Chapter 10

CHAPTER

TEN

H arry glared at his phone, wishing the minutes would go backward instead of forward. There had been a mix-up with the car, and Adam had shown up at Harry’s hotel as he’d been coming out of the elevator to let him know.

For something personal like this, Harry shouldn’t have even seen Adam. The driver should’ve been waiting for him in the lobby, but someone had overbooked the car service, and Harry was running fifteen minutes behind.

He’d texted Belle— mix-up with the car. Be there in a half-hour, okay? —and she hadn’t answered him yet. By all accounts, she hadn’t even read the message.

Harry sighed, trying to tamp down his impatience. It was nine-fifteen in the morning, and he had plenty of hours left in the day. He’d set everything aside for today, noting with gratitude that he had a job and lifestyle that would allow him to do so.

Maybe his phone had stopped working. Or gone off the grid. He swept off a quick text to Bryce, half-hoping his cousin wouldn’t get it or reply. But Bryce came right back with, Yep, got it.

Harry trained his eyes out the side window, imagining some of the technology from the science fiction movies his daddy liked to exist. Then he could’ve just stepped into a circle in his hotel, said, “The Brown Hotel,” and been instantly transported there.

He said nothing to his driver, who likewise didn’t speak to him. Adam had handled the tardiness at the hotel, sparing Harry, and he literally couldn’t do anything about it now. Time would continue to tick forward no matter what Harry wanted, and he coached himself not to arrive for breakfast in a bad mood.

That wasn’t how he wanted to spend any time with Belle, and by the time the car rolled up to the curb, Harry was already reaching for the handle. While he hadn’t done so for a while, it turned out that Harry could open a door by himself.

He stood from the car as the driver hurried toward him, his face a mask of pure anxiety. “Mister Young,” he said.

“I’m fine.” Harry gave him the best smile he could and faced the hotel. After a moment of hesitation, he took the first step.

“I’m not to let you go inside alone,” the driver said, coming to his side. “You shouldn’t even be out of the car. I can go get Miss Graves and bring her outside.”

Harry met the man’s eye, knowing he’d have to answer to Adam if he kept on this path of entering the hotel by himself. He looked past him to the ornate entrance, wondering how bad it could possibly be. Famous people surely went out in public sometimes. Didn’t they?

The gold-rimmed doors to his right opened, and Belle herself strode out. She wore a pair of white pants and a blouse in pink, blue, and yellow stripes. Everything about her lit him up, and Harry moved toward her with the words, “She’s right here. Give me two minutes with her, would you?”

“Yes, sir,” the driver said, and Harry had no doubt the man would time them.

“Hey,” Harry said as he met Belle. “You look fantastic.” He grinned and leaned in to kiss her cheek, never happier for the Southern customs he’d had to get used to. “Mm, smell great too.”

He pulled back, recognizing the pitter-patter and booming beat of his heart in subsequent seconds. He hadn’t been this attracted to a woman in a long time, and his gaze dropped to Belle’s smiling lips. She’d glossed them with something that gave them a darker crimson color and glinted merrily in the morning light.

“You hungry?” he asked as he took her hand in his and turned back to the car. “I can hold your hand, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “To both questions.” She squeezed his hand, her smile still etched in place. “I just want you to know I’ve never been to Louisville before. I have no idea where to go for breakfast.”

Harry let the driver open the back door of the black sedan with dark privacy windows. “I’ve got you covered, Belle.” He liked saying her name, and Harry’s heart longed to be in the same physical space as her for longer than just today.

Don’t wish for what you don’t have , he told himself, mentally echoing something his grandfather had told him. Be grateful for what you do have, right now, in this moment.

And Harry had the whole day in front of him, and Belle looking at him with a sparkle in her eye, and a reservation at the best breakfast house in Louisville—according to Adam.

“I like this shirt,” she said, running her hand over his chest. “You know it has mushrooms on it, right?”

Harry looked down at his dark gray t-shirt, which yes, had a variety of mushrooms on it, standing there in a row across his chest. “They’re fungi,” he said. “You know, it means I’m a fun guy .” He grinned at her, wondering if Belle had ever watched any of his online videos. He couldn’t decide if he wanted her to or not. “The t-shirts…they’re kind of my thing. I’ve been wearing these sort of funny, punny, strange tees for a while now.”

