Chapter 26

Opal walked across her brother's deck, the view from this place absolutely magical. And she'd thought the mountains couldn't be beat. Well, the beach might do it.

She wondered if Tag was ever going to say anything.

She wondered if she could just go back inside and take baby Spencer out of his swing and hug him close to get this pinching in her chest to subside.

"I'm going to hang up," she said.

"Don't hang up," Tag growled.

"Then say something."

"It's my birthday tomorrow," he said.

Pure defeat trampled through Opal. "Why—Why didn't you tell me?"

"You knew it was in May," he said quietly.

"You—I…did."

"You were so excited about Spencer," Tag said. "And I'm what? Going to make you stay here on this muddy farm to celebrate with me?" She could just see him shaking his head. "My brothers were already planning to come. It's fine."

"You didn't tell me they were coming."

"I didn't see the point," he said.

"Tag."

"Opal, the twins are here, and I don't want to discuss this with you over the phone."

Her eyebrows went up, but part of her liked that he wasn't just lying down on this. He'd given her whatever she wanted as they'd gotten to know one another, and she found him strong yet soft at the same time. She supposed there was a time for everything—for him to take the lead and for him to let her have the reins.

"Okay," she said, hating how haughty her voice came out. "But I want you to tell me everything when we sit down to talk. You said you had something serious to talk to me about, and you've said nothing of it."

"Maybe I don't need to say anything now," he said. "Maybe I worked through things on my own."

Opal didn't like that, but she didn't know what to say. Her heart wailed quietly, and she decided to let her true thoughts out. "I don't want you to work through it on your own. We're together, and I want us to work through things together."

"You don't even know what it was."

Frustration filled her. "Exactly."

"Tag," someone said on his end of the line, and he said, "Yeah, give me another sec."

Opal didn't want to keep him from his brothers. She knew he didn't get to see them very often. "What are you doing for your birthday?" she asked, her voice a touch higher than normal.

"We haven't decided yet," Tag said coolly. "We might go hiking or camping. Something. It'll be—totally lame without you, Opal."

"Will you tell me about the serious thing even if you've already solved it?"

He heaved a sigh but said, "If you want me to."

"I do," she said.

"Then we'll talk next Friday," he said. "When we go out as planned."

Opal hated having hard conversations, but she reminded herself that she didn't have to call in a doctor and tell them he wasn't good enough to stay in the ER. Or reprimand someone for a mistake that could've cost someone's life.

"I haven't gotten my picture of you and that baby today," Tag said, a flirty undercurrent in his gruff voice.

Opal's heartbeat pulsed. "I'll send you one," she said. "To show your brothers."

"Opal-honey," he said. "I miss you like crazy."

And there was that softness she loved. "See you soon, Taggart." She ended the call, and she sighed as her hand dropped back to her side, taking her phone with her. The breeze played with her hair, and she loved the scent of the sea and the flowers perfuming the air here.

The sliding door opened, and Opal turned to see who'd come outside. Allison stood there as Violet toddled by, and she held up an apple. Opal smiled at the little girl. "You hungry, sweetheart?"

"Op-ple," Violet said. "Ap-ple."

She took it from the little girl. "Yes," she said. "I'll cut it up for you." She looked at Allison and put the best smile she could on her face.

"Everything okay?" Alli asked.

Opal remembered the way she'd gasped, scoffed, and then practically thrown Spencer to her before she'd stormed outside to call Tag. "Yes," she said anyway. "I just needed to make a call really quick." She smiled at Violet. "Who's ready for lunch?"

She was very good at stuffing away her emotions until she could deal with them. In the ER, she focused on the job and didn't let anything distract her. She could do the same here, and then she'd text and call Tag that evening, when she had more time to examine how she felt and what she hoped to achieve with him.

A couple of hours later, she smiled at Alli as she went down the hall toward the master. "Time for naps, Missy," she said to Violet. "Brother and Mama are napping. We are too."

Violet said something in her two-year-old voice, but Opal didn't catch it. She sat with Spencer in the living room, gently pushing herself back and forth with her toe, providing just enough movement to lull herself to sleep. Well, any other day she'd been here, she would've fallen asleep.

This afternoon, Opal's mind zigged and zagged from one topic to another.

Should she change her flight and go home early?

And why? So she could confront Tag earlier? What would she even say?

She thought about the little notebook he wrote in, and she wondered if he'd ever said something about her. And if so, what? Bad things? Good? The inner-most workings of his mind?

She'd asked him about the notebook in the past, and he'd said he put all kinds of things in it. "Things I'm thinking about, lists of groceries, reminders to myself."

