Stepbrother Breaks Bad: The Complete Series Read online

  “Howdy,” Colt said, with a slight tip of his hat.

  The kid didn’t answer. Just stared hard at him. Half ego. Half terror. Like some wannabe criminal who hadn’t had his first taste of blood.

  Back in the day, Colt would’ve been able to tell in a glance if the kid was from around these parts, but now he couldn’t be sure. And he felt the strange need to identify himself. “Special Agent, Colton Marbray. Don’t suppose you know where the proprietor of this here watering hole has got himself to?”

  He wasn’t looking for Buford. He was looking for Shelby. And the fact that neither of them was tending the bar—or the cash register—left him powerfully uneasy. It was an uneasiness that bloomed into dark suspicion when the kid stood up, arms at his sides, to show off the bulge of a gun in his belt.

  Then he stared at Colton’s gun as if to dare him to pull it. “Maybe you should turn around and walk right back out that door, Special Agent.”

  Colt went cold inside, as he always did at the sign of danger. And it was danger. He didn’t know what the hell was going on, but given the boy’s posture, he wasn’t likely to find out until after all the shooting was over.

  “Listen, kid,” Colton said, grinding his teeth. “What’s your name?”

  “Mikey. Why? You wanna ask me out on a date?”

  Colton ignored the taunt. “Okay, Mikey. However you think this is gonna go down, I want you to rethink it. In fact, you might want to rethink all your life choices.”

  “That right?” the kid sneered.

  “Maybe you’re playing the tough guy because it makes you feel like a man. Or maybe you’re doing it for money. Ain’t neither thing worth losing your life over.”

  “What is?” the kid asked.

  While Colton’s current mental state of existential crisis lent itself to want to answer that question, he kept his focus and his voice cool and steady. “All you gotta do is take that gun out of your belt nice and easy, slide it down the bar to me, and walk out. Go back to a girlfriend or a drink or whatever it is that solaces you into your old age. That’s how easy this could go.”

  “Maybe I don’t like easy,” the kid said, glaring daggers.

  “Then it could go another way—and this here is the end of the line for you. Because if you draw on me, I’ll shoot you dead.” It was the certainty in Colt’s voice when he said things like this that usually convinced a punk like this one to back off.

  But the kid only sneered, “There’s one of you and two of us.”

  A dagger of panic stabbed into Colton’s spine. As far as he could tell, they were all alone in the bar, which meant…

  “Shelby!” Colton called, hand on the grip of his pistol.

  It all happened ungodly fast. He felt more than he saw the kid draw his weapon. Colton’s own sidearm flew into his hand like it was part of his own body. He couldn’t even remember pulling the trigger, but felt the blasts up his arm moments before the kid crumpled to the ground. It’d been three shots. Two in the chest, one in the head. The kid would never have a chance to shoot back.

  Hell, he never even had the chance to scream.

  But Shelby screamed. Colton heard her from the back room and his blood turned to water. It was a moment of perfect clarity. Shelby. He had to keep her safe. Nothing else mattered. “Shelby!” Colt cried again, leaping over the bar to get to her, then stopping dead at what he saw in the sight of his pistol.

  Shelby with a gun pressed to her pretty forehead.

  “Hold it right there!” the guy holding her hostage cried. Then, he tried to look past to see the kid bleeding out on the floor. “Shit.”

  “That’s all you’ve got to say?” Colton seethed, firing arm still extended. “I sure hope he wasn’t kin to you. Either way, unless you put the gun down and call an ambulance so he starts breathing, that right there is a felony murder that goes on your rap.”

  The stranger squinted, an ugly twist to his mouth as if he knew Mikey was already dead. “You some kinda cop?”

  “Special Agent Colton Marbray,” Colt said, fighting the itch in his finger to pull the trigger. Goddamn it, this wasn’t part of his training. Oh, hostage situations surely were. But standing ten feet away from a man holding a gun to the woman he lo—

  No. Colt couldn’t let his feelings go where they wanted to go. He had to think, not feel. Or this would all go sideways. “And you are?”

