Chapter 19 – Tag
NINETEEN
TAG
Diablo and I were beyond tired by the time I got him back to his stable for the night.
Once I cooled him off, fed and watered him, I took myself off to my cabin.
Although every fiber of me wanted to go in the direction of the Lodge, I knew I had to fight it.
We were already crossing lines and breaking kissing rules.
And Dad would be wondering where I’d been the last twenty-four hours.
But, damn, kissing Sunshine had felt good and I wanted more of it. Even exhausted, I craved her taste.
Which is why it was smarter to head home to my empty bed and whatever Dad had in the fridge for me.
When I got to the cabin I could hear my dad laughing inside.
I hoped like hell he was on the phone with one of his buddies back in Florida, because I was not up for entertaining.
A hot shower, the leftovers of whatever he’d made for himself, even if it was franks and beans again, and then bed, in exactly that order.
I was so tired I might not even spend hours thinking about what it looked like, what it felt like, to sink my cock into Sun’s wet and welcoming pussy. Or, maybe, I had just enough energy to jack off in the shower to that particular memory.
Opening the front door, I stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of Sunshine sitting at the small kitchen table playing chess with my dad.
My dad loved to play chess. I played him occasionally, but he was just better than me, so it wasn’t as much fun for him. Also, I hated losing.
She was laughing at his stern face as she moved her queen into position.
“Check,” she declared.
“Evil,” my dad cried, his white hair standing on end like he’d been running his hands through it. Sunshine was putting him through his paces. “I didn’t see that coming at all.”
My chest loosened. My fatigue fell off me like a blanket I didn’t need anymore. The satisfaction of seeing her in my home was bone deep.
Right. Her in this house, smiling at my dad, all of it just felt…right.
“Hey,” I said, not saying more in case my voice cracked.
It had been a long twenty-four hours and I hadn’t slept. Emotions were on me like flies.
“Hi,” she said, with a gorgeous smile. “I’m kicking your dad’s ass at chess. Hope that’s okay.”
“Kick away,” I said, hanging my hat up on the hook by the door. “You’re not worried about leaving your computer?”
She held up her iPhone. “Things are stable enough I can just check in without being worried about having to take action. Amity dropped off a bunch of food for me and Harmony. She said she’d made plenty enough to share.
I took some to the bunkhouse, but there was still plenty leftover, so I brought some for you and your dad. ”
My stomach grumbled. “Tell me Amity sent you some of her mac & cheese.”
“She also sent a batch of beef stew, she says it’s your favorite.”
“This night just got so much better,” I said, as I walked over to the table where they were playing. “Father, avert your eyes.”
“Why in hell would I do that?”
“Because I’m about to plant a kiss on Sun’s mouth and she doesn’t want anyone to know we’re messing around.”
“Ah ha! I knew it! Just the way your face lit up when you talked about her. Do I know my son, or do I know my son?”
I kissed Sunshine, properly, but with no tongue, because my dad hadn’t averted his eyes. She didn’t seem to mind. In fact, she curled up into me like yarrow in the sun.
“I’m going to take a shower. You heat up some of that food for me, and stay with me while I eat?”
“Yeah,” she said.
I kissed the side of her neck in gratitude and thought she smelled like sunshine, grass and everything I loved about Wyoming.
I was so happy in that moment I could have hummed.
“We still have a game to finish,” my dad grumbled.
“She’s got you in check,” I told him. “Accept defeat.”
“Never,” my father insisted, as he moved his king out of danger.
As I headed to my room, I heard him curse as Sunshine said, “Checkmate.”
Later that night, we were in my bedroom. After a few episodes of some new Netflix series, I’d put on the third ESPN channel that was featuring a rodeo event down in Texas. One Seth McGraw was competing in.
“I thought he was hurt,” she said, laying back on the other side of the bed.
“He’s always hurt,” I noted. “But there’s hurt, and there’s injured, and right now he’s just hurt.”
“That seems like a crazy way to make a living.”
