36. Stetson

THIRTY-SIX

STETSON

June 5th, 2024

Gus refuses to look anywhere but my permanently scarlet face, the stain of embarrassment I now wear in his presence a daily fixture. Feeling like I might burst into flames if he continues to rake his dark coals over my skin, I turn in my saddle to face him, and scowl.

Unfortunately for me, he doesn’t seem the least bit intimidated. And that only irritates me more.

“What the fuck are you looking at?” It’s the hundredth time I’ve asked since we ran into each other in the barn this morning—me trying to escape before he was up, him trying to catch me before I could escape. He had won.

Now we’re bumping along, me on Winston, him on Boots, drowning in the loudest silence known to man. And he just keeps staring at me.

I’m going to fucking lose it.

Gus looks away, shifting his weight, the saddle creaking, and Boots huffs with the altering position. Horses are perceptive creatures, especially to physical cues, and even emotional ones, and I’ve never hoped more for a horse to be able to read my mind. Then maybe Boots will buck him off.

I’ll give you extra treats.

Boots’ dark black ears swivel, her eyes pinballing around as if, for a second, she just might hear me. But Gus leans over, patting the mare’s neck, cooing at her, and the horse quickly settles. Not for the first time, I’m impressed with Gus’s gentleness toward horses.

I face forward once more, gripping the saddle horn and reins in a punishing fist, my teeth nearly ground into powder in my mouth. I know I’m acting borderline hysterical, and the way Winston starts prancing, I’m doing a shit job of hiding it.

“Are you going to ignore me all day?” I hiss, glancing at Gus from the corner of my eyes, unwilling to face him again only to be ignored. I have more self-preservation than that. He still doesn’t respond. “Why did you come, then?”

At that, I glimpse a small smirk trickle across his stubble-flecked face, but it’s gone as quickly as it appeared.

“Are you going to keep running and hiding?” Gus finally asks, his voice gruff. I involuntarily stiffen, my grip bordering on pain around the reins.

He can’t be fucking serious. I’m the one hiding? I’m the one being closed off?

“I’m right here,” I state dryly between clenched teeth and roll my eyes in his direction. Honestly, the hypocrisy of it all.

“And yet, you’re still hiding from the truth.” His words cut through me—a hot blade through my withering composure. It’s enough to make me consider tackling him to the ground, right here off our saddles, just to wipe that smug look off his stupidly, perfect face.

“And what’s the truth, Gus? Please, do enlighten me,” I hiss.

He doesn’t even turn to look at me as he continues. “You finally need someone. Me, to be exact.” He punches a rough finger into his muscled chest, before slowly turning his gaze to meet my own. I don’t look away—couldn’t even if I wanted to.“And you’re so afraid of needing me that you’d rather be alone than allow yourself to be happy.”

“It has nothing to do with you.” It has everything to do with him. Just not the way he thinks. Is he really this blind?

“It has everything to do with me,” he growls, as if reading my mind. “You are mine.”

My eyes flare at that. His? What am I? A prized mare?

Yanking on the reins, Winston comes to a screeching halt, eliciting a stomp and whiney. Gus, noticing my oncoming tantrum, stops as well, his eyes burning into my own. There’s challenge in his gaze, the kind that scorches through your morals in the most devastating kind of way. So, I let them burn—preparing to expose the deepest, charred parts of my soul to him, to this man who has the power to crush me the way no one else can. Because I’m tired of hiding.

“I am no one’s. Never have been, never will be. I’ve been alone my entire life because I am damn good at it. Because it’s safe. Because I’m the only person capable of taking care of me.” My chest heaves with the effort it takes to get the bitter words out, but once they’re free, I feel better—lighter. Gus stares at me for several moments, his eyes wandering over my features, and then, like the flip of a switch, his face grows impossibly darker, his pupils consuming the brown around them.

“You’ve never been alone. You’ve always been mine.”

Before I have a breath to argue, he kicks Boots in the ribs, the sleek mare bolting into a sudden gallop, leaving me in a cloud of dust and questions.

I come to a skidding halt, Gus kneeling in the red sand near a fence line. Or rather, where a fence line should be. The grass is trampled, boot imprints, cattle hoof prints, and tire tracks litter the area. The wire is cut, rolled, and pulled back to make a gaping hole. And the cattle—my remaining hundred pairs, are gone.

