Chapter 20

CHAPTER

TWENTY

H arry reached to button his jacket as he stepped off the elevator at Rebel Records. Uncle Morris preceded him, and Adam walked at his side. Harry tossed his personal assistant a worried glance, but Adam kept his face forward, his eyes scanning left and right. Surely there would be no threat to Harry’s personal safety here inside the record label, but Adam never took chances.

Harry didn’t want to be here at all. He rarely met with the record label executives, and instead let Morris handle all their affairs. But Morris had proposed that Harry be able to return to Coral Canyon and record the album in the white barn studio behind his uncle Tex’s house. After all, Country Quad had made three albums there, and surely it produced a perfect sound.

Rebel had not immediately agreed. In fact, they had not told Morris yes or no but requested this meeting instead. Harry had brainstormed with Otis, his father, and Morris for the whole weekend, and now they strode down the hall toward Lee Haskell’s office.

The man who held all the power in Harry’s life.

If he couldn’t return to Coral Canyon to record, he’d have to be in Nashville for at least another eight months, probably longer. Harry was meticulous about his music. He would practice and practice and practice before recording. Then he would record a single song in a day, maybe two, making sure every beat, every instrument, every lyric came out perfectly.

The list of songs for the album hadn’t even been approved yet. Harry’s irritation and frustration with the snail’s pace of making a country music album only increased the further into the building he went.

Morris didn’t knock on the conference room door, and instead simply opened it, as if he were a chauffeur. Harry walked in first, with Adam only a hair’s breadth behind him, and Morris came in last and closed the door.

Harry only took a couple of steps to let the men behind him enter, and then he stopped. This wasn’t a meeting with simply Lee Haskell, but seven music producers at Rebel Records. Harry knew in that moment he would not be returning to Coral Canyon to record his last album.

“Harry,” Lee said warmly as he stood. “Come in.” He had to be older than Harry’s father, with far less hair and a far bigger midsection.

All seven of them had taken head positions at their oval conference table. They all wore suits in black or navy blue, and Harry was eternally glad his father had counseled him to wear one as well. He and Morris wore cowboy hats, but no one else did.

Harry moved forward to start shaking hands. He hated this part of the business the most, but he was very, very good at it. He could smile. He could say things he didn’t really mean, all while thinking of what he really wanted: a bowl of ice cream and his solitude in his music studio in his second-floor apartment.

No , he thought as he shook hands with a man whose name he’d already forgotten. You don’t want to be in your second-floor apartment. You want to be back in Coral Canyon.

And he did.

No, he didn’t have a place to live there. He and his parents had started looking at houses. Harry reasoned as he shook another hand that he could purchase a house in Coral Canyon whether he lived in it right away or not. That didn’t make much sense, even for someone who had a lot of money.

“Howdy, Lee,” he said, zeroing in on the man with the sharp gaze. “You called in everyone, hmm?”

“Just a little meeting, Harry,” Lee said, but Harry knew it was way more than that. Once everyone had done all the formalities, Harry took the nearest seat at the table. Morris stayed on the other side, and they sat across from one another, with Adam between him and the door. Everyone took their seats, the jackets shuffling, the sounds of sighing; someone coughed.

Then Lee said, “Harry, I think you know we can’t approve your request to record in Coral Canyon.”

“Seems like it,” Harry said.

“I’m sure your uncle has a real great studio there,” Lee said. “We’ve heard Country Quad’s albums. Real nice sound, right?”

“Right,” Harry said. So what was the problem?

“We at Rebel have our own recording studios,” Lee said as if Harry hadn’t recorded two albums right here in this building. “They’re soundproofed in a specific way. We can’t send your entire band to Wyoming with you, as they have other obligations to other artists, and we have to schedule their recording time.”

Harry simply nodded, deciding that no words were needed. He didn’t have to affirm every single thing the man said.

“We think our sound at Rebel is real special,” Lee said with a knowing smile. He glanced around at some of the other men who also nodded and smiled like they were so important.

Harry sometimes felt like he was important, and other times he simply knew he was a young boy with a guitar and a dream. And people who played guitars were a dime a dozen, and he wasn’t all that special. He certainly wasn’t curing cancer or working toward solving the world’s problems.

“We’ll only get the three albums from you,” Lee said. “And we want them to have a consistent Rebel quality sound across all three. That means we need you to be here to record.”

“I understand,” Harry said. The argument was sound; it did make sense. Harry didn’t have to like it for either of those to be true.

“I wish it could be different,” Lee said. “I know you’re really anxious to get back to your family.”

An image of the beautiful Belle Graves stole through Harry’s mind. While yes, he did want to be part of the Young family, and not just in name, he also wanted to move on with his life. He was done being a country music star, but he had to fulfill his obligations before he could go live a different life.

He was trying to jump the gun and get there quicker, and Harry ducked his head as a measure of guilt and shame descended on his shoulders.

