Chapter 1: Where the Wild Things Ran
Chapter Text
Prologue
They were three years old, all knees and freckles and denim-stained trouble, when Luke's mama placed the future in their hands.
It was hot that day, even for late spring. The cottonwoods buzzed with cicadas, and Tillman Ranch was wrapped in the stillness that comes after a storm - the kind that stirs up dust and births babies.
Gator had a rock in his pocket and dirt under every fingernail. Luke was already bossy, already taller by a nose, already acting like the world owed him answers. They were barefoot and sticky, sitting on the porch steps, swatting at flies and telling lies about who could ride a horse fastest.
And then she came out, wrapped in a faded quilt and tucked against Luke's mama's chest.
Luke blinked at the bundle. "Is that it?"
His mama laughed, exhausted and glowing. "She," she corrected, laying the baby in Luke's lap, "is your sister."
The boys went still.
As if a hush had fallen over the earth itself.
Gator leaned in first, curious. "She's little."
"Smells weird," Luke added, wrinkling his nose, but he didn't hand her back.
"Babies smell like beginnings," his mama murmured, brushing sweat-soaked hair from her brow. "Now listen close, boys."
She crouched down, one hand steadying the sleepy girl on Luke's knees, the other smoothing wild curls from both their heads.
"Look after her," she said. Not soft. Not a wish, but a command. "She's yours now. Like a star in your pocket. You break her, you answer to me."
Luke nodded solemnly.
Gator, wide-eyed and already sunburnt across the bridge of his nose, reached out and poked the baby's foot.
She kicked. Then yawned.
And just like that, the trio was made.
One squalling, swaddled girl.
Two boys with dust in their veins.
***
Naked As the Day They Were Born
Summer on Tillman Ranch was a beast with a soft belly - hot enough to fry an egg on a tin roof, slow enough to stretch time like molasses. And on days like this, with the sun sitting heavy in the sky and the air buzzing with heat, there wasn't much to do except run wild and hope someone remembered to call them in for dinner.
The boys had stripped down to nothing by noon.
It started with Gator daring Luke to jump through the sprinkler in his underwear. Then Luke dared him to do it without. Then they both figured clothes were for suckers, and that was that.
By the time little Wynn toddled out, dragging a plastic bucket and chewing on her fist, there was a full-on naked rodeo happening in the side yard.
Gator was sprinting laps, squealing every time the icy mist hit his back. Luke was standing directly over the sprinkler, face to the sky, arms flung wide like he was baptising himself in hose water glory.
"Y'all are idiots," Roy called from the porch. But he didn't make a move to stop them. Just sipped his sweet tea and shook his head.
Wynn paused at the edge of the action, blinking at the chaos. She was soft in the cheeks, baby-plump with wobbly knees and dark hair stuck to her forehead. Her pull-up sagged from the heat.
She looked at Luke. Then at Gator. Then at the sprinkler.
Then she dropped her bucket. And her diaper.
"Wynnie!" Luke barked, scandalised.
But Gator threw his head back and howled. "Atta girl!"
And suddenly there were three - bare as bones and squealing through the spray, slipping on wet grass and chasing dragonflies as though they were made of magic. Gator scooped Wynn up under the arms and spun her in a dizzying circle while she shrieked with laughter. Luke pelted them both with water balloons that burst in fat, wet splurges.
None of them had a single shameful bone in their bodies. Not yet.
And from the porch, Luke and Wynn's mama leaned into Roy's wife and whispered, "Just you wait. One day, that little girl's gonna break both their hearts."
***
Boot Frog Justice
At seven, Wynn Wilder had a mouth full of questions and scabbed-up knees that never quite healed. She still couldn't keep up with the boys, not really, but she tried like hell anyway.
That summer, Gator and Luke were ten - full of smug grins and meaner pranks, caught in that age where girls were "gross" but also weirdly fascinating, especially when they wouldn't stay put.
Wynn was always there. Tagging along, asking why horses slept standing up or whether Gator's moles meant he was diseased. She copied the way Luke spit and the way Gator rolled his sleeves. She was in the way, all the time - and she'd rather die than be left out.
So they made her pay for it.
That afternoon, she found them behind the tack shed, heads bent together like outlaws planning a jailbreak. She knew that look. Knew mischief when she saw it.
"I wanna play," she said, arms crossed.
Luke rolled his eyes. "You ain't invited."
"I live here."
"Doesn't mean you're not annoying," Gator muttered without looking up.
She narrowed her eyes at him. "You're ugly when you're mean."
Luke snorted. Gator grinned - just a little - and that was probably her first mistake: allowing herself to think they were letting her in.
Because five minutes later, Wynn shoved her feet into her boots without checking first.
And screamed like the devil himself had bit her.
"GATOR ROY TILLMAN!" she shrieked, yanking the boot off and chucking it across the barn. A slick green frog flopped out and landed in the straw, wide-eyed and innocent.
The boys howled. Doubled over, cackling, tears in their eyes. Gator was on his back, kicking the ground, gasping, "Her face, oh god, her face!"
Wynn stood there, shaking with rage, lip trembling.
Then she picked up a horseshoe and hurled it at his head.
It missed. Barely.
Gator ducked, still laughing, but he looked at her different then, like maybe she was a real threat after all.
"You're both dead," she spat, eyes wild. "When I grow up, I'm gonna feed you to the pigs."
Luke wheezed. "Better hurry up, Wynnie. Squealin' like that, the pigs might adopt you."
But Gator just stared at her from the dirt floor, dust in his hair and sun in his smile.
And for the briefest flicker of a second, he looked… impressed.
***
No Girls Allowed (Except Wynn)
The rule was clear: no girls allowed.
Which was why Gator and Luke had gone quiet the moment they heard Wynn's voice holler up from below.
"Let me up!"
The boys were already hunkered down in the hayloft, flashlights clicked on, stale Twizzlers hidden under a saddle blanket, and one sacred rule carved in dirt between them. No girls. Not even if she was Luke's sister. Not even if she brought the good cookies.
Especially not if she knew they were telling ghost stories.
"I said," came her voice again, closer this time, "let me up!"
Luke groaned. "Ignore her."
"She'll just climb up anyway," Gator said, flat.
And sure enough, her black, messy mop popped over the edge a second later, hands and feet scrabbling like a determined gremlin. She was still all knees and elbows at eight, stubborn as a mule and hard to reason with.
She heaved herself into the loft with a triumphant grunt, straw clinging to her shirt and a fire in her eyes. "Move over."
Luke sighed dramatically, but they made room.
They always did.
The ghost story was Gator's idea, and he told it slow.
Voice low. Flashlight under his chin. Real serious.
He called it The Hook-Handed Cowboy Who Ate Kids Who Talked Too Much.
Luke leaned into it, wide-eyed and delighted, adding details. "He only comes when it's real quiet," he whispered. "Real late. You hear a click first. That's his hook. Draggin'."
Wynn scoffed, arms crossed. "Y'all are full of-"
Click.
All three of them froze.
It wasn't part of the act.
Thump.
Something moved below them.
Then-
SCREEEEEEEEEEEEECH!
The barn door groaned open, slow and high-pitched like a dying goat. Gator's flashlight flickered. Wynn grabbed his arm without thinking.
Luke grabbed Wynn.
Then all hell broke loose.
"RUN!" Gator shrieked, flinging hay in every direction as he scrambled for the ladder.
"I CAN'T SEE-"
"THAT'S YOUR FOOT IN MY FACE-"
They tumbled down in a tangle of limbs and yelling, landing hard in the straw below. The flashlight spun out, illuminating dust and panic and not a single ghost cowboy.
Just the wind.
And Roy Tillman's old barn cat, blinking up at them from the shadows like what in god's name is wrong with you children.
They lay there for a long moment, sweaty and panting, covered in hay and each other.
Then Gator wheezed, "You screamed louder than anyone, Luke."
"I did not-"
"You did too!"
"You sound like a chicken when you're scared," Wynn said, smug now, her fingers still curled around Gator's wrist.
He didn't pull away.
When she finally let go, neither said a word about it.
***
The Punch
Wynn was ten now, and something in her had started to shift.
Her face was slimmer. Her voice was louder. And the boys - god help them - were still as unbearable as ever.
Especially Gator Tillman.
He was all swagger these days, shoulders just starting to broaden under sun-faded T-shirts, voice cracking like a rusty screen door every time he tried to sound older than he was. He and Luke had taken their torment to new heights - stealing Wynn's diary, eating all her cereal, telling the new, handsome ranch hand she was "half-girl, half-piglet."
She took it. Mostly. She always had. But this time?
This time they crossed a line.
It started like everything did: with a dare.
They were all up by the fence line, where the woods started to creep in and no adults ever came looking.
Luke dared Gator to ride old Buttercup bareback - no reins, no saddle, just guts and stupidity. Gator, naturally, agreed.
Wynn stood at the edge, arms crossed, eyes sharp. "You're gonna fall and land on your pride."
"Least I got some," Gator shot back.
She snorted. "All you got is an ego and fleas."
"Want me to help you brush yours out?"
Luke laughed. Gator grinned wide.
Then he did it. He crossed that line.
He looked her straight in the eye, smirked, and said, "Maybe if you stopped running your mouth, some boy might actually like you."
Silence.
Wynn blinked.
Something went cold and still behind her eyes.
And then?
She decked him.
Right hook. Fast. Solid. Years of swinging hay bales and mucking stalls behind it. Her fist cracked against his lip with a sound that echoed off the trees.
Gator stumbled back, eyes wide, hand flying to his mouth.
"Shit!" he spat, pulling his fingers back, slick with blood.
Luke gawked. "Jesus, Wynn!"
"You deserved it," she snapped, breathing hard, fists still clenched.
Gator stared at her, stunned. Not mad. Not scared. Just, surprised.
Like he'd never seen her before.
Like suddenly she wasn't the annoying little tagalong. Not a pest. Not a brat.
Just Wynn. Fierce. Furious. Real.
He wiped his mouth and gave a crooked, bleeding grin. "You punch like a sonuvabitch."
She lifted her chin. "You look like one."
Luke started to laugh - nervous, half-proud, half-worried. "Okay, okay, truce, before she kills you."
Maybe that was the day it all really started to change. Hard to tell.
But from then on, Gator didn't tease her quite the same.
Chapter 2: The Betrayals of Adolescence
Chapter Text
Blood and Secrets
Wynn was already having a bad day.
It was hot, her boots were too tight, and she'd bled clean through her favourite pair of jeans before breakfast.
She hated it. Hated the way her body had betrayed her. Hated the way her mama clucked and offered heating pads, the way the old ranch hand wouldn't meet her eye when she asked to skip mucking stalls.
And more than anything, she hated the way Luke found out.
Because Gator had known. Somehow. Quietly, wordlessly. He'd figured it out earlier that morning. Maybe from the wince she gave when she got off the horse, or her uncomfortable waddle from the too-big pad stuffed in her pants, or the flush of her cheeks as she stormed to the bathroom. But he hadn't said a word.
Luke, though? Luke announced it.
They were in the stables, all three of them, brushing down the horses. She was snapping at him over something stupid - his turn with the curry comb, or how he never shut the gate behind him. She had heat in her voice, frustration in her fists.
Luke rolled his eyes and shot back, "God, are you always gonna be a bitch on your period?"
Silence.
It rang through the stables like a gunshot.
Gator froze halfway through brushing Biscuit's flank. Wynn went perfectly still.
Luke blinked. "What?"
Wynn stared at him. Her eyes didn't water, though they burned like hell. She didn't cry.
She smiled.
Slow and dangerous.
And that was how Luke Wilder knew he'd messed up in a colossal way.
She stepped forward, every inch of her steady and gleaming with retribution.
"You wanna talk about secrets, Lukey?" she asked, sugar-sweet. "Let's talk about what you keep in that shoebox under your bed."
Luke's face went sheet-white. "Wynn."
"You know," she continued, hands on her hips now, "the one with all the magazines. The ones with the naked ladies."
Gator choked.
Luke launched toward her. "You rat!"
But she was already backing away, laughing so hard she doubled over. "Guess you do like girls after all."
"Wynnie," Luke hissed, mortified. "That's private!"
"So's my uterus!" she shouted over her shoulder, still giggling as she darted out of there like her feet had wings.
Later that night, Gator found her sitting alone on the porch swing, dangling her legs, still wearing that smug little smile.
"You really got him good," he said, settling beside her.
She shrugged, but her cheeks were still flushed. "He started it."
"I know." A pause. "You okay?"
She didn't answer for a minute.
Then, soft, like it cost her something: "I hate it. This growing-up crap. Everything's changing and I don't want it to."
Gator nodded. "Me neither."
Me neither.
But it would. Change. Everything would.
They sat there for a while, the summer air thick with cicadas and things they couldn't possibly know were headed their way.
***
O urs to Tease
Wynn was twelve, stuck squarely in the no-man's land between girlhood and grown, and middle school was hell on earth.
People whispered. People snickered. She'd started developing faster than most, which meant the front of her shirts pulled tight and the other kids didn't know what to do with that. She wore boots instead of ballet flats, talked back in class, and didn't cry when she got detention. So the other girls called her weird. The boys said worse.
She didn't say much about it at home. Not even to Luke. Especially not to Gator.
But they found out anyway - heard it in the high school locker room after practice - a couple of younger kids from the little league, too loud and too stupid to know who was listening.
"Wynnie Wilder," one of them laughed, "and her trailer-trash tits."
Gator was still drying off, towel rough against his neck, hair dripping onto his shoulders.
He stopped. Mid-motion. Met Luke's eyes across the tile.
And that was all it took.
They didn't talk about what they were doing.
They just reacted.
Gator and Luke, both fifteen now: tall, broader shoulders, ranch-strong and total bastards when they wanted to be - cornered the kid against the locker. Some wiry little punk with too much gel in his hair and a chin that hadn't earned the right to open his mouth.
But oh, he knew about Luke Wilder. He knew even more about Gator Tillman.
Gator leaned in first, hand braced on the wall to cage him in, a menacing smirk stretched across his face. "You got a lotta opinions on things that don't concern you."
The kid blinked. "What-?"
Luke cracked his knuckles. "Like my sister."
"I didn't mean-"
"That's the thing," Gator interrupted, dropping his hand, crossing his arms, squaring up even closer, "you don't get to mean anything about her."
He shoved the kid back - nothing brutal, just enough to make him stumble and hit his head and get the message.
Luke added, low and lethal: "You want to say something about Wynn Wilder, you run it by us first. We've got a lifetime lease on teasing rights. Everyone else? Keep her name outta your mouth - 'less you wanna be pissin' blood."
The boy nodded, red-faced, stumbling off without another word.
Back home, Wynn was in the barn brushing her horse, sullen and quiet. She didn't look up when they walked in.
Gator sauntered past, casual as anything. "Hey, Wynnie."
She flicked a brushstroke harder than she needed to. "What."
He plucked a piece of hay from her hair. "Handled that thing for you."
"What thing."
"The one that made you eat lunch in the bathroom stall yesterday."
Her spine stiffened. "Did someone tell you?"
"Nope," Gator said, matter-of-fact. "You did. You wear your pride like it's stitched to your sleeves, but your eyes? Your eyes give you away."
She blushed, then grumbled, but her shoulders dropped just a little. Less tense. Less alone.
Luke walked past on his way to the hayloft, muttering, "Couple loudmouths forgot who they were talkin' about."
Gator winked at her. "Give it a few years," he added, smooth as anything. "They'll be beggin' you for a date - if they're lucky enough not to eat dirt first."
Luke snorted. "They try anything, they'll be beggin' with a busted jaw."
The barn was stuffy that evening, thick with dust and the smell of sun-warmed hay. Wynn sat on an overturned feed bucket, scowling into the scribblings in her diary, still stinging from the incident at school.
Luke and Gator were stretched out nearby, sharing a bottle of gas station root beer and the kind of silence that only came when a plan was settling in behind their teeth.
"She's already mean," Luke finally said, eyes narrowed in thought.
Gator took a slow sip. "She just doesn't know where to aim it yet."
Wynn glanced between them, suspicious. "What are you two nannas whispering about?"
Luke stood, dusting his hands on his jeans. "You."
"I don't like that."
Gator leaned back, one boot crossed over the other. "Tired of you getting pushed around by cowards."
"I'm handling it," she snapped, bristling.
Luke smirked. "Sure, princess. That why you cried into your pillow last night?"
"I had cramps, asshole!"
Gator stepped in, calm as they come. "Okay, okay. Look. You've got fire, Wynnie. Always have. But imagine if you knew what to do with it."
She blinked. "What are you saying?"
Luke grinned like the devil. "We're gonna teach you to fight."
The training started that evening behind the stables, in the patch where they used to race snails and throw horseshoes at pegs in the dirt. Now it was a makeshift ring - Wynn barefoot and bouncing on the balls of her feet, facing off with Luke, who wore padding made of old throw pillows duct-taped around his chest.
Gator circled them both, arms crossed, voice low and instructional. "You're smaller. Faster - use it. Don't swing like a boy. Swing like someone who wants to hurt."
Wynn bared her teeth in a grin. "I am someone who wants to hurt."
Luke groaned. "God help us all."
Gator smirked; there was pride in it.
They worked every day for a week. Gator showed her how to plant her feet, how to throw from the shoulder. Luke taught her the dirty tricks: the shin kick, the elbow jab, the way to shout just right to startle someone bigger than you long enough to get in a good hit.
Wynn thrived.
She was fast. Sharp. Ruthless when she wanted to be.
She had Luke cradling his balls by Thursday.
By Saturday, she had Gator pinned flat on his back in the dirt, panting, grinning down at him with hay in her hair and sweat on her brow.
He stared up at her, chest heaving, and for a second - just a second - he forgot how to speak.
"You yield?" she teased.
His voice came hoarse. "Don't know what the hell that means."
She laughed. Loud. Unapologetic. And let him up.
Luke muttered, "We've created a monster."
But Gator just watched her walk away, rubbing his sore ribs and wondering if this was what pride felt like, or fear.
Maybe both.
***
Raised by Wolves
The first day of high school cracked open hot and spiteful, sky already too bright for the kind of nerves Wynn was nursing. Heat shimmered off the porch rail. September in Stark County didn't care if a girl's whole life was about to change.
She stood there in her cleanest boots and denim shorts that rode up more than they used to, her hips and thighs soft in places they hadn't been last year. Her body, it seemed, kept finding new ways to betray her. The shorts earned a muttered prayer from her mama, and her tank top had Luke choking on his coffee. Her hair was yanked into a long, black braid so tight it pulled at her temples, and she'd smeared Lip Smacker on her mouth like armour.
Shoulders back. Chin up. Stomach in knots.
She heard it before she saw it - an engine coughing through the dust, all rust and growl, as Gator Tillman's beat-to-hell truck came roaring round the bend. It squealed to a crooked stop, kicking up a cloud of gravel and teenage bravado.
The window rolled down, revealing Gator's grin first - wide and feral.
"Get in, loser," he called. "We're headed straight for your social destruction."
Luke leaned into her ear as he passed. "We got snacks."
"You got gas station jerky and something that probably used to be Mountain Dew," Wynn grumbled, but she was already slinging her bag over her shoulder.
Gator popped the door open. "Breakfast of champions, baby."
The ride was loud, fast, and full of the kind of terrible wisdom only seventeen-year-old boys could deliver with absolute confidence.
"Rule one," Luke declared, arm tossed across the seat. "Don't look seniors in the eye. They can smell fear."
"Rule two," Gator added, nodding solemnly, "if anyone offers you gum, say yes - they're checking if you got bad breath."
"Rule three," Luke said, tapping the dash for emphasis, "avoid any boy named Austin, Braden, Jayden, or anything else that ends in '-en'."
Wynn glared at them. "You done?"
Gator shrugged. "Almost. Last one's important."
He didn't grin this time. Just looked at her, quiet-like. "If anybody messes with you-"
"What?" she said, dry. "You two gonna beat up a freshman?"
Luke gave a dimpled grin. "Depends. Are they bigger than us?"
"Emotionally, yes," she said.
Gator glanced at her sidelong, voice lower now. "We're not joking, Wynnie. You need us, we're there."
The weight behind the words landed, quiet and heavy and real.
She looked at them both - her brother with his shaggy hair he desperately needed to cut, and Gator, steady as gravity, who didn't fill the truck with size so much as with presence. The air just seemed to bend around him different.
Something in her chest pinched.
"Thanks," she said, voice smaller than she liked.
Then louder, to chase it off: "But if y'all get me expelled for fighting before lunch, Mama's gonna plant you both six feet deep behind the tack shed."
Luke saluted. "Noted."
Gator pulled into the school lot like he'd paved it himself. Rolled to a stop, one hand hanging out the window, the other drumming easy on the steering wheel.
Wynn reached for the handle.
"Hey, Wynnie," Gator called after her.
She turned.
He reached out, easy as breathing, and tugged a cap down over her eyes - sun-faded canvas, brim soft from use, the words Tillman Ranch stitched bold in red across the front.
"So folks know who you belong to," he explained.
She flushed all the way to her ears and ducked her head.
"Thanks, Gator."
Then, she stepped out into high school, boots hitting pavement with purpose. Head high. Eyes forward. She didn't need luck.
She'd been raised by wolves.
And two of them were still in that truck, watching her go like they were ready to burn the place down if it bit.
***
She Took Off Her Earrings
High school changed a lot of things.
The halls got louder. The homework got hard. The parties reeked of smoke and something desperate. But the bullies? They stayed the same.
Same greasy smirks. Same too-tight jeans and too-much Axe. Same stupid little words spat like tiny pieces of flint - mean, sharp, and stinging. Kids who'd rather break you than figure out why they were so small inside.
Wynn had survived them in middle school. Quietly. Bitterly.
Wynn at fourteen wasn't that girl anymore.
Wynn at fourteen knew how to swing.
They cornered her behind the ag barn. Three of them, all mouth and acne, the usual mix of jealousy and testosterone that festered in boys who didn't know what to do with a girl who looked them in the eye.
"You think you're hot shit now, huh?" one of them sneered, blocking her path.
"Grew some tits and started acting like a Tillman," another muttered.
Wynn didn't flinch. Just shifted her weight and sighed through her nose like she had better things to do. Like this whole performance bored her.
Which it did.
From across the parking lot, Luke and Gator stood in the bed of Gator's truck, sipping warm sodas and watching.
"You see this?" Luke asked, brows furrowed.
Gator already had one foot over the side. "I'm goin'."
Luke put a hand on his arm. "Hold on."
"She's outnumbered."
"She's not outmatched."
Gator paused.
Then Luke squinted. "Wait. She just- oh shit."
"What?"
"She took off her earrings."
Gator stopped moving. Grinned. "Atta girl."
Back behind the ag barn, Wynn handed her hoops to the girl beside her with a dry, "Hold these."
The first punch came fast - no wind-up, no warning. Just the clean crack of knuckle on bone.
The sound of a twig snapping.
The boy reeled back, eyes wide, blood pouring from his nose like a faucet left on.
"You broke it!" he shrieked.
"It's an improvement," she said, shaking out her hand.
The other two hovered, unsure now. Looking between her and their bleeding friend before backing off like dogs who'd just found out the rabbit bites back.
She walked back across the lot a couple minutes later, tucking her earrings back in with a lazy grace, and wiping blood from her knuckles.
"Handled?" Luke asked.
She nodded. "Guy's gonna be talkin' outta his eye socket for a week."
Gator stared at her, jaw clenched, eyes burning with something quiet and dangerous.
"You're terrifying," he said.
Wynn smiled, wicked and proud. "Took you this long to notice?"
He didn't answer.
Just watched her slip into the truck, wondering when the hell she'd stopped being Luke's little sister-
-and started being fire.
***
Wilder Hands
Isolation wasn't so bad.
Wynn had expected worse - more yelling, more shame, more of her daddy's disappointed mutterings to Roy while they rounded up a herd of cattle together. But aside from the vice principal's lecture and Luke's dramatic declaration that she'd "officially joined the family criminal record," it was mostly just... quiet.
Her daddy hadn't even raised his voice. Just kept working, same as always, boots in the dirt and hands steady on the reins. The Wilders had been ranch hands on Tillman soil since before there were road signs out here. Respected. Reliable. You didn't get that kind of reputation by raising hell in the schoolyard.
But he hadn't scolded her either.
Which somehow felt worse.
They stuck her in the old music room for fourth period. Said she couldn't roam the halls. Couldn't talk. Couldn't stir up more trouble.
That was fine.
She didn't feel like talking anyway.
Her knuckles still ached, skin split and raw from where bone had met bone. The adrenaline was gone, bled out slow, and now all that was left was the low thrum of feeling sore and hollow.
The room smelled like old wood and dust. Sounded like nothing. The quiet clung to her, too big for the space.
She wandered.
Ran her fingers over broken piano keys, a snare with its skin half-ripped. Everything abandoned. Everything a little bruised.
Then she saw it.
A guitar.
Propped against the wall like it was waiting on somebody who never came back. Scuffed up, sun-stained. Strings a little rusted. One tuning peg missing.
Wynn hesitated. Then crossed the room and picked it up.
It was heavier than it looked. Warm from the sun. She'd never touched a guitar in her life. Didn't know a chord from a knot. But her hands knew stubborn, and that was something.
She strummed once.
Sharp. Wrong. Ugly.
She winced.
Did it again.
Still wrong. But it stirred something. A shiver under the skin. Not good - not yet - but right, in some off-kilter way.
She sat down cross-legged on the floor, cradling it awkwardly. Plucked a note. Then another. Kept going, fingers fumbling over the frets.
It didn't sound like much.
But it didn't sound like nothing.
And for a girl who'd only ever known how to hit back with fists or words, the idea of singing instead of swinging felt risky.
Beautiful, even.
She stayed there all week.
Every day of her isolation, same dusty room. Same busted guitar.
By Friday, she could play an almost-song. A mess she could hum to.
