by Lora Leigh
She was twenty-four years old, not a baby. She was a grown woman, and regardless of what her grandfather believed, there were a hell of a lot of Corbin family secrets she did know. Knew, and had never told another soul.
“The Callahans aren’t a threat, John,” Archer argued. “But they could damned sure help. And don’t try to tell me how to do my job or how to protect Anna. I won’t stand for it.”
Anna’s eyes narrowed at his tone. He sounded awfully possessive for a man who had already made the whole no-emotion-no-relationship rule. And it was beginning to sound as though the feeling she had of a conspiracy revolving around her was true.
“Whoever’s behind this knows you’re sleeping with her.” Her grandfather’s harshly voiced declaration had Anna flushing with mortification, even though she knew there wasn’t a chance anyone could know about it. Hell, it had only happened little more than an hour before. “It’s one of the reasons I agreed to meet you, Archer. Not just to explain what we could, but to try to get you to see how much he knows and how dangerous he is. That bastard has been blackmailing us since before those boys were born. And no more than hours before you called, he contacted me. He knew she was here, and he knew she would be sleeping in your bed.”
Who the hell was this “he”? There had been no time for anyone to have known anything.
“He told you he knew Anna was here?” Archer asked carefully. “If you don’t know who he is, John, then how does he communicate?”
Anna could feel the confusion building inside her now.
“He calls. I can tell his voice is disguised, and tracing the call to find the number has been impossible over the years. He’s furious that she’s here, and still in Corbin County. When she came home two weeks ago he contacted me by letter. Said she would die if she didn’t leave. He’s threatening to make certain she pays for it if I don’t get her out of your house and get her out of Colorado.”
“If he’s becoming angry, then he’ll make mistakes,” Archer decided.
“He knows the two of you were in that grotto two weeks ago. That’s how I found out about it. God, Archer, please listen to sense. She can’t know about this, and she can’t stay here.”
“If he doesn’t like her living arrangements, then he can take it up with me,” Archer drawled, his tone dangerously low. “Because Anna will be with me, and I promise you, to get to her, he will have to go through me. You’re not going to keep her safe by lying to her, or hiding this from her. She has to at least know her life is in danger. She can make the decision after that.”
A flood of weakness—fear-or anger-induced, Anna couldn’t differentiate—raced through her body. She could feel her knees trembling, her lips shaking as she lifted her fingers to them to hold back the rage that wanted to consume her.
The fact that Archer was demanding she be told the truth did nothing to ease the unbelievable knowledge that her family had kept such things from her.
What the hell was going on? What had her grandfather and his friends managed to get her mixed up in? And why, why hadn’t her parents ever told her this? All the years of being alone, of being so lost and feeling so abandoned, all because they refused to trust her with the truth?
“You’re using her as bait,” her grandfather charged, giving voice to the suspicion rising inside Anna.
“For God’s sake, John, she’s a target no matter where she’s staying. If he was going to strike out at her, he would have already. Trust me to know what the hell I’m doing here. And trust Anna. She’s not a child, nor is she unable to keep this to herself.”
Confusion filled her, but it didn’t obliterate her anger at her family. There was some awful conspiracy shadowing her family and threatening her? And they couldn’t tell her?
As for Archer, she had no doubt he was using her, especially if he had somehow suspected whatever was going on. His desire to use her in whatever this situation was hadn’t made his dick hard, though. He wanted her for other reasons and she knew it.
She had been a virgin, but she wasn’t stupid. She was a woman, and a woman knew when a man wanted her simply because he couldn’t keep his damned hands off her.
She might not have a chance at his heart, but in Archer’s arms, she had a chance at something almost as important. The chance to learn why she’d been pushed away by her family so long ago.
CHAPTER 8
It was all she could do to stand in place, to listen, to make herself absorb what she was hearing. Remaining silent through it was one of the most painful, heartrending things she believed she had ever done in her life.
