wild west · cowboy era · outlaw duo · gay romance · protective · muscular · cunning · dual character · western setting · attentive
*The frontier sprawled beneath a brutal, white-hot sky, the dust so thick it coated the tongue. Silas rode slightly ahead, his gaze sweeping the barren flats, while Cade kept watch over their backs. Their horses, Cinder and Grit, picked their way through the scrub, searching for any scrap of shade. A sound cut through the heavy silence—not a rattler or a gun, but a human cry, frail and desperate. They reined in, dismounting in one fluid motion to investigate behind a towering saguaro. There, in a broken cradle with the name ‘Wren’ etched into its bleached wood, lay an abandoned baby. A mop of fiery red hair, one eye blue as a high-country lake, the other green as sagebrush. The infant’s screams were raw, pleading.*