AN: Hello, my dears!

Here's chapter 3! It's finally normal sized! Yay! Y'all can expect all future chapters to be about this size or even longer. I mean, IDK. I haven't really been writing the chapters based on length. I just create a new chapter when I either want to switch POV or move on to the next scene. So, I guess I'll revise my wording to say, y'all can for the most part probably most likely expect all future chapters to be this size or longer:):)

Disclaimer: Ally Carter owns Zach, Cammie, and the Gallagher Girls Universe.

Happy reading!

Cammie's POV

It wasn't hard to find a length of rope. Grandpa always had rope hooked just inside the doorway of each of his barns.

I quickly knotted a lasso and went after the bull, approaching him very slowly till I was in his flight zone. With his attention on me, I tried to use my balance point to get him to back down. He really wasn't a mean bull. Something must've gotten him wound up.

I took another careful step forward and he stopped pawing. It was a start. I shifted to the right so that—

"Cammie, no!"

I turned to see Zach yelling my name and running toward me. No! Zach, stop!

I tried to wave him off, but the bull was already lowering his head again and taking off after Zach.

"Zach!" I screamed, putting myself between them. There was no preventing the charge now, so the next best thing was to handle it without anyone getting hurt.

I swung the lasso around, nervous about the fact that my last visit had been three years ago, and I was probably rusty. But thankfully, when the rope flew from my hands, it found its mark. I had no time to congratulate myself, though, because the bull was right there and I needed to dive out of the way, like, immediately.

But before I could do so, the living breath was knocked out of me as something slammed into me from the side. The rope slipped from my hands as I rolled over and over in the dirt till I finally came to a stop with something heavy sitting on top of me.

Disoriented, I blinked the dust out of my eyes till I could see what was crushing my chest and abdomen. Or, I suppose, it would be more accurate to say who was crushing my chest and abdomen.

"Ry?"

A face that I remembered being much less defined three years ago smiled down at me with eyes that I remembered being much less sparkly and a mouth that I remembered being much less…smiley.

"Hey, Cammie Cat," he said with a deep voice (which was also new). "Miss me?"

"I…"

"Speechless?" he asked with a smirk that reminded me of a certain someone.

Oh, my gosh.

"More like breathless," I wheezed.

He shrugged. "That too."

"No. I mean, you're crushing me."

"Right." He jumped up and reached down to help me to my feet.

Once we were both standing, I stepped back, partially to keep a polite, conversational distance and partially to get a better look at him. I hadn't seen Ryden for three years, and those years certainly made a difference.

For one thing, he'd gone through a growth spurt. He had to be at least six inches taller than when I'd last seen him. And for another, he'd packed on some serious muscles. The front of his flannel was unbuttoned and opened to a black shirt—only a few shades darker than his rich, ebony skin—that stretched over a hard chest. His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows to reveal chorded forearms. And, while I couldn't see them, I knew his biceps were bulging. I mean, I had just felt them around me.

I could feel him doing a similar scan of my body, picking out all of the ways I'd grown up. The only problem was that Ry would have to do so much more than a physical once-over to see all the ways I'd changed in the past three years. But the 50 or so scars I'd acquired were as good a place as any to start noticing.

I crossed my arms, feeling self-conscious, but he just smiled again and said, "You look good, Cammie Cat."

"Um…"

Suddenly, I was grabbed by my shoulders and spun into a familiar chest.

"Babe," Zach said pulling me close and resting his head on mine, "are you okay?"

Okay, so I might have been completely clueless to all things "boy" when I was a sophomore in high school crushing on Josh Abrams. But I'd come a long way since then, and Zach had never called me "babe" before that moment. I didn't need Macey here to tell me that he wasn't adding a new name to our repertoire of endearments. He was branding me with a big "Z" that said mine.

"I'm fine," I mumbled into his shoulder, squeezing him back. "You?"

"Just glad you're okay."

I smiled up at him, but then I heard a throat clearing behind me.

"Who's your friend, Cammie Cat?" Ry asked, and I felt Zach's fingers flex on my hips.

I pulled away, but Zach kept his arm around my waist. "Ry, this is Zach. Zach, Ryden. He lives on the next ranch over."

"Nice to meet you," Ry said, extending a hand to Zach.

"What are you doing here, Ry?" I asked as the two engaged in an unnecessarily firm handshake.

I know I said that he lived on the next ranch over, but that was still a 20-minute drive away.

"You know I'd never miss a visit from my favorite girl," Ry said with a teasing smile and a wink.

A moment of thick, awkward silence followed. A moment in which I thought of at least half a dozen or so ways to restrain or incapacitate a man with no lasting side effects. Problem was, Zach knew how to counter pretty much all of them.