She wanted to rush in, ask questions, and demand explanations.
She wanted to rage and cry and scream—
Oh God, she wanted to scream at her grandfather, to slice at his heart as hers had been sliced over the years because of the forced isolation from her family and from coming home.
She wanted to cry. But if she cried, if she let the first tear fall, then the objectivity she was forcing herself to use would be lost. She would be a child again, crying into the night and begging Mommy and Daddy to please, please let her come home.
So much of it didn’t make sense. And so much of it was destroying her even as it gave her a glimpse into all the questions that had raged in her mind for so many years.
“There’s no way to keep the Callahans out of this, or Anna away from Crowe, John,” Saul Rafferty stated, his tone weary, surprising Anna with his presence. She hadn’t known he was there. “Whoever’s behind this, his only focus is destroying us and our grandsons. If she stays hidden, if she stays in the shadows and we continue to do as he orders, then he’ll never reveal himself.”
“And I’ve tried to convince you that girl could give a clam a run for tight lips if she knew the truth of this.” Marshal Roberts sighed. “I understand your need to protect her better than anyone does, but Archer’s right. We haven’t protected her. All you’ve done is let that little girl grow up without family and without friends because some madman found another way to punish you. Let Archer fix this, before it’s too late for any of us.”
“She’s too damned stubborn for her own good,” her grandfather grumbled. “If she had just gone to France she would have been protected.”
“And you would have lost even more time with her than you’re losing now,” Archer growled. “That’s beside the fact you should have known she would never agree to it.”
“She’s far too much like Kim was before she died.” The grief in her grandfather’s voice made Anna’s chest tighten.
The family had never recovered from her aunt’s death. It still shadowed them, just like whatever danger was shadowing them, and her as well.
“Was he right about your relationship with Anna?” Her grandfather ignored Archer’s previous statement. “Are you sleeping with my granddaughter?”
Her fists clenched at her side as she laid her forehead silently against the wall and closed her eyes.
This was none of his business.
He would have seen her living a solitary, cold life rather than trusting her. He had no right to know if she was sleeping with anyone or who she might be sleeping with now.
“My relationship, whatever it may or may not be or develop into, is none of your business, John. But let the Slasher believe whatever he wants if it means taking them out of their comfort level and making them angry enough to make a mistake.” Archer’s tone remained respectful, despite the fact that he had just told her grandfather it was none of his business if he were sleeping with Anna.
Had he brought her to his home and to his bed to catch a killer? Was she wrong? Had the thought of catching the Slasher, or whoever was threatening the Corbin family, actually made his dick hard?
“She has a heart, Archer,” her grandfather gritted out. “A tender one. And one I’d prefer not to see broken. She’s not had a lover, and I know she hasn’t taken one because she thinks she’s already in love. Once she gives the man she loves that gift, she will never stop loving him. No m
atter how he hurts her, she’ll always love him. And if you don’t realize that, then you’re a bigger fool where she’s concerned than I ever thought you were.”
Thanks, Grandfather. That was exactly what she wanted her new lover to hear.
“What the hell do you mean by that?” Archer growled.
“I mean you’ve been too blind to see that Anna’s been in love with you since she was a teenager. And she’s refused to settle for anyone else. She’s always considered any other man second best.”
Anna cringed. She hadn’t thought anyone had realized just how deep her affection for Archer had actually grown.
“Anna’s too smart for that, John,” Archer argued, though his voice had changed, thickened. “Love like that is a fairy tale for little girls playing dress-up with their mother’s clothes. Anna’s not a little girl anymore.”
Her heart broke. Right then and right there, standing outside Archer’s study, wearing one of the sexy gowns she’d always imagined seducing him in, she felt her heart break in half.
Because her grandfather was right; she loved Archer Tobias. She loved him with all her heart, and nothing would change that.
She couldn’t deal with this anymore.
