Chapter 2 – Tag
TWO
TAG
New York fucking City.
How the fuck did people breathe in this place? The only thing that made walking on the sidewalks tolerable, was the fact everybody knew where they were fucking going and they were trying to get there fast.
Claustrophobic as hell from the steel and glass buildings surrounding me, I didn’t look up. Just kept my eyes forward and counted down the street blocks until I got to my hotel.
Once there, I had to ride the tin can up to my floor, which I also hated.
It was me and two other men on the elevator. We were so tightly caged, that at one point, a shoulder brushed against mine. I growled in my throat at the man standing too close to me. He immediately crowded the other guy instead.
Good choice.
As soon as the doors opened, I stepped out, even though I knew it wasn’t my floor. I found the staircase at the end of the hall and climbed the extra eight floors just to avoid the moving box .
The room where I was staying was considered a deluxe. It barely fit a king-sized bed and a desk.
The view, though…this was why so many people chose to live on top of each other in this city. It was why Sunshine chose to live here. When you were this high, it felt a little like floating on top of the world.
My cell phone buzzed in my pocket and I checked the screen.
Harmony: Did you find her? Did she say yes? Did she kick you in the balls?
Me: Yes. No. No. Going to have dinner tonight.
Harmony: Remember what I told you.
Me: Yes. No picking her up and carrying her out of the city allowed. Even though it would solve a lot of problems.
Harmony: Yes, that too. But you can’t tell her the real reason she needs to come home. You just have to make her come home. To her family.
Family. That was a loaded word these days.
But I understood family. Dad, the McGraws. Hell, everyone in Last Hope Gulch was family. Good, bad or ugly.
Only I didn’t think about Sunshine like family.
Sunshine was always something else.
The Last Hope K-12 school system never knew what to do with her. They kept skipping her grades ahead, until how special she was became lost in how awkward she was.
Sitting in on all my senior classes when she was only fifteen, she was still smarter than everyone else. So painfully awkward and earnest, she became an easy mark to the assholes who didn’t see she was meant for bigger things.
Sticking up for her was just the right thing to do.
There were times in high school when I could practically feel her eyeballs on me. Figured it was probably just some starry-eyed crush, but I never called her out on it.
Sunshine had no friends that I ever saw her with, because she had no one in her age group who could relate to her. Certainly the boys in school would have nothing to do with her.
From an early age, she’d been saddled with the nickname Smarty Sunshine, and she’d never been able to shake it. Too smart, too awkward, with glasses, braces, bad hair and pimples – the poor kid didn’t stand a chance.
Not like her sisters, who were all red-headed knockouts.
In so many ways, she never fit in anywhere.
Not with school friends. Not with the town. Not even with her family.
Which, now that I knew the truth…made sense.
She fit in here, though. She looked expensive and sleek with that sharp haircut and those killer red lips. That suit that probably cost more than my truck, that hugged all the curves she didn’t have when she was fifteen. Everyone in that office watched her like she was the fucking boss.
Alone in this hotel room, I could allow myself to think it. To say it.
“Hot.” I breathed. Sunshine Calloway had grown up, from an awkward kid, to a beautiful woman, who, by the looks of it, was really, really good at making money.
Something the McGraws were counting on.
Pulling open the door of the fancy steak house, I stepped inside and let the door close behind me.
Immediately, the noise from outside was gone.
The sea of people shouting into their phones.
The non-stop honking of horns. Trucks rattling through the streets.
But once the door of the restaurant shut behind me, all of that was suddenly muffled, leaving just the quiet hush of a fancy restaurant that smelled like money.
Call me crazy, but I wanted my steak houses to smell like meat and fire, but I wasn’t going to complain.
If it got me ten minutes alone with Sunshine, I’d take it.
She was waiting at the end of the long mahogany bar, speaking to a man who was hanging on every word she said. For a second, I watched the exchange, fascinated by her in her element, the same way I’d been fascinated by her in that conference room. She commanded attention here. Demanded it.
The guy wasn’t putting any moves on her, but he said something that made her laugh and tip her head back. Her blond hair caught the light from the chandeliers overhead and turned all that warm blond hair to gold and bronze.
I realized, watching her, I’d never heard her laugh. She had a good laugh. Throaty and rich, nothing faked. It was a sound that hit me in the gut and made me want more.
