Page 40 of Opposites (Never) Attract
“Okay, if we’re going to put aside how angry you must be, let’s talk about the practical shit. You staying or going?”
I wiped my mouth with the paper napkin and pushed my plate toward him, so he could have what I didn’t finish.
“You mean, am I still willing to save the Swinging D, knowing what I know?”
“I get why this particular moment is all about you, Sunshine. What your mom and pop did wasn’t cool. And, if the intention was to keep it a secret forever, then McGraw shouldn’t have done what he did, either. But the old man was a manipulative bastard, and he thought he could use the truth to compel you to stay and help. That’s what this was all about. If you said, ‘I’m heading back to New York tonight’, I don’t know if there is anybody that wouldn’t understand that.”
I opened my mouth to say something, but he put his hand up to stop me.
“However, the Swinging D would still be in trouble. The town would still be in trouble. Your sisters’ businesses would be at risk. You know as well as I do, that without the ranch, and the activity around it, there just isn’t enough work here to sustain these people.”
“Towns die all the time.”
“No, sweetheart. They don’t die, they decay. Slowly, over time. I’ve been to enough places out west to see it happening, and it’s always sad and drawn out. Like a body dying of cancer.”
If I didn’t help, Tag would lose his home, too.
And Tag didn’t deserve that.
I looked away from Tag, out over the open space. I thought I hadn’t missed this place, and I still wasn’t sure I did. But I liked the way you could take a deep breath and feel as if you’d breathed in the sky and the clouds.
“Take me back to the Lodge,” I finally said. “Apparently, I’ve got some books I’ve got to tear through.”
He smiled again, and I tried not to, but I smiled back.
“This is the right thing,” he said.
“I hope so.”
We cleaned up the paper plates, cutlery and napkins, and then I found myself once again climbing into the passenger seat of his truck.
That’s when another thought occurred to me. With everything that had happened…between us, there hadn’t been anysatisfactionfor Tag.
He got behind the wheel and started the truck.
“How come you didn’t…well, fuck me?”
That got his attention real quick. He stared at me behind his aviators, so I couldn’t really read his expression.
“I don’t fuck women who are vulnerable like that.”
“But you didn’t even…I mean you could have…you know.”
“Jacked myself off?” He turned his attention back on the road. “Don’t worry about that sweetheart, I’ve got a date with my fist and your panties later on tonight.”
“I haven’t given you my panties.”
He flashed a smile at me again, only this time it wasn’t his nice guy smile.
This smile said something else, and he pulled from his jeans pocket the nude thong I’d laid out on his thigh.
“Then what are these?”
I reached for them, and he shoved them back in his jeans, grinning at me like he had my number. I wasn’t about to admit it to the man, but he did.
He totally did.
An hour later,I was sitting behind a desk, in the office at the Lodge, staring at a profit and loss spreadsheet.
