Opposites (Never) Attract (Calloways vs. McGraws Book 2), page 22
“I was fine. I want to go back to the south pasture to see Annabelle.”
“Who’s Annabelle?” Pop asked.
“My cow friend.”
Tag shook his head, but he was smiling a little bit like he was charmed. It made me smile, seeing him smile.
“We don’t name the cattle, Sunshine,” Pop said. “First rule of ranching”
“Thank you,” Tag said, pushing back from the table and picking up our empty dishes.
“Fine, but I don’t want to stay in the paddock. I want to ride down into the valley.”
“You get up first thing, and I mean first thing, and meet me at the barn. I’ll take you out,” Tag said, as he started to wash the dishes. “Need to check on the calves in the south pasture anyway.”
I would be up hours before him because that’s when the Asian markets opened. Once I had a handle on those, I could meet him for an hour in the barn. I clapped. “I’ll get to wear my new cowboy hat.”
Having decided that I couldn’t borrow my sister’s clothes forever, I’d put a large order in at a quality store that included handmade cowboy boots and my own cowboy hat. I’d paid a premium to have expedited shipping to the Lodge, but now I didn’t have to borrow everything from Harmony.
Pop laughed. “A cowboy hat, huh? Next thing you know, we’ll get you into a pair of chaps and you’ll never want to leave.”
“She’s leaving,” Tag said abruptly, a blast of cold air in the cheerful warm air of the cabin. He came back to the table to pick up the lasagna dish. “Once all this is over, she’s got a big time promotion waiting for her back in New York.”
“That right?” Pop asked quietly, and I nodded.
“But, I really do plan on coming back to visit,” I said, but Tag was at the sink and he acted like he didn’t hear me.
Later that night, after Pop went to bed, I sat in front of my laptop, watching the European markets close. Tag walked by and put a hand on my shoulder.
“Let’s go to my room and finish that series we started the other night.”
“Are you asking me to Netflix and chill?” I asked, spinning around in my chair to look at him.
“I’m asking you to finish the series we started last night. I want to see if that Scottish cop gets that woman out of the compression tank.”
“Do you know what Netflix and chill means?”
“It should mean lay down on my bed and finish the series, but from that look in your eye, I think it means something else.”
“Oh, it does.” I gave him a saucy wink and he pulled me up from my chair.
“Sorry, babe,” he said. “Pops a light sleeper and you are not quiet when we play.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “Another time.” Though we were running out of time at an alarming rate. Days were slipping by so fast.
We got into his bedroom and laid down, both of us still dressed, minus our boots. I leaned against his shoulder and he turned on the TV. I was nodding off halfway into the episode.
“Hey there, darlin, we better get you home before you fall asleep,” he said, when the credits rolled.
“Too late,” I snuggled deeper into his side.
“No can do,” he said, rolling off the bed.
That took me off guard. “Why? I slept here last night. You asked me to stay.”
“You did and I did,” he said, his jaw tight. “But I don’t think we want to make that a habit.”
“Two nights is hardly a habit,” I muttered, feeling rejected. I rolled off the bed and stomped my feet into my boots.
Sleeping with people wasn’t something I’d ever done before. Not the whole night. And I realized this morning I liked it. Not just because I’d been able to sleep through the whole night without waking up, my brain turned off like Tag knew exactly where the switch was.
But, because sleeping curled up with Tag was the safest I’d felt in my life.
Now I had to get back on the ATV and ride through the night back to the Lodge and my lonely guest bed.
What a letdown.
“This isn’t because you’re afraid of my brothers, is it?” I asked him, as I stomped, yes, stomped, after him toward the front door.
“I’m not afraid of your brothers,” he grumbled. “I could take every one of them if I had to.” He paused a beat. “Maybe not Seth, but he wrestles steers for a living.”
Then a darker thought occurred to me. “You’re not…embarrassed? Of me?”
He frowned as if he was genuinely confused.
“You know,” I said. “I wasn’t exactly the most popular kid in school. Or in town. I’m still not. Especially, if I don’t pull this financial trick off. One false step and they’ll probably run me out of Last Hope with pitch forks. Go home, city girl, all over again.”
Again, his brow furrowed. He shook his head. Opened his mouth and shook it again. “Your brain, Sunshine. It can be a scary place.”
“You’re telling me.”
He cupped my face in his hands, forcing me to look at him. Look into him. “You think I care about what anybody thought of you in high school?”
“It’s a small town. People talk.” I shrugged, and tried to pull my face free. This was stupid. This was why I should keep my mouth shut and not ask for more than what I’m given.
One arm at a time, he wrapped himself around me. Pulling me against that wide chest that I was learning by heart. I dropped my head on to his shoulder and just let him…hold me.
“Darlin, I don’t care what anybody thinks, or says, or even shouts at some damn council meeting. I like you. I fucking love fucking you. And tomorrow, I’m going to teach you how to ride because you’re not afraid of anything. Who doesn’t want to be around a person like that?”
I lifted my head to meet his eyes. His expression was soft and I knew everything he said was true.
“Okay,” I whispered, moved by his words.
“Now, you’ve done it,” he grumbled.
