Chapter 18

CHAPTER

EIGHTEEN

H arry handed his guitar to Adam, everything in the world shiny and amazing. Just for this moment. Just right here on this ranch in Wyoming, with a couple hundred people.

This was the life he craved. The life he wanted more than living in his second-story apartment in Nashville, though he loved the solitude of his writing studio there. He did love the vibrancy of that city too, and he couldn’t spit in God’s face and tell Him he didn’t want the country music career he currently had.

That life was going to pay for the next chapter for years to come. That life and the songs he wrote and the concerts he did—all the travel, the nights in hotels, the mobs of people who wanted his signature—could get him this small-town life with the people he wanted to see every day .

Adam took his guitar, just like he took care of everything else for Harry. “I’m going to go talk to people,” he told him.

“Okay.” Adam glanced out to the crowd, but mostly family only remained at Bryce and Codi’s wedding.

Harry really just wanted to show Bailey the picture he’d managed to take while his father continued to strum, and he wanted to hug Bryce really hard, and he wanted to dance one more time with Belle, his date for tonight’s wedding.

Daddy followed him down the steps from the small stage, and they rejoined their family to cheers and hugs. Harry grabbed onto Bryce and held him tight, tight, tight.

“I love you, brother,” he said right in his cousin’s ear.

“I love you more,” Bryce said back, and as they separated, Bryce grinned hugely at him. Harry returned it, and he drew Codi into a hug too.

“You guys are such great role models,” he said. “Love you, Codi.”

“You’ll be home soon enough,” she said, and somehow that was just what Harry needed to hear.

“I will be,” he said as he stepped back. He looked for Bailey, but he wasn’t surprised not to see her glued to Bryce’s side.

His heart leapt at the thought of her leaving before he could grab her, and he turned to scan the crowd. He caught Adam’s eye, and the man simply knew Harry needed something. He came forward instantly, saying, “What is it?”

“I need to find Bailey McAllister,” he said.

Adam nodded, because he knew who Bailey was. He studied photos and names of people before events like this, and Harry often relied on Adam to feed him names of the people he had to meet with, socialize with, or simply fans who’d paid VIP prices to see him.

They separated, and Harry moved to the sidelines quickly, figuring that was where Bailey would hang out. He found Graham and Laney Whittaker, her parents, and he leaned down. “Is Bailey still here?”

Laney looked up to him, surprise in her eyes for only a moment. “Yes,” she said. “She went to get a drink.” She pointed to the right. “Like, two minutes ago.”

Harry nodded, flashing a smile. “I have something amazing to show her.” He left as Graham said, “I want to see something amazing.”

“I’ll be back,” Harry called over his shoulder, because he’d just spotted the blonde who’d charmed Bryce from the moment he’d met her.

Harry understood his cousin so much more now that he’d started something with Belle. He still wouldn’t call the missing person’s investigator his girlfriend. They lived in different cities and would for at least eight more months. They didn’t exactly go out on dates, but Harry did call her a lot, they texted every day, and they’d had a few online dates, where he’d sent dinner to her house, gotten dinner for himself, and they’d talked via video while they ate, him in Nashville and her in Jackson Hole.

He hadn’t kissed her, and the in-person encounters they’d had were two weddings: Kassie and Reggie’s and now this one .

“Bailey,” Harry said as he approached her. She turned toward him, her face brightening when she saw him.

“Harry.” She took him into a hug. “What an amazing song. You’re incredible.”

“Thanks.” He embraced her heartily, giving her one last squeeze before he pulled away. “I want to show you something.”

She took a sip of her cider and set down the glass. “Okay.”

Harry already had his phone out, and he tapped to get to the pictures. “Look.” Sudden emotion overcame him, and he choked up, unable to say more. He took one last look at the pure, unadulterated love, the absolutely magic of family and anyone who felt like family coming together to surround someone who needed them.

He imagined himself in the middle of the mob of cousins, friends, aunts, uncles, parents, and grandparents, and yeah. He couldn’t speak.