“Good news is,” another man said from next to Lee. “We’ve approved your album list.” Spike grinned and pushed a paper toward Harry. Harry made no move to try to collect the paper as the conference table was far too wide for him to do so. It got moved around from man to man until it landed in front of Harry.

“Eighteen songs.” His blood started to feel like someone had poured ice crystals in it.

He looked around the table once, met Morris’s gaze, and then rocked his eyes back to the man next to him. When he’d swept them all again, he stared across the table at Uncle Morris.

Eighteen songs , screamed through his head. He was contracted for twelve. Eighteen was a third more. That would take way longer to record.

“He shouldn’t have submitted so many good songs then,” Lee said, still grinning from ear to ear.

“If you’re going to expect him to record one-third more songs for an album, his contract needs to be adjusted,” Morris said evenly.

“Another third, it sounds like,” Harry said.

Morris sent him a severe look, and Harry clamped his lips shut. He didn’t usually get involved in negotiations. Morris handled it all, and his uncle would bring him Rebel’s proposal, and Harry would agree or not agree. They would discuss, and Morris would go back to the negotiation table if he had to.

“We have drawn up an addendum to your contract,” Lee said, and he nodded to the man next to Morris. By some miracle, the man’s name came forward in Harry’s mind.

“Well, what is it, Wayne?” Harry asked, just as Morris said, “Lay it on me, Wayne.”

Wayne passed the document to Morris, who started to study it. Harry’s collar felt too tight, and he told himself over and over not to reach up and adjust it. Behind them, someone knocked on the door, and everyone looked that way. A pretty woman leaned in and said, “Can I get anyone anything to drink?”

“I’ll take Diet Dr. Pepper, please,” Harry said .

“Same,” Adam said.

“Coffee,” Morris said, while all the music executives declined. Harry figured if he had to be in this room and he had to stay in Nashville, he could at least get a free soda pop from his record company.

Morris slid the document across the table to Harry and said, “The addendum is fair. They’re offering you one-third more for six more songs. And it is contractually binding you to Nashville to record them.”

“The online live-stream world tour is still on, right?” Harry asked. “That hasn’t changed?”

“That hasn’t changed,” Lee said at the same time Morris shook his head.

Harry had turned in twenty-seven songs for this album. When he looked back at the list in front of him, Long Road to Texas still sat there. Harry really liked that song. He had tried to get it on his second album and had failed.

Big Wheel Blues , Falling in Love in Kingston , and Rarin’ to Go , one of the rare rock songs that Harry had heard in his mind one morning when he’d woken up, all had made the list.

Harry did love writing music and lyrics. He did love recording songs. And he reminded himself that what he didn’t love was touring, and touring was not on the menu. He carefully folded the paper and passed it to Adam, who expertly tucked it away in his inside jacket pocket.

“All right,” Harry said. “Eighteen songs. I’ll stay in Nashville to record them.”

“Perfect,” Lee said, bursting to his feet. All the other executives did the same, almost as if they had rehearsed it. Harry stayed in his seat while Morris stood and shook hands with everyone again.

Morris put the paper in front of Harry, and Adam handed him a pen. He took a deep breath and thought, Dear Lord, tell me right now if I shouldn’t sign this. And when God didn’t throw lightning bolts into the room to stop Harry, he signed his name on the contract addendum.

Now he just had to break the bad news to everyone in Wyoming…including Belle.

Later that week, Harry answered the door to his apartment to find Adam standing there with the food he’d ordered for tonight’s phone date.

“Thanks, brother,” Harry said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at ten-thirty?”

“Yep,” Adam said. “For our weekend pow-wow.”

The pow-wow was a meeting that Adam insisted on twice a week, once for the first few business days of the week and once as the weekend drew closer, so that both he and Harry knew what was on the young man’s agenda, where he needed to be, what security needed to be arranged, what car services, what restaurants Adam needed to call—the whole nine yards.

Harry took his cheeseburger and cheese fries and went into the kitchen. His phone told him that Belle’s dinner had been delivered five minutes ago, and that should have been enough time for her to talk to the cats about it, pour herself some peach lemonade, and get in front of the computer as well.

He always called her for their phone dates, which he didn’t mind. He got his own food out and opened it all so that he wouldn’t have to wrestle through bags and burger wrapping paper during the date.

He’d sent Belle meatloaf and mashed potatoes today from a restaurant in Jackson Hole called Edna’s. When she’d confessed to him that she was one of the only kids in her fifth-grade class to choose meatloaf as her favorite food, she said she’d been teased relentlessly.

Harry had laughed and laughed and said, “I probably would have been one of the ones teasing you about it, Belle. No kid likes meatloaf.” But she claimed to, and so Harry had sent her that for their date this week.

