Page 85 of For Fillies and Monsters

“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 foryour 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 thousandsof 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 becauseI 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 ruinme” 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 havesurvived 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.”

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