Secret Sins

by Lora Leigh

  “Uh-huh.” She nodded. “Miss Lonhorne called. She told me to tell you that you’re going to be hearing from her lawyer. It seems she found another of her expensive purses, a Choo, I believe, clawed up, and used as a litter box. She’s none too happy. Perhaps you should contact that lawyer of yours now.”

  Snickering, she turned and left the office as Archer sat back in his chair in disgust.

  Dammit, he’d told Marisa not to bring that crap to the house. His cat, a chocolate-brown Maine Coon cat with the temperament of a rabid lion, hated her. Archer had warned her Oscar would shred anything she owned that the cat found lying around, but she’d refused to listen.

  She’d demanded he get rid of the cat instead, so she could move in.

  When Archer had refused, she’d arrived with her luggage anyway, and decided she was going to fight Oscar for her place in his life. She’d then thrown the cat’s pillow out of the bedroom, locked the door on him at night, and thought she would get away with it.

  Chuckling, he made a note to call his lawyer and let her deal with Marisa, if she ever actually decided to sue. Until then, he needed to talk to the coroner and wanted to head back up the mountains to where Katy Winslow’s body had been found.

  There had to be something, somewhere, that would give him a lead on the Slasher and the partner he had to be working with. The FBI hadn’t changed their profile, but they agreed the man killing the young women had changed after the death of the assailant who had attacked Rafer Callahan’s fiancée, Cami Flannigan.

  The FBI had yet to take over the case, though, because the minute they had tried to do so in the past, the killings had simply stopped. Of course, it had also coincided with the Callahans’ departure from the County.

  It had been Archer who had gone to the agency when the first victim in twelve years had turned up the summer before. The FBI was here, not that he knew who it was or where that person was, but he’d bargained for just that. An undercover agent rather than having the case taken over by the agency might give them a greater chance of finding the bastard.

  Opening the door and peeping in, Madge stared at him with a frown. “You have a call on line two from Lisa Corbin. She says it’s urgent.”

  A frown furrowed his brows as well as he picked up the phone and pressed the button to line two as Madge stepped back and closed the door.

  “Lisa, is everything okay?” He didn’t know her well, despite the years he’d spent vacationing with her family. What he did know was that she was Anna’s mother, and despite the distance he’d always seen between them, he’d always sensed the love she felt for her daughter.

  “No, it isn’t. You said if I or Anna ever needed anything, you’d be there for us,” she reminded him.

  Archer tensed, dread suddenly striking his chest as he felt the flesh down his spine begin to crawl in warning.

  “What do you need?”

  As he listened, disbelief, fury, and some dark, unknown emotion began exploding within him.

  “I’m going for her now, Lisa,” he promised as he rose from his chair and jerked his hat from the side of his desk. “Don’t worry, I’ll watch out for her.”

  *

  Lisa hung the phone up slowly before wrapping her arms across her stomach and releasing the sobs she’d been fighting to hold back.

  Again.

  “Not again,” she sobbed painfully as she felt her husband’s arms wrap around her, felt his tears against her cheek as they held each other. “Oh God, Robert, please, please don’t let me lose my baby again.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Anna was silent as Sweetrock came into view from the curve in the road that wound around the mountain. It wasn’t one of the more dangerous roads. The four-lane had heavy steel guardrails stretching along it, ensuring there were no winter accidents.

  The road itself wasn’t as elevated as most. Where they couldn’t cut through the mountain, excavation had centered on cutting out the mountain instead.

  The view wasn’t as incredible as many of the scenic routes were, but neither were they as dangerous as the one now named in honor of the Callahans who had died on it.

  Callahan’s Peak, the sharp curve that had taken Crowe Callahan’s grandparents, and then his parents, uncles, and their wives, was a treacherous stretch of road when even the lightest of snows fell.

  She wasn’t on that road, but the decisions she faced felt nearly as dangerous as that cliff had become. And she felt as though her situation was just as precarious.

