The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(108)

“I’m... I’m...”

“You’re what? A mess? So is everybody.”

“Yeah but...”

“You’re scared. That’s what you are. And I get it. There are a whole lot of things in this world that are beyond your control, though. The father that we have. The actions of other people who play games that could destroy everybody. But you don’t need to hurt yourself. Not this way. What’s the point of it?”

“I’ve gotta protect her.”

“No. You’re protecting yourself.” Gus practically sneered. “Get over yourself, Tag.”

“What? Just like that?” His chest felt bruised. His heart felt damaged. Because everything that Gus was saying was fair. And he hated that.

“She loves you. Figure out the rest.”

Then Gus turned and walked out of the cabin, leaving Tag standing there alone.

He had a feeling he had to listen to his brother. But then... But then he was right. He could get hurt. He hadn’t loved anyone other than his brothers in a long damn time. He was used to them. He took them for granted. And it was easy. He had wanted his father to love him. He had wanted his mother to love him. And they never had. Not really. Nelly’s mother had brought her with her. Protected her. His own mother hadn’t done that.

And at the end of the day, it was that... That feeling of not being quite certain if he deserved love that kept him from saying yes. That kept him from saying he loved her too. Because of course he did. Because how could he ever be sure?

You can’t.

Life is like that.

But you have to love anyway.

Or not, he supposed. But then it would always be this. This cabin, alone. Wanting those pigtails—that woman—he would never let himself have.

And what was the purpose of protecting himself, if the person he was protecting was miserable, alone, even in a crowd of people.

Only Nelly Foster had ever really seen that. Seen him.

She’d asked him to be better.

She hadn’t let him be the monster. She hadn’t cried or wailed or begged.

She’d asked him to stand up and be a man.

And he was damn well going to do it.



CHAPTER EIGHT


NELLY WAS JUST closing the library when she saw him. Standing in the parking lot, his cowboy hat drawn down low over his head.

Tag.

Her heart slammed against her breastbone, her whole body shaking. She opened the door quickly.

And her breath felt like it was sucked right from her lungs. She intended to say some sort of one-liner, but anything clever or casual was nowhere to be found.

So she just stood there. Staring.

“You’re wearing pigtails.”

She reached up and touched her hair. “Oh. Yes.”

“Why do you do that?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you do. I think it’s because you know it drives me crazy.”

She laughed, but tears filled her eyes. “Does it?”

He walked toward her, walked into the quiet, dark library. She had always felt calm and peaceful surrounded by books, but standing near Tag she didn’t feel any of those things.

She felt bright and real and it was all so sharp it hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry I put us both through this, but I guess I had to...look at my life without you in it to understand that what I was doing didn’t work anymore. It was easy, when I never had you, but once I did... Oh, Nelly, once I did... I can’t go back to that. I can’t go back to living without you.”

And impossibly, against all odds, she felt a smile break out across her face. “I knew it.”

“You knew what?”

“I knew you’d come for me.”

She launched herself into his arms, and she kissed him. Deep and hard, with all the love inside her.

“I love you,” he said.

“I know.”

“What is this, now you’re too cool to say it?”

“No it’s just... I knew you did. I was miserable without you, but I knew you loved me. I knew you loved me and I knew I had to leave you to figure it out. Because you’re just that hardheaded.”

“This is your declaration of love?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “It’s yours. I made mine already.”

“Well, in that case.” He reached back and tugged on one pigtail, then another. “Oh, you have no idea how much I have wanted to do that...forever.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know,” he said, his grin turning mystified and all the more adorable for it. “I just have. Just like how long I’ve loved you I think. It’s just something I feel. Forever. Like part of me.”

“Me too, Tag. Always.”

Taggart McCloud had come for her. Just like she knew he would. And darned if he wasn’t in a cowboy hat.

And the best part of all was it wasn’t for a bet, it was just because he loved her.

Keep reading for an excerpt from Rancher’s Forgotten Rival by Maisey Yates.




Rancher’s Forgotten Rival



by Maisey Yates


One


Chance Carson couldn’t complain about his life.

Well, he could. A man could always find a thing to complain about if he was of a mind. But Chance wasn’t of that mind. Every day was a gift, in his opinion. The sun rose, the sun set, and he went to bed and woke up and did it all over again, and that was success no matter how it was measured.