Page 19 of Wild and Wrangled

“You really need to get over that,” Emmy said. “He kissed another girl atjunior homecoming.” Emmy emphasized the last two words of her sentence. “As inhigh school!”

“As your best friend, I will never be getting over that,”Teddy said before she tapped Emmy’s phone screen a few times. The ring tone of an outgoing call filled the room, and Teddy finally gave the phone back to Emmy.

“What do I even say?” Emmy whisper-yelled, but Teddy didn’t have time to answer because a man’s voice picked up the phone.

“Emmy?” Kenny Wyatt’s voice was on the other end.

“Hey, Kenny,” Emmy said calmly. If I couldn’t see her, I would never know that she was giving Teddy the world’s dirtiest looks. “How are you?”

“Uh…good?” I’d never heard a man sound more confused than right now.

“That’s good,” Emmy said, and Teddy gestured for her to keep going. “So, um, I don’t know if you heard about Cam…” Emmy trailed off, and I flinched.

“Oh, yeah,” Kenny said. “I’m really sorry. That really sucks.” Kenny did not even sound a little bit sorry.

“Yeah, so Cam needs a new place to live—we’re trying to keep her in Meadowlark because of Riley, you know…”—nice, use the kid—“and I saw that your brother is vetting renters for Anne Wilson’s place.”

“Yeah, he is. His phone has been ringing off the hook, apparently.”

“I’m sure,” Emmy said, getting a little more confident in her delivery. “Cam loves the house, and it would be so perfect for her and Riley. I was wondering if you might be able to put in a good word for Cam?”

“Oh, Emmy, I don’t—” Emmy cut him off.

“Please, Kenny. It would mean a lot to me.” If she were face-to-face with Kenny right now, I am a thousand percent certain she would’ve batted her eyelashes at him.

The phone was silent, and I held my breath.

“Okay,” Kenny finally said. “I’ll call him now. I’ll text you when I hear from him.”

“Okay! Thanks, Kenny.”

“Anytime.” Emmy cringed as she said goodbye and hung up the phone. She immediately pointed a finger at Teddy.

“You are the most annoying person that has ever walked the planet,” she said.

Teddy just smiled. “All right, now that that’s taken care of”—she shifted her gaze to me—“let’s talk about how we’re going to get your shit out of dickwad’s house.”

“Don’t I need to like…send an email or something? Make sure Ed knows that I’m interested in touring the property?”

“Already sent on your behalf while Emmy was on the phone,” Ada chimed in. These women were unstoppable.

Emmy and Teddy both sat down at the table. “So,” Teddy said, “have you talked to Graham at all?” I shook my head. I hadn’t talked to anyone. I’d even ignored every call from my parents, which I would no doubt pay for very soon. When I was here, at Rebel Blue, surrounded by my daughter’s family, I felt braver than I normally did—not brave enough to deal with Graham on my own, though.

“Do you want one of us to do it?” Emmy asked thoughtfully.

“I can,” Ada said, and I nodded. I trusted Ada with this. I trusted Teddy and Emmy, too, but I could depend on Ada to do this gently and quietly and in a way that allowed me to get in and out with minimal damage. She would let me avoid what I wanted to avoid. I wasn’t like Emmy or Teddy, who never backed down from a fight. I didn’t have it in me to getmad at Graham or tell him all the ways in which what he did was wrong. Sometimes, I wished I wasn’t so comfortable with going quietly, but I would just rather things be easy.

“Thank you,” I said.

“No problem,” she said with a kind smile. I met Ada when she came to Meadowlark last year to help Wes renovate one of Rebel Blue’s buildings into a guest ranch. I liked her immediately. She and I were similar. We were both a little quieter and tended to live inside of our own heads. Sometimes, we both felt a little outside of everything, which wasn’t a bad thing—being in the center of the action was never really my thing; I preferred to watch from the outside, and so did Ada. We did it together. I handed my phone to her, and she nodded.

“Kenny texted!” Emmy said excitedly. “We can look at the house today at four.”

“Seems like that soft spot is still as soft as a marshmallow,” Teddy said with a mischievous smile. “Kind of a bummer that he never stood a chance.”

Chapter 10

Cam

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