Chapter 14
Wyatt
The Cedar Ridge Annual Charity Trail Ride is supposed to bring the community together.
Twenty-five dollars gets you a horse ride, a barbecue lunch, and the chance to pretend we all get along for one afternoon.
The money goes to the volunteer fire department, so everyone shows up, even families who’d rather set each other on fire than share oxygen. Or water rights.
I’m adjusting my horse’s girth, making sure she’s comfortable, when I spot Callie across the staging area.
She’s on that paint mare she loves, the one with the attitude problem that rivals Rita’s.
She’s wearing jeans that make her ass look incredible and a blue shirt that’s definitely not accidental.
She knows we’re here. She knows we’re looking.
This is psychological warfare disguised as a day in the country.
Jesse sees her too. “There she is.”
“Leave it,” I tell him.
“I’m just saying she looks good.”
“And I’m saying leave it. She’s been dodging us, asking for some time. Take the hint.”
“Since when do we take hints?” Boone mutters from his horse. “We’re McCoys. We’re incapable of reading the room.”
He’s not wrong, but pushing Callie is not going to work. She’s got that specific Thompson stubbornness that treats pressure the same way Rita treats rules. As suggestions for other people.
Jesse’s waving her over, because Jesse thinks his dick is magic and can solve any problem. For a second, I think she might head our way. She starts to turn her horse in our direction, and there’s something in her expression that might be interest.
Then Mr. Thompson materializes with two ranch hands who look ready to tackle anyone who gets within spitting distance of his daughter. They position themselves on either side of Callie, bodyguards in cowboy hats who probably got hazard pay for this assignment.
“Subtle,” Boone observes. “Really playing it cool there, Mr. Thompson.”
“Trade ya!” Jesse calls out to Callie’s dad, loud enough for half the county to hear. “One of yours for one of ours. We’ll throw in Boone’s horse as a bonus.”
The crowd loves it. People stop pretending to check their saddles to watch openly. Phones appear because this is the content Cedar Ridge lives for. Yup, Thompson-McCoy drama with a side of sexual tension.
Mr. Thompson’s face turns the color of raw beef. “Over my dead body!”
“That can be arranged,” Jesse shoots back, still grinning but with an edge that suggests he’s only half joking.
“Jesse,” I warn, but he’s on a roll.
“What? I’m being friendly. Neighborly even. Just trying to make a deal.”
“The only deal you’ll get is my boot up your—” Hank starts.
“Dad!” Callie cuts him off, her voice carrying that sharp edge I’ve heard her use on Rita. “Stop. Just... stop.”
The crowd’s eating this up. Someone’s definitely livestreaming. I can already see the Facebook posts. “McCoy-Thompson Showdown at Charity Ride!” Complete with poorly spelled commentary and too many emojis.
Callie says something else to her father I can’t hear, but her expression says everything. She’s pissed. Embarrassed. Done with all of us.
She kicks her horse into motion before the official start, leaving her father and his guard dogs scrambling to catch up. The message is clear. Fuck all of you and your drama.
“Nice job,” I tell Jesse.
“I was trying to help.”
“You were trying to mark territory.”
“It’s called flirting.”
“It’s called making an ass of yourself in front of fifty people.”
“Sixty,” Boone corrects, doing a quick head count. “Plus, whoever’s watching the livestream. There is a livestream, right?” He checks his phone.
The trail ride officially starts, and we fall in with the crowd heading into the canyon. The Thompsons stay clustered at the front, Callie surrounded by ranch hands who look ready to form a human shield if any McCoy gets within ten feet.
“This is out of control,” Jesse complains after the first mile. “We’ve been… naked with her. And now we can’t even say hi?”
“Pretty much,” I confirm.
“That’s backwards.”
“That’s Cedar Ridge.”
We ride in frustrated silence for a while.
The canyon is showing off today, all red rock walls catching the morning light, cottonwoods turning gold along the creek, water running clear and cold over smooth stones.
The kind of scenery that should make everything better but doesn’t because Callie’s fifty yards ahead and acting like she doesn’t know us.
What the fuck?
“Remember last Tuesday?” Boone says suddenly. “In the barn? When she did that thing with her—”
“We remember,” I cut him off, because I definitely remember and don’t need the visual right now, not while riding a horse.
“I’m just saying, how does someone go from that to this in a week?”
“Fear,” Jesse says. “Pure, Thompson-branded fear.”
“Maybe she came to her senses,” I suggest. “Realized three McCoys was two and a half too many.”
