27. Jack
Jack
Hurricane by Luke Combs
T he morning after changes everything for me.
I've waited so long for her, and truthfully, I'd have waited for forever. I've always known that she was it for me.Even when I was on a ship halfway around the world, I knew. When I worked on missions and wondered if I’d make it out, it was her I thought of when shit went down. It’s always been her, always will be her.
She’s wrapped around me like she belongs there, her bare legs tangled with mine under the worn, thin quilt, the vanilla scent of her shampoo filling me.
The back porch creaks gently under us as the breeze lifts through the screens.
Sunlight filters through the pine trees, golden and soft.
My arm is under her head. My hand is on her hip.
And somehow, I never want to move again.
I can’t stop thinking about where we go from here.
I told her last night that we'd figure it out together.
I’ve been thinking about my dad, Granger, and Jace.
Opposition of what we’re trying to do with the ranch.
About the ghosts I still haven’t faced and the fact that if I’m going to build something real with this ranch, with Cami, then I can’t keep running from the past. I have to face things and put the things in the past behind me.
I kiss the crown of her head, then take a deep breath. "I think I should go see him."
She shifts against me, groggy. "What?"
"My dad."
Cami goes still. “Really?”
I swallow hard. "Maybe if I go see him in prison, I’ll finally stop feeling like he's going to come back and ruin everything again. Maybe I’ll get some closure."
And I can try to find out who is messing with the ranches. Because I have a feeling he’s behind it and there are even more snakes around in plain sight I haven’t figured out yet. Granger isn’t smart enough to be doing what he’s doing alone.
She props her chin on my chest, studying me. Her eyes are still sleepy, but alert. "I'll go with you."
My gut clenches. "No."
She blinks. "No?"
I shift, propping myself up slightly. "I want to protect you from him. From that place. From what he can still do to me if he has access to you."
She lets out a low laugh. "Jack, I don’t need protecting. If you want to be with me, be a team with me. I can handle it. We can handle it. We can handle anything together."
God, she means it. I can see it in her eyes—the fire, the steadiness, the fierce loyalty.
It hits me all at once: she’s not just my partner on paper.
She's my anchor. She's my shelter from storms. And I am hers. We always have been, even when we had years apart. She still had my heart even when she didn’t know it .
I look at her, my chest tight, my throat thick. I nod slowly. "Yeah. You can go with me, baby."
"Baby?" she teases.
I kiss her head and pull her to me again. "Yeah, baby."
We sit like that for a while. Talking quietly. She teases me about my morning breath. I tell her she drools when she sleeps. She doesn’t deny it. And in that soft, early light, with nothing but our honesty between us, I almost feel like I can do anything. Like facing him won’t break me.
After checking on the visiting hours, we take off and drive in silence most of the way, the sound of the tires on the highway filling up all the space between us.
Cami’s hand rests lightly on my thigh, a steady rhythm that keeps me grounded.
I keep glancing over at her, half-waiting for her to change her mind, to tell me she doesn’t want to do this. She doesn’t.
She sits there, strong and solid, her other hand gripping her coffee like it's a weapon. Occasionally, she hums along to the country music I barely have turned up, but mostly we sit in it—the quiet, the nerves, the unspoken.
I remember the last time I saw my dad. It was about six months ago.
He'd just been sentenced. I sat in that courtroom and listened to him blame everyone but himself: the judge, the neighbors, even us kids. He looked over at me and told me that I didn’t have what it took to be a real man. He said I was weak.
I knew he was a piece of shit long before that day. That day, his consequences caught up to him. Consequences that are his and his alone.
The prison looms like a ghost of everything I hate. Gray walls. Guard towers. Cold air. The smell of iron and regret clings to the place like a second skin.
I look over at her. Cami doesn’t flinch.She squeezes my hand as we go through security, like she can feel the storm raging inside of me. And the more anxious I get, the calmer she seems to get. Which feels right. Cami has always been mine.
And then we’re there. In the visiting room. Sitting at the cold metal table. Waiting.
