Page 99 of His Eighth Ride

“I know,” he said roughly. “I’m sorry. I said I was sorry. I should’ve told you. I just didn’t want to disrupt your plans to go to Raleigh. I know how important that was to you.”

Opal studied his face, and she didn’t see anything to mistrust. “Tell me about the serious thing you wanted to talk about a month or two ago.”

His jaw jumped, and he fell back another step. “I’ve worked through some of it already.”

“Did you write about it in your notebook?” She didn’t see it anywhere on him, but he had to have it. He always had it.

“Yes,” he said simply.

“Will you show me?” She tried to ask gently, but she wasn’t sure it came across that way to Tag.

His eyes stormed with danger, and then he blinked, and it all went out. “I can show you,” he said. “But you’d be the first to ever see what I write in that notebook.”

Opal knew what that meant, and her memories flowed through her now in a fast, furious way. “You said you loved me.”

Tag allowed a slow, Southern smile to come to his face. “You’re just getting to that, huh?”

Opal wanted to hear him say it again. “Taggart.”

“Oh, honeybee, you can’t say my name like that.” He reached out and grabbed onto her front belt loops and pulled her closer. “It makes me fall even more in love with you when you do.” His lips skated across her jaw and down the column of her neck.

“I’m sincerely sorry, honey. Please forgive me.”

“You’re forgiven,” she murmured. “Now, could we get out of the mud to continue this conversation?”

He stepped back, cupped her hand in his, and led her past her gardening, picking up the gifts he’d brought for her as he went. “I’m assuming you’ll want to shower,” he said. “Get ready for tonight.”

“Yes,” she said.

He reached the edge of the garden and stepped out of it. “I’ll get your chair set up for you, and I’ll be back at the farmhouse to get you at six-thirty.”

She turned back toward the pumpkin mounds. “Oh, my shoes….”

“Honey, they’re a lost cause.” He grinned at her and handed her the boots. “Put those on for now. We can rinse them out at the farmhouse.”

Opal pulled on the bright blue boots, unsurprised that they fit perfectly. Of course. Tag knew her well enough to know her shoe size, and he’d bought the cutest boots in the best color. “These have flowers on them,” she said.

“You like flowers,” he said.

“I like you,” she said.

“Mm, you only like me?”

Opal hadn’t envisioned this scenario, with the two of them standing near a construction site while she proclaimed her love for the cowboy. But life was all about making adjustments, living in an imperfect world, and doing the best she could.

“Okay,” she said, leaning into his chest. “I more than like you, Taggart. I’m in love with you too.”

He made the tiniest noise of surprise, and then he growled as he leaned down and claimed her lips in a fierce, urgent, and delicious kiss.

thirty-two

Tag’s nerves frayed with every passing moment where Opal read the things in his notebook. He’d taken her back to the farmhouse, and they’d separated for a few hours. Well, kind of. Opal had brought her lime-green chair to the edge of the barn and sat in it to watch him finish his afternoon work with the horses.

He’d gone back to his house to shower, and Opal had been sitting on his front porch in the green chair. So he hadn’t even gone to the farmhouse to pick her up properly. She didn’t care, and honestly, Tag didn’t either.

Now, they sat at a pizza parlor, with Opal in blue jeans and an oversized sweatshirt with the word “cozy” on it, his notebook in front of her.

“It’s just?—”

---