11. Stetson
ELEVEN
Stetson
Gage didn’t say much on the drive back—just looked at me when we got in, read whatever was on my face, and let it be.
The horses were in the trailer; our stuff in the back of the truck.
Bryn sat in the back with Buck’s head in her lap, and I felt ever inch of that separation now that we were with other people again.
The things we’d said on that hike, the things we’d done…
it all felt too private to share. Not with Gage.
Not when I was so raw after watching my dad beat on my little brother while I’d sat in that cave and hadn’t said a word.
I hadn’t grown up with Arlo. He’d been away too long, and when he got out of jail, my mom kept it that way.
Cooper hadn’t been so lucky.
Night had begun to fall by the time we pulled up to the house, every window lit up.
I almost wanted to just go home and drink it away…
but I needed to fill everyone in, owed it to Bryn to explain why I needed to be alone before I left her at the main house.
Peggy was standing on the porch next to my mom, Marlena.
Mom came down the stairs two at a time to greet Buck, who hurtled out of the car to see her—obedient in all aspects except when it came to greeting grandma—and then she looked up at me.
“Heard you had a run-in with your daddy?” she said.
I grunted. That was affirmation enough. Bryn, however, had already gotten out and decided she was going to explain everything her own way.
“That man is a monster,” she was saying. “That poor kid—oh, nice to meet you by the way, I’m Bryn—”
“Peggy told me,” Mom said, smiling at Bryn as her eyes darted to me. She was picking up signals. I needed to shut this shit down.
“We should get inside,” I said. “Lots to tell.”
We got everyone settled around the kitchen table—Gage, Millie, Mom, Peggy.
Wyatt and Haven had the kids; Forrest had joined us too.
Uncle Adam came in and stood behind Aunt Peggy, his hands on her shoulders as he listened to our story.
I told it plain, same as I would’ve told Gage in the truck if either of us had been talking.
The survey…the shove. Cooper on the ground outside the cave, blocking us from a father who’d never once looked at any of us like we were worth protecting instead of using.
Mom’s face didn’t change much. She’d had worse from Arlo herself.
But her eyes kept flicking to me, then to Bryn, then back to me…doing the damn math.
“So what now?” Gage asked Bryn. “You got enough evidence to do whatever it is needs doing?”
Bryn nodded. “I’ll need to go back for samples—probably find a way around that doesn’t reveal the exact location of the spring—but I can start compiling the paperwork to make a case for preservation of the aquifer.
Then nobody has to claim the water rights, the frogs will be safe, and you all can go about the cattle business as usual. ”
Gage nodded. “How long’s that take?”
“Filing itself, maybe a week once I’ve got the data compiled.
Approval’s slower…could be months, depending on how fast the district wants to move.
” Bryn glanced at her recorder, still clipped to her belt loop, dried mud crusted along the strap.
“I’ll need to talk to my colleagues at the university, get the department involved officially.
This isn’t something I can file alone and have it hold up. ”
“And if Arlo tries something before that goes through?” Adam asked.
“We’re working with the attorney to freeze the process for his claim,” Gage said, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Damn thorn in my side…”
Millie reached up to squeeze his hand with a hapless smile. “It’ll be okay, baby.”
“Better be,” Gage muttered, but he squeezed her hand back, the ghost of a smile on his lips.
Peggy stood, gathering coffee mugs off the table to top folks off. “I’ll talk to Cooper myself tomorrow. Boy needs somebody in his corner who isn’t after something from him.”
“He won’t testify against Arlo,” I said. “Never has.”
“Asshole has a stranglehold on that poor boy,” Mom murmured. “His mother…she never did enough to protect him.”
The conversation kept moving without me—timelines, lawyers, who’d walk the fence line at first light to check for any sign that my father had been trespassing.
I answered when asked, kept it short, mostly just watched Bryn field question after question with the same steady competence she’d had from day one.
Mud dried to her knees, explaining to a room full of strangers why a frog the size of a fingernail was worth fighting a man like Arlo.
She was good at this. Probably an amazing teacher.
She would be a great mom, too.
Didn’t change the thing sitting cold in my chest since that cave, telling me I had no business wanting what I’d asked her for out there in the rain.
No business being anybody’s father.
The table broke up close to ten. Kids needed beds, cattle needed checking come morning, everybody peeling off toward their own houses one by one.
Bryn caught my eye across the kitchen, but I ignored her—not because I didn’t want to look at her, but because I didn’t want to have the conversation I knew I needed to have.
Almost tried not to…tried to sneak out the front door, but Buck wouldn’t leave her side.
Damn dog.
I heard her come out along with the tap of Buck’s toenails on the porch, the heavy footfalls of her hiking boots. She cleared her throat more loudly than she needed to. I didn’t look back.
“You need somethin’?” I asked.
She let out a shocked laugh. “For you to look at me.”
I finally turned around, looking at her over my shoulder…dying to be back in the truck and alone.