She’d changed out of her killer suit into wide-legged pants and a yellow plaid jacket that screamed fashion, without much common sense. It was raining outside and that jacket wouldn’t protect her against the elements even a little.
Still, in that color, she lit up the whole damn room.
I’d never seen her so…I couldn’t think of the word I was reaching for.
Hot, sure. That was easy. Everyone looking at her could see she was drop-dead gorgeous.
Happy.
That was it. I’d never seen her happy. Never with her guard down. Never not braced for judgement or hurtful nicknames.
She never stood with her chin raised and her shoulders straight, head tipped back in laughter. That realization sucked. She had to leave home to be happy.
I felt this irrational and overwhelming bomb of anger. Pissed at myself, her family, and the entire population of the Gulch, really.
A lot of people had treated her like shit.
And none of us did enough to protect her.
Now I was here to demand that she come home and save all our asses with that big brain of hers.
She was going to tell me to go fuck myself and she was going to be dead right to do it.
Telling her the truth bomb I’d learned at Leroy McGraw’s second will reading wasn’t an option.
That was something that needed to come from her mother. Her sisters.
I was just here to bring her home. Not to reveal devastating family secrets.
Which meant I needed another plan. Another angle to convince her how important it was she come home to a place she hated.
Harmony, Sunshine’s sister, thought telling Sunshine that her family needed her would be enough.
I wasn’t so sure. If I was her, I wouldn’t be in a hurry to leave this world where she was the total boss to go back to a world that had once made her feel like garbage.
When I looked back up, Sunshine was watching me.
Her happiness gone, replaced with caution.
Her guard was back up. So I did what I always did when confronting someone who saw me as a potential threat, a regular occurrence given my size and demeanor.
I smiled at her. A quick quirk of my lips on the right side.
Yeah, that didn’t work. She glared at me like I’d done something wrong.
I gave her both barrels. A full smile.
She pursed her lips and shook her head at me like I was trying too hard and she saw right through me.
The fuck?
“Sir, can I take your jacket?”
A man wearing a dark suit stood to the right of me. I assumed he was the host. He looked like he required at least a hundred dollar tip to get a better table.
“No.”
“Your hat?”
“Fuck no.”
“Tag,” Sunny said, as she approached me. “Sorry, Carlo. He’s new in town.”
“And I don’t like to undress before I eat,” I said. “Not sure why that requires an apology.”
“Of course, sir,” Carlo said with a smile. “No explanations required. Follow me to your table.”
“I don’t need you defending me,” I said quietly, as Sunshine and I walked side by side. Her hand brushed mine and she tucked it away in a pants pocket. “I’m not ashamed of being a cowboy.”
She snorted. “Please, you’re the least ashamed person I’ve ever met. You could roll in here naked and covered in hickeys and you wouldn’t be ashamed.”
Well, that was a hell of a visual.
We reached the table and I moved Carlo out of the way so I could pull out Sunshine’s chair.
She rolled her eyes, but accepted the gesture.
I sat across from her and didn’t have the napkin across my lap before her elbows were on the table, her chin resting on top of her fingers.
Her brown eyes were so sharp they could cut glass.
Man, I don’t know what that guy at the bar said to her to get her to let down her guard, but I could use a little of that magic.
Sunshine didn’t just have her guard up, she was coming out swinging.
“Okay, Tag, spill it. Why did they send you here?”
I took my hat and set it on the third seat at our table. I was a cowboy, not a heathen. But I wasn’t trusting my hat to anyone’s coat room. I ran my hand through my hair and met her eyes. “You think someone sent me?”
Oh, that made her laugh, but it wasn’t nice. It was like getting sprayed by ice.
“This wasn’t your idea,” she said, as if she was stating a fact. “You said it yourself. You work for the McGraws. You have for years. Why did they send you to New York?”
“They didn’t send me,” I made it clear. “I volunteered to come.”
“For what purpose?”
Because you might listen to me.
Because if you’re coming back to the Gulch, you’re going to need someone at your back, and I want that someone to be me.
Because I wanted to see you.
“The Swinging D is in trouble,” I said bluntly, sticking with the truth I was allowed to share. The truth that made sense.