Chapter Text
Fuck, his feet hurt.
It had been a long ass day, and even though the shadows were stretching long across the valley, Rip and the rest of the hands were still out patching another goddamn hole, in another goddamn fence.
What he needed most was for the cattle to stay where he put them.
Since that wasn’t going to happen, he should probably get himself a new pair of boots. These were going on three years now, and you could only glue a sole back on so many times before it got fucking embarrassing. Maybe he’d go on his next day off.
Rip snorts to himself, waiting for Jimmy to get the next post in place. The only days he had ever taken off were when he’d gone back to see the headstones he’d commissioned for his mom’s and brother’s graves, and that time he’d had the flu so bad the foreman had ordered him to stay in bed so he wouldn’t shit himself and his horse in one go.
Jimmy holds up the metal post and Rip hefts the post driver over the top, sliding it down into place.
Come to think of it, Beth had mentioned taking him shopping once or twice. He might just let her, one of these days.
With a breath, Rip raises the heavy steel tube high and slams it down, driving the post half into the ground.
“Rip.” Jimmy slaps at his shoulder and Rip growls in annoyance, lifting the post driver for another hit.
If this goes in crooked because Jimmy is fooling around, Rip will…well, he’s too fucking tired to think of something good enough, but whatever it is, Jimmy won’t like it.
“I, uh, I think she…”
“We got company,” Lloyd calls from a few posts down.
Rip turns to see Beth riding toward them across the field, and he does his best to ignore the way his heart trips up in his chest. She’s wearing jeans that might as well have been painted on, boots that haven’t seen near enough horse shit to merit the name, and that stupid brown felt hat she knows he likes, even though it’ll fall apart the first time it gets rained on.
She’s prettier than a Montana sunrise.
Jimmy’s head snaps around, mouth hanging open, and Rip stands up straight, thinking maybe he just said that out loud. But Jimmy just looks back at Beth, the same stupid look on his face, and Rip realizes she’s stopped her horse fifteen feet away. Waiting for him.
Shoving the heavy post driver into Jimmy’s chest hard enough to make him rock back a step, Rip kicks his way through the grass. She’s got that hungry look in her eyes, the one that means she’s either about to eat him alive or fuck him so hard he can’t walk straight, and he’s pretty sure he’d enjoy one just as much as the other.
Sparring with her is almost as good as the sex any day.
“Somethin’ I can do for you, Beth?” Rip asks, reaching out to stroke her horse’s neck. He stands with his back to the crew, so she’s the only one who can see his eyes rake across her body everywhere he won’t let himself touch in front of the men.
Her full lips quirk up at the corners, and he wishes he could tell her just how pretty she looks, but he isn’t too sure where they stand at the moment.
“Ride with me, cowboy?”
Rip scans her face for a hint of what she’s after. “Everything alright?”
The bruises from the Beck Brothers have mostly faded now. But the image of her on that table, screaming into the face of that fucking animal in tactical gear, mindless of the gun pressed up under her chin, that image will never fade, no matter how many years Rip has left on this earth.
With a sniff, he steps back, dropping his hand before the mare can sense his killing mood. Last thing he wants is to spook her horse. Beth’s eyes narrow, sensing the shift in him and he has to look away from the fresh scar on her right cheek.
Glancing back over his shoulder, Rip catches his men standing around watching. “Don’t remember tellin’ you fuckers it was break time,” he barks and they scramble back into action.
It would’ve been easier on his heart if she had covered the evidence with makeup, but Beth never wanted easy. She wore the cuts and bruises just like she wears her high heels and her curse words. She thinks if all people ever see are sex and sharp edges, they won’t notice the damn-near perfect woman underneath.
Lucky for Rip, that shit never worked on him.
“Something have to be wrong for me to want a little company?” Her voice is casual and he wonders just how close to the knife’s edge he is. She hasn’t spoken to him since he left her bed a few days after the attack.
The bed was just too soft. Waking up with her nuzzled up tight to his side, it was too close to his dreams—gunshot wound aside—for comfort. So, he left before she could ask him to leave. Before her dad started asking questions. Before someone else reminded him that this kind of happiness wasn’t for people like him.
“Suppose not.” Rip nods.
“You telling me no, then?”
She cocks her head, and Rip is smart enough to read the dare in her green eyes. But there’s something else brewing under the surface, and he’s just curious enough that he decides to cut out on work a little early.
“For you honey, it’s never a no.” Rip turns back to his men. “Lloyd, make sure these fuckers finish up here before heading in. Y’all can sleep in an extra hour tomorrow.”
The men whoop and Beth smiles. “That extra hour for them or for us?”
He winks in answer and heads for his own horse.
“Catch up, Rip,” Beth calls after him, kicking her horse into a trot.
He lets himself watch her for a minute, fighting a smile at the sight of her back on a horse after all these years. She still sits a bit stiff, but at least Walker gave her the confidence to keep trying. Slinging himself up into his own saddle, he decides he isn’t going to think about what else Walker gave her.
Rip had outlasted him, just like he would every other man Beth decided to chew up and spit out. And today he was the one she wanted chasing her. That would just have to be enough.