She didn't know yet that one day, she'd sing in bars. That people would hush when they heard her. That a hardened Sheriff Deputy would stand in the back and pretend he wasn't being brought to his knees.
All she knew was the strings made her feel something.
She stole it.
Technically, it had been abandoned. Forgotten. Left to gather dust in the corner of the school's music room. But still - Wynn took it home without asking. Shoved it in the backseat of Luke's truck and dared him to say anything about it.
He glanced in the rearview mirror, raised one brow, and muttered, "You better not suck."
Spoiler alert: she did.
Wynn dragged that guitar across the ranch everywhere she went. Strapped it across her back when she did chores. Propped it up next to the water trough. Left it leaning on fence posts like a sidearm.
She strummed while the horses grazed, while the sun dipped low behind the barn, while the cicadas screamed and the flies bit.
It was ugly. Truly.
Twanging, off-key, out of rhythm. Like a dying bird in a twister.
By the third day, Gator hollered from across the pasture, "If I give you twenty bucks, will you stop murdering that thing?"
She flipped him off. Didn't miss a beat.
By the end of the week, Luke started calling her "Shredward Scissorhands."
Wynn slapped his sandwich out his hands without breaking eye contact.
She played until her fingers blistered. Then she taped them up and played some more.
Because fuck them.
She didn't care if it made the dogs howl. Or if the cows side-eyed her like she'd lost her damn mind. Or if every note was slightly worse than the last.
She didn't care because every once in a while - a chord would land. A progression would settle. Her voice would almost carry right.
And those almosts felt good.
Dared her to do more.
One night, long after dinner, she sat out on the porch steps in her tank top and pajama shorts, legs bare and bug-bitten, guitar in her lap.
She strummed soft. Aimless.
Gator crossed behind her on the way to his truck, caught the sound, paused. Then doubled back.
"...That supposed to be Cash?"
"Bite me."
He leaned against the porch post, arms crossed, lazy as a cat. "Sounds like Ring of Fire actually crashed and burned."
"Good," Wynn muttered, adjusting her fingers.
He snorted. Then after a beat: "You're gettin' better."
She didn't look up, but her hands stilled on the strings.
"You mean that?"
He shrugged. "You still suck. But like... less."
She grinned into the dark. "Give me a month."
He shook his head. "You'll be unbearable if you ever actually get good."
"Oh, sugar," she said, plucking a stubborn chord, "I'm already unbearable."
He laughed then. Low and soft.
And stood there for a while longer than he had to.
Just listening.
Chapter 3: Bloom / Break
Chapter Text
Hot and Traitorous
The stadium lights hummed above, pouring white heat over patchy grass and sweat-slick boys. Halftime.
Luke had been yanked to the sideline, catching hell from Coach for showboating too soon - helmet off, arms crossed, patchy stubble he'd started growing above his lip twitching into a half-smirk. It was as if he couldn't take a scolding seriously if it came from a pulsing neck and a whistle.
Gator stood farther off, hands braced on his hips, ringing loud in his ears. Helmet off. Hair damp. Heart still pounding - not from the sprint. Not from the score.
From nerves.
Not game nerves.
Because the announcer's voice cracked over the loudspeaker, too loud, too chipper, unaware of the match he was about to strike.
"Please rise for the national anthem, sung tonight by local student Wynnifred Wilder."
A stir swept the bleachers. Head turns. A few mutters.
"Wilder?"
"Isn't that Luke's sister?"
"Didn't she beat up that kid behind the ag barn?"
"What, charity work from the Tillmans now?"
Gator's jaw ticked at that one.
Luke caught up, panting beside him, barked out a nervous laugh. "Did you know she was doing this?"
Gator simply shook his head.
As she stepped up to the mic with an unassuming quietness.
Cherry-red cowboy boots, stitched white at the seams. Little denim skirt, clinging to sun-brown skin, short enough to make grown men shift a little in their seats, which she ignored. Guitar slung over her black tank top.
Fifteen going on fearless.
She didn't look at them. Didn't wave. Didn't smile.
She just nodded at the sound guy, took a breath, and opened her mouth.
And then she sang.
It was the kind of voice that wrapped around your spine and made it tingle - honey dragged over gravel, aching as if it had been soaked in heartbreak and back porch bourbon.
Nobody moved.
Nobody breathed.
It wasn't clean. Wasn't polished.
It was real. Raw.
And when she hit the last note - held it just long enough to haunt them forever - it was dead silent for a beat too long.
Then the place erupted.
Applause. Cheers. Whistles. Even the assholes in the back row had the decency to look surprised.
Luke flicked his eyes sideways. "The hell?"
Gator didn't answer.
He couldn't.
She'd knocked the wind clean out of him and replaced it with something hot and traitorous curling round his ribs.
Something that shouldn't be there.
Shouldn't ever be there.
Not for her.
Not for Wynn.
But it was.
And it burned like guilt.
***
Lookin' At Me Now
The game ended in a blur of lights and adrenaline and shoulder pads cracking thunder.
They won, but Gator barely remembered the second half. His body moved on instinct - feet pounding turf, hands doing what they were supposed to - but his head was still back at the fifty-yard line where she had stood, heart lodged somewhere in his throat where it didn't belong.
He didn't see Wynn again.
Didn't look for her either.
At least, he told himself not to.
Back on the ranch, the silence stretched long.
They got home late, Luke singing off-key, high on victory and skin sticky from the Gatorade bath. Gator rode in the cab in total silence. Wynn was already home - light on in the hayloft, little sliver of glow leaking from the barn window.
He saw it. Said nothing.
When he walked inside, the kitchen smelled like reheated beans and floor polish. He grabbed a water from the fridge, drank it too fast.
"Hot out there tonight," Roy said from the table, not looking up from the paper.
Gator nodded. "Yeah."
That was it.
The next morning, he found her by the trough. She was in the same boots as last night and one of Luke's old T-shirts knotted at the waist. No spotlight. Just Wynn again.
Except… not.
She didn't notice when he approached, too buried deep in her chores.
He opened the gate. Let it swing behind him, metal clanging sharp in the quiet hum of cicadas. Tried to keep his voice easy.
"Didn't know you were singing last night."
"Yeah, well," she said, blowing hair from her face with a huff. "Didn't want anyone to."
"You didn't tell Luke."
She shrugged. "Luke can't keep his mouth shut."
Silence settled, low and warm but heavy.
She crouched by the saddle, one knee in the dirt, fingers working the strap with the kind of ease that came from years of muscle memory.
Gator watched her hands - how they moved, quick and practiced, wrists turning in that quiet rhythm of knowing exactly what needed doing and not thinking too hard on it.
Same hands that made a guitar sound holy.
That thought landed strange.
Not the legs or the boots or the way her braid swung down the middle of her back.
It was the surety. The steadiness.
Like the whole world could tilt sideways and she'd still get the damn cinch tight.
Still. He noticed the boots.
Red leather. White stitching.
He wet his bottom lip.
"You were… good," he said.
"Mm."
"I mean - like, real good. Like, damn."
Wynn stood, finally meeting his eyes. Hers narrowed just a touch.
"You mad?"
Gator blinked. "What?"
"You didn't say nothin' last night. Or this morning. Figured maybe you were pissed I didn't tell you."
He shook his head, too fast. "I'm not mad."
"You look it."
"I'm not," he said again. "Just think… people are gonna be lookin' at you different now."
She tilted her head. Sunlight caught in her lashes.
"They been lookin' a while, Gator."
That stopped him cold.
He frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Wynn shrugged, but her eyes didn't flinch. "How you’re lookin' at me now? Like that."
Silence.
Thick as heat. Uncomfortable. Something charged slid between them.
Gator swallowed. "Didn't realise I was."
"I know."
Another beat passed. She shifted her weight, eyes dropping to the ground like she’d remembered herself too late.
Then she said, quieter this time, "You don't have to be weird. I'm still me."
He nodded, jaw tight. "Yeah."
But he stayed rooted to the spot.
And she didn't utter another word.
She turned slow, her boots scuffing over the gravel. The sun slanted against the bare stretch of her thigh where her shorts rode up, and Gator looked away before the image could lodge too deep.
She tucked a loose strand behind her ear.
Scarlet. Flushed.
She felt it too.
***
Amber Eyes, Bare Skin
Wynn was supposed to be writing.
That was the plan. She'd staked her claim under the willow - bare feet in the grass, guitar within reach, notebook cracked open and curling at the edges. Her mama's old thermos of sweet tea sweated beside her in the shade. She had three lines of a verse that almost made sense if you squinted.
But the words kept slipping through her fingers like sand.
Because across the pasture, Gator Tillman had just took off his shirt.
It wasn't even dramatic. He didn't strip or pose or look around to see who was watching. He just peeled it over his head, slow and lazy, the cotton clinging with sweat before it came free. Then he tossed it on the tailgate, grabbed another bale of hay, and kept working like he hadn't just derailed her entire train of thought.
His back flexed as he moved - broad shoulders, sun-warmed skin, a faint scar under his ribs from that party last summer. The one with too much underage beer and not nearly enough sense.
Wynn's pen froze mid-line.
Her eyes lingered too long. She blinked. Hard. Once. Twice.
Nope.
Absolutely not.
Mouth suddenly dry, she reached for the thermos.
Luke, a few feet away, was cussing at the hay twine.
Gator wiped his face on a rag and called out, "You look like you're about two seconds from collapsing, Wilder."
"Eat shit," Luke muttered. "Just 'cause you tan like a damn rodeo calendar."
Wynn choked on her tea.
Gator laughed, teeth flashing. "He admits it. He noticed."
Luke flipped him off without looking up.
She dropped her gaze back to her page. Three 'almost' lines. And - thanks to someone - a sweaty thumbprint smudged through the middle where she'd gripped too hard.
She tried again.
Crossed it out before it even finished.
Damn it.
Her pulse wouldn't slow. Her skin was buzzing in places it shouldn't, and her mouth was still dry even with tea on her tongue.
This was Gator. Gator. Who once dared her to eat a worm. Who'd cut the hair off her Barbie doll then laughed when she cried about it.
And yet she couldn't stop staring at the cut of his waist, the line of his hip bone.
It was a betrayal.
Gator glanced her way once. Just once.
His hairstyle was usually gelled into submission - sides shaved, tramlines, the whole delinquent package. But the gel was gone from the day's hard labour, and his hair was boyish, soft, falling into his face. Worse still: that smug, sideways grin.
"Wynnie," he called. "You writin' a love song over there or just daydreamin' about me?"
She glared. "Shut up or I'll put you in a song where you get your eyes gouged out with a hot poker."
He pressed a hand to his chest, mock wounded. "Romantic and violent."
Luke muttered, "Y'all are exhausting."
But she didn't hear him.
Because Gator was still looking. And the light caught his face just right - flared gold in his eyes, turned them to amber.
And the line that finally came to her, uninvited and bold as sin:
He smiled like trouble and looked like heat.
She wrote it down.
And wouldn't dare read it back.
***
Never Been Kissed
The hayloft was Wynn's favourite place to write, even when it was a hundred degrees and smelled like dust and horse sweat. It was high and hidden and full of light in the late afternoon - the kind of place where a girl could think. Or pretend she wasn't thinking about the wrong things.
She lay flat on her stomach, notebook in front of her, pen in hand, chewing on the cap in the hopes it might conjure inspiration.
One line stared up, half-born.
He kissed me like-
She stopped.
Like what?
Hell if she knew.
She could write about fists and fury, about being looked at like a weapon. She could write about thunder splitting the night sky, about calloused palms and the sting of leather reins. But this?
This part, the soft part - the part that secretly mattered to her - she didn't have any map for. Just a blank compass and too many wrong stars.
She was so lost in it she didn't hear the ladder creak.
"Whatcha writin'?"
She yelped. Flinched hard. Slapped the notebook shut and shoved it under her forearm. "Nothing!"
Gator raised a brow and dropped down onto a hay bale across from her, one arm slung lazy over his knee.
"You always say that," he said. "Then next thing I know, you're singin' it and half the county's blubbering like babies."
She scowled, defensive. "Well, this one's dumb."
He tilted his head. "Everything you write's got teeth, Wynn. Can't be that dumb."
That made her feel hot in a way that had nothing to do with the weather.
She huffed and sat up, the notebook still tucked against her thigh like it might self-destruct. She wanted it to self-destruct.
"I just-" she started, then winced. "It's a love song. Or it's supposed to be. I got to the kiss part and- and I don't know, okay?"
His expression didn't change, but something flared behind his eyes.
She kept going, flustered now. "Like, I don't want to write it like a kid. I want it to mean something, but I've never- I mean, I haven't- not really. There was this one guy in eighth grade but he used too much tongue and tasted like Dr Pepper-"
"Wynn."
She didn't stop. "I'm just saying, I can't write what I haven't-"
"Wynnifred."
She looked up.
He was closer now.
Right in front of her, eyes hooded.
"Do you trust me?"
She blinked. "What-?"
But she didn't move.
Didn't stop him.
And then-
He leaned in.
He reached for her face like he'd done it before in a dream he hadn’t told anyone about. Fingers to her jaw. Careful. Reverent. Like he was actually bothered if he got it wrong.
And then - he kissed her.
Soft.
Quick.
No fireworks. No music.
Just hay scratching her knees, sun on her back, and Gator Tillman's mouth on hers.
Her heart was racing. Loud enough she swore they could hear it echo off the rafters.
"Gator-" she whispered.
His voice was quiet. Almost guilty. "Now you've got something to write about."
He stood, cleared his throat, climbed halfway down the ladder before she could breathe again.
At the bottom, he paused. Didn't look back. Just said, "You're welcome," and left.
Wynn sat there in the hay, stunned and burning and wrecked from the inside out.
She touched her lips.
Then opened her notebook.
And wrote like wildfire.
***
What the Hell Did I Just Do?
The sun slapped him in the face the second he stepped out of the barn.
Hot. Blinding. Unforgiving.
Gator kept walking. Boots crunching dry gravel, hands shoved deep in his back pockets like he could hold something down, like he could anchor himself to the earth. He didn't slow until he reached the edge of the pasture, leaned hard against the fence, and stared out at nothing.
What the hell did I just do.
The words looped, relentless.
Not panicked. Not yet. But close.
Because kissing Wynn Wilder - his best friend's little sister, the girl who once bit his arm because he hurled a handful of manure at her head - wasn't something he'd meant to do.
It just… happened.
She'd looked up at him, wide-eyed and full of flushed frustration, and it came out of him like instinct.
He told himself it was to help her. That was the excuse, wasn't it? She couldn't write the lyric without a reference. He was just giving her the reference.
Just a favour.
Just being helpful.
Except now his hands were shaking.
And he could still taste her.
Not just lip balm and sweet tea - but every version of her he'd ever known had collided in that one second: barn brat and bruised-knuckled fighter, porch-singer and wildfire girl.
He'd felt her whimper against his mouth.
Felt her freeze.
Felt her let him.
And it had wrecked something.
Because it wasn't a nothing kiss. It wasn't a joke. It sure as hell wasn't something he could walk away from clean.
He looked down at his hands like they belonged to someone else.
"You idiot," he muttered, dragging a palm down his face.
He'd kissed Wynn.
Wynn.
And now?
Now he had to live in a world where he'd done that - and she was still up there in the loft, probably sprawled in the hay with that pen moving fast across the page, writing something that would gut him when she sang it.
Chapter 4: Swallowed It Down
Chapter Text
Ghosts
The morning after the kiss, Wynn left him a message.
Didn't say a word. Just crept into the tack room before sunrise, fingers still shaking from excitement. Took a piece of chalk to the board they all used for chores.
Just one line.
She wrote it small. Bottom corner.
He kissed like a secret too sweet to keep.
And left it there.
She didn't stick around to watch him find it. Didn't need to.
He saw it.
She knew, because by midday, it was gone.
Wiped clean with the flat of his palm. Not even a smudge left.
And from that day forward, Gator avoided her like plague.
He was still there, in the background. Fixing a hitch in the fence line. Riding shotgun beside Luke. Laughing low at Roy's dry jokes over supper as if nothing had happened. As if he hadn't held her face like she was something precious. Like his mouth hadn't slanted perfectly over hers.
Luke left for college that fall, hollering promises from packed-up boxes, hugging her without seeing what he was leaving her to. Said he'd be back for Christmas. He wasn't.
The ranch shrank without him.
She burned through sixteen that way.
She burned through seventeen.
Gator stayed.
Stayed and trained under his daddy - badge on one hip, burden on the other. He wore a uniform now. Carried a gun. Talked different. Walked heavier.
He still didn't talk to her.
Not really.
But sometimes she'd catch the crease in his brow when she tuned her guitar. Or the twitch of his hands when she passed too close. He heard her sing. He just made a point of not listening.
So she sang louder.
By eighteen, Wynn was already slipping through the backdoor at Clyde's on a Thursday night - head held high and guitar case in hand. Nobody asked her age. Nobody cared. Her voice bought her more than tips. Clyde poured double when she sang, said it helped the regulars cry quietly.
Her voice never sounded like a girl's anyway.
It sounded like smoke and salt. Gospel sunk in whiskey. Something dying soft in the back of your throat.
And every birthday, without fail, she went to the creek.
Alone.
Barefoot, night-wet, hair loose. Slipped through the dark like a shadow. Swam until her limbs went numb and the world fell away. Let the mud tug at her ankles, the cattails kiss her skin.
The creek knew her.
It had grown up with her.
Baptised her every year. Birthed her into someone new.
The night she turned sixteen, she sobbed into the water.
The night she turned seventeen, she held under until the ripples stilled.
The night she turned eighteen, she sang.
Not a song for the stage.
Not for the crowd at Clyde's or the ghosts in the barn.
Just one long, aching note.
Angry and hollow. Ugly and true.
She sang until her throat burned.
Sang until it hurt to breathe.
Because some part of her still believed-
If she sang loud enough.
Long enough.
He might hear it.
Even if he never came.
***
The Line He Wouldn't Cross
He was a little scared, if he was being honest.
Of her.
Not because she was dangerous - at least, not in the way his badge warned him about. Not like the drunk men he hauled out of booths or the fools who pulled knives in parking lots.
She was worse.
Because she was eighteen now.
And he'd run out of excuses.
He made a point of hardly seeing her, but her voice had gotten damn near impossible to avoid. It crept in sideways - through local radios, jukeboxes, secondhand clips on his phone from some drunk ranch hand filming her at Clyde's. Grainy. Low-res. Destructive.
Gator pressed the heel of his hand against the slow ache in his chest. Tried not to see her the way he'd been seeing her lately - mouth painted in that wicked devil-red lipstick she'd taken to wearing, the kind that made her laugh look even bigger, brighter. Skin sun-warmed, shoulders bare. Hips full. Dark hair now cut short and wild, catching the light when she moved. And that walk. Jesus.
That walk undid him.
She looked like a figment of his worst intentions, wrapped in denim. And god help him - he wanted her.
Had wanted her every goddamn day since that kiss.
Three years he'd smothered it. Built fences. Said "yes, sir" and "no, ma'am" and kept his eyes where they belonged. Tried not to let his hands shake when she passed him a jar of nails or brushed too close in the hallway.
And she knew, that she'd had his heart before either of them figured what to do with it - held it right in her pink little hand when they were babies.
This wasn't some new feeling.
It was old; it was carved into him.
And now, technically, there wasn't really an age line between them. No reason he couldn't press his mouth to her throat like he'd wanted to every night since the loft.
But it wasn't the law that kept him still.
It was her.
Beautiful as barbed wire at golden hour. A knife with a ribbon tied round the hilt. Beautiful in a way that said: you can want me, but you'll bleed for it.
Maybe that's what scared him.
Because some part of him - some deep, wrong, hungry part - wanted to.
Bleed for her.
He leaned harder against the fence. Let the splinters dig in, rough against his palms.
"Don't be stupid," he muttered, mostly to himself, mostly to the part of his chest that wouldn’t stop pulling toward the creek, where he just knew she'd be right about now.
Luke was his best friend. His blood brother. The kind of bond built on secret handshakes and spit-in-palms.
Gator missed him. More than he'd admit.
Though part of him dreaded the day Luke would come back. A day that was barreling toward him faster than he'd like.
Because if he ever found out - if he even saw the way Gator looked at her now - he'd put him in the dirt without hesitation.
And Gator would let him.
You didn't mess with your best friend's little sister.
You didn't kiss her in the hayloft.
You didn't let her write songs about it.
You buried it.
You swallowed it down.
The moon was high when she passed him.
Slick from the creek, hair dripping down her spine, towel knotted round her chest and nothing else but water and moonlight clinging to her like second skin. Collarbone gleaming. Skin all dewy and flushed.
Gator gritted his teeth. Looked out at the pasture instead.
She didn't say anything at first. Just glided by all slow. Calm. Like she wasn't completely unraveling him with every step.
He cleared his throat. "Luke's coming home soon."
That was it, no reason given, no emotion offered. But it meant something. A warning. A test.
Wynn didn't flinch.
"Yeah?" she said bitterly. "Good for him."
He dug a boot into the dirt. "Just… figured you might wanna know. In case you had anything you wanted to-"
"To what?" she cut in, voice still sugar-sharp. "Confess? Bring up that thing you won't even look me in the eye over?"
He winced. "I just meant…"
"You just meant to make sure I wasn't gonna run my mouth."
She let it hang there.
Her eyes found his in the dark: cool, unreadable, meaner than they used to be.
He hated himself for earning that.
"Don't worry, sugar," she said finally, soft and cutting. "I got your message loud and clear."
Turning on her heel, she called back over her shoulder...
"Three years ago."
***
Silver Springs
Luke was back like no time had passed.
He rolled through the front door with a six-pack of beer, backwards cap, a sunburn, and that big dumb grin like nothing had changed. Threw an arm around Gator's neck, called him "Deputy" with a mock salute and a wink.
"You ready to raise hell or what?" he asked, eyes bright.
Gator managed a chuckle. "Aren't we gettin' a little old for that?"
"Speak for yourself," Luke said. "I got three years of hellraisin' to make up for."
He was all high spirits and clueless joy, chattering on about professors and women and the size of dorm rats as though he'd never left this dusty corner of the world behind.
"You know who I wanna see sing?" he said as they drove into town. "Wynnie."
Gator didn't look at him. Just stared straight ahead.
"She still sneakin' into Clyde's?" Luke laughed, not waiting for an answer. "Heard she's famous now. All them boys down in the dorms think she's some outlaw angel. I told 'em- told 'em: That's my baby sister; y'all best be careful.”
Gator tightened his grip on the wheel.
Luke continued, "You're coming tonight, right? You gotta. Can't be her big brother's homecoming without the whole family."
So he did.
Clyde's hadn’t changed.
Same flickering neon sign. Same sticky floors and old pool cues with worn tips. Smelled like beer and wood smoke and bad decisions made with total strangers in bathroom stalls and trucks parked out back.
Luke held court like a king, posted by the bar, big arms thrown wide and stories louder than the music. Gator kept to the shadows - one beer, then two. Hands wrapped too tight around the bottle, watching Luke prattle on with blissful ignorance.
Gator hated himself for wishing he could be that blind.
Because Wynn had just walked in.
Lips a flash of cherry. Eyes impossibly blue. Boots striking the floor in a steady, unbothered beat. Her hair curled round her ears and against her cheekbones in a way that only cut them sharper, older, more woman than girl.
She was poured into all black. Short dress, tight, backless.
She didn't speak. Didn't smile. Just walked up, slung her guitar strap over one shoulder. Tapped the mic once.
Then she sang.
"You could be my silver spring…"
Gator's blood ran cold.
Fleetwood Mac. A woman betrayed. A woman still haunting the man who left her.
She didn't look at Luke. Not once.
She looked at him head-on with icicles for eyes, colder than any winter North Dakota ever managed to muster.
"I'll follow you down till the sound of my voice will haunt you."
Gator dug his fingers into the sticky wood of the bar, scraped the residue clean off - thousand-year-old beer going dry under his nails.
"You'll never get away from the sound of the woman that loves you."
The lyric was a knife slipping softly between his ribs.
Her voice didn't crack. Didn't waver. Something about it made the whole room quieter. As if it knew to listen close. As if it felt that ache spilling from her like blood on the floorboards.
Gator couldn't breathe if he tried.
Especially when Luke, proud as punch, clapped Gator's shoulder. The weight of that heavy palm dragged him off the edge, but not far enough.
"Goddamn," Luke laughed. "She's somethin' else."
Gator simply nodded.
Because she was more than good.
She was lethal.
And that wasn't a performance.
That was a funeral.
For everything he hadn't let himself have.
They found her out back, past the dumpsters, where the night clung sticky and loud with the buzz of crickets and neon.
Wynn was already lighting a cigarette.
Luke whooped like he'd just spotted a celebrity. "There she is! The voice of Stark County!"
He grinned wide, arms out like he might grab her and spin her in a circle.
"You killed it, Wynnie. Jesus. I mean, you killed it."
She just took a drag.
"You been practicin' that in secret or what?" he added, nudging her arm like the years apart didn't matter. "Sounded like a whole record label oughta be knocking down the door."
She exhaled slow. "Glad you liked it."
Luke missed the edge in it. Hadn't caught the frost.
Gator had.
He stood a few feet back, hands in his jacket pockets, jaw tight, eyes not quite meeting hers. Couldn't. Not when she looked like that - lips plush, eyeliner smudged, cigarette burning between two fingers like she'd been doing this longer than either of them had realised.
"Proud of you," Luke said again, softer now, like he sensed something brewing. "Real proud."
That's when her head snapped up.
It made Gator flinch before she even spoke.
"You both suck."
Luke blinked. "What?"
Her voice cut clean like the edge of a shovel.
"You left," she spat at Luke. "And you-" her gaze slid to Gator, eyes storm-pissed, "-weren't much better."
Luke opened his mouth. Closed it.
