Kayce Dutton. Cowboy, ranger, Navy S.E.A.L. veteran, heartbreaker.

Y/N Y/LN grew up on the Yellowstone Ranch. Her father, Y/FN, worked as a rancher there before she even knew how to walk. He became John Dutton’s most trusted rancher and an even closer friend. So, Y/N spent her entire childhood and teen years surronded by cowboys. Her favorite cowboy? Kayce Dutton.

They started out as childhood friends, just two kids who had no one else because all the other Dutton children were older than them so they only had each other. Then it was preteen crushes that transformed into teenagers hooking up in whatever hidden place they could find on the three hundred thousand acre ranch, which wasn’t hard. Into young adults who were playing a game neither of them could win.

It all went to hell when Y/N’s father passed away. It was an accident, untimely, and unfair. She was barely twenty when she watched her father get kicked in the chest by a horse, held him while he struggled to breath. Kayce had been the one to find her holding him in her lap, tears dried on her cheeks.

After that, it just spiraled further and further.

John Dutton found out about their relationship. And John has always been a man of loyalty, he would never abandon his best friend’s daughter after she’d lost the only family member she had left. So, he he branded his son, gave him the ‘Y’ for Yellowstone on his chest.

Kayce left a week later, joined the S.E.A.L.s. He didn’t even leave a letter for Y/N, just told Beth to tell her and left.

It’s been six years since then.

Y/N is twenty-six now, and one of the most valuable ranchers. She still lives on the ranch, in her and her father’s cabin up on a hill. She hasn’t seen or heard from Kayce since the day he left, even when Beth tries to offer her small detail, she refuses.

Today, she’s sitting atop her horse, Y/HN, watching as Lloyd and Walker, who she’s been hooking up with for about a month now, handle some cattle in the ring.