Midnight Sins

by Lora Leigh

  “There’s no if about it,” Rafe assured him. “I’ll be there, and I’ll take care of her.”

  Eddy nodded sharply.

  “Tell me something, Eddy. All these years you’ve poked and prodded and sliced at us with that smart-assed mouth of yours, and not even for a minute did you believe we hurt Jaymi. Why did you do it?”

  “Who says I didn’t?” Eddy frowned, his gaze fierce and confrontational as he stared back at them.

  “Because you would have never told me any of that if you thought for a moment one of us hurt her sister,” Rafe snarled back at, Eddy, his voice low but the fury raging in it loud and clear.

  “And I would have never treated you any different even if your names hadn’t come up in her death.” Eddy was in Rafe’s face, glaring, his entire demeanor one of defensive anger. “You were arrogant little shits as kids who slapped away every helping hand extended to you. You only slap my hand once, Callahan. And count yourself lucky, because of that girl in there.” Eddy’s finger stabbed toward the hospital room door. “Because of that girl, you’re getting another chance. See if you can be appreciative this time.”

  The man had lost his mind. “When did you ever extend a hand to any of us?” Rafe bit out in disbelief. “You stood with the rest of this county every damned time they wanted to accuse us of something.”

  “And you made it so damned easy, didn’t you?” Eddy settled back on his heels with a tough, mocking smile. Like a banty rooster standing in challenge. “You little shits. You were ten.” He looked at Rafe. “Twelve.” His gaze met Logan’s. “And thirteen.” He inclined his head to Crowe. “And that damned chip on your shoulder was bigger than each of you were. I offered you a ride to school one morning.” He stared at Rafe expectantly, his look withering.

  It was Crowe who nodded slowly. “It was snowing and damned cold,” he murmured, his golden-brown eyes sharp, intent. “You were driving that beat-up old four-wheel drive of your brother’s.”

  And Rafe remembered it then.

  “You saw me, not Mark,” Eddy growled, his gaze suddenly brooding rather than confrontational.

  Crowe shook his head. “I saw Mark Flannigan, and I saw the day before as he came around that curve you drove around that morning. He came around it so fast that if Logan hadn’t jumped for the ditch he would have run him over. And he didn’t even stop to make sure he was okay.”

  “That was the winter after our parents died,” Logan said quietly. “I don’t remember much of that year. Except that lawyer Rafe’s uncle got us to keep the Raffertys and the Corbins from stealing the inheritances our mothers left us.”

  For a second, abject regret filled Eddy’s eyes. Remorse and shame flashed in his gaze before he hurriedly jerked his eyes away. When he turned back, it was with a sense of resignation and acceptance, though the remorse was still a heavy presence in his expression.

  Eddy backed down. “Hell, I’m who I am,” he stated, obviously making the connection that what he had seen as childish arrogance had been lingering shock and grief. “An asshole on a good day, but I’m not stupid.” He turned to Rafe. “Jaymi and Cami both have defended you, against everything and everyone. When you were arrested for Jaymi’s murder, Cami just about went crazy. She swore every day you didn’t do it. She would sit up at night forming arguments for your lawyer, she said.” He shook his head and sighed heavily. “God help me if I’m wrong.” He turned his head, his gaze tormented now. “But that’s mine and Ella’s girl. We’ve done what we can to teach her to be smart, and to know her own mind. And she’s damned certain you’re a good man. And I’m damned certain I know every crime you’ve been accused of you weren’t anywhere around when it happened, except Jaymi’s death. And she wasn’t the only innocent young woman that died that summer.”

  It didn’t make up for the years of the man’s confrontational insults and jeering attitude. But one thing Rafe could say in Eddy’s defense: he was one of the few who hadn’t called the cousins rapists and murderers to their faces, or behind their backs as far as Rafe knew.

  Eddy was mocking, snide, sarcastic, and those were his good days, but he wasn’t cruel, and he had never gone out of his way to be mocking, snide, and sarcastic either. It was simply what you found when you found Eddy.

  The sound of the door opening drew all their attention, and Rafe had to force back a growl of fury at the timid, cautious pace of each step and the proof that the blows to Cami’s body hadn’t been made as a warning. The attack had been meant to be deadly.

  “Get a wheelchair!” he snapped to Logan, turning, only to see Crowe jerking one from the nurses’ station and wheeling it to her.

  “Sit, baby.” It was an order, cloaked in silk, she thought as she hid a smile and sat down gingerly in the chair.

  The bruise on her hip from stumbling on the stairs was actually the worst of the it. Well, except for the bruise the doctor said her skull might have.

  It wasn’t so bruised that she wasn’t well aware of the fact that Rafe was in command mode.

  Which was really rather amusing. Why bother to hide it now with that dark, husky male tenderness? It was like throwing a tablecloth over the elephant in the living room, she thought, struggling not to grin.

  “I see that grin tugging at your lips,” he told her as he moved behind her and leaned close, his lips at her ear. “What’s so funny?”

