Page 192 of Liberating Lily

The room went silent, and they all stared at her.

“Um, baby,” Harvey said.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Why are you yelling at my grandfather?”

“Because he’s partially deaf. When I met him that other time, he couldn’t hear me unless I was yelling at him.”

“He’s as deaf as I am,” Paddy said with a wide grin. “In other words, not at all.”

She glared at him with her hands on her hips. “You fooled me, you old codger.”

“Codger, huh? We’ll make an Irish cailin out of you yet,” Harvey’s grandfather said with a grin.

Lily wasn’t sure she wanted that, but at least everyone was smiling, including Fiadh, so she guessed that was a start.

45

Lily woke up to something tapping on her arm. Opening her eyes, she stared at the side of the bed. For a moment, her brain couldn’t quite compute why there would be a little pig staring at her, and then she realized who it was.

“Crackling,” she said with a small laugh. She sat up, then reached down and pulled him up onto the bed. “What are you doing in here? Harvey isn’t going to be happy if he finds you in the bedroom.”

Harvey had plans to make Crackling a home outside, but she was worried that he was going to be lonely and cold. So she created a little spot for him in the garage. It had meant that Harvey had to move out his car, but his car would be fine.

She’d put in hay and bought a dog kennel for him to sleep inside. And she had put up a pen around it, but somehow he seemed to have gotten out and into the house.

The door opened, and Harvey stepped in, carrying a tray filled with food and, most importantly, coffee.

He stilled and looked at her. Then he sighed. “What the hell is that pig doing in our bedroom?”

“He must have gotten lonely,” she said.

“How did he even get into the house?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s probably an escape artist, like the rest of the animals on Clem’s ranch.”

Harvey started muttering to himself. “How did he get up the stairs? Surely he has no concept of what stairs are.”

It seemed that he did, and she gave Crackling another cuddle before Harvey put down the tray and picked the pig up. “Right, pig, back to the garage. You know where you live.”

“Couldn’t we set up a little area in the living room for him?” she asked. “I mean, he could go outside during the day to do his business and then come back in at night.”

“Baby, he’s a farm animal, not a dog. He has to live outside once we get him the proper housing.”

“But he’s house trained. And why don’t we just wait until we’ve got a forever home?”

“He’ll need a spot here and at our new home, when we find it. So we can move him with us between places.”

That was actually a really good idea, and one she liked.

“Now go wash your hands so you can eat some breakfast. We’ve got to go find a new house today. Oh, and later on we need to have a chat.”

Okay, she didn’t like the sound of a chat. Because he’d put a special emphasis on chat, as though he meant something else.

He was still talking about spanking her, both for running off on him, but mainly for telling him leave when that guy was threatening her. Yeah, he still seemed a bit mad about that. Maybe a spanking was a good idea. At least then he might not be upset with her about it anymore, and it might alleviate some of the guilt inside her.

She didn’t feel guilty about sending him away. No, she’d done that to save him, but she did feel bad about running away.