47. Stetson
FORTY-SEVEN
STETSON
December 10th, 2024
Watching Gus working a new colt, in the brand-new iron corral we just finished two days ago, is a good reminder that things do work out. Even if we don’t always think we deserve them. Scratch that—we’ve paid our dues to this miserable world ten times over, and we fucking deserve this one little slice of heaven.
I giggle. Gus would be proud of my attempted attitude shift.
Lord knows he tries to fuck it into me how “valuable I am”, how “special I am”, and how “I deserve a happy ending” the same as good-hearted people who don’t have blood on their hands.
The truth is, I’m starting to believe it. I love the idea that the traumatized, broken, filthy people deserve happiness too—I’m tired of only happy people getting happy endings. So, even if I have to carve it out with my own bloody hands, I think I’ll keep this little slice with Gus all to myself.
I giggle again. Well, almost all to myself.
Back to my previous train of thought, I pull my lip between my teeth. Things do work out, you just have to be willing to fight for them. Almost five months ago, I nearly died a fiery death next to the only man in the world who means anything to me. I watched my dreams go up in flames—literally—watched any hope of financial recovery go up with it, all while recovering from the most brutal kind of assault a person can escape. But that is the key phrase— I did escape.
Not a month after the fire, I was contacted by an insurance agency, wanting to let me know that I could file my claim on the life insurance put on my father any time I was ready. After the barn fire, the police were forced to dig into Craig—the details about my cattle being stolen, photos and threatening messages from him to me, and all of his gambling history surfaced, laying bare a truly evil man. Evil enough to kill his own brother to get the ranch he felt like he deserved—or so I told the police as part of his confession to me. They believed me—didn’t even question it.
The details made sense. If you didn’t look too closely, and with a couple of deadbeats who liked to strangle people in the heart of Texas? The police didn’t care to look closer than they had to.
A better person might feel guilty, or shame, letting someone else take the blame. But I haven’t lost a wink of sleep over it yet. The truth is, I don’t know if Craig wouldn’t have eventually killed his brother; he was desperate after all. And it never was about me murdering Gibson—even though years of trauma and violence might have been enough of a reason to do it on its own. No, his eventual death, at my hand, was simply an act of survival. And I made my peace with that the moment he lunged at me.
I’ve never been sorry I killed him. I’m only sorry Gus found out the way he did, instead of from me. I should have trusted him enough to tell him—something he punished me thoroughly for.
I smile, rubbing a loving hand over my stomach at the memory.
Craig was pronounced dead at the scene, and his dying confession of killing his brother was enough to tie up the dangerously loose ends in my life. It also allowed the life insurance to become available to me; life insurance my mother applied for only months before she was killed. Her way of taking care of me, I imagine. I still have a lot of mixed feelings about Poppy, about the kind of mother she was. And about the kind of mother I want to be. What things did my mother do that I want to pass on to my baby? What things do I not?
With the insurance money, one thing I insisted Gus and I start doing is once-a-month therapy. He grumbles every single time, but goes with me, holding my hand as we talk and work through our traumas together—saving space to be there for the other. It’s magic. If I could tell myself to just suck it up and start therapy ten years ago, maybe Gus would have felt like he could have come into my life sooner.
But then again, things work out the way they’re supposed to.
I step down the old stairs, now shiny with a new coat of stain and sealant on them—one of many projects we’ve finished since we got the money—and head toward Gus. I groan, the sight of his muscular back bunching as he holds tightly to the end of a rope that’s connected to a rearing colt on the other. The horse dances around Gus, his dark mane billowing in the cool Texas breeze, his eyes wide and wild. Hooves hover in the air, slashing at their captor, but Gus doesn’t back down. He doesn’t show fear, no matter how often I beg him to be “just a little careful”.
It’s a breathtaking dance to watch—a man and a wild horse—learning to trust each other. Who will bend first? Who will be brave before the other? Who will show vulnerability? Looking at Gus—teeth gritted, tanned, glistening forearms straining, the veins all but jumping out from under his skin—I know he will hold on, even if the colt decides to drag him around the arena. It’s not to scare the poor horse, but to show him that he can trust him. That even when the colt is at his worst, Gus will be there. Waiting to help him.
I lean against the corral, looking up at the sign creaking in the breeze. I still want to get a new one made, one that’s metal and a little less weathered, but Gus hasn’t given up on that fight yet, either. He says he likes the way it shows character.
I’m still glad Gus stuck to his guns after the fire and insisted we switch the ranch from cattle to wild horses. I was just being stubborn, and he was right. This is what we were both meant to do with our days on this earth. So if a wooden sign that Gus carved from a slightly less burnt piece of old barn is the sign he thinks we should stick with, I guess I can give him that.
He’s probably earned the right to make some decisions around here, anyway.
“Like the view?” Gus asks, his voice breathless. I smile at him, shading my face with a hand to get a better look at him.
