After their first night together, things between Tim Gutterson and Jo Taylor fell into a simple pattern. When one of them had steam to blow off or stress to relieve, they'd call, and the other would answer. It was a no strings attached situation, which worked for both parties. No expectations meant no feelings, and, most importantly, no disappointment.
It was an idyllic scenario for both the Marshal and the lawyer, one that proceeded successfully for the ensuing months. That is until a wrench in the form of Raylan Givens was thrown into the mix.
The morning after Raylan Givens shot Boyd Crowder in Ava Crowder's dining room, was a seemingly quiet one. Everyone was at their respective desks, working on paperwork documenting the previous night's events.
Seemingly quiet, until the double doors of the Marshal's office were violently thrown open.
A woman barged in and immediately caused a scene. "Raylan Givens!" She hollered while stomping up to the Marshal's desk.
"You never call! You never write! How can a man just abandon his family like this?" And then, she had begun to cry, right there in the middle of the Marshal's office. Her dark hair was falling like a curtain over her face as she audibly wept into her hands.
Raylan jumped out of his chair as if it were on fire. "Jo?" He asked incredulously, "what're you doing here?"
The woman's false tears turned into rumbles of laughter then, and the two embraced each other.
"I work in this building half the time, dummy." She answered into Raylan's shoulder as the two held their firm hug.
Once the duo had drawn away from each other, he clarified, "I mean, what're you doing back in Kentucky?"
Jo bobbed her head around for a moment before settling on, "I moved back after university. It was just easier."
While the two seemingly reconnected, they had momentarily forgotten about the crowd that had formed during Jo's earlier outburst. The onlookers' confusion and curiosity could be delayed no longer, despite the reunion happening before them.
"What the hell is going on out here?" Art Mullen questioned having left his office to investigate the disturbance.
Jo turned toward the older man and a look of chagrin overtaking her features. "Oh yeah, sorry about that, Chief. Was just trying to give Raylan here a bit of a hard time."
That statement only raised more questions than it provided answers.
"You two know each other?" Raylan and Art asked in unison before sharing a bemused look.
"I think it's about time someone gets to explaining," Art stated, more like ordered.
The responsibility of recounting seemed to fall on Jo, who appeared to be the common denominator between all parties.
"Raylan is my brother," she confessed with a shrug, as though it were justification enough.
Shocked looks were exchanged all around. Tim had to chime in now, not believing what he was hearing. "You never said you had a sister," he noted, accusatorially.
"Adopted sister, actually," Raylan explained to his coworker. "Technically, I'm your cousin too. Harlan is such a fucked up place," Jo added.
No one was allowing her to leave the explanation at that, so Jo broke into an abridged history for the sake of the confounded Marshals.
After both of Jo's parents died when she was thirteen, Raylan's Aunt Helen had adopted the wayward girl, making her Raylan's cousin. When Helen had married Raylan's father, Arlo, a few years later, the two became siblings. The seventeen year age difference between them meant they weren't particularly close, Raylan had long since left the house before Jo had entered it, but he looked out for the younger girl when he could. As for her relationship with the other Marshals, she attributed those to shared court hearings over the last several months she'd been working in Lexington. Her biblical relations with a particular male Marshal weren't mentioned.
Speaking of Tim, he'd been silently shitting himself behind his desk during this whole reveal. Not only had he learned that he'd been fucking his partner's sister in secret for the last several months, but said Marshal also had a penchant for shooting people who had wronged him.
Tim was totally screwed, and he knew it.
Once her testimony had reached its conclusion, Jo took leave from her brother and company. Commenting that she would be seeing them again soon, and headed for the door. While everyone else returned to their daily tasks, Tim made up an excuse about needing to go down to evidence lockup and followed suit.
Once the two were alone in the confines of the elevator, Tim hit the stop button, ceasing the chambers movement.
"You never told me your brother was a Marshall," he accused with crossed arms. Jo found his unease exceptionally adorable.
"You never asked. Plus, it's not like we talk much when we're together." She was definitely teasing him now, her hands tracing patterns over his taut chest.
Tim took her hands in his own, ceasing her traitorous movements. "Raylan is going to kill me."
"Only if he finds out. You can keep a secret, can't you, Deputy Gutterson?" Tim never got the chance to confirm nor deny her assumption because her hand on his neck was working to bring their faces together in a searing kiss.
Yep, Tim was totally screwed.