Wild and Wrangled

Chapter 16 Dusty

Chapter 16

Dusty

The lights were on in the main house on the Wilson property. How did I know that? Because I’d been staring at them for the past hour. That meant she was here—she was moving in. She was going to be one hundred feet away from me for the foreseeable future.

I felt like I should go over there. I wanted to. It was better for us to acknowledge the fact that we would be living this close together sooner than later—right?

I was worried about just showing up, especially if Riley was there. But it’s not like I’d stay. I just wanted to say, “Hey, this isn’t weird”—even though it was weird—and then leave.

That was all.

I looked down at the stack of three wooden cutting boards that my mom had given me the other day. A housewarming gift, she said.

This didn’t have to be a big deal. I’d bring over a gift from my mom. Cam liked my mom. She liked me, too, I think, but I think she hated that she liked me, which was complicated.

I dragged a hand down my face. Get it together, Tucker.

Whatever. I grabbed the cutting boards and went out my front door. It was warm in my little house, so the cold air was a shock to the system.

A good shock. A much-needed shock.

I was just going to go over there, give her the cutting boards, break the metaphorical ice, and then go back home.

When I got to her door, I didn’t even pause. I didn’t want to lose my nerve, so I quickly knocked.

I heard music coming through the walls and onto the porch, but I couldn’t tell what it was. A few seconds later, I heard footsteps making their way toward me. When the door swung open, I had to pretend that I didn’t feel like the wind had just been knocked out of me.

Cam looked perfect in a light blue sweatshirt, black leggings, and a familiar pair of dark gray wool socks that I clocked immediately. I didn’t mind even a little bit that I’d never get them back.

“Oh,” she said, blinking slowly. “Hi.”

“Hey,” I said. “I, um, thought we could get this part over with.”

“What part?”

“You know, the ‘we live on the same property but have spent the last year avoiding each other’ part,” I said. Even though I never avoided her, but it didn’t feel like the right time to bring that up.

Cam nodded slowly. “And what are those?” she asked, nodding toward the stack of wooden cutting boards in my hands.

“Housewarming gifts,” I said. “From my mom,” I added quickly.

“Oh,” she said. “That’s, um, that’s nice.” Cam fiddled with her hands. I looked at them—no engagement ring. I could feel the hope monster climbing up my throat. I really had to get that under control. “Do you—do you want to come in?”

Did I? “Sure,” I said. “Yeah.”

Cam stepped to the side, and I walked into the house. There were boxes and plastic storage bins everywhere.

“Where’s Riley?” I asked—there was no sign of Cam’s mini-me anywhere.

“She’s with her dad tonight,” Cam said as she led me back to the kitchen. “I thought it might be an easier adjustment period if I had everything set up for her when she got here.”

“And how’s that going?” I asked.

Cam huffed a laugh. “Wes and Brooks had to take her bed apart to get it here, and I told them I could put it back together. Plot twist: I can’t.”

“Do you want me to give it a try?” I said. “I’m pretty good with beds.” I didn’t intend to make the joke, but I couldn’t not take the opportunity.

“Shut up,” Cam said, giving my shoulder a little shove. “You don’t have any plans?”

“Just bringing you these cutting boards,” I said, holding them up. Cam took them from me and set them on the kitchen table.

“These are beautiful,” she said. “Like, they would be at least a hundred dollars at Williams-Sonoma. Will you tell Aggie thank you for me?”

I nodded. “Sure thing. She’ll make you a thousand more if you want them.”

“She’s always been so good to me,” Cam said thoughtfully. “She was with me when I found out I was pregnant, you know.”

“She was?” I didn’t know that. I was shocked that Cam had willingly given up that information to me—maybe I caught her at just the right time, or her soft spot for Aggie Tucker made her more forthcoming, or maybe it was the cutting boards; who knew? My mom had never told me. I wished I was there. I wished a lot of things when it came to Cam.

