Chapter 10

Tag put his bag in the guest room Bree showed him to, and he stepped into the bathroom to wash up. He moved quickly and didn't waste any time, not even to text Opal and tell her that he'd arrived at her parents' house.

And yet, somehow, he was still the last to arrive back in the kitchen for dinner. He slipped into the last seat across from Gerty as she sat too. Their eyes met, and since he only worked for her, he didn't know what she was trying to say. Maybe nothing.

"It's nothing special," Bree said. "Meatloaf and poutine."

Tag had no idea what poutine was, but everything smelled delicious. With French fries and red meat on the table, he'd be happy enough.

"I'll say grace," Wes said. "And then Bree will teach you the ways of poutine." He grinned at his wife, who smiled back at him. Then Tag barely had time to duck his head in a bow before he started to pray.

"Lord, we're grateful Gerty and Tag arrived in Coral Canyon safely. Bless them to get their business done and get back to their loved ones without any issues. We're thankful for Thy bounty on our table tonight, and help us to watch out for those around us."

Tag didn't have many opportunities to serve those around him, and he felt the gentle rebuke of the Lord as Wes prayed. His circle was so small, but Tag could reach out and text others to see how they were doing, and he could ask if nearby farms and ranches had anything they needed.

Satisfied with those thoughts, he realized Wes had gone on with his prayer, and all he heard was, "…and we love Thee with all we have, and all we are, and all we hope to become. Amen."

"Amen," Tag said, his gaze flying to Wes. Before he could tell him what a beautiful thing it was to love God with all he had, and all he was, and all he hoped to become, Bree picked up a pair of tongs.

She clacked them together and said, "Okay, poutine. I grew up in Vermont, and my family would vacation in Canada sometimes. I fell in love with poutine there, and now, I impose it on my family for special occasions."

"You'll love it," Gerty said.

"Sometimes I make the gravy with meat, but today, it's just plain. I wasn't sure how you'd take it, Tag." She gave him a smile that he returned.

Then Bree tonged some French fries onto his plate. "So first, you take fries. Then, we're going to add some cheese." She nudged the bowl of little, miniature mozzarella cheese balls toward him. "As many as you want."

"These?" He reached for his fork and started to fish out a ball of cheese from the whey.

"Yes, those," Bree said. "The gravy will soften them, and it melts all together, and it's divine. Like a party in your mouth."

"Potatoes, cheese, and brown gravy," Gerty said. "It sounds simple, but it's so good." She took the tongs from Bree and took some fries for herself.

"My favorite is the elk version she makes," Wes said. "It's got meat in it, but we've got meatloaf tonight."

"My mama made a mean meatloaf," Tag said as Bree ladled brown gravy over his fries and cheese.

She smiled at Tag and nodded. "Try it."

"I can't wait to try it."

Gerty finished pouring gravy over her fries, and she said, "My mouth is watering. I really should make this at home instead of waiting to have it here." She stuck the dripping-with-gravy fry in her mouth and said, "West would love this."

"Of course he would," Bree said, not commenting on Gerty talking with food in her mouth, and she smiled down the table to Wes.

"You're getting how many horses tomorrow?" Wes asked. He'd taken meatloaf, and he was the last to get any poutine.

"Just four," Gerty said.

"They'll be good for you," he said. "Bryce runs an amazing rescue operation."

"They're some of his permanent residents," Gerty said with a nod. "Not ones he can sell, and he's had them for years. He says it might break his heart, but he knows they need new pastures to roam."

"Mm," Wes said. "People are like that sometimes." He looked at Tag, and he could see where Opal got all of her dark genes. Her daddy had dark hair and eyes, as did her mother. She honestly had no chance to be anything but the gorgeous brunette she was.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Just look at Opal," Wes said. "She couldn't wait to get out of here, then she only stayed in California for a little bit, and now she's in Ivory Peaks."

Tag wasn't sure what he was supposed to say. He looked at Bree and then Gerty, and she seemed a tad nervous too.

"She's amazing with West," Gerty said.

Tag's throat couldn't swallow properly, but he still managed to say, "She makes the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookie in the world."

Wes stared at him for a beat, and then Gerty. "I—I'm not saying anything bad about her."

"Well…." Gerty drew in a breath. "Okay. But it sort of sounded like you're saying she'll get tired of Ivory Peaks and leave there eventually too."

"Oh, no," Wes said as he leaned back in his chair. "That's not what I meant. I just meant, sometimes people need to roam other pastures too. Opal's kind of like that, but she's loyal and true, and she always follows her heart."

"She does what's right," Bree said. "Is what he's trying to say."

"She does that too," Wes said. He smiled at Tag. "And she does make the best oatmeal chocolate chip cookies in the world."

That broke the tension, and Tag looked down at his poutine. "When I get back to the farm, I'm going to ask her if she knows how to make this." He grinned at Bree, who laughed. "Because if she does, and she's been holding out on me…we might have our first fight."

Everyone at the table erupted into laughter then, including Tag, and he couldn't wait to text Opal and tell her how well dinner had gone tonight.