The panic punches through me, the weight of the ranch and my never-ending list of failures knocking the air from my lungs. This can’t be happening.

I want to scream as I jump from Winston’s back, swinging the reins over his head to keep ahold of him. The horse tugs on the leather, obviously sensing my angry temperament, but I don’t let go.

“What the fuck?” I ask, coming to a stop behind Gus’s back.

“Cattle rustlers, if I have to bet.” His voice is flat, a menacing hiss lacing each word. I look around frantically, desperate to see any signs that he’s wrong.

Am I being punked? Why is this happening? How is this happening?

“I don’t understand. That’s only in old Western movies.”

“Happens more often than you think. Especially this close to the border,” he states, still inspecting the layers of tracks in the sand.

Needing safety, I reach for my phone, dialing the number without even looking at the screen. It rings only twice before she picks up.

“Hey, Stet, what’s up?”

“Dale.” I whisper her name because it is the only thing I can think to do. No matter how hard I work, and how much success I make for myself, there’s always a force greater against me.

Something pushing me to the brink of no return. This time, I don’t know how I will make it out intact.

“Stetson, what’s wrong?” Her voice is sharper now, more alert.

“My cows are gone. All of them. Someone took them last night through the fence in the back corner.” I hate how wobbly my voice is, how weak I sound. But the fact that I’m able to form words at all is a miracle. I’m seconds away from disintegrating into a puddle of useless tears. A warm body presses close to my back, and I lean into him, too weak to remember my earlier anger.

“Fuck,” she whispers, and then starts moving, shuffling something around. “Listen, I’ll call Mateo. With his cattle production connections on the other side of the border, he might be able to figure something out that we can’t. Not to mention all that fucking money—it has to be good for something. Maybe he’s heard something, or can keep an ear to the ground at least.”

My mind is racing. Why is someone targeting me? There are hundreds of miles of ranch land between me and the road—hundreds of miles of ranch land that they had to risk covering to get to my fence. I had to be a specific target, a specific ranch they wanted to ruin. Was it Craig? A spiteful Nathan? A disgruntled rancher in town? Someone else? I feel like I’ve spent so much time looking over my shoulder I’ve forgotten to look at what is right in front of me.

Gus grunts behind me, pulling me from a black spiral of questions and insecurities. I realize Dale is still on the line, waiting. What did she say?

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Oh, Stet, please don’t retreat. Don’t push us away because you’re afraid. Don’t lock us out.” Brows pinched, I try to piece together what she’s getting at. I clearly missed more of this conversation and am too far spiraled to discern what her meaning is. Also, who is this ‘us’?

“Dale, please. I’m not pushing you away. I called you for your help, remember ?” I don’t mean to sound annoyed, truly. But this conversation is quickly spinning toward topics I’m too exhausted to examine closer today—there’s more important things happening.

“I’m not just talking about me.”

Closing my eyes, and exhaling a shaky breath, I muster as much patience as I can when I say, “Dale, I love you and trust you. I called you because I trust you will help me and offer wise, knowledgeable advice. But not when it comes to guys—there you know even less than I do, and I don’t need your concerns or comments when it comes to who else I do and don’t trust. It’s none of your business.”

Well fuck, that did not come out patient or kind.

But Dale is who she is, and because of that, she has enough kindness to share, enough to forgive and be the bigger person. I don’t deserve it, especially at this moment. But she sighs and I can see the tentative smile even through the phone.

“Understood. I just want to help. I want you to be happy. And I don’t want you to end up alone.”

Gus clears his throat again, and I turn squinted eyes toward him. Surely he didn’t hear that conversation. Then again, the most damning parts were said out loud from my end.

Fuck.

“I have to go. Thank you for talking to Mateo. I will let you know what I figure out.” I hear her squeak, beginning to say something else when I hang up. No doubt she was about to comment on the ‘I’ part of that sentence—Dale is reliably the kindest, most annoyingly persistent person alive.

Before I even have a chance to slide the phone into my pocket, Gus’s voice fills the space, angry and restrained. “You have me, too.”