Alone, like I was supposed to be.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” she asked, direct as ever. “You’ve barely looked at me all night.”
“Been a lot goin’ on.”
“That’s not an answer, Stetson.”
I looked past her, at the fresh-painted wood planks on the front of the house. My place…it was nothing like this. Wasn’t decorated, badly needed a coat of paint. It wasn’t clean. Wasn’t homey.
I was Arlo’s son, not Adam’s, not Austin’s. Out of all the three brothers…my blood was poison.
“I need some space tonight,” I said. “That’s all.”
Her brows raised. I caught it out of the corner of her eye—how she set her shoulders, put her hands on her hips.
“No.”
Now I looked at her. “...no?”
“You heard me,” she said. “No.”
I didn’t have a response to that.
“You may have gotten me pregnant two nights ago,” she said. So damn blunt. It was irritating and refreshing all at once. “I’m not going anywhere, and you don’t get to disappear on me now like this was nothing.”
“Didn’t say it was nothin’.”
“You’re acting like it. You watched your father do something ugly and now you’re shutting down. This why a handsome man like you is still single?”
“That supposed to be funny?’
“A little. Is it working?”
“No.”
“Well it was worth a shot.” She crossed her arms, taking a step toward me—not backing down an inch. “Talk to me, Stetson. Actual words. You’re good at those when you try.”
I looked at her—mud dried into the creases of her knuckles, hair a mess from three days on the creek, standing on Millie and Gage’s porch refusing to let me off easy.
“Might’ve made you a promise I got no business keepin’,” I said finally.
“What promise?”
“To be a decent father if you wanted that.”
Her scowl hardened.
No pity.
"That's what this is about."
"Watched him tonight. Watched exactly what kind of man makes a kid without carin' what it costs anybody. Don't know what parts of that I'm carryin' around."
“And you’re just going to go home alone and never find out?”
“Better that than hurt a child.” I set my jaw. “Or you.”
“You think you’re not hurting me right now?”
“Don’t know. Just know I don’t wanna find out I’m him twenty years too late.”
She actually laughed at that. It made my chest ache and I couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.
“Oh my god.” She threw her hands up. “You’re doing the thing.”
“What thing?”
“The martyr thing!” She took another step closer. “Where you decide what’s best for both of us without asking me, because apparently your feelings matter more than mine right now.”
“That’s not—”
“It’s exactly that. You’re standing on this porch deciding to disappear on my behalf, like I don’t get a say in whether I want a broody cowboy overthinking himself into perpetual loneliness.
” She poked me in the chest so hard it made me rock backward.
“I did not fall into your creek, get carried through your family’s front door, and let you put a baby in me—possibly—for you to bail the second things get complicated. ”
“Bryn—”
“No, I’m talking.” She still wasn’t backing down, her hands on her hips again.
Buck watched the whole thing like a tennis match.
“You’ve spent this entire trip being the most careful, controlled, watch-everything man I’ve ever met.
And the one time something actually scares you…
your solution is to run off and be alone with it?
That’s not caution, Stetson. That’s a coward’s move dressed up as nobility. ”
I lowered my voice, fixing my eyes on her. “Watch it, Bryn.”
“I’ll watch it when you stop being foolish,” she said, no more than a few inches away now.
“You want to know what your dad actually does that makes him him? He doesn’t think about anyone but himself.
That’s it. That’s the whole rotten core of it.
And right now, standing here, deciding unilaterally to walk away from a woman who might be carrying your kid because it’s easier than sitting with your own fear?
That’s the most selfish thing I’ve seen you do all week. ”
I choked on whatever I was going to say next.
Didn’t want to tell her she was right.
So instead, I reached out and I hauled her over my shoulder.
She huffed, her fists hammering against my back. Jesus, she had some fuckin’ force behind those hits.
“Stetson Holt,” she scolded. “Put me down! I’m not done—”
“You want me to take you home, I’ll take you home,” I growled, moving toward the truck.
I opened the passenger seat, Buck jumped in—then I put Bryn in after him.
She made to slide right out like she was going to fist fight me right here in the driveway, but I stretched my arms out to fill the space and lean in.
“Can’t drive if you’re standing there,” she challenged.
I leaned in, narrowing my eyes. “If I need to take this belt off and tie your hands with it, I will.”
“Don’t tempt me with a good time.”
I groaned. “It’s so you’ll stop slappin’ the hell out of me, woman.”
She lifted her chin in pure, unfiltered defiance. “You bringing me into town? Bus station? Airport?”
“No, damn it. I’m bringin’ you home with me.”
She opened her mouth for another insult, I was sure…but then she closed it again, crossing her arms and settling back into the seat.
“Fine,” she said. “But I’m not done talking.”
I grunted. “We’ll see,” I muttered.
Then I closed her door and went around to the driver’s seat…knowing I had ways of avoiding this conversation that would be much more fun than sending her away.