29. Ryan
TWENTY-NINE
RYAN
C arsyn told me I could take my time, but I wanted to do this as soon as I possibly could. I was forced to be Garrison for so long, now I need them to know me. The real me. Because like Forrest, Garrison is fucking dead.
Being inside the Beckett house is still a little surreal. Watching Carsyn for months, I got glimpses of the inside of her home through open blinds or when she’d leave the front door open for fresh air. But actually walking through it, being inside it, sleeping in her bed with her— I feel more at home than I ever have. And I feel like Ryan, more like Ryan than I’ve been in years.
“It’s not been fixed up since it was built,” she’d said the morning she walked me inside her home. I had nowhere to go after Forrest was killed and the operation ended, and I’d given up my condo as Ryan when I went undercover. When I told Carsyn I’d look for a hotel until I could get into a rental, she was offended. We had our first fight on the hospital steps. She said she expected us to live together, and as much as I wanted that, I guess I just didn’t think we’d go that fast. Then again, our relationship thus far had been so unusual, I don’t know why I assumed it all of the sudden needed to follow some traditional course.
I took her face in my hands and kissed her. I told her I would be honored to live together, but that I hadn’t expected it. When we got back to her house, I think I fell a little more in love with her. I like that she left the house in its original state, and as a wandering man with dead parents and no siblings, her home felt like the home I’d never had but always wanted.
I’ve been home for a week now, weaned off the pain meds, onto the Tylenol, and have my arm in a sling. This morning, Colton and Kinleigh are visiting. Carsyn tried to tell me that Colton understood why I had to hurt him when he was locked in that cellar, but my reparations go beyond that. If Carsyn is going to be Mrs. Cole one day, her family has to trust and understand me. I need that. I want that. Because I want them to be my family, too.
On the couch, sipping her coffee, Carsyn watches me stoke the fire, a soft smile on her lips. She’s always watching me, and I can’t get enough. There’s a knock at the door as I’m getting to my feet, and Carsyn’s brows pull together.
“Colton is many things but early is not one of them,” she says, glancing at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall.
“I’ll get it,” I tell her, traipsing through the living space to the door. When I open it, I’m greeted by the stoic face of Agent Valdez, along with another suited agent whom I’ve never met.
I don’t greet him, but I do pull the door open, allowing them to come inside. Carsyn gets to her feet, scrambling to be at my side.
“Ms. Beckett,” Valdez greets Carsyn, who folds her arms over her chest in a way that forces me to hide my grin. In the week I’ve been home, all we have done is talk.
One full day of talking was spent on my career with the FBI. Needless to say, Carsyn isn’t impressed. But I knew this day was coming. I haven’t officially been released, and judging by the stranger in the suit, that’s what they’re here to do.
“C’mon and have a seat here in the kitchen,” I tell the men, ushering Carsyn in ahead of us, pulling her chair out for her.
“This is a discrete conversation,” Valdez begins, the subtext of his words screaming for Carsyn to leave.
“This is my home,” she retorts sharply, making my cock grow hard. I love the mouth on her. The fight. The honesty. The ambivalence in the face of self-important men.
“Go on,” I tell Valdez as the other man retrieves a folder from the inside of his suit jacket. “You can have her sign a non-disclosure agreement if you need, but she’s not going anywhere.”
With an irritated huff, he splays it out on the table in front of us, flipping it open. I don’t break eye contact with Valdez to read it, because I know what it is. I know why he’s here.
The FBI knows I killed Forrest and they believe I started that fire to hide it. Part of that is right. But all of that goes against their strict policy of being their little yes man bitch. Long story short, I’m getting sacked and I couldn’t be goddamn happier.
“Cole, you are being released from your position with a healthy severance,” Valdez’s sidekick says plainly, retrieving a gold pen from his breast pocket. “Please sign and date, and I will notarize.” He turns to Valdez. “You will be our witness and therefore your signature is also required.”
Valdez nods, but he only looks at me. “We have reclaimed the property and vehicle which were assigned to you as an informant, as well as the weapons and ammunition. Is there anything else in this residence or on your person that belongs to the Bureau?”
I tip my head to the side, my face impassive. He’s following protocol, and after ten years of knowing this man and this business, this cold and detached meeting is just what I expected.
“You think you’re a good guy,” I respond, ignoring his question. “You think that just because you aren’t an informant and because you drive a town car and wear a suit that you’re somehow a good guy? Everyone there is cut from the same, rule bending cloth. Whether your hand was on the gun, blood is on your hands. Everyone up there has blood on their hands, unnecessarily. So, you can tell the FBI that they can keep their fucking severance. When I decided I was done, I meant it. I didn’t just mean I was done being an agent but I’m done living off their blood money, too.” I pick up the pen and sign my name to the document, ripping up the last paper that requires my signature for severance.