  What was she going to do now?

  No doubt she wouldn’t be able to afford the exclusive, boutique-only underwear and gowns she preferred for a long time, she thought in rueful amusement.

  She would be lucky, if she could make the money she had stretch to afford dinner on a daily basis until she began getting paid.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to stay with me?” Archer asked again as the Tahoe passed over the small stone bridge that spanned Corbin Creek and marked the last mile to the city limits.

  He’d made the offer when he first picked her up.

  She’d turned him down then, too.

  “That’s okay, Archer.” Shaking her head, she stared straight ahead, loath for him to see the confusion and indecision she knew would show in her eyes.

  Or the tears.

  She was still battling those hated tears.

  “Why?”

  The question made her pause.

  Turning to him, Anna called up the only defense she had against the emotions and fears weakening her.

  Anger.

  “You didn’t want me there two weeks ago, so why would you want me there now?” she asked him, the hurt from that night still lying inside her, brought fully to the surface by the rejection of her family.

  “I didn’t say I didn’t want you there, Anna.” The golden brown of his gaze, the mix of colors reminiscent of an eagle’s, touched her as he glanced at her with predatory intent. “I said I wanted you to be certain, damned certain, of coming to my bed, before you made that decision.”

  Her lips pursed bitterly. “You pushed it pretty far before making the offer. You could have at least let me orgasm to be certain, one way or the other, before rejecting me.”

  She hadn’t stopped aching for him.

  If the hurt building inside her weren’t so brutal, so filled with anger, then she would still be aching for him.

  Hell, she was still aching for him. Aching to be held, to be touched—God, she was dying to live for a change rather than keep herself in some kind of abyss to prove her love for her family.

  Archer didn’t say a word. Flipping on the turn signal, he took the turn that led into town rather than turning into the hotel parking lot as they passed it.

  “I didn’t say I was certain I was ready to go to bed with you,” she reminded him pointedly.

  “I have a guest room.” The shrug of his muscular shoulders indicated he didn’t care either way, but the heat in his gaze told another story. “You can stay there until you’re sure.”

  “I heard you have a cat that loves to shred leather purses, too,” she retorted, sitting back in the seat and letting go of the seat belt latch she’d been prepared to unbuckle when the hotel came into sight.

  “Hmm, only when he gets thrown out of his bed.” A grimace pulled at his lips as he glanced at her, his gaze filled with mirth. “Come on, don’t tell me you already heard about the cat?”

  “And Marisa.” And how jealous she had been.

  She’d wanted to scratch the other woman’s eyes right out of her face, and might have, if she’d known who she was. All Anna had heard was her name, as her grandfather’s maids laughed over the rumors of the other woman’s attempt to move in with Archer.

  “Marisa’s not there, Anna. She left. And Oscar’s a big ole lap baby,” he told her as he glanced back at her with a grin. “He just wanted to keep his pillow at the foot of my bed. Marisa threw him out instead. She put his pillow in the guest room, and when he sat outside my bedroo
m crying she took him to the guest room and locked him in with her extra purses and her luggage.”

  “While she occupied your bed,” she filled in, her jaw clenching as spikes of jealousy raged through her again. “I’m sure Oscar appreciated your loyalty.”

  Archer chuckled.

  “Actually, I was called out that night.” Rubbing at the side of his face, his fingers rasping over the closely cropped beard growing there, he glanced at her with devilish amusement. “She didn’t spend the first night in my bed the whole month she was there. Oscar would start squalling every time the bedroom door closed.”

  She was in love with Oscar, that was simply all there was to it.

  The remainder of the drive to his house was made in silence, and an uncomfortable one at that. Anna could feel a tension rising between them now that hadn’t been there in all the years he had vacationed with her family in the exotic locales they had chosen.

  Bermuda when she was sixteen. That was the first year he had flown in with her grandfather.

