23. Jack
Jack
Feels Like Home by Parmalee
I ’m stacking hay when I hear boots stomping across the barn floor like a woman on a mission. I look up to find Jenna. And she doesn't look happy.
"Jack Jessop," she barks, hands on her hips, sunglasses still on despite the dim light. "We need to talk. Now."
I sigh, wiping sweat from my brow with the edge of my shirt. "Can it wait? I've got about twenty bales left before?—"
"Nope." She marches in, eyes blazing. "This isn't about hay. This is about you trying to kill the entire damn show."
I stare at her. "Excuse me?"
She yanks off her sunglasses, revealing fury in a pair of green eyes that match my own. "Are you trying to ruin the show on purpose, or are you just being a monumental ass? Because either way, I need to know so I can figure out what to do next."
My jaw clenches. "You coming out here just to insult me, Jenna, or did you actually have a valid reason? "
"Oh, I have a reason." She steps closer, jabbing her finger in my chest. "You and Cami are circling each other like you want to rip each other's clothes off, and then in the next breath, you're snapping at her in front of the cameras like a jealous ex-boyfriend.
You're confusing the hell out of viewers, scaring off the contestants, and making the producers consider scrapping the show altogether because it's not working. "
I take a step back, trying to keep my temper in check. "I'm doing my best, Jenna."
"Yeah, well your best is going to get this thrown out and then we won't get paid," Jenna snaps. "You agreed to do it. You knew what this was. And you're supposed to be building a connection with the contestants, not pining over Cami.”
"I'm not pining."
She laughs, but it's sharp and humorless. "Jack. You have insane chemistry with Cami. It's not just obvious. It's blinding. Every time she's around, you look like you're trying not to kiss her or murder her. Sometimes both. And she's not any better. You two are a walking romantic disaster."
I turn away, gripping the edge of a stall. My shoulders and chest are tight. I don’t want to talk about this. Not with her. Not with anyone.
Jenna keeps going, obviously unable to read the room. "If you're going to destroy things, could you at least wait until after the damn show is done filming? Because right now, you're about to take the whole thing down with you."
I spin around. "This isn't just a show to me!"
She blinks. "What?"
"This is my life, Jenna." My voice rises, unsteady with the emotion burning through me.
"It might be some flashy reality TV for the world, but for me?
This is my home. My name. Our family's legacy. And yeah, it's messy. And yeah, Cami gets under my skin. But I’m not acting. I’m not pretending to care about a woman that I don't have genuine feelings for a show. I can’t. "
"Then why did you agree to do this if you were just going to fall apart every time Cami's around?"
"Because I thought I could handle it!"
The barn falls quiet. Dust motes float in the sunlight slanting through the high windows. I run a hand through my hair, breathing hard.
"I thought I could keep it together. That I could fake it just long enough to save the ranch, play along, do what was needed." I look over at her, eyes wild. "But every time I look at her, I can't breathe. I can't think."
Jenna folds her arms. "Then admit it. To her. Stop letting it eat you alive."
My chest heaves. My hands curl into fists at my sides.
She softens. “Jack, you’re my brother first. Sure, this show is my career, but I love you. And I love Cami. I want you to be happy.”
And then the words are out before I could stop them. "I love her."
Silence crashes down. I stare at Jenna, my heart racing like I just ran ten miles.
"I love her," I say it again, quieter this time, but no less fierce.
"God, I love her so much it makes me sick.
My whole life, it's been shit up until now.
I've just been trying to hold the pieces together.
And then she walks back into it like a damn dream, and I can't wake up. I don't want to wake up. I want her."
Jenna opens her mouth. Closes it. "Well. Shit."
I laugh bitterly, scrubbing a hand over my face. "Yeah. That about covers it."
"Does she know?"
"I can't tell her this. I can't risk hurting her," I say and then quieter, "What if I'm like Dad? What if I mess it up? "
Jenna steps closer, her voice softer now. "First of all, you are nothing like him. And second, you can't keep pretending like you're okay. It's leaking out in every scene. Every look. Every sharp word. She's not the only one you're hurting. You're hurting yourself."
