43. Augustus
FORTY-THREE
AUGUSTUS
July 21st, 2024
Stetson still hasn’t told me she loves me.
I twist another wire, the sagging fence standing just a little taller with the new post fully in place. Looking down the line, I grumble, “Only seventy-five to go.”
And that’s if I’m lucky.
I’m a patient man—ten years in the shadows is proof of that—but I’m also desperate. I didn’t get the girl because I won her heart, or conventionally courted her into a comfortable relationship. Everything about us is uncomfortable. It’s fire and ice, electricity and water, pain and pleasure.
I slam another pole into the ground, the shitty soil resistant against my intrusion, and I huff. Even as sweat courses down my back like a whore in church, I wouldn’t trade this work for anything. I’m where I’m supposed to be, with who I’m supposed to be with, for the first time ever . I line up the pole driver and slam down again, the hit sending reverberations through my muscles.
I got the girl because I stole her. I stole her heart, mind, and soul. I infected her the way she infected me. I burned beneath her skin, the way she burned beneath mine. We don’t share a kind, gentle, sweet love, because I am none of those things.
I. Am. Desperate. Unhinged. Feral.
I need to hear those three little words leave her perfect lips, or I just might die.
I don’t deserve her; no one fucking does. But that will never stop me from claiming her in every way one can in this world or the next. I will burn down the gates of Heaven or Hell to be with her; I will even break through her icy walls to be with her.
We’re not just in love —we are written in the stars, sand, and everywhere in between.
That’s why I will work my ass off every minute of every day. Not because I’m afraid of losing her—I’ll chase her down until the end of time. But because she deserves it. She deserves a prince, even if she is stuck with the beast.
I wipe a clammy forearm across my sweat-slicked forehead and readjust my cowboy hat. This is the last stretch of fence on the property that still needs repairing, and a feeling of pride swells in my chest. Pride for how Stetson has handled the adversity of this place. Pride for how I’ve been able to step up and help her. Pride for the life we are building together.
Stetson will have new, or improved, fences lining this place by fall if it’s the last thing I do. Whether she wants to buy more cattle or switch to rescue horses, I will support her—help her. She’s never had someone in her corner—until now.
We’ve gotten increasingly closer the last few months—her sassy, messy, explosive personality filling my every waking and dreaming thought. But even as we get closer, I know there is still more unspoken, beyond those three little words I’m practically crawling out of my skin to hear. I know she is wrestling with demons, how to let go of the memory of her murdered, estranged mother being one of them. I’ll get it out of her, eventually; I’m nothing if not reliably patient .
I love her. I love her more than any man should love a woman—the kind of love that consumes every cell in my body, every thought in my head. And I would cut down any obstacle that kept us apart.
She calls it toxic. I call it obsessively passionate.
The sun is lower in the sky than I originally noticed, the glow shooting orange and crimson ribbons across the pale blue. It’s beautiful, this little ranch. What is more beautiful is the grit and determination it took to keep it going. I don’t care that the place is technically Stetson’s; she can and should keep it all for herself—she deserves that.
In fact, when we get married, I’ll make sure she keeps ownership of the place.
But I will work the land and animals, right alongside Stetson, until the day I die. This is my home.
We’ve discussed me no longer getting paid, about putting that money she planned to give me back into the ranch, but she balked at the idea. It’s what I expected, but I will make her see soon enough. We aren’t married, but I will make an honest woman of her yet, and soon. I never came for the money, anyway.
I plan to get her a ring just as soon as she admits she loves me. Is it possibly too soon? Fuck no . I’ve waited nearly eleven years now to make her my wife. Waiting one more day than I have to is a torture I don’t plan on enduring. And then, once we’re married, I will help her sink every last dime back into this soil we both love— both feel at home on .
“Better pack it in and go see my woman,” I state to no one but the prairie dogs. I need to get a ranch dog.
Yes, a ring, and then a ranch dog.
I chuckle, the image and happiness associated with it making me feel like the luckiest man alive. I need to get it together—I probably look like a lunatic—sweat-drenched and smiling at no one and nothing. Shaking my head, I start loading the wire and tools into the bed of the rusty pickup with a clang. Even though the sun continues to dip lower in the sky, and a dry breeze blows over the golden grasses, sweat beads down my back, making my shirt cling.
Dark curls mat to the back of my head, and not for the first time, I berate myself for my inability to cut it all off. It just doesn’t seem like a priority when there is so much work to be done.
And Stetson loves running her hands through it.
I’ve been whipped for years for her—no point in denying it—so what Stetson wants, Stetson gets. She is my everything, and I like it that way.
