Page 91 of His Eighth Ride

“It’s not a bad thing,” Cord said gently—as gently as he’d ever said anything, at least. “Jane has to talk everything out. She requires me to say things I might not normally say, because she wants my opinion. She wants me to have a voice. I’d be shocked if Opal will require you to be a puppet.” He raised his eyes. “Yeah?”

Tag couldn’t argue with him. “I think that’s about right,” he admitted.

“Then you better start talkin’ to her,” Cord said. “I don’t know what’s going on, obviously. But Jane didn’t have a lunch date with her cousin this morning, and then she suddenly did. She’d had a serious look on her face after the call too, and she told me, ‘It’s important, baby. I have to go.’ So she went.”

Tag hung his head in shame, because he didn’t want to cause any trouble or heartache for Opal.

“Don’t do that,” Cord said next, this time in his barky voice.

Tag looked up. “Do what?”

“Cower down like that.” Cord leaned forward and put his arms on his desk. “You know what you want, Tag. I think anyone with eyes can see you’re in love with her.” He pointed one thick finger at Tag. “And that she’s in love with you. So whatever dance you two are doing, it just needs to be spelled out.”

“I didn’t tell her about my birthday,” he said. “Or my brothers coming, because I didn’t want to interrupt her trip to see the new baby.”

“Good intentions,” Cord murmured.

“She’s mad about it.”

“Mm hm.” Cord leaned away again, and some of the tension in the office alleviated with his new position. “So you apologize for that. Make sure she knows why you did it. And then, Tag, buddy, you have got to tell her everything else. It’s not going to just go away, and she can’t fix a problem she doesn’t know exists.”

“All right,” Tag said, and as he stuffed the last bite of his lunch in his mouth, a bell rang.

“Customers call,” Cord said, getting to his feet. “We good here?”

Tag nodded and spoke around his food. “Yeah. Yep. All good.”

“I’ll look at the baler.” With that, Cord left the office, left Tag to ponder all he’d said, left him praying that when faced with the woman he loved instead of Cord, he actually could say what he needed to say in order to feel like he and Opal were equals.

twenty-nine

Tucker refused to open his eyes even as the sunlight beyond his closed blinds continued to brighten. He simply couldn’t believe he was still waking up in this cabin instead of the trailer he used to share with Tarr.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he muttered to himself as he rolled over and swung his legs off the side of the bed. He took a moment to stretch his arms above his head, and the unhappiness he experienced here pulled through him strongly as his muscles warmed.

Tuck reached for his phone and tapped to dial his daddy. He’d know what to do, because he always had. Whenever Tucker needed advice, he talked to his father. And at this point, he couldn’t talk to Tarr. The man simply was not interested in re-entering the rodeo.

“Morning, Tuck,” Daddy said, no wasted syllables with a cowboy drawl. His father had earned and used a law degree for years before he’d retired from the family company to raise his kids on the farm where Tuck now lived.

He’d run the farm, and he’d worn the hat, but Daddy didn’t talk with the accent many others living here at the Hammond Family Farm did—Tuck himself included. He’d learned quickly in the rodeo that a cowboy accent got the attention of the prettiest girls, and Tuck had enunciated his as much as possible.

“Hey, Daddy.” He lay back down, a sigh pressing out of his mouth.

“What’s with you?”

“I’m so unhappy here.”

Daddy didn’t say anything for a moment. “Nothing’s changed?”

“No.”

“Come to Coral Canyon for the summer.”

Now Tucker let the idea roll through his head. Daddy hadn’t suggested such a thing before. He’d advised him to stay and wait to see if anything changed. If Tarr would commit to summer training, and they could enter a few of the smaller rodeos as Tucker staged his comeback. If Bobbie Jo would come out of hiding and talk to Tucker again.

Rather, it was Tuck who’d tucked his tail and hid from the gorgeous strawberry blonde who’d infected his bloodstream from the moment he’d met her.

“Tarr’s not going to go back into the rodeo,” Tucker said. “So that’s changed.”

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