The True Cowboy of Sunset Ridge (Gold Valley #14)(95)

It was the stubbornness, he realized then. And the fact that she didn’t melt or get silly around him. A lot of the girls at school had. They were a collection of different ages, all thrown together in one classroom, because the number of kids fluctuated so much from year to year, depending on who was working at the ranch, and the actual public school was so far away that it made more sense to just keep the kids close. Often there were new girls, and they were usually impressed by him. Hell, they were impressed by any number of the guys, but he’d always had an easy way with women. But not with Nelly. And it was that... The fact that she was work that appealed to him, and he couldn’t quite say why.

“Are you going to tell me why?”

“All right. I was humiliated when you said that to me on my birthday. I was humiliated that you knew. And I’m humiliated that I’m here right now. But you weren’t wrong.” She swallowed. “I don’t really know why, Tag, but you have been like a piece of gravel in my shoe since I was ten years old. Just... Always there, and always annoying. But I also know that you... Look, you’re a decent guy.”

He laughed. “Did it choke you to say that?”

“You are. Don’t go being a dick about it now.”

“Dick?”

“Well,” she said.

“Salty language from the lady.”

“You started it,” she said. “The salty language. Anyway. This is the last year. The last year that you gave me to redeem the...the... The offer.”

“And you want to redeem the offer.”

“Yes. Because I’m tired of this. I’m tired of being me. I am a small-town librarian who has actually never seen a naked man. I’m a cliché, and I hate it. I want to be done with it. And you know what, it might as well be you. Because you already think I’m ridiculous. You already... You looked at me and you knew. You knew then. That I’d never been with anybody. So it’s not a surprise to you to find out that it still hasn’t changed.”

It actually was. Hell, he’d been not entirely confident in his declarations that she was an obvious virgin back then. It appealed to him, and that was another thing that he couldn’t quite sort out. Because virgins weren’t really his thing. He preferred a girl who liked an easy good time. And already, this was several miles short of easy. This was something else entirely. And he couldn’t quite put his finger on what. But the thing about Nelly was, he thought... He always thought that there was more to her. Like copper hair that was more than just brown. Like fire that seemed to rest just beneath the surface of all of that uptight... Everything. And so, it had been easy enough for him to imagine that she was kind of a freak. That maybe she took trips down to a bigger town and found herself men to indulge her appetites. It was just as easy for him to believe that as it was to believe that she actually was at home with her cat and a book on Friday nights. Because he had always sensed depth in her that wasn’t all that simple. To contain, to define.

“All right. So, you’re here because you’re embarrassed, but you figure it’s all right if it’s me because you don’t think I have a high opinion of you.”

“That’s right.”

“Well, that’s a hell of a thing,” he said, pacing back and forth in front of her, his long legs eating up the length of the floor. “Nelly, don’t you know you shouldn’t go having sex with a man you don’t think has a high opinion of you.”

“I’m past caring,” she said. “I just need to change. I’ll take any man.”

“Wrong answer,” he said.

“I didn’t realize there were strings attached to the gift.” Suddenly, tears filled her eyes, and that shocked the hell out of him. “If you don’t want me, I’m not going to beg. I can’t take the humiliation. But you shouldn’t have... That is the meanest thing that you’ve ever done. Say that you would, and then... And then, when I get up all my courage to come up here, you...”

And he couldn’t take it anymore. So he reached out, hauled her up off the couch and into his arms, and he kissed her.



CHAPTER TWO


FOR AS LONG as Nelly Foster had known Taggart McCloud, she’d thought he was irritating. And it wasn’t until she had gotten older that she’d realized the feelings that she had for him weren’t about irritation at all. But rather about the fact that what she wanted was to kiss him, right on the mouth. Just like he was doing right now.

She wanted to cry. Except that she already was. Humiliatingly. Crying in his arms while he gave her her very first kiss.

She didn’t have the words to explain why she was here. Or why she felt all these... Things. It was just that her mother had always warned her to stay away from men. Especially charming, handsome men. Men like Taggart McCloud. And there was good reason for it. She herself had alternated between being afraid of all the feelings that he aroused in her and being angry about them.

Afraid because she had been conditioned to be. Her mother’s own fears had imprinted on her from a young age, but still... Tag had reached past them.

She could remember the very first time she’d realized that she wanted to kiss him.

She had been fifteen, and he’d been seventeen. Tall and rangy and beautiful in a way that made her skin feel too tight. The thing was, there were any number of handsome men in his family and on the ranch. If you liked cowboys, they were a dime a dozen at Four Corners. But they had never mattered to her. They had never irritated her, never appealed to her and never frightened her. It was only Tag. It had only ever been Tag.