by Lora Leigh
The chill evening air almost brought a chill to Cami’s spine. That, or the fact that Emma was staring at her as though she had just admitted she had the plague, or was some alien creature from another planet.
“Close your mouth, Em,” Cami advised her ruefully. “I didn’t kill anyone, I just kissed him.”
“Oh my God, and wasn’t it just so good?” Emma breathed out in awe now. “Tell me all about it. No one in this county will even admit to speaking to one of the Forbidden Triplets.”
“Forbidden Triplets?” Cami didn’t know about that one. “They’re cousins, not triplets.”
“But they look enough alike to be triplets,” Emma protested. “And don’t change the subject. Tell me about that kiss. It had to have been simply divine.”
It was all Cami could do to hold back her laughter. Strawberry-red curls fell to Emma’s shoulders and framed a delicate, heart-shaped face.
“Why did it have to be? It could have been wet and slobbery,” she suggested as they began walking toward the crowd once again.
Emma snorted. “I rather doubt it. But if it was, then I still want to know. Now tell me.”
“It was okay.” She shrugged. “It wasn’t slobbery or anything.”
“Just okay?” Disappointment rang in the other woman’s voice. “It wasn’t earth-shattering or ground-shaking, or made your toes delicious?”
It was all those things and so very much more.
Cami assumed a thoughtful look to her expression. “It was okay.” She nodded decisively as though that were the final word on the Callahan kiss.
“Oh, wow.” There was a definite pout on Emma’s lips now. “I think I’ve just been crushed.”
Cami laughed again as they joined the crowd gathered on the sidewalk just outside the bar.
The waitress, a young woman Cami had gone to school with, took her drink order, as well as an order for hot wings.
She wasn’t particularly hungry, but neither had she eaten that day. She was more nervous than anything and eating wasn’t any higher on her list of priorities than it had been the day before.
As the first drink hit her system though, Cami felt the softening haze of relaxation begin to ease through her. At the first offer to dance, she was in the middle of the street with Dean Meyers, the Phys. Ed. teacher at the high school, and several dozen other couples, as a rousing beat filled the night.
The music faded and a round of applause for the band filled the street. Turning away from her dance partner, she was unaware of the large body that had eased in behind her.
She became more than aware of it though as his hard arms wrapped around her, and the once-rousing music turned slow and seductive as the bar lights strung across the streets dimmed to match the slower beat.
“Rafer,” she whispered, her finger clenching on the hard biceps that tensed beneath her touch.
She was aware of not just the couples in the street, but also those along the sidewalk watching. She could feel all eyes on her, watching, dissecting the dance.
“You can slap me and stalk away if you want,” he suggested, his expression hard, lashes lowered over the sapphire of his eyes.
“I told you, Rafer, I wasn’t ashamed of you,” she told him. “It’s not shame.”
“In three weeks you haven’t called,” he told her coolly.
“Neither have you.”
“You don’t answer the phone when I call,” he growled, his head lowering until he was nearly nose to nose with her.
“You would have to actually call to find out, now, wouldn’t you?” she said with a heavy, false sweetness.
His gaze narrowed on her as his hands dropped from her waist to her hips, drawing her closer to him as he placed his hand at the back of her head and pressed it to his chest.
She couldn’t resist letting him hold her.
It had been three weeks. Three long, lonely weeks.
“Any more phone calls?” he asked her as they moved and swayed to the seductive rhythm of the music.
She shook her head, loathe to allow anything to intrude on the magical moment they were sharing.
She expected him to say something more. Some kind of I-told-you-so. A reminder that he had warned her there was nothing to it. Marshal Roberts messing with her head and nothing more.
When he said nothing, she relaxed against him, luxuriating in the warmth of his body wrapping around her, filling her, drawing her closer to him.
The dance was a moment out of time. It was a slow, unconsciously binding moment, one she didn’t know how to fight.
