26. Garrison
TWENTY-SIX
GARRISON
I don’t know why I’m surprised when Colton rides up on a horse instead of pulling up in a truck, but I can’t help but smirk. I drop my finger from the blinds and peer over my shoulder. “He’s here.”
Carsyn moves around the bar in the kitchen, coming to stand by my side near the mud room. “Thank you for this, and for everything,” she whispers, getting to her toes to place a soft kiss against my cheek.
“I’m sorry Carsyn,” I finally say, knowing I’ll apologize to her until the end of our lives once this is all over. But for now, a simple sorry is all we have time for. “I only ever meant to keep you safe, and I’m sorry you had to learn about Marks, and see him get killed.” I swipe a hand over my hair before placing my Cattlemen on my head. “I could’ve done that differently.”
Her lips lift on one side. “Yeah, you could’ve. But then again, we may not be here if you had. Everything that has transpired has led to this. And this, this will lead to our peace.” She kisses me again, this time on the lips. “Our freedom.”
She realizes that I too will be free of everything after this takes place, and lumping me into the same category as her—two people finally free from toxicity and harm—feels like a victory I don’t deserve. Still, I wrap my hand around hers and give it a squeeze. “Thank you.”
A knock at the backdoor makes Carsyn gasp, and she lunges for it, her hand out, eyes wet already. I press my arm into her chest, peering out one more time to make sure. Colton is there, looking down at his boots, the hat on his head exactly like mine. No guns visible, no weapons drawn, I pull the door open and step aside, letting Carsyn and Colton lay eyes on each other for the first time in weeks.
A tear slips through her thick lashes, shining as it rolls down her velvet soft cheek. Colton’s voice is masculine, but wobbly all the same. “Cars,” he breathes, and a moment later they lunge into an embrace so tight, so warm, so filled with love that jealously nearly strangles my vocal cords. My parents are dead. I have no siblings. I’ve given my life to the Bureau. This embrace is a dream to me. Foreign. Something that slips into my mind only when I’m asleep.
I clear my throat as Colton whispers reassurances to his little sister, promising she’ll be okay, that he is glad she’s okay, glad she’s alive, so happy she’s safe, how distraught they’ve been, all of it.
It’s sweet and I don’t mean to ruin their moment, but a glance at my watch tells me we have less than an hour. And if I know Colton Beckett, I’d say we have some squaring off to do before we go.
“Cars,” I say, my voice, her name broken down to an affectionate moniker, my presence—Colton rears back out of his sister’s arms, coming to look at me for the first time.
“Garrison,” he breathes, and before I know it, his fist is in my face, nicking the edge of my eye, then coming up fast again under my chin, a hook that makes my teeth smash together.
Carsyn cries out, pressing her hand into Colton’s chest as I right myself, moving through the mudroom to the kitchen to grab ice. Carsyn follows after me, with Colton on her heels.
“Colton, wait! Just, wait, please!” she shouts, pressing her hands onto the tops of his shoulders, urging him down into a chair at my table. His eyes never leave mine, and I would expect no less.
“You mother fucker,” Colton grumbles, staring at me as I dunk my hand into the ice hopper in the freezer, filling an open tea towel with pieces of ice. I bring it to my eye and stare back at Colton.
“I deserved that, Carsyn,” I tell her, still looking at her older brother. “Colton, listen,” I start, and he tries to get up from the chair, his anger clearly in control. But Carsyn shoves him down again, hissing, “stop, now. Stop and listen. We don’t have much time.”
He listens to her, and I’m grateful that she and I are on a team. That I have the honor of being on her side. Because that’s what it is being with Carsyn—an honor.
They keep their focus on one another as Carsyn tells Colton everything she can. She tells him that I am an FBI agent, that I have been working undercover for years as Garrison Conway, Forrest’s long-lost brother in law who strolled into town the day Neely left. She points out the convenience of it, something no one, not even Forrest, seemed to notice. Carsyn drops to her knees before her brother, searching his eyes while she tells him everything she can. The way Liam Davis was actually Grafton Marks, a man working for Forrest who planned on using her to curry favor and grace. She was, in her words, a thing to be used as leverage for Marks to regain his foothold in Forrest’s world. She even explains the coordinates, and how I only had them an hour before I passed them to Kinleigh. The final piece of information, the reason why he’s here and why there are guns laid out on the counter, comes down to my delivery. Carsyn blinks up at me.