In a single conversation she had learned her grandfather was somehow tied to the Slasher through a conspiracy that now involved her, and that Archer was possibly using her to draw the Slasher out into the open.
She was turning to leave when her grandfather said, “I’ve lost not just my baby girl, but also her son—the grandson I have found so much pride in, Archer. Genoa and I would have given our lives to know Crowe. Now that bastard has forced us to push Anna out of not just our lives, but also her parents’. My son hates me, and rightfully blames me for all of it. My daughter-in-law and my wife haven’t stopped crying since she left. God help us. If we lose Anna, it will finish the destruction of the Corbin family.”
They were forced to disown her because of all this? Her heart was racing, adrenaline coursing through her veins as she tried to make sense of what was going on.
“The Callahan brothers and their wives were murdered, weren’t they?” Archer’s question nearly stopped her heart. “By the same man, or men, calling themselves the Slasher?”
God, she wished she could see her grandfather’s face, and though she expected him to answer Archer, it was Marshal who spoke up instead.
“I was the one who advised the three girls to change the terms of their trusts to their children once they acquired them. We prayed it would ensure their safety. No one knew they had gone to do so that day, together. But it was the only time the couples had gone out together in years. They had known that to do so was too dangerous. The confusing part was the couples had all left separately and at different times in their own vehicles. Yet only one vehicle had been used to travel back in, while the two others were left abandoned in a mall parking lot. We don’t know if it was the Slasher who killed them, just as we don’t know if it’s the Slasher who’s been destroying us all these years, Archer. We suspect there’s a plot to acquire the Callahan land. We just don’t know why, or how someone could ever imagine killing our daughters or destroying their sons could help acquire it. Or why they would want it so damned bad.”
Archer stared at the three men, careful to keep his expression blank.
So Crowe, Logan, and Rafer’s parents had indeed been murdered.
“I know you suspected it, Archer,” Saul stated. “Your father knew. He was sheriff at the time. But there was nothing he could do. There was no evidence, and no way to prove murder. All we had was that bastard and a note he sent to each one of us. If you had listened— And that was all it said.”
“Listened?” he questioned them softly. “To what?”
“To his demands that we find a way to force the girls to leave their husbands and deny their sons,” John said, shaking his head, confusion flashing in his gaze. “God, Archer. They loved those men. Loved them like you couldn’t believe. We even tried telling them the truth. Tried explaining it and urged them to change their trusts and their wills. And still, we couldn’t save them.”
John swallowed painfully, turned away, and blinked at the moisture filling his eyes.
He would prove it now, Archer assured himself. The minute he identified the bastards, he’d make damned sure he proved their connection to not just the young women who had died at the Slasher’s hands, but also the deaths of the Callahans.
“It’s time we go.” It was Marshal who glanced toward the curtain-covered windows warily. “Dawn’s coming, and we don’t want to be seen here. We have to leave before it begins getting light.”
“Do you need a ride? Help getting to your vehicles?” Archer rose to his feet, suddenly concerned about the three men. Hell, they were in their early seventies—not exactly the best age to be tromping through the woods at night by themselves.
“If we can’t make it, then we deserve to drop where we stand,” Saul muttered as he picked up the cane he had set by his chair and rose to his feet.
“Didn’t remember you carrying a cane before, Saul,” Archer drawled.
The old man gave a bitter half grin before gripping it with both hands and pulling free a long knife from one end. “I only need it when I want to, Sheriff. Only when I want to.”
Shaking his head, Archer watched as the three men slipped from the study through the back door and made their way into the darkness.
Closing and locking the door after them, he stiffened, feeling the presence that stepped into the room as he silently cursed with a virulence he hadn’t used in years.
Turning, he faced Anna, and in that second knew she had heard far too much.
“You could have told me you were just fucking me to draw a killer out,” she drawled. “I might even have gone along with it.”
“I think you know better than that, Anna.”
