug even deeper when Harry finally instigated our next make-out session on the couch, this one including far more groping, which proved I wasn’t romanticizing what he gave me the day before, he really was that good with his mouth (and hands).
And it dug even deeper when Harry ended it, saying he had to get back to his dogs, and I knew he did, but he also was guiding this, he’d decided to take it slow, and I appreciated that, because it was what I needed.
At my door amid giving me lingering good-bye kisses, he said, “My turn to cook for you.”
“You helped me cook this time.”
“You can help me cook tomorrow night.”
Tomorrow night.
I smiled at him and even I knew it was radiant.
He gave me yet another, very lingering good-bye kiss before he gave me a squeeze and walked to his truck, the bag with the tin of cookies and the loaf of bread I baked dangling from his hand.
We did the same you-go-inside, no- you -drive-away thing, but much shorter this time (I didn’t want him to have to get out of his truck, so I let him win).
I closed the door, smiling inwardly and looking forward to meeting his dogs.
And I decided I could tell him about Willie later. Maybe on our fifth date.
Or our sixth.
Or maybe Willie would take a hint, and I wouldn’t have to tell Harry at all.