Jack Jessop, Sr. shuffles in like he owns the place, even in his gray and white jumpsuit. His blond hair is short and thinner with more gray in it, but his green eyes are just as sharp. And just as mean.
He looks at me and smirks. "Well, well. Look who finally grew a pair."
I stare at him, not responding. Cami’s hand tightens in mine under the table.
"Didn’t think you’d come, boy ," he says with a mean edge to his voice as he enunciates the word boy. "Let alone bring a Kendrick." He practically spits out that last part, clearly unhappy that she's here.
Cami bristles but stays quiet. Her gaze is neutral, and her body is calm, which calms me down. But what I really want to do is reach across the metal table and punch him. But that's what he wants. He wants anger and strife. And today I'm here for me. Not to give him what he wants.
“I bought Wilder Ranch," I tell him. "I’m rebuilding it alongside Jessop Ranch. The right way."
“Well, well, well.” He laughs. It’s harsh and cruel. "The right way? Don’t make me laugh. You don’t know the first thing about running a ranch. You were never smart enough to run it like a businessman. Always trying to play cowboy like it was some fairytale."
I feel my jaw lock. My hand curls into a fist in my lap. Cami watches him and still gives nothing away with her facial expressions.
But it dawns on me that he didn’t show an ounce of surprise when I told him that I bought Wilder Ranch. He already knew. Which means someone told him.
He leans forward, eyes gleaming. "You think you’re better than me? You’re not. You’ll screw it up, and you'll screw up Wilder, too. And when it happens, you'll lose everything even worse than I did."
Cami speaks then, her voice low but fierce. "He is better than you."
My dad’s eyes narrow, and he bites out, "Careful, sweetheart."
"Or what?" she asks, her voice steel.
Anger surges through me. But I let him talk. Maybe he’ll slip up and say something.
I want to punch him. For all the times I was a kid bracing for a slap or a punch that never came in public, but always later. And I grew to expect it.
He keeps going. "I see the way you're looking at her. Like she fixes you. Like you're worth something. You ain't worth shit, boy. And one day, she'll realize it too. She'll be long gone."
I lean forward, elbows on the table, the air between us thick with heat and history. My teeth grit so hard I feel it in my molars. “Enough.”
My voice is low, steady but sharp enough to cut through concrete. I’ve let him talk too long. I’ve let him exist in this space too long. This meeting? It was never about hearing him out. It was about confirming what I already knew. That he hasn’t changed. That he won’t change.
I shift my gaze to Cami. She catches it immediately and gives me the smallest nod like we’re synced up, like she already knew the second we sat down what this would be.
But she doesn’t stand yet. Instead, she turns her full attention on my father. And the air changes.
The fire in her eyes is ice-cold. The kind of cold that burns. Her voice, when she speaks, is calm. Controlled. But it’s laced with so much power it makes my skin prickle.
“You know,” she says, tilting her head like she’s talking to a particularly dumb child, “for a man who’s spent a lifetime burning things down, you sure do act like the ashes should still love you. Newsflash…they don’t. Nobody thinks of you anymore. They’re all better off without you.”
My father’s smug grin falters, just slightly. Not much, but enough. Enough to make my chest swell.
She leans in a little, arms crossed, unflinching.
“Jack’s the best man I’ve ever known. And it’s not because of you, it’s in spite of you.
You’ll never get to take credit for the man he is or pretend your poison didn’t cost him more than most people could survive.
He’s standing on the scars that you gave him. ”
She keeps going. God, I love her so much.
“And if you ever think about using that voice towards him again, the one that drips with disappointment like you have any high ground, I swear to God, I will make sure you regret it. And I won’t even have to raise my voice to do it.”
My father tries to laugh. It comes out brittle, like it’s caught in his throat.
Cami smiles. Not warm. Not kind. Just a warning with lipstick.
Then she looks to me, her expression softening the second her eyes meet mine. “Let’s go.”
I push back my chair, heart pounding—not from rage anymore, but something else entirely. Something closer to awe.
