Page 69 of The Woman Left Behind

“Bring it on up, son,” she ordered.

Rus didn’t wait for Harry to say anything. He handed Harry the duffle then hoofed it down to his SUV where Harry could see all three of his dogs in the back. He wanted to go down and give them pets, but he didn’t want to confuse them, and more, leave Lillian, even just to walk down to the street for five minutes.

Rus returned with one of Harry’s uniforms in dry-cleaner plastic, but again, Harry didn’t take it. Ronetta did.

“Leave you to it,” Rus said.

“Thanks, brother,” Harry replied.

Rus dipped his chin, turned and walked away.

Harry shut the door and Ronetta was still there.

“Follow me,” she said.

He did and she took him to the room beyond the bathroom, which would be the smaller of the two bedrooms in the house.

When they entered, Harry saw lots of soft colors, dried flowers, an ivory iron bed, and he knew this was Lillian’s room, which meant in all of these years, she hadn’t taken over her parents’ room.

He felt a sharp pain in his chest at learning this.

“You can change in here,” Ronetta said after hanging his uniform in Lillian’s closet.

He looked down at her but didn’t get a chance to exchange a glance. She was walking out.

And he was apparently spending the night.

He had zero problems with that.

Ronetta was right about something else. Lillian didn’t need him hanging around in his sheriff’s uniform.

He opened his duffle, pawed through it and saw Rus’s experience with packing a go bag for his work in the FBI hadn’t been lost in the few years he’d been out of that game.

Harry quickly changed into faded jeans, a sweater, and he put on the warm socks Rus added to the bag.

Then he headed back out.

Lillian came right to him when he showed, wrapping her arms around his middle and pressing her front to his side. Her hold was tight.

This told Harry he’d been correct in not going out to have some time with his dogs, she didn’t like she’d lost sight of him. He took careful note of that.

And Harry didn’t know her enough to know if all this company was a balm, or if she felt some ingrained need to play hostess when she needed to focus on other things.

Like she had all night, Ronetta took charge of this too.

Once the mac and cheese was in the oven, and a salad was in the fridge, with an ease and grace that even in the circumstances Harry found fascinating, she made her point.

So with lots of hugging and “I’ll check in tomorrow” and “Try to get some sleep” and “If you need anything, you know how to find me,” (with every single one of them, even the men, sending Harry speculative or grateful looks) her friends left.

Then came more hugging and murmured words, and Ronetta and George left, with George leaving behind the Macallan and Ronetta leaving behind her instructions to Harry about when to take out the mac and cheese.

Harry made sure Lillian had a full glass of wine, he grabbed what remained of his whisky, and he took them to the couch.

She cuddled close immediately.

Harry welcomed it and pulled her closer.

“It’s stupid,” she whispered into his neck.

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