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.
11
Callie
Rita’s eatena pack of gum, foil paper and all. I’m guessing she thought it was jewelry based on the way she was prancing around with it hanging from her mouth like she’d committed another crime.
“You’re going to die one day from this behavior,” I tell her as I haul her toward the Cedar Ridge Veterinary Clinic. “And I’m going to feel bad for about five minutes before I get a normal pet. Like a fish. Fish don’t eat foil. Fish have dignity. Fish don’t cost me three hundred dollars every time they see something shiny.”
Rita bleats in response, which could be disagreement, intestinal distress, or her planning her next dietary disaster. With Rita, it’s always multiple choice where all the answers lead to veterinary bills.
The parking lot’s absolutely packed because it’s the first Tuesday of the month, the day Dr. Meyer does hissupply runs and every rancher in three counties shows up to stock up on vaccines, antibiotics, and all the other things that keep their animals alive. The chaos is impressive even by Cedar Ridge standards. There’s the old guy from the bowling alley wrestling his ancient mutt out of his truck while the dog acts like he’s being taken to his execution. Mrs. Rodriguez has her prize-winning barn cat in a carrier that sounds like it contains a small, angry demon. And Tommy Burke’s got his arms full of roosters because of course he does.
“Why roosters, Tommy?” I ask as I pass.
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered, Callie.”
Fair enough. In Cedar Ridge, sometimes ignorance isn’t just bliss, it’s self-preservation.
I’m trying to navigate Rita around a massive truck that’s taking up three parking spaces when I nearly collide with another one pulling in like they forgot how to use their brakes.
The McCoy truck. Of course. My stomach does that flutter thing it’s been doing lately whenever I see the brothers, like butterflies, if butterflies were on fire and possibly drunk. It’s only been two days since our last... encounter... and my body’s still humming from it. Every time I move, I remember exactly where they touched me, kissed me, held me. It’s extremely inconvenient when I’m trying to do normal things like exist in public without blushing.
Wyatt’s driving with that focused intensity he brings to everything, as if parallel parking requires the same concentration as defusing a bomb. Jesse’s messing with the radio because he’s incapable of listening to one songall the way through. And Boone’s in the back laughing at something on his phone, probably a video of someone falling off something because that’s his brand of humor.
Jesse spots me first and his whole face lights up in a way that makes my chest tight. Not tight in a bad way, tight in a “oh no, I really like these idiots” way.
“Well, well. Look what the goat dragged in.”
“Pretty sure I’m the one doing the dragging,” I say, trying not to grin too wide as Rita attempts to dislocate my shoulder in her struggle to reach the guys.
“What’d she eat this time?” Wyatt asks, climbing. There’s something in his eyes when he looks at me, a warmth that makes me remember exactly how his hands felt on my skin last time I saw him. How he said my name when he… nope, not thinking about that in a vet clinic parking lot.
“Gum, foil wrappers and all,” I say. “I’m thinking she thought it was jewelry. She has expensive taste for someone who sleeps in hay.”
“I’ve always admired manifesting abundance,” Boone says, already crouching to greet Rita. “Good girl. Always aim high. Even if high is just shiny garbage.”
“Don’t encourage her criminal behavior.”
“It’s not criminal, it’s entrepreneurial,” Jesse argues, moving closer, so close I have to make fists to keep from touching him. “She saw an opportunity and took it.”
“The opportunity to need veterinary intervention?”
“The opportunity for attention. Look, it worked. Here we all are, focused entirely on her. She’s basically a genius.”
He’s standing close enough now that our arms brush,and even that simple contact sends heat through me. God, I’ve got it bad. Two days, and I’m already touch-starved like some Victorian maiden who’s just discovered her clitoris.
