The Rancher Kissed the Wrong Girl (Billionaires of Evergreen, Texas #14)

Chapter One

MOM: Jose wants me to go to Mexico with him and I just HAD to say yes lol. But dont worry I already made arrangements for the summer ok?

Huh.

That’s new. The only times my mom makes plans in advance are when she asks me what I want for dinner, and it’s usually a choice between two types of leftovers.

Cami’s side, on the other hand, looks like a boutique had a baby with a Pinterest board.

Shopping bags from stores I’ve never set foot in are stacked three deep beside her dresser.

Her vanity mirror is framed with photos of her and various boyfriends, all of whom are terribly rich and even more terribly good-looking.

She also cheerfully admits to cycling through them with the efficiency of someone who treats dating the way most people treat subscription services.

Some are just good for a three-day deal, to be revisited only when they offer something hot and new.

Cami’s clothes take up not just her closet but half of mine.

No beef, though; she very cheerfully offered to pay rent for additional space after seeing what little I had, and I was just as cheerful in accepting.

We may be polar opposites, my roommate and I, but our friendship is also proof that honesty when negotiating is everything.

Everything that I know about Cami is something she’s admitted herself. My mom, she’s just as honest. But whereas Cami’s comes off as charmingly self-aware, my mom’s version of being true to one’s self is the kind that forces everyone around her to be the adult—and her own kids are no exception.

Case in point: this message of hers that has me taking deep, calm breaths with every line I read.

Mom: I texted Icelle—

Oh God, here we go again.

Mom: and she said you can totally stay with her fam for the summer!! You guys can just ride back together when school starts. It’s going to be SO fun!!!

Three exclamation marks. My mother only uses three exclamation marks when she’s already mentally on the plane to wherever her latest boyfriend is taking her and she needs me to not make a fuss about being left behind.

I lower my phone to my lap and stare at the wall across from me.

There’s a hairline crack that runs from the ceiling down to the light switch, and I’ve been tracing it with my eyes since freshman orientation, imagining it as a tiny fault line that will one day split the building in half and swallow this room and everything in it, which, in my case, would amount to one suitcase’s worth of stuff and a laundry schedule.

Cami’s side would probably survive. Her faux-fur throw alone has enough structural integrity to shield a small village.

Why do I even try? Why try making friends when there’s always my own mother to scare them all away?

And the worst thing about it is that she never sees anything wrong in what she does.

Like the time she called Daphne to ask if we were friends, and when Daphne said yes, she then asked with zero shame if Daphne could ask her mom to pay for our rent because—

A knock on the door cuts my thoughts off. Before I can even say “come in,” the handle is already turning, and the next thing I know, Icelle is walking into my room with the kind of calm, purposeful stride that makes people in hallways instinctively step aside for her, and—

Wait.

Icelle?

Did Mom lie?

What if she really did text Icelle, but my friend hasn’t read Mom’s message yet?

Is that why Icelle hasn’t blacklisted me yet?

“What are you doing here?” I demand.

Icelle only looks at me with her RBF. As in, resting bitch face, which I asked about the first time we met. And in case you still haven’t figured this out by now about me—I am very, very big on honesty.

“Why aren’t you dressed?”

This is so typical of Icelle. She tends to answer every question with another question because she thinks her face already says it all.

I’ve tried my best to convince her otherwise, but she still believes that her RBF is supposed to be enough for all of us poor mortals.

Icelle may have the kind of face that can launch a thousand ships—but anyone relying on her for direction is better off buying an emotional compass, and. ..here we go again.

Why are all the ladies in my life so uniquely stubborn?

Icelle grabs one of my duffel bags and starts shoving clothes into it without saying a word.

I jump to my feet, and we end up playing tug-of-war with my favorite shirt. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Helping you pack, what else?”

Pack?

For what?

“Did you not get my mom’s text?” That’s the only reason I can think of for Icelle to still be here when she should be running in the opposite direction.

Not a single friendship of mine has ever survived the moment my mother enters the picture.

