Wild and Wrangled (Rebel Blue Ranch, #4)

by Lyla Sage

“Ash?” a voice said. I straightened my spine. I’d know that voice anywhere. If I had slipped into a coma, it would wake me up. If I was six feet under, I’d dig myself out of the grave just to be closer to it, which was dramatic and startling and tragic and stupid. But it was true. “It’s just me out here,” he said. “The bar’s cleared out.” I’ll love you until we’re dust in the wind, Camille Ashwood. “I’m here, Cam.”

She broke my heart a million times after that, too, and time never did what it was supposed to do: heal or whatever.

She just cared what other people thought of her—she wanted to be perfect. I blame her mother.

Dusty liked people. He could talk to anyone.

“You brought me to a fucking Chili’s?” Cam said with a shocked laugh. I smiled over at her as I cut the engine. “Sure did.” While we were driving, she took her hair out of its bun and ran water through the strands with her hands. Curls started to form almost immediately. She seemed so much lighter than she did a few hours ago. “This is so ridiculous,” she said. “You know,” I said, “there are very few things that a mid-range chain restaurant can’t fix—especially one with chips and salsa and a sizzling fajita situation.”

“I fucking love Chili’s,” I said. “Sometimes the craving strikes for that middle-class fancy shit, you know?”

That’s how I learned that the only thing my parents wanted more than control was quiet.

My feelings for Cam were like an earthquake and its aftershocks. When they started, they were big and overwhelming, and once the main event had passed—once we’d gone our separate ways—I’d learned to live with the way they still shook me up at unexpected times. And when I saw her now, I still felt that small tremor in my bones.

“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.”

“Let’s manifest the Teddy Andersen approach to life: Only have a Plan A and trust everything works out,”

“You have got to stop eavesdropping,” I said with an exaggerated eye roll.

“I’ll stop when I’m dead,”

“I’m surprised she’s still playing by the rules. Clementine usually finds a way to get what she wants.”

“Did you just admit she’s spoiled?” Gus asked.

Amos shook his head. “Not spoi...

when the steadiest man in the world tells you that he’s confident in you, it does something to you.

He was probably my best friend, but I’d never had one of those before, so I couldn’t tell for sure. But it also felt like he was more.

Dusty kissed me again—he didn’t care that my mom was watching. “I’ll get you out of here someday, I promise.”

But I never wanted the hopes and expectations I had for her to overshadow the hopes and expectations she had for herself. Because if I did my job right, she would have them, and they would be wonderful.

It didn’t matter who you were, when you walked into the Big House, it felt like home—whether

Stella taught me that the family you choose is just as important—sometimes more—than the one you’re born with. Everyone here is part of that family that Stella and I dreamed about.”

When I felt her relax against me, I felt like I was holding the world. God, she turned me into a cliché motherfucker.

“It’s beautiful, Dusty,” Cam said. When I looked up at her, she was looking at me the way I had been dreaming she would since I came home. So are you, I thought.

My sassy and spunky daughter went bashful, and it made me smile. The Dusty Tucker effect seemed to take hold of her, too. Just like her mom.

Beautiful and my personal Achilles’ heel, just like he’d always been.

“Your mom is older than me, you know,” I said—only by six months, but still.

Dusty put a hand on my cheek and looked straight into my soul. “I’ll love you until we’re dust, Camille Ashwood.”

You’re a privilege, Cam. Being in your presence is a goddamn honor.”

“You’ve always been a sure thing to me,”

“I’ve waited half a lifetime for you, Cam.” Dusty breathed me in. “And I would wait a whole one if I thought I had to, but here we are.

Because I’m not the girl you fell in love with. Because I don’t even know who I am. Because loving you is the bravest thing I’ve ever done, and I’m not brave anymore. Because I can’t take the pain of losing you again.

Your history is still part of this picture, but it’s less important than where you are now. There’s a reason that rearview mirrors are small and windshields are big.”

“People, and our feelings for them, stick with us for a reason, Cam.”

“I adored her from the start, and I wanted to know everything about her for the rest of forever—who she was then, who she would be later. I just wanted to exist in her orbit.

“You don’t have a neck tattoo and a nose piercing and not be good. And don’t even get me started on his little cropped T-shirts.”

“Is this you being a gentleman?” she asked.

“Not anymore,” I said as I pushed her back and covered her body with mine. “I want to do distinctly ungentlemanly things to you.”

Wes loved Ada so loudly and so much.

“I get wanting to have something to call your own—I really do, Cam.

Dusty’s putting down roots. You have roots already, and now both of you finally have a chance to let those roots grow together, to get so fucking tangled up in each other that you can’t possibly part again, and that’s a beautiful thing.”

I was like a sunflower; I always turned to face the sun and bask in it for just a second.

But, god, you are everything to me. You always have been, you always will be.

“I love you madly and deeply. I love you in ways that people don’t believe exist in real life. I love you for who you’ve been and who you are and who you’re going to be, Ash.”

We kissed in the light of dawn. A new day in Meadowlark—a new beginning—the promise of bigger things yet to come. It was a new beginning for us, too.

“I’ll love you until we’re dust.”

“I’d do anything for you, Clementine,”

“Everyone here knows that I’m not really a big words guy, but I am a big Clementine Ryder guy, so we’ll see if I can pull this off.”