21. Jack
Jack
Don’t Mind If I do by Ella Langley, Riley Green
C ami stands twenty feet away, looking like the damn poster girl for a hot cowgirl rancher.
She’s covered in dirt, sweat, and what I think is a smudge of dust across her cheek.
Her braid’s falling out, her boots are caked with mud, and she’s laughing at something Ollie says as they tag-team another calf like they’ve been doing this together for years. Which, okay, they kind of have.
At the Wilder Ranch, the town would all pitch in.
Growing up, our ranches did not co-mingle.
My father forbid us to step foot on Wilder Ranch property after a big falling out at some point.
And he sure as hell didn't ask the town for any help on his own ranch.
He had wranglers for that. But the Wilder Ranch was always more about community and the town coming together to help out.
And I always wished we'd had that at the Jessop Ranch. And now seeing it happen? That fills me with hope. Hope that we’re turning this around and making this ranch the way it should be: a place that serves the community with good products and is helpful to our neighbors.
Cami and I have never worked together.Sure, we were secret friends as Cami and Ollie were with all of us.
Not until everything changed.Not until Dad was gone.
But it always had to be done in secret because our parents didn’t like each other.
Cami’s grandparents were another story. They were very special people.
When I was little, they were very kind to me and my siblings. I never forgot that.
The ranch feels different now. Better...
lighter. Like we stopped holding our breath.
It doesn’t feel like we’re constantly waiting for the next boot to drop.
Tucker laughs more. Weston actually shows up .
Jenna comes back to the ranch, even if it means dragging a damn reality show here.
And me? I’m... hell, I’m kissing Cami Wilder against barn walls like I’m a teenager again and desperate for just one more minute with her.
Because, well I am. I’ve wanted to kiss Cami again since we were teenagers.
I’ve always wanted to redo that day that I broke her heart.
That kiss. Damn.It knocked something loose in me. Something big.She kissed like she wanted to crawl inside my chest and set up camp. And damn, I'd let her. Like she wasdaring me to stop her. And I didn’t. I never could. I've had zero willpower when it comes to her.
And now I can’t stop looking at her.Can’t stop thinking about that kiss...
“Jack!”
The high-pitched voice jerks me back to reality. My date for tonight—Savannah? Hannah? Really need to start writing their names down—is trying to loop her arm through mine while I’m holding a branding iron. Great timing.
“Don’t touch the metal,” I say flatly.
She giggles and says in a flirty voice, “Ooooh, is it hot?”
I stare at her, and she winks. Pretty sure this is for the show, but I can’t tell with them. They’re smart as hell and doing their jobs and doing it well.
Across the field, Mack and Beau work the coffee trailer, serving up coffee and baked goods like it’s the dang Kentucky Derby.
Beau works alongside her, and they seem to be holding down the fort while Cami brands.
We're short-handed since we've been cleaning out the wranglers and hiring new ones. We need all the help we can get.
Walker sidles up next to me, squinting at the horizon. “That Beau seems like a good guy.”
I grunt and clip. “No, he is not.”
He holds one calf for me and says, “You seem pretty bothered by him.”
I glance over at him. “What makes you say that?"
He laughs. "Dude. You look like you want to murder him every time he's near Cami.”
Before I can reply,Jenna stomps by, hair flying, clipboard flapping in the wind.
She stops in front of all but one of the contestants, huddled under a tent like the sun is attacking them and the dirt scares them.
The other one whose name I can’t remember is actually out wrangling, and she looks like she likes it. Damn.
“You want screen time?” she asks the contestants under the tent. “Try doing something. ”
They blink at her like confused baby deer. One of them fans herself with a perfectly manicured hand. Her boots are blindingly white.
“You know,” Walker says, sipping his coffee, “this is the best day we’ve had out here in a long time.”
He’s not wrong.
People showed up. Neighbors. Old friends.
Even Sheriff Matthews brought his wife and a pie.
Which is huge. Usually, my father's trouble brought Sheriff Matthews to the ranch. His coming out here for branding day is a show of support. And that means a lot. There’s music playing from a truck bed, kids running around with stick horses, and someone’s dog has stolen an entire pack of hot dogs off the grill.
Tucker and Weston walk over, both sweaty and grinning like idiots. Weston claps a hand on my shoulder.
“This was a good call,” he says.
“We were just talking about that,” I agree.
“The branding. The people. All of it,” Tucker adds. “We needed this.”