"Notes from church," she'd said, because that was when she'd seen him writing in it.

"Yes," he'd said, and she could still see the sly look on his face. "You spied on me."

She'd laughed and fallen into his arms. "You pulled it out right in front of me. That can't be considered spying."

Now, she wanted to see what he wrote in that little notebook, and she wanted to see anything he may have written about her. "What could he be working through?" she whispered to Spencer, and the precious three-week-old didn't so much as stir.

Opal leaned over and touched her lips to the baby's forehead and whispered, "I think I'm going to go home earlier, Spencer. I'll miss you so much."

Gerty had been taking West out on the farm with her, and Mike had taken a few days off work to help with his son. Gerty's mom had come one day, Opal knew that, and she suddenly wanted to get back to Ivory Peaks.

She wanted to do that spying Tag had accused her of, and she wanted to do it now. She wanted to stand in his cabin and look around, just to absorb his space and see what she could feel coming from him.

"Is he going to break up with me?" she whispered, her chest suddenly collapsing in on itself. "Why would he?" She let the silence into her mind and heart then, trying to hear something, anything, from God.

"I need to know what I'm walking into," she whispered. "Please, Jesus, prepare me fully to return to Colorado." She closed her eyes and continued to rock. Other days, she'd have fallen asleep by now, pure bliss and happiness filling her.

Tag's one text had changed so much, and Opal's chin wobbled a little bit as she fought against her emotions. "He's not going to break up with you," she told herself. Her memories of their relationship were all so good, with star-filled nights, and lying together on that purple couch, and the kisses they'd shared.

He'd said he had something serious to talk to her about, but she hadn't dwelt on it too much. She trusted Tag to talk to her, tell her what bothered him and what didn't, and?—

"It's your money," she whispered, the pure magic of Valentine's Day running through her mind. So much made sense then, and Opal knew her thought about her money was right. Tag had mentioned it then, and Opal could see the price tag of her dress. Anyone with eyes could've seen it, even without knowing the numbers, and Tag wasn't a stupid man.

Oh, and she wanted a few acres of her brother's land? No problem. Let me write you a check. Oh, and hire a general contractor and start building within the week.

Yes, money could open doors and do things for people, and Opal hadn't held back from using its power. Tag had seen all of that, and she'd bet everything she had that he'd written something about her money—and his…lack of money?—in his notebook.

"He's not poor," Opal whispered to herself, and it didn't matter to her if he was. But her money probably scared him. "Maybe," she said. She wasn't exactly sure what he felt about it, because he hadn't said so.

What had he said on Valentine's Day? I'm worried I'm not enough to hold your attention.

As if she needed him to be more than who he was. "Maybe that's it," she mused. No matter what, it was something, or he wouldn't have said he'd worked through everything on his own.

A fact and a statement she hated. She didn't want him suffering on his own, trying to find exits he maybe didn't need to find. "I wish I'd pressed the issue with him," she muttered.

Or maybe she didn't. Tag hadn't been super keen to let her lecture him or back him into a corner today. Frustration and loneliness filled her, and Opal honestly didn't know what to do. She wanted to call Tag again, but she didn't want to interrupt his time with his brothers.

"Time you didn't even know he needed." She heard the bitterness in her own voice, and she felt the way her throat closed in around her windpipe.

Then, as if God had flipped on a light switch, her thoughts changed. She shifted baby Spencer a little bit so she could reach her phone, and then she started texting with one hand. She had people she could ask about this. Her momma. Molly, who'd married a billionaire, and Cord who had too.

"Jane," she whispered. Surely a man marrying a female billionaire would be harder than a woman doing it, and the revelations coming to Opal made her heartbeat quake with every pulse. She quickly sent Jane quite a blunt text, hoping her cousin was on her phone right this moment.

"Please don't let my money be the reason Tag and I can't be together," she prayed. "Dear God, I will give up every penny to be with him. Help me to know what to say, or not say, and to let him have the voice he wants to have."

Jane responded to her question about whether Cord had had an issue with her money with the worst answer possible: It was a thing, yes. Why? Is Tag upset?

Opal wasn't sure if Tag was upset, and that was worse than knowing the answer to her cousin's question. But in an attempt for her to be more prepared for the conversation, she texted Jane back. I don't know if he's upset or not. But it's a conversation we need to have. How did you handle it with Cord?

And then she kept praying that when she finally got to Tag, she'd know what to say and what not to say, what to do and what not to do. Because she'd put off meeting and dating a man like him for far too long, and she didn't want to lose him. She couldn't add him—and the family she wanted—to her list of things she'd lost or delayed because of her previous life choices.

She simply couldn't.