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 also suspected he was a busy guy and didn’t have a lot of time to chat about flowers with a strange woman.
So I decided to help him get on with it.
“You mentioned Willie?”
After I voiced this question, I watched with some fascination as his entire being morphed from whatever he was experiencing in my house, back to something it was easy to read was far more comfortable to him.
Law enforcement officer.
“Your husband has several warrants out for his arrest.”
I nearly rolled my eyes because this did not surprise me about Willie.
However, more pertinently, I had to share, “Willie isn’t my husband.”
He blinked.
“We married when I was twenty. When I was twenty and three-quarters, I kicked him out.”
The sheriff’s brows shot up. “But you didn’t divorce him?”
“I tried. And then I tried. And I tried again. He dodged, and then he dodged and, of course, dodged again. Eventually, he disappeared altogether. I finally got one in absentia about a month ago after fifteen years of dealing with that mess.”
“He disappeared, but you didn’t report him missing?”
I heard the Nespresso stop, so I turned to it, stirred his cream, rested the spoon on the little spoon holder by the machine and walked the coffee to him.
It appeared he took great pains not to touch my fingers when he relieved me of the mug.
That kind of hurt, but I powered through it, mostly because it shouldn’t. I was nothing to him but an open case I hoped I could help him close (for more than one reason), and the idiot who married a felonious moron.
“I said he disappeared,” I reiterated after he took a sip of the coffee (and I was pleased to register his expression of enjoyment on that first sip, but I buried how pleased I felt because again, it wasn’t mine to feel). “I didn’t say he went missing. Willie isn’t missing.”
That got the sheriff’s full attention. “You know where he is?”
I nodded. “He’s in Vancouver. He’s on his third wife, regardless of the fact he never legally divorced his first one. He was here last Christmas, and I think he’s been back since. I can’t know, because he avoids me like the plague, something I don’t get since he’s already moved on, illegally, but I suspect he keeps his visits home on the down-low because he has arrest warrants. Though I thought it was to avoid me. I also suspect he’s living up in Canada for the same reasons.”
“That makes sense,” he muttered.
“Obviously, his family doesn’t invite me to his welcome back parties, but I have friends who keep an eye out for him, due to all that divorce stuff. If I hear he’s back, I can tell you, if you like.”
“Yes, Ms. Rainier, I’d like that.”
“You can call me Lillian,” I offered.
His beautiful chocolate eyes locked with mine.
“Lillian,” he murmured.
My skin tingled.
I powered through that as well.
“I don’t hear much,” I warned him. “The Zowkowers also weren’t helpful in my bid for divorce.”
“That family closes ranks.”
“Tell me about it,” I mumbled.
That’s when those beautiful chocolate eyes hardened. “Have they been inappropriate with you?”
“If you mean evasive, unhelpful, doing everything they can to make sure Willie isn’t found or papers go unserved, all to keep me tied to a man who has since married two other women, all for reasons I cannot begin to unravel, yes. They’ve definitely been inappropriate. If you mean something else, like being threatening or hostile, no.”
“It’s likely they think, if you knew where he was, you’d turn him in.”
I smiled at him. “That’s why you’re the sheriff and I’m not. You unraveled it in a second. Though, I didn’t know about the arrest warrants.”
He took another sip of coffee.
Moving on.
I emotionally steadied myself.
Because I could mentally avoid it like a pro, considering I’d been doing that for over a decade and a half.
But the time was nigh.
And I knew this was going to be the hard part.
Strike that.
The excruciating part.
“You wanted to talk about my parents?”
He studied me over the rim of his mug (that was just plain sexy, God, did I have it bad) before he lowered it, took a beat, then in a voice that was still deep and gorgeous, but now I didn’t like it, he suggested, “Maybe we should sit down.”
I felt my heart squeeze as I stared at him, but I didn’t move a muscle.
“Please,” he said softly, his voice even more gorgeous, and more terrible, “come sit down, Lillian.”
I didn’t want to.
I really didn’t want to.
But I led the way to my living room.
And we sat down.
TWO
Denial
Lillian
I sat on the short end of the sectional, and Sheriff Moran sat in the middle of the long end.
He took another sip of his coffee before he set it down on a coaster in the large tray I had on the cream square ottoman with navy pinstripes, which did double duty as a place to rest my feet and the coffee table where I set my drinks.