She turns and leans into him and says something I can’t hear, but I see his face tense up, and he grips the table, his cuffs clattering.
She puts her hand in mine. We walk out without another word.
Outside, I slump against the seat in my truck, relieved that is over.
Cami watches me, arms crossed."You okay?"
I shake my head. "No. I thought I’d feel better. I feel worse. Like he had access to you, and he poisoned us.”
Her eyes soften and she lays her hand on mine. “I’m proud of you. You might not feel better, but you did it. And now you know. He didn’t change, and he probably never will.”
"I can't end up like him."
"Look at me. You are nothing like him. Not even close.
He's not even human. He's an animal who deserves to be in the cage that he’s in.
Look at you. There is so much good in you.
So much good," she says as she motions to the prison.
"There's no good in him, anymore. The only good part of him is that he made your brothers, Jenna, and you. "
"Maybe we should slow this down," I blurt, panicked. "Maybe that’s safer. I can’t have him break you. I can’t let him take you from me. He knew I bought your ranch. How could he know that? What if he can still mess with us from prison?"
She blinks. Her face twists like I slapped her.Then she sits back. Cold."You know what, Jack? You don’t get to keep pushing me away and pulling me back in. I can’t keep letting you do that. I don’t have space in my life for another man who decides to come and go as he pleases.”
"Cami—"
Oh, shit. Just what I was afraid of. Messing this up between us. Again.
She turns and faces forward. Not saying another word. "Take me home."
She stares out the window the entire ride home. Her silence is worse than yelling. Worse than anything.
When we get back to the Wilder Ranch, she doesn’t come inside, instead she gets in her truck and leaves without saying a word.
I wait. I call. Nothing.
Hours pass. The sun starts to dip low. I clean the barn. I feed the horses and Love. I pace until my legs ache.
I pace the yard, petting Love and wondering how the hell I’m going to fix this.
I call Violet.
“Hey, have you by chance seen Cami?” I ask, trying to be calm, but my heart is racing.
"Yeah," she says. "She’s here. She asked to stay at the cabin. And Jack? Don’t you dare come over here unless you’re ready to fix this."
I drive straight there.
She’s standing on the porch of the little guest cabin behind Violet’s place, arms crossed, fury glowing just under the surface when she sees me pull up. But she doesn’t look surprised.
"Cami. Come home,” I plead.
She lifts her chin. "I don’t have a home, Jack. Just one I share with a business partner and landlord."
The words cut deep. I deserve it.
I climb the steps, stopping just in front of her. "I didn’t mean it. I was scared. That man, he breaks things. He’s broken me for most of my life. And the thought of him doing the same to you, I can’t take it."
Her eyes glisten. But she doesn’t move. "You said you wanted to protect me," she says. "But all you do is push me away."
"Because I love you too damn much." My voice shakes as I tell her.
Her eyes get glassier, and she sucks in a shocked breath. Her body tenses as she stares at me.
"I love you so much it makes me stupid. Makes me say things I don’t mean because I just want to keep you safe. But it doesn’t work. It just hurts you. And me. And I’m so sorry."
She steps forward, tears brimming. "Then stop keeping me at arm's length. Let me stand beside you and fight the fire with you. Not behind you."
I take her face in my hands, heart hammering. "I’m sorry. For all of it. For not being stronger. For not believing in us and leaving before. I won’t do it again. Come home with me. Please. Baby, please come home."
She closes her eyes.And then she nods.
Relieved, I grab her and pull her in for a hug and kiss her lips softly. “I love you so much, Wilder.”
She nods, tears in her eyes, “I love you, too.”
I press my forehead to hers. “Let’s go home and make up.”
She shakes and laughs, “Okay.”
“Cami? What did you say to him when we left the prison?”
She looks me in the eye and says, “I told him he’d never know his grandchildren.”
The world tilts, and I swear, I forget how to breathe. Because in that one sentence, sharp as barbed wire and quiet as a prayer, she just handed me the truth of everything I’ve ever wanted.
Not just her. But us. A future and a family. And the truth is, there’s nothing I want more.