The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(107)

But she wasn’t going to stay, and she wasn’t going to cry. She wasn’t going to give him any more fuel to the fire that was propelling him forward now. This idea that he was the villain in the piece. He would like that. If she got upset. If she were hysterical. Because it would suit his narrative. Suit his narrative about how bad he was. How wrong. And she wouldn’t allow it. She simply would not. So, with as much dignity as she could muster, and with as little softness as she could find inside of herself, she dressed. And she did not put her hair back in pigtails. Because she wasn’t the same person she’d been when she first came. She was stronger. And more wounded all at once. She was tragic but perfectly fine. And she would find a way forward.

Because life was to be lived. And even if she wanted to live it with Tag, she could wait.

She had waited thirty years to lose her virginity. And she had waited thirty years to break through the realization that her antagonism for Tag was something deeper.

She had been waiting for him. Now she had to trust that in all the ways that counted, he had been waiting for her.



CHAPTER SEVEN


IT REALLY WAS a shame that Tag had a policy against drinking his feelings away. As a matter of caution.

As the son of a raging, horrendous alcoholic, he did his very best to not lose himself in that way. A little bit of drinking when he went out, sure. But, when he was in this dangerous of a mood... No.

So instead, he shut himself up in the cabin, and didn’t speak to anybody. Because there was just nothing to say.

So he hid in his cabin, licking his wounds, and he guessed he shouldn’t have been super surprised when his brother Gus made the journey up and stood in his doorway looking as mean as he ever did.

Gus was huge and broad, his face horrifically scarred from a childhood accident he never spoke of. Tag barely remembered his brother’s face another way, but that didn’t make it less jarring sometimes.

Especially when he stood there with the harsh light making the valleys in those scars look deeper, and his whole posture indicated he had murder on his mind.

“So,” he said, rocking back on his heels, looking at him in that authoritative way that he had. “What the hell?”

“What?” He stepped aside, because there was no way he was denying Gus entry. He wouldn’t allow it.

You didn’t go toe-to-toe with Gus McCloud.

“It’s nothing.”

“It’s nothing, except you know I saw Nelly Foster leaving your place the other morning. Bright and early. And unless she was giving your dumb ass a reading lesson...”

“Not,” Tag said.

“Well. Look, Nelly doesn’t have a father to come kick your ass, so... I’ll do it if I need to.” Gus had an overdeveloped sense of protectiveness when it came to...well everyone at Four Corners, but the women most especially.

“Nelly can defend herself.”

“Yeah, but I might enjoy kicking your ass.”

“She says she loves me,” he said, not sure why he was telling his brother that. “Sit in that.”

Gus blew out a breath. “Well, you really are a dumbass.”

“I’m a dumbass?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, Gus, I’d return the insult but it’s tough to know if you’re a dumbass or not when you basically live like a hermit. You seem smarter by default. But at least I’m living.”

That was low. And he knew it. But maybe he wanted a fist to the face.

But Gus didn’t punch him. Instead, he leaned back on his heels. “Is that what we’re going to do? Just try to be as mean as possible? You gonna call me ugly? Hate to break it to you, but I don’t care. But I’m starting to think you want me to punch you in the face, and then you can sit here in your self-loathing, drowning in it to your heart’s content? We both know you like that.”

“Fuck off, Gus.”

“A woman loves you. A good woman. What about you? Do you love her?”

He laughed. “Are we capable of love?”

“Yeah,” Gus said, his voice rough. “Deep and painful as a matter of fact.”

Tag stared at Gus and tried to read what he meant by that. It wasn’t that Gus didn’t hook up with women—Tag assumed. All the McCloud men had been gifted with good looks. It was what had made their dad such a dangerous tool. He’d been a handsome son of a bitch. And his sons were, too. Even more so.

Gus’s looks had been ruined, and it wasn’t just the scars. It had left behind an intensity that was almost too much to be around sometimes.

And the thing was, a lot of women enjoyed that. So while Gus wasn’t a go out and party kind of guy, he got play when he wanted it.

But Tag hadn’t ever considered his brother...had loved someone.

“The fact of the matter is,” Gus continued, “you’re being offered the thing that you actually want. We all know that you’re obsessed with Nelly Foster. You have been from the moment you first laid eyes on her. You love her. Why the hell are you holding yourself back?”

“Because. Because of...”

“Dad? I handled his ass, Tag. And it wasn’t so you could sit in your own bullshit for the rest of your life. Hell, half the town thinks I’m a murderer. And I’ll wear it. I don’t give a fuck. Because what I did is supposed to mean that we can all move on.”