“Tell him why he’s here.”
I look at Colton, his cheeks fuller, his jaw clean shaven, clothes new. He looks a lot different than when he was chained to Forrest’s cellar, starved and beaten, drugged and confused. I never had a beef with Colton. He, like many others, was just collateral. Still, I’m glad to see he and Kinleigh survived it. If they hadn’t, I don’t think I would have either.
“Those punches you threw,” I start, holding the tea towel of ice to my eye. “I deserved those. And I know Carsyn told you how it was, but I want you to hear it from me. The moment I realized how bad things were at Forrest’s, the first time I stumbled upon Kinleigh after…” I trail off, his features becoming stony, his eyes narrowing. “That’s when I knew I was out. And everything I’ve done since that day has been to get away from this case and the Bureau.” I swallow thickly around the knot of difficult truths.
I step toward him, lowering my dripping towel full of ice to the counter. “It wasn’t until Forrest Conway that I felt that way. I thought I’d be doing this my whole life. Up until this case, I didn’t realize the evil lives in the house. Around me, that’s what I thought. That’s what I was taught. It’s out there, around us, and we’re given names and lives to assume in order to infiltrate the evil and take it down from the inside out. But when I realized the FBI knew about what was happening to Kinleigh, how they let two shipments go untracked because they hadn’t gotten their case together fully, I knew it was a lie. That the FBI is worse than Forrest, and that’s why I’m handing Forrest to you and not them.”
Colton rises, and I clench my fists responsively. I don’t know if he wants to hit me again, but I’d take it if he did. If it meant he feels right with me. That’s what I’m looking for. To level the field between us. For her sake.
He doesn’t hit me though. He outstretches his hand, waiting to shake.
I slip my hand in his and he grips it.
“You may have taken her, but you kept her alive,” he says, glancing at his sister. She explained to him that Forrest has a hit on her head to pay Colton back for everything he did. Fair? No. But eye for an eye is the way men like Forrest operate. “And you’re gonna take me to Forrest?”
He knows I am, but I also know Colton is smart. He’s questioning if this is an ambush, a final fuck you on Colton and his family delivered by the hands of Forrest’s brother-in-law. He’s deciding if I’ve fooled Carsyn and am trying to fool him, too. I don’t blame him. I would be tallying up those same thoughts if I were him.
“It ain’t no ambush. I am not going to lead you into a situation where Forrest is gonna kill you. I give you my word.” My hand, still in his, tightens. “Slit my throat on the spot if I’m lying.” With my spare hand, I reach for the table and grab the sheathed knife, the only non-gun item on the table. “Here.”
He eyes the knife before taking it, a worried slurry of words coming from Carsyn as her brother stuffs the knife through his belt.
“You won’t need it,” she tells her brother softly. “He’s not lying.”
Colton eyes me cautiously, I’m sure thinking of Kinleigh the night he found her. I don’t blame him. “Well if he isn’t, then I’ll give it back. And if he is?—”
“He isn't,” Carsyn asserts, getting to her feet, standing between us. “I know it’s a lot to process, a lot to take in but Colton, trust me, okay?”
Colton’s eyes finally veer from me to her, and it only takes a moment for him to realize there’s something between us. He lunges for me, taking my shirt in his fist as he slams me against the refrigerator door, the bottle of tequila and box of cereal on top rattling. Carsyn tugs at his shoulders, crying, screaming for him to let me go. I look over at her, giving her a sharp tug of my head, telling her to let him, implying to her that Colton needs this.
Today is about him getting his vengeance, because if he doesn’t, none of us can move on.
“You laid your filthy fucking hands on my sister while she was your prisoner? Hmm?” His jaw clenches so tightly, thick lines of strain form in his neck.
I keep my voice steady and calm. “Yes.”
“No!” Carsyn screams. “It’s not like that! Garrison, tell him it’s not like that!”
Still holding me to the fridge, Colton turns his focus to Carsyn, attempting to pry him off of me. “Tell me just how it is then, Carsyn.”
She finally yanks him off, then stands in front of me like a hungry little guard dog. My chest squeezes at the sight of her between us, fighting for us both.
