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“Oh, please,” Opal said. “That baby is a saint, and Boone was here all day.” She rolled her eyes at her brother and pulled out a seat at the table.
“He’s slobbering everywhere,” Mike said as he moved over to help Tag with the coffee. “And he’s fussy. He puts everything in his mouth, and let me tell you, those baby teeth are sharp.” He clapped Tag on the back, his eagle eyes missing nothing. “You didn’t tell her what was in that box, did you?”
“No, sir,” Tag said. He picked up the mugs and Mike grabbed the fallen cream carton and the sugar bowl. Tag took the mugs over to Opal, their eyes catching and holding every step of the way.
“Thank you,” she murmured, and Tag’s whole being itched. He needed to get a dinner date on the calendar with her sooner rather than later, because last time he’d only asked and didn’t set everything up, it had all gone awry.
But with Mike in the house and seemingly going nowhere, Tag stuffed his questions away and returned to the kitchen for the coffee pot. This was going to be an exquisite form of torture.
A few hours later, Tag ducked into the farmhouse where Mike and Gerty lived, the heat welcoming him first. Then, the energy zipping through the place zoomed into his heart, and he had the distinct impression that God had led him home.
What that meant for him, as he worked someone else’s farm and not his own, Tag didn’t understand. But he was only thirty years old, and he’d given up trying to figure out each step before he took it. God laughed at him when he did that, besides.
Right now, Tag shook hands with Matt Whettstein, then his brother, Boone, who was Gerty’s father. They had their teens standing over by the baby, who did have flushed cheeks and plenty of spittle on his face. West also had plenty of girls to take care of him, and Tag smiled at the grouping around him.
He stayed out of the way, because he wasn’t family to Opal. He wasn’t related to any of her family. The only reason he was here was because he worked for Mike and Gerty. Nothing else, despite the fact that she’d asked him to dinner mere hours ago.
“I wonder what’s in that big pink box,” Boone mused, and Tag once again kept his mouth shut.
“She’s coming,” someone yelled, and Tag’s anticipation grew. Then Opal came down the hall and into the living room, where plenty of people had crammed themselves. A cheer went up, and everyone started hollering and clapping. Tag put his hands together too, glad he could stare at Opal for as long as he wanted.
He was supposed to look at her, for crying out loud.
And what a sight she was. She wore a long black dress that somehow fit her like a glove and flowed around her in waves at the same time. He would never expect Opal to wear anything bright or flashy, though she had plenty of personality.
Her hair had been braided back, revealing her slender face with those big, beautiful eyes and those extremely kissable lips. In that moment, his hands somehow flapping together in slow motion and Opal smiling at her cousin Jane, Tag wondered how in the world he’d lived here with her for so long without being hers.
You’ll fix that, he told himself. Tonight.
He vowed he would not be going to bed tonight without a date with Opal—one they both knew about and both remembered—on the calendar.
“Presents first,” Mike yelled, lifting his hands up into the air. “Come on, Opal, you’re going to open presents first.” He indicated the garish pink box, and Opal’s eyes roamed the crowd. Tag hoped and prayed she was looking for him, but he stayed out of the way, over by the side entrance to the house.
She didn’t see him before she had to step over to the gift. “Wow,” she said in an overly loud voice, plenty of mocking in her tone. “Whoever wrapped this is brilliant.”
Tag burst out laughing, and he was the only one. He was aware of every eye in the place zeroing in on him—except maybe baby West’s—but he didn’t care. Opal saw him then, and her smile shone with a radiance he wanted to bask in every single day of his life.
In that moment, he realized how plain his life had become. How beige. How boring.
And Opal…oh, Opal sure could liven things up.
She ripped off the paper and took the knife Mike gave her so she could undo the seam of tape on the nondescript brown box. She threw Tag another flirty look before she peeled back the flaps and peered inside.
“It’s….” She reached inside, but Mike said, “You can’t lift that. Kyle?”
“You’re going to make an old man lift it for me?” Opal glared at her brother, and Mike turned to the next closest person.
“Keith, help her with that, would you?”
“Sure thing,” the other cowboy said, and Keith reached into the box with both hands and pulled out the shrink-wrapped item. It was bright purple, and the neon-ness of it assaulted Tag’s eyes from across the room.
Several people said, “Wow,” or “What is that?” but Opal plucked out the instruction pamphlet from the box.
“It’s a blow-up couch,” she said, her gaze once again magnetizing to his.
“I thought you could use it in your bedroom,” he said. “You’ve been complaining that you don’t have anywhere to sit.”
“And,” Mike said. “We thought you could take it outside with you too. It won’t be too heavy, and you can plunk it under a tree and…do what you do.”
