3. Colton
THREE
COLTON
PRESENT.
“I’m sorry about your pa,” Nash says around a bite of French fries. I tap the end of my pointer finger at the corner of my mouth, getting him to swipe away the blob of ketchup on his mouth. “Was he sick?”
I stroke my hand through my sweat-damp hair and stare out the foggy, smudged window of the shitty burger joint we’re at. A yellow dandelion has grown from beneath the shattered asphalt, and I wonder if I even believe in signs. “I don’t know. I hadn’t talked to him since I left.”
Nash’s hand, which is holding a napkin made transparent from grease, stills in front of his mouth, his eyes locked onto mine. “I thought you called home every so often and talked–”
“I talked to my sister.” I take a bite of my burger. “He’d never get on the line. And I’m pretty sure in the last few years, he kept her from contacting me as much. It’s been two years since we talked.”
Nash plucks a fry from my tray. “Why would he do that?”
I was never a bad influence on Carsyn. I never smoked. I didn’t curse. I got good grades. I did all the chores he made me do. He had no good reason to keep her from me the last few years, but in my heart, I know that’s why our contact went from frequent, to sparse, to silence.
It would have broken my heart if it weren’t already in a trillion tiny, irreparable pieces.
“He didn’t like the reason I left.” I don’t need to say more. I ain’t got secrets when it comes to Nash.
“Man, I thought when you’d talk to your sister, he got on the line, too.” Nash shakes his head in surprised disbelief before stealing another few fries and a swig of my Coke. “You did the right thing,” my best friend tells me, and though I know I did, it sometimes feels good to hear it, to be reminded of it.
I pinch the top of my hat, plucking it from the table before lowering it to my head. Rising, I adjust the buckle of my belt and toss the tray of food into the bin nearby. “You ready?”
“Thanks, darlin’.” Nash rises, putting his hat on too, tipping it to the waitress before we filter out.
Back in the truck, we ride in silence the remainder of the way. Only when the faded green street sign reading BECKETT appears does it really hit me. I’m home.
Our truck doors slam as we get out, my heart aching as if hooves are thundering through my chest. My core is suddenly so painful and so heavy I can hardly perceive or feel much else.
The porch is more worn than I remember, the pillars aged, cherry lacquer finish slivering off in long, bark-like pieces. The rocking chairs are gone, but the old boot rack is still there, though it’s empty. I twist to face the pasture just north of the property, the one I used to ride through after school every day. A breeze rolls through, laced with old scents of home.
The laundry drying on the line. Horse patties caked on boots. Fresh lawn seed.
Dandelions.
The screen door slams, and Carsyn appears, looking like a goddamn grown woman. I stroke my hand down my stubbled face, realizing we both look so different now. She takes the porch steps two by two, boots crunching the loose gravel as she traipses toward me.
The softness from her cheeks is gone, leaving behind a more mature, sculpted face. She’s still got that same swarm of tawny hair, only the wild locks have been tamed, leaving shiny, straight hair combed and styled neatly around her face and down her back. Wide brown eyes that remind me of Levi Beckett stare up at me.
“You’re an old man now,” she whispers, her voice cracking with emotion despite the half smirk that lifts her lips.
With that, the tension is broken. I loop both arms around her, pulling her slender frame into mine, knowing I smell like I’ve been traveling in a rented truck without AC for four days but not giving a damn. “I missed you, Carsyn.”
We break apart, and it’s then I notice she’s distracted. I follow her gaze to Nash, who has his back to us, giving us privacy.
“Nash,” I holler.
He turns, casting an eye over his shoulder. “I’ll take a walk,” he calls back.
“You don’t need to. We’re good.” I look at Carsyn and her nod tells me that for now, we are indeed good. “Nash, this is my sister, Carsyn,” I tell him as he walks toward us, wiping his hand on his thigh.
They shake hands. “Carsyn, this is Nash. We lived together in Texas, worked at the same ranch.”
She studies him, from his pointed boots to the curved bow of his Stetson hat. I can’t decipher if she’s curious about Nash, or irritated that I brought him.
Finally she says, “Nice to meet you.” She tips her head toward the house. “C’mon, we can catch up later. Right now, there’s something you ought to see.”
Carsyn leads Nash through the sitting room to the kitchen, where she is telling him she has all the paperwork spread about. I take a moment, or more so, a moment takes me. I can’t get my feet to move as my eyes rove over the home I grew up in.
The pellet stove looks just as I remember, centering the room, commanding its focus with fogged glass and a large brass handle. As I peer around at the floral couch, the basket of old newspapers and the matted maroon shag rug, the entire place seems untouched by time, as if life between these walls stood still.
My senior year portrait still hangs on the wall in a wooden frame Carsyn made in the garage. A vase of fake sunflowers still sits on the floor near the stove, and when I look close at the coffee table, I see it’s the same one I glued beads to when I was four while Mom was in the bath.
Nothing has changed.
Yet still, everything is different.
“I can’t believe he’s gone,” I admit, my voice hoarse as I join Carsyn and Nash at the kitchen table.
She slides me a clay mug, filled to the brim with piping hot coffee.
Nash sips his as he lifts papers from the table, squinting to take in their information.
“It was his heart,” my sister says, topping off her mug then mine. Reaching back, she holds the edge of the table with one hand and slides the carafe onto the counter with the other. “Not sure if you knew this, but Levi Beckett liked the bottle.” She sips her coffee and levels me a serious glare. “More than cards.”
Nash lets out a low whistle. “Damn.” He waves the paper in his hand. “He was trying to get better.”
Confusion knits my brows. “What do you mean?” I cast a glance at Carsyn, who studies the surface of her coffee as her eyes fill.