“Don’t you fucking start right now. I have more important shit to deal with, or did you forget someone just stole thousands of dollars from me?” I don’t hide the bite in my words, not with Gus. Our relationship is complicated. But what it isn’t, is kind words and tiptoeing around each other’s feelings. We’re both too coarse, too hardened by life to do that, especially with each other.

It’s a silent understanding we’ve developed, and I’m not sure when I started trusting him so completely that I’m not afraid of his retribution.

I hate that this elephant sized weight of secrets and questions still rests between us. I could really use a shoulder to cry on right now.

He growls, stomping to where I’ve clambered back on top of Winston’s back, ready to run away if necessary, gripping my leg in a painfully familiar grip. He stares up at me, onyx fires bordering on burning over, a scowl cutting across his hard features. It’s a hateful look, a beyond pissed look, a look that is far too similar to one I’ve desperately tried to forget for over a week now.

He squeezes my thigh tighter and I bite my tongue, desperate to remain expressionless. “If you want me to leave you, Stetson, you’re going to have to fucking fire me. Better yet, you’ll have to put me ten feet under to even get me off this ranch and away from you. I’m not going anywhere because I can’t . I’m not stopping because you won’t let me—I’m so far inside your head, beneath your skin, you will have to burn yourself alive just to free yourself of me for a second of peace. I will burn this world to ash if anything keeps me from you, and that includes your own fucking demons.”

He pushes off my leg, his hand clenching and unclenching at his sides as he stomps to Boots and climbs up. He trots off, dark curls bouncing beneath his black cowboy hat. Watching him go, I continue to spiral into a pool of questions, starting with “who stole my cattle and wants to ruin me” and ending with “what if, together, we can’t get over our own demons?”

He’s right. He is so far beneath my skin, I no longer want to push him away. But it’s not a matter of want anymore. He’s holding back, just like he knows I am, and it’s about fucking time we show the other our hand if we have any hope of surviving this.

“Stetson, go call the police.” It’s a command, not a suggestion, and I bristle. I may be dead broke and the worst rancher known to man, but I’m still the boss around here.

Folding my arms across my chest, I scowl at Gus. “They won’t come. They hate me.”

He steps back, eyebrows raised, seeming to have been taken aback by my words. “What are you talking about?” he grumbles, clearly annoyed with me. Good, I’m annoyed with him too—for existing.

“Everyone in this fucking town hates me. Think I’m a joke; a useless yuppy trying to play rancher and failing. Fuck, they’re right, too. I’m fucking failing, just when I thought I might survive.” My voice shakes, hands trembling. It’s raw and real, the words cutting through me like a knife, even as they spew from my lips.

Gus closes the distance between us in two angry strides, gripping my arms. He yanks me to him, and I stumble, caught off guard by this uncharacteristic break in character.

“Don’t ever talk that way about yourself again. You have survived every fucking shit turn this world has thrown at you. You’ve survived trauma I know you don’t talk about. And you’re…” He pauses, choking on the words, his face growing red, and I gawk helplessly up at him. “Fuck, you’re the best person I know. The people in this town don’t deserve you. But right now, you need to stoop to their pathetic level, anyway. They will come and help—I will drive to the police station and start a fucking fire if they don’t.”

I can feel his chest quivering against my own, his heart racing wildly like an animal on the run in his chest. I stare at him, lost to the hold his words have on me—the hold he has on me—feeling both more alight with anger and calmed with comfort. I crave having someone to see me the way Gus portrays he does, the way I want him to. But it’s too good, and I know all things good disappear.

How do I get past that? How do I crawl out from behind my wall of fear? With deflection, because that’s the only thing I can think to do.

“Wait, you’d start a fire?” I’m teasing, my tone forced into a lightness I don’t feel, but his face does not crack from its murderous mask.

“I’d do worse if you asked me to,” he whispers, his face now only inches away from my own.

“I just… Why?” I don’t know why I ask, but these feelings for him, they’re becoming too loud to ignore—too painful to push down. I want to believe, but what if I get hurt worse? I won’t survive being left completely alone again.

“Go call the police, Stetson. I have a fence to fix.” He doesn’t give me a second to object before he strides back to the barn to go fix one of the many jagged, painful holes in my life.

