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Chance was true to his word. He emailed an hour later that the website was live. I checked it out. It was great. I took my laptop down to the cafe and showed Sally the website. "That's nice. We tried to get Harry to do something on social media, but he said he was too old. There's a lot to this. I'll have to check it out."
"How did you get this done so fast?" Rick asked. "I thought it took a long time to figure all this stuff out."
"Chance did it."
"I didn't know Chance knew how to do web stuff. This looks great."
"Chance has some ideas about how we can use this to draw in more people. I didn't understand it all, but we'll take it one step at a time."
I went back upstairs to agonize over my romantic situation. Funny, I thought I'd done more than enough of that during my divorce.
I made myself a cup of Earl Grey and sat down at the kitchen table with my pad and pen. I thought back over the ideas Chance had for changes at the cafe. I knew I wanted to brighten it up with new paint, and I had to find a way to keep the cryptid identity but without having the walls covered with photos and clippings. I wanted to attract new customers but not alienate the regulars.
Looking around the apartment, there was still a lot of cryptid related stuff that I needed to find a place for. Tom was picking me up, so I grabbed my keys and went down stairs to pull the SUV into the shed and spend some more time poking around Harry's lab.
The shed door worked great. I pulled the SUV in and headed for the back. Unlocking the door, I walked into Harry's world. There were no windows, so I flipped on all the lights and started against the right-hand wall. File cabinets stood between long work tables. On the first table was a series of photos of something I couldn't identify, along with books and rulers. I opened the first file cabinet and found folder after folder. I pulled out the first couple and laid them on the table. I pulled up a chair and looked through the folders. It looked to me like each folder, at least in this cabinet, represented a particular incident or find. Each folder was labeled with a date and location. Leafing through them, I found some from all over the world. It was clear that Uncle Harry took his cryptid hunting very seriously.
I took a break from the files to email the link to Hairy's website to all my friends and relatives. I got back lots of positive comments.
My alarm sounded to let me know I had an hour to get ready for my date. I was struggling. There was no denying my reaction to Chance's kiss. I wasn't even going to try to convince myself that the reaction was just something normal. It wasn't, and I knew that. I knew Chance and I had heat, but I couldn't quite imagine having a real long-term adult relationship with Chance. Tom was pretty darn terrific. I could easily imagine having a relationship with Tom, but I wasn't sure if the heat was there. Maybe I'd take Krista’s advice and find that out.
Tom was cooking dinner at his place, but just like with Jim, he insisted on picking me up. I'd just logged out of email when there was a knock at the door. I took a minute to clear my head and focus on Tom, before I answered.
"You look great," Tom said. "Are you ready to go?"
"I just need to grab my jacket." My jacket was what some people would call a winter coat. I still seemed to be feeling the cold more than the locals.
When we were on our way, Tom said, "Laurie sent me the link to the new website for Hairy's. It looks good. Harry was pretty set in his ways. It's good that you're putting your own spin on the business. Did you have someone you knew from Georgia design the site?"
Fudge. I was trying not to think about Chance. "I can't really take the credit. The website was Chance's idea, and he designed it."
"He did a great job. I noticed you finished the painting. It looks good."
"I got a nice surprise this morning. I found out that Harry left me his SUV."
"That's good. Now you won't have to worry about driving Snickety in the snow. I'm sure she's relieved. Some of us should have thought to ask what happened to Harry's truck."
"Jim must have thought I'd read Harry's will or ask more questions. I didn't even think to ask about the shed behind Hairy's. There's a whole other room full of cryptid information."
"I guess you have more sorting to do."
Tom lives in the mountains in a beautiful log cabin. Dinner was good, and we talked about all sorts of things. When we settled on the sofa to watch a movie, I was surprised Tom chose a bigfoot movie. "Have you seen any bigfoot movies?"
"No. I can honestly say I never gave bigfoot a thought until I moved to Wilkins’ Gap."
"There's a lot of movies about the big guy out there. Some are funny, some are more horror, and some, like this one, are supposedly based on found footage."
As we watched, Tom supplied a lot of information. "I didn't think you were interested in cryptids."
"You can't live around here and not get sucked into the cryptid thing at least a little."
Tom pulled me closer and kissed me. It was a perfectly nice kiss, but it was too short and sweet to make any comparisons to the soul-stealing kisses Chance and I had been sharing. I was working up the courage to take the lead and initiate the kind of kiss I wanted when Tom's phone on the table started vibrating.
"Crap," he said, reaching for it. "It's a fire."