Opposites (Never) Attract (Calloways vs. McGraws #2)

Prologue

SUNSHINE

Last Hope Gulch School

Fifteen Years Ago

“Does anyone think they can solve the proof on the board?” Mrs. Diaz, our geometry teacher, asked the class.

Mrs. Diaz was the Last Hope Gulch math teacher.

She taught everything from seventh grade remedial algebra to private advanced calculus.

(I’d been her only student for that class, she liked to say we taught each other.)

Did I mention that Last Hope Gulch was a tiny town in nowhere Wyoming? We’re barely on a map.

To answer Mrs. Diaz, I raised my hand faster than anyone else in the classroom. The theorem was crystal clear in my mind. Everything else in my life could be blurry, but math was always razor sharp.

“Oh look, Smarty Sunshine knows the answer.” The comment came from Cheryl, who was three years older and openly sneering at me from her seat beside mine. “Don’t you get bored always sucking up to teachers?” she hissed.

Mike Palmer, Cheryl’s neanderthal boyfriend, made kissy noises in my direction, which was hilarious to Cheryl and two other seniors in the class. So immature for someone his age. Seriously, these guys were graduating this year, they could show a little dignity.

I don’t know why I did this to myself every time a teacher asked a question.

Raised my hand, shouted out the answer, volunteered to go to the board.

I should just sit still and keep my mouth shut.

Mrs. Diaz knew I knew the answer, but that drive to prove what I could do was impossible to control.

Which inevitably led to other people, who didn’t know the answers, feeling the need to put me in my place.

I wanted to say something snarky to Cheryl and Mike.

Grow up.

You only wish you could do half of what I can do.

But I never had that kind of courage when it came to dealing with the seniors in my class. Which was most of my classes, actually. Because, while I was only fifteen, and technically considered a sophomore, all my classwork was advanced level stuff.

As advanced as the Gulch and Mrs. Diaz could provide, anyway.

That was how I’d won the argument with my mom to let me apply for college early. I’d gone through every available class the high school had to offer. The only thing that made sense next was college.

Away from here.

Finally.

I lowered my hand and kept my eyes on the board, ignoring Cheryl and Mike the way I’d been ignoring them my whole life. But I knew from past experience, if they did not let up soon, the whole class would start staring at me.

“I think she needs a new nickname,” Mike said.

“Brace face?” Cheryl supplied. “Scarecrow?”

Mike laughed. “Yeah, Scarecrow. Want to earn some extra money and stand in my dad’s sugar beet field and scare away the birds?”

It doesn’t hurt. I don’t care what anyone from this town thinks of me. Well, maybe I care about one person’s opinion.

Tag Dunham (who I always sat behind in any class we had together so he would never catch me staring at him) turned around with a stormy expression on his face.

Oh, no. Not you too, Tag.

I tried to brace myself for him to join in, but I knew if he started teasing me it would hurt so much worse.

Tag was always nice to me. Despite the fact he was best friends with my family’s mortal enemies…the McGraws.

Fun fact about Last Hope Gulch, we had feuding families.

The Calloways and McGraws had been enemies for over a hundred years.

It all started when the Widow Calloway refused to sell her land to Duncan McGraw, who was establishing the largest cattle ranch in the territory.

After years of fighting over it, he pushed her off Widow’s Peak (back then it was just a normal edge of a butte) so he could just steal her land.

However, in an incredible twist of fate, she survived the plummet, climbed back up the butte, and pushed him off instead.

Unfortunately, she was found guilty of that crime and was hanged in the center of town.

To this day, we had a gallows statue in front of our town for all to commemorate it.

Over the years, there had been cattle rustling, kidnappings and bootlegging. Broken hearts, and just a little bit of murder between our two families.

These days, the beef felt more like a habit than anything else.

A show we put on for Last Hope Gulch’s Feud Day Festival.

Which, I’m sorry to say, was a real thing.

Part county fair, part renaissance fair, there were re-enactments of both family’s worst moments.

Enough to draw crowds from all around the neighboring towns, and even some out of state tourists.