Carsyn nudges me. “Don’t you want your money?”
Our eyes lock. She knows what I’ve done. “I don’t want or need it.”
She doesn’t argue with that, but rests her hand on the inside of my knee, rubbing it, infusing me with a silent comfort I’ve never had before. A partner. I’ve never had a partner until her.
Valdez rises as the other man stuffs the papers away. He extends his hand but I don’t shake it.
Carsyn walks them out at the same time Colton and Kinleigh walk up, a tray of cinnamon bread in Kinleigh’s arms, a bottle of whiskey in Colton’s hand. They step aside, allowing the agents to move past them, down the steps and into the car they came in. We stand on the porch in silence, watching the car until it’s too far up the road and too small to see before I face Colton, and extend my hand to him.
He is a man whose hand is worth shaking, because he is respectable.
He slides his hand into mine, sturdy and solid, and we shake.
“Who was that?” Kinleigh finally asks as she slips past me with Carsyn, the two of them heading into the kitchen. Cars fills three mugs with coffee, topping hers off, and her brother follows behind her, adding a nip of whiskey to each. We gather around the fire, with Kin and Colton on the loveseat together, and Carsyn and I sitting on the edge of the hearth.
“That was the FBI bringing by my walking papers.” I scratch at my beard, suddenly aware that I don’t have to keep it anymore. The beard was Garrison. It was cover. Part of a false identity. “I worked as an operative and informant for the Bureau for the last eight years. Prior to that, I was a police officer in a small town in California. And before that, a Navy SEAL.”
I dig out my wallet, one that had been securely stored in a lock box inside of the local bank for the last few years. There couldn’t be any evidence of Ryan Cole in Buffalo Trails so long as Garrison Conway existed. On the way home from the hospital, Carsyn took me to the bank where I retrieved my box and everything in it.
I hold out my driver’s license, and Colton and Kinleigh squint to read it.
“Ryan Cole,” Kinleigh says, her eyes lifting to meet mine. The photo on the ID is old, but it’s clear that it’s me, sans the beard I’ve grown accustomed to.
“We want to know everything about you, if you’re up for it,” Colton says, lifting his hat from his head, placing it on his knee. “That’s why I brought the whiskey.” He sips his coffee as Kinleigh gets up, turning in the entryway of the kitchen. “And that's why I brought monkey bread. Who wants some?”
While Kinleigh and Colton fix us plates, Carsyn turns to face me. In a private tone she asks, “why didn’t you take that money? I mean, I know it’s blood money, but it’s yours. I know what you went through to earn it.”
I take her mug and put it on the ground, dragging her into my lap. “I got enough money. More than I know what to do with. I didn’t need it. But even if I were broke, I wouldn’t have taken that money Carsyn. The day I found out the Bureau allowed several storage containers to get transferred because they weren’t ready to move in on Forrest, that was the day I told myself I was done. But I had to get through the mission for you.”
Her eyes search mine as she loops a hand around my neck, her fingers playing at my collar. “Why didn’t you walk away then? I mean, you didn’t even know me.”
“I’d been watching you step up after Levi passed. I was in awe of your strength and determination. The more I watched, the more I couldn’t leave. The more I knew my final mission wasn’t even about taking Forrest down, but protecting you. It just so happened that in doing so, it also eliminated a very bad man.”
She shakes her head, a strand of chestnut silk clinging to her lips. I tug it away and kiss her as Kin and Colton return.
“I’m sorry,” I tell Colton and Kinleigh, moving my gaze between the happy couple. “I’m sorry for everything you went through, and for the part I played in it. I want you to know that what went on in the Conway operation led me to finishing my assignment and leaving the Bureau.”
Colton’s eyes grow intense and he slips forward on the love seat, drawing nearer to me. “You gave me a gift, and you took care of my sister. I’d like to call a draw, and declare us even.”
“Clean slate,” Kinleigh offers.
“Clean slate,” Carsyn agrees.
We spend the next few hours talking, or rather, I talk and they listen. They pepper me with questions about my childhood, my time as a police officer while feathering in lighter topics, like what kind of beer I like and what my favorite horse is.
The four of us have undergone something no one could understand. That alone binds us in a way no one else is bound.
And as Colton laughs about a childhood memory with Carsyn, Kinleigh’s eyes shining as she stares up at him, my chest swells. Every terrible thing that’s happened has led us here, to the light, to the safety of found family’s arms and hearts.
A terrible path but a goddamn great destination.