As it drew to a close, he pulled back and stared down at her for a long, unbroken moment.
Just when she thought his head would lower that last inch and his lips would touch hers where God and everyone could see the intimacies they shared, he pulled back instead.
“Rafer?” she questioned, wondering why he suddenly seemed so distant.
“Later,” he said softly. “I’ll call later.”
She stepped to the curb as he pulled from her completely, then turned and walked away.
She watched as he crossed the street, the self confidence in his walk, the strength of his shoulders, and the lift of his head drawing more than one feminine gaze.
What the hell was he up to?
“And the gossip ensues,” Emma drawled behind her. “Not only does Rafer Callahan show up, but so does his cousin, Miss Anna Corbin.”
Cami turned to her friend, then followed the direction of her look.
Another bitter loss of her past, Cami thought, as she saw the young woman entering the bar with another familiar face.
Amelia Sorenson.
She and Cami had once been as close as sisters. Collaborators, conspirators, and cohorts, they used to say.
Until that final year in college when Amelia had broken all ties with her and that friendship has disappeared.
And people wondered why she avoided commitment like the plague.
“Her daddy let her out to play?” Cami questioned quietly in amusement. The fact that Anna Corbin rarely came to Sweetrock was no secret.
“Oh, sweetie, that so is not the end of it,” Emma drawled.
The most interesting bit of gossip was the fact that the Corbin son, and heir William, Crowe’s uncle, and James Corbin, the patriarch, were given a fierce, heated dressing-down by Miss Anna. The first of the week when he and daddy Willy were arguing with Saul Rafferty over the fact that they couldn’t run the Callahan cousins out of town.
Said to be the spitting image of her deceased aunt, Kimberly Corbin, and named for her, Anna Corbin insisted that the Corbin, Rafferty, and Roberts families were rumored to be temperamental and a pain in the ass when it came to authority. Of course, how anyone could be certain, Cami didn’t know. Her parents had hired tutors when she was young, then sent her to private schools in California and Texas until college. She was currently attending a very exclusive Eastern college and vacations were always spent in some exotic location with her family.
“Oh, really?” Cami asked, silently prodding Emma for information.
“Definitely, really,” Emma assured her. “She insisted that the Corbin family was turning into monsters where her cousins were concerned, and if they weren’t all careful, she was going to return to fix the situation herself. I hear she dropped her little bomb, then lifted that pert little nose of hers and stalked right out of the house and headed to Amelia’s. The Sorensons are rather close with the Corbins I hear.”
The last Cami had heard of Amelia, she had detested the Corbins, but that had been years ago, Cami admitted silently.
“And who was sharing all this interesting information?” Cami arched her brows as she sat on the low cement wall behind her and watched as Amelia and Anna stepped from the bar and found an empty table.
The blowup was recounted by a maid who was promptly fired, paid off, and forced to leave the county, I hear. No one said the Corbins don’t know how to move quickly or live with enough drama to create their own soa
p opera,” the other woman said, laughing.
“I hadn’t heard any of it,” Cami admitted.
“Because you’ve stayed locked in your room rather than joining us in the teachers’ lounge,” Emma pointed out. “But dearest, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, if the gossip I’m hearing is true. Teachers, administrators, and entire families are now discussing the past, resurrecting it, dissecting it, and coming closer by the day to rejudging the Callahan cousins.” Emma tossed her head with amused mockery. “Bastards. They should have done that, what? Twelve years ago?”
Emma wasn’t a native of Sweetrock or Corbin County. She well understood school and county politics, but that didn’t mean she agreed with any of them.
“Twelve years ago,” Cami agreed softly.
Emma’s expression morphed swiftly to regret. “Oh hell, Cami, I’m sorry. I forgot that was the same summer—”
Cami gave her head a quick shake to silence her friend. She didn’t want to hear the rest of it.
“It’s okay, Emma,” she promised her. “But the time line is right. And I agree with you. They should have thought of this then, rather than now.”
