Page 3 of The Woman Left Behind

“Yes,” I forced myself to answer.

“I have a few questions…”

He hesitated, but I could fill in the blanks.

He filled them in for me.

“About your parents. And about Willie Zowkower.”

Willie?

That was a surprise, even when it wasn’t.

“What’s Willie done now?” I asked.

“Can I come in?”

Sheriff Harry Moran…in my house?

Every available woman (and some unavailable ones) from the age of eighteen (probably younger) to eighty (probably older) wanted Harry Moran in their house.

“Ms. Rainier?”

I jolted at his prompt, then I felt my cheeks heat because I was pretty sure I’d been staring at his mouth (I forgot to mention he had great lips, deliciously ridged, the bottom one full, the top one perfectly formed).

I shuffled out of the way, keeping a hold on the door and sweeping my arm out in front of me as an added invitation.

He came in.

I tried not to mentally inventory my living room in an effort to decipher how a man I did not know would react to it.

This was hard, because it was perfect. I’d worked my butt off to make it so.

I just wondered what Sheriff Moran would think of it at the same time I wondered why I cared so much (and I did, I cared a lot).

I didn’t have a ton of space to work with, but in my humble opinion, I’d done a great job.

I closed the door behind Sheriff Moran and watched with unfathomable anxiety as he scanned the room.

Cream sectional, not huge, but it fit great in the space and was ultra comfortable. Cream and brown checked curtains. White walls. Exposed wood beams on the ceiling. Wooden chests instead of tables so I had extra storage. An inspired (again, my humble opinion) array of toss pillows. Heavy-bottomed ceramic lamps sprinkling surfaces.

This, along with the rest of the house, was accomplished through hours of trolling Target and World Market with splurges at places like West Elm and CB2. Not to mention, even more hours of painting, sanding, laying tile and all the rest.

I considered my house—and my garden—my finest achievements.

And as I stood there, stressed out waiting for a reaction, like Handsome Harry Moran would turn and give me a thumbs up for my endeavors, I realized he was having a reaction.

His entire long, muscled frame had grown tight.

“Sheriff?” I called.

He jerked to face me, and full disclosure, over the years, I (and every available woman in Fret County, be they eighteen or eighty) had paid a lot of attention to our local official. We’d grieved for him when he’d lost his wife way too soon. We’d championed him when he’d gone head-to-head with Leland Dern. And we’d commiserated with him when all hell broke loose in Misted Pines (more than once), and all of that—serial killers (times two!) and deranged, homicidal fans—had fallen into his lap.

And in that copious attention, I’d never seen him move awkwardly. He was a man who had command of his body, knew what it could do, and put it to use regularly.

Something about that movement was both alarming and endearing.

“You have a nice place,” he said.

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