"I'm Tag," he said as he stepped past Gerty to shake Bryce Young's hand. "It's great to meet you. Gerty talks non-stop about how amazing your ranch is."

Bryce grinned and grinned, and he had a really good air about him. "She does?" He glanced over to her, and Gerty rolled her eyes. "Seems hard to believe."

"I'm not the saltiest woman on the planet," she said.

Bryce tipped his head back and laughed, and Tag got the impression that Bryce had called her exactly that in the past. Gerty did have some saltiness to her. But she ran an excellent farm, and she cared deeply about her animals, her family, and God.

Tag took in the grandeur of Bryce's ranch—named the Rising Sun Ranch—as the sun started to do that over the Teton Mountains in the distance. "This is a beautiful place," he murmured.

"Sure is." Bryce leaned against the railing of the deck where they stood. The roof of the house had been extended over the deck, so he wouldn't have to shovel it when the snows came. Everything Bryce had here Tag wanted.

"We work it hard," Bryce said. "Especially in the winter."

"There he is," a woman said, and Tag turned with everyone else to see a petite woman carrying a little boy on her hip. "He's busy with our friends already, baby. Just give him his morning hug, and then he'll have to get out to the stables."

Bryce chuckled as he crouched down. His wife—Codi, Tag had been told—set the little boy on his feet, and he ran-toddled toward Bryce, saying, "Daddy, Daddy, Daddy. Mor-ing hug. Mor-ing hug."

Bryce scooped up the child as they both laughed, and Tag had never seen such love so openly displayed. It permeated the air and expanded out and out and out until it filled the whole farm, then the sky, and it zoomed toward the towering mountains in the distance.

He cuddled the little boy close, Bryce's smile joyful. His eyes sat closed, and Tag couldn't look away from the pair of them. Then Bryce settled the child on his hip and said, "This is Momma and Daddy's friend, Gerty."

"How old is he now?" Gerty grinned at the boy, everything about her softening too.

"Eighteen months," Codi said as she smoothed down her boy's collar. "And West is…what? A year?"

"Next month," Gerty said.

"And Tag," Bryce said. "They're buying some of our horses." He grinned at his son. "This is Matthew."

"Matt," the boy said, his cute little-boy voice only telling Tag what he'd said but hadn't known until now—he wanted kids.

"That's right," Bryce said. "Matt. All right, go back to Momma. It's oatmeal day."

"O-meal-O-meal-O-meal," Matt sang as he got passed from one parent to another.

"Good to see you, Gerty," Codi said.

"Thanks for letting us disrupt your morning," Gerty said. "We just wanted to give the horses time to load up and get headed back to Ivory Peaks."

"Only Rooster will give you any trouble getting in the trailer," Bryce said. "We'll do him last, because he's a big sheep at heart." He grinned and looked up into the sky. He clapped his hands together and said right out loud, "Thank you, Lord, for this snowless day to move horses."

Then he started down the steps to the path that split the lawn and led to the gravel road beyond.

"All right, then," Tag said. "Let's move some horses."

"I'm feeling good," Gerty said, and they moved down the steps as Codi turned to go back inside the farmhouse with baby Matt.

Tag felt fine right now. Opal's parents had comfortable beds and hot coffee, and once they had the horses loaded up, he and Gerty would be back on the road toward home.

Home, Tag thought. Where was that for him?

Where am I supposed to be?he asked, and he wasn't sure if he was asking himself or God Above.

He loved Colorado, he knew that. He loved Gerty's farm, and Gerty's horses, and Gerty's family. The problem was, they all belonged to Gerty, not him.

He toyed with the idea of looking for his own piece of Colorado land in the heart of the Rocky Mountains as he helped Gerty and Bryce put the halters on the four horses they'd be loading and transporting that day.

Bryce handed him a thick lead rope and said, "Let's walk ‘em around the trailer for a minute. Yours is Cinnamon, and he should go in first."

"Why are you selling these?" Tag asked as Cinnamon stood right next to Bryce, his nose down. "They sure seem to like you."

Bryce grinned at his red-coated horse. "They do. I've had them all for years now. I can't sell them to farms or ranches or into service. They were too malnourished when they came to me, or didn't rehabilitate fast enough. So we've kept ‘em."

He sighed as he moved to hand a lead rope to Gerty. "This is Ontario Lake." The gray sure had a beautiful coat, and Tag noted how he moved right into Gerty's shoulder and no further. She didn't give the horse his way, and he shuffled back to give her the proper distance. These animals were well-trained already. Tag wouldn't be breaking them and rehabilitating them the way he had Gerty's other rescues.

They'd just have more horses on their farm.

"But Codi says we can't keep all of them. We need more stable and stall space for horses we can rehab and get back out there, living their best equine life. So I'm ripping my heart out—" He looked up. "You hear that, Lord? My heart is getting ripped right out of my chest down here. It's flopping and bleeding and this is awful for me."

Tag blinked at him in surprise. He'd never considered just yelling out to the Lord every thought that came into his head. He glanced over to Gerty, who didn't seem to think anything odd had happened at all.

