Chapter 10
Jesse
“This is the dumbest thing we’ve done all week,” Wyatt announces, standing knee-deep in the creek with his jeans rolled up and an expression suggesting he’s a man who knows how ridiculous he looks and that he does not care.
“It’s only Tuesday,” I point out. “There’s plenty of time to get dumber.”
“Rita needs a bath,” Callie says defensively, holding her goat’s lead rope while Rita eyes the water, not at all excited about it. “She rolled in something dead yesterday. Something very dead.”
“She smells like someone opened a portal to hell,” Boone says, keeping his distance.
The creek’s running high from last week’s rain, clear and cold and perfect. Rita’s planted all four hooves in the mud, leaning back against her rope with the determination of someone who’s decided a body of moving water is the enemy.
“Come on, Rita,” Callie coaxes. “It’s just water. You drink water. You roll in mud. This is the same thing but more of it.”
Rita bleats. It’s not a friendly sound.
“Maybe if we demonstrate?” I suggest, because apparently, I’ve lost my mind. “Show her it’s safe?”
“Demonstrate?” Callie raises an eyebrow. “You want to demonstrate bathing. To a goat?”
“When you say it like that, no.”
“It sounded weird in your head too, you just didn’t notice,” Boone says.
But I’m already wading deeper into the creek, the cold water reminding me why I’ll never have a goat on our ranch. “See, Rita? Perfectly safe. Refreshing, even.”
Rita watches me with those pupils that make her look vaguely demonic. She’s not impressed.
“Your turn,” I tell Boone. “C’mon. Get in.”
“Why is it my turn?”
“Because I’m wet and misery loves company.”
“That’s not how—”
But Boone doesn’t finish because he’s already launching himself into a cannonball that sends water everywhere. The splash hits all of us, including Rita, who bleats indignantly and tries to bolt. Callie keeps her grip on the rope, but she’s laughing too hard to be effective.
“Boone!” she gasps, water dripping from her hair. “You absolute—”
“Genius?” he suggests, surfacing with a grin.
“That’s not the word I was going for.”
“It should be. Look, Rita’s already wet. Might as well finish the job.”
He’s right. Rita’s soaked from the splash, looking like the world’s most offended goat. She’s given up trying to escape and has moved on to looking personally betrayed.
“Come on, girl,” Callie says, leading her into the shallows. “Let’s get this over with.”
What happens next is twenty minutes of barely controlled pandemonium. Rita discovers she can swim, which no one expected. She paddles around in circles while we try to wash her, which involves a lot of splashing and cursing and Wyatt somehow ending up with shampoo in his mouth.
“Why does it taste like coconut?” he demands, spitting.
“Because it’s infused with coconut oil,” Callie explains. “Rita has sensitive skin.”
“Rita has sensitive everything,” I correct, trying to keep the goat from climbing onto my shoulders. “Including her sense of drama.”
“She gets it from her owner,” Wyatt observes, which earns him a splash from Callie.
The retaliation starts a water fight that quickly devolves into everyone soaked and Rita somehow the cleanest. She’s standing in the shallows, watching us with disdain.
“We’re supposed to be washing the goat,” Callie protests as I drag her underwater.
“We’re multitasking,” I tell her when we surface, her body pressed against mine in the current.
“This isn’t multitasking, this is—”
Whatever she was going to say gets cut off when Boone accidentally slips on a rock and takes Wyatt down with him. They both go down with spectacular flailing, and when they come up, Wyatt’s lost his hat and Boone’s tangled in creek weed.
“Help!” Boone yells dramatically, flailing his arms.
“You’re in three feet of water,” Wyatt points out.
“I’m drowning in three feet of water!”
Callie’s laughing so hard she has to clutch my arm for support. “You’re all ridiculous,” she manages between gasps.
“You’re the one who brought a goat to a creek for a bath,” I remind her.
“It seemed like a good idea at the time.”
“When has anything involving Rita ever been a good idea?”
She considers this. “Fair.”
Rita chooses that moment to demonstrate her swimming skills by paddling directly into the middle of the creek where the current’s strongest. For a moment, we just watch, assuming she knows what she’s doing. Then the current catches her and she starts moving downstream. Fast.
“Rita!” Callie shouts, diving after her.
The next few minutes are a blur of everyone scrambling through the water, trying to catch a determined goat who’s decided to see where the creek goes. Wyatt manages to grab the lead rope just as Rita’s about to round a bend, and we all converge, breathless and soaked.
We finally make it back to shore, waterlogged and exhausted. Rita shakes herself off, sending water flying.
Then she proceeds to roll in the dirt.