"You think that was just a song?" she asked. "That was my blood on the floor. That was three years of silence and not one goddamn apology."
She flicked the cigarette away, let it hiss in a puddle before trying to flee the scene.
She didn't make it far, not when Luke snagged her by the arm.
"Wynn- Wynnie, hold on, what-?"
She whirled and yanked off of him. "Don't call me that."
"I didn't know you were mad," he said, like that was a defense.
She barked a laugh. "That's 'cause you didn't ask."
A breath.
"I know you had to go," she said. "I know you were making something of yourself. For the ranch. For Mama. For all of us. And I'm proud of you, I am."
Her voice softened, just a small chink where the hurt could crawl through a little.
"But you weren't there, Luke. Not for sixteen. Not for prom. Not for Mama and Daddy’s pearl anniversary. You missed graduation. I won regionals and you didn't even send a text. You forgot to call when I broke my wrist last fall - couldn't play for six weeks."
"I-"
Luke looked gutted. Paled beneath his sunburn.
He shifted, rubbed his jaw, sheepish now. "I figured- I dunno. You sounded okay when I did call."
"I lied," she said.
Silence thickened.
Then, like a lifeline he didn't know he was tossing, Luke threw a hopeful glance at Gator. "But- at least he was here, right?" He tried to save himself with a laugh, but it came out all thin and false. "I mean, I know he's a serious bastard these days, but at least Gator's loyal."
She turned her eyes - those glass-cutting, gut-wrecking eyes - on Gator next.
He met them. Tried to brace for it. Failed.
"Yeah," she said. "He's loyal alright."
And that was all she said.
Cryptic. Daggered.
Then stormed off without so much as looking back at the rubble of her destruction.
Luke stared after her. Then back at Gator.
A flicker of something. Confusion? Suspicion? It settled deep in his brow.
For one long second, Luke looked like he might ask.
But he didn't.
Just stood there.
Putting together the pieces of a picture that finally started to make sense.
And he didn't like the shape of it at all.
Chapter 5: Repair / Relapse
Chapter Text
Only Gonna Ask Once
Morning laid a hush over the ranch. Dew tickled the grass and fence wire; the sky was a tender bruise of pink, thinking on a storm.
Luke stood on the porch with coffee going cold, thumb worrying the rim like it might tamp down the thoughts rolling around his brain. He hadn't slept. His head wouldn't hold a straight line.
Gator arrived, having also spent too many hours awake, either staring at his ceiling or staring at his phone screen since 4am:
Luke: We need to talk.
He stepped out of the cruiser and came up slow. Badge heavy. Jaw locked. Collar biting at his throat.
The silence between them was loaded.
Luke couldn't look at him when he spoke. Just said, flat:
"I'm only gonna ask you this once."
Gator's stomach turned to snakes. Then he raised his vape to his lips and prayed to Jesus his hand wasn't trembling.
"Did something happen between you and my sister?"
Gator's heart kicked against his ribs like a drum.
He didn't respond right away. Just stared out past the fence line like maybe the answer had gone and buried itself in the pasture somewhere.
He swallowed. The lie scraped on its way out.
"No."
Luke studied him. Hard. "No?" Slow, like he wanted Gator to hear himself say it again.
Gator shook his head. "Nothing happened."
Luke kept his eyes on him. Didn't blink. Didn't flinch. Just... looked. For too long.
"Good," he said finally, voice clipped. "Because if it had... if you ever touched her..."
He let it hang.
It was enough.
The threat sat there between them, quiet and sharp and mean.
Gator nodded once. "I know."
Luke stayed put.
Then: "So why'd you freeze her out?"
Shit.
Gator shifted awkwardly. "Been busy. Deputy stuff. Lot goin' on."
Luke snorted. "Bullshit."
Gator rolled the vape in his palm. Held it so tight his knuckles went chalk-white.
"She don't look at us the same no more," Luke said after a while. "We've been real shitty to her."
"I know."
Wind moved through the grass. A mourning dove called out low and lonesome.
"She's a star in your pocket," Luke echoed some long-gone memory. "Remember my mama sayin' that?"
Gator closed his eyes.
Then muttered, "You break her, you answer to me - that's what she said."
Luke huffed, almost a laugh if it wasn't for the ache, and scratched the stubble on the side of his chin. "Reckon we both got some answerin' to do."
Gator scrubbed a hand down his face. "Then we fix it. Start now."
They met each other’s eyes, and the old ease - beat-up but still theirs - settled back where it belonged.
"Alright," he said. "Let's make it right."
Gator cracked his neck, shook out his shoulders. "You still any good with cars?"
Luke grinned, for real this time. "Better than you."
Gator rolled his eyes, but his mouth twitched at the corners.
And just like that, they were them again.
"She'd look good behind a wheel," Luke added.
Gator sniffed. "She'd scare the shit outta us both."
"She already does."
Luke raised his mug up high. "To making it right."
Gator tipped his vape like a toast. "To hoping she don't run us over."
***
My Idiots
They made her wear a blindfold.
Which, of course, she resisted with every ounce of her being.
"This is so dumb," she muttered, arms crossed tight over her chest. "Y'all are dumb."
Luke was grinning. Gator was not, but he was close.
She stumbled a little and swore under her breath.
Gator pressed a hand to her back, low between the shoulder blades. Just a nudge, guiding her over the grass.
"I swear to god if you're leading me into a scummy pond-"
"No pond," Gator said, still fighting a smile. "Though now I kinda wish we'd thought of that."
Luke was in front, guiding her by the elbow with theatrical gentleness. "C'mon, Wynnie. Little trust wouldn't kill you."
"I don't trust you," she snapped, but her voice had softened at the edges.
"Alright, alright," Luke said. "Keep your panties on."
"You got no right to talk about my panties," she gritted out, "because you assholes blindfolded me with a flannel shirt that smells like Gator's armpits."
"You say that like it's a bad thing," Gator said, and she could hear his smile in it.
They stopped.
Dirt underfoot. Wind in the grass. Somewhere, the low whine of a fly. The boys went quiet, and that was the thing that made her heartbeat quicken.
Luke said, gentle now, "Okay. Ready?"
"No."
But Gator was already tugging the flannel free from around her eyes.
And there it was.
Old four-seater pickup. Rust-red and sun-baked. A little crooked at the bumper, paint flaked off the hood in patches - but polished, cleaned out, tires full, and bow-tied with a long strip of twine because ribbon wasn't quite their style.
Wynn blinked.
A suspicious line crinkled between her brows.
"What... what is this?"
"It's yours," Luke said.
She turned slow, staring between them. "You got me a truck?"
"No," Gator corrected. "We fixed you a truck."
"Worked on her all week," Luke added. "She was sittin' there, beggin' for a second chance. Thought that felt familiar."
Wynn swallowed the razorblades in the back of her mouth.
"But I don't know how to drive."
"That's fine," Luke countered. "We thought of that too."
"We're gonna teach you," Gator said.
She looked between them. Boys she'd known all her life. Troublemakers, idiots, heartbreakers.
And they were standing there like dogs waiting to be told they were good.
"You're idiots," she sighed.
Luke grinned. "We know."
"But-"
She blinked fast, chewed the inside of her cheek like something thick had caught in her throat - tight and burning, too close to tears she wasn't prepared to shed in front of them.
"You're my idiots."
She stepped forward, laid a palm on the hood. Warm. Solid. Hers.
Gator's voice came quiet. "We're sorry, Wynnie."
Luke nodded beside him. "For bein' gone. For bein' shit."
"For making you feel like you were on your own," Gator added.
Wynn ran her hand along the edge of the windshield, fingers catching on a scratch in the chrome.
Then she turned.
"I ain't saying you're forgiven."
"Fair," Luke said a little too quickly.
"But I will take the keys."
Gator tossed them underhand. She caught them easy.
"Driver's seat," he said. "Let's go."
***
Not Perfect, Baby
Turns out, Wynn was pretty fucking terrible at driving.
Luke howled the second she stalled out. "You choked!"
"Get out," she snapped. "I swear to god, get out the car."
"Don't yell at the instructor." Luke grinned with all the smugness of an older brother who'd once watched her flip her bike into a ditch.
Gator leaned in through the open window. "You're not the instructor. You're the noise."
"I'm commentary," Luke called.
"More like background irritation," Gator muttered.
Wynn growled and slapped the wheel. "This thing hates me."
"It doesn't," Gator said, patient as a saint. "You're just trying too hard."
She threw him a glare. "Oh, I'm sorry - should I be less focused when operating a two-ton murder machine?"
"Look, do you want me to drive, or-?"
"I'm driving," she snapped.
He shot her a look. "Are you?"
She stalled it again. And again. And again.
Later, after Luke wandered off to do what he actually gets paid for - Roy's orders - Gator slid into the passenger seat.
He didn't say anything at first. Just watched her fume.
The keys were in her lap. Her teeth were clenched. Sunlight spilled through the windshield and caught the dark strands of her hair, turned them to fire.
"You done sulking?" he asked gently.
She didn't answer.
"Okay," he said, steadily. "Scoot the seat up some more; you've got short legs."
She narrowed her eyes, but obeyed.
"Hands at ten and two."
She did that too.
"Now breathe."
"I am breathing."
"No, you're holdin' your whole body like you're bracing for a crash." He reached over, barely brushed the back of her wrist. "Easy. Loosen up."
Her breath hitched, just slightly, but she shifted her grip.
"Good girl," he murmured without thinking.
She blinked.
He blinked.
Too late to take it back.
But she didn't bite him for it. Just stared straight ahead like maybe she hadn't heard, like maybe if they both ignored it, the air wouldn't change.
It did anyway.
Gator cleared his throat. "Alright. Right foot only. Ease off the clutch slow, add a little gas."
The car jolted. But didn't die.
Wynn exhaled, shoulders trembling like she was trying not to giggle.
"There you go," he said, softer now. "See? Told you she didn't hate you."
She eased them forward down the dirt track, the tires crunching gravel, her hands white-knuckled on the wheel.
"You're doin' fine, sweetheart," he said, quieter than before.
And this time, he meant to say it.
Wynn didn't answer, but her mouth twitched.
Just a little.
And when the car jerked again, she didn't panic. Just bit her lip, tried again.
And Gator - calm as anything beside her, voice warm and sure and right there - kept talking her through it.
"Y'know," he said, "first time you picked up that guitar, you were bad."
Her head whipped toward him. "Excuse me?"
He smirked. "Truly awful."
She gaped. "I was learning."
"Yeah and we all suffered through it. But you kept going. Wouldn't let go. You bled on those strings and didn't stop."
She blinked. Chest rose and fell.
"You don't have to be perfect, baby," he said, softer still. "You just gotta keep going."
Silence. Then:
"I hate you a little," she murmured.
He smiled. "No you don't."
***
Still Us
They hit the road just after sunrise, the truck packed sloppy - blankets spilling over the bench seat, a dented cooler rattling with melted ice, an out-of-tune guitar wedged behind the headrest, and one questionable birthday cake smushed in its box.
Wynn drove.
Barefoot, blue lollipop between her molars and Gator's too-big aviators sliding down her nose. Her hair caught the wind in the open window and was whipping like crazy in all directions.
Gator sat shotgun, boots kicked up on the dash until she swatted at his leg.
"You're not scuffin' up my girl."
"It's a car, Wynn."
"She's mine. Respect her."
From the back seat came Luke's groan as he kicked the cooler. "This is bullshit, by the way. Why the hell am I back here? I'm the tallest."
"Gator's knees click," she replied, deadly-sweet. "You know he needs the room."
Gator frowned as if personally offended. "They do not."
"Sugar, they absolutely do," she fired back. "What are you now, like thirty?"
"I'm twenty-two!"
"Old," she said, sing-song.
Luke snorted. "She's not wrong."
Gator threw a hand in the air. "Luke, you and I are literally the same age."
"Yeah," Wynn said, all mock pity. "But he totally still reads at a third-grade level."
"I'm a college graduate!" Luke barked and she cackled.
The wind was loud. The road was long. The sky was stretched pale blue, soft as milk with big fat clouds. The road curved through fields and the hum of tires on asphalt made everything feel slower, syruped.
They hadn't been a trio like this in a long time, not really. And it had taken them a journey to get back to this.
But today, they were kids again.
Wynn rolled through a stop sign and hollered over the radio, "What turn are we even taking?"
Luke winced. "We kinda missed it ten miles ago."
"What?!"
"Kidding." He grinned. "A little."
She slapped his arm backward without looking. "I will pull this truck over."
"Eyes on the road, sweetheart," Gator muttered.
"Can't. You're too pretty."
That shut him up.
"Wynn," Luke warned and she winked.
The truck hit a dip, and they all bounced - Luke let out a dramatic yelp and flailed like a fish.
"Jesus, Wynnie - warn a guy for chrissake!"
She just kept driving, laughing and loose and tan in the light.
After a stretch of silence, Luke reached over and popped open the glove box, pulled out a crumpled old Polaroid. Three kids in mud-streaked overalls, gap-toothed and sunburned, arms slung around each other like they'd never fall apart.
He passed it forward.
Wynn looked at it then tucked it into the sun visor; it belonged there.
"Still us," she said.
"Always," Gator murmured.
The road smoothed out beneath them, and the hum of the tires softened.
"So," Luke asked, propping his chin on the seatback, "what's the move when we get there?"
Wynn glanced at him sideways, grin pulling wide.
"We find a dive bar."
"Obviously," Gator said.
"You boys buy me a drink."
"Probably more than one," Luke added.
"And then I sing and we pay for a motel with the tips."
"Sounds like a plan, birthday girl," Luke said, smacking the ceiling with his palm like a stamp of approval.
Wynn eased up on the gas, let the truck glide.
The fields opened up with a sigh.
She leaned into the wheel, eyes on the horizon.
A year older. But still them.
Still riding.
Still wild.
Still together.
***
Her Sheriff
Wynn knew the feeling.
That gut-prickle, back-of-the-neck itch. The way a man's eyes could feel like a threat instead of a compliment. She'd learned it well enough now not to second-guess it.
The guy hadn't done much - stared too long, leaned too close, let his hand graze her lower back with the shitty excuse that he just needed to get past, darlin'.
She smiled. Politely. Moved. Switched stools.
Didn't work.
So she pulled her phone from her pocket, thumbed out a message under the table.
W: You working.
G: Yeah. Why.
W: At Clyde's. Got a weird feeling.
G: On my way.
She stayed another ten minutes, watching her phone for a sign. Kept her posture tall, chin up, shoulders squared. Her voice, when she thanked the bartender, didn't shake.
But her heart was already beating like it knew what came next.
Maybe that's why she slipped out the back. Staff entrance. Tucked away out of sight, in the hopes no unwanted eyes noticed her go.
What a stupid, stupid mistake.
She felt him before she heard him.
That man - slick hair, money-shoes - slid out the same door like it didn't bother him what the rules were. Slinked right up, slow and polite like a wolf might be before it lunges.
She started walking.
"Hell of a voice," he called behind her.
"Thanks." Short. Sharp.
He smiled thin and glittering. "Bet you've got all kinds of tricks with a mouth like that."
She refused to answer.
But she heard his steps quicken. Heard the hitch in his breath.
"Aw, come on now," he said. "Don't ignore me."
She gripped her keys between her fingers so hard the metal bit into her skin.
"Look," he tried again, "I just thought maybe-"
He didn't get to finish.
Because Deputy Tillman moved fast when he needed to.
Scuff of boots. Hand on the man's collar. A blur.
"Back the fuck up," Gator snarled, low and deadly.
"I didn't touch her," the man stammered.
"Did I fuckin' ask."
He slammed him once, hard into the brick wall, just like he'd done to that boy in the locker room years ago. Rage had swallowed him whole back then, and it suffocated his senses now.
"Gator," he heard her voice croak.
He let go.
The man stumbled, scrambled, ran. Feet slipping like his legs barely remembered how to work.
"Lucky you're still BREATHIN'!" Gator roared after him.
Wynn hadn't moved.
She was still holding her keys like a weapon. Still standing under that soft wash of yellow from the lamplight, heart thudding out of rhythm.
Deputy Tillman turned to her, and his eyes returned to normal. Black and blown to just dark and soft. Gator again.
His chest rose, fell. Then he stepped forward and took the keys out of her hand, gentle as anything.
"You okay?"
She nodded, jaw too tight for words.
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
He brushed a hair off her face. Just that. Not a pull, not a press. Just there.
She blinked.
Then burst into tears.
Nothing big or spectacular. Just sharp, hot ones that leaked out fast and furious before she could stop them.
"Hey," he cooed. "No. None of that. You're alright now. I got you."
She shook her head like she didn't believe it yet.
"You're alright, baby-girl," he said again, all rough edges gone. "I got you."
He pulled her in. Arms around her, one hand braced between her shoulder blades, the other cradling the back of her head. And she folded. Let herself be held.
His badge was cold against her cheek.
His jaw grazed her temple.
"I'm sorry," she mumbled.
"You got nothin' to be sorry for."
"I texted you while you were working."
He pulled back just enough to look at her. "I want you to."
She sniffed, wiped at her face with the heel of her hand. "I thought maybe I was overreacting."
"You weren't."
Gator looked down at her then - let himself be absorbed by her pretty features stained with tears. Like he was counting every freckle, every wet, clumped eyelash. She looked small. Lost. Young in a way that tugged something deep and old in him. A little like the Wynn he used to know, trying so damn hard to be brave.
And just like that, the rage came back. Ugly and fast and breathless. Just a flicker. Just long enough to imagine what might've happened if he hadn't shown up.
If someone had laid a hand on his girl.
"You're never botherin' me," he reassured. "Not you."
Her throat worked, but no words came.
"Next time?" he added. "You call. Don't wait."
She nodded, eyes still glassy.
And maybe it was the lamplight, or the badge glinting sharp on his chest. Maybe it was the way he stood so still, so sure, with that sidearm strapped to his thigh. But he didn't look like her brother's best friend. Didn't look like the boy she grew up with. Not anymore.
He was her sheriff. Her shadow. Her storm-light when it got too dark.
And then he kissed her forehead - slow, steady, full of things he still wasn't allowing himself to say yet.
"Come on," he murmured. "I'll drive you home."
The truck smelled like cedar, leather, and Gator. A little gun oil, a little pine-snap cologne he always denied wearing.
Wynn curled against the door, wrapped in his jacket, legs bare and pulled up on the bench seat, toes tucked beneath her. The jacket swallowed her whole - cuffs hanging past her hands, collar turned up around her jaw.
She hadn't said much after they left Clyde's. Just climbed in when he opened the door, buckled herself in with fingers still trembling faintly, and leaned into the window like she needed the cool glass to ground her.
Half an hour out, she was asleep.
Gator drove one-handed, steady on the wheel, the other hand braided into hers where it rested in her lap - small, warm, slack with sleep but still holding on.
He hadn't let go since they pulled out of the lot.
Wasn't going to, either.
The radio murmured low. Crackled every now and again with some strings of code he chose to ignore - someone else could deal with that tonight. The backroads stretched empty ahead of them, nothing but road and moonlight.
She shifted in her sleep, brow furrowed, and he rubbed his thumb across her knuckles until she settled again.
Didn't say a word.
Just kept driving.
Every so often he glanced over.
That dress - too short, too bare, not for him to think about - was mostly hidden now beneath the bulk of his jacket. The image of her in it, standing under the lamplight, shaking, still made something twist hot and helpless in his chest.
She'd been scared.
And she'd called him.
That did something to a man. Changed the shape of his insides.
At the red light just before turn into Tillman Ranch she stirred again, blinking slow.
"Where are we?"
"Almost home."
She hummed, eyes already drifting shut again. "Sorry. Fell asleep."
"You needed it."
She curled deeper into the jacket. "You're still holding my hand."
He didn't look at her. Just tightened his grip. "Yeah. I am."
She was quiet a moment. Then: "Don't let go yet."
"I won't."
Didn't.
The light turned green. The engine rumbled low beneath them. And Gator kept on driving - one hand on the wheel, the other wrapped around hers.
He'd hold it forever, if she'd let him.
***
Reaching
She could feel something moving under her skin.
A restlessness. Like her blood wanted more room to stretch than her bones could offer. Not a bad feeling, exactly. Just... tender. Similar to the start of a sunburn, or the edge of a song she hadn't written yet.
It started small.
Little things, at first. The way she lingered on stage a second too long after her last chord faded. The way her hands twitched when she came home at night, like they didn't know where to settle anymore. The way she caught herself staring past the porch railing, eyes fixed on the highway beyond the barn.
She'd always loved this place.
The hayloft floor's slow creak. The smell of cut grass and horses and hot dirt. The lullaby hush of cicadas and the hiss of the screen door behind her. It was home - deep in her marrow, carved into her lungs.
But lately, even the quiet had started to hum too loud.
She'd grown up with North Dakota roots in her veins - tough, proud, dirt-under-the-nails kind of roots. They'd taught her how to stay. How to ride out storms and buckle down and be grateful for what she had.
But no one ever told her how to leave, even just a little.
No one ever told her it was okay to want.
Gator had found his footing alongside Roy. Luke too, had ventured out before. And Wynn... Wynn was still here. Still singing under the same string lights. Still hauling hay and dreaming in notebooks she never let anyone read.
It wasn't jealousy. Not quite.
Just a slow ache in her chest. A quiet need.
She didn't want to leave forever. She wasn't looking to outrun the ranch or the people in it.
But she wanted to stretch.
Wanted to sing in a room where no one knew her name. Wanted to mess up a lyric without someone teasing her for it. Wanted to see what her voice sounded like someplace else.
What happened at Clyde's - creepy man, slick smile, that terrible moment of stillness when she wasn't sure how it would end - had lit something inside her.
Fear maybe? Because he'd looked at her like he owned her. Like singing in that bar made her part of the wallpaper. Like being known meant being claimable.
Or perhaps it was hunger - because he'd reminded her that nothing was permanent. That anything, anyone, could disappear.
That thought had kept her up at night.
Maybe this was it. The window. The chance.
Maybe she had to leap before life rolled up and snapped shut again.
She was nearing twenty-one. Old enough to want more, young enough to still try.
She didn't want to belong to just Clyde's. Didn't want to become someone they passed a pitcher to and said, "Sing that one again, sweetheart," like she was a fixture. A local relic.
She didn't want to be a relic.
She wasn't running.
She was reaching.
***
Back of His Truck
The whole county seemed to show up.
Wynn stood near the edge of the firelight, red Solo cup in hand, bare feet digging into the dirt, hair smelling of smoke. Twenty-one and grown and glowing.
And she was leaving in the morning.
Not forever. But long enough for Roy to insist on throwing a send-off for - his words - the less idiotic Wilder.
The bonfire cracked open in the pit, flames licking high and loud, throwing sparks like fireflies into the bruised velvet sky. Someone passed her a bottle of something strong. She sipped. Smiled. Let herself sway to the rhythm of a radio.
Luke, three beers in and flushed, didn't ask permission - never had. Just slung an arm heavy around her neck.
"So lemme get this straight - you gave me hell for years about movin' off, and now you're the one packin' up?"
Wynn rolled her eyes. "Difference is, I'll actually call."
He gasped. "Low blow."
"Tell me I'm wrong."
Luke just huffed a laugh, leaned down and pressed a kiss to the crown of her head. "Nah. You're not."
She turned toward him, her cup sloshing, her smile a little wobbly and watery. "You proud of me or what?"
"Always," he said, quieter now. "Even when you're a pain in my ass and I wanna wring your skinny little neck."
She sniffed back her tears. "Mutual."
The fire popped. Someone else shouted her name and she raised her drink high.
The night unraveled slow. Sweaty and golden.
She danced. She sang harmony with two other girls. She stole a handful of cake and licked frosting off her fingers, laughing so hard she had to bend at the waist. She said goodbye without saying it.
But later - after the music had died down and the moon had climbed up and everyone else had gone to bed one way or another - she found him.
Alone, silent, perched on the tailgate of his truck with his knees braced wide and his head bowed.
She padded up barefoot, dress swaying, cheeks flushed and mouth sugar-sweet from peach schnapps.
"There you are," she said.
Gator didn't startle. Just glanced over, eyes darker than the sky above. Raised his vape to his lips and sucked on the end of it, lighting it up bright blue and puffing out a god-awful cloud of acidic kiwi and watermelon.
At least he had the decency to stuff it back into his jeans when he spoke up. "Thought you'd be out there takin' your victory lap. Whole town's in love with you tonight."
She climbed up beside him, knees bumping his. "I was."
Then, with a little lilt: "But I figured I oughta say goodnight to the only man here who didn't flirt with me."
He scoffed. "I flirt with you all the time."
"Could've fooled me," she hummed. "I thought maybe you'd run off."
"Didn't feel much like celebratin'."
She smirked. "So you're sulking."
He finally turned his head. "I am not."
"You're absolutely sulking."
He blinked. Looked down again.
His voice was rougher this time. "I'm just mad. 'Cause all I wanna do is ask you to stay."
Silence.
Then he reached behind him. Wynn thought he was going for another puff of that disgusting vape he'd taken to smoking. She was about to complain but instead, he pulled something from the cab. Held it out.
Wynn took it.
A notebook. Leather-bound. Worn already at the corners, like it had been in his glovebox awhile, waiting.
"For your songs," he explained.
Her fingers curled around it like it might bruise.
"I figured..." he continued, "the only thing more tragic than you leaving, would be clipping your wings."
His voice cracked on the word leaving.
"Oh," she breathed.
Then her eyes dragged over him.
Hair mussed like he'd been running his fingers through it. Shirt wrinkled, collar uneven. Mouth red where he'd bitten it raw. Eyes glassy, a little drunk. A lot tired.
Her throat burned. "That's not fair," she whispered.
He raised an eyebrow. "What's not?"
"You, giving me this, looking like that."
A crooked smile finally tugged at his mouth. "Baby, you're the one in a damn sundress with frosting on your collarbone."
