Chapter 36

CHAPTER

THIRTY-SIX

H arry walked along the aisle of crates, Belle’s hand in his. “They have way more cats here today.”

“They do,” Belle replied. “It’s amazing what a difference two days makes. I read online that they restock midweek in preparation for weekend adoptions.”

She stopped in front of a crate holding a gray, white, and black cat. “Look how cute this one is.”

For all the strength Belle possessed in her demeanor, her attitude, her personality, even her arms and shoulders, Harry did like the softer side of her. She hardly ever raised her voice. While she had an intense personality and believed deeply in things, she was quiet and more reserved.

She reminded him a little bit of Codi, though her coloring was the exact opposite. A swell of gratitude rose through him that his life included the small-town animal shelter, a good woman like Belle, and a slow Wednesday afternoon.

She motioned to the volunteer who’d been helping them. “I want to see this one.”

She had taken a couple of other cats out of their crates. One of them had not settled into her arms at all, and Belle wanted a cuddly cat. Harry wasn’t sure those two words went together in the same sentence, but Belle claimed they did. All of the cats he knew acted like queens and princes, their tails held mightily in the air as they stalked the earth looking for their next kingdom to rule. Or maybe that was just Aunt Georgia’s cats, Onyx and Obsidian.

Harry smiled to himself as the volunteer unlocked the crate and gathered the cat into her arms. She passed it to Belle, who giggled and said, “Oh, he’s chunky.”

“He’s one of our bigger shorthairs,” the volunteer said. “His name is Simba. We got him yesterday. The vets already checked him, and he’s in good health, ready to take home.”

Belle met Harry’s eyes, and he knew she’d be taking that cat home today. “Do you keep their names?” he asked the volunteer.

The woman blinked at him, and Harry had seen this look before. She recognized him. He labeled it starstruck because she somehow expected him to act differently than normal people. Uncle Luke had told him that would wear off over time, and Harry sincerely hoped so.

Maybe not during the concert tour , he thought, as he made a splash around town, disrupted regular dining time, and put on performances. His first four concerts had gone really well. Diners, bistros, restaurants, and pizza joints—heck, even a clothing boutique—had contacted him and asked if Harry would be willing to add more stops to his online tour.

But Harry was not willing to add more stops to his online tour. Even if he wanted to, Rebel would have to approve any dates and venues. They’d have to pay for the camera crew and the band, and more nights in that big mansion up the canyon. He didn’t want any of it.

The online concert tour was thirty-six performances, three per week for twelve weeks. He’d done a full week and one concert this week, with two more to go. People would have plenty of opportunities to see him, and he figured the allure of crooning out country songs in a coffee shop would wear off pretty quickly.

Belle took Simba over to the play area and sat down with him. He looked up at her immediately, and Harry could admit the cat was super cute, with his all-white paws from the ankle down, his long tail in a darker gray with black stripes, and his white front chest. The shelter had bathed and cleaned him up, and he looked really amazing.

Belle crouched down and tossed a tiny play mouse a few feet away. Simba looked at it for a few long seconds and then pounced. Belle’s laughter filled the room, and Harry felt himself slipping and sliding toward the edge of a cliff.

He still had plenty of questions about her time undercover. Or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he simply needed to get to know her as she was now. He’d known her before too, and the core elements of her were the same. She loved Wyoming. She loved God. She loved cats.

And all he could do was hope that she could love him too.

She straightened and reached for his hand. Harry gladly gave it to her and helped her stand as she said, “I want this one.”

“Just gonna get one, sweetheart?” He leaned over and pressed his lips to her temple.

“Yeah,” she said. “I’m just going to get one for now.”

She wouldn’t have a job with the Sheriff’s Department after Friday. They’d start rehearsing together for her concerts in Jackson, which started in three weeks. In fact, they’d practice a little bit later this afternoon.

As the volunteer went to start the adoption paperwork for Simba, Harry knelt down to play with the cat. “You never answered about cousin movie night.” He kept his head ducked and his cowboy hat covering his eyes.

“I’m not a Young cousin.”

“You’re with me,” he said. “Codi’s gonna be there.”