Driving along the fence, the truck bouncing and jostling around over the ruts in the dried, cracked earth, I admire the silence of night taking over the fields. It’s almost eerily quiet, too quiet , and the hairs on my arm stand to attention. I have the sudden urge to drive just a little faster.
I just want to get back to Stetson—see her face, hold her, fuck her—to know she’s safe in my arms like always.
The truck jumps, the tools clanging in the back. “Fuck,” I growl, slamming on the brakes. Looking in the rearview, I can see a rock lying in the dusty path. It wasn’t there when I drove out here earlier today, which is odd.
Really odd.
I park the truck but leave the engine running—I’m anxious to get back, but I also know I need to move the damn thing or Stetson will surely hit it next time she is out here. The thought of her barreling over it on Winston is enough to make me dive from the cab and hobble the rock back to the pile.
Hurling it toward the mound along the fence line, I take in the large rock collection. I’ve gone past it only a handful of times—Stetson always offered to come this way when we checked fences or argued about how she had fixed this patch well enough that it isn’t worth my time—but now, looking at it, I can’t help but raise a brow. The fence is nearly leaned over, the posts dangling along the wire instead of holding it, all twisted and mangled. It looks like she made it more of a hazard, which is odd for someone as picky as her.
It’s also a weird place for a rock pile, out here in the open like this.
I’ll have to come out and fix it next time. I don’t blame her for the shotty work; putting the fence through the pile would be challenging by yourself.
Remembering my strange anxiety about getting back, I turn to leave. And then I notice the section of rocks near the fence line is disturbed, like something had been digging through it.
But for what?
Sighing and tilting my head to the darkening sky, I clamber over the pile to see what I can find. Call it my obsessive need to make sure Stetson is always safe, but I can’t drop the nagging feeling in my gut to check it.
I start pulling rocks off of the top of the pile where it already looks disturbed, the gray and red chunks moving easily. I can tell more than just the one from the road had been moved recently—several rocks are weather-worn and bleached, but the lighter sides are facing down or out, not directly up, as you would expect.
So, something had moved them, and then put them back? More like someone.
I yank more furiously at the pile, my fingers ripping at the nails as I pull haphazardly at the rocks. Pick up, toss away, and repeat. Each rock hits the dirt below with a thud, a matching rhythm with my erratically pounding heart and labored breathing.
You know the saying, “Don’t leave any stone unturned”? Well, it’s a fucking lie. There are some stones you shouldn’t turn—these being those specific stones. There is nothing that could make me run from Stetson— nothing —but there are several things that will make me run to her. And this one has me turning on my heels and sprinting .
It can’t fucking be.
“How is this even possible?” Still panting, I slam the truck door shut. I floor the still-running engine, the truck jolting violently over the rivets in the dirt. The wire and tools clang in the back, several pieces jumping so hard they fly from the truck; I don’t stop, they’re just fucking tools.
Someone had found it before me. Someone had seen what I saw, and I know who.
Racing toward the house, the darkness strangling the last ribbons of daylight from the sky, the glowing house comes into view. A dancing, burning glow—like a fire—flames dancing and sparking into the shadows. I push the engine harder, the old truck growling and jolting so violently over the field that screws and bolts rattle free from their hold on the frame.
I dial Dale’s number, not thinking straight enough to call for more help. She picks up on the first ring, surprised, no doubt, by me calling her and not Stetson.
“Hello?”
“Dale, listen to me. The barn is on fire. I’m still out in the far field, but I’m trying to get there.” My voice cracks, panic bleeding through the line, and I hear her drop something. “Dale, you need to get the fire department here, and then yourself. Stetson. She’s back at the house, and I think…” I pause, not wanting to say more than I have to but also needing Dale’s help.
“Gus, for the love of God, what?” I hear the dinging of a car door over the line.
“I found a body. Her dad’s body, in the far pasture. I think… Just get here and?—”
“I’m coming, Gus. Get her safe, and I will back you up however you need me to.” She pauses then, taking a shaky breath. “It could have been Craig.”
I don’t know how I know, but I hiss, “It wasn’t.” And then I hang up the line.
Not the body, at least.
Peeling around the corner near the corrals, chunks of gravel pelting the fence, I don’t bother stopping to open the gate. I’m frantic, hands and body shaking. If something happened to her… If I’m too late.
Flames dance around the old barn, licking up the sides and billowing out the windows. Horses race around the structure, their coats charred in spots but otherwise unharmed, their screams of terror filling my chest with even greater panic. She had gotten them out. Which means she was in there.
Could still be in there.
I don’t stop the truck. Instead, I fling the door open and leap from it, the wheels quickly halting without someone to make them go, and bolt toward the inferno.