I wore loose cotton pants in deference to my guest for the evening, but nothing else.
Sunshine was still in her jeans and t-shirt, but she’d lost her boots and socks, so her bare feet were tucked under my calf.
She was leaning into me, but not in a way that suggested she wanted to play.
More like she was just happy to feel me breathe, with her hand on my chest.
Which suited me down to my soul.
“I should warn you, as soon as Seth rides, I’m probably going to fall asleep on you,” I mumbled. I was half there already.
“I should go then, huh?”
“No,” I said immediately, although she’d made no move to leave.
“I can’t stay,” she said, settling her head on the pillow next to me. “What would everyone say?”
“Don’t care. You can’t go,” I countered. “I’m too tired and blissed out on Amity’s food to walk you home.”
“I think I can make it to the Lodge from here on my own.”
“Can’t,” I said, letting my eyes close for a second. “Wolves.”
“Oh. Well. Wolves. ”
“Don’t fall asleep until Seth rides. We don’t get many chances to see him on TV.”
“Is he next?” she asked, around a yawn.
I turned my head to see her eyes were closing, too. “Yeah, darlin. He’s next. Bareback riding. You’ll see. It’s like he and that horse of his share the same brain.”
“Kay. I’ll watch him.”
She wasn’t watching him. She was turned on her side, her hand still resting on my chest, her hair was pulled back in a short pony tail.
Her eyes kept drifting shut and her lips were slightly parted and it made me want to kiss her again, but that meant I would need to move and I didn’t want to disturb her.
“Do we need to worry about the Asian markets?” I impressed myself with the question.
“Set alerts on my phone,” she mumbled, patting her pocket. “Things are stable for now.”
“Here he comes.”
I watched Seth through half closed eyes.
Bareback on an event horse, he jumped out of the gate, one arm up, the other wrapped in a rope on the saddle of the horse bucking so hard he was contorting himself in midair.
But Seth held on, his body liquid and flowing – one with the horse. Like it wasn’t even hard.
“He’s really good,” Sunshine said, sitting up to watch the screen. She’d rallied to watch her half-brother. Part of me knew that she would. Deep down, Sunshine was a family girl.
“He’s the best, darlin. Top point scorer on the circuit right now.”
Sitting up, I found the comforter folded at the bottom of the bed and pulled it over both of us. I kept the window in my bedroom open a sliver to let in that fresh air, which meant the room would be a little chilly for my girl.
Seth finished his run, standing in the middle of the arena, arms up in triumph, the horse led away by the handlers.
He looked the same as he had as a kid, though the mustache was new.
Same shaggy hair. Same long, lean build.
The same twinkle in his eye that promised nothing but trouble and good times.
My obligation to the McGraw clan now fulfilled, I turned on my side toward her, kissed her once on those slightly parted lips, and then tucked her in close to me so I could smell her herby, fresh shampoo as I drifted off to sleep.
I didn’t realize it then, but looking back, I’m sure that was the moment I fell in love with her.
“Whelp,” I heard Carter say. “It looks like we’re going to have to kill him.”
“I’m certain that’s a crime,” Ethan countered.
“Nah, we can say he’s trespassing,” Carter countered.
“Pretty sure his momma gave birth to him in this cabin,” Mac pointed out. “How do you figure he’s trespassing?”
Wait? Was I dreaming? I’d had enough work dreams about the damn McGraw boys, that it wouldn’t be impossible. But it felt like I was in bed. My eyelids heavy. My body sore but content.
I had a perfect, warm weight pressed into my side that felt like an extension of my body.
That was the dream. Her, here with me.
I opened my eyes to find three of the five McGraw brothers staring at me like I was a fox in the henhouse with feathers coming out of my mouth.
“The fuck?” I asked, blinking myself awake.
“What are your intentions toward our sister?” Carter asked me, pointing to the woman curled up against me, her face buried in my chest. Her eyes closed. Her lips parted. She even slept pretty.
Sunshine.