“Are you kidding me?” Callie stares at her now mud-covered goat. “We just spent thirty minutes—”
“Forty-five,” Wyatt corrects.
“Forty-five minutes washing you!”
Rita bleats happily and continues rolling.
“Your goat’s broken,” I tell Callie.
“My goat’s perfect,” she sniffs, smiling. “She’s just particular about her beauty routine.”
“Her beauty routine involves smelling like death and being covered in mud?”
“Everyone has their process.”
We sit on the bank, letting the sun dry us off while Rita grazes nearby, occasionally looking around to make sure we’re still there. Callie’s leaning against my shoulder, wet hair dripping on my arm, and there’s something about the moment that feels… important.
“Thanks,” she says quietly.
“For what?”
“For helping with Rita. You didn’t have to.”
“Yeah, we did,” Boone says from where he’s sprawled on the grass. “That’s what you do when you—”
He stops himself.
“When you what?” Callie asks.
“When you’re neighbors,” Wyatt finishes smoothly.
“Right,” Callie says. “Neighbors.”
But she threads her fingers through mine and squeezes once before letting go.
The Cedar Ridge Community Center is packed for the annual charity pie auction, which is about as exciting as it sounds. Everyone who’s anyone in town has shown up, mostly to gossip and watch Mrs. Patterson try to sell her infamous raisin pie that nobody wants but someone always buys out of pity.
Callie’s standing at the registration table, holding a pie like it might explode. She’s wearing a sundress that makes her legs look incredible, and I’m trying very hard not to stare. It’s not working.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she hisses.
“Like what?”
“Like you’re planning something.”
“I’m always planning something.”
“That’s what worries me.”
She sets her pie on the table with the others, a little card in front reading “Apple Crumb, Callie Thompson.” Her hands are shaking slightly.
“Nervous?” I ask.
“Why would I be nervous? It’s just the entire town watching me auction off a pie while they whisper about my recent activities with certain cowboys.”
“Recent activities?” I grin. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
“We’re calling it nothing. We’re especially not calling it anything near Mrs. Delaney.”
Too late. Mrs. Delaney’s already approaching, phone in hand, that gleam in her eye that means she’s about to make our lives harder.
“Callie! Jesse! How wonderful to see you both here. Together. At the same event. Standing very close to each other.”
“We’re three feet apart, Mrs. Delaney,” Callie points out.
“For now,” she says meaningfully, then walks away typing furiously.
“She’s going to turn this into something,” Callie mutters.
“Everything’s something to her.”
The auction starts with the mayor doing his usual speech about community and charity and blah blah blah. Nobody’s listening. They’re all waiting for the drama, which in Cedar Ridge means waiting for the Thompson pie to come up and seeing what the McCoys do about it.
We don’t have to wait long. Callie’s pie is third up, and the tension in the room ratchets immediately.
“Apple crumb pie from Miss Callie Thompson,” the mayor announces. “Let’s start the bidding at ten dollars.”
I raise my paddle before he’s finished talking. “Twenty.”
Every head in the room turns to stare. You could hear a pin drop. Or Mrs. Delaney’s fingers flying across her phone screen.
“Twenty dollars from Jesse McCoy,” the mayor says, clearly trying not to sound shocked. “Do I hear twenty-five?”
“Fifty,” Boone hollers.
“Seventy-five,” I counter.
“One hundred,” Wyatt says from his spot near the back.
The room erupts in whispers. A McCoy bidding on a Thompson pie? Three McCoys bidding on a Thompson pie?
It just isn’t done.
“One hundred fifty,” I say loudly, making sure everyone hears.
“Two hundred,” Boone shouts.
“Three hundred,” Wyatt says, still calm.
Callie’s face is red, and she’s trying to disappear into the floor. I catch her eye and wink, which doesn’t help the blushing situation.
“Five hundred dollars,” I announce.
The gasps are audible. That’s more than most pies go for all night combined.
“Five hundred and seven,” Boone says, because he’s an idiot.
“Six hundred,” Wyatt says.
“One thousand dollars,” I say, and now people are actually standing up to get a better view.
“One thousand and seven,” Boone yells.
“Boone, that’s not how auctions work,” I tell him.
“I’m being specific!”
“You’re being weird!”
“One thousand and eight!” he counters, bidding against himself.
“Two thousand,” Wyatt says, and everyone shuts up.
Two thousand dollars. For a pie. For Callie Thompson’s pie.
The mayor looks between us, his gavel raised. “Two thousand going once... twice...”
“Twenty-five hundred,” I say, because I’m not losing this.
“Three thousand,” Wyatt immediately responds.
We stare at each other across the room, and there’s something happening here that’s about more than pie. This is about claim. About declaration. About showing this entire town that Callie matters to us.