I’ve never had someone fight for me.
“I went home with him that night I went out. I didn’t know it was him. He knew it was me. He followed me there so he could take me, take me before Forrest could.”
I nod. “The FBI gave me the go ahead that I could take Carsyn and keep her safe, but I used her to lure Marks, to eliminate him so we could get to Forrest.”
“Remember, Liam is Marks,” Carsyn whispers, erasing the dip of confusion between Colton’s brows.
He doesn’t need to know that I watched his baby sister for months before this. That’s something that can wait. The only thing Colton really needs to know right now is how I feel.
“I would never hurt Carsyn, and I would give my life to save hers.” Simple yet true, and it’s a promise Colton clearly understands. He looks between us again, and lets out a sigh.
“Clue me in on the next steps,” he says, settling back into his chair at the table, fingering the end of a gun lying in front of him. “Where are we going to find Forrest?”
I sit down too and Carsyn, knowing what we need, pours us each a glass of whiskey, two fingers, neat. I sip it, replacing the ice to my eye.
“I know where he’s at. We’re gonna head over there in a few minutes so if you cannot or do not want to kill him?—”
“I can,” Colton interrupts, his voice throbbing with power. “I do.”
I tip my head in understanding. “Okay, well we’re gonna head over there. You and Carsyn are gonna hang back. Forrest has two men check the barn every time he visits. They’ll do that, and when they clear the place and Forrest comes in, those two will come back out. They switch guns and take their vests off at the truck once the location is secure.”
Colton snorts. “That seems stupid. Why not stay in the vest? I mean, you’re protecting a huge piece of shit. Seems like your life is always at risk.”
I snort. “I don’t disagree. But Forrest doesn’t like it. So, they go out and strip down the big artillery, and come back in. That’s where I come in.”
Colton’s brows pull together and he kicks one boot out over the floor, snorting. “You gonna take down two armed guards? Am I hearing that right?”
I run my tongue over my teeth. “I’m going to stick one with paralytic and before the other notices, stick him, too. High doses.” The same way Colton did when he escaped the Conway house.
Colton’s body tenses, and his gaze slides to his sister. I don’t know what he’s going to say, but the urgency to come clean before Carsyn can tell him hits me like a sledge hammer.
“I gave Carsyn paralytic four times when she was with me. For her safety, for her mental peace.” I know it sounds ridiculous but I also know Colton isn’t a reactive man. Being chained to bed, forced to think yourself out of chains will do that to you. But Colton strikes me as thoughtful nonetheless, not a man who acts on impulse or a man who lives for instant gratification.
“She would have told me, after all of this is over, she would have told me that,” Colton says, a flinch warping his features. For a moment I wonder if Colton is trying to tell me that he knows his sister better than I do, but quickly after he adds, “but thank you for telling me.”
I look over at Carsyn, then back to Colton.
“Why can’t you give me some of it, and we’ll take them down together?” he asks, pinching his hat from his head, lowering it to the table, covering a slew of guns.
“I don’t want Carsyn to be alone at all, so it’s better if you stay with her, and let me go. Also,” I start, clearing my throat as I get to the cold truth of this plan. “If they have a small gun or knife, and they attack me, you know the plan. You’ll have Carsyn safe with a location on Forrest. You can finish it.”
Carsyn’s eyes are on me, I feel them scorching my profile like fire eating up accelerant. “I’m good with the needle, anyway,” I say, mostly as a dry joke.
Colton’s eyes slide to his sisters. “How you doing?”
She pours us more booze. “Fine. Ready for this to be done.” She finishes her drink in one loud swallow. “I want to watch. Whatever you do to him, I want to watch.”
He replaces his hat on his head, finishes his drink and gets to his feet. “Take me there now, I’m ready,” he says to me, and with that, we get ready in silence. Suited and loaded, Colton leaves his horse here and we climb into my truck, the Barn set on my GPS.
Aloud, the GPS announces that in sixteen minutes we will be at our destination. I finger the syringes of paralytic in my pocket, conscious of the two guns on my hips and the one tucked into my boot. None of us acknowledge that in sixteen minutes, things are going to get serious.
The cab remains quiet, and I drive us there, more ready than ever to put an end to all of this.