"I wiped it off."
"Not all of it." He reached, thumb brushed just above her neckline - slow, bold, not careful.
She swatted his hand. He caught her wrist.
Their laughter cracked in the quiet like kindling - sharp, breathless, drunken.
"You're a menace," he muttered.
"You're a coward," she shot back.
He grinned. "That so?"
"You're sittin' here with your big sad eyes and your little goodbye beer-"
"Little?"
"-and you gave me a beautiful notebook, Gator, what am I supposed to do with that?"
"Write me a love song, obviously."
She barked out a laugh.
And then she moved.
Closed the space between them in a blink. Fisted the collar of his shirt. Hauled his mouth onto hers.
He tasted of radioactive kiwi and artificial watermelon. But she didn't give a fuck.
It wasn't a soft thing. It wasn't delicate.
It was teeth. Tongue. Hands in his hair, his at her hips, dragging her closer, hungrier. Like goodbye. Like I love you. Like I'll never stop wanting you.
Messy.
Their mouths crashed, missed, laughed - then found each other again, fiercer.
And when they finally broke, panting and delirious, he rested his forehead against hers.
"Your timing," he muttered, "is fuckin' terrible."
"I know," she said, nipping his lip. "You gonna do somethin' about it?"
He groaned. "Screw it."
And then he kissed her again.
Harder.
She tasted like frosting and schnapps and the kind of heartbreak that came with knowing better but kissing him anyway.
His palm slipped up the back of her thigh, touch trailing fire, but still unsteady. She climbed into his lap without asking, without thinking - like it was instinct, like she belonged there. Like she always had.
"Wynnifred," he tried to warn against her mouth, but she cut him off.
"Don't give me that," she whispered. "Not tonight."
She combed her hands through his hair, kissed his jaw, the corner of his mouth, the hollow of his throat. Slow and greedy. Leaving sugar in her wake.
He let her. For a second. For two.
Then he caught her by the hips and ground her down onto him.
She gasped.
"I've been good," he whimpered. "So goddamn good."
"I know," she whispered, rocking into him again. "You don't have to be."
She shoved her hands under his shirt, dragged her nails down his chest. His whole body twitched.
"Fuck," he groaned, rutting up into her with desperation. "You're gonna make me come in my jeans like a goddamn teenager."
She giggled and kissed the words off his mouth.
His hands slid up her dress. One around her waist, the other higher, under the fabric, hot and possessive. He found her without hesitation - skin to skin - thumb brushing the softest part of her until she gasped and bucked into him.
"You gonna let me touch you, honey?" he rasped. "Just once? Just here, just now?"
"Please," she whispered.
"You sure?" he nibbled her earlobe.
"Gator," she begged. "If you don't fuck me right here in this truck, I swear to god-"
That did it.
He laughed breathlessly against her skin.
Then he slipped his fingers under the thin cotton of her panties and groaned, forehead falling to her shoulder like the sensation physically staggered him. She was soaked. Warm. Needy. Rolling her hips against his hand like she was chasing something she'd been aching for years.
"Jesus Christ," he muttered, half in reverence, half in panic. "This ain't smart."
"Nope," she said. "Still want it."
"Wynn," he breathed. A plea. A prayer. A problem.
"Touch me," she said, soft. Sure. "I want you inside me, Gator."
He bit down on his bottom lip like he was trying to anchor himself.
Then - slowly - he moved.
"Been dreamin' about this," he said, voice shredded. "Used to imagine what you'd sound like if I ever got my hand up your dress."
"What'd you think?" she whispered, hips shifting into his touch.
He dragged his fingers along her slick slit, and his whole body jolted.
"I thought I was exaggeratin'," he said hoarsely. "Turns out I wasn't even close."
She whimpered.
His fingers worked slow at first, dragging through her, circling just enough to make her jerk, then pull back.
"You're sensitive," he said, awed.
She nodded, breath stuttering. "Gator..."
"I got you." He dipped his head to her chest, mouthing at the swell of her breast through the fabric. "I got you, sweetheart."
Two fingers slid in easy, and she cried out - soft, high, shocked.
"Oh my god."
"That's it," he crooned. "Take me. Just like that. Let me make it good."
She rocked into his hand, hips chasing it shamelessly, arms tight around his neck. He kissed her throat, her jaw, the underside of her chin, murmuring praise between every breath.
"So good for me," he said. "So fuckin' pretty when you fall apart."
He gulped down all her moans. Every last one. One hand curled around the back of her neck, the other between her legs, fingers crooked inside her just right, and his thumb - god, that thumb - circling her clit until her whole body arched into him.
She cried out against his mouth. His name.
"Gator."
He groaned like it hurt him.
"Say it again."
"Gatorrr."
He kissed down her jaw, her throat, sucked her nipple between his lips when her dress slipped off of her, hand never stopping its rhythm.
"Feels like you were made for me," he rasped. "Like you fuckin' knew."
"I did," she breathed, nearly shaking. "I did, I swear-"
"Come for me, Wynn," he begged, desperate now. "Please, baby, I need it - need to feel it - need to know what it's like when you come on my fuckin' fingers."
She shattered.
Clawed at his shoulders, legs tensing around his hips as she came, head thrown back and mouth open on a silent cry.
He watched the whole damn thing, awe-struck, hand still moving until she grabbed his wrist and stilled it, too ruined to take any more.
He was breathing like he'd just run ten miles.
She was glowing. Glazed. Wrecked. Radiant.
And he was still hard as hell under her, jeans damn near unbearable.
"You good?" he asked.
She laughed, breathless, dizzy. "You really askin' me that?"
He grinned. Boyish. Broken. Like he couldn't believe what she'd just let him do.
"You're unreal," he murmured.
And she leaned in, mouth close to his again, eyes half-lidded, satisfied, and wicked.
"More," she whispered, "I need more."
She let go of him just long enough to lean back, just enough to breathe - and to watch him.
Gator's chest heaved. Eyes dark, mouth parted, the veins in his neck standing out like he was trying not to lose it right there.
"Take this off me," she whispered, fingers plucking at the straps of her dress where it had slipped from her shoulders. "I wanna feel you."
His hands shook. Not from nerves - he'd held guns steadier than this - but from something rawer. He slid the straps down her arms with aching slowness, watching the fabric fall, watching her come bare in the moonlight spilling silver over her skin.
"No bra?" he croaked.
She smirked. "Didn't want lines on the dress."
He let out a curse. Then his hands were everywhere, palming her breasts, brushing his thumbs over the peaks until she arched into him with a soft, bitten-off moan.
"Fuck, Wynn," he whimpered, dragging his mouth down her chest, kissing the swell of her breast, mouthing at the soft skin until her fingers tangled in his hair again. "You don't know what you do to me."
Her hands found his belt, more certain this time. She made quick work of the buckle, the zipper, the button. The sound of it crackled through the silence, loud as thunder.
He didn't stop her.
Wouldn't.
His hips lifted instinctively as she shoved the denim down, and then there was nothing but thin cotton separating them. Nothing but one last, pitiful barrier.
Her hand slipped under the waistband of his boxers.
He choked on a gasp - sharp and punched out - head falling back.
"Oh, fuck-"
She curled her hand around him, and he twitched like he couldn't bear it.
She stroked once - slow, deliberate - and he shuddered. Thighs tensing. One hand white-knuckled on the tailgate ridge, the other fisted in her hair like he needed something to hold or he'd shatter.
"I ain't got a condom," he whined like it hurt.
"I'm clean," she said. "And I'm on the pill."
A sound tore out of him. He buried his face in her neck, breathing her in and uttering what sounded like a thank god into her skin.
She stroked him again. He hissed.
"Wynn - baby - stop."
She froze.
Then he pulled back, just enough to look at her. His eyes were blown wide with want and something dangerously close to worship.
"You let me," he said roughly, "and I'm gonna take my time. You understand?"
She nodded. Chest rose, fell.
"No, baby. Say it."
"I understand."
"That's my girl." He kissed her, deep and dizzying. "Now sit back for me. Right here."
He guided her until she was perched on the edge of the tailgate, knees bent, still breathing hard from the way his voice had gone low and thick with command.
"Spread your legs for me," he murmured. "Let me see what's mine."
She did. Slow. Shy. But not hesitant.
And his breath hitched.
"Goddamn," he whispered. "Look at you. Drippin' all over the place, just from my fingers."
He dropped to his knees.
Ran his hands up her thighs. Pushed them open wider. Settled in like a man who had no intention of being anywhere else.
"You ever been eaten in the back of a truck, sweetheart?" he asked with a voice full of gravel.
She shook her head, wide-eyed.
"Good," he said. "I wanna ruin it for everybody else."
Then he ducked forward and dragged his tongue through her - slow, filthy, deliberate.
She cried out, grabbed a fistful of his hair.
He groaned like it fed him.
"Gator! Holy shit-"
He licked again, slower. Greedy. Thorough. His mouth moved with purpose.
"You taste so fuckin' good," he muttered against her. "Been dreamin' about this. Hell, I've damn near prayed for it."
She was shaking now, thighs trembling around his head, one hand still in his hair, the other gripping the frame of the truck.
"Don't stop," she gasped. "Please, don't stop."
He didn't.
He licked and sucked and fucked her with his mouth like it was all he knew. Took his time. Made it count with every flick. Spelled devotion with his tongue.
When his mouth sealed over her clit and he sucked, hard and sure and practiced, she came undone. Legs clamping around his ears, body shaking so violently she nearly slid off the truck.
He held her through it, strong and steady with two hands and growled approval so loud it send vibrations up her spine.
When it passed, when she finally stopped shaking, he leaned back on his heels and looked up at her, his mouth wet, his eyes feral.
"Wynn."
She blinked down at him. Completely boneless.
"You still want me inside you?" he asked.
She nodded.
Then, with a crooked smile and eyes gone molten, he stood, towering over her now.
"Then lie back, baby-girl," he said. "And hold on."
She leaned back against the truck bed, legs still spread, heart still hammering. Moonlight kissed her skin, made her glow like an angel.
Gator stood between her knees, stripped bare now - cock flushed and hard and glistening, curved up toward his stomach. Heavy. Thick. The kind of beautiful that ought to come with a warning.
Her breath snagged. "Jesus."
His brow ticked up. "Too much?"
She shook her head. "Just- holy shit."
He chuckled. "You're flatterin' me."
"I'm serious." She reached out, wrapped her fingers around him again. "You're gonna break me."
He swore, sucking in his teeth, as if the feel of her hand on him had left a brand.
"I ain't gonna break you, honey," he said, breath tight. "I'm gonna stretch you real slow. Make it fit. Make it feel so goddamn good, you'll be beggin' me not to stop."
She whimpered. Her hips rocked up instinctively, greedy for him.
"You want it like this?" he asked, voice low. Rough. "Here in the truck bed, legs wide open, still glowin' from my mouth?"
"God, yes."
"Thought so." He reached between them, gripped himself at the base, guided the head through her slick. Dragged it through her folds. Watching every shudder of her body.
"Shit. Gator."
"Yeah," he gritted out, pushing in just an inch. Just enough to make them both gasp. "You feel that? You're takin' me just fine."
She nodded, breath caught, thighs trembling.
"I got you," he said, kissing her knee. "We'll go slow."
He pushed deeper, inch by inch, and she moaned, jaw falling open, eyes fluttering shut.
"Eyes on me," he commanded gently. "Wanna see you when I ruin you."
She obeyed.
And he kept going. Sinking in deeper, slow and controlled, until she was stretched tight around him.
"Fuck," he growled. "You're squeezin' me so goddamn good."
"Still think I can take you," she panted.
"You're takin' me just fine, darlin'," he whispered, forehead pressed to hers. "So perfect. So fuckin' perfect for me."
She rocked her hips against him, impatient.
"Don't rush me," he warned, smiling against her mouth. "I'm hanging on by a thread."
"Poor baby," she teased. "Can't handle me?"
He laughed - then slammed all the way in.
She cried out, legs locking around his waist.
"Oh my GOD!"
"That shut you up," he muttered.
She clawed at his back. "Do it again."
So he did.
He found his rhythm fast. Deep. Hard. Devastating. Each thrust pushed her back, metal rattling with the force of it.
"Fuck, Gator!"
"That's it," he panted. "Say my name. Say it while I fuck you so good you forget yours."
She did. Over and over.
"Gator, Gator, Gator."
He drove into her with everything he had. His hands were everywhere - gripping her hips, bracing her thighs wide, then sliding up to cup her breasts as they bounced with every thrust.
She was radiant. Open. Glowing. Wild beneath him.
"Look at you," he groaned. "Fallin' apart on me."
"Keep going," she begged. "Don't stop - please - don't stop."
"Not stoppin' till you come all over my cock, baby-girl," he panted. "Wanna feel you milk me. Wanna feel you clench down and lose your fuckin' mind."
Her head tipped back, eyes wild, body starting to quake.
"Close," she gasped.
"I know." He slammed deeper. Harder. "Give it to me, Wynn. Let go. Right here in my fuckin' arms. Come for me."
And she did.
She came with a cry, body seizing, thighs locking, nails dragging down his back. Her whole world stuttering around him.
He choked and followed with a broken groan, hips stuttering as he spilled into her, forehead dropping to her shoulder, mouth open on a moan that sounded like her name.
They stayed like that, panting, clinging, bodies trembling in the moonlight.
Eventually, he lifted his head. Kissed her cheek. Her collarbone. Her lips, slow and soft.
"You alright?" he murmured.
She laughed, dazed. "Ask me again when I remember my name."
He grinned with boyish pride and satisfaction.
"Wynn Wilder," he said. "Heartbreaker. Hellraiser. Wildfire who owns my heart."
Chapter 6: The Long Undoing
Chapter Text
The Thief and the Sun
The first thing he saw was the dust cloud.
Not the truck. Not the girl in it. Just the dust - rising in a long, curling plume, white-hot and sunlit, kicked up by tires that knew this road by memory.
The engine growled. Windows down. Radio loud. A truck he'd known - older now, rust decorating the fenders. It came barreling up the ranch drive with an attitude that pretended it hadn't been gone three fucking years.
Luke was already halfway down the path, hands slapping his thighs the way he did when calling in the dogs.
Gator didn't move.
Stayed rooted in the shadow of the house, thumbs hooked in his belt in an attempt to pass for casual.
The truck door swung open.
She stepped out.
And the world tilted, as if the air itself had bent a little sweeter just to welcome her home.
Wynn Wilder.
Older. Bolder. Goddamn beautiful.
Back.
Boots hit the dirt first, black leather with a silver toe. Then bare legs, tanned and toned and dusted gold by the sun. A dress clung to her in all the wrong-right places, rode high on the thigh, cinched at the waist. And her hair, cut even shorter, dark and windblown and wild as ever.
Her mouth.
Red. Smirking. Already won something he hadn't agreed to lose.
Luke whooped, pulled her in, lifted her clean off her feet like the big brother he was proud to be. She laughed, wrapped her arms around him, burrowed her face in his broad shoulder. Gator could see the skin of her neck, soft and vulnerable. A place he'd kissed once, just to see if she'd shiver.
She had.
His heart was loud. He told it to shut up.
"Damn, girl." Luke finally planted her back on solid ground. "You look like a fucking rock star."
"And you smell like you've been living in the barn," she bit back. "You allergic to soap or just making a statement?"
Luke barked out a laugh. "You hearin' this, Tillman? Five seconds home and the little shit's already mouthing off."
Wynn just grinned. Wide, wicked. "Yeah, yeah. Say that again once I tell you about all my new girlfriends who think my big brother's hot and want his number."
Luke's nostrils flared. "God bless."
They laughed. And damn if that sound coming from her didn't make Gator's heart stutter in his chest.
He must've made a noise. Something strangled caught in his throat, maybe. Because her gaze peeled slow past Luke's shoulder, leveling him with two blue eyes that dug their way to his soul.
"Hey, Sheriff."
Fuck, that gutted him.
He didn't answer right away.
Didn't trust his voice.
He cleared his throat. Shifted. "You back for good, or just blowin' through?"
She stepped closer. Dust whispered off her boots, white smoke curling round her calves.
"That depends," she said. "You planning on keeping me?"
I'd marry you barefoot on a hill with the sun above us, if you let me.
That was his brain. Stupid, love-drunk thing. He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek to keep it from getting out.
She giggled - light, easy, full of knowing. And walked right up to him.
"C'mere," she said.
His chest clenched when she opened her arms.
He froze. She slinked up close, daylight catching on the hoops in her ears. And she murmured, velvet-warm-
"Gator."
That must've undone him because her arms were around him before he could register what was happening, hooked behind his neck, pulling him down until they were flush. Chest to chest. Heart to heart. She smelled of sugar and smoke and sweat from driving too long.
She fit.
God help him, she still fit.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck. Just for a beat, just long enough to breathe her in, to take exactly what he was allowed. No more. Kept it quick, quiet, because her big brother was still watching, and Gator wasn't fixing to get buried in a shallow grave.
"Aw, hell," Luke drawled from behind them, oblivious as ever. "Look at that. Three years you've been gone, Wynn, and it takes you all of thirty seconds to make this miserable bastard smile."
Gator pulled away reluctantly, pulse still jackhammering in his throat. "I smile plenty."
Luke scoffed towards his sister. "Girl, you wouldn't believe what our boy's like nowadays. Man wears that badge like he's married to it."
Wynn raised an eyebrow. "Guess I've come back at the right time then."
Luke groaned. "Don't encourage him. He'll start thinkin' he's allowed to have fun again."
Gator just grunted, tried on a smirk that didn't quite fit. Luke was still watching, still teasing like this was just a family reunion and not the single most dangerous moment of Gator's life.
So he didn't touch her again.
Didn't look too long.
Didn't let his fingers twitch toward her waist where they wanted to rest.
But later - once Luke turned and ambled into the house, calling something back over his shoulder about helping their mama throw a feast for the prodigal daughter's return - Wynn tiptoed up behind Gator.
"Hey." She brushed his arm.
He was on her like a man starved, caution obliterated. Hands fisting tight in her hair, mouth crashing down on hers hard enough to bruise. Eyes screwed shut, because if he looked at her he might fall apart.
Wynn gasped into it, hands flying up - not to push, but to grip. She clutched at his wrists, held on like the years hadn't dulled a damn thing.
Then he tore himself off like he'd been lit on fire.
Stumbled a step, chest heaving, gaze dragging over her kiss-swollen mouth, the way her eyes glassed with shock and heat.
He didn't say a word.
Just turned and stalked off into the sunbaked dust, like if he didn't put distance between them now, he'd lose his mind.
Too late.
Mind already gone. Three years spent aching for their last night together, replaying it slow behind closed eyes every time he touched himself in the dark. Three years pretending not to look haunted each time her voice came crackling over the line.
Now Wynn was home.
Bold, breathtaking, and forbidden - and he couldn't touch her without feeling like a thief.
***
Changed and Not
He was supposed to be writing up paperwork. Or making rounds. Or fixing that busted speed sign out past Little Knife Creek.
Instead, his cruiser was parked near the edge of town, engine idling beneath a cottonwood whose bones rattled dry in the wind. One hand on the wheel, the other braced against his temple in the hopes he could squeeze the thoughts out his skull.
That kiss still ghosted his mouth.
And Gator Tillman didn't know what the hell to do with himself.
He stared straight ahead, past the windshield dust and into the open prairie, where wheat swayed under a sky so wide it swallowed a man whole. It was early still. Not many folks out. Just a cattle truck in the distance, grumbling down the highway. A hawk circling overhead. Wind singing in the grass.
Solace. The kind quiet enough to reflect.
He'd kissed her.
Not for the first time.
Maybe not the last?
Jesus. The thought made his Adam's apple bob in his throat.
He should've stopped it. Should've pulled back before it turned hungry. Before all the memories he'd buried came clawing back out the dirt.
It was easier when she was gone, playing pretend like everything was fine. Normal, even.
They'd kept in touch, just enough.
Texts. Sporadic. Safe.
Phone calls every few months - her voice static-thick and smiling, always asking how Roy was, how the town was holding up, like she wasn't the piece missing from it.
Sometimes they FaceTimed. Once, on Christmas Eve, she sang him a verse of Blue Christmas in a red sweater with smudged eyeliner and a bottle of Fireball in her lap.
He'd laughed. She'd winked.
Her sweater had slipped off her bare shoulder, revealing a glimpse of a tattoo that hadn't been there when she left. Black ink. Delicate flowers. He'd leaned closer to the screen like a fool and swiped his tongue across his lip as if he wanted to taste it. Then Luke walked in and Gator hung up fast, heart thundering like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
They flirted, sure. Light. Careful. Never past the edge.
Because it was easy, when there were a thousand miles of road between them, to act like they didn't remember what it felt like when he was inside her.
And yeah. Maybe he kept every postcard she ever sent. Maybe their holiday gifts were always a little too thoughtful.
But yesterday, when she stomped out of her truck - back on Tillman soil - he noticed the earrings.
Big silver hoops. Flashy things that caught the light when she turned her head.
He'd sent them to her same Christmas as the red sweater incident. Bought them in town, boxed up in too much tissue paper, with a note he rewrote four times before giving up and just signing his name.
She'd texted a photo when they arrived - that tattoo peeking out, hair tousled, earrings in, lips puckered in a kiss she probably knew would short-circuit his brain.
Now they were here, on her. Dangling and defiant. A reminder.
She was glossier than she used to be.
Not fake - Wynn'd never been fake a day in her life - but there was polish to her now. A certain glow. Hair darker, shinier. Lips painted that same red he always remembered. Skin warm with shimmer and sun. Boots that hadn't seen a day's work but no doubt made a cowboy whistle when she strutted on stage and took the mic.
She never got famous.
Not famous-famous - not in the way that earned record deals or lit up marquees. Wynn never wanted the stars.
She wanted rooms. Rooms where no one knew her name. Dive bars with busted soundboards and crooked floors. County fairs and tractor shows and one stretch of back-alley stage in Billings where the speakers sparked mid-song and she just sang louder.
And they listened.
Because her songs had that thing in them - whiskey lit with lightning.
She scorched through the country in a blaze - Montana, the Dakotas, a string of towns along the Platte in Nebraska where the wind never stopped blowing. Did a stint a little further out in Chicago then across to New York, but didn't like the big city so circled back. She picked up fans one by one. Barbacks. Bartenders. Rodeo queens. Tattooed girls in too-short dresses she borrowed and never gave back. Old truckers who wept into their dirty palms.
She didn't rise. She raged.
Never charted. Never chased it. But there were places where her name was still sharpied on a bathroom wall. Places where her setlist stayed laminated behind the bar. Places where folks still asked about the girl with the red mouth and the ruin in her voice.
She scratched that itch, the one that'd lived under her skin since they were kids, the one that made her bite back, speak up, sing louder when Roy said hush.
She did it.
His wildfire girl.
And what the hell could Gator give her?
He hadn't chased music.
Hadn't chased anything, really.
He stayed.
Put on the badge, took the weight, let the years settle into him like silt in a riverbed - slow, steady, impossible to shake loose once it packed in deep.
Sheriff Gator Tillman.
Had a certain ring to it. Folks said it like it meant something solid. Dependable.
But the badge was heavier than it looked.
And most days, it wasn't the metal that dragged - it was the ghosts that rode shotgun in his cruiser with him.
He'd soaked his knuckles in ice more times than he could count - after bar fights and backroad brawls. He broke a tooth once. Split a lip. Carried the bruises home in silence.
He'd sat with women after an argument with their boyfriends went sideways, all bloody-lipped and shaking, too scared to look him in the eye. Girls who reminded him too much of Wynn in the worst ways.
He'd dragged addicts out of ditches. Covered bodies with blankets. Delivered news no one should have to speak. Held the hands of mothers who keened with a sound might split the earth.
And through it all, he heard his father's voice. Low. Rough. The voice of a man who was too old to be bothered by the hard parts of being a Tillman.
Grow up, boy. Swallow it down. That's what a sheriff does.
And Gator - stupid, eager - nodded like it made sense.
The one thing that ever quieted the noise was Luke.
Always did.
When Roy got sharp. When his knuckles split and his head ached and the world tilted too far wrong, Luke was the constant. The tether. The idiot with a joke and a beer and a "you good, man?"
Luke was the one person who never looked at him like a Tillman first.
Just Gator.
And Gator owed him everything.
Because when they were nine and Gator got meningitis, it was Luke who biked over before sunrise and crawled through his window with a Game Boy and the dessert he refused to eat the night before, wrapped in foil.
When they got older and Roy started prepping him for law and order and legacy, it was Luke who taught him how to laugh in spite of it.
And maybe that's why this part hurt the worst.
Because Luke had trusted him with everything.
Including Wynn.
That baby girl in his lap, way back on the porch, when his mama said to Luke, "Look after her." And the boy blinked and nodded solemn, and Gator - barefoot and sunburnt, with rocks in his pockets - had nodded too.
He couldn't want her.
Not like this.
Not without losing the only person who'd ever made him feel like he wasn't drowning.
So he'd do what he always did.
Swallow it down. Shove it deep.
And carry on pretending he wasn't the worst friend in the world.
***
A Thousand Miles Between Us
The coffee had gone cold in her hands.
Wynn sat at the kitchen table, one leg tucked under her, the other bare foot pressed flat to the cool tile. Morning sun bled through the curtains, dust floating lazy in the air. The house smelled like toast and pine cleaner and something frying in bacon grease from earlier. Luke had gone out back to check on the fence, muttering about a calf slipping through again.
She knew Gator was out there somewhere.
Not far; she could feel him, like storm pressure in her bones. Probably parked on the edge of town, staring at the horizon like it might give him permission to want her.
She raised the mug to her lips and drank the silence.
There were birds in the cottonwoods. Wind rattling the eaves. A tractor in the distance, humming steady. The house was familiar. The stillness, loud.
That kiss had wrecked her.
