Chapter 3

Opal had not come outside to kiss Tag. Or maybe she had. All she'd known was that he'd left early, before she'd had a chance to finish their conversation from his cabin. The one her brother had interrupted, and neither of them had been able to get back to.

Now, however, that she'd tasted this man's lips, she couldn't let go. She'd never been kissed so tenderly. So hesitantly and yet so absolutely surely.

She didn't know how to stop, and everything melted away. The cold. The urgency to get back inside before someone came looking for her at her own party. All of it.

The only thing that existed was Tag, and the magical way he cared for her.

In the end, she couldn't get the strength to pull back. He did it, and he took in a long breath as he continued to hold her face in his hands. Then he pulled her against his chest, and Opal had never fit so well against another person.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, and Opal's eyes fluttered open. "I shouldn't have…." He cleared his throat. "I just want to get a date on the calendar. I didn't mean to kiss you before we've even gone out."

"I don't mind," Opal murmured. "It's not like we're strangers." She lifted her head and looked at him. "Dinner tomorrow?"

"Yeah," he said, his eyes so dark in the shadows. "Dinner tomorrow sounds good. I'll, uh, call around and find somewhere nice."

"I don't care where we eat," Opal said. She had once, maybe. She'd wanted to be picked up by a man in a suit, his woodsy, crisp cologne stinging her nose. She loved fancy dresses, and wearing dark red lipstick, and eating in nice steakhouses.

But that life hadn't suited her, and Opal knew it now. "I like tacos," she said. "And those fast-casual pizzas where you can make your own, and buffalo wings." She gave him a smile, which he handsomely returned.

"I can't take a woman like you for wings on our first date," Tag said with plenty of conviction, though his voice couldn't travel more than a few feet. "I may not have been out with anyone in a while, but I know better than that."

"How long?" Opal asked.

"Opal?" someone called behind her, and it sounded dangerously like Molly. Maybe Gerty. Maybe Britt. No matter who, Opal stepped out of Tag's embrace and said, "We'll talk tomorrow night."

"Yeah," he said, and Opal turned to head back to the farmhouse. "Yep." His voice echoed behind her, and she rushed up the steps to the kitchen, where Molly held the door.

"There you are," she said. "Sorry, I hope I wasn't interrupting." She looked into the darkness where Opal had come from, but when Opal turned back and looked, she couldn't see anything. Surely Molly couldn't either.

"Nothing to interrupt," Opal said, though that wasn't quite true. Everyone seemed to know about her crush on Tag—probably because she'd told them. She didn't mind them knowing, but she didn't want to talk about Tag right now.

"Did you get a date on the calendar?" Molly asked as she pulled the door closed behind them. In the warmth of the kitchen, Opal shrugged out of her brother's coat.

She beamed at Molly. "Tomorrow night, but I'm not talking about it, okay? Can we just go back to the party and pretend I just had to run to the bathroom?" She gave Molly a bright smile. "Please?"

"Depends," Molly said as she picked up another plastic cup with celery, carrot, and cucumber sticks. The ranch dressing had been poured inside too, and she swirled a carrot around in it.

"On?"

"On if you're going to text out how the date went," Molly said. "Gerty'll want to know, I'm sure. Jane. Maybe even Britt."

"Did you text out details of your dates with Hunter when you two started dating?"

Molly opened her mouth as if to say yes, then promptly shut it.

"Exactly," Opal said, turning her back on Molly. "I'll tell everyone I have a date with Tag tomorrow night. I will only share what I feel appropriate to share."

"Fair enough," Molly said as she came up beside her. They took in the dining room and living room, where people still milled about, chatting and laughing. The presents and birthday cake were long over, and Opal smiled at her loved ones.

"It was a great party," Opal said.

"Yes," Molly said. "The Hammonds do know how to put on a great party."

The following morning, Opal practically bounced into the kitchen on her toes. "Good morning," she said to Gerty, who stood at the kitchen sink, washing out one of West's bottles.

Gerty looked over to her, her expression cool. "Is it?"

"Yes," Opal said with a smile. "It is. I'm sure you've heard, but I'm going to dinner with Tag tonight."

Gerty's eyebrows went up. "I hadn't heard that, actually."

Opal poured herself a cup of coffee and reached for the cream still sitting on the counter. "Are you upset by that?"

"Of course not," Gerty said matter-of-factly. "Both you and Tag are adults. You deserve happiness. Maybe it'll be with each other." She smiled at Opal. "Plus, you two have liked each other for months. Ain't no one—least of all me—can get in the way of that."

"Does Mike know?"

"Why did you think I did?" Gerty asked.

"I texted Jane last night," Opal said. "Molly knows." She shrugged. "I assumed it would make it around all the gossip chains."

"Which is why Mike and I live out here," Gerty said. "We're sort of out all the ‘gossip chains.'" She grinned and turned back to West as the baby babbled and clapped his hands against his highchair tray. "Yeah, you're done, aren't you?"