I look away. "I don't know how to stop."
"You don’t have to stop," Jenna says. "You just have to wait it out. Play the game. We’ve got a few weeks left of filming.
You make it through that, and then you can tell her everything.
Hell, shout it from the mountaintops if you want.
But if you crash and burn before then, we lose it all.
You, her, the show. The whole thing goes down in flames with you. "
The weight of it all presses on my chest. The cameras. The legacy. Cami. Always Cami.
"I don't know if I deserve her," I murmur.
Jenna nods slowly. "I get that. We don't really deserve anything, do we? We just work our asses off and be thankful for what we are lucky enough to have."
I shrug, "I'm sorry. I don't mean to mess things up with the show. I know how hard you’ve worked on everything."
Jenna softens. "Okay, then just hold on. Just a little longer. Don’t ruin your own ending."
I close my eyes, feeling the truth of it settle like a stone in my gut. I want Cami. I want forever with her. But if there’s any chance at that, I have to survive the next few weeks without blowing it all to hell.
When I open my eyes, Jenna watches me with something that looks a lot like sympathy.
"You're not a bad guy, Jack," she says quietly. "You're just in love. And it’s messy. And maybe it doesn’t fit in a tidy reality TV package. But if you love her, really love her, then you find a way to make it work. After."
I nod. My voice is hoarse. " After."
She gives me one last look, then turns to leave. Just before stepping out into the sunlight, she pauses. "For what it's worth," she says over her shoulder, "I'm rooting for you two. ... try not to mess it up."
I give a huff of laughter. "No promises."
I lean against the stall door, the heat of the afternoon bearing down, the scent of hay thick in the air.
I love her. And for the first time since this whole thing started, I said it out loud. Just not to her. Maybe that is the beginning of everything. And Jenna is right. I just need to hold on until this is over.
I wake up gasping.
Sweat soaks the inside of the sleeping bag, my T-shirt clings to my chest like I ran ten miles in a thunderstorm. My heart is pounding, breath ragged. I lie there, staring at the cracked ceiling of my best friend’s childhood bedroom, trying to remember what the hell I’d just been dreaming about.
But the images are already slipping through my fingers like dust. Just fear. Pressure. Shadows. My dad’s voice maybe. Or mine, twisted into something colder. I can’t be sure.
What I do know is this, I can’t go back to sleep.
I kick off the sleeping bag, peel off my shirt off, and swing my legs over the side of the makeshift mattress like it hasn’t been three hours since I crawled into this miserable nest of polyester.
The old floor creaks under my weight as I move through the dark.
I grab clean clothes from my bag and step into the hallway, and creep toward the bathroom, trying not to wake Cami.
The water takes a full minute to get hot. Long enough for me to stare at myself in the mirror, jaw tight, eyes shadowed, and wonder, how the hell did I end up back here? In the one place that I ran from and now I’m back trying to save.
And the answer has always been for her. For Cami.
When the steam finally rises around me, I step under the spray and let it wash away the sweat, the nightmare, and the ache in my chest I can’t name.
By the time I step outside, the sky is still pitch black. Not even a hint of dawn yet. Crickets are still humming. A breeze tugs at the hem of my hoodie as I walked across the quiet ranch yard, headed for the barn like muscle memory.
I don’t need the light to find my way. The barn door groans as I pull it open, but the horses don’t stir. They sense it’s me. Trust me. I move between stalls with practiced ease—grabbing a pitchfork, tossing hay, checking hooves, murmuring greetings under my breath.
The smell of fresh hay and saddle soap ground me in a way nothing else does. The rhythm of it, the clatter of grain in the buckets, the warm huff of breath from a chestnut gelding, the scrape of my boots on concrete. This is what makes sense. Not some reality show. Out here, things are simple.
And maybe that’s what hit me so hard when I started staying at Wilder Ranch.
It feels different. It’s built differently.
Cami’s parents didn’t live up to what her grandparents had as a legacy.
It’s not the same with them gone. But the roots of Wilder Ranch are still here, and right now they feel stronger than the Jessop Ranch roots.
