The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(106)
Mine.
Tag was hers. And he had been from the beginning, and it didn’t matter how many women had touched him and kissed him, they didn’t have a piece of his soul. And she did. She always had. They were fated. And they had been from the first moment they laid eyes on each other. It had never been irritation. It had always been a need that was too great for either of them to acknowledge. A desire that they had twisted into anger because it was so much easier to cope with. But wasn’t that the smallest and meanest way to live your life? They knew that. It was the way her father had lived his life. Or perhaps was still doing it, she didn’t know, and she hoped to God she never did.
He opened his eyes and looked at her. And in that moment he looked younger. More carefree. In that moment she saw a light in him that she had never seen before. She brushed her fingertips over his lips. “I love you, Tag.”
And then suddenly the light was gone.
“Nelly,” he said, pulling away from her. And she knew, she knew full well exactly what was in his voice. That warning, that refusal.
And it broke her heart. It broke her heart, but she couldn’t be angry. Because fierce, fearless Tag was afraid.
She understood, because she was too. Because she had committed to putting herself out there and confessing her love. But it had been like jumping off of a cliff. Not being able to see the bottom. Because everything in life was, in the end. Everything in life always would be. You had to take the risk. Take the leap. She had come to that conclusion because of him, but right now he wasn’t ready to follow her. And it hurt. Because she didn’t know when or if he would be. But she wasn’t angry. She wasn’t angry because this beautiful, wonderful man had pushed and goaded and dared her and loved her into a better version of herself. And for that she would always be grateful. For that she would always love him. Her Tag.
“Don’t give me a speech, Taggart McCloud,” she said. “I’m not a little girl.”
“I didn’t think you were.”
“Then don’t give me excuses. Don’t patronize me. Don’t pretend that this is another moment where you need to lecture me. Where you need to tell me how it is. Don’t pretend that I’m so foolish I need you to educate me. That you need to let me down easy. Don’t do that kind of a disservice to either of us. You’re afraid. And I understand that. Let’s not embarrass ourselves with excuses.”
“I’m not afraid,” he said. “Not for myself. Nelly, you’re a sweet girl.”
“A sweet girl. That is so patronizing.”
“Maybe it is,” he said. “Maybe it is, but you don’t...”
“I don’t understand? I don’t understand what it’s like to have a father who wants to hurt you? To have experienced loss? To have experienced fear? Because you know that isn’t true.”
“You don’t know what it’s like to feel afraid that you might be cut from the same cloth. Because I look at you and I see sweetness. Softness. And I look at myself and I see nothing but the hard, self-destructive recklessness that could easily be thought of as McCloud. And how do you think Gus feels? Sharing his name? What you went through taught you to be afraid of men. What we went through taught us to be afraid of ourselves.”
“You are not your father.”
“I know that. But I also don’t know that I’m capable of giving you half of anything you deserve.”
“So you won’t try? You’ll give me nothing?”
“I’m giving you the chance at having a life that doesn’t include so much baggage.” His voice was raw and painful. “I will always remember tonight. I will always remember this. And I’ll... I will feel the fact that you loved me, even for a night, for...the rest of my damn life. I swear that to you.”
“I don’t want that. I don’t want to be your tribute to feelings that you don’t think you can accept. I want to be more than that. Because I’m more than that. I don’t want to be the thing that you look back on with a beautiful, melodic tragedy in your heart, which is what we all know men like to do. Rather than heal. What you want to do is walk on being completely and utterly unknowable, and never having to change. You want to be wistful and sorry. I just want you to live. With everything that you could have. If that isn’t me, Tag, then that’s fine. If you don’t love me, and that’s because of me, then there’s nothing I can do about that. But if you simply won’t take the chance because of your fear... Well, then that is a tragedy.”
She rolled out from beneath the furs, her heart feeling bruised.
“It doesn’t matter whether you think I’m sad or not. The truth is, I probably am. We probably all are.”
“Don’t you think you should do something about it? Do something different? What if it were one of your brothers?”
“I’d tell him to do the right thing for the lady involved. That’s all.”
“And what about yourselves?”
“If people cared less about themselves, there would be fewer men like my father in the world. Fewer men like yours. If people cared more about the people they were with...”
“No,” she said. “That’s just not real. It isn’t. You have to care enough about yourself to want to be better. You have to care enough about yourself to want more. To want everything. Don’t discard yourself. That’s what men like your father do. They treated people in their lives like garbage, and then you take that forward, don’t you? You spend the rest of your life being afraid that they were right. Prove that he isn’t. That’s what you need to do. Prove that he isn’t right. That you are worth something. That you’re worth being happy.”