Page 25 of Opposites (Never) Attract
“Family shouldn’t be about obligations,” he said after a beat. “It should be about love.”
I laughed, but then realized he was serious.
“Do you love your family?” The question popped out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about it.
I knew whatever everybody else in the Gulch knew about Tag. His father had been a confirmed bachelor into his forties before he married a woman nearly half his age and they’d had Tag.
Abruptly, when Tag was ten years old, his mother left Last Hope Gulch and never returned.
Tag stepped right in his father’s cowboy boots, and started working for the McGraws when he was in his early teens. I’m sure now his responsibilities were much like his father’s.
But I had no idea if he and his father were close. Not really. They were cowboys, after all. They didn’t talk about their feelings. I didn’t even know if he was in touch with his mother.
“Pop is a bastard,” Tag smiled. “And I love the son of a bitch more than anything. And yes, I consider the McGraw men my brothers. So I guess I love them, too.”
Wow. Somewhere pigs were flying if Tag was saying the word love twice in one sentence.
“What about your mom?” I asked, and he shut down tighter than a drum.
“What about her?” he asked, his voice hard. That sexy,easy-going cowboy was gone, and in his place was a total stranger. A dangerous man.
Something electric zipped down my spine and settled in my belly.
“You ever…hear from her?”
“Nope.”
“Do you even know where she is?”
“No idea, Sunshine. And I’m not interested in talking about her.”
Okay. I could take a hint when it was a door slammed right in my face.
“You never married. Did you?”
I was certain I would know if he’d ever married anyone. Someone in my family would have said something. Wouldn’t they?
Also, he wouldn’t have done what he did in the spa with me if he had a wife at home, that much I knew without question. Tag was an honorable man.
“Nope,” he drawled. Then he gave me a slow smile, the sexy good-time cowboy back with a vengeance. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’m never getting married,” I said, with a laugh.
“Really?”
“Marriage is a social construct, that, as far as I can see, only ever benefits men. Did you know, that on average, unmarried women live nearly four to six years longer than married women?”
“I did not.”
“It’s true.”
“So, does that mean no babies either?”
“Not necessarily. A woman doesn’t need to be married to be a mother. For me, it’s a matter of timing. I’ve alreadygone through the process of harvesting and freezing my eggs-”
“Sounds painful. You probably loved that.”
I glared at him and he winked at me. Shameless.
