Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 127715 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 639(@200wpm)___ 511(@250wpm)___ 426(@300wpm)
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.