  He had been twenty-six. He’d just been discharged from the Marines for medical reasons. She remembered the cast he’d worn from his ankle to above his knee, and the jeans, cut short on that one leg, revealing the bronzed, hair-spattered flesh that seemed to fascinate her.

  The next year, he’d sported a scar from his thigh to his ankle, thanks to the surgery and the metal pins that had fused the shattered femur in his thigh, and the tibia below his knee. The shattered bones, courtesy of an IED, had taken the military career he had been working on, but, as her father had explained to him the summer he turned twenty-seven, it didn’t have to destroy a very promising career in law enforcement.

  Seven years later, he was on his second term in the sheriff’s office, and it didn’t appear he would have much competition for a third term.

  Unmarried and unattached, he was considered the most sought-after bachelor in Corbin County and the counties surrounding it.

  How often had she listened to her father and grandfather chuckle in amusement over the number of women chasing after Archer? Marisa was merely one in a long line of women who thought they could break Corbin County’s favorite stud, her grandfather had drawled in amusement, unaware that Anna had been on the balcony above them, her heart breaking at each amused observation made.

  She’d loved him since she was a young girl. As a teenager, he’d been the man she measured every boy against and, as her interest in the opposite sex began maturing, it had been Archer she’d dreamed of kissing, touching, loving, and nothing over the years had changed that. And now, here she was, uncertain in the face of the needs she couldn’t seem to make sense of, the building pain of the desertion of her family, and the certainty that what was left of her heart would be lying in tatters, just as it had been left that morning.

  “You’re too quiet,” Archer observed as he pulled into the sheltered parking pad next to the house he’d inherited from his parents.

  “What do you want me to say?” Shaking her head at the bitterness she couldn’t seem to fight, she pushed open the vehicle’s door and jumped out.

  “For starters? ‘I’m sorry, Archer, yes, I’ll let you practice all those manners your momma beat into your brain before her death and sit nice and still while you open my door and help me from the vehicle,’” he quoted with an edge of mocking censure.

  Anna looked from the door to the seat as he rounded the front of the vehicle.

  Drawing in a deep breath, she knew there was no way in hell to fight not just what she felt for him, but also the physical need for him.

  It was mixed up with her need for this county, the need for her family, and the need to just belong.

  “I’m sorry, Archer.” She sighed as he glared down at her. “Unlike you, my momma didn’t teach me all the finer points of responsible manners.”

  “No, but I know damned good and well all those fancy girls’ schools you attended taught you that, and more,” he grunted as he gripped her arm and moved to lead her up the steps from the front curb to the porch.

  “I’m not a child.” Pulling her arm free of his hold she stared up at him archly. “I know how to walk on my own.”

  His touch did something to her that she had no idea how to combat. She wanted to throw herself in his arms, beg him to touch her, to take her, to drive her crazy with his kiss.

  “Hell, woman, you’re going to drive me to drink.” He sighed as she moved up the steps, strode quickly across the small front yard, then up several more steps to the front porch.

  “Do you really think I will?” Cocking her head to the side she watched as he stepped on the porch and unlocked the door.

  “Well, let’s hope not,” he stated. “But if you do, it’s my fault alone, and none of yours.”

  Stepping into the house, Anna looked around at the heavy dark wood of the furniture and matching dark curtains that kept the room to a bare glimmer of light that managed to spill into it.

  As Archer stepped into the house and closed the door, Anna watched in complete wonderment as a huge, dark brown shadow stalked slowly from the hall. Body crouching in predatory mode, belly low to the ground, golden brown eyes, nearly identical to those of his owner, peered around the side of the couch.

  Anna deliberately ignored him as she hoisted the strap of the backpack higher on her shoulder and followed Archer through the foyer to the sunlit kitchen at the far end of the large entryway.

  “Oscar, be a good kitty,” Archer chastised the cat behind her as they entered the bright, roomy kitchen. A wide archway led to the living room, another to the dining room beside it, and then what appeared to be a study from the other side of the room.

