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“Wait, are you sure? What about the frosting on the very end?”
Opal looked down at it. The piece of cake had three layers, and they’d eaten about half of it. The thicker end, where the frosting did pile up, looked normal to Opal. “I suppose I should try it.” She took her fork and swiped it through the frosting there, then put that in her mouth.
“It’s so good,” she said, going back for more. This time, she took a bigger bite of cake and frosting, and when she lifted her fork, something glittery and gold hung from it.
Opal froze, the breath in her lungs turning to absolute ice.
“Honeybear,” came from behind her, and Opal sucked in a breath and spun to face Tag.
He wasn’t standing where she thought he’d be, but he’d already dropped to both knees, right there in Jane’s kitchen.
“Oh, dear Lord.” Opal still held the fork with cake and a diamond, and she backed up, trying to assess the situation in only a moment. Of course she couldn’t do that, but she did catalog that her female family had all scuttled into the kitchen, and both Momma and Molly had their phones up, likely recording.
Cord leaned in the doorway leading into the living room, as did Mikey, Hunter, and Daddy.
Opal’s eyes filled with tears as her heartbeat paraded through her body. “Taggart,” she gasped out.
“Let me have that, honey.” He reached for the fork, and Opal practically dropped it. He took a handkerchief from Daddy, and cleaned the cake crumbs and frosting from the diamond. Tag gazed at it for a long, loving moment, and then his gaze came to hers.
His smile wobbled a little, and he said, “I wrote all this down in my notebook, and now I’ve forgotten it all.”
Opal smiled back at him, the moment between them pure and priceless. “You can do it,” she whispered.
“Honey, I’m in love with you,” he said. “It’s something I can’t fight, and I can’t change. I want you at my side for the rest of my life, and I want to be your biggest champion, your confidante, and your best friend.”
He held up the ring, as if Opal hadn’t seen the giant round rock. “Will you do me a great honor and marry me?”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Oh, we can’t hear you in the back,” Daddy called.
Opal didn’t move her gaze from Tag’s. He looked at her with so much hope and desire, and Opal lowered her hands from her pounding pulse and said, “Yes, I’ll marry you.”
“There you go,” someone yelled as the applause and cheering filled the kitchen.
Tag’s hands shook as he slipped the ring on her finger, and they both looked at it as he got to his feet. His hand slipped under hers, and while she heard the yelling, yeehawing, and congratulating, all she could see in that moment was her hand wearing that diamond, layered over his.
All she could smell was Taggart’s cologne, and the leather that went everywhere with him, and the sweetness of frosting.
All she wanted sat right in front of her, and Opal finally felt like the woman who deserved it, could have it, and would take it.
She looked up at Tag, and said, “I love you.”
“You’re mine,” he whispered, and then he kissed her. With every stroke of his lips against hers, Opal truly claimed him as her own while simultaneously giving herself completely to him.
thirty-four
Tag climbed the steps to Opal’s porch, which had been finished last week. The front door blazed at him in a bright blue, and he smiled as he opened it. Inside, the house still had plenty to get done, but Opal had windows now, and appliances, and cupboards hung in the kitchen.
She needed her quartz countertops, and the walls needed to be painted the off-set color from the crown molding and baseboards. She needed the furnace and AC unit hooked up, and she needed to do the final walk-through with all the inspectors. But the house was getting closer and closer and closer.
Opal sat on her bright purple couch, which she’d positioned in front of the big bay window that looked north, back toward the farm. She’d kept as many trees as possible, so she couldn’t see much, and he wondered what she was looking at as he sank onto the couch with her.
“That’s a big sigh,” Opal said without looking at him.
“Our new horse is a diva,” he said. “She’s going to take a while to break, but we’ll get there. Steele’s doing great with her.” And Steele needed the practice with a horse who didn’t already know the rules. And this new horse—a pretty black thing named Black Gold—had come to them wild, pure, a blank page for them to train and teach.
Honestly, that was Tag’s favorite kind of horse, and he couldn’t wait to see Black Gold come into herself. “She might be a good one for you to ride one day,” he said quietly, because the unfinished house held a soft spirit today, and he didn’t want to puncture it with his loud voice.