Cam nodded. “I ran into her when I was buying the pregnancy test at the pharmacy. She said she didn’t want me to have to do it alone.”

“She loves you,” I said honestly. From the first time I brought Cam home, my mom thought she was magnificent. I did, too. “So,” I said, “changing the subject—where’s this bed that needs some attention?”

“Back bedroom,” Cam said. “I have a tool kit in there. Do you want a drink or anything? I don’t have much.” She opened the fridge. “Two hard seltzers, three soft seltzers, and two Capri Suns. I need to get groceries before I grab Riley tomorrow.”

“What flavor Capri Sun?” I asked.

“Pacific cooler,” Cam said with a smile.

“Will Riley be mad if I have one?”

“It’ll be our little secret,” Cam responded as she tossed one of the juice pouches over to me. I caught it—thank god. It would have been embarrassing if I hadn’t. Cam grabbed one of the seltzer waters and cracked it open before starting back toward Riley’s bedroom. I followed and tried to keep my attention anywhere but on Cam’s long legs.

The hallway off the living room had two bedrooms and a bathroom. There were boxes in both bedrooms. When we walked into Riley’s room, it looked like a bomb had gone off. All of the pieces of Riley’s four-poster bed were laid flat on the hardwood floor. It was a light wood—probably walnut. It matched the tall dresser, nightstand, and desk. There was a mattress propped up against the wall, too. I could hear a refrain playing from a speaker in here—“You Have Stolen My Heart” by Dashboard Confessional—and for a second, I wasn’t in this bedroom.

I was in the passenger seat of my Bronco. The windows were down, and Cam was driving us down a back road. She’d convinced me to let her drive, and I loved looking at her while she did. We were singing at the top of our lungs to a mix CD that she had made—the first of many.

“…I literally cannot figure out where things go.” Cam’s voice pulled me back to the present. “I should’ve kept the instruction manual. This bag has all of the hardware and stuff in it,” she said, handing me a bag.

“All right, I’ll take care of this part,” I said with a smile. When I made eye contact with Cam, her eyes dropped to my neck—the right side of my neck, specifically—just like they did when we were at Chili’s—like she couldn’t believe I still had it.

I wondered if she still had hers.

“How can I help?” she asked.

“Let me get the lay of the land, and we’ll go from there,” I said.

“So you’re okay if I unpack some of her clothes and stuff?” Cam asked, and I nodded. She walked to the other side of the room, and we both got started on our respective tasks. As far as the bed went, it looked pretty easy to assemble. As far as Cam went, however, I didn’t really know what to do.

I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I still knew her the way I used to, but I wanted to. Know her, I mean—what her life was like now, if she was okay.

“So,” I said, keeping my eyes on my task, “how’s your week been?”

Cam laughed a little. She was sitting on the floor, pulling small clothes out of boxes and folding them. “Honestly, not the worst week of my life,” she said. “Which pretty much tells you all you need to know about my life, I guess.”

“I’d rather you tell me everything about your life,” I said without thinking.

I thought she would clam up and stay quiet, but she didn’t. Instead, she asked, “What do you want to know?”

I wanted to start with the basics—easy stuff that couldn’t trip her up or cause her to stop talking to me. Just like I did back in high school. “Where are you working now?” I already knew, but I was trying to stay in the safe small talk territory.

“I’m a lawyer,” she said. One of the Ashwoods’ approved career paths—doctor, banker, accountant, lawyer. “A firm in Jackson Hole. I shadowed there over the summer before I took the bar again, and when I passed, they hired me as a junior associate.”

“What kind of law do you practice or work with or whatever?”

“Real estate law, mostly,” she said. “I work with estate holdings and stuff, too.”

“Do you like it?”

I heard Cam sigh. “It’s a good job with good people.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I said. “Do you like your job? Do you like being a lawyer?”

“I like understanding the rule of law,” she said. “I like how complex it can be and how many paths there are to different outcomes, but no, I don’t always like my actual job very much.”

“Why not?” I asked.

