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She let her thoughts wander where they may, trying to keep herself quiet should the Lord decide to talk to her. Her feet did the same, and before she knew it, the triangle of cabins loomed in front of her.
The sun went behind a cloud, and Opal paused as she looked up. Her fingers in her pockets fisted, and she looked back to Tag’s house. A thin stream of smoke lifted from his chimney, and Opal could practically feel the warmth of the obvious fire inside chasing away the cold and wind out here.
Without second guessing herself, she continued toward his house and right up his steps. This was not the first time she’d come to his cabin. She’d been here for lunch before; she’d come several times since the accident to bring him food or cookies; she’d come to tell him to stop worrying over her, to stop blaming himself, to stop looking so sad.
Since then, he’d just avoided her, the same way she had him.
“No more,” she murmured as she lifted her fist to knock.
“Come in!” Tag yelled from inside, but Opal hesitated. He had no doorbell cam, so he couldn’t possibly know who stood on his porch. His choices were slim, but Opal was sure that if he knew it was her, he wouldn’t be calling for her to simply walk in.
Still, Opal reached for the doorknob, twisted it, and did just that.
Tag twisted from where he stood at his dining room table, an enormous box in front of him. A large roll of sparkly pink wrapping paper sat atop it as Tag had been pulling it along the top of the box.
He half-yelped and half-choked, and then he spun toward her and pressed his back into the box as if he could hide it that way. He did have deliciously broad shoulders, but they narrowed into a trim waist that didn’t span the width of the box.
Oh, and that roll of bright wrapping paper continued rolling and then dropped to the floor, where the cardboard tube bumped once, thumped hollowly, and slumped into a pile of loose paper, all while they stared at one another in silence.
two
Taggart Crow gawked at the woman who’d been starring in his fantasies and daydreams for months now. Fine, he’d had a nightmare or two about Opal Hammond as well. They always included a bucking horse and her passed out on the ground, and Tag blinked to get that scene out of his head.
“Hey,” he said, not sure why his words had failed him so spectacularly. He’d been avoiding Opal since he’d asked her out. That had happened on the same day as she’d been kicked in the chest by a horse he’d been working with.
All of that was fine. Rather, it wasn’t, but it was what it was. Tag couldn’t change the past, and when Opal had chewed him out for “looking sad” around her, he’d defaulted to not being around her.
And he probably did look sad, but it wasn’t because she’d been kicked. He didn’t blame himself for that.
No, the idiotic thing he’d done that day had been to ask her to dinner.
She’d said yes—but she hadn’t remembered the exchange. So, when Tag brought it up later, when he’d tried to schedule the date, Opal had been ultra-confused. Even now, embarrassment squished its way through all of Tag’s cells.
“Are you wrapping a birthday present for me?” Opal had come inside and closed the door, but that was all. She stuck close to the door, like he might bend, swoop up the roll of pink wrapping paper, and wield it like a sword.
He couldn’t hide the fact that he was, indeed, wrapping up a gift for her. She’d have seen it in a couple of hours anyway. So he said, “Yes.”
“It’s really big.” Her eyes roamed the box behind him, and Tag inched away from it.
“How was your appointment today?” Darkness crossed Opal’s already dark and brunette features. “Oh, not great,” he said. “Why not? Was it that half-bale of hay you picked up when I told you not to? That I was literally five seconds away from grabbing?” He popped his eyebrows up, clearly challenging her.
Opal was so dang smart, she could use a challenge every now and then. Tag couldn’t believe the way he’d just flirted with her, though. They hadn’t had any exchanges like this in ages. Too long, in his opinion.
“I’m sure it wasn’t that,” she said. “But he did tell me I can’t lift anything heavier than a loaf of bread.”
“So West is out,” Tag said. “Heck, you probably won’t even be able to lift this gift.” He did bend and pick up the fallen wrapping paper then. “You wanna come help me with this?”
“Do I want to help you wrap my own present?” She did approach him, and Tag smiled at her. “Who does that?”
“You’re going to do it.” He tightened up the paper again and stretched it across the top of the box. “I just need some tape right there.” He nodded across to the other side of the box, and that would put Opal all the way in his house.
She picked up the roll of tape and ripped off a piece. She placed it where it went while Tag warred with himself over asking her why she’d come. He said nothing as the furnace pumped heat into the cabin, and he seized onto that. “Cold outside.”
Opal looked up at him, her dark eyes blazing with plenty of heat. “Really? You’re going to make me wrap my own present and talk to me about the weather?”
“What would you like to talk about then?” he shot back. “You showed up at my house. I was fine before you walked in.”
“As compared to now?”
