Page 120 of Opposites (Never) Attract
“What can I say?” Harmony gave him a cheeky grin. “He likes me better.”
“I guess we’ll all be going to Big Horn!” Ethan said, pulling his wife into his lap.
I imagined taking Sunshine to the rodeo. Buying her a hot dog and a cup of beer. The way she’d name the animals and worry over them, ignoring the cowboys and the score. I imagined walking back to my truck, my hand in the back pocket of her jeans. Her riding home with her head on my shoulder, the windows open, letting in the twilight.
Talk about a perfect night.
“This is bullshit,” Mac snapped, getting to his feet. He walked over to the large double sliding doors that looked out over the valley and gave this living room one hell of a view. “All Dad had to do was sell off the land. Allwehad to do was sell off the land.”
“That’s not what he wanted,” Ethan said. “He wanted to expand the operation. He wanted more for us.”
“He wanted control,” Mac countered. “You know what this is about. He knew he was dying and he couldn’t accept his own damn mortality. So, he set up these obstacles to control us from the grave. I loved the old man, but this shit…it’s not fair.”
“It’s not fair,” I said, from my spot leaning against the entryway into the living room. Not a member of the family, never that, always just on the periphery. That had been my place.
But my interest was no longer in the McGraw operation or the potential impact on my cowboy career.
“You got something to say, Tag?” Ethan asked me.
“If she can’t pull this off, people are going to blame Sunshine for all of our troubles, and that isn’t right. We shouldn’t have done this. We shouldn’t have made her responsible for all of us like this.”
“We won’t blame her,” Harmony objected. “We would never do that.”
“Us? Maybe not,” I told them. “The town sure as shit will. Not only that, we might have cost her the big promotion back in New York. The suit who was here today isn’t going to have anything positive to say about what she’s doing in Last Hope.”
“We weren’t the ones who slammed him into my truck,” Harmony said, giving me a look as she sat on the arm of the chair where Ethan was sitting.
He’d casually wrapped his hand around her hip, and the sight of his wedding ring caught me off guard. Something about how brightit was.
It screamed commitment.
I looked back to Harmony. “You’re right. That was me,” I admitted quietly, suddenly feeling the impact I might have made on her life. “I might have cost her that chance.”
“Explain, please,” Ethan said.
“Some asshole from her firm back in New York showed up in town,” I told him. “I was picking up supplies at the Goods and came out to see him raising his voice and pointing his finger in her face. Didn’t sit well with me.”
“Her boss flew out to Last Hope?” Ethan said, his tone incredulous. “She must be more valuable to that firm then even she realizes.”
“Turns out Clive’s Harvard buddy is one of the partners in her investment firms. Small world,” I added.
“Hmm,” Ethan mused. “Or, is it? Anything Clive can do to keep us from succeeding, works in his favor. Do I buy that it’s a coincidence that the Land Management rep they picked to oversee this probate case happens to be connected, even loosely, to someone from the town? No, they would have done their research. They would have known exactly who Sunshine Calloway was and who she worked for.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “You think they’ve been pressuring her to go back to New York this whole time just to stop her from helping us?”
“Assholes!” Harmony interjected.
Ethan shrugged. “Who knows? But, it wouldn’t surprise me if this bureau in particular, was pulling every lever it could to stop us from meeting the terms of Dad’s will. Or, should I say wills? Having someone at Land Management connected to Sunshine’s firm in some way, plays to their hand. Just one more way to control the outcome of all of this.”
“Which is why this is bullshit,” Mac said. “Dad should have just left the business to the five of us and we would have figured it out from there.”
“Can’t agree with you, Mac,” Ethan told his brother. “If Dad hadn’t pulled this bullshit, I wouldn’t have had to marry Harmony.”
“Aww,” she said, cooing to her husband. “That’s so sweet. You like me, don’t you?”
“In fact, I love you,” Ethan told her.
“Things are about to get gross,” Mac warned me.
