Page 198 of The Woman Left Behind

“I’m good. The dogs are okay. It’s a miracle. He shot at Smokey, but somehow, he missed,” she stated breathlessly.

That fuck shot at his dog.

Harry tamped down the fury that threatened to consume him, something, right along with paralyzing fear, he’d been doing since dispatch called his office to report shots fired and Abernathy was sighted in his own fucking backyard.

“Stay here,” he said and ran to the curtains.

He was closing the ones behind the couch when the front door opened.

He whirled.

“It’s us, just us,” George said as he and Ronetta hurried in.

George shut the door behind him. He had a gun in his hand.

Ronetta hastened to Lillian.

George saw what Harry was doing and ran to lower the kitchen blinds.

Harry returned to Lillian.

“I nicked him,” George was saying. “I think I nicked him, Harry. And Allen got him in the back with his shotgun in the alley.”

“He down?” Harry asked.

“Man took the hit, got up and kept on running,” George told him, finishing with the blinds and joining them.

“Which way did he run?”

“Toward Main.”

Fuck!

People.

Lots of fucking people.

“You stay with her. Doors locked. You do not open to anyone but me, Rus, or one of my deputies,” Harry ordered.

George nodded.

He turned to Lillian. “I’ll be back.”

She swallowed and nodded.

But her heart was in her eyes.

His heart, because hers belonged to him, as his did to her.

“I love you too,” he said.

No matter all that was happening, her lips curled up in a sweet smile and tears filled those gorgeous green eyes.

Memorizing that expression, Harry sprinted out the front door to the cruiser he’d parked in Lillian’s drive.

He got in, started her up, and the radio was going berserk.

“Suspect sighted. Cinema,” dispatch said.

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