Belle did like Codi, and Harry knew they texted and talked, and he knew Codi wanted to have girls’ luncheons with Belle and Kassie. As far as Harry knew, nothing like that had happened yet. Belle had only been in Coral Canyon for a week and a half, and she’d been unpacking, settling in, quitting her job, looking for another one, and now adopting a feline.

“You don’t think your other cousins will care?” she asked .

“I think the other cousins would like to meet you,” he said. “Without five thousand babies around.”

The weight of her gaze made his neck bend even further. He finally looked up when he couldn’t stand it anymore. “I guess that sounded a little bitter.”

“Just a little,” she agreed.

“Joey and Boston are coming,” he said, wondering if he needed to go see a counselor about his feelings of…he wasn’t even sure what he felt. Left out, maybe. He knew he wasn’t the only one, that a lot of the older kids in the family—the ones from their daddy’s first marriages—felt the way he did.

Added on. Extras. Leftovers, though they’d come first.

“Bryce and Codi, Reggie and Kassie, me and you.”

“So do you think Joey and Boston will feel like it’s a couple’s night?” she asked.

“No,” he said quickly. “Corinne is going to get Liesl and Rosie, so there’ll be plenty of single people there.”

His eyes burned into hers. “We’re single.”

“But we’re a couple, Harry,” she said, and he liked how easily the words came out of her mouth.

“Beth’s in Jackson and won’t come,” he said. “Cash is training in Montana this week. He can’t make it.”

“Don’t you have a couple of younger cousins?” she asked.

“Liesl and Eric, yep,” he said. “Rosie said she talked to Liesl, but I haven’t heard from her. And Eric….” Harry trailed off because Eric was also in a unique position within the Young family.

He was one of the older kids, yes. He did come from a first marriage, yes. But that first marriage happened to be the same as his parents’ second marriage.

All of his siblings were his full siblings, as Uncle Morris and Aunt Leigh had gotten remarried when Eric was only four years old. So the age gap wasn’t quite as big as, say, between Harry and his younger sister, or Bryce and his.

Harry shook his head because he was determined to invite anyone fourteen years and older, and that included Eric. Thus, he’d invited him.

“It’s pizza and ice cream sundaes and the movie Twilight ,” he said with a grin. “It’s not serious.”

Belle smiled back at him and tossed out a ribbon for Simba to try to catch this time. She pulled it away from him, though he caught it with his claws and it shredded a little bit.

“Let me see if I have this afternoon and evening mapped out for you,” she said, and Harry liked this game.

He simply nodded and smiled. “Go on.”

“We’re gonna get this cat,” she said, glancing over to Simba. “You’re going to take me to the pet store so that I can get him a bed and some food and a few toys. Maybe a cat sweater or something.”

She grinned, and oh, Harry liked the sight of those curled lips on her face.

“And then, we’re going to go back to my apartment and we’re going to practice for the concert.”

Harry hadn’t realized he needed to stop by the pet store, but otherwise, she had nailed the things on his agenda.

“At some point,” she said. “We’re going to put on a movie, and you’re going to hold me on the couch before we have to get over to your house, where your cousins will come over, you’ll order pizza, and make ice cream sundaes, and we’ll all watch Twilight .”

“Technically,” Harry said. “Reggie and Kassie are my aunt and uncle. But otherwise, that sounds about like the perfect afternoon and evening to me.”

Belle tipped forward, and Harry knew that look on her face. He quickly slipped his cowboy hat off and pressed it to her back as he kissed her.

“Sounds about perfect to me too, cowboy,” she said.

“Well then, let’s get this cat and hit the pet store,” Harry whispered.

She nodded, and they did exactly that.

When they arrived at her apartment, he helped her unload the cat toys while she clipped the price tag off the cat bed and situated it in the corner.

“Look, Simba,” she said, only a slight coo to her voice now. “This is where you can sleep.”

She showed the cat around to all the rooms, put out his food and water bowls, gave him both, and then turned, beaming to Harry. He’d removed all the price tags and product tags from the toys, and he nodded to them in the basket.

“Is this where you want these?”

“Yep,” she said, and she came closer.

“This cat’s made you real happy,” he said, and Belle sobered .

