Page 87 of Wild As Her

People showed up. Neighbors. Old friends. Even Sheriff Matthews brought his wife and a pie. Which is huge.Usually, my father's trouble brought Sheriff Matthews to the ranch. His coming out here for branding day is a show of support. And that means a lot. There’s music playing from a truck bed, kids running around with stick horses, and someone’s dog has stolen an entire pack of hot dogs off the grill.

Tucker and Weston walk over, both sweaty and grinning like idiots. Weston claps a hand on my shoulder.

“This was a good call,” he says.

“We were just talking about that,” I agree.

“The branding. The people. All of it,” Tucker adds. “We needed this.”

And we did. The ranch doesn’t feel like a place of doom anymore. It feels like it’sours.

Out in the corral, Cami turns her head and catches me watching her. She doesn’t smile.

She smirks.

That smug, cocky little tilt of her mouth makes me want to throw her over my shoulder and drag her into the nearest horse stall and kiss her again.

Even better, it makes me want to see those lips wrapped around my dick. Fuck. Now I’ve gotta hide a boner while I wield a hot branding iron.

I pull it together and, surprisingly, stay focused on what we're doing.

We end up side-by-side after lunch, working through a batch of calves like we’ve been doing it together our whole lives. We move in sync. Toss banter back and forth like it’s second nature. And I love every minute of it. I like being the one to put that smile on her face.

“Watch it, Jessop,” she says as I nearly trip over her foot. “Wouldn’t want to get branded by mistake.”

“You branding me now? I thought we were taking things slow.” I cock my eyebrow at her.

She doesn’t miss a beat. “DependswhereI get to put my initials.”

I almost drop the iron.The cameras are definitely rolling.I don't even care.

I can't stop glancing over at her. She looks beautiful. Wild. Sweaty and flushed and in her element. Ranch life has always been what lights her up. Her eyes are bright, her laughter easy, and she fits here. On this ranch with my brothers, my friends, this town.Andwith me.

I don’t want the day to end. Not the branding. Not the flirting. Not this strange, perfect peace that’s settled over the ranch like a warm comforting blanket.I glance over at her one more time and think,Damn.

My collar is too damn tight.I don’t know who thought buttoning it all the way up was a good idea, so I'm going to blame Jenna. She gave me 'The Look' this morning. You know the one. The don’t-you-dare-embarrass-the-family-on-camera look. It came right after she adjusted my shirt collar like I was five and muttered something about "presentable for television."

And now I’m on this date, if you can even call it that with Ruby. She’s been talking nonstop for the last fifteen minutes about the benefits of oat milk instead of cow's milk. Then she went on and on about how she once modeled for a boot brand that didn’t make her touch real dirt, and she was so grateful for that.

She keeps touching me. Light taps on the arm, fake laughs with a hand on my knee. I’ve been shifting away for the last ten minutes, and now I’m about a foot off the damn picnic bench. Meanwhile, my shirt’s stuck to my back, my jaw’s locked fromfake smiling, and I’m fantasizing about cattle rustlers riding in to save me.

When she pulls out a compact mirror to reapply lip gloss while I'm trying to explain why we use a squeeze chute, I excuse myself to “check the gate.”

Instead, I head to Kyle and pull him aside. "Kyle, you know Steamy Sips?" I nod to the empty and closed up trailer for the night.

He nods and smiles, "Yeah?"

"I will make sure you get free lattes and muffins for the rest of the show if you get Ruby home safely and tell her goodnight for me," I tell him. “Tell her I didn’t feel well.”

He looks like he's thinking about this for a second and glances at Jenna who is across the pasture, talking to a camera person. Then he looks back at me, "Yeah, sure. Okay..."

I turn and keep walking. And I don't stop. I walk out past the barn. Past the trailer. Past the crowd and the cameras and a few of the contestants doing yoga in their rhinestone jeans.

I walk untilI find myself on Wilder Ranch, straight to the back pasture, far from the crowds and people.I finally breathe a sigh of relief as I plop down by mine and Cami’s tree,the old cottonwood behind the north pasture. The one with our initials carved into it from the summer we were sixteen and stupid. J + C. I sit down in the dirt, arms draped over my knees, and stare at the carving.

I groan. "I hate this show."

"That bad, huh?"

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