14. Augustus
FOURTEEN
AUGUSTUS
April 12th, 2024
I’m sweating, well, closer to melting really. The evidence of hours spent in the spring Texas heat running in rivulets down my back, the long curls of hair stuck to my neck. I like my long hair; I like imagining Stetson running her hands through it. But on days like today? I’m about ready to take a razor to my scalp.
It’s only eleven in the morning and I’ve already put in a full day’s worth of work. I enjoy getting up when it is still dark and working until about mid-day; anything later than that and it’s too fucking hot. I look up to admire the progress I’ve made.
The corral has come a long way since I started two weeks ago, and seeing the evidence of my progress does something to my stomach. Call it pride or irrational excitement in being able to work on my future home, but building this place up feels good. I’ve never had a thing to my name—fuck, the truck we used to drive was in McCrae’s name, and we never lived in a place more than a couple weeks at a time. My brother liked the rambling life; he hated being tied down, which is one of the many reasons he has always hated my existence.
Not me. I’ve always craved stability, and always wanted what my parents had—a home, a job, a partner. It’s taking longer than I like, but I’m getting there, slowly but surely, and that actually makes me drunk with excitement—going from loving her from a distance to having her close enough to feel her body heat constantly a shock to my system.
Now if only she remembered me.
I chew on the inside of my cheek, my fisted hands leaning against the corral railing.
I know I shouldn’t be upset that she doesn’t remember me—it’s been ten years, after all. And part of me loves the thrill of being anonymous and making her fall for me as a stranger. But there’s also a part of me—a small, shriveled part—that is hurt; hurt that we have a connection written in flames and she doesn’t recognize the burn of our love.
I couldn’t forget a single hair on her head, and yet, she can forget my face, voice, our electric connection? How? Why?
“Fuck this.” I cuss under my breath, breathing raggedly in through my nose. Her life was a wreck back then— cut her some fucking slack. But even as I think the words, the slack is looking awfully similar to a noose, and for someone who doesn’t get scared, I’m a bit terrified.
It’s a complicated mess I’ve made for myself. Now how the fuck do I get out of it?
“You sorry sack, quit fucking bunching up!” Stetson’s angry voice cuts through my wandering thoughts, pulling me back to the present with sickening clarity. I need to tell her everything; I want to.
But again, how?
My eyes trace up to where she’s straddling a young white mare bareback against the fence. Most of her weight is on her opposite foot, pressing into the wooden beams as she leans over the animal. Her touch is confident and possessive, and I can’t help but feel a twinge of jealousy toward the horse beneath her.
I try not to smile at the memory of Stetson bringing home that skittish filly one afternoon, without any explanation. She simply stated she had seen the mare headed to a high-kill shelter from a page she followed on social media and decided to rescue her.
Fuck me if I disagreed.
Which I don’t. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t have the money to buy and maintain more horses—she always figures out a way. That’s just how Stetson is—determined and unstoppable. It’s one of the reasons I’m so obsessed with her.
The mare pins her small, angry ears flat to the back of her head and pulls on the lead rope. Her thin back starts to round, her tail swishing angrily. She doesn’t want to be broken. I don’t blame the mare. She has had a horrible experience with humans so far in this life, and no one has ever given her the time of day. Not until Stetson, and she is determined to make a friend of the young horse. Stetson won’t give up on her, no matter what.
God, I love that about her.
I’m familiar with her passionate disposition around horses. I watched her work at the horse rescue off and on for years, watched her tame and help even the most troubled horses. Which, in turn, helped tame her; helped her find peace and safety within herself. It took losing her foster parents—a loose description for the couple that took her in at eighteen—sleeping her way through every dark fantasy she could come up with, and violent depression to get her to want a better life for herself.
Of course, I hate that I couldn’t have done more for her, but she was angry and hell-bent on destroying her world, and I refused to let our love be a casualty of her self-destruction. She had to be the one to pull herself out, and I knew if I was patient, Stetson would be strong enough to do so.
Did I take out my frustrations on her partners when she was finished with them? Of course—I’m only a simple man.
When she found the horse rescue, everything changed. She became the woman I admire now. Strong, independent, a little reckless, and a lot selfless. My time in the shadows was rapidly coming to an end, and even though I’d been ready to be with her from the moment I met her, I’d never prepared for the moment I’d have to explain that to her.
How do you explain that to someone who didn’t know you existed only weeks ago?
I’m a man in love with a woman. The how and why and where seems irrelevant and fucking annoying, if I’m being honest. Picturing her loving me back is the only thing that I want, the only thing I need.
That, and imagining her plump lips wrapped around my cock, drool dribbling down her chin.