She went to tend to him while Opal doctored up her coffee and scrambled herself a couple of eggs. Then she joined Gerty in the living room with a plate of breakfast. West cruised around the furniture, banging toys and talking to himself while Gerty simply watched and smiled at everything he did.

Opal knew the feeling, because he was simply the best little boy in the world. She ate in companionable silence, and then asked, "You're still planning on me having him today, right?"

"I was," Gerty said. "But your…ribs…."

"I'm fine," Opal said. "I can lift West."

"He weighs more than a loaf of bread."

"I can play with him on the floor. Change his diaper on the floor. Put him down for a nap on the floor. All of it. We'll be fine here." She set her empty plate aside. "Plus, Carrie can come help if I text her."

"I can come for my own child if you text me," Gerty said.

"Yes, but you're busy with the horses today," Opal said matter-of-factly. "And I know sometimes that work is hard to interrupt."

Gerty wouldn't admit that yes, sometimes it was hard to stop in the middle of a training session. Instead, she lifted her head as if Opal had never dealt with a stubborn person before. She had, including Gerty herself. "I have a call with another horse rescue ranch just after lunch. If you can keep him for three or four hours, I can have Carrie come help this afternoon."

"I'm not broken," Opal said.

"I know." Gerty grinned. "But you're going to need this afternoon to start to plan the Christmas party."

"I—what?"

Gerty gave her a grin that only she thought was funny. "Mike is way too busy to plan the party, and I'm probably going to get a few new horses between now and then."

And you don't do anything.

Gerty didn't say those words, but Opal heard them nonetheless. She'd offered to pay rent for the room she lived in here at the farmhouse, but Mike and Gerty didn't need the money. She helped with the small, simple farm chores, like feeding the barn cats and the chickens. She could muck out a stall—well, she could before the accident where she'd been kicked by a horse.

She'd mowed the lawn during the summer and tended to Gerty's neglected flowerbed. This year, she had plans to try her black thumb at a vegetable garden, because Gerty had a great location for it and had never used it.

"Can I ask for help?" Opal asked.

"I'm sure Carrie or Molly would love to help you plan the Christmas party." Gerty lifted her mug to her mouth and drained the last of her coffee.

"It's just for our branch of Hammonds, though, right?" Opal asked. "Easton and Allison are coming. My parents. Yours and your grandparents. Molly and Hunter aren't coming. Are they?"

"No," Gerty said. "You're right. Just us."

Opal started the guest list in her head. "And Tag?"

"Yes," Gerty said.

"So I could ask him to be on the Christmas party planning committee."

Gerty gave her a wary look, filled with so many words without her actually saying anything. "If I get the horses I want today, I'll probably have to hire someone else. Fill another of those cabins out there."

Opal's eyebrows went up this time. "And you're okay with that?"

Gerty grinned and lifted one bony shoulder. "Mike broke the ice with Tag. I think I could hire someone myself this time, yeah."

"How many horses are you going to get?"

"There's this horse rescue ranch up in Wyoming," she said. "One of the Youngs owns it; I found out about it through Jane, because she knows the guys from Country Quad, and I guess it's one of their sons who owns it. Bryce? Anyway, I'm talking to him today. He's got ‘some horses' that he'd like to relocate." She made air quotes around "some horses," indicating she didn't even know how many.

"I can house five more here with my current arrangements," Gerty said. "But even one or two would be more than Tag and I can handle. We're full-up as it is."

"Right," Opal said. She knew Gerty and Tag both worked full-time on the farm, and there always seemed to be more to do. "Who are you thinking of hiring?"

"I don't know," Gerty said thoughtfully. "I'm going to talk to my uncle Matt. He always knows of good men who need jobs."

"True," Opal said, and she realized that she used to be connected like that too. That people used to look to her for answers. That she used to be respected and revered and capable of more than sitting on the couch and watching a baby play or planning family Christmas parties.

She wallowed there for a moment, and then she let God wash those debilitating thoughts away. I led you here, Opal. You belong here.

Drawing in a deep breath, Opal smiled at Gerty, then looked over to where West sat in the middle of a pile of colored blocks, trying to get them to stick together. "Go get your horse work done. We're fine here. I've already started the guest list in my head, and I can get a meal put together pretty easily. Then it's just activities, and we've always loved caroling."

She smiled again, starting to feel like perhaps she did have a use here. Gerty got up and put her coat on, then her gloves, hat and scarf. She put a cowgirl hat over that and turned back at the kitchen exit. "Thank you, Opal. I don't know what I'd do without you."

"Oh, you'd just take him with you," Opal said with a wave of her hand. "I saw you do that when he was a tiny baby."

"Yeah, but he'd break my back now." Gerty grinned at the two of them, then swept over to West and showered him in kisses as he giggled.

"Mama, Mama, Mama," he said as she put him down.

"Mama loves you," she said. "I'll be back real soon." Then she left the farmhouse, left Opal there with West, left her praying that God would illuminate the next step she needed to take in her life.