He turned the phone toward her and simply nodded.

Bailey watched him for an extra moment, surely cataloguing his emotion and wondering what she might find. Then she took the phone and looked at it fully. Her eyes widened, and one hand came up to cover her mouth. “Oh,” she said.

Harry didn’t know why this moment had been so poignant for him. He’d seen it from a unique perspective—from above, and to see that outpouring of love, of God’s grace and forgiveness and Spirit…Harry had truly had a pr ofound religious moment, and he wanted to share it with Bailey.

She looked up at him, apparently without the ability to form words too. Harry just grabbed onto her and hauled her into his chest again. “I love you,” he said, his voice far rougher than it had been when he’d told Bryce the same thing. “Everyone loves you so much.”

She held onto him like she might fall otherwise. “Thank you, Harry. Will you send me this?”

“In the words of Bryce, one-hundred percent.” He smiled then and when he pulled back, Bailey wore a grin on her face too. She wiped at her eyes and took a big breath.

“Wow.” She exhaled, part of the air forming a laugh. “Okay.” She looked at his phone again. “This is just….”

“Incredible,” he said. “Look at you, right there in the middle of everyone.” She did indeed stand in the middle of the crowd, and they’d just piled around her, everyone extending their arms around whoever they stood beside.

“When you’re inside a net this big,” he said. “This strong, there’s no way you can fall very far. There’s no way you can get very far away. There’s never a time when you don’t have someone to call for help. For anything, really. Just to talk. Just if you’re lonely.”

He nodded to the phone. “You never get to be lonely when you’re the one in the middle there where you are.”

She nodded and handed his device back to him. “Is this how you feel, though you’re in Nashville?”

Harry glanced around and found her parents watching them intently. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m far away, but I’m right here too.” He smiled. “It’s great.”

“Sometimes it suffocates me.” Bailey wrapped her arms around herself and looked out at the dancing still happening. “Maybe it’s just me.”

“It’s not,” Harry said. “I feel like that too. Everyone does—well, maybe not Uncle Otis or Uncle Mav or Uncle Tex….” He laughed. “But my daddy doesn’t go to everything. Gabe and Luke and Morris do what works for them. We all do—but the network is there, and I’m sure glad I know it’s there.”

He put his arm around her. “That’s what comforts me. They’re there when I want them, and it’s nice to know that.”

“Yes,” she agreed softly. “It is nice to know that.” She looked at Harry and swept a kiss across his cheek. “Thank you, Harry. For playing your song, and taking that picture, and showing it to me, and telling me what it means to you.” She smiled brilliantly at him. “Thank you for being you.”

“And thank you for being you,” he said right back. He tapped on his phone again. “I’ll send it to you right now, because I think your momma and daddy want to see it.”

“Yes, please.” Bailey gave him her number, and Harry sent the pictures he’d gotten. She could choose the best one or keep them all.

That done and with Bailey walking over to her parents’ table, Harry sighed and tucked his hands in his pockets.

He only had one more thing on his agenda for tonight, and that was Belle. He wanted to dance with her again, and then he’d drive her home the long hour plus twenty minutes from the Rising Sun Ranch to her house in Jackson.

He didn’t see her, and he was content on the sidelines for a minute.

“What are you thinking, cowboy?”

He felt someone move to his side, and instant recognition of Belle’s voice made his heart jump again. “Nothin’ much,” he said as coolly as he could.

She slipped her hand in his. “I know that’s not true. You love being in a crowd, because it churns up your ideas for songs.”

He grinned and squeezed her fingers. “I like holding your hand. That’s what I’m thinking.”

She laughed lightly, and Harry basked in the sound of that too. “I saw you talking to Bailey.”

“Yeah,” he said, glancing over to the table where she was showing her parents her phone. “I got a great picture of her while she was dancing with OJ.”

“I’m sure a song will come of it.”