“Done what?”
“Made me change my mind,” he said, as he took my hand and pulled me with him back to his bedroom.
“But you said I couldn’t stay.”
“I said I didn’t want to make a habit of this,” he grumbled, even as he led us back to his room. “Habits can be hard to break.”
I watched him undress. His shirt, his socks, his jeans and his boxer briefs. He was semi-hard and it made me smile, because I knew it was because he was thinking about being in a bed with me, even if he had no intention of doing anything.
Come to find out, Tag was a very neat cowboy. Instead of tossing his clothes to the floor, he had a hamper in the corner of the room and tossed them there. Then he pulled out a pair of pajama bottoms from a dresser drawer and tugged those on, completely unconcerned with his hardening cock.
“You like looking at me naked, darlin?” Giving himself a long, slow stroke before pulling the pajamas up over himself.
“I like looking at you any way,” I said, honestly.
He opened another drawer in his dresser and tossed me a shirt. It was just a white cotton tee, but it smelled like him.
This shirt was going to go back with me to New York, where I would never wash it in the hopes of keeping the smell of him in it forever.
“I’ll just change in the bathroom,” I said.
“No, I don’t think so,” he said, as he climbed into bed. “We can’t play, but I would be much obliged if you got naked right here in front of me.”
“Won’t that make it…harder for you?”
He dipped his hands inside his cotton pants and was clearly stroking himself. “Sometimes the tease is worth it. Now strip.”
I did. Not in any kind of sexy way. Just an orderly removal of my clothes, which at one point left me bare up top with nothing on but a pair of panties. I knew he was watching me, because I could hear him mutter words under his breath.
Things like fucking beautiful.
When I got into bed, his shirt like a dress on my body, he spooned me, my back against his chest, his knees tucked up under mine. His arm wrapped around my waist. His now hard dick nestled into my butt.
“You’re sure you don’t want to…” I let my voice trail off.
“Pop would die if he heard the sounds you make, and he would spend the rest of his life never looking you in the eye. Instead…” He slid his hand under the tee he’d given me and cupped my breast in his big, callused palm. “Let’s just enjoy this.”
Lying here, touching each other, being aroused by the other, but not doing anything about it. It was more intimate than sex. Then kissing.
His thumb casually brushed my nipple. His cock twitched against my ass. His breath in my ear fell into a steady, deep pattern.
He was right. Sometimes the tease was worth it.
He was also right about the habit thing.
This was going to be a hard one to break.
TWENTY-TWO
SUNSHINE
“We’re definitely going to have to kill him this time.”
I blinked awake at the sound of Carter’s voice. Again? What was wrong with them? This wasn’t how normal people behaved.
“What do you think the excuse will be this time?” Mac asked.
“Maybe her clothes accidentally fell off.”
That was Ethan.
I was still tucked in bed with Tag. Again, I’d slept like I’d never slept before. Heck, we were still in the same spooned position we fell asleep in last night, when normally I spent most of the night tossing and turning.
Maybe I just needed a super weighted blanket.
With calloused hands and a big cock.
“We should take him to the gallows statue in town,” Carter mused. “You think if we put a rope up there, that thing would still work?”
Oh, these men, my half-brothers, were going to learn something important about me. Come after me, sure. Come after someone I cared about, prepare to face the consequences. In my first few years at the firm, I signed up for all the rec leagues. So all those sports I didn’t play growing up in Last Hope Gulch, I got pretty good at in the city.
Particularly soft ball. Come to find out, I had an arm.
I grabbed the pillow underneath my head in a tight grip and flung it in the direction of where they were standing.
Ethan’s solid umph gave me great satisfaction.
“What. In. The. Fuck.” Tag was now awake and sitting up in bed. “We are not doing this again. You motherfuckers do not have permission to be in my bedroom at,” he turned to look at the clock on his nightstand, “five fucking am in the morning.”
“Ethan said Sun didn’t come home again last night. Harmony was sick with worry.” Carter said, pointing to me like I was state’s evidence.
“Uh, actually she wasn’t,” Ethan countered. “She was pretty delighted, actually, when she told us to come look for Sunshine here.”
“And here you are!” Carter said, like he’d found me drunk and passed out at the Last Stand.
I looked at Tag and he gave me a subtle nod. In a blink, I had Tag’s pillow in my fist and tossed it directly at Carter’s face.
It smacked him pretty hard. So much, he took a step back.
“Nice throw, darlin,” Tag said. “You’re clearly better at pillow warfare than I am.”
“Hey, I’m just looking out for you,” Carter told me.
“All of you, out!” I shouted at them. “I don’t need older brothers!”
“For the record,” Mac said, right as he got to the door. “I was against doing this the second time and I’m a younger brother.”
Ethan pushed Carter out the door with a laugh.
“I’m feeling very under appreciated as the head of this family,” Carter called out.
“Who said you were the head of the family?” Ethan asked him.
Tag was sprawled back in the bed, chuckling.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “What if I’d been naked?”
He stopped chuckling immediately. “Okay, you’re right. That’s not funny.” But that only lasted a second. “You really do have incredible skills with a pillow. You might have broken Carter’s nose, you threw that thing so hard.”