  “The man who is going to blow out her brains if you don’t back up.”

  “You leave Shelby with us and you can go,” Buford said, sweating like a pig at his desk. And Colt would’ve bet his life that there was more to it than just worry for his daughter.

  “Now look,” Colton said, watching the way Shelby’s lower lip quivered. Feeling bloody murder flowing through his veins at the sight of the stranger’s hands on her. “I don’t know what I’ve walked into, but we’ve already got one man down. So why don’t you enlighten me so we can work this out.”

  “He killed those men on the highway, Colt!” Shelby shouted, then screamed as the stranger pulled back her hair and jabbed the gun against her cheek.

  “Shut it, bitch,” the stranger said.

  But Shelby’s shaking fear seemed to turn to pure defiance. Though her voice quavered, her blue eyes wide with terror, she said, “He says something was stolen from the back of the truck and that’s what he’s come for now—”

  “Shelby!” roared her father.

  All this shouting was bringing the situation nearer to explosion. Colt knew how these things went. If he didn’t calm things down, someone else was going to die. “So what’s your brilliant plan, fella?” he asked the gunman. “I suspect you had one coming into this. But now that it’s all shot to hell, you think what? That you’re gonna make it out that door with the girl?”

  “I do.”

  “Then what?” Colton asked.

  “Then I give her back when Pops tells me what I need to know.”

  Colt felt his jaw tick because he just knew, all along, this was Buford’s fault somehow. “Just what is it that you want to know, exactly?”

  “That isn’t your business, Marbray,” the stranger said, taking a step back and dragging Shelby with him.

  “Anything that happens to Shelby is my business,” Colt said steadying his aim, surprising himself with the fact that it felt true, down deep. “So how about we both acknowledge that your plan sucks. It’s not gonna happen. I’m not letting you take her.”

  “How are you gonna stop me?”

  “I’m gonna shoot you in the head,” Colt said.

  The stranger laughed. “Then she dies too.”

  Colt’s heartbeat slowed way down. His breath evened out. And everything came into perfect focus. “I don’t think so.”

  Buford knew what Colt had in mind, and shouted, “Don’t you risk it!”

  For just a moment, Colt was a boy again being screamed at by an overbearing stepfather who wielded a belt in anger. Then just as suddenly that memory faded away, and he remembered that he didn’t have to do what Buford Baker told him to. “Take another step,” Colt warned the stranger. “And I will put you down like a dog.”

  The stranger snorted. “Now that’s mighty reckless talk for—”

  BAM.

  The bullet hit the man straight between the eyes, blowing him back from Shelby who fell to the floor and scrambled away. There was no doubt but that the man was dead, but Colton scrambled forward to kick the gun out of his hand anyway.

  Meanwhile Buford was on his feet like a rampaging bull. “You arrogant son of a bitch! You coulda got my daughter killed.”

  Colton turned on his stepfather, his gun still temptingly out of its holster, as if it had a mind of its own. “You ever known me to miss, Buford? You took me hunting once or twice. Do you remember even one goddamned time I let my quarry get away?”

  “This ain’t a hunting trip,” Buford said, stooping down to hug his sobbing daughter. And seeing Shelby cling to her daddy was like a bullet to Colt’s heart. She was s
cared, and it was Buford who thought to comfort her while Colton was still raging.

  It was a rage he couldn’t stop because he found himself saying, “Well, I guess you must be feeling pretty pleased with yourself right now, Buford. Because I just shot dead the two witnesses I needed to prove you’re right in the middle of all this shit. How about you tell me what you did that’d make two strangers want to come into your bar, guns blazing, and kidnap your daughter.”

  Buford’s eyes went cold. “I don’t know what you’re talking about Agent Marbray. Two madmen broke into my bar and we’re grateful for your assistance in dispatching them straight to hell. That’s all I’ve got to say.”

  Colton’s emotions were churning while his boss read from a sheet of paper. “Protocol specifies that I should inquire as to the physical, mental, and emotional well-being of the officer involved in the shooting. You need medical attention?”

