“Matt and I stopped by a deli-type place and got a little bit of everything, along with a few bottles of wine, and dumped them into a rolling cooler that I keep in the back of my car … thank goodness!” he explained. As I shook my head and grinned at him, he added, “We just didn’t know what we would find out here, and figured that you’d be hungry, so …”

“When I grow up I want to be as wise as you,” I said with a heartfelt smile and then gripped his hand quickly before we left my room and both walked into the hall of the inn.

“Well, when I grow up, I want to be as brave as you,” he quipped, and drew me into a sidehug, before he turned towards the doors, while I turned to head towards the large living area of the inn.

Mr. Desmond jumped up when he saw me enter the living area.

“Harley!” he exclaimed and dropped the magazine he’d probably been flipping through on the low-slung coffee table.

“Mr. Desmond, thank you for your concern and driving with Philip all the way out here just to come see me…” I started to say and extended my hand to shake his.

“Still Mr. Desmond! Will you please call me Matt?!” he cried out again, and then gently tugged on my hand to draw me closer. He enveloped me in a bear hug.

“I was so worried, Harley!” he blurted. “Veronica called me in the dead of night and told me that you were in pieces when she saw you last. She and her friend were very worried because you were clearly in deep emotional distress, or something like that.”

“And when I called Philip and he said that your friends also told him that you were in pretty bad shape when you’d left them, we both feared the worst because you disappeared!”

“I’m very sorry to have caused all of you to worry like that …” I interrupted him when he paused to draw a breath in.

“No, don’t think you have to apologize, Harley. There are lots of people who care about you, so when you suddenly disappeared from view, after all these reports we’d heard about how distressed you were, naturally we felt we had to find you somehow,” Matt added, and then drew me into another hug.