Page 10 of Opposites (Never) Attract
And none of us did enough to protect her.
Now I was here to demand that she come home and save all our asses with that big brain of hers.
She was going to tell me to go fuck myself and she was going to be dead right to do it.
Telling her the truth bomb I’d learned at Leroy McGraw’s second will reading wasn’t an option.
That was something that needed to come from her mother. Her sisters.
I was just here to bring her home. Not to reveal devastating family secrets.
Which meant I needed another plan. Another angle to convince her how important it was she come home to a place she hated.
Harmony, Sunshine’s sister, thought telling Sunshine that her family needed her would be enough.
I wasn’t so sure. If I was her, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave this world where she was the total boss to go back to a world that had once made her feel like garbage.
When I looked back up, Sunshine was watching me. Her happiness gone, replaced with caution. Her guard was back up. So I did what I always did when confronting someone who saw me as a potential threat, a regularoccurrence given my size and demeanor. I smiled at her. A quick quirk of my lips on the right side.
Yeah, that didn’t work. She glared at me like I’d done something wrong.
I gave her both barrels. A full smile.
She pursed her lips and shook her head at me like I was trying too hard and she saw right through me.
The fuck?
“Sir, can I take your jacket?”
A man wearing a dark suit stood to the right of me. I assumed he was the host. He looked like he required at least a hundred dollar tip to get a better table.
“No.”
“Your hat?”
“Fuck no.”
“Tag,” Sunny said, as she approached me. “Sorry, Carlo. He’s new in town.”
“And I don’t like to undress before I eat,” I said. “Not sure why that requires an apology.”
“Of course, sir,” Carlo said with a smile. “No explanations required. Follow me to your table.”
“I don’t need you defending me,” I said quietly, as Sunshine and I walked side by side. Her hand brushed mine and she tucked it away in a pants pocket. “I’m not ashamed of being a cowboy.”
She snorted. “Please, you’re the least ashamed person I’ve ever met. You could roll in here naked and covered in hickeys and you wouldn’t be ashamed.”
Well, that was a hell of a visual.
We reached the table and I moved Carlo out of the way so I could pull out Sunshine’s chair. She rolled her eyes, but accepted the gesture. I sat across from her and didn’t have the napkin across my lap before her elbows were on thetable, her chin resting on top of her fingers. Her brown eyes were so sharp they could cut glass. Man, I don’t know what that guy at the bar said to her to get her to let down her guard, but I could use a little of that magic. Sunshine didn’t just have her guard up, she was coming out swinging.
“Okay, Tag, spill it. Why did they send you here?”
I took my hat and set it on the third seat at our table. I was a cowboy, not a heathen. But I wasn’t trusting my hat to anyone’s coat room. I ran my hand through my hair and met her eyes. “You think someone sent me?”
Oh, that made her laugh, but it wasn’t nice. It was like getting sprayed by ice.
“This wasn’t your idea,” she said, as if she was stating a fact. “You said it yourself. You work for the McGraws. You have for years. Why didtheysend you to New York?”