I explained my softball league and my run as a winning pitcher.
He smiled at me until I blushed.
“What?” I asked, feeling like a kid in front of the most handsome guy in school.
“I like seeing you bloom, Sun.” He tucked my hair behind my ear and I wondered if anyone had ever complimented me so sweetly. So…perfectly.
“Now, let’s get you dressed and take you out to the barn for your next riding lesson.”
That got me moving. It was time to start cow-girling again.
“I have to head back to the Lodge, first,” I said, stepping into my jeans.
“Just wear what you’ve got on.”
“Absolutely not,” I beamed. “I need my cowboy hat!”
I checked the markets and updated the alerts on my phone. I could feel the moment was coming when this whole plan would come to fruition. But it wasn’t this moment. So, once I was dressed, I ran out to the paddock where Tag had Shirley waiting for me.
“Nice hat,” Tag said, with a long, slow smile that warmed me from the inside out.
“Thanks, cowboy,” I said, with a saucy little grin.
I said hello to Shirley, who looked happy to see me, and Tag walked me through the process of mounting a horse without any help. They were the same instructions I got yesterday, but it was somehow so much easier.
Or, maybe, it was just Tag who made the difference. His calm voice, his even keel. The man was a natural teacher.
He would be an amazing father.
The thought crackled through me like lightening. Leaving me dazed and hurt.
“You all right?” Tag asked, and I shook off the thought. The sudden and strange melancholy.
“Fine,” I said, my voice rough.
It took a couple of tries for me to trust Shirley could hold my weight and stand still as I lifted myself up. But the second I knew the saddle wasn’t going to slide off, that Shirley wasn’t going to bolt, and that I actually had enough strength in my thighs to get the job done, I was swinging my leg over Shirley and settling comfortably in the saddle.
Tag made me dismount and re-mount a bunch of times until it was second nature, and Shirley was patient through the whole thing.
“Good girl,” Tag sad with a wink. “You’re a natural.”
“What’s your horse’s name?” I asked him, as he led his horse, which he’d already saddled, next to me and Shirley.
The massive brown gelding leaned his head towards Shirley as if to say hello. Shirley pushed her head back.
“Oh, look, they’re friends,” I said.
“Friends is questionable. Diablo pines for Shirley, but given his lack of balls, she is indifferent. That’s why she’s happiest when she’s in the stable with Gus. She tolerates Diablo, while he suffers his crush from afar.”
“That sounds tragic,” I said.
The horse snorted and lifted his head, as if acknowledging his silent pain.
Tag made a clicking sound with his tongue and teeth and Diablo stepped forward.
I attempted the same sound and Shirley lifted her head as if to suggest I was embarrassing myself. I tapped my heel against her hind quarter and then she dutifully followed Diablo. I couldn’t help but notice, how with Gus, it hadn’t taken any nudge to follow him out of the paddock.
Poor Diablo.
We rode south through the valley, and this time all of my energy wasn’t focused on staying on Shirley and I could relax and take in my surroundings. The buttes in the distance, the clouds drifting overhead. There was no noise other than the chirping of birds and the hum of insects in the tall grass.
There was peace here. Simplicity. The smell of cow shit and the low rumble of their moos reached us before I caught sight of the herd.
“Why do you only keep part of the herd here? Wouldn’t they all benefit from open grazing?” I asked Tag, as he moved with the ease of a man born to this life.
Even I could tell this was only a fraction of the total operation.
“Grass fed cattle creates a lower fat and lower calorie product, which brings in more dollars per pound. Problem is, you need more land for grazing. This is about how many cows this amount of land can hold without overgrazing. I think that’s what Leroy was thinking when he over extended himself with that purchase of land. Our Asian markets are looking for more and more grass fed beef.”
“I never paid attention to any of this,” I admitted.
“Why would you? You didn’t grow up on a ranch. You were a town girl.”
“Yes, but it’s like you said, this whole town relies on this operation. Everyone should understand it. Know how it’s all connected. I feel foolish having grown up this close to something I was so ignorant of. I should have been more curious.”
“That’s Smarty Sunshine talking.”
“Don’t call me Smarty Sunshine,” I growled at him. “You know I hate that!”
“I never understood why,” he said.
I gave him my imperiously raised eyebrow.
“No, I mean, sure, no one likes name calling, but aside from it being unoriginal, they were teasing on you for being smart. And you know smart is a good thing, darlin.”
“I didn’t feel like that back in high school,” I said.
Thunder rolled through the valley.
“Shit,” Tag cursed. “Wasn’t paying close enough attention to the sky.”
Dark clouds were gathering on the mountains to the west and the herd perked up, gathering together for protection against the hard wind blowing the storm closer.
“Let’s go,” Tag snapped, turning Diablo on a dime and taking us back up the valley. “Now.”
“Are we going to have to gallop?” I asked, unable to hide the fear in my voice. I could sit a horse. I didn’t know if I could sit a horse in a gallop.
“Not if we move, now.”
The wind gusted again and this time it smacked me directly in the face. I could feel my hat blowing off and I reached to grab it, but it was too late. It swept away from me and I cursed.