“Most of the time, it’s pretty boring,” she said. “I didn’t have a lot of options when I graduated from law school and passed the bar because I couldn’t move or take any sort of risk since I had Riley, so I just kind of got stuck doing what was available to me.”

“That’s…kind of a bummer,” I said. “Why don’t you look for something else?”

“It’s fine, most of the time,” she whispered. I almost didn’t hear her. “I like the people, and I like what it gives me.”

“What does it give you?” I asked.

“Security,” she said. “In a lot of ways.” Now that sounded like the remnants of Lillian and Rutherford’s upbringing if I ever heard it. Always so focused on money and outcomes. Even though Cam was now living her own life, based on her new job and how she felt about it, it sounded like she was still following the lines they drew for her. Some things would never change for her.

“What’s your favorite food?” I asked, changing the subject again. I glanced at Cam out of the corner of my eye and saw her shoulders drop slightly. She was skittish—you had to know when to push and when to pull.

“Still tomatoes,” she said, and I laughed. She ate tomatoes like apples—it was the weirdest thing I’d ever seen. “And what’s yours? Still anything blue raspberry flavored? Even though that’s not even a real thing?”

“Yep,” I said. “Blue dye does something to me—what can I say?” Cam shook her head, but she was smiling. “So do you like Bloody Marys now, too? I always thought you’d like those when I saw people order them.”

“I do,” she said. “There’s nothing better than a giant Bloody Mary—with bacon or shrimp and a giant pickle.”

I faked a shudder. “Pickles are gross.”

“Pickles are delicious,” Cam shot back. I smiled, fighting the urge to bring up Cam’s pickle theory. She used to say that any successful relationship had a pickle lover and a pickle hater. She spent our time together stealing the pickles off of every sandwich I ever got at the diner. “So what about you?” she said.

“What about me?” I asked.

“Do you like what you do? Working at Rebel Blue?”

“I love it,” I said honestly. “The Ryders are a good bunch to work for, and it’s the most beautiful place on the planet.” I thought about my conversation with Gus—about how he was offering me a chance and his trust to carve out a piece of Rebel Blue for myself. To make it something even more special. Excitement—and nerves—danced underneath my skin.

“High praise coming from someone who’s been a cowboy all around the world.”

I narrowed my eyes at her. “How do you know where I’ve been?” It was true that I’d been all over doing seasonal work as a cowboy and wrangler, but I didn’t know she was keeping track.

“You hear things,” she said. That was true—especially in Meadowlark. “And social media exists.” I looked over at Cam. She had never followed me online, but sometimes I wondered if she ever scrolled through my page, since the texts I’d get from her always seemed to come after I’d posted something—not that I did that very often. Once I noticed the pattern, I posted just as often as it took to make sure she didn’t completely disappear.

“Have you been keeping tabs on me?” I asked. I tried to sound playful, but I didn’t know if I pulled it off. My heart kicked at my rib cage.

I watched Cam’s cheeks flush. “Not in a creepy way,” she said. “Just in a ‘I wanted to make sure you were alive’ sort of way.” A smile crept up my face, and when Cam looked over at me, she rolled her eyes. “Oh, shut up,” she said. “Like you’ve never done some good ol’ fashioned social stalking.”

She was right, of course, but I didn’t think she wanted to hear about how when I saw she was pregnant, I felt like I got the wind knocked out of me. Or when I saw a picture of her, little Riley, and Gus without the context of their relationship, I nearly fell to my knees.

I was at a small ranch in Montana at the time. That made it worse, I think. Not only because of our history, but because, distance-wise, it was the closest I’d been to her in years, but I’d never felt farther away. By that point, I knew a baby existed, and I knew who her dad was, but that was the first time I’d seen the three of them together. In the picture, they were lying down, and Cam and Gus were each kissing one of Riley’s chubby baby cheeks, and Riley was laughing. She was only a few months old, so she didn’t have a ton of hair, but I could already tell she had Cam’s curls.

