Talking After Midnight. Dakota Cassidy

ignored. “You could if you didn’t know what it was like to have one.”

      “So I gather the Call Girls are your family now? You all seem pretty tight.”

      There were times when she was almost afraid to acknowledge how she felt about them out loud. To say it was to throw it out into the universe and take the chance the universe would strike back.

      If you didn’t tell anyone you cared about something almost more than you cared about breathing, it wouldn’t tempt the Fates to snatch it away. She kept her feelings about Em and the girls on the inside. “They’re the closest thing to family I’ve ever had.”

      For all the years spent wondering what it was like to belong—really belong somewhere—she’d found that in the least likely place of all, and whether they knew it or not, she clung to their friendships. In silence, while she treasured them in ways she hoped they felt rather than heard.

      She didn’t want these friendships taken away when it had taken thirty years to find them. Tag had the ability to obliterate the only real thing she had, and he didn’t even know it.

      She faked looking at a watch that didn’t exist on her wrist, pulling her other hand from his. Without looking at him, she rose to her feet, brushing the dead leaves from her torn jeans. “My break’s almost over. I have to go.”

      Tag was up and on his feet, his large frame looming above her. “So I bet you don’t want to do this again, huh?”

      Yes, she did. No. She wouldn’t. “I’m not dating.”

      Tag tipped her chin up and smiled, his white teeth gleaming against his sun-weathered skin. “But you are eating. You need your energy for all that oohing and aahing.”

      Walk away now, Marybell. “Does what I do for a living bother you?”

      “Nope. I won’t tell you it’s not a little weird to know you—”

      “Get guys off over the phone?” Maybe if she was crude, he’d go away. He had to go away.

      Tag didn’t miss a beat. “Okay, if you want to put it that way. Then, yeah. But that’s not something that’d scare me off.”

      What would scare him off? If her outlandish makeup and hair didn’t do it, surely her job was cause to rethink pursuing her.

      Tag gripped her shoulders. “Is that what you want? To scare me off?”

      That’s what she should want, but she wanted that far less than she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and kiss him again the way he’d kissed her last night. Taking a step back and out of his reach, she kept her tone indifferent. “I want to go back to work.”

      Tag latched his fingers together and held them out, hitching his sharp jaw at her office window. “You want a lift?”

      She laughed, even though she knew she shouldn’t. Marybell pointed to the path that led back around to the front of the guesthouse. “I’ll take the long way. Thanks for dinner. G’night, Tag.” She made her way along the cobbled path, passing the neatly manicured topiaries with twinkling lights on them, her chest heavy and tight.

      It was time to find a new escape route to avoid Tag.

      “G’night, Marybell,” he called after her, his deep voice swirling in her ears.

      Goodbye, Tag.