“Bullshit. She loved it. Loved us.”
“She loved fucking us,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there though?” Boone asks. “Because the way she looked that night, the way she said our names—”
“Still just sex,” I say, because someone needs to be realistic here. “Good sex. Great sex. But sex nonetheless.”
Jesse turns in his saddle to look at me. “You don’t believe that.”
I don’t, but admitting it means admitting we lost something real, not just a convenient arrangement. And that hurts worse.
At the lunch stop, everyone dismounts near a grove of cottonwoods by the creek.
The volunteers have set up tables with barbecue that looks incredible and homemade beans that definitely come from someone’s old family recipe.
People spread out in carefully maintained groups with Thompsons here, McCoys there, and everyone else scattered about trying not to take sides.
Callie’s momentarily alone. Her father’s arguing with the trail boss about something that requires a lot of hand gestures and raised voices. Her bodyguards have wandered off to get food, probably figuring she’s safe for thirty seconds. She is not.
I shouldn’t go to her. Should respect the distance she’s created, the clear “fuck off” energy she’s been projecting all morning.
But I’m already walking toward her because I might be a masochist who likes rejection with a side of public humiliation.
She’s standing by the creek, watching the water with the focus of someone trying very hard not to notice someone approaching.
“Callie.”
She doesn’t turn around. “Wyatt.”
“We need to talk.”
“Not right now.”
“Jesse didn’t mean—”
“Yes, he did.” She turns to face me, and there’s something tired in her expression. Not sad, not broken, just tired. “He meant every word. Just the way my dad meant every word. Just the way this whole town means it when they treat us as their personal entertainment.”
“You’re not entertainment to us.”
“No? Then what am I? Your dirty little secret? Your rebellion against daddy? Your Thompson trophy?”
The accusations sting because there’s enough truth in them to hurt. “You’re Callie.”
She laughs, but it’s sharp. “Right. Callie. The girl you wouldn’t have looked at twice if my last name was Smith.”
“That’s not—”
“Isn’t it? Be honest, Wyatt. If I was just some other girl, would any of you have pursued me? Or was the fact that I’m forbidden fruit the whole appeal?”
I want to argue, but she’s not entirely wrong.
The feud, the tension, the thrill of breaking rules, sure it was part of the attraction.
Would we have noticed her without it? Maybe.
Probably. But would we have pursued her this hard?
That’s the question I can’t answer. Or don’t want to. I’m not sure which.
“See?” she says, reading my silence perfectly. “That’s what I thought.”
“It might have started that way—”
“It started with convenient proximity and sexual frustration. Let’s not pretend it was some grand romance.”
“Hey the same could be said of you. Flaunting it in Dad’s face, that sort of thing. Besides, it was becoming something. It wasn’t just booty calls.”
“No? Were we all really good at fooling ourselves because the sex was fantastic and the drama was addicting?”
She wraps her arms around herself despite the warm afternoon. “I’ve been thinking about it all week. What we actually have versus what we pretend we have. And honestly? We have great sexual chemistry and not much else.”
“That’s not true.”
“Name one real conversation we’ve had. One that wasn’t about the feud or our families or sneaking around or sex.”
I try to think of one. There have been moments, laughing at Rita’s antics, quiet mornings with coffee, Jesse making her smile, but actual deep conversations? The kind that build relationships? We’ve been too busy navigating drama and taking off clothes.
“Exactly,” she says, reading my face. “We don’t know each other.
We know each other’s bodies, sure. I know Jesse curves slightly left and you have that scar on your hip and Boone makes that sound right before he…
but I don’t know your middle names. Your favorite movies.
What you wanted to be when you were kids. ”
“We can learn—”
“While the whole town watches? While Madison posts photos and makes everything a competition? While our fathers try to kill each other at every opportunity?” She shakes her head. “I found out my dad’s dating Mrs. Delaney.”
I blink, processing that bomb. “The town gossip? That Mrs. Delaney?”
“Yes, that one. Which means even our private moments aren’t private. She knows everything. Probably tells her book club. ‘Did you hear Callie Thompson’s sleeping with all three McCoy boys? Pass the wine and judgment.’”
“That’s not our fault.”
“No, but it’s our reality. And I’m tired of it. Tired of being pulled in different directions. Tired of being the town scandal. Tired of good sex not being enough to make up for everything else.”
She starts to walk past me, then stops. “For what it’s worth, the sex really was fantastic. But that’s all it was.”
“You don’t mean that.”