He moved over to his computer and got the call going, and Belle answered after only a couple of rings. She ran a towel through her hair, and then threw it somewhere off camera.

“Hey, Harry,” she said.

Harry marveled that he’d gotten this gorgeous woman a few years older than him to pay him any attention at all, to put up with long-distance dating, to deal with a celebrity. He wasn’t sure what she found interesting about him, as their date conversations were usually pretty boring—stuff about their childhoods, their siblings, and sometimes their jobs, though Belle didn’t like talking about work.

He found her refreshing, a real break from what he always had to do: think about work, write songs for work, sing songs for work, and go to guitar lessons for work. None of it felt fun anymore, but Harry had never told anyone that, not even Belle. He didn’t want to complain, and he didn’t want to appear ungrateful.

But he also had to get the news that he couldn’t return to Coral Canyon out of his mouth and off his chest right now.

“Hey,” he said. “Listen, I got to—” He trailed off, not sure how to tell her that their only contact for the next eight, ten, twelve, who knew how many months would be these phone dates. Surely she’d grow tired of him. He told himself he could take a break anytime he wanted. He had enough money to fly home to Jackson Hole whenever he wanted, even just for an evening. He could do it every weekend if he had to.

Belle simply watched him. She didn’t jump in; she didn’t try to ask him another question; she didn’t take off on her own subject. She was beautiful and kind, she listened, she worked hard.

And though he was still getting to know her, and of course, they’d spent very little time in person together, Harry really felt like she championed him.

“I’m just going to blurt it out,” he said. “Bad news. Rebel says I can’t record in Coral Canyon.”

“Oh, no,” she said, really sounding hurt and upset. Her dark eyes shot sympathy at him, as well as multiple questions.

“I don’t know how long it will take to record the album,” he said. “They’re having me do eighteen songs instead of twelve, so it’s going to be longer. My guess is I might be done around April…of next year.”

“That’s ten months,” she said.

“It’s actually eleven.” Harry’s hopes fell, fell, fell. “It’s not quite June yet.”

“Right,” she said. “Well, you know, it’s okay.” Everything about her brightened. “It’s gonna be okay.”

“Yeah,” Harry picked up a fry and put it in his mouth, because he didn’t know what else to say.

“We might as well get our work news out here at the beginning,” Belle said.

He raised his eyes to meet hers. “You’ve got work news too?”

“Yeah.” She looked like she might throw up, though, and so he wasn’t sure if this was a promotion or if she’d lost her job. She’d never given any indication that might happen, and Harry leaned forward, suddenly tense.

“I’ve been offered another position in the Sheriff’s Department,” she said. “And I’m going to take it.”

“That’s great,” Harry said.

“Kind of,” Belle said. “Well, no, it is great. It’s great for me. But it’s not going to be so great for us.”

Harry’s heart pounded and pounded and pounded, and he could barely hear himself as he asked, “What do you mean?”

“I can’t really tell you a lot,” she said, and she looked away from the camera. “I really wish I could. You know I would, Harry. You know that, right?”

“Yeah?” he said, but it was a question. A guess .

“I’ve been authorized to tell you that it’s an undercover position. And that means I’m selling my house. I’ve rehomed my cats. And I’ll be getting all new devices, and I won’t be able to share any of it with you.” Her smile shook, and her eyes filled with tears. Her hands went round and round each other, and she dropped her eyes to them.

Harry felt like calling down thunder from heaven and demanding that she do anything else but what she just said—which was essentially, cut off all contact with him.

“Good news, though,” she said. “It’s an eight-month position, which means I should be done before you’re finished with the album. And then maybe….” She trailed off and ducked her head. She lifted her fork and had a hunk of meatloaf and a bite of mashed potatoes on it, and that did make Harry’s heart happy.

She put it in her mouth, chewed, and swallowed before she said, “Maybe we just met a year too soon. Maybe next year when you’re done with the album, and I’m done with this part of my job, maybe it’ll be a good time for us to meet up again.”

“Maybe.” It felt like the walls in his apartment had started to crumble.

“You can send letters to the Sheriff’s office,” she said. “My boss will read them, though, so you’ve got to be careful about that.” She gave a light laugh. “Anything that he thinks is safe to pass on to me, he will. But Harry, I can’t communicate back. I can’t risk my cover that way.”

“I understand,” he said, and he was getting really tired of those words. He didn’t truly understand much of anything that had gone on this week.

He took a deep breath, took another bite of cheese fries, and took another look at Belle. “Promise me we’ll try again when we’re both back in Wyoming permanently.”

She smiled at him. And if he could just freeze this one frame and look at it every day, he could stay in Nashville and record his album. He could do it without phone dates and witty texts to Belle. He absolutely could.

So he quickly navigated to the screenshot app on his phone and took a screenshot of Belle grinning at him from her computer in Wyoming to his in Nashville, as she said, “I promise.”