Quick. Hungry. Fierce.
She could still feel his hands in her hair, the press of his mouth, how he broke from her as though he'd been burned. Maybe he had. Maybe he was still out there, blistering in the guilt of it.
She let her fingers drift to her lips, as if touch might confirm it happened.
Not for the first time.
And maybe not the last.
She'd thought about it. God, she'd thought about it a thousand times since that night in his truck bed.
But they never talked about it.
Because pretending was easier.
They kept in touch. Barely. Just enough to say we're still us, without ever asking what us meant.
Texts. A couple FaceTimes. Long-distance almosts.
She'd send him postcards from truck stops and diners, scratch little notes on the back like you would've hated this place or this pie tastes just like the ones your mama used to make.
Once, Christmas Eve, she sang him a verse of Blue Christmas. Smudged eyeliner, red sweater, Fireball rested between her thighs. She remembered when her sweater slipped, how his eyes darkened as they snagged on her new tattoo. She remembered the way her heart kicked up the same way it used to when she was fifteen and he was shirtless baling hay.
She called again a few months after, different town, different dive bar - the streets too dark and her boots clicking too loud against the sidewalk. A man had watched her too long at the bar: slick hair, a voice that slithered. And she'd felt the same gut-deep panic as she had at Clyde's.
She hadn't even meant to hit call. Just opened his contact, thumb hovering.
He'd answered half-asleep, shirtless, hair mussed, couch-lit in that grainy glow that made everything feel more intimate than it had any right to. He didn't ask what time it was. Just asked if she was okay.
She told him she was fine. Just walking. Just didn't want to do it alone.
He swallowed. Settled back, spoke soothingly, asking what song she'd opened with, if the crowd was rowdy, if she still wore the earrings he'd sent her.
She remembered saying something like, "Wanna see?" - half a joke, half a dare - and tilting her phone so he could.
Silver hoops catching streetlight. Smudged makeup. That flushed, post-set look that always made her feel braver than she was. He hadn't said much. Just looked at her like he wanted to crawl through the screen and shake her for calling him looking like that.
He asked if she was almost there. She said she was close.
He said he'd stay on the line until she got back to the motel. And he did. Said nothing while she fumbled the key twice, just waited till she told him the door was locked behind her.
Then, gruff and quiet: Good girl.
They never talked about it.
Not once.
She could've told him his voice was the only thing that made her feel safe.
Could've asked about the gloves she sent.
Could've said: I love you, dumbass. I always have.
Instead, she wore those silver hoops on purpose when she drove back in. She still had the note - creased to hell, signed with just his name like a man too scared to write what he really meant.
She hadn't known the half of it.
Not really.
There were stories, of course. Things Luke mentioned in passing when she called home. A bar fight Gator broke up. Some kid he pulled out a creek, freezing cold and sobbing tearfully. Once, Luke joked that Gator didn't even flinch anymore when someone threw a punch. Said he just wiped his lip and kept going.
She'd laughed at that.
Laughed, like it didn't make something twist in her gut.
Because even from miles away, she'd seen the changes.
Sometimes he'd answer her calls with a split lip or a bruise climbing purple down his jaw. One time, when the screen glitched and she caught a flash of bandages across his knuckles, she asked, "Drug bust?" and he just shrugged, eyes not meeting hers.
He never told her the bad stuff. Not outright.
But she knew.
She was grateful for her brother. Her stupid, idiot-mouthed big brother with a heart of pure gold.
Wynn knew Gator didn't fall apart in front of people. Not even his own reflection. But if there was one person who might've seen him unravel a little - it was Luke.
She'd picture them sometimes.
After a callout gone sideways, followed by one of those silences where Gator didn't pick up for two days and then answered with a voice made of gravel.
She'd imagine Luke showing up unannounced, some shitty joke already forming. Saying, "You look like shit, man," and Gator pretending to be pissed about it.
Luke was always good at that. Tethering him. Reminding him he was still human.
Not just the badge. Not just a Tillman.
Sometimes, when Gator texted a dry: "Long day", she'd send back: "Luke bring you a beer yet?"
And when he replied with a thumbs up or a picture of the two of them on the porch, dust in the sky behind them and boots kicked up, she'd feel something uncoil in her chest.
Relief, maybe. That he wasn't alone.
And the more she loved Gator, the more she understood just how much she owed Luke.
Because Luke was the reason he hadn't drowned in all of it.
And maybe that's why this part stung so much.
Because Luke had trusted her too.
And she was gonna have to make Gator choose.
***
Swallowed It Down, Again
He'd learned his lesson the hard way.
Back when they were just dumb kids - her fifteen, him eighteen, both of them playing at grown with no clue what to do once the wanting got too real.
He'd kissed her in a moment that felt older than it should've, and then vanished like it hadn't happened at all.
Froze her out so clean it left frostbite.
Didn't speak. Didn't look. Walked past her like she wasn't even there.
Like she was a curse he'd conjured and couldn't bear to believe in.
It destroyed her, hardened her heart into stone for the last of her teenage years.
He saw when she sighed after he brushed past, and stopped laughing, and stopped looking at him like he was still someone safe.
Gator only ever wanted her to feel safe, especially with him.
So no.
He didn't freeze her out this time.
Didn't vanish from rooms when she walked in, didn't duck his head like a coward, didn't scrub her lyrics off the board like they were a sin he could wash away.
This time, he stayed put.
Spoke soft when he had to. Looked her in the eye when Luke was around to see it. Even smiled sometimes - tight and careful, but real enough to pass for peace.
There was a morning during breakfast in the main house, at the table, when their fingers brushed - him passing the syrup, her reaching at the same time. Just a blink of contact. Skin to skin. A current lit up his whole arm.
He pulled back first.
Didn't let it happen again.
Because he'd ruined things once already - let the lines blur, got too close, too fast - then panicked and made her pay for it.
He wouldn't do that again.
So he kept his distance.
Not frost or silence, just measured and quiet distance, the polite sort of space that was wide enough to keep his hands steady, his voice even-
His promises to Luke unbroken.
***
Red Gingham Revenge
It wasn't like before. She'd give him that.
He didn't ghost her now, didn't look through her like she was smoke, didn't flinch when she walked into the room like her presence cost him something.
But the space was still there.
Wide and careful.
A no-man's-land of glances that didn't linger and silences that stretched too long to be friendly.
He talked to her, when he had to. Called her "sweetheart" once as if it didn't taste wrong in his mouth. Passed her tools in the barn, nodded thanks when she handed him coffee out by the fence line.
But she could feel the edges of it; the boundary, drawn neat as a circle in the sand.
He never let himself be alone with her. Not for more than a minute. Not unless Luke was nearby.
And that stung.
Because she remembered what it felt like when he disappeared the first time. How she'd walk into rooms and feel smaller for it.
How his silence back then had taught her what it meant to ache and not be touched.
This was quieter than that.
But maybe it hurt worse.
Because now she knew better.
Now she knew what his hands felt like, trailing heat along her skin, knew what his voice sounded like when it praised her and moaned her name.
And still - he kept the space.
So she started looking for him.
Didn't mean to. Okay, yes she did. Found herself drifting toward wherever she knew he was working. Leaving her mug out where he might see it, lipstick stained around the rim that said all the things she wanted but couldn't.
Nothing reckless, just... enough to remind him she was here, enough to make him look.
And sometimes - sometimes - he did.
Quick, sharp glances. A twitch at his jaw. Hands that gripped the steering wheel too tight.
He never said a word.
It was space.
It was kindness.
And it pissed her off.
Because it felt a whole lot like punishment when he was the one who crushed his mouth to hers the second she got back.
Fine, then.
If he wanted distance, she'd give him something to feel across it.
She started with perfume - subtle at first. A honey-sharp floral she dabbed behind each ear. She wore it the day she borrowed his truck to run feed into town, and left her scent stitched into the upholstery.
When she handed him back the keys, she didn't say a word. Only smiled. One of those small, mysterious ones that made his pulse kick against his ribs.
Next day, she saw him driving with the windows down. Good. She hoped he choked on it.
The follow-up came with heat.
Midweek, when the sky turned syrup-thick and the ranch slowed under the weight of the sun, she strung her swimsuit up on the line just outside the back porch.
Not just any swimsuit.
A red gingham one.
Cut high at the hips, tied delicate at the back, still damp from the creek and so small it could fold twice into a fist. It fluttered on the breeze like it was winking, catching every glint of sunlight, unapologetic and slow-drying. Something strawberry shortcake and sinful.
She saw him clock it.
Gator came out of the barn, jaw set, steps clipped. Cut it a glance so sharp it could've drawn blood, then kept walking like nothing catastrophic just derailed his brain. But she saw the ticking in his neck, caught the way his hands flexed at his sides, like maybe he wanted to rip it off the line and bury his face in it.
Then came the ranch hand.
New kid. Tall. Corn-fed. Polite in that bland, over-eager way that made her teeth itch. Nothing like Gator. And that was the whole damn point.
She didn't need to fake the laugh; it actually bubbled up easy, bright and unburdened. But she leaned in too close. Let her fingers skim his arm, slow and casual. Tucked her hair behind her ear as if she was bashful, when the truth was she could feel Gator watching from across the yard like a thundercloud.
Also across the yard, Luke muttered under his breath, "Jesus, that guy's massive. He might even be bigger than me."
Gator barely breathed, "Yeah." He said it like he'd been shot, because it felt like he had.
He stood stock-still, trying not to look and looking anyway. Not at her face. At the curve of her hip when she cocked it just a little. At the bare skin above her collarbone. At the smile she gave the ranch hand that used to be his.
His eyes weren't cool. They burned.
Molten coal. Smoldering threat. His mouth drawn tight like he was biting his own tongue to keep from saying something he'd regret.
She let him watch. Let it sting.
Because she hadn't waited nine years to be handled like glass, to be shelved and avoided like temptation in a bell jar.
If he wasn't gonna close the space between them, then she was gonna light it on fire.
Let him feel every inch of it burn.
***
Hurt
He'd nearly finished the third stitch when the bathroom door creaked open.
"Jesus, Gator."
His fingers stilled, needle caught halfway through his skin, and Wynn was there, framed in the doorway. Eyes wide, mouth set hard in a line.
"Knockin' would be nice," he managed through clenched teeth, slowly drawing the needle the rest of the way. Pain sparked sharp and hot, fire licking down his side. "Door was locked for a reason."
"Door ain't locked," she said bluntly, eyes flicking from the wound to his face, unimpressed by either. "You're bleedin' all over Roy's good towels, Sheriff."
She didn't wait for permission, just stepped closer. He felt her nearness like heat, his whole body going rigid as she reached for the whiskey and dumped a healthy measure onto a clean rag.
"Don't," he muttered, half-begging.
"Put the needle down, Gator."
He tightened his grip, stubborn. "Wynn-"
"Put it down."
The authority in her voice made something in him stutter, and he set the needle aside.
"Sit," she ordered softly, moving slow, careful not to spook him. Her fingers trembled just a little, betraying the toughness she wore as armour.
Gator sank onto the closed toilet lid, exhaling sharply, pride bruised worse than the wound he'd been stitching shut. She knelt in front of him, eyes focused entirely on his battered side. Her fingertips touched him carefully, cool against skin feverish with pain.
He tilted his head back, stared at the tiles, tried not to breathe her perfume in. If she wasn't so fixed on the torn flesh right in front of her, she might've lingered longer on the bare stretch of his chest, the hollow of his throat. She might've noticed how he swallowed hard every time she touched him.
Instead she sighed, shaking her head. "How'd it happen this time?"
"Just a fight. Search warrant gone wrong; dickhead pulled a knife on me."
She paused, hand hovering near his ribs, then lifted her gaze. Her eyes weren't soft now - they were bright and hard and angry. "And why exactly did you think it was smart to handle that alone?"
"Because that's my damn job," he shot back, the words tasting of bitter rust. "Not yours."
"No, your job's getting home safe," she snapped. "To Luke. To Roy. To-"
Her voice broke off, but he felt the unspoken word hum between them.
To me.
He swallowed hard, jaw working. "Funny way of showing it, flirting with every new face on the ranch."
Her mouth parted slightly, hurt flashing quick before she shuttered it. "Maybe I'm just tryin' to get your attention," she spat, every word sharp as glass. "Considering you're hellbent on pretendin' I don't exist."
"I know exactly where you are," he ground out. "Every goddamn minute."
The words hung thick, heavy with confession.
She stared at him, breathing quick. He could feel her pulse through the fingertips still pressed lightly to his skin. "Then act like it," she whispered finally.
He looked away, throat tight. "Ain't that simple."
When she finished cleaning the wound, Wynn placed a fresh gauze pad over it, taped it down neat. She smoothed the edges softly, lingering just long enough to make his heart beat reckless.
Then she looked up at him, eyes steady and clear, voice quiet but firm as stone. "Don't you dare go cold on me again."
He met her stare, searching her face for any give. "Why," he murmured, reaching desperately for humour and missing by a mile, "you plannin' on singin' Silver Springs again?"
She leaned back.
"You deserved it," she then said simply. "Every word."
He swallowed hard, couldn't look away. Didn't trust himself to speak, because it was true and he knew it - knew he'd earned every cutting lyric, every brutal truth she'd thrown at him that night on stage.
He nodded slowly, accepting defeat, letting her have it.
"I won't freeze you out," he finally promised, quiet and defeated.
She held his gaze a beat longer, searching for cracks, before her voice dipped into something dangerously close to tenderness. "Good," she whispered, standing slowly, fingers brushing lightly over his shoulder. "Because this hurts enough already."
He watched her walk out, listened to her footsteps fade down the hallway, felt every careful, measured breath she'd drawn in front of him linger like smoke in the cramped space.
And he wondered, heart aching worse than the stitches in his side, whether she'd meant the wound or the two of them.
Either way, it felt true.
***
Knight in Shining Bullshit
Clyde's was packed tight like usual, air heady with cigarette smoke and spilled whiskey. Gator leaned quiet at the far end of the bar, nursing a beer gone warm, staring hard into the scarred woodtop. He wasn't there for the talk. Hell, wasn't even listening. But voices carried, mean and loud and ugly.
The ranch hand - yep, that one - stood by the pool table, beer loose in his grip, grin wide and lazy with drink. He nodded, chuckling in a voice just loud enough for half the bar to hear:
"...and I'm tellin' you, little Wilder's practically beggin' for it. Way she's been bendin' over hay bales and battin' those pretty eyes? Bet she tastes sweet as she looks - and I aim to find out."
Gator's knuckles went white around the bottle.
A few laughs rippled through the crowd, spurring the idiot on. He leaned in, voice dropping filthier. "Give me a week, boys. I'll have that mouth wrapped around somethin' better'n a microphone."
Something snapped hot and blinding behind Gator's eyes.
He was across the bar in seconds, beer abandoned, stools clattering sideways.
He grabbed the ranch hand by the collar, yanked him forward, and buried a punch so deep it crunched through bone. The man hit the floor with a grunt, blood already streaking his chin, eyes wide with drunken surprise.
Clyde's went still. Even the jukebox skipped a beat.
Gator stood breathing hard, fists clenched, eyes dark as a storm rolling in.
"You open your mouth about her again," he said, shaking, "and I'll scatter your pieces so wide they'll never figure out it's you."
A beat.
"You understand me?"
The man didn't answer - just nodded, blood leaking from his mouth.
Gator straightened, gaze sweeping the room.
The room stayed hushed, all eyes on him, right up until he turned on his heel and stormed out into the night.
Didn't regret a damn thing.
Not yet, anyway.
The next day, Wynn clocked it the moment she stepped outside.
The new ranch hand - Jason? Jared? Didn't matter - had a busted lip, a swollen cheekbone, and the stiff-backed posture of someone pretending he hadn't just gotten his ass handed to him.
He tried to act normal, scratching behind the ears of a skittish yearling, but he wouldn't meet her eyes. Not once.
Which was strange, because yesterday he'd been real friendly.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Luke stroll past. He glanced at the kid's face, blinked, frowned. "Jesus. What happened to you?"
Jason-Jared muttered something about a bar scuffle. "Clyde's," he added. "Stupid thing. Was drunk."
Luke snorted, clueless, accepting it at face-value and didn't bother to press.
The kid gave a tight, embarrassed chuckle. Wynn didn't.
She watched the colt's mane catch in the light, fingers moving in slow, thoughtful strokes. She didn't need to hear more. Didn't need anyone to spell it out.
Clyde's. A bar scuffle. A bruised jaw and silence that looked too much like shame.
Later, in town, she stopped for a coffee and heard it.
A couple of the regulars - men who'd known her since she was knee-high and mouthy - mumbled something about "your sheriff boy lost his temper last night."
She left without finishing her drink.
Because that man - Sheriff Goddamn Tillman - had gone and fought her battle without asking.
That stubborn, overgrown bastard.
Of course he couldn't just ignore it, or tell her, or god forbid, let her handle it herself like the grown woman she was.
He still wouldn't speak to her proper, still kept space between them, but apparently had no issue cracking bones in her name.
She wasn't his, but he sure as hell acted like it when it suited him.
Well.
She'd see about that.
Chapter 7: All of Me
Chapter Text
He didn't hear the door open.
Didn't hear boots on the worn linoleum or the squeak of the hinges he kept meaning to oil.
Just felt the change - the air in the office pulling taut like a stretched wire, thrumming with danger.
Then he looked up.
And there she was.
Wynn stood in the doorway, framed by the sunlit hallway like a damn vision, if visions came pissed and gorgeous and hellbent on ruining a man.
She wore an oversized, faded tee, frayed at the collar, stretched across one shoulder. Some long-forgotten country star's face stared out from the front - cracked with wear - and it hung low enough to nearly cover the microscopic denim shorts she had on underneath. Nearly.
The tee stopped mid-thigh. The shorts didn't start until higher.
Cherry-red boots. Those damn boots. The ones with the white stitching. Scuffed to hell from years of wear and loud on purpose.
Silver hoops caught the light as she tilted her head to the side like a cat eyeing its prey. Her lips weren't painted red this time - just glossed, wet at the center, catching light and every scrap of his attention. She looked edible.
And furious.
Eyes storm-bright, chin cocked just enough to say: I know exactly what you did.
Gator set his pen down.
Didn't speak. Didn't have to.
Wynn crossed the threshold, boots echoing off the floor. She shut the door behind her with more force than necessary and planted herself in front of his desk, hands on hips.
"You wanna tell me what the hell happened at Clyde's?"
His shoulders tensed, just barely. "No idea what you're talkin' about."
She laughed, sharp and humourless. "Don't insult me, Gator. You think word don't travel? Man shows up to work with a busted face, and suddenly every beer-jockey in town's whisperin' about the sheriff losing his temper?"
He said nothing.
"Jesus." She dragged a hand through her hair, turning from him like she might walk out, then spun right back. "Was it worth it? Bruisin' your knuckles over some idiot's mouth?"
"He deserved worse."
"For what? Saying something gross?"
"For talkin' about you like you were-"
"Like I was what?" she snapped. "A grown woman? One you refuse to look at half the time?"
His eyes narrowed. "Don't."
"No, you don't." Her voice rose. "You don't get to beat some man bloody on my behalf when you won't even stand next to me without flinching. You don't get to play protector and ghost in the same breath."
"You think I want to feel this way?" he growled, pushing up from the chair. "You think this is easy?"
"No. I think it's fucking cowardly."
That landed. Hit him square in the chest.
His fists clenched. "You don't know what I've had to hold back."
"Then show me," she said, full of rage and hurting. "Or stop haunting me with it."
Silence crackled between them. His breath was ragged. Her chest heaved.
And then, softer: "I heard what he said, Gator. After. All of it. You didn't hit him for flirtin'. You hit him for daring. Daring to touch what you've claimed without claiming it."
His voice came rough and bitter. "You think I don't want to? You think I don't wake up every damn day wanting to cross that line?"
Her chin lifted. "Then why don't you?"
He stared at her. At the curve of her lip, glossed and daring. At the neck of the shirt stretched wide and soft with wear. At her bare thigh and those boots and the goddamn earrings he bought her, swinging like tiny weapons.
He stepped around the desk slow, eyes never leaving hers.
And for a second, she thought maybe he would. Finally. Thought he'd grab her by the waist and kiss her like he meant it, like every minute of avoidance was a lie.
But he stopped a breath away.
"I don't touch what I'm not allowed to keep," he said, voice like gun-smoke and guilt.
Something in her splintered.
"Don't you dare put this on me."
"You think I wanted this?" he bit out, stepping in closer. "You think I wanted to spend the last nine years aching for a girl I couldn't have? Since I was eighteen years old, Wynn? Maybe longer?"
"I'm not a girl anymore."
"No," he said, and his eyes dropped - slow and burning - to the bare length of her thigh, the gloss on her lips, the faded tee hanging soft over her chest. His voice lowered. "You're not."
"And you're still acting like I'm made of glass."
"I'm acting like you're Luke's sister."
"Fuck Luke."
He blinked, stunned silent.
"He's my brother and I love him. But he's had you for decades. Best friend. Right hand. Ride-or-die." Her voice wavered. "What've I had? Two kisses years apart, a goodbye fuck, and a thousand yards of distance."
He shook his head. "You don't get it-"
"I do get it," she snapped, inching closer so her chest brushed his. "You think it's noble to want me in secret, to throw punches when someone else does. But the second it's you with your hands on me, you vanish."
"I'm doin' somethin' now."
"This ain't something. This is you standing still and hoping I'm the one that falls first."
"You think I haven't already?" he growled, the words catching like sandpaper. "You walk around in those damn boots and that little walk of yours, and you laugh with him-"
"I laughed to piss you off," she cut in.
He froze.
"I wore the boots for you, Gator. Every goddamn time."
His jaw clenched. The vein in his neck pulsed. Hands still fisted at his sides, but his body was swaying toward her like gravity was pulling him in.
"You got no idea what you're askin' for," he muttered.
"I'm asking for honesty," she said. "Just once. Right now."
He snapped.
"I want you," he snarled, louder than he meant to and she blinked. "I want you so bad it makes me sick. I want you so bad I hate myself for it. I want you so bad, Wynn, I'm scared I'll die alone. Because if it ain't you, I don't want it."
Her breath caught. Chest rising like it hurt to breathe.
He surged forward, grabbed her by the shoulders, eyes wild.
"I am in love with you, Wynnifred Wilder. Been in love with you since before I knew what the hell to do with it."
"Gator-"
"I love you," he went on. "I love you and I can't stop, not even if it means losin' him. Not even after I draw my last breath."
She stared up at him. Then her hand rose and slid shakily up the sharp line of his jaw, thumb ghosting over the corner of his mouth, so gentle his eyes damn near fluttered shut.
Her voice came soft, breath-warmed. "Good," she said. "Because I love you, too. And I have for a long, long time."
The dam broke.
Finally.
Their mouths collided like a car crash - hot, brutal, inevitable. Teeth and tongue and fury.
His hands gripped her waist, pulling her in, grinding her against him until she gasped into his mouth, and he walked her back blind, bumping a chair, until her back hit the wall.
Hard.
She let out a soft, startled whine that turned hungry when he caught her thigh and yanked it over his hip, hand dragging along skin flushed and fever-warm. She was all curves and heat, her breath stuttering into his mouth as he rolled his hips once - just to feel her writhe.
Her gloss smeared between them - syrupy, sticky, sweet. He chased the taste like a man gone feral.
She moaned all low, guttural and wrecked, and he felt it everywhere. In his spine. His fists. His cock. It gutted him. Lit him up.
He pressed harder, lips at her throat now, the pulse thudding against his tongue. Her fingers knotted in his hair, tugged like she wanted him inside her, now, no more space, no more pretending.
And god, he wanted that too.
He wanted to sink into her until the years between them disappeared. Until every lonely night, every almost, every guilt-drenched dream burned clean away.
Until there was nothing left but this.
He kissed down her neck - open-mouthed, like he could drink her down, like she was the first sip of water after years in the desert. Her skin was salt-sweet and shivering under his tongue. She arched into him on instinct, her breath hitching when his teeth scraped just beneath her ear.
"Gator," she gasped, voice ragged. One hand fisted in the back of his shirt, tugging hard like she'd tear it clean off if he didn't give her what she wanted soon.
She tried to laugh- tried to tease - "Slow down-"
"Shut up," he growled into her neck, but didn't mean a single word of it.
Still, he forced himself to pull back, just far enough to see her.
Just far enough to make it worse.
Her lips were kiss-bruised, gloss smeared across both their mouths. Her chest was rising fast under that threadbare tee, nipples peaked through thin cotton, her pulse a drumbeat in her throat.
She looked ruined.
Perfectly, deliberately ruined.
And he'd barely touched her.
His thumb dragged across her bottom lip - wet and swollen and trembling.
"That fuckin' lip gloss," he said, words gone raw. "I swear to god, darlin'."
She raised a brow, cocky even now. Even like this. "What about it?"
"It's a goddamn weapon." His mouth curled, but it wasn't a smile. It was want. "You're tryin' to kill me."
She sucked his thumb into her mouth and he felt it like a fist to the gut. Like she'd licked the last shred of his restraint clean away.
"Maybe I am," she murmured. "You gonna stop me?"
He didn't answer.
He just grabbed her face and kissed her like hell.
No mercy, no manners - just desperation from the years of no. His palm cradled her jaw, rough thumb dragging over the hinge of it, angling her where he needed, like he was starving and this was the only thing left on earth worth devouring.
She clawed at the hem of his shirt, yanking it up, dragging her nails up the hard plane of his stomach as she went. He hissed into her mouth. Bit her lower lip as a punishment. She tugged his shirt over his head.
"Off," she panted. "Take it off-"
He did. Tore it over his head and flung it somewhere behind him without ever taking his eyes off her. Her eyes raked down his chest. Greedy, slow.
He was beautiful. Devastating. All muscle and over a decade of hard work and tattoos that weren't there the last time she claimed him.