Harry looked at her, struck by the beauty of her face. She wore plenty of makeup tonight—it was a wedding after all—but she knew how to brush it on to contour her face and enhance her lips. He couldn’t help looking at them for longer than socially acceptable, and he reverted right back to being thirteen about to kiss a girl for the first time.

He reminded himself he’d done this before, and he wasn’t a boy and she wasn’t a girl. He was a grown man, and Belle was several years older than him. Oh, and that he stood in front of his whole family .

So he wasn’t going to kiss her here. No way.

“Do you want to dance?”

“Yes.” Belle let him lead her out onto the dance floor, where Harry felt instantly under the microscope. He decided he didn’t care. He’d had thousands and tens of thousands of people watching him for years now. It was literally why he’d started his social media accounts—to be seen.

At least for the things he wanted known. His feelings, as complicated as they were, for Belle, he actually wanted to keep to himself.

He’d only told one person about the status of his album. Uncle Otis. Okay, fine, Uncle Morris knew too, as he managed Harry’s music career, and Adam knew, because they’d celebrated together with barbecue and drinks for everyone at a small music dive that Harry loved.

It had such a great vibe, and he’d often go there just for a drink and to listen to the bands playing. The comedy sketches. He loved the people and the vibrancy, and then he could take that energy and yes, the emotion, into his song-writing.

Amazing songs, after all, were born from the purest emotions of the heart, and Harry wanted all of his to hit something inside anyone who listened to them.

“I submitted all the songs to Rebel,” he whispered in Belle’s ear. “I’m waiting for them to approve them, and then we’ll start recording.”

“Harry, that’s wonderful.”

His pulse thundered in his chest, because only two people knew the words teeming on his tongue now. He wasn’t sure he could say them out loud, but he’d have to soon enough.

He had to talk to his daddy and Uncle Tex too.

“I asked Morris to find out if I could record here in Coral Canyon.”

Belle stepped back, her eyes searching his now, pure surprise there. “Here?”

“My uncle has a professional recording studio at his farm,” Harry said. “Country Quad has done a few albums from right here, with occasional trips to Nashville.”

“Wow,” she said.

Harry grinned at her. “I thought nothing surprised you.”

She gave him a tiny push against his chest. “Obviously not. I said that one time, and it was job-related.”

He eased her back into his arms. “I need to talk to everyone, so don’t say anything.”

“I’m gonna run right over to your father and tell him,” she said dryly, her salty sense of humor something Harry really liked about her.

He danced her over to the corner of the floor, where not as many people could see them. Adam stood in the slight shadows, and Harry nodded to him.

Adam nodded back, and Harry closed his eyes, so he didn’t have to see how Adam got more people away from them. He worried as he held Belle in his arms that isolating them would only draw attention to them.

But he edged up onto the grass, off the dance floor, where there was less light, and Adam had moved whoever had been there .

“You okay?” he asked Belle.

“Yes.” She fit so well against him, and Harry’s heart seemed to positively hammer against his ribs. With her chest pressed against his, could she feel it?

“If I move here,” he whispered. “We could go out for real.”

“Mm hm.”

“Would you go out with me?” he asked. “Dinner, movie, standard, normal date stuff?”

She eased back and looked at him, her face a perfect mask for her emotions. Harry actually had no idea what she’d say, and his heartbeat went wild.

“I’d love to go out with you,” she finally said.

A smile burst onto his face. “Perfect.” He leaned closer and whispered, “I’m going to kiss you now, okay?”

“Okay,” she murmured a mere moment before he touched his lips to hers. Harry would swear on his life that the lights around them surged with an enormous influx of energy, all of it coming from the two of them.

He brought her closer, one hand sliding up and into her hair as he kissed her and kissed her, his ears pricked up and ready to pull away the moment he heard Adam so much as clear his throat.

When only the music from the dance floor, which felt so far away, entered his ears, Harry did the one thing he couldn’t seem to stop doing. He kept kissing Belle.