Page 11 of Bad Cowboy, Tennessee

I’m not a total psychopath. It’s not as if I need to see bones break every night, watch somebody get punched so hard their whole face becomes a bruise, or have someone beg me to sink my cock deep into their throat solely because they’d ratherplease methan breathe.

Mmm. Maybe that’s more of a craving than a need.

I just wanted to feel something.

Sometimes, the road tofeeling somethingtakes… a lot. A lot of desire, a lot of pain.Both. Always both.

The second worst thing about Tennessee, though?

I was about to become a homeowner here.

I was standing in front of a small house, afternoon light glinting off a broken windowpane on the front.

The advertisement for the place described it as an “adorable fixer-upper that just needs a fresh coat of paint!”

I surveyed the property now from under the brim of my hat.

The house was single-level, with weathered red siding on the exterior that needed a lot more than just a fresh coat of paint. There were a few acres of unkempt land around it that smelled like dry grass and dust. The sun came in at an angle, forming long shadows in the swaying green grass surrounding the home.

I crossed my arms in front of me, nodding over at Mr. Marsden, the elderly owner who’d just given me a tour of the place. He stood under a mature maple tree with a cigarette dangling from the corner of his mouth, peering at me hesitantly as if he was waiting for me to back out of the sale.

A lot of people had passed on the house before, apparently. He’d told me three times that it was a “hard sell.”

“It’s what I need,” I told him now.

Because it was a house.

With land.

Thatwasn’tin Montana.

Technically I wasn’t running from the law, because there were no warrants out for my arrest yet.

I was escaping. From the potential of jail time, yes. Also from worse things.

“Definitely is a fixer-upper,” Mr. Marsden said.

“I can see that.”

I pushed my hat back from my brow, wiping away sweat. I’d only been in Tennessee for a day but as far as I could tell, the air was always humid and way too fucking warm here.

Mr. Marsden dropped the cigarette and put it out on the dirt. He started his slow walk over toward the far corner, waving for me to follow him.

My boots crunched on gravel.

I’d found the for-sale listing for this place online a few days ago, before Lily and I had arrived in town.

“Yep. She needs a little TLC,” Mr. Marsden said now, slapping one of the rust-red wood panels on the corner. Dust motes flew off into the sunlight, and I squinted down, noticing another half-dozen broken off pieces of siding.

The place could have been halfway burnt to the ground and I wouldn’t have cared, though.

It wasn’t even just about the house.

It was about the land.

One thing was true of me and true of my entire family, too: I neededland.

Back in Montana, that was the Lyons family’s biggest jewel of wealth. Land that stretched on for miles. Acres and acres, in Big Sky and all other parts north of it in Gallatin County, and a portfolio of smaller ranches around Rollins, too.

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