Chapter 2
When I was little, I used to dream of wearing fancy dresses.
I wanted to be like one of the ladies who walked by Ma and me where we sat, waiting for a man to come and pick Ma up for the evening, so that in the morning we could buy food.
I didn’t understand then that a girl like me would never be a lady, no matter how fancy the dress.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Flynn said, looking her up and down as if she was a crazy person.
“Is it painful being that much of a cliché?” Jessie could definitely understand why Flynn was reacting this way, but she wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction of pretending she understood, even for a moment.
Because why shouldn’t she be mayor? That was the energy she was carrying herself with.
If there was one thing she had learned at a very early age, it was that you had to fake it until you made it.
You could never show that you were vulnerable, that you cared too much, that your feelings could be hurt.
When she was small, she had wanted nothing more than to be like all the other girls in her class.
She’d wanted to have the same jelly bracelets, and the same kinds of rubber bands in her hair.
She didn’t want to go to school with her mom’s hand-me-downs from the eighties combined with whatever random shit they could pick up at a thrift store.
She hadn’t wanted to bring any friends back home to the collection of campers and trailers where her family lived beside the Wild West Show.
It was like living at a circus combined with a carnival, and although her parents had always been loving, involved people, they had also always been …
unconventional. And for a good long while, Jessie had ached to be normal. To be included.
To get invited to a birthday party at one of the houses in the new gated community in town, where the houses were designed to look like historic homes, but were filled with all the modern conveniences.
Once, she had been invited, and she had been amazed at how organized the house was. How much food was in the pantry.
How much space there was.
And the air-conditioning … Yeah. That had been pretty amazing.
But she must’ve done something to make it weird, because she had never been invited back again.
Her childhood had been crushing humiliation after crushing humiliation. She didn’t like to think about the time her mom had sprayed glitter all over her hair to cover up the fact that she had lice.
Worse than the glitter, which had been weird, was the fact that the front desk lady had been immediately suspicious. And had searched Jessie’s hair.
And then sent her home so she didn’t spread lice to anybody else.
One of the boys had started calling her Contagion after that.
Thinking of it made her skin crawl now, and it wasn’t the memory of the lice that did it.
But middle school had been the turning point. Where she had realized that if she acted perfectly okay with her own company, people would be a lot more interested in her. Interested in figuring out why.
She had started to imitate her dad, who conducted himself with cocksure confidence in all things.
Wearing his fringe jacket, with his handlebar mustache, he was an eccentric.
A cheerful con man. Mind you, the Wild West business was mostly legitimate, but were the games weighted in favor of the house? Maybe.
Still, her dad had a booming voice, grand gestures, and a larger-than-life personality that drew people to him. Even people who would normally avoid folks like the Hancock family were enticed by her father. Against their will, sometimes.
She had started carrying herself the same way. Dressing nothing like anyone else. Walking to the beat of her own drum. And she noticed that the more she didn’t try to fit in, the more people wanted to know why she didn’t care.
And the more she convinced herself she didn’t care, the more confident she became.
Which meant she wasn’t going to respond to Flynn’s shock now. “I’d be great for the job,” she said.
He stared at her. She had the uncomfortable feeling that he was looking down through layers of carefully crafted confidence.
That he could see the Jessie Jane that had come before the one who stood before him now, and she didn’t like his penetrating gaze.
Not one bit. It was one of the many things she didn’t love about Flynn.
Flynn cocked a brow. “I have seen no evidence of that.”
“Because you don’t actually know me, Flynn. You come into my bar—”
“It’s not your bar.”
“Gus and I have an understanding. He doesn’t mind if I hang out and collect bets. It pays the bills.”
“Butch Hancock’s Wild West Show doesn’t pay the bills?”
“Not all of them.”
She had a horrible, tight feeling in her chest as Flynn looked at her. This was the problem. She didn’t care what anyone thought of her. That was a carefully crafted mantra she repeated every day.
She didn’t care. Fuck everyone.
And the more she thought that, the more she carried herself with that air, the better people responded to her. It was the damnedest thing. Caring didn’t get you anywhere. The less hungry she was, the more magnetic, the more charming people found her.