  “Not a scrape on me,” Colt replied.

  Th chief gave him the once-over. “Then what’s the blood?”

  “Checked the wounds of the kid, after, hoping that he might still be breathing.”

  The chief nodded. “What about the other one?”

  “Didn’t bother to check him. Hoped that one was good and dead…”

  The chief didn’t ask for clarification, for which Colt was eternally grateful. “Well, I won’t even ask if you’re in your right mind, because we both know the answer to that. So how about your emotional well-being. You need to talk to someone?”

  Just Buford Baker, Colt thought. But he knew better than to say it. His boss had just told him to steer clear of this and a few hours later, he was filling out paperwork on two corpses with only his say-so for evidence as to how they died. “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not,” the chief said. “You’re not one bit fine. I told you not to go near Buford Baker. And don’t give me that crap about how you just happened by that bar for a drink.”

  Colt went to that bar because he was chasing his white whale. But he said, “It is the only bar in Shiloh…”

  Tap, tap, tap went the chief’s nails on her desk. “Your sarcasm at a time like this isn’t doing anything to convince me that you’re of sound mental health. But I don’t suppose it’s worth wasting a counselor’s time in setting up the appointment. So I’ll just start the three-step review process of your shoot pending the autopsy and your report. Meanwhile, this paper says I’m to put you on ten day administrative leave and—”

  “Five days,” Colt interrupted. “The regulations say five days.”

  “Wrong. The regulations say five days with an option for five more at the discretion of the chief. That’s me. I think you need ten.”

  “Jesus H. Christ! By that time the case will have gone cold. Buford will be spooked now. He’s finally tangled with someone bigger than he can handle, and he’s going to do something dumb. I need to be on his tail to catch him.”

  The chief eyed him levelly. “Just how arrogant are you, Agent Marbray? I’m gonna let you in on a little secret. You ain’t The Lone Ranger, son. This department and every other law enforcement agency in the country did just fine before you earned a badge. You’re not the only agent who can crack this case and you’re lucky you didn’t kill that girl today.”

  “It wasn’t luck,” Colt said, bringing all the cockiness he had to bear.

  But that was the second time in one day that someone had called him arrogant, and he was starting to wonder if there wasn’t something to it. He’d been furious when Buford accused him of risking Shelby’s life by taking that shot. But the truth was, it was a near thing. He’d done it because he felt that he had to.

  What if he’d been wrong?

  He’d have lost Shelby.

  Even if she wasn’t his to lose.

  As his temper started to cool, he realized that his boss was just doing the job she was supposed to do. Following the law. Something Colt claimed to put great stock in, so maybe he should prove it. Administrative leave. He was just going to have to suck it up.

  It was a price worth paying for Shelby’s life. A price more than worth paying. Even when his boss gave him the side-eye as if she could read his thoughts. “Miss Baker is being released from the hospital in an hour or so. I’m telling you to stay away from her. That’s a direct order.”

  “I just want to check on her and see that she’s okay.”

  “Here’s a hint,” the chief said. “Send flowers. In the end, it’ll cost you less, and probably last longer.”

  “Ouch,” Colt said, doing a double-take at the chief’s double-entendre. She usually was the no-nonsense sort. No sexual innuendo. If she was breaking her own rules, she was truly pissed.

  “Don’t make me tell you again,” the chief said.

  And Colton’s gut clenched. Fine. Maybe she was right. Colt was probably the last person in the world Shelby would want to see right now. She’d looked none the worse for wear after the shooting—other than all the tears. But she was good and shook up. Not that he could blame her. “I’ll send her some flowers.”

  “Good call. In the meantime, we’re gonna need your weapon for evidence.”

  “Don’t love that,” Colton said, laying the gun on the desk.

  “I trust you’ve got another firearm stashed away somewhere,” said the chief, as if she knew how naked he was going to feel without it.

  “I’ll manage,” he said. Then it was done. And he walked out of that office with a hell of a lot less swagger than he walked into it.

  If he thought he’d been in a dark place before, well…he’d had a failure of imagination on just how dark a place he could go, alone with his thoughts for ten days with nothing to do but work on the house.