“Yeah, I think I remember that now.” With that, she ducked into the car and scooted over on the seat. Harry followed her, her words sinking into his ears and mind.

He pulled the door closed behind him. “So you’ve looked at some of my online videos.” He deliberately didn’t phrase it as a question .

“Only when we first met,” she said. “Months ago in Coral Canyon.”

“I didn’t handle that too well, did I?” He took her hand again, his skin craving the touch of hers.

“You did fine,” she said. “You just couldn’t explain how you had a job, didn’t live there, but had nothing to do for a month.” She leaned her head back and smiled at him as the driver pulled away from The Brown Hotel. “Then you texted your name, and yes, I looked you up.”

“Mm.”

“I didn’t make a habit of it.”

“That’s something, I guess.”

“You don’t want people to watch your videos? Isn’t that why people post videos on social media?”

“I want people to,” he said. “Not you.”

“I’m a person.”

Harry looked over to her, and when their eyes met, he couldn’t look away even if he wanted to. “If you can stand me after today, would you go out with me again?”

Belle sobered a little bit. “How are we going to do that?” She looked away, and Harry marveled at her strength to do so. “I have to fly home tomorrow, and I’ve got a multi-department meeting on Wednesday.” She paused for a moment and then added, “Rumor has it that we’re getting split. Lots of reassignments. I might not even be an investigator later this week.”

She sounded slightly down about it, and Harry’s hand in hers tightened. “So let’s have a phone date this weekend. Friday night, and you can tell me all about your meetings and if you have a new job.”

“A phone date?” She swung her attention back to him. “You don’t strike me as a cowboy who loves talking on the phone.”

He grinned at her. “You would be right. But it’s not the phone. It’s a video call, so I can see you and you can see me.”

“So I’ll get to see another funky t-shirt.”

“Sure,” he said. “I have a million of ‘em.”

“I’m sure you do.” Her eyes fired at him, and he wasn’t sure if she was flirting or commenting on his wealth.

“My mom buys them for me,” he said. “I mean, some of them.” He looked away, surprised at himself for bringing up his mother.

“She must find them online,” Belle said. “Surely they don’t sell stuff like this in Coral Canyon.”

Harry swallowed, wanting to take his tongue with his saliva. “Uh, Ev isn’t my mother,” he said. “She’s my step-mom.”

“Oh.”

“My mother lives in Europe,” he said. “She’s a supermodel, and very connected to fashion, and she’s been….” He cleared his throat and cursed himself for bringing this up. Of all the things he could’ve talked about, he’d chosen his mother?

Belle didn’t jump in and save him. She said nothing, in fact, giving Harry plenty of room to insert his own voice. “I let her dress me for anything public I do,” he said.

“Which is everything,” Belle said .

Harry couldn’t really argue with that, so he simply shrugged one shoulder. “I have a plethora of tees, and she designs and puts together my entire tour wardrobe.” He reached up and adjusted his cowboy hat, which meant he couldn’t see Belle’s eyes any longer. “My relationship with her is…difficult.”

“Difficult?”

“It’s very much on her terms,” he said. “She abandoned me at my grandparents’ place in Coral Canyon when I was twelve. I didn’t see her or speak to her for years.” As he spoke, something healed inside Harry that he hadn’t realized still wept. “But now that I’m…in country music, she finds me useful.”

“Harry,” Belle said quietly.

“I don’t want to talk about her anymore.” He cleared his throat again. “Sorry I brought her up.” He looked up and into Belle’s eyes again. “Tell me about your family. I mean, if you’d like.”

Belle’s face softened. “Sure, I mean, I don’t have anything I don’t want to talk about.”

“Siblings?” he asked. “I’ve got three half-siblings. Two sisters and a brother.”

“I’ve got an older brother,” Belle said. “He branched out from our family farm in Oklahoma and works on a ranch in Texas. My younger sister is married and has two little kids. She lives a few miles from my parents, who are in Oklahoma City.”

“How’d you land up in Wyoming?” he asked.

“A job,” she said. “My parents didn’t super love my choice for my career, and honestly, I applied everywhere outside of a two-hundred-mile radius of the whole state of Oklahoma.” She flashed him another sparkly smile that didn’t seem to hold any past grudges. “I do miss them from time to time, but I really love my job.”

“No wonder you’re a little nervous about this week’s meeting.”

“Who said I was nervous?”