And we did. The ranch doesn’t feel like a place of doom anymore. It feels like it’s ours.
Out in the corral, Cami turns her head and catches me watching her. She doesn’t smile.
She smirks.
That smug, cocky little tilt of her mouth makes me want to throw her over my shoulder and drag her into the nearest horse stall and kiss her again.
Even better, it makes me want to see those lips wrapped around my dick. Fuck. Now I’ve gotta hide a boner while I wield a hot branding iron.
I pull it together and, surprisingly, stay focused on what we're doing.
We end up side-by-side after lunch, working through a batch of calves like we’ve been doing it together our whole lives. We move in sync. Toss banter back and forth like it’s second nature. And I love every minute of it. I like being the one to put that smile on her face.
“Watch it, Jessop,” she says as I nearly trip over her foot. “Wouldn’t want to get branded by mistake.”
“You branding me now? I thought we were taking things slow.” I cock my eyebrow at her .
She doesn’t miss a beat. “Depends where I get to put my initials.”
I almost drop the iron.The cameras are definitely rolling.I don't even care.
I can't stop glancing over at her. She looks beautiful. Wild. Sweaty and flushed and in her element. Ranch life has always been what lights her up. Her eyes are bright, her laughter easy, and she fits here. On this ranch with my brothers, my friends, this town.And with me.
I don’t want the day to end. Not the branding. Not the flirting. Not this strange, perfect peace that’s settled over the ranch like a warm comforting blanket.I glance over at her one more time and think, Damn.
My collar is too damn tight.I don’t know who thought buttoning it all the way up was a good idea, so I'm going to blame Jenna.
She gave me 'The Look' this morning. You know the one. The don’t-you-dare-embarrass-the-family-on-camera look.
It came right after she adjusted my shirt collar like I was five and muttered something about "presentable for television. "
And now I’m on this date, if you can even call it that with Ruby.
She’s been talking nonstop for the last fifteen minutes about the benefits of oat milk instead of cow's milk. Then she went on and on about how she once modeled for a boot brand that didn’t make her touch real dirt, and she was so grateful for that.
She keeps touching me. Light taps on the arm, fake laughs with a hand on my knee.
I’ve been shifting away for the last ten minutes, and now I’m about a foot off the damn picnic bench.
Meanwhile, my shirt’s stuck to my back, my jaw’s locked from fake smiling, and I’m fantasizing about cattle rustlers riding in to save me.
When she pulls out a compact mirror to reapply lip gloss while I'm trying to explain why we use a squeeze chute, I excuse myself to “check the gate.”
Instead, I head to Kyle and pull him aside. "Kyle, you know Steamy Sips?" I nod to the empty and closed up trailer for the night.
He nods and smiles, "Yeah?"
"I will make sure you get free lattes and muffins for the rest of the show if you get Ruby home safely and tell her goodnight for me," I tell him. “Tell her I didn’t feel well.”
He looks like he's thinking about this for a second and glances at Jenna who is across the pasture, talking to a camera person. Then he looks back at me, "Yeah, sure. Okay..."
I turn and keep walking. And I don't stop. I walk out past the barn. Past the trailer. Past the crowd and the cameras and a few of the contestants doing yoga in their rhinestone jeans.
I walk untilI find myself on Wilder Ranch, straight to the back pasture, far from the crowds and people.
I finally breathe a sigh of relief as I plop down by mine and Cami’s tree,the old cottonwood behind the north pasture.
The one with our initials carved into it from the summer we were sixteen and stupid.
J + C. I sit down in the dirt, arms draped over my knees, and stare at the carving.
I groan. "I hate this show."
"That bad, huh?"
I glance up and find Cami standing there, holding two sweating mason jars of sweet tea. She hands one to me.
"Thanks," I say, cracking it open. "How did you know I was out here?"
She shrugs, dropping down beside me like she belongs there. "You practically ditched your date mid-sentence. "
I huff a laugh. "I thought her name was Ruby. Might’ve been Savannah. I panicked."
"You called her Shania at one point."
"Damn it."
Cami snorts and takes a sip. "To be fair, she called you Jake. That's a new one. I'll call you Jake from now on. At least she was funny about it and teased you back."
I scoff. "Do not call me Jake."
We sit there for a second, quiet except for the low hum of the ranch in the distance, drinking our tea.
"You looked good today," she says after a beat.