  She wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole.

  “So much for saving you from any more trouble,” she sighed instead. “I was hoping to avoid this for you, Rafe.”

  “Trying to protect me, were you?” he asked as he knelt beside the chair, reached up, and brushed her hair back from her cheek.

  Cami was tempted to close her eyes at the stroke of pleasure against her flesh, the warmth and calloused rasp of his fingertips against her skin.

  “Maybe I was trying to protect us both.”

  “Cami, I’ll be at the house this evening with your prescriptions and to check you out.” Ella moved from the room, her voice brisk and no-nonsense, her expression fierce as she moved in front of Cami.

  Ella was all but glaring at Rafe as he came to his feet. “I will be keeping a check on her, Rafe Callahan.”

  Cami watched her aunt in confusion. She had never known her aunt and uncle to be so protective. Well, perhaps that wasn’t particularly true. Since her parents’ move to Aspen four years ago, Cami’s aunt and uncle had seemed to take more of an interest by the month in her.

  “I understand, Aunt Ella,” she promised.

  Ella’s gaze flicked to Rafe. “You take care of her, or you’ll deal with me and Eddy, young man.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “We should go now. I’d like to get her home and get her settled in.”

  Ella leaned down, hugged her gently. “Call me if you need me,” she whispered.

  “I will. I promise.”

  As Ella moved back, Cami’s uncle took her place. He touched the side of her gently, a facsimile of his normal firm grip, and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be by with Ella,” he promised. “Just let me know if you need me.”

  “I’m going to be fine. You two act like I’m going away forever or something,” she chided them both softly.

  They invited her to dinner, to the movies, to their Sunday drives when they were both off work together. And it was something Cami realized she sometimes forgot.

  She wasn’t totally alone; she never had been. She had always had Eddy and Ella.

  But they weren’t her parents; they had their own family. Cami always felt on the outside looking in, and that had made her feel even lonelier. She hadn’t just felt as though she were on the outside looking in; she had been.

  It wasn’t their fault. It was hers and perhaps, in some ways, her parents’.

  Giving her aunt and uncle a final quick hug, Cami allowed Rafe to wheel her to the elevator where he, Logan, and Crowe crowded around her. The doors were closing before she realized something.

  “They never belie
ved you hurt Jaymi,” she murmured, frowning at the doors as the elevator moved slowly to the lobby floor. “They couldn’t have, or they wouldn’t have let you leave with me so easily.”

  She didn’t look at Rafe, but she heard his grunt, mocking, disbelieving.

  She shook her head. “You don’t understand, Rafe.” Eyes narrowed, she glanced up to where he stood at her side. “If they even suspected at the time that you had hurt Jaymi, they would have been going crazy over me leaving with you.” It didn’t make sense. “Why would Uncle act as though he believed it, if he didn’t?”

  “Because he’s an ass,” Rafe grunted.

  “Because, like everyone else in Corbin County, he believed if our mothers hadn’t married Callahans then they wouldn’t have died,” Crowe answered for him. “Kim Corbin, Mina Rafferty, and Ann Ramsey weren’t just best friends and the daughters of the most financially successful families on this side of the mountain; they were also very well loved by everyone in the county. So much so that during those years before they they died in that wreck those who did love them were actually giving the Callahan brothers a chance.”

  “What chance?” Cami asked as the elevator door slid to a stop. “The last I heard they were reviled before and after they married their wives.”

  Crowe shook his head as Rafe stopped at the passenger side of the truck and she stared up at him in confusion.

  “You don’t know?” he asked as he stared down at her.

  “Know what?”

  “Because of Kim Corbin, Ann Ramsey, and Mina Rafferty they were beginning a future, Cami. In those few short years, the Callahans were doing something no one else had accomplished. They had actually found an investor for a resort in Corbin County that had all the earmarks of success. They were doing something the Raffertys and Corbins had nearly bankrupted themselves attempting to accomplish more than once. When they died, everyone in this county who was counting on that resort lost that dream. And they had only one way to punish the men who failed them.”

  “Through their children.”

  He inclined his head slowly, resigned. “Their children.”

  CHAPTER 17

  “It isn’t necessary that you stay here,” Cami informed Rafe as he moved from the bathroom into the bedroom, his damp hair tasseled around his face, his bare chest and shoulders looking a mile wide as he strode across the shadowed room toward the bed. Cotton pants hung low on his hips, emphasizing the lean, muscled hips, the tight, hard, rippled abs.

  She could feel her stomach tightening, her thighs softening, tensing, her heart rate increasing.

  “I know it’s not necessary,” he assured her as he padded barefoot to the bed and pulled the blanket and sheet back before sliding into her bed as though he was supposed to be there.

  Cami turned her gaze to the ceiling, swallowing tightly as she fought the edge of panic that seemed to be building inside her. How was she supposed to handle this? He wasn’t supposed to be here. He wasn’t supposed to be in her house and in her bed as though he were suddenly some fantasy come true.

