10. Callie
Chapter 10
Callie
T wo months after my father's grudging acceptance, I stand in Buck's kitchen—our kitchen now—slicing apples for a pie. The morning sun streams through the windows where I’ve hung new curtains with little cherry clusters on them, the light catching on the simple gold band that now adorns my left hand.
Buck took me into the city for a special date and surprised me with an appointment at some boujee jewelry store where he’d arranged for a private showing of engagement rings. The entire store smelled of lilacs he’d cut personally from the back acreage at his ranch, standing in what seemed like a hundred crystal vases, a juxtaposition of our simple country life and the fancy, glitzy city slicker store.
There, a lineup of rings with diamonds as big as dimes awaited me. Buck looked so handsome, but so nervous and out of place in his best Wranglers and his black leather dress cowboy hat.
He proposed right there in front of God and the five employees entrusted to find me the perfect ring, doing it right, down on one knee.
I couldn't have said yes fast enough. Then I told him I just wanted him, and a big diamond ring would surely get lost on the farm. He blustered about that, grumbling about no budget and telling me to pick out what I wanted.
So I did. The simple band that’s on my finger now, and a matching one for his.
My father grumbled when we went by to tell him the news, but the handshake he gave Buck afterward was genuine. Time was healing that wound, just as we knew it would.
The screen door slams open, and Buck strides in, hat pulled low against the morning sun, boots muddy from checking the fence line, his shirt half unbuttoned tp show off the valleys between hard-earned muscles, making the butterflies flutter in my belly and down between my legs.
"Mine," he growls, eyes locking on me instantly. His chest heaves like he's been running instead of walking.
I set down my knife, waves of heat and lust tangling in my core. "You're back early."
"Couldn't fucking breathe out there." He crosses to me in three long strides, rough hands gripping my hips hard enough to bruise. "Need to be inside you, or I'll lose my goddamn mind."
I arch against his solid chest, feeling that now familiar hard length pushing against my hip as I let my head fall back. "The pie—"
"Fuck the pie." He bites my exposed neck, nearly breaking skin. "Been thinking about this pussy since dawn."
I whimper, turning in his arms. "You fucked me while I was sleeping at dawn.” I giggle. “I woke up with Papa’s special sauce streaming out of me.”
He shrugs. “You sleep hard. Growing a human is hard work. I was soft and slow, you came in your sleep. I took care of you, don’t you worry.”
His mouth crashes into mine before I can reply, consuming, claiming.
When he tears away, his eyes are wild. "Put my hat on your head while I fuck you. Want to see it. Need to."
He reaches for the black Stetson he wore when he proposed, hanging on a hook under the growing collection of our selfies with me smiling with all my teeth and him growling at the camera.
The Stetson is soft and worn but special, and my skin lights up as he places it roughly on my head. The weight of it, the smell of him embedded in the leather, makes my heart skip. I know what this means in cowboy terms—a claim more permanent than even the ring on my finger.
It’s a moment. He’s never put his hat on my head before.
"Buck," I whisper, overcome.
"Looks better on you than it ever did on me." His voice is gruff, tight, and I swear his bottom lip quivers as he looks at me wearing his hat.
I reach up to touch the brim reverently. "I'll treasure it, Papa."
"Planning to treasure you for the rest of my life, baby." He pulls me close again. "Sixty, seventy years ought to be a good start."
"Just a start?" I tease, blinking back tears.
"Well, I am an overachiever." He lifts me onto the counter, stepping between my legs. "Especially when it comes to loving you."
I wrap my arms around his neck, the hat tipping forward slightly. "I think I can live with that."
"Wearing my ring. My hat. Gonna fill you with my cum next. Mark you from the inside."
“You sorta already did that.” I touch the brim with trembling fingers, the other hand settling over my belly. "I've never wanted anything more."
I’m six weeks along, and when that little pink line showed up on the pregnancy test, Buck let out a yee haw that sent a ripple straight to heaven.
"Need you," he groans, shoving himself forward so I feel his cock between my thighs. "Need you so bad it scares me. Like I'll die without you, Callie. Die."
"You have me," I whisper, tears stinging. "Always have."
"Not enough." His fingers dig into my flesh. "Never enough. Want to crawl inside you. Want to fucking own you. Every. Fucking. Inch. Papa needs his baby."
I wrap myself around him. "Then take what's yours."
His eyes darken, something primitive breaking free. "You're not just his daughter anymore. You're my fucking salvation. The only thing keeping me sane. Christ, I'd burn down the world to keep you."
I wrap my arms around his neck. "I think I can live with that."
His smile, the one reserved just for me, spreads slowly across his face. And as he kisses me again, deeper this time, I know with absolute certainty that I'm exactly where I belong—claimed by the only man who's ever owned my heart.
I surrender to the beautiful violence of being loved this completely. He’s overwhelming and a pain in my ass, but I’ve never felt this kind of love.
"That pie is still waiting to be made, but you need to take care of your Papa first,” he rumbles against my ear, his calloused hand splayed possessively over my belly. "Every time I see you in our kitchen, wearing my ring, carrying my child, I forget how to breathe. Spent my whole life thinking men like me don't get second chances. Now I wake up every morning next to you and wonder what I did to deserve this. You're mine, Callie girl. Mine to protect, mine to cherish, mine to worship until they put me in the ground. And even then, I'll be waiting for you on the other side."
My father’s best friend became mine and so much more. My Papa, my friend, my lover and soon, the best father to my children the world would ever know.
“I love you, Papa,” I hiss as he drops to his knees, his head already moving under my skirt, my panties flung across the wood floor.
He mumbles something like ‘I love you too’ into my pussy as I lay back on the counter and count my lucky stars the cowboy of my dreams is mine forever.
And I’m his.
He’s got it bad for his step-sister.