I reach beneath the table and grip her knee. I probably should have been here all these years, but at the time, it didn’t feel possible. In fact, the day she broke my heart, that was the day breathing got a lot harder. Colors and life seemed to dwindle all around me, leaving me in a world of motionless gray.
I had to go.
I swallow around the lump of guilt in my throat. I knew I had to go. I also knew I couldn’t take Carsyn when I left. She was just thirteen. She had to stay. Yet, I’ll always feel guilty I wasn’t here for her. Always.
“What do you mean, Cars?” I ask again, squeezing her knee one more time.
Finally, she lifts her misty eyes to me.
“He went cold turkey. He came into my room sobbing one night, talking about how he was gonna make it all right, how he was gonna save us, save Beckett Farms…” she blinks up at me. “Save everyone. Save them all .”
“Save… who?”
She shakes her head, tucking a piece of shiny hair behind her ear. The ear that used to hold a tiny diamond stud is now pierced a few more times, silver little hoops filling all the holes. She’s so different from my memory of her, and somehow still the same too.
“I don’t know,” she sighs. “But… he’d been drinking heavily for the last five or six years. His liver needed a break, so he decided to take one. Turns out, you can’t go cold turkey if you’re an alcoholic. His heart couldn’t take it.”
“Fuck,” Nash draws out, stroking a hand through his messy dark hair.
Behind him rests his sweat-stained hat, and it’s both strange and comforting seeing his stuff in my childhood home. I’m glad he made this journey with me, but in truth, I can’t believe I’m really back.
I used to sit at this table with her .
We’d twist apart our Oreos and dunk them into fresh milk, talking about all the things we were gonna do when we had our own kitchen.
Bake cookies at midnight.
Cook a Christmas ham together.
Make love on the kitchen table.
“He died trying to get better.” Nash hums, shaking his head. “That’s just cruel.”
Carsyn lets a sadistic laugh free, then catches it with her hand as she realizes how it comes off. “I’m sorry,” she says to Nash, her eyes coming slowly to meet mine. “It’s just… Levi Beckett is no memorable hero.”
She digs through the papers scattered across the table, and produces a pink slip of some kind. With her pointed finger, she taps the paper.
“Pink doesn't usually mean good,” Nash comments, wincing.
He itches at the side of his jaw, and the house is so quiet, the noise of nails grating stubble makes me twitch.
“It’s not,” Carsyn agrees.
Then we fall silent as Nash and I read on.
When my eyes get to the sentence in question, I nearly choke. “What the fuck?”
Nash clears his throat, not used to hearing me curse. Or hearing me curse in front of ladies, no less.
“Sorry,” I tell him before I point out exactly what has me livid.
His eyes narrow, his lips move as he reads it to himself privately. “Who are the Conways and why did your pa sign the ranch to them?”
“Gambling,” Carsyn says, and she proceeds to tell Nash just how deep my dad was in with loan sharks.
And the most prominent loan shark in Buffalo Trails?
Forrest Conway.
“He owns the neighboring ranch,” Carsyn says when Nash questions who Forrest is. “And he’s a loan shark. And my dad must’ve been in deep and signed over the property as leverage. But died before he could pay his debt.”
I think about what Carsyn said earlier. About Pa claiming he was gonna save them. “So what was he talking about when he said he was going to save them?” I ask her, because something about all of that just doesn't sit right with me.
“Probably just drunk talk, Colt,” Nash offers softly.
“Nah,” I spit, shaking my head as I stare at the words HEREBY BELONGS TO FORREST A. CONWAY AND CONWAY FARMS. “Something ain’t right. Dad wasn’t father of the year and he wasn’t a man to mount a horse and ride toward danger, but he wasn’t a heel.”
I stare at that name. CONWAY.
I wonder where she is. She probably left town not long after me. So much kindness and beauty–she had to be meant for greater things. I don’t know why she did what she did–I’ve turned it over in my mind no less than a trillion times. Being back here, seeing the name… my chest constricts as my heart throbs painfully, the fracture running through it renewed and aching.
“Right,” Carsyn sighs. “I don’t think I want to know, if I’m being frank. But…” She looks around, and I notice the dark circles beneath her eyes, the wrinkles at the corners. She’s stressed and exhausted, and a second wave of guilt washes over me. “I don’t want to lose Beckett Farms.”
It’s already in the Conway family name. We’ve already lost it. I don’t have the heart to point that out. Instead, I get my mind focused on how we can get it back.
“Can’t you go talk to this Forrest Conway fella and find out what’s going on?” Nash questions.
I shoot my sister a look, and she passes me a matching one right back. I can and will pay Mr. Conway a visit. But something tells me, if Levi Beckett was fixing to be a hero, something really bad must be going on with the Conways. And I wonder if Levi’s heart was what took him, after all.
Sickness tears through me, leaving my lips tingly and warm, my heart racing, palms sweating. If Forrest Conway only got worse over the years, what happened to her ? I hope she’s long gone, married to a rich lawyer with lots of kids and animals filling her home. I hope whatever happened to her, Forrest Conway did one good thing with his life and let her leave.
“Yeah. I’ll head that way shortly.” I feel sick. “First, we need a plan.”
Nash snorts. “Why do you need a plan to talk to the guy?”
“He’s a violent man,” I start, but that doesn’t do justice to who Forrest Conway is. “And he hates me.”
Nash snorts again. “You?” His laugh is robust and belly-deep. “I’ve never even seen you swat a fly.”
I glance at Carsyn, who smiles sadly at me.
I take a breath and tell Nash the truth. “Because I loved his daughter and planned to make her mine.”