Emma sat down beside her, her hands braced on the edge of the seat as she breathed out heavily. “My parents would have had a stroke had a child been treated so cruelly in school as I heard they were. Your barons, as they’re called, have a lot to answer for, my dear.”
“They’re not my anything,” Cami sighed. “And the influence they had then was strong, Emma. It still is, though it’s diluted a bit over the years.”
“Damned good thing,” Emma sighed. “I would have been fired had another child been treated that way. I would have had to have my say, you know.”
“That red hair,” Cami agreed softly. “But I know what you mean. I had a few rather heated fights myself with several individuals, despite the fact that they were out of school.”
They were silent then, staring at the dancers, occasionally glancing at Anna Corbin and Amelia Sorenson as they seemed deep in conversation.
“Tell me,” Emma’s voice lowered. “Was there ever a connection proven between the grandparents’, parents’, and Clyde Ramsey’s deaths?”
Cami’s head swung around to stare at the other girl in surprise. “Excuse me?”
Emma frowned. “There was no connection?”
“Not as far as the cousins believe. And if they had believed it, we would have heard about it,” Cami answered without answering the underlying question regarding the connection.
“Damn, I was hoping for more county-wide conspiracy and mystery,” Emma sighed ruefully.
Cami gave a light, forced laugh, hoping Emma didn’t catch the fact that she was uncomfortable with the subject.
It took a few moments, but she was able to steer the conversation back to the school, the teachers, and the upcoming socials.
She didn’t want to talk about Rafe, and unless there was more information than simply gossip, then she didn’t want to talk about any other Corbin either.
After a final drink, Cami rose and wished her friend a good night before turning and crossing the street to head home.
As she rounded the first block and the lights became a bit dimmer and the streets much quieter, she could feel a distinct tingle along the back of her shoulders.
Once, long ago, she and Jaymi used to play a game. Jaymi would follow her, or Cami would follow her sister, and the one who caught sight of the other the quickest was the winner.
Even Tye, Jaymi’s husband, had joined in the game while he and Jaymi had dated.
Cami had developed a feeling, a tension at her back that let her know whenever Jaymi was stalking her. She could feel that tingle now, but she knew it wasn’t her sister following her.
Her steps quickened.
Gripping her keys tightly in her fist, the longest key extending between two of her clenched fingers, she watched the shadows suspiciously. She wasn’t panicking yet, but she knew someone was out there. Waiting. Watching.
For a moment, she was drawn back to her childhood.
Jaymi and Tye laughing as Cami had managed to evade them the last day before he shipped off to Iraq.
The Navajo her sister had married had taught her how to move much more quietly than she ever had over those months. She’d gotten good enough to evade Jaymi, but not Tye himself.
“She’ll be hell to catch if some bastard ever decides to chase her in the dark,” Tye had bragged on her that night. “Little sister will know how to evade, and when I come back, she’ll learn how to fight.”
But Tye hadn’t come back. Six weeks before he was due to ship out, he’d been caught in an explosion and killed instantly.
She hadn’t just lost her own best friend that day, but she had also lost her sister. A vital part of Jaymi had died the day the Army officer and chaplain had arrived to tell her the news.
As the memory dissipated, she realized she was doing as Tye had taught her, weaving in and out of the shadows, never taking a straight path, using the trees as cover.
She never walked beneath the street lights, and didn’t hesitate to walk on someone’s lawn rather than venturing too closely to the pooled light beneath the tall posts.
It wasn’t long before the sensation eased, though that feeling of tension that still gathered inside her assured her someone was still out there.
She entered the house by the back door, stepped in, and locked the door back quickly.
She didn’t turn the lights on.
She didn’t turn on the television.
Slipping up to her bedroom, she spent most of the night staring at the locked bedroom door and wondering who the hell was following her.
CHAPTER 13
The next morning Cami awoke as the sun poured into the skylight over her bed, still dressed in the jeans and sweater and sneakers she’d put on after returning home the night before.