Wilder Ranch has heart. You can feel it in the way Cami keeps fighting for it like it’s stitched into her bones. This place was built on love. The Jessop Ranch was built on expectations. On image. Or whatever my dad thought was important at the time.
I lean against one of the stalls, running a hand through my still-damp hair, breathing deep .
The quiet feels good. Better than it has in days.
Until I see the soft light in the kitchen window turn on, I realize she hasn’t seen me.
Her back is to the window, long hair tumbling in soft waves down her shoulders, falling over the straps of a faded tank top.
There’s a sleepy sway to her movements as she reaches up for a mug and flicks on the coffee maker like it’s muscle memory. Her routine.
I remain completely still, like any movement would shatter the moment.
She’s beautiful. Not just because of the way she looks, which is dangerous this early in the morning, especially in those shorts, but because of the way she exists. Soft, fierce, completely unaware of the way she lights up the dark without even trying.
I shouldn’t want her like this. Not when I’m still figuring out how to untangle myself from my father’s shadow.
But God, I want her anyway. Not her ranch, just her. I care about Wilder Ranch. But I love her.
And maybe my sister was right. I am scared. Maybe I’ve been hiding behind good intentions and timing and all the crap that made me feel like I was doing the “right” thing. But I’ve been too chicken shit to do anything about it and say something. I’m afraid I’ll mess it all up.
But nothing about standing out here in the dark, watching her start her day, feels like I could do this every day. I don’t want to live without her.
She stretches her arms up, back arching, and I make a strangled sound so loud that my horse side-eyes me.
I should look away. I don’t. Because even from out here, even in the shadows, I know what she is. She’s everything to me.
I’m so damn tired. Tired of smiling for the cameras. Tired of being someone I’m not. Tired of pretending like I hadn’t fallen headfirst, heart-deep in love with Cami.
All I can think about is the look on Jenna’s face when I told her I loved Cami. It had come out like a roar. Explosive. Raw. And maybe I needed that moment to stop holding it all in. But now it echoes in my mind.
I love her. God, I love her. And she has no idea.
I can tell my sister. I can tell Ollie. Hell, I can scream it into the Wyoming wind.
But somehow if I look Cami in the eye and say it, it feels like there’s a chance she might not love me back the same.
I need to be the man that she can be proud of and trust. I’m trying desperately to be that man for her.
I’m a damn coward. I hate that I can fight my way back to Bridger Falls from the lowest points of my life, rebuild a ranch from ashes, take blow after blow to my reputation, but when it comes to her? My throat closes up. My heart panics.
I’m afraid. Afraid she won’t love me back. Afraid I’ll ruin the one good, wild, honest thing I’ve ever had. Afraid she’ll see my dad when she looks at me.
That last one sticks a little more than the others. I press my hand against my chest, trying to ease the weight of it.
Every day, I try to prove I’m not him. That I’m not the man who wrecked our family name, who lied and cheated and dragged the Jessop legacy through the mud.
But sometimes I catch my own reflection and see the same shadows in my eyes.
That shadows that fight. But deep down in my gut I know that we fight for different things.
I fight for the people I love, and my father fought for his own gain.
Cami has every reason not to trust me. And still, she let me in. A little. Enough to crack me open.
And now here I am, aching for her.
Not just her body, though, hell, the want for her claws under my skin like wildfire, but her laugh and her stubbornness. The way she fights for what she loves. The way she challenges me to be better, every damn day and everyone around her .
She’s the only thing that feels real to me right now. This show might save the ranch, but Cami? She saved me .
Just a few weeks left of filming and pretending I’m not already hers in every way that matters. Jenna said to wait. After the show, I can tell her everything. But that feels like forever. Like asking a drowning man to hold his breath just a little longer.
But I will. Because she’s worth it. All the ache. The fear. The waiting.
I’ll survive this, somehow. I’ll fight my way through it, just like I have everything else. Because if there was one thing I know for certain in this whole damn mess, it was this:
Cami is the only future I want. And I’ll wait as long as it takes to have it.