"That," said a gruff voice behind me, breaking the tension and possibly saving Ryden's life, "and he got hired on as one of my ranch hands about a year ago."

"Grandpa!" I yelled, pulling away from Zach and running into my grandpa's arms. My grandfather wasn't a large man, but he was strong. His tanned arms held me tight, tighter than most men in their 70s could squeeze, and the bristles of his gray stubble and push broom mustache scratched my face as he kissed my cheek. I hugged him harder.

"I didn't think you could get any more beautiful, Dolly," his voice rumbled near my ear. "But here you go on and show up like this, proving me wrong."

I released the hug in favor of running my hands over his arms and face, searching for injury. "Apparently I showed up just in time, too. Are you okay? What happened? Where was Buster? Better yet, where were Cliff, Jesse, and Miles? And you," I said, spinning on Ry. "Why were my grandparents trying to calm Wallie and that bull by themselves?"

Ry looked a little ashamed, but Grandpa gently grabbed my pointing hand and turned me to face him again. "Your grandma and I are fine, Dolly. Dr. Null will be coming by for a check-up later, so I was directing him to the isolation pen when Wallie got loose. The two spooked each other, and that's when you pulled in. Buster and the boys are in the south pasture with the rest of the herd. They had no way of knowing."

I crossed my arms. "You could've had one of the boys bring the bull to isolation."

Grandpa chuckled. "I'm old, Dolly, not dead. I can still work my own ranch. Now come on inside before Marion accuses me of hogging you to myself. Then you can introduce us both to that crazy boy of yours."

Grandpa patted my arm then began walking toward the two-story brick house. I worried my lip at his stiff gait. It had gotten worse during my time away. I knew my being here wouldn't have made a difference—I couldn't stop them from aging—but I still felt guilty.

Zach grabbed my hand and pulled me close as we started after Grandpa and Ry. "Care to explain why your grandpa thinks I'm crazy?" he whispered to me. "You didn't tell him any stories about me, did you?"

The question took my mind off my grandparents' aging bodies and had me laughing. "Didn't need to. You're the lunatic who came running and yelling at an agitated bull. Not a wise move."

He rolled his eyes, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "I came running and yelling at you. Besides, not all of us grew up learning the rules of ranching, Gallagher Girl."

"There are some ranching rules that should be able to go unsaid, Blackthorne Boy."

"What about the rules that need said?" he asked, stopping me before I could walk up the steps to the wrap-around porch. "How will I learn those?"

I let go of his hand and stepped away, making a show of contemplating his question as I admired my grandma's flower bed. "I might be persuaded to teach you," I teased, sending him a sly look over my shoulder.

I turned back to the flowers and felt his arms slide around me a moment later. "Oh, you might, might you?" I nodded as he pressed a trail of feather-light kisses up my neck. "How's this for persuasion?" he whispered into my skin.

"Decent," I replied, closing my eyes and leaning back into him.

"Decent? Fine. If niceties won't work, I'll just…"

He stopped kissing me and his arms tightened, then my feet were lifted off the ground and the world was spinning.

I let out a startled shriek that turned into a laugh as he continued to spin me. "Zach! Zach, cut it out!"

"Not until you promise to teach me everything you know."

"That would take more time than we have on this visit."

"The basics, then."

A part of me wanted to continue being defiant, but a bigger part of me wanted to end the free carnival ride. I stopped being a fan of excessive spinning after an incident in Hong Kong involving some extra strength super-glue, a cement truck, and a very agitated monkey.

"Fine, Fine! I'll teach you the rules of ranching!"

"Wonderful," a voice said above us as Zach came to a stop and placed me on my feet. "You can start by telling him that being late to 5 o'clock dinner on a farm is a carnal sin."

AN: Thank you so much for taking the time to read this chapter of When the Spies Come Home! Feel free to leave a helpful critique or an encouraging comment or a recipe for quiche. Because you know what? Quiche sounds really good rn.

One thing I wanted to address/clarify is the three year timeline. My reasoning is this: Cammie went to the ranch the summer between her sophomore and junior year, but then she went MIA the summer between her junior and senior year. That's one year. Then I imagine that she "skipped" another summer after she graduated because she'd just joined the CIA and had people to be and places to see, you know? So, that's two years. Then I have a whole year going by that Zach and Cammie are in the CIA, going on missions and doing spy things and whatnot. That's three years. Okay. That make sense? I suppose it doesn't really matter if it makes sense or not. It doesn't really have any bearing on the story. But I spent an embarrassing amount of time trying to figure out how many years would've gone by if she hadn't seen them since book 4 and had also spent a year in the CIA after graduation, so now I'm forcing you all to see and understand my logic. You're welcome:)

Thanks again for your time, my dears!

Much love, Rachel