  Not that he’d only be working on the house, of course. The minute he could think of how to put a tail on Buford, he’d do it. But in the meantime, he guessed there were some fences that needed mending…

  Chapter Four

  SHELBY

  I got flowers. Two bunches of them. One bouquet of red roses from Huey Tidwell and Miss Annabelle, with a sweet note hoping I wouldn’t suffer too many nightmares after what had befallen me. And a poem, to boot.

  The other, a big basket of daisies from Colt.

  I knew, because the card just said, Colt.

  What was I supposed to make of that? What was I supposed to make of any of it? With a gun pressed to my head, my life had flashed before my eyes. Hell, I thought I’d imagined Colton there just because I wanted him to be.

  But he’d been real. Flesh and bone and blood. Lots of blood.

  Blood that I had to scrub up, on my hands and knees with the scent of ammonia burning my nostrils. Rinsing the bloody rag in the ammonia water for the hundredth time, I kept thinking about what might’ve happened if Colton hadn’t rescued me. Would someone else be on their hands and knees scrubbing up my blood?

  I was twenty-two years old. I’d hardly lived at all. Worse, the best moment I could remember in all of it was on a pool table, writhing under a man who didn’t love me…but had saved my life. My eyes lifted to the basket of flowers on the bar. Daisies. I felt the urge to pluck their petals. He loves me…he loves me not…

  “What the hell are you doing?” my father asked from the doorway.

  “Cleaning this up,” I said, my voice far away. “Someone’s got to.”

  From where I knelt on the floor, I dragged my eyes up to my father and stared. He wasn’t a killer; I was grateful for that. But I wasn’t so sure those men were wrong to think he’d taken something that didn’t belong to him. I think he might’ve seen it in my bleak expression. “I’m so sorry, baby girl. I’m going to make this right.”

  “How?”

  “That’s not your concern,” he said, before kissing me on top of the head and driving off into the hills—no doubt to dispatch whatever it was that he’d taken from the stolen truck. Probably explosives. I didn’t know. I didn’t care. All I knew is that he needed to give it back before more crazed gunmen took it into their h
eads to come after him.

  Or me.

  I left the bucket of bloody water in the middle of the bar.

  Went on up to shower.

  Got dressed in a clean pair of jeans and a cotton button down shirt. Still felt dirty, somehow. Wasn’t sure how many times I was going to have to scrub myself till all the terror washed off me. Oh, the irony was that I’d felt clean and safe that day I’d had sex with Colt. I’d felt loved…for just a moment. It’d been a lie, but a beautiful lie. Even if Colt didn’t love me, I loved him, goddamn it. And I didn’t want to spend even one more moment of my life away from him if I didn’t have to.

  I guess that’s why I started walking.

  I walked down the stairs, out of the bar, and into the Quick-Shop where I meandered a bit before heading up the dirt road into the hills. It was a long walk and though my legs were tired, it was a good tired.

  Sore, and stretched, and alive.

  I knew just where I was going, and it was a good thing too, because a stranger could get lost in the back country where Colton’s old house was situated. I almost didn’t recognize it for the way it’d been run down since his Momma passed. Fortunately, I’d know Colt’s body anywhere and it was on nearly full display.

  There he was, shirtless, working in the sun, sweat dripping down every one of those rippling muscles I’d known intimately only once and kept dreaming about ever since. Colt was so focused on mending the fence at the end of his drive, working his gloved hands to unwind wire, that he didn’t seem to notice me until I was close enough to touch him.

  Then he startled me by saying my name. “Shelby.”

  “Never saw you look up,” I said, working the toe of my running shoe into the dirt.

  “Saw you coming half a mile away. Was just hoping if I kept my head down that you’d turn back around.”

  It hurt like a smack to the face, just like it always did whenever he made clear just how much he didn’t want me around, but this time, I didn’t believe him. I felt sure that he still wanted me and I was bound and determined to make him admit it. “Why would you want me to turn around? You got a problem with my paying call to the Tidwells up the road?”