GIDDY UP, COWGIRL ⋆ 西村力 [TEASER]
PAIRING. deputy sheriff!nishimura riki x sheriff’s daughter!reader
SYN. nishimura riki has been in your life since you were thirteen — the sheriff’s most loyal deputy, the man who always kept you close yet out of reach. at thirteen, it was a harmless crush; at fifteen, maddening; at nineteen, something you tried to ignore. at twenty-one, your father is pressing you to settle down, and your feelings are finally loosening their grip. though, riki’s attention shifts — and suddenly, the man who once protected you seems determined to keep you, too.
AN. hello.. hopefully i’ll release this in time for bgdc!!!! we’ll see :7 please lmk if i should remove/add/edit any tags as it’s my first time writing an au like this lol
CW. will contain smut, so 18+ only. mdni. porn with plot. possessive, jealous riki. fem!reader. age gap (5 years). cowboy au. subject to change!
TAGLIST IS OPEN. comment / send an ask to be added! tl below <3 please be 18+ and have age indicators, or i’ll ignore + block you (if you’re a minor…)
PLAYING. levii jeans — beyoncé.
“I’LL SEE YOU AT THE STATION, HONEY!”
a typical monday morning for the likes of the sheriff’s family.
it’s 7 in the morning and your father has kicked the front door open, stomping out the house in the boots your mother just polished the night prior — you’re sitting on the couch, feet up, the daily paper in hand as you read through the town’s freshest scoop.
WANTED: DEAD or ALIVE! $5000 REWARD.
and printed in splotchy, black ink, is the guy your dad’s been working overtime to catch. it’s been so long that you were starting to think the guy is already lying in a ditch somewhere, probably shot dead by the deputy sheriff in the town over, and that it was only a matter of time before word got around.
nevertheless, you shrug and flip the page, moving onto a section on the new diner in town — when you reach the second line, you end up throwing the paper onto the coffee table, a heavy sigh leaving your lips.
a small town like this could never be interesting. who the hell cares about a new diner? the one before it probably has the exact same menu. waffles, coffee, bland chicken. someone needs to get one of those carnivals in town — you remember coming across those when you joined your father for expeditions, back when you weren’t stacked with adult-ish administrative responsibilities.
“did you want another one?” your mother yells from the kitchen, voice cutting through the familiarly thick aroma. “i made too many!”
you yell back. “no thanks!”
the house smells of aged wood and sizzling pancake batter. your mother hums an old tune — one you’ve practically memorized by now — and the morning wind rattles the shutters against the walls. when you were younger, that sound used to annoy you; now, it just makes your stomach jitter. because soon, you’ll have to get up, get dressed, and go to work.
the only mildly intriguing thing about this life of yours. or, rather, it was nishimura riki that made it feel so.
okay, well, you aren’t supposed to be thinking that way. you’re literally twenty-something now, not fifteen, still drooling over your father’s deputy. back then, you were still tying your hair in a bumpy ponytail because you hated how braids looked on your head.
“she’s all grown up now, hm?”
you remember that look on him. that smug little smirk as he leaned against a wooden beam, arms crossed, like that was the day he finally saw you for who you were: a woman.
that guy was always painfully overprotective, huh? it was about time he started to let loose. it’s too bad your feelings had already started to fade — obvious now, thinking back, that a man who worked for your father would never dream of laying a hand on you, much less reciprocate any fleeting feelings you had thrown at him.
it doesn’t mean he doesn’t tease you about it from time to time, though. a little snicker as he recounts some old memory, while you two share a coffee during a late shift at the station — you, writing his name next to yours in your diary, and your father, who laughed even louder as he told nishimura about it.
teenage crushes. why do they never let you live them down?
oh, nishimura riki. the blond with dark eyes and eyebrows so perfect they made your stomach flutter. always refusing to share his coffee with you — which was just your way of snatching a ‘kiss’ out of him — because you were too young for caffeine. always sending you back to your humble ranch when the nights got too cold and too dangerous for the sheriff’s little girl.
you’d sit on the back of his horse, arms wrapped tight around his torso, listening to his steady heartbeat through layers of denim and leather. he’d talk the whole ride, low and serious, about how you needed to learn to defend yourself one day, in case he was ever too busy to escort you home.