She pressed her palms to his bare chest, trailing them down the line of his ribs, right where his wound throbbed.
The skin there was still pink, a little swollen, angry. So she touched it soft, barely a brush, and watched his head fall back.
"Still hurts?" she murmured.
His eyes dropped to hers, molten.
"Only when you look at me like that."
She grinned. Dark and knowing.
He surged forward and kissed her again.
She wasn't sure if she was kissing him or clinging to him for dear life.
Didn't matter.
His body flush against hers like he meant to fuse them together. And sweet Jesus, she wanted to crawl inside him, under his skin, lose herself in the weight of him, the scent of him, the way he made her feel.
He was everything and not enough.
Not even close.
She wanted him pressed against her, inside her, all around her - wanted him to fuck her against this wall, wanted to ride him in his damn desk chair, wanted to be bent over the tabletop where he'd signed a thousand soulless forms.
Wanted him rough, wanted his hands wrapped round her throat and his teeth on her nipples and his voice cooing filthy praise in her ear.
"Gator." Her breath snagged when his lips skimmed her jaw, down the curve of her neck. "I- god, I want-"
"Yeah?" he rasped, mouth dragging hot down the column of her throat. "What do you want, baby-girl? Say it."
Everything. Every way. Right now.
But the words got stuck behind her teeth, drowned out by the way his fingers were skimming under her shorts, teasing the place she needed him most. She bucked forward, chased it, and he grinned against her skin like he knew exactly how far gone she was.
"Use your words," he chuckled. "You always had that smart mouth. Use it."
"I want you," she whispered. "Here. Anywhere. Just- don't stop touching me."
"Not planning to. But I wanna hear you say how."
She moaned. "I want you to fuck me with your fingers," she breathed. "Put me on your desk. Bend me over it."
"Fuck, Wynn-"
He spun her before she could register what was happening.
Hands on her hips, firm, sure. Pressing her chest down. Because he'd waited years and wasn't about to fuck it up now that he had her.
Her palms splayed flat against a stack of incident reports. The wood was cool under her cheek. His body, blistering behind her.
She tried to look over her shoulder but his hand came down between her shoulder blades, heavy. Grounding.
"Stay," he said. Low. Final.
And she did.
Her breath gave little choked pants as his fingers hooked the waistband of her shorts; the denim so small it was barely there. He peeled them slow. Torturously slow. Tugged them down her thighs like he had time to kill.
He knelt behind her to drag them off, and she felt his breath ghost her core. Then the softest scrape of his teeth on her ass.
"These," he muttered, bunching her panties - dusky nude lace - in his fist before stuffing them in the back pocket of his jeans. "Mine now."
She whimpered. Actually whimpered. And his palm smoothed over the curve of her ass, thumb brushing the place she was already aching for him.
He growled approval. "Goddamn. Look at you."
Then one finger, rough and thick, traced between her folds. A tease. Just a pass.
"Wet already," he mused in disbelief. "You been walkin' around like this? Shiny and sweet and mad as hell?"
Another pass. Slower this time. She jerked.
"Please," she sobbed.
"Nuh-uh." His hand slid up her spine, strong and sure. "You said you wanted it. You take it how I give it."
Then his fingers were in her, two at once, filling her in a way that made her knees buckle.
She cried out, caught herself on the edge of the desk, eyes scrunched shut. He fucked her with his hand, deliberate, dragging it out. Just enough stretch to keep her feral. Not enough to give her what she really needed.
Her whole body trembled.
"Gator-"
"You'll get it, honey," he said, forehead resting against her back. "Every fuckin' inch of me. But not until you come like this first."
And then he curled his fingers just right.
Her vision went white.
He said nothing. Just kept working her with those thick fingers, dragging slick from her and using it, pressing his palm up snug against her, grinding down with the heel of his hand until she was choking on her own moans.
"Oh my god."
"Yeah," he rasped, pressing a kiss to the small of her back, open-mouthed and hot. "There she is."
Wynn tried to say his name but it came out more breath than word, as his fingers dragged out slow only to slide back in deeper. Her knees gave a little and he caught her with one arm around her waist, pulling her back into him, keeping her upright, keeping her his.
She was unraveling in his hands - boneless, breaking - and all he did was murmur low filth against her spine, like prayer.
"Feel how tight you are, sugar," he said, voice thick with reverence. "Grippin' me like you never want me to stop."
"I don't." She pushed back on his hand like she could take more, chase the pressure coiling up inside her. "Don't stop- don't you dare-"
"Oh, I ain't stoppin'," he said, dark amusement curling in his tone. "You're gonna come all over my fingers, Wynn. Bent over my desk. Then I'm gonna bend you again."
He thumbed her clit, slow and steady, a counter-rhythm to the thrust of his fingers - lazy and cruel; he knew she was close.
"Don't hold back," he whispered into the shell of her ear, bending low behind her, his chest flush to her back. "Come on my fingers, baby. Make a goddamn mess of me."
And when she did - sharp, sudden, near-violent - he held her through it, whispering praise and mentally filing away the sound she made under: mine.
She was still shaking when he pulled his fingers free, slow, savouring the slick sound of it like it was a reward. Wynn slumped forward, trembling with aftershock. She barely had time to recover before his hands slid up under her shirt, palms scorching as they swept along her ribs.
"This one mine?" he rasped, nudging the faded tee up her back.
She nodded, still catching her breath. "Stole it years ago."
He grinned then laughed low - a dark, rough sound - and dragged the fabric up and over her head in one smooth motion. When he saw what was underneath, the smile dropped right off his face.
"Jesus Christ."
She turned, smiling and defiant. "See something you like?"
He stared. Hard. Jaw ticking. Eyes locked to her chest like he might never look away.
"You got your nipples pierced." His voice dropped an octave. "You got your perfect fuckin' tits pierced."
"Yeah," she said, chin tilted, voice honeyed and smug. "Spur of the moment thing; got 'em done in Austin."
She sat up on the desk and arched her spine, slow and unhurried, until her back bowed and her chest lifted toward him like an offering.
"I figured..." she let the pause hang, teasing, "if you were gonna keep leavin' me high and dry, I might as well learn to torture you without beggin'."
The lamp flickered low, gold and syrupy in the early-evening hush, casting warm shadows across her stomach, the line of her thighs spreading shameless in front of him. Light kissed the underside of her breasts, shimmered soft off the silver of her piercings, and Gator... Gator thought maybe this was what dying felt like.
Because he wasn't surviving this. Not a chance in hell.
Goddamn.
She looked like a goddess in sepia. Naked and golden.
His girl. His fucking girl.
"Gator," she murmured, cocking her head. "You gonna stare all day, or-?"
He didn't answer beyond dipping his head, mouth open, to seal it gently around one aching peak, tongue laving over metal and skin. Wynn's whole body jolted.
"You're evil," he growled into her flesh. "Walkin' around with these under your shirt, actin' like I wouldn't lose my goddamn mind when I saw 'em."
She tipped her head back, laughed breathless. "I didn't do it for you."
He sucked harder, just to punish the lie, and she whimpered.
Her breath hitched as he switched sides, lavishing the other with the same unholy attention, tongue tracing the metal, lips working her like a man possessed.
She found herself whining, "Fuck, more-"
"You want more?" he cooed. "You want my mouth, baby?"
Her eyes fluttered. She felt drunk on him.
"Yes. God, yes."
He reached for her wrists first - not harsh, not hard. Just enough pressure to still her.
"Lie back," he said. "Hands over your head."
She hesitated. Just a flicker. Then she did. Splayed herself across the desk. A feast laid out just for him.
Obedient. Open. His.
"Look at you," he murmured. "So goddamn pretty when you listen."
A flush crept up her throat. She rocked her hips a little toward him, a silent beg.
"You gonna be good for me?" he asked.
She nodded. Bit her lip. "Y-yeah."
He smiled. "Good girl."
He didn't rush.
Didn't just taste.
He devoured.
Mouthed up the tender crease at the top of her thigh, the curve where soft skin gave way to something slicker, hotter, more sacred.
And there it was.
Flushed. Swollen. Slick and shining where he'd teased her open.
He parted her with his thumbs - worshipful, awed - and the sound she made that curled low in his chest he swore would echo through his bones forever.
She almost choked. "Please."
He looked up her body and the sight of her undone like that. Spine bowed, pierced tits pointed to the ceiling, hands still obedient above her head, mouth parted in surrender. It nearly shattered him.
"You beg so good," he said. "You always been so polite, baby?"
"Only for you," she confessed.
He leaned in, kissed her clit first, then dragged his tongue from base to tip.
She bucked. Couldn't help it.
But he gripped her hips, kept her steady, whispered, "Don't move," his voice edged with command.
And she obeyed.
He worked her slow. Tongue tracing every inch, then circling back to her clit in teasing spirals that made her hips twitch despite her best efforts. When he sucked - firm, focused - her whole body arched off the desk.
"Fuck!" Her voice broke. "I can't-"
"You can." He kissed her thigh, then speared his tongue right back into her heat, nose pressed through her folds, letting her drown him.
One hand slid under her thigh, hiked it high onto his shoulder to spread her wider. And he moaned into her like she was the only thing that ever tasted right.
She sobbed. Not from pain, but from the pleasure ratcheting too high for her to bear.
She writhed, finally breaking posture, one hand flying down to tangle in his hair.
He didn't stop her this time.
Didn't want her still.
He wanted her wild.
She was coming apart. Again. She could feel it in the pressure that was squeezing her spine.
"Gatorrr," she mewled.
"I can feel you," he rasped, pulling back just far enough to speak, mouth soaked with her.
He spit onto her clit and flicked it with his tongue. Fast, then slow. Fast again. Until her thighs snapped closed around his ears and her hands clawed at the desk like she was trying to stay on earth.
Then finally, he flattened his tongue, sealed his mouth over her and sucked. Hard.
"Oh my god-" Her cries rose. "I'm gonna- FUCK-"
She broke apart and he rode the wave. Held her open and licked her through it, fucked her with his tongue until she was choking on the overstimulation, pushing at his head with trembling hands.
"Too much," she giggled. "Too much."
He lifted his head slowly.
His face was drenched. Lips swollen. Jaw glistening. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
"You're fuckin' divine," he muttered.
He leaned over. Braced both hands either side of her head and kissed her, letting her taste herself on his tongue.
She laughed. Or tried to. It came out more like a breathless, stunned exhale.
"You're proud of yourself?"
"Proud?" he chuckled. "Darlin', I've waited a long-ass time to taste you again. I'm goddamn heroic."
She rolled her eyes, grinning now, dazed and bliss-drunk. "You're insufferable."
He leaned in.
Mouth brushing hers. Nose to nose. The kind of closeness that meant something had shifted.
"No," he whispered, the words hot against her lips. "I'm in love with you. And I'm about to show you just how bad that gets when I'm finally allowed to touch."
She felt him, hard against her thigh, so wriggled to chase the friction.
He moaned.
"Wynn," he said, forehead to hers. "If I don't get inside you soon, I'm gonna lose what little's left of my mind."
"Then do it. Take me, Gator. All of me."
Gator's jaw flexed, the vein in his neck pulsing. He swore under his breath and reached for his belt like a man unmaking himself.
The clink of metal. The slow rasp of denim. His jeans dropped, heavy, and she watched - hungry, unblinking - as he freed himself.
And there he was.
Thick. Heavy. Hard in a way that made her thighs press together instinctively.
"Still huge," she husked in disbelief. "Jesus."
He smirked. "You sound surprised."
"I'm not. I'm just-" Her legs wound around his waist, her pulse rabbiting as he lined up. "Starving."
That pulled a low laugh out of him, pleased to hear it. "That greedy for me huh, baby?"
She chewed her lip and batted her eyes and nodded.
And then he pushed in.
Slow.
Brutal.
Exactly what she needed.
She whined as her body stretched to take him. Her hands found purchase on his biceps, nails biting skin. His arms flexed under her grip.
"Fucking hell, Gator-"
"I know," he gritted, grinding forward. "I know."
He paused halfway, letting her adjust.
"Forgot how tight you are," he muttered. "How warm. How perfect."
"Yeah, well-" she sucked in her teeth as he rolled his hips, "-I forgot how thick you are. I mean, you always did walk like you were smug about something."
He laughed again and kissed her, catching the tail end of her grin.
And then he sank in the rest of the way.
All of him.
Her jaw fell open, eyes fluttering shut.
"Still good?" he asked, barely managing the question through the snarl of his teeth.
She nodded. "Better."
He pulled back.
Then drove into her again.
Another thrust. Harder this time. Her nails curled into his shoulders.
"You're takin' it so well, honey. So goddamn brave."
She huffed a laugh. "Brave? Is that what we're calling it now?"
He kissed the corner of her mouth, then her jaw, then the place under her ear.
"Well, you are letting me rearrange your guts," he murmured, smiling against her skin.
She moaned, fingers diving into his hair. "God, you're such a menace."
"You love it."
"I do."
He started to move, slow at first - long, dragging thrusts that made her whimper and cling, her hips chasing every pass.
"I can feel you in my throat."
He groaned, movements stuttering just for a second. "You say shit like that, I'm not gonna last long."
"That's okay. You can make it up to me."
"Oh, I will. Again and again."
He angled his hips and drove in with a new rhythm. Every thrust dragged a sound out of her. High and raw and needy.
He framed her face with both hands, thumbs brushing her cheeks. "You're mine, Wynnifred Wilder."
"Been yours," she practically sobbed.
He kissed her, and this time it wasn't desperate. It was sure. Grounded. Like coming home.
"Can I come inside you?" he murmured against her mouth. "Fill you so deep you'll feel me tomorrow?"
Her legs wrapped tighter around him. "Yes. Please. Please. Please."
"And I'll stay right here," he promised. "All night if you want. Hold you through the whole damn thing."
"I do want."
She cupped his face again, pulled him close. "Don't let go."
"I won't," he swore.
And then he moved.
Faster now. Rougher. Desk creaking beneath them as he pistoned into her. Again. And again. And again. Her gasps built into little cries. His name on her lips like worship.
She was close - he could feel it in the way she folded into him, nails scoring his back so harsh and hot they could've drawn blood.
"Come with me," she begged, her voice frayed. "I need it."
"Look at me," he said again, desperate and soft. "Let me see you fall apart again."
She did.
Eyes wide and tear-bright, she came with a shudder that took him with her.
He buried himself to the hilt and spilled into her, hips stilling, one hand fisting her hair like he needed to hold onto something - someone. Her.
Wynn.
His Wynn.
They rode it out together. Clinging. Gasping.
And when it passed, he didn't move. Just stayed there, forehead to hers, breath mingling.
"You okay?" he murmured, lips ghosting her cheek.
"Still feel you everywhere," she answered. "So... yeah."
He laughed softly. Pressed a kiss to her temple. "Did I hurt you?"
"Only in ways I liked."
"Smartass."
They giggled together. The sound of her light and airy. Him, low and quiet like velvet wrapping around her soul.
"Okay," she muttered, blinking up at the ceiling, "you might've actually rearranged something."
Gator chuckled - the noise still rough from wreckage. "Told you."
She rolled her eyes, but the grin slipped out anyway. He was still inside her, still warm, and for a moment neither of them moved. Just breathed.
Then slow as molasses, he pulled back. She gasped at the loss.
"Sorry, baby," he cooed, pressing a kiss to her jaw. "Didn't mean to break you."
"You didn't," she said. "You just... bent me real good."
He laughed again and kissed her neck. "Stay put."
She didn't argue. Couldn't have if she tried.
He left just long enough to fetch a roll of paper towels from the corner, warm water in a metal basin from the break room sink, and her tee he realised had been tossed over the filing cabinet - the one she arrived in, the one she'd stolen years ago and never gave back.
When he returned, she was still splayed across the desk, legs dangling off the edge, hair a halo of chaos.
"You look ruined," he said, like it was the best thing he'd ever seen. It was.
"Mmm. Feel it."
He cleaned her up with slow, steady hands. Careful around the tender parts. Reverent, as if she were made of something finer than skin.
She watched him through lidded eyes. No sass left. Wordless and reflective.
"Why're you bein' so gentle?" she asked.
His gaze flicked up, brows pinched. "You think I'd be rough when it matters?"
Something lodged in her throat.
He helped her sit. Helped her down off the desk. Helped her find the rest of her clothes - minus the panties he staked claim over, still stuffed in his back pocket - and kissed the top of her shoulder when she winced slipping into the shorts.
"You hurtin'?" he murmured.
"A little."
He looked proud. She smacked him.
Once dressed, she stood on the worn linoleum, shirt hanging off one shoulder, hair still wild, cheeks still pink, boots still red.
He leaned in, brushed his lips over her temple. "Where you goin' now?"
She paused. Thought about it. Home? Where Luke would no doubt ask, all casual, "Whatcha been up to today?" Oh, nothing major - just got absolutely railed by your best friend on government property.
She shrugged. "Yours."
His brows lifted.
"Gonna take a shower," she added. "Steal your biggest hoodie. Order a pizza."
That earned her a crooked smile, climbing slow up his cheeks to meet his eyes.
"Waitin' on me?"
She nodded. "Don't take too long, Sheriff."
She kissed him again, quick and sure, and turned for the door.
Then paused.
"Is this how it's gonna be now?" he asked - half-teasing, half-terrified she might say no.
She glanced back, gaze steady. "Yeah. It is."
"No goin' back?"
"Not a chance in hell," she said. "So get used to it."
He grinned. Couldn't help it.
Just before she stepped into the sunlit hallway, she looked back again, one final time.
"Bring ranch."
He clicked his tongue. "Bossy."
"You love it," she called.
And then she was gone.
He found her in his bed that evening, just like she promised, half-asleep and glowing in the gold spill of his bedside lamp, curled on her side like she'd always belonged there. Her damp hair clung to her temple, one bare leg tangled in the sheets, the other stretched out like she owned the place - his grey hoodie swallowing her frame, collar slipping wide to bare the smooth line of her shoulder.
The room smelled like her now and for a long, aching beat, Gator just stood there in the doorway, chest tight, ribs too small for what was crashing inside him. She was here. In his bed. In his clothes. Not fighting. Just here.
And for the first time in all the years he'd wanted her, needed her, dreamed of her - he didn't have it in him to feel guilty.
She was real.
She was his.
And he wasn't running anymore.
Chapter 8: Like Rabbits
Chapter Text
Home, Hungry, Hers
They hadn't stopped.
Since that time in his office - desk, sweat, yes and yes and don't you dare stop - it'd been as if something cracked open between them. And now they couldn't seal it shut even if they tried.
They hadn't tried.
Weren't going to either.
It was becoming routine.
Sheriff clocked out. Sheriff drove home. Sheriff walked in the door and found one (1) naked, smug-as-hell woman waiting in his bed.
Like clockwork.
His room smelled like her now. Like her lotion, her shampoo, her body in the sheets.
She'd been ruining him nightly. Mornings, too. Some afternoons when he could steal them. Bent over the kitchen counter. Pulled into his lap on the sofa when Roy was out. Up against the shower wall before either of them had even gotten clean.
He'd never had anything like it. Never wanted anything else.
So when Gator got home late and the house was dark, quiet, and too still... he already knew.
He dropped his keys. Set his gun belt on the counter. And followed the heat like it had a scent.
The bedroom door was cracked.
She left it like that on purpose.
He pushed it open, slow, and there she was - bare as the day she was born, sprawled across his bed like temptation itself. On her back this time, arms stretched over her head, one knee bent just enough to part herself in invitation.
She didn't flinch when he entered.
Didn't cover up.
Didn't say a word.
Just smiled - lazy and lethal - and let her eyes crawl down his body.
"Hey, Sheriff," she drawled. "How was your day?"
Gator's throat went dry.
"I'm covered in dirt and blood," he said. "Need a shower."
She stretched. Arched. Smirked.
"Don't care," she said. "Want you filthy."
He was across the room before she could blink.
Then he was climbing up the bed - slow, steady, eyes never leaving hers.
"Missed me, huh?" she murmured, voice lilting and mean.
He stopped at her knees.
Pushed them open with rough palms.
"Baby, you have no idea."
***
In Broad Daylight
They were supposed to be doing chores.
Opposite ends of the ranch. Heads down. Hands busy.
Pretending they weren't eye-fucking each other every time they passed.
But then she bent over.
That white cotton sundress floated up just enough to ruin him.
No panties. No shame. Just the swell of her ass and the shape of her thighs, sun turning fabric translucent.
Something in him snapped.
"Wynnifred." A warning, already lost to the want in his voice. "You tryin' to get fucked in the dirt?"
She glanced over her shoulder, all sweet smile and big eyes. "Depends. You gonna fuck me in the dirt?"
That was it.
All caution, all logic, all thin-veiled restraint - they burned off like morning mist.
He closed the distance in three long strides, pinned her to the backside of the barn, her laughter tumbling out wild and wicked, head thrown back like this was exactly how she'd planned it all along.
One of his hands dove beneath her dress - found warmth, found wet.
"Christ, woman," he muttered as his fingers slipped through slick. "You walkin' around like this?"
She whimpered when he slid two fingers in deep. "It's hot out."
"You're sayin' that like it's a reason," he growled and fumbled with his belt, then bunched the fabric at her waist with one hand, the other gripping the curve of her bare ass to lift her off the ground.
"It is," she insisted. "I was overheating."
"Yeah? 'Bout to get a whole lot hotter."
He didn't give her time to blink. Just buried himself in her in one brutal, perfect thrust.
She gasped - sharp, breathless - and clung to him, boots braced at his hips, fingers in his hair, dress rucked up around her waist like a flag raised in surrender.
"Gator," she moaned, voice dancing between thrill and panic. "What if someone sees?"
He fucked into her harder, huffing with the unrelenting pace he set. "Then they'll know who you belong to."
She shuddered. He felt it everywhere - tightening around him like her body agreed more than she dared say.
She clawed at his shirt. "Harder."
"You want the whole barn to hear how good I make you come?" he rasped, pounding into her with the kind of rhythm that made her choke between syllables. "That what you want, sugar?"
"Yes," she panted. "God, yes I want that."
She claimed this was dangerous and stupid. But her hands dragged him closer, her legs wrapped tighter.
She didn't care. She never had.
"You're reckless," she murmured, kissing him hard, teeth catching on his bottom lip then smoothing the pain with her tongue.
"I don't give a fuck," he grunted, burrowing his face in her neck.
He moved like the heat had gotten to him, driven him crazy - like the world might end and he needed to finish before it did. Her back arched, her breath caught in tiny broken sobs that made his grip tighten, his hips snap harder.
She came first with a stifled scream and full-body spasm, and clenched so hard around him it might as well have stopped his cock mid-thrust.
He followed with a curse, buried to the hilt, forehead against her chest, fingertips dug deep into the soft flesh of the backs of her thighs.
Silence stretched.
Just wind. Dust. The distant sound of cattle.
Then Wynn let out a sigh. "Well. That wasn't very subtle."
Gator huffed a shaky laugh. "You wore a sundress. With no panties."
She raised brow, flushed and glowing. "You wore no self-control."
"Yeah, well," he muttered, still catching his breath as he tucked himself back into his jeans, "that's your fault."
All she could do was grin.
***
More Than Enough
The TV flickered blue against the bedroom walls, shadows dancing across the sheets. Some old rerun of Twin Peaks murmured in the background, all cryptic coffee talk and pine-soaked atmosphere. Wynn smiled.
"I still can't believe Roy thought this show was devil shit," she said, voice warm with sleep. "You watched it behind his back, didn't you?"
Gator snorted. "Told me I'd start speakin' in tongues if I didn't turn it off. Guess the bastard wasn't wrong. You start makin' those sounds again, I might have to call a priest."
Wynn laughed, swatted him lightly across the chest. "You're such an idiot."
He kissed the top of her head, easy and fond. "Yeah, but I'm your idiot."
She shifted, pulled the leather-bound notebook from the nightstand and flipped it open. Pages soft with wear. Corners curled from duffel bags and dive bar counters and every long drive in between. The one he'd gifted her the night she left.
He watched her thumb through it, the way her mouth changed shape as she read - smirking at one page, frowning at another.
"You ever read any of that out loud?" he asked.
She glanced at him over her shoulder. "To you?"
"Yeah."
She hesitated, then found a page marked with a star. Her voice was gentle. Unarmed.
"December. Another motel. Bad coffee, colder bones. Dreamed of home last night. Not the ranch- just the sound of a familiar North Dakotan drawl, whispering sweet nothings into my skin."
She stopped.
Gator didn't speak. Just brushed his thumb along the curve of her hip beneath the covers. Slow. Sure.
"That was one of the hard days," she murmured, not quite meeting his eyes.
He kissed her bare shoulder. "I know."
She gave a small, sheepish smile. "I was dramatic."
He hummed. "You were homesick."
The smile grew. The faint blush on her cheeks cooled.
"Read me another," he uttered before brushing his lips against the shell of her ear.
Wynn hesitated, fingers hovering over a dog-eared page in the middle - half-full, ink smudged, written somewhere between Who Knows and Nowhere.
"You sure? Some of these are real messy."
Gator grazed his knuckle down her arm. "I like messy. Especially when it's yours."
That got him the tiniest peal of a giggle. She turned the page.
"June. Drunk off stage lights and cheap beer. Still shaking. Still wired. But I sang something true tonight. And the crowd knew it. Some girl cried in the front row and I thought, maybe this is enough. Maybe I'm enough."
She closed the notebook, thumb brushing the worn corner.
Gator looked at her a long moment, quiet. Then: "You're more than enough. You're the most talented, stubborn, painfully good thing I've ever known."
Wynn blinked. "You tryin' to make me cry on our Twin Peaks night?"
He smiled. "Just remindin' you I adore you. The words, the voice. All of it."
But after a beat, his gaze dropped. Voice went low, uncertain. "Sometimes I still don't know what the hell you're doin' with me."