  “You can put your things down,” he told her as he moved to the coffeepot. “I’ll show you up to the guest room in a minute.”

  After the inevitable interrogation, she guessed.

  “I’m not in the mood for twenty questions, Archer,” she informed him. “This hasn’t been one of my better days, and I’d like to just lie around and feel sorry for myself for a while. I have a feeling you don’t consider your guest room pity-party central, though. Right?”

  His gaze was like a heated caress against her flesh. A caress she had no choice but to pretend to be unaware of.

  “What happened, Anna?”

  The question hung between them as she dropped the backpack and purse at her feet.

  She’d known he was going to ask. Archer should have been a prosecutor rather than a sheriff.

  “What makes you think anything happened?” Wrapping her arms across her breasts, she turned and paced to the wide sliding glass doors that looked out to the private balcony beyond.

  “Now, what would make me think anything happened?” he asked mockingly. “Could it have been the fact that you were walking down that damned mountain road like a little waif?”

  Like a little waif—

  “A waif is defined as a person, especially a child, who has no home or friends,” she murmured mockingly. “I actually had cause to have to define the word last year.”

  She could hear the tears in her own voice, feel them tightening her throat.

  “Anna, tell me what happened.” The gentleness in the demand almost broke the hold on her tears.

  Lifting her eyes to his reflection as he moved to her, Anna watched as his hands, so large and broad, settled against her shoulders, his thumbs stroking gently beneath her nape.

  “Do you know your mother called me?” he asked when she didn’t answer.

  “What did she say?” Jerking her gaze to the reflection of his eyes, Anna felt her heartbeat becoming sluggish and heavy as her chest tightened painfully.

  The sound of her mother’s tears earlier had cut at wound in her soul that still bled.

  “She said your grandfather had thrown you out and you were walking alone toward Sweetrock.” The sound of his voice left her wondering if perhaps her mother hadn’t had much more than that to say.

  Tightening her lips as they threatened to be
gin trembling once again, she said, “I refused to take the job in France that Jacques Dermond extended. That damned pervert.” By now she was barely holding back the tears as they filled her eyes. “I wanted to come home. I worked myself almost into exhaustion to cram eight years of classes into six, so I could come back home. So I could get to know my parents and grandparents.” She swallowed tightly, inhaling with jerky breaths. “I was supposed to be in college four years, Archer. Just four.” Outrage colored her voice. “Do you know John Corbin changed my major when I refused to go to France that summer?”

  “I heard,” he sighed. “I’m sorry, Anna.”

  “What did I do that was so wrong, Archer? That was so bad?” There was no holding back the pain that filled her. Her voice echoed with the consufion inside her. “What was so horrible about wanting to know family? The Slasher hasn’t struck out at family, only lovers.”

  “Nothing that I could ever imagine.” He sighed heavily, his arms lowering to wrap around her stomach and pull her back against him. “I honestly believe they wanted nothing more than to keep you safe, sweetheart. They’ve gone about it the wrong way perhaps, but it was done out of love.”

  A bitter laugh escaped her.

  Turning from his reflection she faced him, a certain knowledge rising inside her.

  “He never regretted losing his only grandson. Why would he regret losing one worthless granddaughter?”

  “John Corbin has more regrets, I believe, than he admits to,” he stated as she pulled away from him.

  The loss of his warmth, the loss of that feeling of not being so alone in the world, caused the battle with her tears to only become harder.

  “It doesn’t matter.” Drawing in a deep breath, Anna forced herself to shrug it away. “None of it really matters now, Archer. And things are really no different now than they ever were, other than the fact that I now know they never really wanted me with them.”

  All the years of vacations in exotic locales, and pushing her off on business associates when they couldn’t accompany her. The times she had cried and begged to come home, and the excuses they had given, all well-practiced and regretfully voiced.