He could see the pain and the confusion in her eyes. Chaotic, soul-deep, the emotions tearing her apart now were clearly reflected in the deep, emerald green of her eyes, and he’d be damned if he could blame her for any of them.
Uppermost in her gaze, and filling her expression, was bitter betrayal. The emotion darkened her eyes, but it also caused her face to pale and revealed the ultra-light scattering of freckles across the top of her nose.
Hell, and why had he just noticed those? There wasn’t a chance in hell she was going to let him brush his lips across them as he suddenly wanted to.
Her gaze dropped down, eyes narrowing at the evidence of the hard-on pressing against his cotton pants.
A grin tilted the corner of his lips. “I think you just might have made me hard again, sweetheart.”
Her lips tightened in anger, but that flame of arousal he glimpsed in her eyes hadn’t been doused. Hell, it might even be a shade brighter now.
“Don’t think you’re good enough to make me forget a single word of what I heard tonight,” she warned him. “And don’t think for a moment you’re not going to fill me in on every word I might have missed.”
“Just exactly what did you hear?”
She was smart, and despite John’s assertions, Anna knew how to keep her mouth shut, especially when it came to the only friend she had in Corbin County.
“I believe it might have been the part where my grandfather was asking you about the ring and the commitment. And I didn’t miss the part where you assured him I wasn’t into fairy tales, either.”
Ouch.
Now that part he would have preferred she hadn’t heard. Because Anna did have fairy tales she still lived by, but there wasn’t a chance she’d believe his explanation, either.
Anna was smart enough to know love rarely, if ever, happened at first sight. It came with knowledge, it came with understanding.
And that wasn’t a discussion that was going to walk hand in hand with explanations of the danger she was currently involved in.
He breathed out wearily and glanced at the clock before meeting her gaze once again.
&nb
sp; “You didn’t miss much,” he growled as he rubbed at his lower jaw in irritation. “The reason they placed you in private schools, and kept moving you, was because, according to your grandfather and his friends, they’ve been blackmailed for decades, Anna. That’s why they disowned your aunt, Crowe, and now you. If you didn’t leave Corbin County, then he was to disown you and ensure you had no option but to leave the county to survive.”
Graceful, charmingly innocent, she lifted one hand to rub at her forehead, her brow creasing thoughtfully.
“My parents moved with me for several years,” she said softly as she turned from him, the white gown and robe sweeping softly at the floor as she moved. “Until I was nine.”
He remembered that. Her father had traveled often between the ranch and wherever she’d been enrolled in school.
“I don’t know why they stopped.” He knew the unvoiced question before she turned and stared back at him, her gaze tortured. “Those are questions you can ask later. But I think you know it’s not a question you can ask right now, Anna. You have to maintain the illusion that you are indeed disowned. Not just being protected. As your grandfather said, even your only friend, your best friend, can’t know the truth. The chance that she would confide, in anyone, would be too great.”
Delicate nostrils flared as a jerky breath shook her body and she gave a tight nod. A shudder worked down her spine.
God, if she started crying it was going to destroy him.
Instead, she wrapped her arms across her breasts before pacing to the map on the wall and staring at it unseeingly.
“Why?” she asked. “Why all this conspiracy just to claim property that could have been sold? Hell, it was sold. Crowe’s grandparents sold it in three parts to the remaining Barons. Remember?”
“The property was tied up in their daughters’ trusts after JR and Eileen Callahan’s deaths. JR and Eileen had the property placed in trust for their sons in the event of their deaths. According to papers filed several days before their bodies were found, they had sold the property to Corbin, Rafferty, and Roberts on the condition that the property went into their daughters’ trust funds. Everyone knew JR and Eileen had a soft spot for the other three Barons’ daughters. They wouldn’t have sold to your grandfather, Rafferty, or Roberts, though, after they refused to help Eileen while JR was in the hospital. Especially considering her youngest child’s death occurred at the time she was begging the others for help.” He frowned at that knowledge.