All I’d wanted was a glimpse of Cam, and I ended up getting more than I bargained for. I felt like shit for a long time after that. But eventually, I decided I wanted her to be happy, and in the picture, at least, she looked happy. I just didn’t want to hear about it or see it or know anything about her life. The next time she texted me—around the holidays—I didn’t respond.

I didn’t hear from her again until the next summer, on my birthday. By that time, my resolve had weakened. I decided that pieces of her were better than nothing at all, so I responded with a quick “thank you” to her birthday wishes. I remember watching the three dots of her typing pulse for a few seconds before it went away.

“Your social media is on private these days,” I said with a grin. Cam laughed, and I basked in it.

“See, you did it, too,” she responded. “How’s Greer, by the way?”

“She’s good,” I said. “Lives in Alaska. She works for the Forest Service—lives in a tiny cabin, worries about the planet, sends us pictures of giant grizzly bears that freak my mom out.”

“So exactly where she should be, then?” Cam asked, and I nodded. “I’m sure it was hard for your mom when both of you were gone.”

“Yeah,” I said as I positioned a wooden dowel in part of the bed frame, which was almost ready for me to start putting the pieces together and securing them. “She jokes that she drove us away, but I hope she knows we just inherited her love for the big, wide world, you know?

“When I told her I was coming back,” I continued, “she was ecstatic. The first words out of her mouth were something about her baby boy finally coming home or whatever, but the second ones were ‘you’re not living in my house.’?”

Cam laughed again. “So you ended up living in a little house on Anne’s property? Why not stay at Rebel Blue in the staff housing?”

I shrugged. “I’ve lived in staff or seasonal worker housing for upwards of ten years. I was more interested in living somewhere that finally felt like mine, where I could collect more belongings than what fit in a duffel bag or my car—a place I wanted to come home to at the end of the day.”

Cam looked surprised before she glanced down at the clothes she was folding. I was surprised, too, when I found myself longing for home—for something more permanent. In some ways, I thought it meant that I’d finally healed enough to come back here. But when I looked at Cam, I still felt like the nineteen-year-old kid who got his heart obliterated, and I had to fight the urge to run—to run from her. “But how did you end up at Anne’s, of all places?”

“I saw Anne at the grocery store when I was home once a few years ago. She was struggling to reach the loaf of bread she wanted, so I helped,” I explained. “And then I walked around the rest of the grocery store with her to make sure she could get everything. We talked the whole time. She told me how her property was getting hard to manage on her own, with her kids and her grandkids all gone from Meadowlark, and by the time we made it to checkout, she offered me the cabin. I agreed to do anything she needed done around her house or the property for the foreseeable future.” I was leaving a few details out of that story, but they didn’t really matter right now.

“Sounds like a good deal,” Cam said.

“It is.”

“And have you accumulated more belongings?”

“A few—I bought my first mattress, some paperbacks, and a painting from Teddy a few months ago. I’m still working on it—being in one place. It took me six months to put my clothes in the dresser and closet.”

“Well, I don’t even have a mattress or a dresser, so you’re ahead of me there,” Cam said with a shrug.

“What?” I asked.

“I ordered one of those boxed mattresses online—the ones that come shrink-wrapped in a box—but it hasn’t got here yet,” Cam said. I guess that meant that she left all of her furniture behind—maybe it was her fiancé’s? “But luckily I’ve got a few couches to choose from until it does.”

Cam was tall—probably around five-ten—so sleeping on a couch all night wouldn’t be comfortable.

“I’m sorry,” I said, wracking my brain trying to remember if I knew anyone with an extra mattress or bedroom furniture. I could move my mattress here for her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I ordered it when I first got to Gus and Teddy’s, so it should get here soon.”

“How was that?” I asked. “Staying with them.”

“Easy,” she said. “At least for a short period of time.”

