Chapter 27
CHAPTER
TWENTY-SEVEN
Harry Young got up from the couch when his phone bleeped out the notification sound that said his garage cameras had sensed motion. “They’re here,” he said, though he didn’t know which of his cousins had arrived.
He and Belle were hosting cousin night at their house this month, because they were finally moved in and settled. That, and she was due with their first baby in less than a week, and Harry didn’t want to be more than five feet from her until their daughter arrived.
“This batch has another few minutes,” Belle said from where she stood at the stove. “I don’t dare leave them. They go from done to burnt in only a few seconds.”
“I got it, babe.” Harry moved into the kitchen first and slid his arm around his wife’s waist. She currently held a wire basket utensil, which she used to move the pronto pups around in the bubbling, hot oil.
“Mm, you smell nice,” he murmured.
Belle grinned and pressed against his kiss. “Go welcome all your cousins, and leave me to finish these.” She’d spent the morning making dipping sauces, everything from honey mustard, to homemade ranch, to a spicy barbecue ketchup.
He’d also cut watermelon into cubes and whipped up a batch of marshmallow crispy rice cereal treats. His daddy had mixed in peanut butter and chocolate chips when Harry had been a child, and he’d done that tonight, a wave of nostalgia washing over him.
The doorbell rang, and Harry straightened away from Belle. “I hope everyone remembers their food assignments.” He’d been organizing these cousin nights for long enough to know that even if he put it in all caps on the group invite thread that no one needed to bring anything, they still would.
“Howdy, all!” Bryce called from the front door just as Harry rounded the corner to head in that direction.
Bryce stepped back to open the door further, which allowed room for his pregnant wife to enter ahead of him. Harry’s face broke into a grin at the sight of Codi wearing a sleeveless sundress, her belly bumping out in front.
“No Matty tonight?” Harry asked as he moved forward to take the bin of popcorn ingredients from Bryce.
He had a special popper and the exact buttery salt they used at the movie theater.
Harry’s front door faced south, and a literal swath of forest towered on the west side, so his backyard would be shady and cool for movie night.
He’d already set out chairs and blankets with pillows, and a long table with a cooler at one end full of soda, and syrups next to that.
Belle was making hefty appetizers like the pronto pups, along with mozzarella sticks and a big bowl of dilly ham-and-cheese pasta salad. Harry could eat that every day of his life and die a happy man, especially when he got together with his cousins to do it.
“How’re you feeling, Codi?” Harry asked as he let her lead the way into the back of the house.
He and Belle were set to have their first baby very, very soon, and Harry certainly didn’t need the six-bedroom, five-and-a-half-bath house he currently lived in.
Yet, his mind whispered, because Harry and Belle planned to be in Dog Valley for a long time, and they definitely wanted more than the one baby she currently carried.
“I’m feeling pretty good,” Codi said. “Of course, I still have six weeks to go compared to Belle’s one.” She moved right into the kitchen, where Belle reached to turn off the flame under the pot of oil.
“How are you?” Codi asked as she snaked one arm around Belle and gave her a squeeze.
“Surviving,” Belle said.
She was the toughest woman Harry had ever met.
She’d quit her job in law enforcement to write songs with him in their dedicated music studio, where Harry still played his guitar and sang to the camera for millions of fans online.
But he had no record contracts and no plans to try to get another one.
Belle had had a couple of labels interested in signing her for a record deal—something she’d wanted for a long time—then she’d found out about their baby, and she’d chosen this small-town life with Harry and their soon-to-be daughter instead.
Harry set the popcorn bin on the counter and pushed it over next to the sink. “Who has Matty tonight?” he asked, because a lot of the people Bryce would normally ask to babysit his son were here. “What with Rosie on the road and all.”
“Yeah, Rosie being gone has really killed our ability to get a babysitter,” Bryce said with a smile.
“Your momma and daddy are out of town, aren’t they?” Harry asked.
“Yep.” Bryce nodded.
Harry already knew Bryce’s younger half-siblings were staying with Wade and Cheryl Ingalls—Abby’s brother and sister-in-law—who lived right next door to them on the Eastern Highway. Codi turned from the stove and met Bryce’s eye, and, oh, Harry sensed a story here.
“You’ll die,” Bryce said with a chuckle. “But since Kassie and Reggie are coming here, and my momma and daddy are out of town, and Luke is off on his first camping trip of the summer….” He shrugged one shoulder. “I called Graham and Laney.”