I shake my head, trying to dispel the thoughts that plague me night and day. My need for her had been manageable when I only had her from a distance. But now? Now that I have a small box full of her underwear under my bed, and a clear view into her bedroom from my perch on top of the barn roof?
Fucking hopeless.
Sighing, feeling both annoyed and worried for her safety, I drop my fencing tools near the rails of the fence and stomp toward her. She’s now cooing at the skittish beast, but the mare is far from interested. With her ears pinned pack and her nostrils quivering, she looks more like a dragon about to spit fire than a mare about to come around to the annoying, albeit consistently friendly actions of the strange lady talking to her.
“Why don’t you give it a rest?” The words come out more annoyed than I mean them to. I really need to work on delivery—at this rate, she has reason to think I hate her when that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I hate that I can’t have her yet. That, and I really need to get laid—it has been years, and the constant hard-on has made me a little bitter. I huff at myself.
A little?
She turns toward me, a scowl pulling her plump features down adorably. “Why don’t you mind your own business? I’m the boss, remember?”
Always with that smart fucking mouth. It is going to be the death of her and she just doesn’t know it yet. Instead of bending her over, pulling her pants down, and bruising her ass with the most delicious handprints the way I want to, I defer to reasoning with her.
Which, in the grand scheme of things, is harder than it sounds.
“Look at her.” I point to the mare’s chest as it heaves and quivers, attempting to prove my point. Her haunches are bunched, trails of sweat trickling between her front legs, only further providing evidence. Stetson cuts a glare at me, her annoyance doing nothing but turn me on more. Which only pisses me off more.
It’s a fucking vicious cycle. One I need to figure out how to break, and soon.
“I know,” she reluctantly bites out. “I just really want to make some progress with her.”
I shrug, and I can see her fighting the urge to stomp her foot or punch me. “I get it, I really do. And you have. She’s not biting you anymore. And killing her isn’t progress. Just saying.”
Stetson blows a raspberry with her lips, the sound causing the mare to flick her ears nervously. I can see the fight deflating from her body, and I ache to reach out and support her, hold her up, and tell her how amazing she is doing. But I don’t—that would be way too forward for the ‘dirty cowboy’, as she put it, that she has only known for two weeks.
She opens her mouth to say something, then snaps it shut. Gripping the bill of her blue baseball hat, she closes her eyes and mumbles something I can’t quite make out.
“If you haven’t gotten enough of a sweat in for the day, you can always work me over.” I don’t know why the words spill from my mouth—most likely because I’m a sick man who likes to see her squirm, but as soon as they are in the air between us, her back tenses. She doesn’t look up at me, but her mumbling stops.
I want her to know me—all of me—the way I know her. I want her to love the ‘dirty cowboy’ and the obsessed one. I want her to need me as her partner and as her lover. I want her to know the passionate, thoughtful, attentive guy, the same as the serious, hardworking, unrelenting one. But I don’t know how to get her there. I’m terrified I’ve waited too long and yet not long enough.
My mind is a fucking mess when it comes to Stetson. But my heart isn’t—it beats only for her—and that is how I keep going.
“I wish you wouldn’t say shit like that,” she finally states, her voice thin. She still doesn’t look up at me, and I try to ignore the blade slicing through my chest.
“Why?” Poking the bear is becoming my new favorite hobby.
“It’s unprofessional.”
I roll my eyes and groan. “So is all the shit you talk about with Dale.”
“Yeah, but it’s Dale. She’s my friend.” Her head snaps up at the words, her eyes wide.
I try not to look as hurt as I feel; I really do. But I don’t think I’m successful. She takes a single step toward me and then stops. I can see her brain whirling, overthinking as she always does.
“I thought maybe we could be friends.” I plan on being so much more, but that will have to fucking do for now.
Soon, buddy. You will get the girl soon .
She chews on her lip, clearly trying to figure out what comes next. “I thought you didn’t want us to be friends.” She mumbles the words, but I hear the uncertainty in them just the same. I want to beat my head against the wall, fall at her feet, beg her to forgive my misconceiving attitude. I want nothing but her, and for a moment, the air between us crackles with the tension of unspoken words.
“I... I just...” How the fuck do I tell her this?
She meets my gaze, uncertainty flickering in her gray-green eyes like a flame caught in a breeze. Slowly, a small, shy smile tugs at the corner of her lips, and it’s more intoxicating than any drug I’ve ever taken. She must sense my uncertainty and like the power it gives her—the control.
I will make her smile at me more often.
“Okay,” she whispers, her voice barely above a breath. “Friends it is.”