“How has it been? Adjusting to a new dynamic with them and Riley?” Gus and Teddy had gotten together earlier this year—shocked the hell out of everyone, except for me, maybe, but I hadn’t observed the legendary days of their hatred for each other. I was more shocked by Brooks and Emmy, honestly.

“Also easy,” Cam said. “Teddy loves Riley so much, and as a parent, it’s really rewarding to watch your kid be showered with the type of love they deserve. Plus, Teddy is so different from Gus or me. She’s creative and less…I don’t know…restricted than both of us. I think it’s good for Riley to have her around.

“Riley has a really good family,” she continued. “The type of family I wish I could have had. When my mother heard about Gus’s new relationship—or ‘that man,’ which is how she likes to refer to him—she made this stupid comment about how Teddy was going to be competition for me in my daughter’s life—like Riley only had room for one maternal figure. I spiraled a little bit for a while. I wondered if my daughter would like…love Teddy more than me, I guess?”

It didn’t surprise me that her thoughts went there. “But she doesn’t,” I said.

“Right,” Cam said. “Maybe it’s because Teddy has been around her entire life, but I don’t think Riley ever had a ‘Teddy is my shiny new toy’ moment, and even if she did, it would’ve been normal. I don’t know.” Cam shook her head. “I feel like people expect it to be hard—adding someone else into the co-parent situation, and maybe it is sometimes, but it hasn’t been for us, yet.”

“And with Greg?” I asked, hating even bringing him up, but I wanted to know—even if it hurt.

“You mean Graham?” Cam asked. She was still smiling at me, so bringing him up didn’t shut her down…yet.

“Whatever,” I said.

“That was different. We weren’t…” She stumbled and paused. “We weren’t what Gus and Teddy are.”

What did that mean? They were engaged. They were going to get married—legally bind themselves to each other. Cam must’ve seen the confusion on my face.

“How’s the bed going?” There was the subject change. Cam didn’t like being pushed, and I wouldn’t push her. I wanted her to keep talking to me for as long as possible.

“Good,” I said, looking down at it. “Come help me put it all together?”

“How much labor does that require?” she asked playfully.

“Lazy ass. All you have to do is hold the pieces together, and I’ll secure them.”

“Fine.” She walked over to me and put her hands on her hips when she stopped next to me. I wished she’d step just a little bit closer, but it would have to do for now.

Five minutes later, we had a finished bed. We lifted the mattress onto it, and Cam grabbed some sheets and a quilt. She started to spread out the fitted sheet—sage green with small flowers all over it—and I took a corner. Same with the top sheet and the quilt, which was a light pink with small, embroidered flowers on it.

“Does Riley like flowers?” I asked.

“Yeah.” Cam nodded. “She and Teddy did a wildflower hunt this summer, and she’s been totally obsessed ever since. Personally, I love that her room always feels like summer now.”

“Still your favorite season?” In my head, I was checking off the boxes of everything I knew about her that still remained true.

“Still my favorite season,” Cam said. Summer, check; tomatoes, check; pickles, check.

When she looked at me, something flashed behind her brown eyes. Neither of us said anything. The only noise was the music from the speaker—“MakeDamnSure” by Taking Back Sunday. Another song from one of our mix CDs. Now that I thought about it, every song I heard was on one of our mix CDs.

Without thinking, I put my hand out, asking her to dance. I watched her face fall and her walls go up.

“I’m sorry,” I said quickly, regret flooding me. “The song…” I trailed off.

“I know,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry,” I said again, swallowing hard. “That’s not what I came over here for. I came over here to check on you, and then if that went well, I was going to ask if you thought we could be friends.”

Cam’s eyes flitted around the room—avoiding mine.

“C’mon, Ash,” I said. “We were always friends before anything else.”

I watched the wheels turn in her head. She bit her bottom lip and fiddled with her fingers again. In real time, I watched her weigh the pros and the cons, and I fought the urge to beg.

Say yes. Please.

“We have always been friends,” she said, and I exhaled. “You’re right.”

“So?” I asked hopefully.

“Friends it is.”