“don’t know if your dad would ever let you carry,” nishimura riki mumbles. “if he does, i’ll teach you how to shoot. it’s real skill, y’know?”
you laugh at the memory, head ducking into your hands as if you can hide the furious blush heating your face — from who, exactly? you’re not sure. nishimura riki always had that effect on you: think about him for more than three seconds, get embarrassingly flustered, then bury your face in the nearest pillow like a reflex. even after eight years, some things just don’t change.
“you’re cute, [name].” he’d laugh, warm and careless, dragging his palm over your head and undoing whatever effort you’d put into your hair that day. “see ya tomorrow, if your dad doesn’t send me out there again.”
you’d smile up at him, stupid and starry-eyed, the flush on your cheeks giving away every dumb teenage feeling you thought you were hiding. riki only ever answered with a smaller smile — warmer, softer, almost fond.
“tell your mother i said hello, yeah? sleep well.”
─────────────────────────
PERHAPS WHAT WAS A LITTLE MORE OBVIOUS than your crush on the deputy sheriff was the fact that he, riki, would’ve never liked you that way — or, at least, that’s what you’d spent years drilling into your own head. but there was one night, and one tiny shift in the way he looked at you, when the possibility inched up from a solid 0% to… maybe 2%.
3%, if you were being generous.
no, you weren’t always unsure about nishimura’s feelings for you. it wasn’t always a bet, or something you had to debate. back then, the sheriff’s daughter was off-limits. it was clear. crystal.
your head snapped up, the pen in your hand immediately freezing in it’s place. nishimura riki stood at the doorway, shoulder leaned against the wooden frame, his head almost hitting the top of it.
eight years down the line, and you can still feel your heart tighten the way it did in that moment, just at the thought of speaking to him. you remember how your fingers curled around your pen, knuckles tense, pulling back from the stack of papers you were supposed to finish before sunrise. there’d been a stained coffee mug by your side, half empty, half forgotten.
and then riki had walked in. smug smile, easy, like he always did when it was just the two of you at the station — or just the two of you, anywhere.
he’d crossed the room, circling your desk with that unhurried gait that was so unmistakably him, his thigh brushing the armrest of your chair as he sat on the edge like he’d done it a thousand times before. you remember the dull thud of his boots against the drawer you always forget to close properly, and the way he dipped his head just so he could look at you fully.
“it’s gonna be a long night for you, then.”
you can still hear your sigh, the way you leaned back, eyes dragging from the tight denim on his thighs up to his warm brown irises.
his soft laugh had punched the air right out of your lungs — a quiet exhale through his nose, low and warm as he shook his head, before he glanced out the window behind you. even now, your pulse stutters thinking about it. but he’d looked back at you almost immediately, gaze settling on you like he’d never left.
“you shouldn’t be here alone. it’s late, hm?”
“i’m not alone,” you say. “you’re here, too, aren’t you?”
you’d joked, too lightly for how serious he sounded.
and yet, you remember the shift in his face — subtle, almost imperceptible. his eyebrows had softened, eyes widening for a fraction of a second.
anyone else would have missed it. but not you, oh, never you — not when it came to nishimura riki.
“you’re right,” riki murmured, voice dropping in a way that still curls heat low in your stomach whenever you recall it. he’d leaned back, resting his weight on his arms before pushing himself off the desk, walking toward the couch against the far wall.
you raise an eyebrow as you watch him retreat, and he kicks his boots up onto the coffee table before you finally ask, “what’re you doing?”
“once you’re done, come join me.” riki’s palm smoothed over the leather next to his thigh. “it’s too late for you to be going home alone. might as well get as much rest here.”