She doesn’t just burn bridges. She salts the earth, paves over the ashes, and then asks the person on the other side if they can lend her money for gas.

“Of course I did.”

“And?” This is so, so like Icelle, with how she’s still diligently working on packing my clothes even as I’m just as diligent in undoing everything she does.

She throws something in, I throw something out. I can be stubborn, too, you know.

...

Okay, I give up.

I’m clearly not as stubborn as Icelle or my mom because we’ve already been doing this for five minutes, and I have never been the patient type.

“Stop this!”

As expected, Icelle looks at me with her RBF, but no, no, no, I am not letting her get away with it this time.

“You have to explain yourself,” I insist. “You say you got Mom’s text, but did you read it?”

Icelle’s beautiful blank face finally cracks. Admittedly, it’s the tiniest crack, but it’s enough. I think she’s exasperated. Or annoyed. Hard to tell the difference when you’re only working with a millimeter’s worth of emotions.

“Why are you being so silly about this?”

I can tell she feels strongly about this. She’s even shaking her head as she says the words, which for Icelle is as good as a yell.

But honestly?

I’m tempted to shake my head back at her because she’s the silly one, not me. How can she not see it’s the height of silliness—no, actually, let’s call a spade a spade here. It’s not just silliness but sheer stupidity to stay friends with me, now that she knows what Mom’s capable of.

They’ve never met, for God’s sake. And yet my mother didn’t see anything wrong in texting Icelle without my permission and guilt-tripping her into taking me as her plus one, also without my permission.

Even worse, I’m pretty sure Mom used the same act she uses with everyone: she has this really good way of speaking and looking like she’s old money but has fallen on hard times through no fault of her own.

It always works, too. Gets everyone to bend backwards for her.

But you can only fool people for so long.

The truth always comes out. I’ve tried to make Mom see this, too, but she never listens. Never.

“If you thought your mom’s text is enough to cause trouble between us—” Icelle drops an armful of my shirts onto the bed and turns to face me. “You clearly don’t know me well enough—”

“I don’t need to know anyone to understand how good my mom is at crossing the line.”

“You don’t get it, Ti.” Icelle finally stops packing my clothes and looks at me. “We have more things in common than you think. Because trust me. My mom’s worse.”

“Impossible.”

“How much are you willing to bet?”

Ten minutes later, and it’s official. I owe Icelle a grande-sized latte because she’s actually right. Her mom is worse. As in, arrested-for-trying-to-sell-Icelle’s-V-card kind of worse, and the only reason the news never went public is because of her dad pulling all sorts of strings.

Her dad, who turns out to be a billionaire...and I’m probably the only one in school who didn’t know.

* * * *

IT’S EARLY JUNE, AND the campus is already half-emptied.

The parking lot down the hill is dotted with parents loading up SUVs, goodbye hugs on every sidewalk, a couple of freshmen posing with their arms around each other in front of the Cornwall sign like they’ve just survived a war and not a single year of college.

Watching normal people lead normal lives around me used to make me question my existence, but everything feels different now.

Icelle is the first one to know the worst about my mom, and yet she’s still here.

She’s still my friend. And maybe, if Icelle can accept that part about my life, maybe other people can do so, too?

The possibility makes me feel giddy and terrified all at once, and this has me immediately pushing the thought aside like I always do, with things I can’t fully understand or control.

I’m all for honesty 99% of the time. But when it comes to the 1% type of truths that I don’t know how to process?

I don’t think about it so I can tell myself it doesn’t exist.

So this friendship between Icelle and me that has just gained a new layer of depth? And the subsequent hope it gives me about having a normal life?

Not going to think about it.

For now, I’m just going to enjoy the fact that I have a friend.

Like, a real friend, and not just because we have things in common like having zero interest in dating, social media, and being popular.

In fact, that’s the reason we got to know each other.

During freshman orientation, we were asked to vote on a number of things like Mr. and Ms. Friendly, Mr. and Ms. Cool, stuff like that.