“Oh, you did, Miss Belle.” He grinned at her as the car started to slow again. He glanced out the window and saw they’d arrived at Terrace Gardens. “Maybe not in those words, but I heard it.”

“Maybe I did.”

The car stopped, and the driver twisted toward Harry. “I’m to check on your reservation, sir.”

“All right,” Harry drawled, beyond doubting Adam’s skills to make sure Harry was watched and cared for every step of the way. Even if he’d told the man he wanted the best breakfast date with Belle, then somewhere they could talk for a while, and then a reservation for the famed Hot Brown at The Brown Hotel for a late lunch.

They’d then meet up with Bryce and Codi for dinner that evening, and then…everyone Harry wanted to keep with him would fly back to Wyoming, and he’d make the trip to Nashville and his one-point-five-bedroom apartment.

The driver left, and a wet blanket of awkwardness descended over the back seat. “I’m sure he’ll just be a moment,” Harry said for a reason he couldn’t fathom. In moments like this, he simply wanted to be at home with a guitar in his hand and lyrics running out of his mouth.

He fought against the apology threatening to come out, swallowing hard against it. Belle knew who he was. She knew this lifestyle, though she’d said very little about it.

“Tell me something happy,” she said, and Harry looked at her again.

“Happy?”

“You fell off a cliff,” she said. “I’m just trying to bring you back.”

“I’m not…what?”

“Surely you felt the mood shift. It was violent.” She offered him another small smile. “I don’t care that the driver needs to check on your reservation.”

“Yeah, well, it’s…I just want to be normal.”

“You are normal,” she said. “This is your normal, and hey, we get to sit alone in a car for a few minutes.”

Harry scoffed. “Yeah, scandalous.” His father might actually think so, though Harry would be twenty-five-years-old this year.

“My mother would never let me park in a car with a boy,” Belle said, continuing her flirt-fest with him, and Harry took a breath and relaxed.

“Have I got a story for you,” Harry said.

Before he could start in on his father’s constant lectures to Harry about his teenage girlfriend—all while he was sneaking around with Ev—the door opened, and the driver said, “They’re ready for you, Mister Young.”

Harry emerged from the car and turned back to help Belle out. He kept his hand in hers as he then followed the driver past several people milling about on the sidewalk, as well as inside the restaurant. A waitress stood there, menus at the ready, and the driver passed Harry and Belle to her with, “This is Lauren. She’s going to take good care of you for the next couple of hours.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, and he’d be sure to text Adam to tip this man well.

Lauren looked at Harry like he was indeed normal, and she said, “This way, Mister Young. Miss Graves,” before she turned and led them through the restaurant to a private booth in the corner.

Harry slid into it so he was facing the wall, allowing Belle to sit across from him and face the restaurant. “This okay?” he asked as Lauren handed him an open menu.

“Yes,” Belle said. “It’s fantastic. Did you see those chandeliers?”

Harry had not, because he kept his focus lasered in on a destination, no sideways glancing allowed while out in public. But Belle shone with excitement. It practically vibrated from her, and Harry really liked that energy pouring from her.

Lauren said, “This morning, we have mimosas with pineapple juice as well as orange juice, and our chef’s specials include a dukkah-spiced hardboiled egg trio over avocado toast and seasonal blackberry crepe with a honeyed crème fraiche.” She leaned her knuckles on the table and smiled first at Belle, which Harry really liked, and then him. “I’ll give you two a few minutes. ”

With that, she left, and Harry took a moment to hide behind the menu. Without looking at Belle, he said, “You never said yes or no to the phone-video date.” He glanced at her over the top of the menu. “I’ll order food and have it sent to your house, and I’ll get dinner for myself too, and we’ll eat and talk.”

“Like we are now.”

“Exactly.”

Belle didn’t cock an eyebrow at him or beat around the bush, which he also really liked. She simply said, “Sure, I’m free Friday night.”

And just like that, joy burst through Harry. He’d have to rearrange some things to be free in the evening, but he’d do it. In order to see Belle, he had a feeling he’d do almost anything—and that scared him as much as it excited him.

And since he wasn’t leaving his apartment for this date, he didn’t even have to tell Adam about it, and that sent another jolt of blissful adrenaline through his veins.

Now, he just had to make it through the week, alone in Nashville, until a date he’d never imagined himself to be going on.