She blinked her eyes open and now I was pissed that they’d woken her up. She saw me and smiled, and it was all I could do not to wrap my arms around her and tell her brothers to get the hell out of my house. But, then she saw them and she went high-alert.
“What are you doing here?” Sunshine sat up and pushed her hair out of her face. “Is something wrong? The markets…?” she reached for her phone, lost in the comforter and sheets.
“What are you doing here?” Mac said. “And, if you’re getting involved with Tag, then I’m definitely never taking dating advice from you.”
“What’s wrong with me?” I asked.
“You’re elusive,” Mac said. “Everybody knows that.”
“I’m not getting involved,” she protested. “I just fell asleep.”
“Likely story,” Carter said, arms crossed over his chest.
“I told you he liked her,” Ethan told Carter.
“You didn’t tell me she liked him back,” Carter shot back, then turned to look at Sunshine again. “Wait, you are here because you like him, right? Not because he seduced you with his elusive cowboy ways.”
I pulled a pillow out from under my head and fired it at Carter. He ducked in time, but it grazed his ear. He grinned, bright and wide, and I knew they were having a good time giving their sister a hard time. “What are you all even doing here?”
“Your dad gave you up,” Mac said. “When you weren’t at the barn first thing this morning, we found him mucking a stall and he said you were snuggling with Sunshine.”
“At first, I thought it was some kind of weird tanning reference,” Ethan interjected.
“I thought your dad was high,” Mac said.
“All of you get the fuck out. Now,” I barked.
“We weren’t snuggling,” she said, getting out of bed. Finding her socks and boots where she’d left him. “We were watching Seth on television and then we just fell asleep.”
“Hey, did you see that? Took first in bareback and steer wrestling,” Carter said, like a proud older brother.
“He was great,” Sunshine said. “What I saw, anyway. I’m going to head back to the Lodge.”
“Hold up,” I told her. “Let me throw some boots on and I’ll walk you back.”
“Oh no,” Carter said. “Ethan can walk Sunny back. He’s got to head into town anyway for his shift at the clinic. You and I need to talk.”
I grabbed a clean t-shirt out of the dresser drawer and pulled it on. “There’s nothing we need to discuss, Carter.”
“On the contrary. I’ll ask again. What are your intentions?”
“My intentions are to smack you in the face with another pillow,” I told him.
“Hey, stop talking like I’m not in the room!” Sunshine shouted, hopping on one foot as she pulled her second boot on. “I’m a grown ass woman and can sleep where I like, and with whom I like.”
“So you do like him,” Ethan asked her.
“No! ”
“No?” I said, turning to her. “You don’t like me?”
“I mean, yes,” she stuttered. “I do. I’m just…of course we’re not. This is just. I need to go back to New York!”
“Sounds like the lady doth protest too much this time,” Ethan said, with a sly smile.
“Ethan,” Sunshine said, putting a finger in his face. “Stop butchering Shakespeare. Carter, stop grilling Tag about nothing. And Mac, stop…well, just stop. I’m going back to the Lodge on my own.”
“Baby, the wolves,” I reminded her.
“Right now, I feel meaner than a wolf. And Ethan, don’t you dare tell Harmony about any of this,” Sunshine demanded, her arm flinging toward the bed where we’d slept together last night.
Ethan held up his phone with a picture of us in bed, and it had already been sent to his wife. “Too late?”
She growled at him, not unlike a wolf, and stormed out of the bedroom.
I scowled at all of them. “Happy?”
Ethan smiled. “Yeah. It makes me happy to see my best friend happy. She brings out the best in you.”
“Don’t get any ideas,” I told them, rubbing the sleep out of my eyes and the sensation of her next to me off my body. “You heard her. She’s going back to New York.”
“Eventually,” Mac said. “But she’s here now.”
“I’m going to follow her back so I can take her into town,” Ethan said. “But you should start thinking about a plan, Tag.”
“A plan for what?” I asked him.
“For how you’re going to get her to stay,” Ethan said, simply.