Harry’s eyebrows did go up as a whiff of surprise moved through him. “Wow,” he said. “I am surprised by that.”
“They said no,” Bryce said, but his smile didn’t go anywhere. “I guess all the Whittaker brothers and their wives are headed up to Alaska this week.”
“Denali National Park,” Codi said.
“Yeah, they’re doing some hiking and helicopter tours,” Bryce said as Codi migrated back to his side.
Harry waited because Bryce and Codi didn’t have their two-year-old son with them, and that meant someone had to be watching him.
“Bailey was there when I called Laney,” Bryce said. “And she volunteered to take Matty.”
Harry’s jaw dropped open, and while his brain blitzed around, he couldn’t quite get it to settle on one thought that would come out of his mouth. “Bailey is watching your son?” he finally blurted out.
“Wow,” Belle said, the surprise in her voice matching that coursing through Harry. With everything she’d seen in her life, that took a lot. Harry looked from Bryce to Codi to Belle and back.
“We’re walking in,” another man called, and Harry blinked his way out of his shocked stupor.
“Come on back, Boston,” he called, and then he moved to go see what he could help bring inside.
Boston carried professional-grade cookware in his hands, which meant he’d brought something from the Silver Sage Mountain Lodge restaurant.
Harry certainly wasn’t going to complain about that.
Cora also carried a bin of equipment, and it looked like the fancy burners that would be set up under catering at a wedding or party to keep something hot.
“What’s this?” Harry asked.
“I had the kitchen make sliders,” Cora said. “Boston said there’d be room for them on the table outside.”
“There will be,” Belle called, and they headed that direction.
Harry heard Cash’s voice through the still-open front door, and he decided maybe he better just set up shop on the front porch. He hugged Cash as the man came up the steps, with his fiancée, Lark, right behind him.
“You didn’t make donuts?” Harry asked as he took in Cash’s empty arms.
“I ran out of time,” Cash said with a grin.
Harry raised his eyebrows. “Is everything okay out at Cousins Creek?”
“Yeah, great.” Cash pulled back and reached for the pile of pale pink boxes that Lark carried.
She moved into Harry and hugged him next. “Things are fine at Cousins Creek,” she said. “Cash is just still trying to get all the way moved in, and my parents are coming home this weekend.”
“Ah, I see,” Harry said. “Busy, busy.”
“That’s an understatement,” Cash said. “But we stopped by the bakery and got desserts that’ll be way better than what I can make anyway.”
“That’s not true,” Bryce said as he joined Harry in the foyer. He hugged Lark and then took two of the boxes off the top of the stack Cash carried. “Belle says everything’s going outside right now.”
Harry let them go ahead, because Adam and Joey had just arrived. After Adam had opened the door for his wife, he glanced up to the house. “We’ve got drinks,” he said. “I’m just going to take them straight into the backyard.”
“I’ll come help.” Harry jogged down the steps and along the sidewalk to his massive driveway.
He and Belle had built this house, so he’d been able to think through everything he wanted, communicate it to an architect, construction manager, home design agent, and interior designer to get as close to what he and Belle wanted as possible.
He loved hosting parties and wanted to do it at his house, so he had a three-car garage with an RV pad or boat storage area along the side that meant it spanned four car widths at a minimum.
He’d set the house back off the road about two hundred yards with cameras at the gate, and every fifty yards until the house came into view through the trees.
He wasn’t making records or touring anymore, but his popularity remained high because of his online presence across various apps, which reached tens of millions of people.
He helped Adam carry cases of lemonade, soda pop, and water into the backyard.
When they returned for the ice, Harry found Cole and Rachel just getting out of their truck, as well as Beth walking with Corrine and Liesl as they neared the front steps.
With them, that meant everyone had arrived who would be coming to tonight’s outdoor movie shindig.
Harry had started inviting Eric this year, as the boy had turned sixteen last summer and could drive himself, but he’d taken a job with a local janitorial company, which cleaned office buildings at night, and he had to be there tonight.
As Harry watched the younger female cousins enter the house, he once again thought about inviting OJ to these parties.
It was something he and Bryce had argued about in the past, and honestly, Harry didn’t have the mental capacity to do it tonight. OJ was only fourteen and not a product of his father’s first marriage—Harry’s stipulations for those coming to these cousin nights.