Chapter 10 #2
“Three thousand going once,” the mayor says. “Going twice... Sold! To Wyatt McCoy for three thousand dollars!”
The applause is scattered and confused. People don’t know whether to be scandalized or impressed. Mrs. Delaney looks like she might faint.
Wyatt walks up to collect his pie. He picks it up off the table, walks directly to Callie, and hands it to her.
“Yours,” he says quietly, but his voice carries in the silent room.
“I can’t,” she protests. “You paid—”
“It was always yours,” he says simply, then walks back to his seat.
Callie stands there holding her pie, tears in her eyes, while the town watches. Then she does something nobody expects. She starts laughing.
“Three thousand dollars,” she says, loud enough for everyone to hear. “You three spent three thousand dollars on a pie I made from grocery store apples and a recipe I got off the internet.”
“Worth it,” I call out.
“Worth every penny just to see you blush,” Boone adds.
“Worth more,” Wyatt says quietly.
The room doesn’t know what to do with this. The Thompson girl and the McCoy boys, being... whatever this is in front of everyone. Mrs. Patterson starts crying, though whether from romance or scandal, nobody can tell.
“Well,” the mayor says, clearly flustered. “That was... eventful. Moving on to Mrs. Patterson’s raisin pie...”
But nobody’s paying attention anymore. They’re all watching Callie walk toward us, still carrying her three-thousand-dollar pie, her chin up and a smile on her face that makes my chest tight.
“I can’t believe you guys. You’re out of control,” she tells us when she reaches our corner.
“Probably,” I agree.
“Definitely,” Boone says.
“Obviously,” Wyatt adds.
“Thank you,” she says simply.
And right there, in front of the entire town, she stands on her tiptoes and kisses Wyatt on the cheek. Then Boone. Then me.
The room explodes.
We end up at the creek again because it’s the only place in town where we can be together without people staring and whispering, or getting the stink eye from our families. Callie’s pie sits between us, four forks attacking it directly from the dish because we’re classy like that.
“Three thousand dollars,” Callie says for the hundredth time. “That’s rent money. That’s a used car. That’s—”
“A bargain,” Wyatt interrupts. “For what we got.”
“What did you get?”
“This,” Boone says, gesturing at all of us sitting together. “The town knowing. No more hiding.”
“We weren’t exactly hiding before,” Callie points out.
“We weren’t exactly public either,” I counter.
She takes another bite of pie, considering. “So what now? Now that everyone knows?”
“Now we figure it out,” Wyatt says.
“Figure what out?”
“Everything. How this works. How we work.”
“Do we work?” she asks, and there’s something vulnerable in her voice.
“We’re here, aren’t we?” Boone says. “All of us. Together.”
“That doesn’t mean it works. That just means we’re stubborn. And optimistic.”
“Same thing sometimes,” I tell her.
We eat in comfortable silence for a while, the sun setting over the hills and turning everything gold. Rita’s tied to a tree nearby, occasionally bleating her anger at being left out of the pie eating.
“You know what would really piss everyone off?” Boone says suddenly.
“What?” Callie asks warily.
“If we combined the ranches.”
The words hang in the air for a moment.
“That’s...” Wyatt starts.
“Never gonna work,” Callie says.
“Think about it though,” Boone continues, warming to his theme. “Thompson-McCoy Ranch. Or McCoy-Thompson. Whatever.”
“We could brand the cattle with something really obnoxious,” I suggest. “Like a heart.”
“Or Callie’s initials,” Boone adds.
“CT?” Callie laughs. “That’s terrible.”
“CMT,” I correct. “Callie Marie Thompson.”
“How do you know my middle name?”
“Small town. Everyone knows everything.”
“Then we could do CMTJWB,” Boone suggests. “All our initials.”
“That’s not a brand, that’s an eye chart,” Wyatt says, but he’s almost smiling.
“We could just do a goat,” Callie suggests. “Really lean into the whole thing.”
“Rita would be so proud,” I agree.
“She’d probably eat the branding iron,” Wyatt points out.
“True.”
We’re all laughing now, throwing out increasingly ridiculous suggestions for theoretical ranch combinations. It’s silly and impossible and completely impractical, but sitting here together, it doesn’t feel that far-fetched.
“You know,” Callie says quietly, “my mom would have loved this.”
“Yeah?” I ask.
“She always said the feud was ludicrous. That life was too short to waste on old grudges. She would have thought this was hilarious. Three McCoy boys and a Thompson girl eating pie by a creek, planning to overthrow decades of tradition.”
“We’re not overthrowing anything,” Wyatt says carefully.
“Aren’t we?” She looks around at all of us. “Aren’t we kind of demolishing everything our families built their identities on?”
“Maybe it needs demolishing,” Boone suggests.
“I think you’re on to something,” she agrees.
She’s smiling now, this soft, genuine smile that makes her whole face light up. She’s beautiful always, but when she smiles like that, really smiles, she takes my breath away.
Corny to say that, but fuck it.
“What?” she asks, catching me staring.
“Nothing. Well... you look happy.”