Wynn didn't say anything. Just rolled over and climbed into his lap, straddled him with a practiced ease that suggested she'd done it a hundred times. Her hands came up to cup his face, thumbs warm against his cheekbones.
"Hey," she said, firm. "I've been all over this whole goddamn country, Gator Tillman. Slept in cities that never stop movin'. Sang in rooms full of strangers. Watched the sun rise in places I couldn't pronounce."
She leaned in, nose brushing his. "And still, I'd pick this. You. Every time."
He swallowed, hands uncertain until she took them and set them on her hips to ground him.
"So quit the bullshit," she whispered. "And kiss me before Coop starts talkin' backwards again."
He did. Loving and lazy and languid.
"Better," she murmured. Then grinned against his mouth. "Now if you're good, I'll read you the dirty poems."
Gator's smile turned wolfish. "That's my girl."
***
Hands Where I Can See 'Em
Gator's hand was fisted in her hair and he didn't remember putting it there.
Didn't remember the exact second his hips started stuttering or when his head thudded back against the headrest, mouth dropped open, a curse punched out through gritted teeth.
All he knew was the way her lips slid down the length of him, hot and slow and filthy. The way her eyes locked on his, daring him to survive it.
The radio crackled. He ignored it. Couldn't fucking see straight.
Christ.
Thirty minutes ago he was checking plates on County Line. Ten minutes ago, she climbed into his cruiser like it was a fucking joke.
"No," he'd tried to warn. "I'm on duty."
"But I brought you somethin'," she'd said, all mock innocence. Then smiled.
Now?
Now she was on her knees between his legs, seat pushed back, both hands working him like she had a damn vendetta. And he was shaking. One hand braced on the steering wheel like it might tether him from floating away to heaven.
"Wynn," he rasped, voice hoarse, "baby- shit-"
Her mouth was wet and relentless, tongue tracing him like she knew every nerve ending by heart. She sucked him down so deep his knees nearly buckled, even seated. The way she moaned around him, like she got off on the taste of him, like he was a craving, had him unraveling.
She was going slow on purpose. Cruel little rhythm that had him panting her name, chest heaving like he'd just run a mile.
And those eyes - dark, shining, full of wicked joy.
He tugged her hair a little tighter, barely holding back. She liked that. Smiled around his cock.
He almost lost it.
Then she pulled off with a slick pop, licking her lips, breathless and smiling like the devil in a sundress.
"Sheriff," she cooed with a voice made of honey, "you wanna be real good for me?"
He blinked, dazed. "What?"
She climbed up, straddled his lap without hesitation, dress bunched at her thighs, skin flushed and warm.
"Cuff me," she whispered, breath ghosting across his jaw. "Then let me ride you stupid."
Gator didn't move at first. Just stared at her, chest heaving hard beneath her hands, eyes black with want - but his voice stayed low. Steady.
"You sure?" he husked. "Real cuffs ain't soft, baby. They bite."
Wynn grinned, slow and sinful. "Good. I want 'em to."
He exhaled hard through his nose. Still, he searched her face, because he had to.
"I need to hear it."
"You have my full," she leaned in, teeth grazing his ear, "enthusiastic," kiss to his jaw, "consent."
That was all it took.
She didn't flinch when he reached for the cuffs. Just lifted her chin, eyes burning like she'd waited her whole life for this exact moment.
"Wrists behind," he murmured.
She obeyed slow, deliberate, the curve of her spine arching as she twisted her arms back and offered them up. His hands weren't gentle - not now, not with the heat crawling up his throat - but they were sure. Practiced. Click. Click.
She gasped when the cold metal bit into her skin.
"Too tight?" he asked, already breathless.
"No," she panted. "Perfect."
She hovered - and he could feel the the slick slide of her folds just brushing the tip of him. Teasing. Torture.
"Jesus Christ," he growled. "Is it always gonna be this perfect? Every time?"
Wynn bit her lip, let her forehead fall to his shoulder, wrists caught behind her back as she shifted her hips, just enough.
He guided her down slow, thick inch by thick inch, until the tight, wet grip of her sucked him in deep.
She choked on it, and he groaned like it knocked the air from his lungs.
"Fuck, Wynn-" He bucked once, lost the fight. "You gonna kill me doin' this."
"Die madly in love," she whispered. "Come on, Sheriff. Let me make a mess of you."
***
The Penny
The night was buzzing - music and bodies and chatter - the hum of Clyde's still thrumming under Wynn's skin. Her cheeks were flushed from the stage lights and a whiskey chaser, hair fluffy from the heat and curling around her face. She was still high off her set, still humming inside from the way the crowd had moved with her voice.
And she was smug. That little brush with minor fame had let her triple her booking fee. She liked that too.
Across the bar, Gator watched her like she was the only thing in the room that made any sense. Arms folded, jaw set, trying real hard to pretend his jeans weren't going inexplicably tighter over her black mini-dress and boots. She'd sat on that stool like it was a throne, lit the place up like it was easy. Now she was laughing in a booth with Luke and a few others, but her eyes kept drifting back to him. Always to him.
She slipped away first.
He waited a beat. Maybe two. Then followed.
Outside, the air was thick with cigarette haze. She didn't say a word. Just grabbed his shirt and pulled him where shadows wrapped around them with night's invisibility cloak.
"You looked good up there," he murmured, already crowding her into the wall. "Voice had me fucked up."
She grinned. "You looked good down here. Brooding in your corner."
He kissed her like it'd been longer than it had. Hands fisting in the hem of her dress, dragging it up just enough to cup the backs of her thighs. She gasped into his mouth, fingers curling into his belt loops.
"Sweetheart," he growled, low and close to her ear. "This ain't smart."
"Neither is lookin' at me like that in front of my brother," she whispered, biting his jaw. "You started it."
She rolled her hips slow against his thigh, sweet and dirty. His grip cinched tighter. His self-control went up in flames.
Then- footsteps.
Quick. Close.
They froze.
A laugh. The snap of a lighter. Someone cursing as the door creaked open.
They held their breath, still tangled in the dark.
The moment passed.
Wynn broke first, soft laughter puffing against his collarbone as she buried her face in his chest. "Jesus. We're a cliché."
Gator let out a breath, head tipping back. "Yeah, well, you're the one wearin' red lipstick I can't think straight in."
She hummed, thumbing a smear of it from his mouth. "Should've stayed in your corner."
"Should've stayed inside," he muttered, but his mouth found her temple anyway.
She wriggled free, smoothed her dress back down, ran her fingers through her hair.
"Come on," she said, tugging him toward the door. "Buy me another drink before I start misbehavin'."
He snorted. "Start?"
And they slipped back inside, flushed and glowing, like they hadn't just nearly lost their minds in public.
As the night waned on, the jukebox kicked into something older - Patsy Cline or maybe Emmylou - and Wynn was halfway through another whiskey sour while Gator had slid into the booth beside Luke. She didn't look at him. Not directly. But her ankle bumped his under the table, and when he didn't shift away, she did it again, gentler this time. Like a hello.
Luke passed him a beer, clinked bottles. "She killed it tonight, huh?"
"Yeah," Gator said, watching her laugh at something one of the Tillman cousins said, thinking how much he loved seeing her this happy. "She always does."
They all talked and drank and passed baskets of fries around. Wynn licked salt off her thumb, not thinking twice, and Gator tracked the movement like he hadn't just had her shoved up against the siding of Clyde's an hour ago.
Then Luke leaned back in the booth, eyes snagging on something just beneath Gator's jaw.
A faint red smear. Lipstick.
The same shade Wynn was wearing.
His smile didn't slip, but something behind his eyes shifted. Just a hair. Just enough.
He said nothing, just leaned back in the booth with a long sip from his bottle and a knowing silence.
Neither of them noticed. Not Gator, who was too busy stealing glances. Not Wynn, who let her fingers trail Gator's thigh under the table like she wasn't doing a damn thing wrong.
But Luke noticed.
The penny hadn't dropped - not fully. Not yet.
But it was dangling.
Chapter 9: Hit Me If You Have To
Chapter Text
The Drop
The bar was all low light and stale peanuts, pool balls cracking in the background. Luke leaned against the table, bottle in hand, watching the way Gator nursed his beer.
That lipstick smudge still sat faint below his jaw. Same shade Wynn was wearing. Luke hadn't said a word.
Until now.
He cocked his head lazily. "You're twenty-eight now, right?"
Gator blinked. "Yeah. Same as you."
Luke gave a little grin. "That's right. We're gettin' old, man. Ever thought about settlin' down? Bein' a respectable adult and all that?"
Gator didn't answer right away - just took a sip of his drink.
Luke leaned in, elbows on the scarred wood. "No girl in sight, though. Maybe I oughta set you up with somebody."
Before Gator could grunt out a reply, Wynn snorted into her drink.
"You don't have a girl either."
The words slipped out, too quick. She didn't look up. The heat was already blooming up her neck.
Gator's fingers twitched on the glass.
Luke clocked it. Let the moment sit.
Then he smiled - lopsided. "Touché."
Wynn downed her whiskey sour, half-believing, half-praying she got away with it and nothing catastrophic had just happened.
The following morning, they spent breakfast together in the kitchen of the main house on the ranch - the Tillman house.
He told them he had a job out past Montana. One of those "leave before dawn, back in a few days" types. Said it like it was nothing. Said it like he always did.
It was so typical of Luke's role on the ranch, that Wynn barely looked up from her coffee. Gator nodded like he believed it.
But Luke was lying through his goddamn teeth.
Not that it mattered. Not really. Felt like the only honest thing in the room was the lie itself. Because something had been off for weeks now - months, maybe - and he wasn't crazy. He wasn't blind.
He wasn't exactly sure when he realised what had been staring at him dead in the face for god knows how long. But it sure as hell wasn't the red smear on his best friend's neck, though that was the final nail in the coffin.
It's like one day, he was blissfully unaware. The next? He started to cotton-on to the fact that Wynn was away from the Wilder house an awful lot, especially when nights rolled in - staying at a girlfriend's, she always said. And, when he thought about it hard enough, it was always the same nights Gator'd say he was on patrol and couldn't hang.
Speaking of Gator - miserable bastard he was - he'd started smiling a whole lot more. Strutting round like a damn spring chicken. "Did you win the lottery or somethin', or just get laid?" Luke had joked that day they were fixing up the old tractor together. God. What an idiot he was.
"Hot one today," Luke now said, cracking a window. "What're you up to later, Wynnie?"
Wynn leaned her chin into her palm. Her eyes were puffy from, no doubt, a sleepless night. Only now Luke was pained, and a little nauseated, to understand why.
"Think I'll go swim the creek," she said. "Been a minute."
Across from her, Gator froze mid-chew.
Barely noticeable. Just a pause. The faint clench of his jaw before swallowing his bacon like nothing happened. But Luke noticed the way his eyes didn't meet anyone's. Not Wynn's. Not his.
Just peeled off out the window, as if the horizon might scold him for letting slip his tell.
Luke filed it away.
"Cool off," he said, nodding all casual-like. "Makes sense."
Wynn smiled, gave a little shrug, and headed out. She didn't look back.
Gator still didn't say a word.
And that silence said enough.
Luke took another sip, set down his mug a little harder than he intended to. The clink of porcelain would've made the whole house flinch if it knew the thoughts that were rolling round in his head about now.
"Think I'd better hit the road," he stated casually.
Gator grunted. "Safe journey, man."
Luke smiled to himself, slow and humourless.
Yeah. Thought so.
***
Clear As Creekwater
The sun had started its lazy ascent, streaking the sky in warm watercolour - peaches and pale gold, caught between the branches. The creek shimmered beneath it, twinkling through the trees like whispers of light.
Wynn was already waist-deep, hair slicked back, the straps of her swimsuit slipping slightly off one shoulder. She turned, grinned at him. "You comin' in or just gonna stare at me like that?"
Gator - who was stood there gawking at her like a blinking idiot - didn't answer. Just snapped out of it, kicked off his clothes, and waded in.
The water wrapped around him quick, cool and forgiving. Wynn met him halfway, palms skimming his chest, eyes soft and shining in the golden light. This was her place - had been since she was a teenager, full of angst and a rage that she kept clutched to her chest. Now, it was sanctuary. And she was offering it to him. As if she was saying, this is mine, and so are you.
He tucked her against him, one hand spread over her back, the other brushing wet hair off her cheek.
"I used to come here," she murmured, "when I wanted you so bad it hurt."
His heart stumbled. "Wynn."
"It's okay," she added, nose nudging his. "none of that matters now."
He cupped her jaw, thumb tracing the splash of sun-freckles across her cheekbone. "You're somethin' else," he murmured.
She smiled, small and sure. "So kiss me."
The kiss was slow. Unhurried. His mouth slanting perfect over hers, wet from the water, breath tasting like spearmint.
Wynn sighed, happy and content. "Told you it was magic here."
Gator rested his forehead to hers. "No, baby. That's just you."
They kissed like the world had gone still and there's was nothing left in it besides the creek and the sunrise and them. Her hands slid down his chest, anchoring there. His fingers curled at her hips beneath the water.
When they finally broke apart, he didn't let her go.
"I'm gonna tell him," Gator said, voice rougher than before, the confession catching low in his throat. "Luke."
Wynn blinked. "When?"
He looked down, then back at her like he already knew. "Soon. I'm done hidin' this. Done pretendin' you're not mine."
Something flared bright behind her eyes. Not surprise - recognition.
Because she saw it then, clear as creekwater.
He didn't just want her body. Or her voice. Or her in secret. He wanted all of it. All of her. A house on the ranch all their own, with her boots by the door and her humming in the kitchen. A ring on her finger. A baby on her hip. Her name next to his on the mailbox.
So she did all she knew to do in that moment - hauled his mouth back into hers and felt it: that soft, staggering truth thrumming between them.
That this was forever.
***
Two Sheriffs, Two Swings
They came up the hill barefoot and laughing, clothes clinging to damp skin, water still glistening in the curve of her collarbone, her hair a wet tangle down the back of her neck.
Gator had Wynn's hand in his - fingers laced like it was second nature - and for a moment, he forgot. Forgot the lie, forgot the weight of it, forgot anything but the sound of her laughter as they rounded the corner.
She bumped her shoulder into his, breathless with the ease of it. "You still mad I dunked you?"
He scoffed. "You're lucky I let you up for air."
She glanced up at him, all bright-eyed and soaked through, without a single care in the world.
And then she stopped.
Gator didn't notice at first, still watching her, caught up in the way her swimsuit strap kept sliding off her shoulder like it had plans of its own. But her body went still, stiff, and his smile dropped clean off.
Because there, on the porch, arms folded and eyes dark, stood Luke.
Not gone to Montana. Not halfway across the county.
Here.
Watching.
The silence, and reality, crashed over them like a flash flood.
Wynn swallowed, ducked half a step back without realising it.
Gator exhaled slow through his nose, jaw ticking. "Okay," he muttered under his breath, tone grim. "Guess I'm doing this sooner than expected."
He stepped forward.
Didn't let go of her hand, not yet. Just moved slow, careful, like approaching a skittish horse. Like maybe if he got close enough, said the right thing, it wouldn't hurt him so much.
His brother.
Not by blood.
By bond.
"Luke-"
"No," Luke said, sharp enough to slice. His eyes cut to their joined hands. "Don't."
Gator took a breath. Held it. Tried again.
"I need to say it."
"You need to shut the fuck up."
"I ain't gonna lie," Gator carried on. "It's been goin' on a while now-"
"Stop."
Gator shook his head.
"No, Luke," he said. "I need you to hear it; I tried to fight it. Didn't wanna break nothin'. Didn't wanna hurt you. But I love her, man. I've loved her longer than I knew what love was. And I'm done pretending I don't."
He let go of Wynn's hand. But not before pressing his lips to her knuckles.
Stepped forward another pace, then another, slow and sure despite the weight settling like a stone in his chest. The porch boards creaked beneath his boots. Wynn didn't follow. She just stood there in the sun, dripping and silent.
Luke didn't move. Didn't speak. His arms stayed crossed tight over his chest like he needed something to hold himself in.
Gator swallowed. "She's it for me, Luke. Always was. And I know it's a shitty way for you to find out. I should've told you sooner. I just-" He let out a slow breath, brow creased. "I didn't wanna lose you. Either of you."
The silence after that was thick and oppressive.
Luke stared at him, face unreadable.
Gator looked down, shook himself like maybe he could knock the nerves loose. "And I know it don't matter now, but I swear to you - this isn't some bullshit fling. It's not like that. It's not - I love her. I wanna build something with her. Stay. Marry. All of it."
He stopped. Glanced up.
"You done?" Luke said. Voice flat. No inflection. Just a slow boil under skin.
Gator faltered. "Yeah," he said, nodding once. "Yeah, I'm-"
CRACK.
Fist to jaw. No warning. Just white heat and bone-snap contact.
One clean punch. Fast as a bullet.
Wynn gasped. "Luke-!"
Gator didn't fall, but he rocked back hard, caught the railing with one hand and spat blood onto the porch boards. His lip was split clean through. When he spoke, it came out thick, choked with copper.
"Okay," he rasped. "I deserved that."
Luke's fists were still balled. He looked like he wanted to throw another, just for the hell of it.
But then Wynn stepped forward.
Barefoot. Soaked. Eyes blazing.
And Gator saw it - too late.
"Wynnie," Luke warned, breath still coming hard.
But she was already moving.
She hauled her arm back and hit him square in the face.
CRACK.
The sound rang through the air like a thunderclap.
Luke stumbled back two full steps, one hand flying to his burst nose. "Shit!"
"You don't get to hit him," Wynn snapped, chest rising and falling. "Not like that. Not when he opened his fucking soul up to you."
Her hand trembled as she shook it out, blood already blooming across her knuckles. But her voice didn't shake. Not once.
Gator stared at her. Mouth open. Still bleeding.
"He loves me," she said. "I love him. You got a problem, fine. Say it. But you don't throw punches like he's some stranger who broke in and took somethin' from you."
Luke looked from her to Gator. Then back again.
Still stunned. Still holding his face.
Wynn turned to Gator, hand already reaching.
"Baby," she breathed, thumb brushing at the blood tracking down from his split lip.
He winced when she touched him, but smiled through it anyway - crooked and wrecked and absolutely gone for her.
"You okay?" she whispered.
He nodded, or tried to. "Think he broke my face."
"Yeah, but it's still a face I'd happily kiss senseless."
That made him huff a laugh. It hurt. He did it anyway.
Wynn leaned in, kissed him careful.
"I'm so proud of you," she murmured against his lips.
Behind them, Luke cleared his throat.
The other man stood quiet now, two streaks of blood painting down from his nostrils to his lips, arms loose at his sides, face drawn with something more like regret than rage.
He scratched the back of his neck. "You could've just told me, man."
"I know."
"Could've trusted me."
"I know," Gator said again. "I was scared you'd look at me the way you just did."
Luke stepped forward, slow. Met him halfway. There was a beat, a breath, and then he clapped a hand to Gator's shoulder - not quite friendly, not quite hostile. Just there.
"If you hurt her," he said, "I swear to god-"
"I'd sooner die," Gator cut in. No hesitation.
Luke stared at him a second longer, like he was checking for cracks. Finding none.
Finally, he nodded. "Good."
Then he turned to Wynn. Offered a wry, lopsided smile that barely reached his eyes. "We really did create a monster, teachin' you how to fight."
Wynn shrugged, blood still drying across her knuckles.
"Teach you not to clock my man."
Later, they ended up on the porch swing.
The three of them.
Side by side. A trio of idiots.
Gator held a bag of frozen peas to his swollen mouth, lip puffed up like a blown tire. Luke had an ice pack pressed to his nose, still streaking blood at intervals. Wynn sat between them, nursing her bruised knuckles with a Ziplock full of ice cubes and smug satisfaction.
They didn't talk much. Didn't feel like it. Not enough energy.
The wood creaked beneath them as the swing rocked in slow, lazy arcs.
"I think my tooth's loose," Gator mumbled through the peas.
Luke didn't look at him. "Good. Means I hit you right."
Wynn raised her free hand, flipped them both off without looking up.
Gator smiled around his bag of peas. Winced. "Ow."
Luke chuckled, then winced too. "Ow."
Wynn just grinned, ice pressed to her knuckles.
For a minute, it almost felt like a ceasefire.
Then-
A door slammed somewhere in the house.
Bootsteps. Slow. Dominant. Male.
The kind that made you straighten up without thinking.
Gator sat up straightest of the three. Luke cleared his throat and adjusted his pack. Wynn dropped her eyes to her lap.
The oxygen in the air seemed to thin. The temperature almost dropped a few degrees.
The door flew open.
Roy Tillman stepped out onto the porch.
He took one long look at the scene, and exhaled through his nose like a man on his final straw.
He didn't speak right away. Just stood there on the porch in his work shirt and hat, looking at them like he was trying to decide whether to tan their hides or disown the lot.
Finally: "Well," he said, unimpressed like a drill sergeant surveying his troops, if the troops had gone and disgraced their god and country. "Y'all done actin' like jackasses?"
No one answered.
Gator shifted slightly, peas still pressed to his mouth. Wynn kept her eyes front. Luke didn't look up from where he was dabbing his nose like it might fix his bruised ego.
Roy folded his arms.
"Let's see. Sheriff out here gettin' clocked in the face by the man he called his brother. That same man catchin' a punch from his baby sister like we're runnin' a damn backyard boxing club. And said baby sister - who I distinctly recall being raised better - swingin' like she's got somethin' to prove."
He looked at Wynn first. "What the hell happened to talkin'? Thought you were the level head of this circus."
"He hit Gator," she said, defiant.
"Gator," the man drawled, "is my son. Think he wasn't raised to take a hit like a man?"
He turned to Luke next.
"You," he said, stabbing his finger in the air. "Lyin' about work just so you can play goddamn Hardy Boys and spy on your sister? Grow up. You're not twelve."
Luke opened his mouth, but Roy was already moving on.
Because he turned to Gator.
The sigh that left his chest was heavier than the rest. Bone-deep.
"And you," he said. Quiet now. The kind of quiet that meant real trouble. "My son."
Gator straightened a little more, face still bleeding, bag of peas slowly melting in his lap.
"You disappoint me the most."
Gator swallowed.
"You let it drag out. Lied. Skulked around like a coward in your own goddamn home. You let me sit across from you at dinner while you schemed in shadows like a damn teenager sneakin' out a window. That girl you're with? She deserved better. Luke deserved better. Hell, I deserved better."
Gator dropped his gaze, shame crawling over his skin like ants.
"You think bein' in love gives you a free pass to act like a fool?"
"No, sir."
"You think just 'cause your heart's in the right place, your head don't need to be?"
"No, sir."
"You ever lie to me again, Gator Tillman," Roy said, stepping in close now, voice low and cutting, "and I'll bench your badge myself. And that's before I take my boot to your ass."
Gator nodded, small. "Yes, sir."
Roy looked between the three of them one more time.
"This ranch don't run on secrets. And it sure as hell don't run on temper tantrums. So unless y'all plan to pay rent in blood and stupidity, I suggest you clean up, cool off, and start actin' like you were raised with some damn sense."
He turned, yanked open the front door, then paused with one last look over his shoulder.
"Next time one of you throws a punch, I'm takin' off my belt. I don't care if you're grown."
Then he disappeared back inside.
Silence lingered like smoke.
Gator let out the long breath he didn't realise he was holding in, slumped deeper into the swing. Luke blinked slow, ice pack still pressed to his nose. Wynn just stared ahead, lips twitching.
Then-
A snort.
Small at first.
Then a laugh. Bright and bubbling, like it escaped before she could stop it.
Wynn leaned back against the swing, clutching her stomach now, laughing hard enough to bring tears to her eyes.
"Oh my god," she wheezed. "We're such a mess."
Gator turned to look at her, one brow raised. "You good?"
"No," she giggled. "Not even a little."
Luke cracked a smile, tentative at first. Then he shook his head. "You really socked me," he muttered.
Wynn held up her swollen fist. "Damn right I did."
Gator gave a slow, crooked smile around the swelling. "Yeah, but she kisses better."
Luke made a face. "Okay. Too far."
"Bit late for that," Wynn said, flexing her hand.
She leaned back, her shoulders brushing theirs, eyes still glassy from laughing too hard. "I swear, y'all are the most dramatic men I've ever met."
Luke snorted. "You punched me."
She shrugged, unfazed. "You had it comin'."
Gator huffed a quiet laugh, shifting the now-soggy bag of peas. "Reckon we all did."
No one said anything after that.
The swing creaked. A breeze stirred the porch.
They sat like that a while - banged up, sore, quiet.
Not fixed.
But getting there.
Chapter 10: Dust Settled
Chapter Text
Off the List
Roy called it a supply run.
Luke called it punishment.
Gator figured it was both.
Roy'd made it an order the way only Roy Tillman could - flat as gravel, no room to wriggle. Go together. Get what's on the list. Don't come back till you've shook loose whatever the hell's rattlin' between you.
They'd been circling each other for days, polite as church, but the air still held that storm-bent quiet - iron on the tongue, sky holding its breath.
The bell over the door gave a wounded little jingle when they stepped in. Same place they'd been coming to since they were knee-high, where the shelves hadn't changed, only the prices. Gator grabbed a cart. Luke didn't offer to push it, which was fine - he'd rather have something between them.
They went down the first aisle in silence, tossing in the things on Roy's list: coffee, flour, a bag of feed that Gator had to muscle into the bottom rack. Luke didn't comment.
It wasn't until aisle four that Gator veered off-script.
A pause by the pharmacy shelf. A casual reach for a box of the same brand Wynn had always stashed under the bathroom sink. No glance toward Luke, just dropped it in the cart under the feed bags.
Then the candy aisle. Gator didn't even slow - just reached for a king-size bar of the chocolate Luke knew Wynn rationed out in squares, let melt slow on her tongue.
