Page 15 of Wild As Her

“Have you seen the film crews in town?” he asks.

“Yeah, what are they doing here?” I ask as I lean back in my chair. “No one is talking.”

“Well, apparently, our sister has set up our ranch for a reality TV show, and she’s supposed to talk to you about it,” hesays. “But seeing as how she hasn’t been able to get ahold of you, I’ll take the liberty of filling you in.”

“What do you mean a reality show for our ranch?” I reply, confused.

“I’ve gone over the contracts,” he says, switching to attorney mode. “I’m going to level with you, Jack. The ranch isn’t doing so hot. Our sales are down, nobody is booking us for horse training or boarding, and this is a great way to bring good attention to the ranch. Hopefully it will distract people from talking about the Jessop who destroyed everything and more about the Jessops who are rebuilding it for the good. The income from doing the show is solid. Enough to get us to a good place.”

My brother is a hell of an attorney. Our father basically deemed me worthless when I joined the Navy and tried to use the rest of our siblings to offer some sort of usefulness to him and his agendas with the ranch. He sent Weston to Harvard and law school. He groomed him to be able to fight all the battles on the ranch. He just didn’t expect Weston to be smarter than him and not want any part of his shady dealings.

“What kind of money are we talking about here?” I ask as I look over our profit-and-loss statements for the month, which are luckily in the black, but not by much. A lot of changes have been happening around here, and we’ve realized that if we don’t make big, long-term changes, we could potentially lose it. It’s going to take us all working together and working our asses off to make it happen. And if he’s talking about big money, we could all definitely use that.

No one realized how hard it was going to be when he got arrested, and everyone came back to help out. Coming back here alone is hard mentally, let alone working it alongside the ghost of our father.

“Big money,” he says. “Our sister is a damn genius.”

“Okay, so what’s the catch? They want to film our ranch fora reality show?” I shrug. “How boring would that be? I guess we can get it looking nice for filming.”

He laughs a little. “Well, Jack, that’s where it gets interesting.Really interesting.”

“Just tell me,” I sigh.

“You are going to be on a show where you find a wife.”

I blink. “Come again?”

“Yeah, there’s going to be a lot of women, and it’s kind of like that show, The Bachelor. Only a rancher. And that’s you, you’re the lucky rancher. They haven’t set a title for it yet, but it’s something along the lines ofThe Rancher Finds a Wife.”

“What the hell?” I ask, pinching the bridge of my nose, wondering if he’s fucking with me. “Why not you and Tucker? Tucker would eat this up.”

And he would, too. He’s a little ladies man pro bull rider. Hell, women flock to him as it is.

“Well, they’re going to use the part of dad’s story how he was the villain and we’re the kids taking it over, and since you’re the oldest and in charge and share his name, you’re the man for the job.”

Absolutely not. This is horrible. I don’t care how much money we’re getting. There has to be another way. “What if…”

“There’s no other way. We have no other money. You used your inheritance from mom’s estate, remember? We could have used that, but its gone now. This is it,” he says firmly.

“How can she sign me up for a show without my permission? Don’t they need a producer to get people to sign something? Is this even legal?” I complain.

I hear Weston’s keys on his keyboard. “Yeah. They do. Only our sisterisone of the producers.”

“Are you being serious right now?” I ask. “A wife? I don’t want a wife.”

“Dead serious. And you’d better find herand talk to her. She said she’s left you a few voicemails, emails, and repeatedly tried getting ahold of you. You have been MIA. Where have you been, anyway?”

Shit. I do vaguely remember her saying that we needed to talk. Several times. I’ve been so busy with the ranch and then everything that happened with Cami and Granger. I forgot to call her back. I put Weston on speaker and scroll through my emails, and there are several from Jenna detailing this whole plan.

Double shit.

“I’ve been busy running the ranch. I don’t have time for this. I have a ranch to run, not some stupid reality show,” I hedge.

What I want to say is that I’m in love with Cami. I don’t want some random wife. I wanther.

“Weall have a ranch to run,” he reminds me.

“Tucker knows about this?” I ask as I stretch and stretch my neck.

---