“I am happy,” she says, sounding surprised. “That’s weird, right? My reputation’s trashed, my dad may stop speaking to me, the whole town thinks I’m scandalous, and I’m happy.”
“Why?” Wyatt asks.
She looks at each of us in turn, then shrugs. “Because this feels right. Probably doomed, but right.”
“Doomed is a strong word,” I protest.
“Realistic,” she says with a shrug.
“Pessimistic,” Boone adds.
“Can we just call it an accurate word and move on?” Wyatt asks.
“No,” Callie says. “Because I’m tired of being accurate. I’m tired of being realistic. I’m tired of doing what’s expected.”
“What do you want to do instead?” I ask.
She grins, and it’s wicked and wonderful. “Everything we’re not supposed to.”
“That’s a long list,” Wyatt points out.
“Good thing we have time,” she says.
“Do we?” Boone asks.
“We have right now,” she says simply. “That’s enough.”
She’s right. Sitting here by the creek, sharing a three-thousand-dollar pie, planning impossible futures, right now is enough. More than enough.
“Hey,” she says suddenly. “Thank you. For the auction. For the statement. For... all of it.”
“You already thanked us,” I remind her.
“I’m thanking you again. Deal with it.”
“Bossy,” Wyatt observes.
“You love it,” she shoots back without thinking, then freezes. “I mean—”
“We do,” Boone says simply. “We love it.”
The word hangs in the air. Love. It’s too soon for that, way too soon.
Or not.
We walk Callie home as the sun sets, all four of us moving slowly because none of us wants the day to end. She’s carrying what’s left of her pie, Rita trotting beside her, and there’s something about the picture that makes my chest tight.
“Your dad’s probably waiting with an AK-47,” Boone says cheerfully.
“He doesn’t own an AK-47,” Callie says.
“He might have bought one specifically for this occasion,” I suggest.
“That would require him leaving the house and facing everyone in town, so probably not.”
“What if he ordered one from ?” I ask.
She shrugs. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
We reach the property line, that invisible border that’s supposed to separate us but hasn’t done a damn thing these past few days.
“This is where we leave you,” Wyatt says formally.
“Unless you want company,” Boone adds.
“My dad would explode. Like, actually combust.”
“That would solve several problems,” I point out.
“Jesse!” She swats at me, laughing.
“What? I’m just being practical.”
“You’ve never been practical.”
“I’m perfectly practical.”
“You’re perfectly practically delusional.”
“Same thing.”
“Today was so much fun,” she says. “Thank you.”
“Stop thanking us,” Wyatt says.
“Make me,” she challenges.
So I do. I kiss her right there at the property line, with the sun setting and the goat watching and my brothers rolling their eyes. She melts into me, her free hand tangling in my shirt, and for a moment, everything else disappears.
When we break apart, she’s flushed and breathing hard.
“Unfair,” she protests weakly.
“All’s fair in love and—” Boone starts.
“Don’t finish that sentence,” Wyatt warns.
“I was going to say pie auctions.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“No, I wasn’t.”
Callie kisses each of my brothers goodbye too, quick pecks that still manage to feel significant. Then she heads toward her house, Rita beside her, the pie tin catching the last of the light.
“Think this can work?” Boone asks quietly once she’s out of earshot.
“Define work,” Wyatt says.
“Last more than a month. Not end in complete disaster. Maybe turn into something real.”
“It’s already real,” I say, watching Callie’s silhouette disappear into her house.
“Real complicated,” Wyatt mutters.
“Best things usually are,” I tell him.
We stand there for a while, the three of us watching the Thompson house like idiots, probably looking about as pathetic as we feel.
“We should go,” Wyatt says.
“Probably,” I agree.
“Definitely,” Boone adds.
None of us moves.
“We’ve got it bad,” Boone observes.
“Shut up,” Wyatt and I say in unison.
But he’s right. We’ve got it bad. All three of us, completely gone for a girl who gives her goat creek baths and can’t make pie without googling recipes and kisses us at property lines despite everything that says she shouldn’t.
“Worth it though,” I say.
“Yeah,” Wyatt says. “Worth it.”
We head back to our place as darkness falls. The house feels too quiet without her laughter, too empty without Rita trying to eat something she shouldn’t.
“Think she knows?” Boone asks.
“Knows what?”
“How far gone we are. How much she matters.”
“She knows,” Wyatt says with certainty.
“How can you be sure?”
“Because kissed us in front of the whole town. You don’t do that unless you know. Unless you feel it too.”
It’s strange to hear Wyatt so optimistic about anything.
But I have to say that today. for the first time since this whole thing started, I’m thinking something could come of it, too.
The odds are against us but hell, I’ve never walked away from a challenge.
That’s not how the McCoys handle their shit.
I fall asleep thinking about Callie’s smile when Wyatt handed her that pie. About the way she laughed at the creek. About how she looked walking home in the sunset, glowing and happy.
And ours.
Maybe this could work.
Maybe we could rewrite the rules.
Maybe three cowboys and a Thompson girl with a crazy goat could get their happy ending.
Stranger things have happened in Cedar Ridge.
Though honestly, I can’t think of any.