Page 102 of His Eighth Ride

“What if you don’t like what I think?”

“Tag, either you want to be on equal ground with me, or you want to say only what you think I want to hear. You can’t have it both ways.”

“Okay,” he said. “Then I want to know how much that dress you wore on Valentine’s Day was.”

Opal didn’t answer for a moment, and Tag looked over to her. “I know it’s a lot,” he said. “You can even ballpark it if you don’t have the exact number.”

“Tag, you won’t like it.”

“So either you have to tell me things I want to know too—the things I ask you about as I’m talking and telling you what you ask me to tell you—or you can hide things from me, keep secrets, and drive wedges between us. You don’t get to have it both ways either, Opal.”

“Okay,” Opal said in a somewhat sassy voice. “It was ninety-one thousand dollars for the dress and the shipping to get it to me on time.”

Tag stopped walking, because his limbs did not know how to move with that information. He stared at her. “Dear Lord, you’re not joking.”

Opal shook her head, no coy smile in sight.

“And see, I want to pull out my notebook and start scribbling,” he said.

“About what?” she asked. “What would you write down?” She moved out of the way for a man walking his dog, but Tag couldn’t get anything to work inside his body. His brain had turned into a blender, and all the things he knew and understood were suddenly shredded and mixed together into one big pile of slush.

“Taggart.”

He blinked and came back to reality. He glanced left and right down the simple street in downtown Ivory Peaks. They’d been headed toward the park, and he managed to take a step in that direction without the ground shattering and swallowing him whole. “I’d be writing down that number,” he said. “Trying to make sense of it. How much it is, what it could buy, all of it.”

“It bought me an amazing dress, for an amazing night with an amazing cowboy,” she said. “It was worth every penny.”

“I just—I have no idea what that much money looks like,” he said. “It’s mind-boggling for me.”

“So you’d be writing down the money.”

“Yes,” he said. “And then probably some thoughts about how unworthy I am to be on your arm in my forty-dollar jeans and years-old cowboy hat. And then I’d try to pull myself back up again by saying something about how I have value too, even though I’m not rich. Stuff like that.”

They reached the end of the block, and Tag stepped out into the crosswalk to get over to the park. “You want to sit over here for a minute?”

“I guess,” she said. “You know what this park needs? Inflatable couches. They’re so much more comfortable than wooden benches.”

Tag laughed, but his mind still lingered on the number ninety-one thousand. They found a bench not too much further down the path, and Tag crowded in close to Opal after she sat down.

“Tag, baby,” she said. “You realize when we get married, you’ll be rich too, right?”

“No,” he said. “No way. I know you Hammonds, and you’ll have something in place to protect that wealth.”

“Mm, I don’t think so,” Opal said quietly. “None of my siblings or cousins have done that.”

“What?” He swung his attention to her, completely disbelieving. “That can’t be true.”

She gave him a soft, somewhat sad smile. “More musings for your notebook.”

“I—” Tag didn’t know what to say. After a full minute, he found the right thing. “Honestly, I wish there would be some protections. A prenup or something. Because I don’t want the responsibility of that much money. It’s just…too much for me.” He peered at her, even going so far as the take her chin in his hand. “You know that, right, Opal? I’m a really simple man.”

“Not any simpler than Cord,” she said. “Or Mike, or Easton.”

He scoffed as he released her and looked away. “Please. Your brothers are mega-rich and super-smart.” He practically spat the words as he added, “So are you.”

“And so are you,” she said just as poisonously.

“Minus the mega-rich part,” he said. “And the scientific degrees and grant work, and the business degrees and military service.” He shook his head. “Honestly, Mike should’ve kicked me to the curb months ago.”

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