The boots would have been impractical if she’d had to slip out her bedroom window and make her way along the roof to where she could drop to the ground more safely.
The knowledge, or the feeling, someone had been following her had spooked her. She was on edge, restless, and that Saturday morning she was just plain pissed.
That was not Marshal Roberts playing with her head, no matter what Rafer believed.
As she poured another cup of the fragrant brew, the sound of the cell ringing had her quickly reaching for it and checking the caller ID. She prayed it was Rafer.
She’d actually swallowed her pride and called him the night before, but it had gone instantly to voicemail, an indication the phone was either turned off, or in a dead zone.
A frown pulled at her as she activated the call and brought the phone to her ear.
“Good afternoon, Jack?” she greeted him, a question in her voice.
“Hey, Cami, I’m pulling onto your street,” Jack Townsend answered back. “Do you have a few minutes to talk? I have something I want to tell you.”
“Sure. I’ll be waiting at the door.”
Disconnecting, she moved through the house to the door and opened it as Jack’s tow truck pulled into the driveway. She couldn’t imagine why he was at her house that early, or what he could want. She hadn’t taken her car in since he’d returned it after the blizzard, more than a month ago. Well, actually, she thought, closer to two months.
He wasn’t alone, though; his wife, Jeannie, was with him. The petite blond lifted her hand in a wave as she practically jumped from the truck and joined her husband as he came around the front, glaring at her.
“I keep telling her I’ll help her out,” he groused as they reach the front porch. “But Short Stuff insists on jumping. One of these days she’s going to break a leg.”
Jeannie punched him in the shoulder lightly with her fist as she laughed back at him. The love between them was apparent, though. It was actually so apparent that the gossipmongers loved attempting to cast suspicion on it.
“Come on in,” Cami invited, still confused
at the visit. “There’s fresh coffee and store bought cinnamon rolls.”
Cami led the way into the kitchen after closing and locking the door securely behind them.
She admitted she had become paranoid in the past weeks. The phone calls might have stopped, but that feeling of being watched had her wary. Perhaps her caller had grown tired of calling and decided to act.
She couldn’t tell if the caller knew about the last night Rafe had been at the house or not. The suspense was making her as nervous as hell, though.
“I thought it best to stop in and talk to you, versus the phone,” Jack stated as she poured the coffee and set cups in front of both Jack and his wife at the kitchen table. “Some conversations you simply don’t trust to normal channels of communication.”
The last comment had her tensing.
“Jack’s paranoid,” Jeannie admitted. “We’ve received a few calls warning him about consorting with Callahans.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear, you’d think we were involved in political intrigue or something. Or perhaps a return to the Middle Ages? Tell me, Cami, are the Callahans traitors perhaps? Did they steal national secrets? Attempt to assassinate the president?”
Consorting with Callahans. “No,” Cami said softly, her gaze meeting Jack’s. “But I’ve been getting similar phone calls.”
Cami quickly related news of the calls she had been receiving to Jack and watched the couple exchange a worried look. She omitted the visit by Marshal Roberts, but over the weeks she had been surprised that no one else had mentioned it. Whoever had seen Rafe’s grandfather here evidently wasn’t telling anyone else.
“Hell.” Jack plowed his fingers through his dark hair as he sat back in the chair slowly. “Did you tell the sheriff?”
Cami shook her head.
“I’d suggest it,” Jack warned her. “I called Archer first thing, not that we’ve been able to trace the calls; they don’t last long enough. But at least I have a paper trail if I have to cap someone’s ass for messing with what’s mine.” He shot his wife a quick look, the possessiveness and concern touching.
“The thing is,” he continued, “I was worried enough I called Dad and Taggert. Dad acted so damned strange that Jeannie and I went to Denver over the weekend to talk to him. They had some very interesting information. Some things I had forgotten over the years and a few things I didn’t know about.”