Bryce took the remaining two lead ropes and started walking. "I know you guys will take good care of them. And it's time. So they—it's nice for them to have different pastures to roam, I think."

Tag followed Bryce, and they walked around the trailer a couple of times while he murmured secrets to the two equines plodding along with him. Then he said, "All right. Let's load ‘em in. Tag, you're up first."

Tag had loaded plenty of horses in his life, and he got Cinnamon in the trailer without an issue. He looped the rope through the slats, as they'd secure him for the drive once they had all four horses on.

Gerty loaded Ontario Lake while Tag fell to Bryce's side. He took the lead rope for Ellie, a pretty bay with black markings. She went on next, and finally only Rooster and Bryce remained.

"All right, bud," he said. "They're all on, and you don't want to be left behind, do you?" He led him to the edge of the trailer, and Rooster even took the first step on. Then he balked and tried to go backward.

"Come on," Bryce said, pulling forward on the rope. "You can't stay here forever." Several tries later, all four hooves had made it up and into the trailer. Gerty set about securing the horses for the drive, while Tag helped get the lead ropes off and back to Bryce.

The back door finally got closed, and Gerty clapped her gloved hands together. She looked at Bryce, who wore a stone mask of determination. "I'll send you a bunch of pictures," she said.

"One hundred percent." He cleared his throat.

"You got the money from Mikey?"

"Yep."

Gerty grinned at him and stepped into his arms. "Cheer up, Bryce. You've been hoarding these horses to yourself for long enough. Now, you just get to make more friends."

He did relax into her embrace, and then quickly pulled out. "Thanks, Gerty. Drive safe." He shook hands with Tag, and he only had to look at Gerty to know she wanted him to drive. So he got behind the wheel, the pressure suddenly so much higher.

"Lord," he said once they'd all buckled and made it off Bryce's beautiful ranch. "We've got these amazing horses with us now, so please help us to get home safely."

"Amen," Gerty murmured. A few moments later, she started laughing quietly.

"What?" he asked.

"Bryce got to you with his praying-out-loud thing, didn't he?"

Tag grinned and shrugged slightly. "I mean, it's not a bad way to live, right?"

Gerty shook her head. "I suppose." Then she sighed and leaned her head back. "Ah, I can't wait to get home."

Tag thought of the farm, his cabin, Boots, and Opal—all waiting for him back in Ivory Peaks. "Me either," he said, deciding that home was not a place. It was a feeling where loved and cherished people and things existed.

And for now, that was his cabin, Gerty's farm, his work there, Boots…and Opal.

Tag walked slowly from his cabin to the barn, though the gray morning light did everything in its power to urge him to go faster. Boots couldn't exactly go faster yet, and Tag wasn't even sure he should have the little dog out with him yet.

But it had been almost two weeks since the injury, and the poor corgi was going stir-crazy in his crate. So Tag had been bringing him to the morning feeding rounds and then taking him home no matter how forlorn he looked.

This morning, Max barked, which caused Tag to look up from the path in front of him. Boots answered him and picked up the pace. "Hey," Tag said. "Hey, hey, hey, calm down."

But Boots didn't know what that meant, and even if he had, he wouldn't have listened. The little dog trotted now, his limp less noticeable than before—heck, than yesterday—but still there. He made it to the stable first and went tearing around it, another yip coming from his throat.

Tag sighed and looked over to the farmhouse, but he didn't see Gerty or Mike or Max. Perhaps they'd simply let their dog out to use the bathroom, and the German shepherd had seen a pheasant or something. Max was fairly vocal, and he barked and talked at everything he saw or smelled.

Tag went past the chicken coops they used in warmer weather and around to the front of the stables. Their four new transplants to the farm had been settling in decently well. Tag took them all out every day and worked in the circle with them, because horses required a relationship filled with trust. Otherwise, they'd just as soon stay in their stalls whenever Tag wanted them to get out.

Divas, horses were, and Tag loved them so.

As he reached for the door to the stable, he heard a woman laughing. And not just any woman—Opal.

He frowned, because Opal didn't normally come out into the stable this early in the morning. Or at all, no matter the hour.

Tag's forward motion had him opening the door before he could truly comprehend the sound of Opal's joyous laughter. He stepped into the warmer interior of the stable and stopped at the sight of Steele and Opal in front of him.

She stood way too close to him, and everything surrounding Tag changed.

It wasn't wintertime, in a stable, in Colorado.

But summertime, in front of a feeding trough, on a ranch in Green River.

Opal didn't wear blue jeans and a heavy gray coat, but a pair of short cutoffs and a flowered blouse in pink, yellow, and white.

She laughed, her head tipping back, and the man standing with Talina leaned in and kissed her throat. She grabbed onto him, and his hands encircled her waist, and before Tag knew it, his girlfriend was kissing another man.

This time, he didn't stomp away with adrenaline pumping through his body like poison. Instead, he cleared his throat rather loudly and asked, "Opal, what the devil are you doing here?"