Chapter 17

Harry woke to find Glenna laying in his arms looking at him. “Hello, Mrs. Gladstone.”

She smiled shyly. “Hi, thank you for last night.” She started to tear up again and Harry pulled her close.

“You are very welcome. Now don’t cry. I meant it, we will slow down. I think we both got caught up in our shared fantasy and rushed this thing a little. I do love you, and I will always love you. But we can take our time and fix the issues we have before we take things any further.”

“I know you meant them, that’s why I’m thanking you. You could have just agreed to divorce me. You could have kept going and accepted Hal’s meddling, leaving me to my own fate last night, but you didn’t. You came back for me. I don’t know why I have so much trouble trusting you, but I do know that you love me, and I love you. I promise, I’ll work on my trust issues.”

“I’m going to help. I have to do a couple things this morning, but I’m also going to go see Lex Cayden and see if he has something that will help us work on growing our relationship. I mean, I don’t know if youth pastors would have that stuff, but maybe he can call his dad, he’s a pastor, too. Maybe he’ll have some suggestions. Why don’t you join me tonight for supper and we can talk, again?”

She bit her lower lip, and Harry felt his body respond. This slow and easy was going to be hell on his body, especially if she kept doing all the little things that drove him nuts.

“Okay. I need to go home and change. I need to go to work. I’ll try not to freak when I see your giant head urging people to vote.”

“Glenna, I promise you most of my errands have to do with fixing this election problem first.”

Then he kissed her sweet lips, again. Softly and lovingly. She sighed as he pulled away. “Come on love, we need to get out of this bed and get the day started.”

Harry watched as Glenna blushed. “I’m going to need a ride to my car.”

“No worries. I know just where you left it.”

And they gave each other another quick kiss and climbed out of the bed. Leaving each other and the safety of the bed, reluctantly, but they did it.

*****

Later, Harry dropped Glenna off at Mysti’s. He pulled out his key and went up to check on Mysti. Sammy was asleep on the couch, but she stirred when she heard him come in. “Hey, Harry, Mysti’s still asleep. I gave her another one of her magic pills last night.”

“Good, I just wanted to check on her to make sure she’s alright.”

“She’s fine, how about you? Are you alright?”

“I’m fine, why?”

“I’m just a little confused see, because I thought we were family.”

Harry sighed. “Sammy, we are family.”

She shook her head. “No, we must not be family because I’m pretty sure family gets invited to the wedding.”

Harry grinned. “Listen, the only people who were at our wedding was Mom and Glenna’s Dad. We planned on having another more traditional, big ceremony after the election is over.”

“When was this super-secret wedding anyway?”

“Monday while we were in Denver.”

Samantha’s mouth dropped open. “You hadn’t even dated her a week by then. No wonder you two are having trouble.”

Harry shook his head. “No, we’re having trouble because Hal is being Hal. I’ve loved her since the first time I set eyes on her in middle school.”

She shook her head. “Love at first sight is a myth, Harry, it’s not real.”

Harry grinned at his baby cousin. “Ah, Sammy, trust me, one of these days some guy is going to look at you or say something to you and you’re going to eat your words.”

“Not me. I’ll never fall in love quickly and do what you did. Slow and purposeful that’s how my love life goes.”

Harry smiled “You’ll see. Look I need to run, are you staying with Mysti all day?”

“Yeah, until Leanne gets off work. She said she’d come stay with her. Besides we can’t leave her alone with Pastor Cayden. That would destroy them both.”

“Yeah, I reckon you’re right. Tell everyone to call me if she needs anything.”

“Okay.”

Harry headed down the stairs and pulled his phone from his pocket, dialed a number and waited as it rang. “Hey Bernie, it’s Harry, you busy this morning?”

“Hey Harry. No, just going to do a little fishing; why?”

“Bring your gear out to the estate. Let’s fish from there today, I need to talk to you about something.”

“Sure, see you in half an hour then?”

“Great. Later.”

Harry hung up. Let’s see what the city attorney has to say about my candidacy application being forged. He climbed in his SUV and headed for the Estate.