“i’m not fifteen anymore, y’know,” you scoffed, though you meant nothing spiteful behind it. “i can ride a horse and aim a gun just as good as you.”
riki tilted his head, amusement tugging at the corner of his mouth. teeth flashing in that heart fluttering way — unfairly handsome, probably the exact reason half the town had a crush on him at some point. “and who taught ya how to do such things?”
you snorted, finally setting the pen down. with that simple motion, the stack of work you were supposed to finish slipped from your mind entirely. you stood, dragging your feet across the wooden floor — boots scraping in a way your father always hated. but now, all there is is the boy you’ve liked since you were fifteen and he was twenty. though, if he really were here, he’d bark at you to lift them properly, maybe give you a talk about how “this isn’t how a lady should carry herself”.
still, he wasn’t, and something deep inside this body of yours is praying to all the gods and saying ‘thank you’ a million times over.
the moment you reached the couch, you sank down beside nishimura riki, his arm already resting along the back so you could lean into him without thinking. once your head settled against his shoulder, warm and familiar, his slow, steady embrace seemed to fold around you — his cheek brushing the top of your head every so often.
you sighed, though it sounded more contented than exasperated, mouth mumbling; “shut up, nishimura.”
he carried the faint scent of leather and cedar, with just a hint of smoke from the cigars your father favored. riki never touched them himself, but he knew better than to speak up when your father lit one nearby. his fingers drifted along the side of your arm, feather-light, as if unintended — though, he never pulled away.
“you shouldn’t wear yourself out like this,” he murmured, voice low, resonating through his chest and straight into your cheek. “your dad works you hard enough already.”
your hair pricked at his neck, though riki refused to move as he felt your weight sink onto him. you were falling asleep. “what about you?”
“i’m not working right now, though.”
just what the hell did he mean by that?
“my dad didn’t get you to watch me again?” your eyes were drooping, lashes fluttering as they threatened to shut, heart rate slowing as you felt riki’s fingers trace circles against your skin.
“he told me to take an early night. we had a pretty tough case this evening,” like he was trying not to pull you back from the edge of sleep. “but i didn’t wanna leave you here alone. who knows if you’ll run into trouble.”
your breath hitched at the admission, and riki leaned in close enough for your bodies to press closer together, warmth spilling over.
would you always love him like that?
perhaps the better question was whether he would ever love you like the woman you had become, instead of the girl he had first met — the one who used to hide behind her father’s back, offering shy glances instead of unbroken eye contact, mumbles instead of confident words.
“you’re all grown up, [name],” riki had said. “you used to be so shy with me, and now…”
he shifted just slightly beneath you, the motion subtle, almost careful. for a moment, you wondered if he was remembering the same things you were. if he still saw the girl he used to walk home, or if he was finally beginning to see someone else entirely.
you didn’t ask. at that point, you didn’t really care — not enough to push him away by bombarding him with all the questions swirling through your mind.
when morning came, he was gone. a thin blanket lay across you, your head resting against the leather armrest, sunlight catching the specks of dust you’d yet to clean.
you yawned, stretching your arms, then sat up, tugging the fabric off your shoulders. as you stood, your legs wobbled slightly; you fought the sleep still in your body, smacking your lips and rubbing your eyes in a half-assed attempt to get the blood around as you dragged yourself to the door.
your hand curled around the doorknob, turning it slowly, and when you peeked through the doorframe, your gaze immediately landed on nishimura riki — tall figure leaning against his desk, speaking to your father like the night before had never happened, flipping through papers with knit eyebrows, as if he’d seen something he wasn’t happy with.
it hits you then: that this — the closeness, the warmth, the kindness that seemed to reach beyond any order — it had never been like this before. never.
nishimura riki had never spoken to you so softly, so gently. not when he was twenty and you were the most rebellious fifteen-year-old in the county, not when he was twenty-three and you were eighteen — stubbornly trying to get a job at the diner (your father shut that down before you even filled out the form).
and most definitely not when you were nineteen and he was twenty four, when you finally took your first shot in the local bar and he had to carry you home after five more.
everything used to be so much clearer.
but somewhere between then and now, it had all shifted. you slumped back into your dusty office, hair mussed from leaning against riki’s chest, the cracked leather couch pressing into your back once more. sunlight streaked through the blinds, catching motes of dust that hung in the air like suspended gold.
then, in the blink of an eye, a year passes. you’re twenty-one, the 365 days offering no clarity, and the memory still lingers, vivid, warm in your chest as it claws it’s way up your neck.
“[name]!” your mother screams from the kitchen, jolting you out from your daydream, “your father is going to be livid! it’s almost eight—“
just when you thought you were done with teenage crushes, huh?
“shit—i’ll see you later, ma!”
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