He’s so fucking hot it hurts.
His hair is shorter now, not completely grown out after they shaved his head post-fire, but the curls seem darker and bouncier somehow. They’re just as much fun to run my hands through as they were before. And his eyes, always so dark and brooding, pierce into my own, his lips tipped into a lopsided grin beneath a short mustache and beard. Now that he’s turned to face me, I can see his light shirt clinging to the ridges of muscle beneath, a dark stain from the sweat and dirt between the valley of his pecks.
Fuck, my mouth is watering.
“No,” I state, crossing one leg over the other to look nonchalant. Really, I’m just trying to rub my pussy for some friction because I’m soaked.
He smirks, his eyes watching my legs cross. Busted.
“You’re such a brat.” He steps toward me, the now slightly less timid colt trailing behind him. I uncross my legs, standing up straighter.
“Am not.”
“Little Filly, did you just roll your eyes at me?” His voice is low and husky now. I look past him, the colt eyeing Gus, like the man is crazy. Little does he know, Gus is crazy .
But I like his crazy. Scratch that—I love it.
“And what if I did? What are you going to do about it,” taking a deep breath through my nose, out through my mouth— this is the moment, “Daddy?”
Gus’s eyes darken further, his smirk spreading into a full, villainous smile, dropping the lead rope to climb over the fence.
“That one is new. I like it, baby. Say it again.” Fuck, my incredible, wonderful, beautiful man becomes as dumb as a brick wall when sex is involved. “Did you just roll your eyes again?”
He jumps over the fence, and I yelp, taking a few steps back. I put a hand in the air between us, signaling for him to stop. Of course, he doesn’t. He shakes his head, dark curls swaying, onyx eyes zeroed in on my own.
“Too late for that, Little Filly. You started this by calling me Daddy,” he growls, and I push a hand into his chest. I groan, unable to fight off the shiver racing down my spine. He’s skipping to the sex part before I’ve even gotten to the point, and it’s making my head swim. He always has this effect on me.
“Gus, why would I call you Daddy?” My voice is small, shakier than I mean for it to be. But I’m all of a sudden nervous—what if he doesn’t want this? We’ve talked about it, but we’re not even married yet. Yes, he gave me a ring a week after the fire, and yes, we’re planning a wedding for this spring. But now I’m going to be fat and pregnant. What if he doesn’t like that? What if he doesn’t want me?
“Wait, what? What are you overthinking? I can practically see the steam rolling out of…” He pauses, his brows scrunching into a deep v on his forehead. “Daddy?”
“Daddy,” I whisper. “Ya know, half me, half you. Hopefully ten toes and fingers. Although we spend enough time out here with the horses, they might have hooves. God, I hope not; that would be weird. People already look at us funny. Can you imagine?”
Gus grips my neck, not tightly, just enough to silence my rambling.
“Tell me you’re not kidding,” he questions, his eyes wide, searching my face, voice strangled with unspent emotion. It’s the only thing I need to know. I nod, and he blinks, trying to suppress the tears glistening in his dark eyes. He doesn’t say anything for several moments, frozen in shock, and I reach up to wrap my hand around his wrist.
“I hope that’s okay. I know it’s not good timing, and shit, I know you’ve always been on the fence. But a little you running around? I love you so much, and I can’t imagine anything better in this entire world, and?—”
His lips crush down onto mine, and I give into him without hesitation. It’s both a demanding kiss and a tender one—it’s all-consuming, filling every nerve ending with electricity so hot I feel like I’ll burst into flames at any moment. My heart pounds in my throat, and I taste tears mingling in our joined mouths—both mine and his.
Love. This is what love is. And I’d suffer a lifetime all over again to end up here, in this moment, with this monstrous man crying tears of joy with me. It’s devastating in the most beautiful way.
He pulls away to rest his forehead on mine, sucking in shaky breaths. “I hope she looks just like you, acts like you.” I smile against his lips, tears falling harder at his words.
I kiss him softly, my tear-filled lashes lifting to find his eyes. “She, huh?”
His mouth crushes down on mine once more, now hungrier, bordering on desperate, and I cling to him. His hands slide beneath my ass, lifting me, and I circle my legs around his waist. Without breaking the kiss, he walks toward the house, and I giggle, excitement overflowing my frantic heart.
“We’re having a baby.” He chuckles, his lips hungrily searching for mine once more, like he just can’t help himself. He stops, one hand leaving its spot on my ass to wrap around the side of my neck, steadying my face. “I love you so much it hurts. And I will do anything for you and this baby. Always.”
I know it’s true, and I don’t bother trying to fight off his desperate kisses to answer back. I pour my love, my heart, my soul into our kiss. I’ll do the same for him and our baby—I’ll match his monster with a monster of my own. He growls, and I know, he knows —that’s enough for now.
We’re enough, for always. Just two beings—the filly and the monster—finally coming home.