Flynn’s eyes seemed to cut straight through her.
No. She didn’t care what he thought. He sucked.
Well. He didn’t totally suck. She needed his help. And if he totally sucked, she wouldn’t seek out his help. Not at all.
“Trust me on this,” she said. “People like me. They like you. We don’t like each other, but that is one of life’s great mysteries.”
He stared at her still, those uncompromising green eyes making her heart flutter.
Maybe it wasn’t so much a mystery why they didn’t like each other. No. She suppressed that thought.
“Walk me through this,” he said. “Danielle is descended from politically active people in this town.”
“So are you,” she said.
He huffed a laugh. “You know that part of my bloodline has never counted for much of anything. I’m a Wilder through and through.”
“I do know that,” she said. “And here’s what I think: I think the average person in this town is actually tired of the status quo. I think they’re tired of … this narrative. Aren’t you?”
“No. The present narrative gets me laid. That’s actually all I care about, Jessie.”
She ground her teeth together, holding back what she really wanted to say.
Holding back a reply that was going to get them both in trouble.
“Well, I’m tired of it. Danielle is no good, that’s the thing.
She’s petty, and she wastes the town’s money.
She hurt your sister-in-law, she’s hurting my family business with her new anti-noise ordinances, and suggesting a dining tax for people who want to eat here is ridiculous. ”
“Yeah. It is. It’s also a town filled with cowboys and ranchers and people who have nothing to do with the tourism circus.”
“I know,” she said. “But she also wants to gut the historic society, the library, she wants to go back on the plaque changes. It’s not just your outlaw angle that I’m after. You’ve got the rancher angle too. Together we are as local as it gets. And we have a different perspective from Danielle’s.”
“Your family also has a reputation for scamming people. You yourself spend a good amount of time right here, parting fools from their money.”
“A bet is a bet. I also have connections with a lot of people in town.”
“Connections? Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
“Well,” she said, feeling her temper ignite. “Even if that is what the kids are calling it these days, between the two of us …”
“Point taken.”
“Come on. You have nothing to lose.”
“I don’t have to marry you, do I?” he asked. He sounded so horrified by the thought, it was almost funny.
“No. It’s going to start tonight. We’re going to make everybody think that you and I hooked up. And from this point on, we’ll be totally inseparable.”
“That is insane,” he said.
“Maybe. Maybe it is. But maybe it’s genius. We will be the subject of so much gossip, so much gossip. People are going to be fascinated. Everyone knows we don’t like each other. A Wilder and a Hancock? Becoming physically and emotionally intimate? Insanity. Me running for mayor, double insanity.”
He stared at her for a long moment. “I don’t know whether I’m terrified of you or in awe of you, because this is starting to make sense.”
There was that cult leader skill set shining through.
“You know I’m right. People are tired of Danielle and her minions. Hell, half of the town isn’t even going to bother to vote, or they’re going to write in Austin Wilder. Not your brother, the dead one. Because they’re just so bored. So let’s make them not bored.”
“Am I actually helping you execute some evil, maniacal super-villain plan to take over the world?”
She crossed her arms. “Rustler Mountain isn’t the world.”
“Maybe not. But I’m a little bit nervous about helping you ascend to power.”
“I have good intentions. I …” She ignored the strange hitch in her chest. “I care about this town, okay? Or at least I care about my ability to exist here. And what I want to do is going to help preserve small business, and not just small businesses my friends own.”
“And what about the ranchers?”
“You have my ear. If there are town policies that are problematic for ranchers, you let me know. I’ll help.” She smiled, that slow way that men always responded to.
“Why do I feel like I’m making a crossroads deal with a literal demon?”
“You might well be, Flynn Wilder, but if you are, then so am I.”
He seemed to consider that. “All right. So all we have to do is … leave together.”
“Yep.”
“You’re sort of ruining my evening, Jessie.”
“Sorry.”
She noted that he didn’t ask if she was going to make it up to him. The very idea made her feel hot and sweaty and panicky, and those were three things that she never, ever showed.
Jessie Jane Hancock was cool as a cucumber at all times. Completely unflappable.