Why people loved it, I had no idea, but they came in droves to celebrate the history of our families trying to kill each other for the past hundred years.

Tag and his dad worked for the McGraws on their cattle ranch, and he was best friends with all the McGraw brothers. But he’d always kept his nose out of the feud.

I didn’t really care about the McGraws in general. I had bigger problems.

Like the fact that it felt like every person in this town basically hated me just for being smart.

That was my problem.

“Hey,” Tag snapped.

I pointed to my chest and squeaked out, “Me?”

He frowned at me like I’d said something stupid. “Mike and Cheryl, what’d I tell you about that shit? Girl wants to raise her hand, you let her. It’s not like either of you two dumb shits know the answer.”

Tag looked at me and I wanted to sink as far under the desk as I could. Having him watching me was too…intense.

Did he know I lingered at my locker waiting for senior lunch break, just so I could see him during the day? Did he see how flushed I’d gotten last week when I saw that his girlfriend, Jenny, had given him a new hickey on the side of his neck, right by his collar bone ?

You could still see the faded bruise of it when his t-shirt collar pulled anytime he turned around.

A muscle in his jaw ticked and I wanted to reach out and touch it.

“She thinks she’s better than us,” Cheryl hissed at Tag from over my shoulder.

“She is better than you,” he snapped at Cheryl. “Get over it.”

The bell rang and I knew I had to say something. Do something. Tag had totally stuck up for me.

And no one ever stood up for me.

He’d even… I think …complimented me? I didn’t get a lot of those, so it was hard to know.

Math class poured into the hallway with every other class in this wing of the high school. My window was limited, I had about two minutes before Tag met Jenny at his locker, where they would take off together for the rest of the day.

Probably to have sex.

Definitely to have sex.

He stood literally a foot taller than every other person in school, and it was easy to track his wide shoulders to his locker. I zig zagged my way through a bunch of students to meet him there.

“Hey,” I said.

“What?” he asked. Mr. Nice Guy from the classroom was nowhere in sight. He didn’t even look at me.

“Uh…” I hitched my backpack up over my shoulder. I carried all my text books with me for every class, because I never knew if I was going to have down time and could be wo rking on something else, so I was perpetually lopsided to the right.

“You’re going to thank me for sticking up for you,” he predicted. “Don’t bother. I don’t like the upper class men messing with the freshman and sophomores like that. It isn’t cool. So it’s not about you, yeah?”

I nodded. Of course it wasn’t about me. It’s just who Tag was. “Still. You’re the only person in the whole school who doesn’t call me Smarty Sunshine.”

He huffed out a laugh. “Kid, there are worse things to be called. I wasn’t lying back there. You’ve got a big brain that’s meant for big things. Don’t let anyone make you feel ashamed of anything.”

The sentiment was nice but the kid stung.

He slammed his locker closed, and looked right over my head and smiled at someone behind me.

Jenny. The hickey-giving girlfriend. She had amazing skin and silky hair that was never frizzy. And boobs. She had boobs.

I had nipples, and that was about it.

She came up to him, oblivious of my presence next to his locker, and wrapped her arms around his neck so she could plant a kiss on his lips.

She could do that. She could just kiss him. And suck on his neck and put her fingers in his thick, dark hair.

“Ready to go?” she asked, against his lips.

“Always,” he said, with a smirk. Then he turned back to me. Yes, I was still standing next to his locker gawking at him. “We good?”

I nodded. “Yep. All good.”

He and Jenny turned away, his hand tucked into her back pocket so he could cup her ass, and I’d never wanted anything as badly as I wanted a man’s hand in my back pocket.

“What were you talking to Smarty Sunshine about?” Jenny asked, probably keeping her voice loud enough so I could hear. “That girl is so weird.”

“She’s just smart, is all.”

“Sure, babe. Sure.”

Even I could tell she was being sarcastic, and he leaned down and kissed her neck instead of arguing with her. I could admit it was nice to be defended for a minute, but no one was going to defend me forever. For good.

No. I needed to get out of this town. This whole damn state.

It was time to leave all of this behind.

Even him.