I roll my eyes, ending what I knew would be a pointless phone call. After I explained my situation, and then who I was, I got a very polite, yet firm, “We will look into it, ma’am.” And then they ushered me off the line because another call was coming through, demanding their attention.

What a fucking waste of time.

Before the officer ended the conversation, he proceeded to ask questions like, “Did you misplace them,” and “Why would you think it’s cattle rustlers? We don’t get those here.”

He isn’t going to help me, he’d all but said as much. So, I’m back to solving this on my own.

“Anything?” Gus asks, his voice startling me.

Okay, maybe not completely alone, if I get over myself. But how can I trust someone I don’t completely know?

I shake my head.

He sighs, the sound closer to a wheeze than anything, and then leans against the counter. “I temporarily got the hole patched. I need to go to town and get better supplies to fix it tomorrow. But it’s up, at least, if nothing else, it will keep that old geezer from bitching at you.”

“Thank you.” My voice is deflated and frail, and I hate how weak I feel.

“You want to tell me what he said?” he asks, standing up straighter.

I shrug. “He’s going to look into it.” I don’t want to tell him what else he said, because I don’t have the mental capacity to support him if he goes off the handle again. I never know what will trigger him, what will set him off. I am faintly aware that it always has something to do with me though—or rather, someone doing or saying something to me.

It’s crazy, and I still don’t understand it about myself, but even as fucked up as that revelation is, it also makes me feel fuzzy inside.

“Hmmm.” The sound sends a wave of goosebumps rippling over my skin.

“What?” I grind out.

“Quit taking people’s shit, Stetson. You deserve better.”

I feel like a caged animal, backed into a corner. Why? Why when someone fights for me, wants better for me, I lash out? Why do I refuse to accept that someone might truly care about me? I exhale loudly. I know why.

And then the phone rings, saving me from falling apart completely.

I don’t look at the caller ID, my eyes too glued to the dark ones in front of me as I answer. “Hello?”

“Wow, she does take a break from whoring and ruining cattle ranches to answer her phone.” The words ricochet through me, my barely restrained collapse preparing to detonate. I slap my hand onto the counter.

“How dare you call me to say such a stupid thing. I have never done anything to you. I have never said or done anything to warrant such foul behavior. You’re an adult, Craig. Why don’t you fucking act like it?”

Gus steps toward me, his brows pushing together in concern, and I hold up a finger, signaling to him that I am fine.

Even if it is a dirty fucking lie.

“Did you forget you stole what is mine? Did you forget you are the reason your father is likely dead—his hate for you driving him to drink? Did you forget you are an embarrassment, a stain on the Walker name?”

I suck in a sharp breath, holding it as each word lands like a slash across my skin, flaying me open to be feasted on by my darkest insecurities.

“Do you have any idea of what kind of monster he was? What kind of life I had?” I’m hysterical now, my restraint lost somewhere after the first ‘did you forget’.

“I know if you’re still around, it wasn’t bad enough,” Craig states flatly, his tone so shallow I can picture him looking down at his nails as he says the words. And even if I know they shouldn’t hurt, they slice through my walls in a way very few words did. I’ve known hate in my life—my father made sure of that—but never like this.

“Why are you doing this?” My voice quivers once more and I berate myself for it.

“Because I will be selling that ranch in a matter of months, and I don’t care what I have to do to get it. I will never forgive my brother for leaving me you to have to deal with.”

I stand in my kitchen, staring out over the living room, full of swirling rays of evening sunshine, chest aching, eyes stinging with unshed tears. Unable to control my voice any longer, I remain silent. I will not show him any more weakness than I already have.

“I will burn that house down with you trapped inside if I have to. But I will have what is mine.” He clicks the line, effectively ending the conversation, but I continue to cling to the small box pressed to my ear.

Gus stands with me in the silent kitchen as the sun tracks lower and lower down the wall. I don’t move, my body numb. Hot tears flow down my cheeks, unnoticed and unchecked. Gus continues to stand with me, a blank expression on his face. Even in my haze, though, I notice his knuckles are white, and his jaw rolls and pops.

He never says anything, even as the sun disappears completely. But he never leaves my side either—never leaving me alone.

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