Page 34 of His Eighth Ride

“Boots,” Tag barked, but his dog had already started to follow him.

“Tag,” she yelled.

He looked at her too, held her gaze for a long moment, and kept on going.

“I’ve lost Max,” she called. That got his step to slow, and she could see his big, boxy, broad shoulders rise and then fall, as if he’d just had to inhale some patience into his system. Patience for dealing with her.

He turned back to Opal and with his eyes boring into hers, he whistled through his teeth. “Come on, Maximus!”

The German shepherd barked and came running from somewhere on her right. Opal managed to tear her gaze from the dark cowboy’s, but it wasn’t easy. The classically marked shepherd appeared, his bushy tail held high as he ran toward Tag.

Not her. Tag.

“C’mon, you,” he said to the German shepherd, and he turned his back on Opal and Boots again, clearly headed for his cabin. Which made no sense. He’d already left for the morning, and she knew he’d been bringing Boots out for the past couple of days just to “give him a little fresh air.”

“Tag.” Opal rushed after him. It had snowed a couple of times in the past week since Tag and Gerty had returned to the farm with four extra horses, but nothing had stuck for long. She’d been obsessively checking the weather to make sure her family could come for Christmas, and Mother Nature would be dumping the first major round of snow this weekend, and then it would be clear for the holidays.

“Tag, can you wait?” She picked up her pace and broke into a jog for the third time—for him.

“If you want to go out with Steele, go out with Steele,” he said over his shoulder.

“I—what?” Opal’s lungs ached with the cold searing them. It felt so strange that cold could burn, but it did as she took another breath, trying to riddle through what he’d said. She finally caught him, but she wouldn’t be able to maintain his pace for long.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“I will not—if you want to go out with Steele, go out with Steele.”

“Why would I want to go out with Steele?” All those words in a row cost her too many seconds of not breathing, and she panted as she continued alongside him. He wasn’t even winded, which so wasn’t fair.

“Sure seemed like you wanted to back there,” he said.

Opal stopped walking. Or running. Or trying to take steps too long for her legs. “Taggart, please stop for a second.”

He took three more steps, putting quite a bit of distance between them with his long legs. “What?” With a withering look and a defiant sigh, he turned back to face her.

“I don’t want to go out with Steele. He asked me to help him find a bandage for Marigold’s leg, and I pointed it out to him. Case closed.”

He shoved his hands deep into his leather jacket pockets. “You were standing really close to him.”

Opal lifted her head high. “I was not.”

“You laughed like he’s the funniest man in the world.”

She threw up her hands. “He said something funny. I laughed. It’s not a crime.” She took a few quick steps toward him and slid her hands up the zipper of his jacket. “Tag, this is nothing. Why does me talking to Steele upset you?”

“You were more than talking to him.”

“I wasn’t.” Opal squinted at him, trying to see what he wasn’t saying. “Why did you break-up with…your last girlfriend in Green River?” She couldn’t remember the woman’s name right now, but everything inside her told her this was important.

His jaw jumped, but Opal leaned in. “You said it ended badly. Why? How?”

“You want some hot chocolate?” He turned and started walking again. At least it wasn’t the angry stomping he’d been doing a few moments ago.

“No,” she called after him. “I only want hot chocolate if it comes with talking. You talking.”

“I’ll talk,” he called over his shoulder, and Opal propelled herself after him again.

“It’s far too early in the morning for this,” she grumbled under her breath as she ran—for the fourth time—to catch him. It seemed the cold had sucked all the oxygen from their lungs, for they didn’t speak on the trek back to his cabin.

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