Page 49 of The Woman Left Behind

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?”

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