Icelle and I, with our identical long blond hair and blue eyes, ended up tying for Ms. Barbie Lookalike, and both of us, when approached by the sophomores in private about winning, surprised each other by saying the same thing at the same time:

Thanks, but no thanks.

And that was it. We were friends for life, but now, I guess we can take that up a notch and say we’re best friends forever?

Since the thought has me starting to feel a little sentimental, I think it’s time to redirect my thoughts, like.

..um, the tall trees lining the walkway.

They’re tall and treeish, and behind them are the old stone buildings of Cornwall, which look the way they always do: sturdy and indifferent, like they’ve been watching students come and go for a hundred years and none of it has made a dent.

I’ve spent two semesters here, and even though having Icelle as my friend has changed something inside of me—it’s not enough. When I look around, a part of me still doesn’t feel like it belongs here. Or anywhere else. And I honestly don’t know if that feeling will ever go away.

Icelle leads me toward the front gate, past the library with its tall arched windows that make the whole building look like it’s raising its eyebrows at you, and I’m about to ask her where she parked when I see it.

A limo.

Not a car, not an Uber, but an honest-to-goodness limo, long and black and gleaming at the curb.

The driver is already out, wearing an actual uniform, and he takes my duffel bag with a nod and a “good afternoon” like this is all perfectly normal, and he’s either really nice or really well-trained because his smile doesn’t change at all even though my bag, with its duct-taped patch, is probably the most pathetic piece he’s ever had to handle as driver to the super rich.

From there, it just keeps getting more unreal. The private airfield and the red-carpet-treatment that literally comes with a red carpet, zero crowds and zero noise. The small building that looks more like a country club than an airport, and, sitting at the end of a short runway...

Why am I even surprised at this point?

Of course Icelle’s family would own a private jet.

The stairs are already down when we reach the jet, and a woman in a navy blazer stands at the bottom with a clipboard and a smile, welcoming us like we’re expected guests at a hotel and not two college kids with a combined emotional baggage that could fill this entire runway.

We board, and I have to stop in the doorway because my legs need a moment to process what my eyes are seeing.

The cabin looks nothing like the inside of any plane I’ve ever been on, which admittedly is a sample size of two.

One to Connecticut in September and one back for winter break, both economy, both middle seats.

This is different. There are armchairs. Actual armchairs, the color of cream, wide enough to curl up in, with the softest leather I’ve ever touched.

And a table between them. As in, the kind you expect to see in a living room, not a freaking airplane, and there’s even a vase with a single white flower—

Huh.

I had to lean forward to check if it’s real, and yup, it so is. Nothing fake or cheap here. Not even the thick dove-grey carpet absorbing the sound of my sneakers. They’re not carpet tiles you can buy from your local hardware.

Icelle slides into her seat the way she does everything.

Without fuss, without looking around, without giving any indication that this is remarkable in any way.

She buckles herself in and pulls out her phone, and I realize this is just how she gets places.

The limo, the airfield, the jet. For Icelle, this is Tuesday.

I sit down across from her. The leather is incredibly soft, and the seat is wide enough that I could tuck my legs up if I wanted to. One of the cabin crew glances at me from the galley entrance, and I can tell she’s noticed I’m not exactly a regular.

Icelle only looks at me once the seatbelt sign goes off and Connecticut is shrinking beneath us. “Don’t bottle it in, Ti. Just get it all out so we can enjoy the rest of the flight.”

I was planning to bottle it in, but since she’s now making it sound like I’m such a saint for wanting to do that, and being saintly means being weak in my book...

“Please tell me you didn’t let my mom know how rich you are?”

Icelle gives me a two-second look.

“I need subtitles for that one.”

“Go to sleep. I think it’s been a long day for you.”

I want to argue about that, but she’s already closed her eyes, and honestly? It has been a rather long day, and the hum of the engines is already pulling me under, so...

Yeah. I think I’ll just take a nap.

It’s my last thought before my eyes get heavy, and I’m not sure how much time has passed, but when I open my eyes again, Icelle is gone...and there’s the most ridiculously good-looking man seated across me instead.