“Yeah,” she said. “I don’t like coming home alone. And my other cats always greeted me.”

“So they acted like dogs,” he said.

She swatted his chest, and he fell back a mock step. “Cats can be nice.”

“If you say so.” He grinned at her and opened the drawer to put her scissors away.

“You didn’t even look at dogs at the shelter. I know you didn’t see any over the weekend you’d like, but surely they had new ones today.”

“Surely,” he agreed. Harry had toyed with the idea of getting a dog, but he didn’t want to do it until the concert tour ended.

“What’s on your mind?” she asked when he didn’t say anything for several long seconds.

He glanced over to her, not really sure if this was what he wanted to add to today’s agenda. “I was just wondering,” he said anyway. “If you got an appointment with the counselor.”

“Yep,” she said. “I’m seeing Doctor Frederickson next week. Thursday.”

“Mm, okay.” He nodded at her while she took the cat toy basket over to the spot next to Simba’s bed. “You don’t have to tell me about it or anything.” He turned to her fully and gazed across the room at her.

“You’re so beautiful.” He smiled, glad when she returned the gesture. “But I’d be willing to listen to anything you wanted to tell me about your time undercover. ”

All of a sudden, he realized why this had been gnawing at him. He wanted her to know that he was a safe place for her, that he would take anything she wanted to give him and hold it for her. He would bear it. He would carry it, so she didn’t have to.

“I don’t need to know. But if you wanted to, I’m here. I’m willing to listen, and I won’t judge you.”

Belle looked away, a slight wobble in her chin.

“Thank you, Harry,” she said. “I’ve told my boss and the prosecutors, obviously.” She moved over to her sliding glass door that went out onto a tiny balcony and simply looked out at the summer day. “It’s not that I think you’ll judge me or that I’m ashamed of any of it. It’s just….”

Her shoulders lifted as she breathed, and everything in her sagged as she exhaled. “It’s just a lot, and you already have a lot going on. And I don’t know….”

He gave her another couple of seconds, and then he asked, “Will you look at me, please?”

She did instantly. No fear there, and Harry hoped all he broadcasted toward her was love and acceptance and kindness.

“Like I said, you don’t have to tell me. I’m fine not knowing. But I don’t want you to not tell me because you think I can’t handle it or I’m too busy.”

“I know you can handle it,” she said.

“Then I’m too busy?”

“It’s not that exactly,” she said. “It’s just, I don’t want this to be what we talk about every time we’re together.”

“Sure,” he said. “We used to talk about work at the beginning of our video dates, and then move on to other things.”

She offered him another small smile. “You’re very good at compartmentalizing.”

He laughed and said, “You’re the queen of that, Belle.”

She grinned too and turned to pick up her guitar. “Can we just play?” She looped the strap over her shoulder and looked at him. “I’m ready to play.”

“I’m always ready to play with you.” He moved out of her kitchen and over to the dining room table, where he’d put his guitar. He opened the case and pulled it out, and they started to warm up together—getting their fingers moving, tightening and loosening the strings on their guitars, and casting shy glances at one another.

Playing and singing with another person was an extremely intimate experience, and Harry’s pulse quickened.

“I started working on some of our back and forth,” he said. “That we’ll do when you first come out on stage.”

“Okay,” she said. “I didn’t know you had to write that out.”

“I don’t have to,” he said. “We don’t need to stick to the script every time, but it’s nice to have an idea of what we might say to each other and how long it takes. And I always like to have something that segues right into the song.”

“I can help you with something about the venues,” she said.

“Exactly. Stuff like that. I’ll have Uncle Morris send you a list of them. ”

She nodded, and then she moved easily into the opening notes of her song. Harry could sit with Belle and play the guitar forever, and as she sang the opening verse and he came in on the chorus, he couldn’t help thinking that they worked really well together.

Their voices wove together and produced a sound that was neither his nor hers, but uniquely theirs. And the thoughts in his head moved into feelings in his heart that told him he could write songs with this woman for years, and he could love her, and they could raise a family together.

As they played through her song, hardly any mistakes from either one of them, he finally felt like the pieces of his life that he’d been laboring over for so long were finally coming together into a bigger picture—and that picture would not be complete without Belle Graves in it.