They passed the seasonal clearance. Socks. Thick wool, oatmeal-coloured with black flecks. Big, slouchy ones that pooled around the ankles. Gator took two pairs, thumb brushing the knit like he was testing the fabric.
"She was cold last night," he said finally, almost offhand, and Luke couldn't tell if that was meant for him or just spoken out loud.
Luke stared at the socks, then at Gator, then at the cart that looked less like a ranch supply run and more like a care package for a single person.
And it hit him - not as hard as the right-hook Wynn had swung at him, but like the slow, heavy settle of knowing.
When Gator said it wasn't some bullshit fling, he'd meant it.
He was in.
All the way in.
On the drive back, warm wind pushed through the half-cracked windows, carrying dust, alfalfa, the sunbaked sweetness off the feed from the bed of the truck.
Luke tapped his fingers awkwardly against his thigh. "What're you doing later?"
Gator didn't look away from the road. "Why?"
"Just asking if you're working."
A small frown cut between Gator's brows. "No. It's Wynn's set at Clyde's."
Luke tilted his head. "So?"
"So..." Gator eased the truck down a gear for the bend in the road, "...I'm picking her up."
Luke let that hang. "You always pick her up?"
"Yeah." Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "She doesn't walk out alone after midnight. Not ever."
"Since when?"
"Since always." Gator's mouth flattened, eyes still on the road. "Since... that creep out back a few years ago."
Luke's face snapped sideways, protective instinct suddenly spiking. "What creep?"
Gator didn't answer right away. Just kept driving, jaw working. "Doesn't matter. I handled it."
Luke leaned back, eyes narrowing on the blur of wire and cedar. He thought about every night she'd made it home fine, the late rides he never clocked, the phone calls he didn't know about, the trouble that never found her. How none of that had anything to do with him.
Gator had been there. Always.
And Luke - her own brother - had never noticed.
***
I Get It Now
Wynn had been living at the main house since the bust-up.
Since the porch. Since Luke's fist had met Gator's jaw and the truth had come out in one ugly, inevitable sweep.
She'd been with Gator. In Gator's bed. Doing things Luke did not want to picture - except, unfortunately, his brain liked to offer them up anyway. Usually when he was trying to sleep.
She'd kept her distance from him since. And somehow, that part sat worse in his gut than the rest.
But Tillman Ranch had its traditions. One of them was Roy's once-a-week, everyone-at-the-table dinner. Didn't matter who'd fought, who wasn't speaking - Roy called grace, you showed up.
Luke hadn't been looking forward to this one. The thought of sitting across from them - knowing where his baby sister had been sleeping, knowing who with - had tied a knot in his stomach that only pulled tighter as the day dragged on. He told himself it was just another meal. He'd done awkward dinners before. But this one felt different. Personal.
By the time he reached the main house, he could feel his pulse in his throat.
The porch boards gave under his boots as he crossed to the door. From the open kitchen window came the smell of garlic softening in butter, some herby thing curling warm through the air.
Inside, gold light pooled on the counters where Wynn stood barefoot, a wooden spoon in her hand. Gator was beside her, sleeves shoved to his elbows, forearms browned and nicked, steadying a cutting board while she scraped onions into the skillet.
"Little more to the left," she said, nudging the pan toward him.
"You bossin' me around in my own kitchen?" Gator asked, smile tugging.
"It's my kitchen if I'm cooking," she shot back.
"That right?"
"Mm-hm. But I might let you have a lick, if you behave yourself."
His mouth curved wolfishly. "Darlin', you can't just say things like that when my dad's in the other room."
"Of the spoon, Gator Tillman." She bumped him with her hip. "Mind out the gutter."
She laughed anyway, shaking her head, reaching past him for the salt but jostled the skillet as she went. He caught the handle with one hand, the other resting light at her hip to steady her as she leaned.
When she turned back to the stove, a strand of hair slipped loose. Without thinking, he tucked it behind her ear, fingers brushing her cheek before falling away.
"Careful," he murmured. "Pan's hot."
"I know."
"Mm-hm."
She held the spoon out to him. "Here. Tell me if it needs more salt."
He took a taste, eyes closing for half a beat. "Perfect. Best thing I've had all week."
"You're just saying that 'cause you think I'm pretty."
"Wrong," he countered. "I'm sayin' that 'cause you're beautiful."
"You're disgusting."
He grinned. "Disgusting-ly in love."
"Uh-huh." She handed him the spoon. "Stir, Romeo."
Luke stood in the doorway longer than he meant to, hands useless at his sides. He watched the way Gator's voice dipped when he wanted her to giggle, the easy lean of her shoulder into his space like it belonged to her too. Domestic bliss seemed to settle around them - no show, no heat - just that quiet, practiced closeness you only get from choosing the same person, day after ordinary day.
She looked happy. Safe.
And him - hell, Luke couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Gator like this. Not the tight-jawed sheriff with his father’s voice, not Roy 2.0 in a pressed uniform, miserable under the weight of it. But the boy Luke had grown up with. The one who’d race him bareback across the north pasture, grinning wild, wind in his teeth. The one who laughed with his whole face. Who didn’t look like he was apologising just for taking up space.
Here, he wasn’t performing. Wasn’t trying to fit a mould that had never been made for him. He looked free.
Right then, Luke Wilder looked that realisation dead in the eye and thought - why wouldn’t he want this? For them. For two of the best people he’d ever known.
And before he could think better of it, he heard himself say, "I get it now."
They both turned.
Gator's brows lifted. Wynn's mouth tipped into a smile, soft at the edges.
"Good," she said, like that settled it. Then, without missing a beat, "Now grab an apron, big brother, and make yourself useful."
Luke huffed out a laugh despite himself. And when they shifted to make room for him between them, he stepped in without hesitation.
***
Her Brother's Blessing
Roy's voice rolled steady through grace. Heads bowed, hands linked, the smell of pasta and fresh bread thick in the air and making their mouths water while they wished the old man would just hurry up already.
When they lifted their heads, the clatter of cutlery started up. Wynn was already leaning into Gator to murmur something that made him smirk as he refilled her wine.
Luke cleared his throat.
"I just wanna say somethin' before we eat," he started, fingers drumming once against the table before lacing them together. "And it ain't long, so quit lookin' like I'm about to make a speech."
Roy arched a brow but stayed quiet.
Luke looked from his sister to his best friend, letting the pause stretch. "I've been... slow on the uptake. Stubborn, too. Didn't see what was right in front of me, or maybe I just didn't wanna."
Wynn's eyes softened, and Gator's gaze stayed steady on him.
"But now, I understand," Luke said. "And I want you both to know... I'm not just fine with it - I'm glad for it. Glad for her. Glad for you."
He shifted his eyes to Gator. "You've been my best friend since we were babies. And I don't say this kinda thing out loud much, but... I love you, man. Always have. Always will. You take care of my sister - not 'cause she needs takin' care of, but 'cause I can see plain as day you want to. And that's all I could ever ask for."
Then he turned to Wynn. "And you, Wynnie - my baby sister. I'm proud of you. Proud of the woman you've turned into, proud of everything you've gone after. You deserve to be happy. And if Gator Tillman - the same kid who once ate three jars of pickled eggs on a dare and spent the next day throwing up behind the bunkhouse - is the one who makes you happy..." He smirked. "Well, you've got my blessing. Not that you ever asked for it."
A quiet laugh rippled around the table. Wynn blinked fast, smiling through it, and Gator ducked his head with the ghost of a grin, but Luke could see the way his Adam's apple bobbed as though he was holding something back.
"Alright," Luke said finally, leaning back, cheeks bright red. "That's it."
For a second, no one moved. Then Wynn reached across the table and squeezed his hand. Gator gave a small nod.
Roy clapped his hands once, breaking the moment. "Let's eat before it gets cold."
***
A Hundred Quiet Ways
They were halfway through dessert when Gator set his beer down and looked straight at Luke.
"Got a minute?" he said. "Outside."
Not a question.
Luke's brow went up, but he shoved his chair back anyway.
Wynn frowned. "What's that about?"
"Wouldn't you like to know," Gator said, already heading for the porch.
Luke followed, and the door slapped shut behind them.
Wynn sat there, spoon hovering, listening for voices. She caught a low rumble of them talking, then nothing. That was worse. No voices meant plotting.
A minute passed. Then two. She tried to focus on the half-melted ice cream in her bowl, but her spoon just carved slow trenches through it, over and over.
When they came back in, they looked like they'd been caught stealing - flushed and grinning like a pair of bandits. Luke clapped Gator on the back hard enough to nearly spill his beer.
"What was that?" she demanded.
They traded a look - that old, wordless look they'd been passing over her head since she was big enough to follow them out the door.
"Wouldn't you like to know," they said in perfect unison.
Her eyes narrowed. She shoved her chair back so hard it scraped the floor. "Seriously, you guys? If I find a damn frog in my Nashville boots-"
Luke's grin widened. "What boots?"
"The boots I bought from Nashville," she drawled slowly like she would when talking to an imbecile, already heading for the porch. "Do you know how much those cost me?"
She disappeared down the hall, muttering under her breath, something about grown men and juvenile pranks and how not even sleeping with one of them could force him to grow up.
Luke leaned in toward Gator, tone hushed and full of meaning. "Go on. Get your girl."
Gator smirked, pushed his chair back, and followed her out.
The porch boards still held the day's heat under Wynn's bare feet as she stepped outside, still grumbling - this time about Nashville leather and idiot men.
Her boots sat side by side by the door, exactly where she'd left them. She crouched, gave them both a quick shake, bracing for a jump of green legs or the cold slip of something worse.
Nothing.
She narrowed her eyes, reached down, and checked inside each one just to be sure. Still nothing.
Straightening, she spun around - and froze.
Gator wasn't leaning in the doorway like she'd expected. He was down on one knee in the amber wash of the porch light, one hand braced on his thigh, the other holding a small velvet box.
Her breath hitched before he even spoke.
"Wynnifred Wilder."
Her tears came fast, hot, blurring him into a halo of porch light. She was already shaking her head, not in refusal but in disbelief, hands covering her mouth like she could hold the moment still.
"You've been in my life so long I can't remember the part where you weren't. I've seen you barefoot and muddy, seen you with skinned knees and grass in your hair. I've seen you stubborn as a mule, and I've seen you sing like you were born to break hearts. You've always been under my skin, and I spent too many years trying to pretend that wasn't the truth."
He took a breath.
"I've loved you in a hundred quiet ways - pickin' you up from Clyde's, checkin' the oil in your truck, keepin' the world from touching you wrong. And now I wanna love you loud. Every day. For the rest of my life."
He opened the box - the one that had been burning a hole in his pocket all night - revealing a simple silver band crowned with a sapphire, blue and clear as her eyes.
"So I'm askin' you - not as Luke's best friend, not as the boy who used to torment you something rotten - but as the man who's loved you for damn near his whole life. Marry me, Wildfire."
Her sob cracked the air before the word even made it out.
"Yes," she choked, nodding so hard her hair shook wildly. "Yes. Gator. Yes."
The box was still in his hand when she launched herself at him, arms winding tight around his neck, nearly knocking him off his knee. He caught her with a punched-out laugh that was half-filled with relief, tucking her in against him as if he'd been preparing his whole life for this exact moment.
She was still crying, damp cheeks pressed to his jaw, breath shuddering against his collar.
"Hey," he murmured, pulling back just enough to see her face. His thumb swept under one eye, then the other, chasing away the tears. "None of that, darlin'. Not tonight."
She laughed through another sob, and he bent his head to kiss the wet salt from her cheeks, slow and careful as though every drop mattered.
When he found her mouth, he made sure not to rush. Kept it a deep, sure thing, sealed there with the crickets humming around them.
He slipped the ring onto her finger - a perfect fit. She held her hand up for a second, eyes shining, then looked back at him like she couldn't decide whether to cry again or kiss him stupid.
Before she could choose, the porch door creaked.
"Well?" Luke's voice drawled from the doorway. "Did she say yes, or dump your sorry ass?"
Wynn laughed, still pressed against Gator. "She said yes!"
Luke's answering whoop rang out into the night, and the sound of it carried like it had years ago, when the three of them were just kids running wild and free.
***
Gator Tillman's Wildfire Girl
Neon bled pink and blue across the scuffed floor at Clyde's, catching the edge of Gator's beer and the simple titanium band on his hand. The ring picked up every bit of light like it had its own opinion about being seen. Inside the band, engraved into the metal, was the date he'd sobbed like a broken man at the end of the aisle, as she glided toward him like an angel in white.
Luke bumped his shoulder. "You're starin' at that ring like it's gonna run off if you blink."
Gator rolled his eyes. "Just makin' sure it's still there.
"Where's it gonna go?" Luke tipped his chin. "Down the drain? Hitch a ride on a freight train? Say it with me: you're married, not cursed."
Across the room, the stage bulbs hummed. Someone tuned a guitar, a twang and a settle. The low talk of the crowd braided with the smell of beer and fryer grease. Gator leaned his forearms on the rail, tried to look casual and failed spectacularly.
Luke laughed under his breath. "Nervous."
"Ain't," Gator lied.
"You're sweatin', brother."
"It's hot in here." He wiped the back of his neck with the heel of his hand, then brushed his thumb under his ring again. "Told her she shouldn't be doin' a set in her condition."
Luke turned his head, slow. "In her condition? You hear yourself?"
"I'm just sayin'," Gator muttered, glowering at nothing. "Bar floors are sticky. Wires everywhere. Microphones shock people. That stool's rickety as hell. And Clyde never fixed that loose board upstage-"
"-which you tripped over when you were seventeen and tried to stage-dive into a table of church ladies," Luke added, grinning. "They're fine. Your ego never recovered."
"Point is," Gator said, "she could sit this one out."
"Point is," Luke countered, "have you met your wife?"
Silence. Then they both huffed a laugh.
The stage curtain - more a swath of dusty red fabric than any kind of curtain - twitched.
Clyde ambled by with a towel over his shoulder, nodding at Gator's hand. "Looks good on you, Sheriff."
Gator glanced down at the band. "Yeah," he said, soft. "It does."
"Relax," Luke said, softer now. "She'll sing two songs, maybe three, and then you'll wrap her in that sheriff jacket and haul her home like you always do. Whole place will applaud and act like they weren't just watchin' you panic."
"I ain't panickin'."
"You're cataloguing tripping hazards, man."
Gator grunted, eyes fixed on the curtain.
The room shifted, one of those little hushes that means everybody knows the good thing's about to happen.
Then she stepped out.
Wynn walked into the yellow wash of the stage lights with a hand on the curve of her belly without making a show of it, even though she was too far along to carry her guitar anymore. The crowd's noise thinned, then dropped. Even the neon sounded quiet.
Gator forgot how to breathe for a second.
Luke's elbow found his ribs. "Steady."
"I'm steady," Gator said, not steady at all.
Wynn slid onto the stool, tested it with a little wiggle that made Gator want to replace every piece of furniture in the bar. She lifted her eyes and found him where he always was - dead center, arms folded, pretending not to count the seconds between her breaths. That smile he knew better than the back of his own hand tugged at her mouth. He felt it slam into him like a wall of heat.
"Evenin', everyone," she said into the mic, voice warm as bourbon. "Don't mind me. I'm just here to make sure y'all behave."
A couple whistles; somebody whooped. She angled the mic. "Two songs," she added, shooting Gator a look that made his stomach do a stupid little flutter like he was a fumbling teenager again. "Maybe three if my husband quits glarin' at me."
The room turned, a ribbing oooooh rolling toward him like a friendly wave. Luke bent double laughing. Gator fought a smile and lost.
"You heard the lady," Luke said. "Quit glarin'."
"I wasn't glarin'." He was.
Wynn began to sing, something easy to warm them up. Gator listened with his head and his heart and his soul, like the song needed all of him.
Halfway through the first verse she glanced his way again, and he saw it - everything they'd ever been through stitched there in the smallness of that smile.
I love you, she mouthed to him between verses.
I love you, he mouthed back.
Luke leaned close. "You gonna be insufferable when the baby comes, or just regular impossible?"
"Plan is both," Gator said.
"Figured." Luke feigned disappointment. Beat. Then: "You did good."
"We did," Gator said, eyes never leaving the stage.
The song turned, brightened, found its chorus. Folks lifted their heads like flowers do in first light. Wynn laughed into the mic at some joke a table called out, then sang the next line with that particular hush she kept just for Gator.
And Gator just stood there, in the wash of old neon and fryer heat and the thin electric buzz of the mic - a man who had everything he'd ever wanted and the one thing he never thought he'd be allowed to have. He rested his hand flat on the rail, felt the ring press into his skin, and let himself be exactly what he was:
Husband. Best friend. Home.
Wynn finished and when the room got loud, the feeling of pride hit him square in his chest. She tipped the mic toward her mouth, eyes never leaving his.
"One more," she said, defiant and sweet and absolutely herself.
Gator groaned at Luke. Luke just grinned.
Because when had a wildfire ever done what people told it to do?
The End
Chapter 11: Headcanons
Chapter Text
Wynn 🔥
Can whistle loud enough to get the attention of horses across the pasture, or an entire bar crowd if she's trying to shut someone up.
Plays with her wedding ring while thinking, the way she used to do with guitar picks.
If she's wearing lipstick, she will leave a kiss print somewhere on Gator just to annoy Luke.
Calls Gator by his full name when she's mad - and it makes him stand up straighter every time.
Has a road trip playlist consisting of country ballads and 2000s emo bands, which she and Gator scream along to at the top of their lungs in the cab of her truck.
Will zone out when men try and "teach" her chords after she plays a set.
At the range, she hit bullseye twice and bragged until Gator said, "alright, Annie Oakley, let's see you reload." She dropped every single round in the dirt.
Wore no panties under her wedding dress. Because old habits die hard. And you can bet your ass she dragged Gator into a bathroom stall at their wedding, not that he complained. They emerged half an hour later, flushed and messy and smug as hell.
Tattoo habit stayed small and meaningful: the creek's coordinates on her ribcage; the letter "G" on her hip; a tiny matchstick on her wrist (for "wildfire").
Practical with fashion: has resoled her cherry-red boots three times. Because why buy new when there's a decent cobbler in town?
Loves cheap perfume with honey/floral top notes; leaves a ghost of it in Gator's truck on purpose.
Collects "girls who sing" like sisters: makes group chats, shares cheap lodging, fixes straps with duct tape, teaches the "leave together" rule she learned the hard way.
Gator 🐊
Cannot dance for shit but will slow-dance with Wynn in the kitchen while the coffee brews, socks sliding on the floor.
Low-key terrible at texting - one-word replies, often hours later, unless it's from Wynn. Then suddenly he's Mr Paragraphs.
Acts stoic, feels deep. Never been good at voicing feelings, so he uses small acts of service - checking Wynn's tires, changing her oil, having her morning coffee ready - as love language.
Gator will die before admitting it to anyone but himself, but pregnant Wynn turns him into a feral mess. He's convinced it's "the glow" and "the curves," but really, it's the whole combination - her confidence, her softness, the way she moves. He'll mutter about "behavin' himself" while not behaving at all.
Sleeps nearest to the door to protect his wife. Just in case.
Holster off, ring on: when he gets home, he taps his wedding band twice on the entry table - little ritual to leave the day outside.
Faint kidney scar from the bad party; tiny crescent on his thumb from a stubborn tack; stitch line Wynn taped when he wouldn't go to urgent care.
Smells like cedar, leather, gun oil, and that pine-snap cologne he denies wearing.
The vape? "gave it up." (he didn't; it's in the glove box for hell days.) Wynn can smell it on him but says nothing because she knows how hard his job can be.
Will claim he did not cry at the wedding. Even though he absolutely cried at the wedding - when she walked down the aisle, when he said his vows, when he listened to her vows, when they were pronounced husband and wife, when they took their first dance, when Luke made his Best Man speech and announced he had never met a couple more meant to be than his sister and his best friend.
Jealousy doesn't make him loud; it makes him present - appears at her elbow, buys her a drink (whiskey sour, always), offers his coat, walks her to the truck.
Dog person. Eventually takes in a one-eyed cattle dog (Ranger). Claims he's "useless for herding." Ranger only herds Wynn to bed.
Luke 🤠
Has a list in his phone titled "Reasons Gator is Whipped" - reads it out loud at inappropriate moments.
Has a habit of fixing things around Gator and Wynn's place without being asked - loose cabinet handles, squeaky doors - then pretending it wasn't him.
Has a running tab at Clyde's - not because he can't pay, but because he forgets to settle it. Clyde just lets him get away with it now because "Luke's just so damn nice."
Cooks exactly three things: eggs, pancakes, and a violently good chili. swears by cast iron, never cleans it right.
Smells of Versace Blue Jeans because what can compete with an old classic?
Went through a mustache and mullet phase and claimed the ladies loved it.
Flirts recklessly but is weirdly chivalrous - walks girls to cars, insists on jumper cables as a parting gift, weaponises his dimples.
Buys the baby loud toys simply to wind Gator up.
Keeps a photo of the three of them - muddy, gap-toothed kids - tucked in his wallet behind his ID. Pulls it out when the day's been mean.
Eventually falls head-over-boots for a pretty barrel racer named Maddie; she's quick on a horse and quicker to turn Luke into a bumbling idiot.
Starts a charity rodeo/music night to raise money for girls' self-defense classes and safe-ride programs after hearing Wynn's tour stories.
King of baby-wearing naps. His niece always goes to sleep on his chest while he pretends not to care.
The Trio 🍸🥃🍺
Took turns timing each other racing a dirt bike on the old ranch trail loop; the "winner" got bragging rights until someone found a shortcut and called it cheating. Wynn once beat them both and never let them forget it.
Hauled a busted couch out to the far fence line one summer and left it there for years; it became their spot for night talks, shooting stars, and the occasional bottle of stolen whiskey.
Ranch races: Gator's cruiser vs. Luke's beat-up Ford vs. Wynn on horseback.
Every so often, some out-of-towner at Clyde's gets a little too friendly. Wynn doesn't bat an eye - just tilts her head, all calm drawl: "I wouldn't do that if I were you, sugar." That's the cue for her two very large, very angry guard dogs - Gator and Luke - to materialise at her side. Nobody's ever needed a second warning.
One year went as each other for Halloween. Wynn wore Gator's sheriff jacket with a toy gun, Gator wore one of Luke's rodeo shirts and a fake moustache, and Luke wore red lipstick, a black wig, and stuffed himself into one of Wynn's old dresses. The photos are banned from ever surfacing.
That year, their baby girl stole the whole show dressed as the cutest imitation of Roy you've ever seen: miniature cowboy hat, little sheriff badge, and a scowl so perfect people swore she'd been practicing.
Family Life 🌾
After marrying, Wynn and Gator - The Tillmans - move out of Roy's to a cute ranch house just a few minutes drive from Luke's. Still on Tillman soil, just theirs. Gator and Luke did the majority of the grunt work, with Wynn directing colour schemes and adding a woman's touch.
Wynn and Gator welcomed their first baby daughter - Sadie Tillman - the following autumn. She had a full head of black hair like her mama, and big dark eyes like her daddy.
Sadie was 100% unplanned because her parents are a pair of horny little shits.
Eventually, Wynn and Gator get pregnant again, with twin boys: Silas and Beau. Both boys have their mama's sparkling blue eyes.
The first (and only) time Gator truly, flat-out shut Roy Tillman down came a couple weeks after Wynn gave birth. Roy made an offhand comment about Gator "coddling" her during recovery - said she should be "up and about by now." Gator didn't raise his voice, just stood square and said, "You're old-fashioned, Pop, and you called the shots when I was growin' up - I'll give you that. But this family I'm buildin'? That's mine to call. And no one - not even you - gets to comment on the woman who carried my baby, especially not when she's still healin' from ten stitches." Dead quiet in the room after that. Roy didn't bring it up again.
Luke and Maddie eventually marry and have two daughters: Wynnifred and June. The original Wynn claimed, from personal experience, that it was cruel to ever call a child Wynnifred. But Luke said, "yeah but you turned out okay."
Annual family tradition: county fair visits. The children wear matching gingham and squeal because "daddy kissed mama on the ferris wheel."
Of course, they all grow old together. Final image: sat on the porch swing with more lines on their faces than sense.
NSFW 🌶
Sheriff voice kink. When Gator drops three octaves and says "hands," Wynn's knees go traitor. He's a praise-and-direction guy; she's a brat-with-a-soft-surrender.
Exhibition-ish: not full exhibition, but the risk - barn doors cracked, truck tailgate on a back road, her giggling "we shouldn't" as he's already got her dress rucked up.
Mirror devotion: he positions her in front of the dresser mirror and talks her through it - "look how pretty you are comin' on me." she watches, blushes, falls apart faster.
Doesn't let her hover when she sits on his face, the second she even attempts to lift, he grabs her by the hips and hauls her back down for devouring.
They have a few snapped Polaroids in warm lamplight. Completely naked, laying together, faces out of frame. They're locked in a tin on his closet shelf.
Gets handsy under the table at Clyde's, but only enough to make her eyes widen - never enough for anyone else to notice.
Chapter 12: Playlist
Chapter Text
Feathered Indians - Tyler Childers
Mary's Song (Oh My My My) - Taylor Swift
Slow Burn - Kacey Musgraves
Cowboy Take Me Away - The Chicks
I Want You to Want Me - Cheap Trick
Cold - Chris Stapleton
Silver Springs - Fleetwood Mac
The Night We Met - Lord Huron
She's Country - Jason Aldean
Hell On Heels - Pistol Annies
Take Me to Church - Hozier
Wondering Why - The Red Clay Strays
Sun to Me - Zach Bryan
Forever After All - Luke Combs
The_secret_diary_of_Laura_Palmer on Chapter 8 Thu 31 Jul 2025 09:16AM UTC
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The_secret_diary_of_Laura_Palmer on Chapter 9 Thu 31 Jul 2025 09:21AM UTC
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