  This wasn’t how it worked.

  This wasn’t how it was supposed to work. Not yet. Not until she had found a way to handle it. Right?

  Her head jerked in his direction just in time to see him standing and pushing the pants from the tight, well-rounded, muscled contours of his ass.

  Naked. He was naked.

  Sliding into her bed.

  As though he hadn’t been there before, a part of her scoffed. But still, it was different. There was something about this that had her entire system going crazy with the implications of it.

  She had never shared her space with a man, and only in her fantasies had she shared it with Rafe

  “Okay?” he asked as he lay back and pulled the sheet just over his hips.

  Just barely over the hard, engorged flesh of his cock.

  He was aroused and so clearly very interested in assuaging the need she could feel beginning to burn inside her despite the bruises on her body.

  “Fine.” Clearing her throat, she fought to keep from sounding as though she had just swallowed a golf ball. Even if that was what it felt like was lodged in her throat.

  He turned to her, his expression dark and brooding.

  “Are you having a problem with it, Cami?” he asked silkily.

  “A problem with what?”

  “With me being in your bed with you,” he explained.

  “Well, it’s not as though it’s the first time we’ve shared a bed, right?” She could see his expression, and there was something there, something in his gaze, that warned her he wasn’t nearly as calm as he appeared to be.

  “No, it’s not,” he agreed. “Though I have to admit, it did feel rather strange walking in the front door. Do you think anyone saw us?”

  What the hell was he getting at?

  She watched him carefully. “I’m certain they did,” she said. “I believe half the neighbors came out to view the event.”

  And it wasn’t a joke, despite the mockery in her tone. There had been plenty of interest in their arrival. As the vehicles had pulled into her drive and Rafe had carried her into the house, several of her neighbors had stepped outside to view the event.

  She could just imagine how hot the telephone lines were this evening. Gossip was probably raging like a fire burning out of control. Which was only slightly cooler than the hunger burning through her body.

  The need was like a craving that couldn’t be assuaged.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about the phone calls, Cami?”

  She stilled. The breath seemed to stop in her chest.

  Her tongue swiped over her lips in what she knew was a terrible mistake. It was a sign of nervousness, and they both knew it.

  His gaze tracked it, his eyes narrowing on the movement before returning to hers.

  “What phone calls?” She fought to come up with an explanation, a glib response, or some way to throw him off.

  It was obvious he had to have talked to Jack. Only Jack and his wife knew about the phone calls.

  Rafe’s brow arched, slowly, with mocking emphasis, as his expression tightened with brooding irritation.

  “Don’t play games with me, Cami,” he warned her, his voice dangerously soft. “And don’t lie to me, kitten. I would be very, very displeased if I caught you lying to me.”

  “And that displeasure should affect me?” She only barely managed to keep her voice from squeaking.

  She might not be frightened of him, but she had a very healthy respect for the fact that there definitely were ways he could make her regret anything she did to piss him off and still maintain the emotional abyss she was slipping into.

  His arm lifted from where it had lain along his side as he stared at her, his head propped on his hand, his long, lean body spooned against her side.

  His fingertips stroked down her bare arms, raising goose bumps and reminding her, forcibly, that he thought perhaps she should be concerned with his displeasure.

  The pleasure was impossibly erotic. A touch that simple yet combined with the look in those sapphire eyes sent her senses reeling.

  Against her hip, the heavy proof of his erection was cushioned between their flesh only by the thin silk of her short gown. Heated and heavy, the feel of it sent the blood thundering through her veins as she drew in a hard, deep breath.

  “I want to know about those phone calls,” he warned her. “And now is a very good time to tell me, Cami. Before I become frustrated with your attempts to distract me. And that frustration could lead to all kinds of punishments.”

  And did he truly believe such an erotic dare would go unanswered?

  Oh, she knew she would have to tell him about the phone calls. He was already aware of them, likely already knew the full story; he only wanted her to tell him. He wanted to know why she hadn’t told him. He wanted to delve into all the reasons why, on a totally deeper level, she hadn’t come to him.

  And ultimately, he wanted to ensure h
e had created a tie between them that she couldn’t break.

  The fact that she hadn’t told him about those calls assured him that the tie he wanted in place wasn’t as tight as he would have liked.

  And he thought that was going to come easy?

  She almost smiled at the thought.

  She wasn’t easy, even for him. Especially for him, the emotional ties he was determined to build were not going to be given without an assurance of ties in return. And there was no assurance. Not yet. And neither was there a confidence that she could handle the man he had become.

  It wasn’t, she had realized over the past days, a fear, shame, or embarrassment of the town. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to face fighting everyone around her for what she wanted. It was the fear that fighting everyone else would prove fruitless when he walked away.

  “Cami, you’re not making much effort to help me out here,” he drawled, his tone velvet rough as it rumbled from his chest.

  As he spoke, the blanket that covered her to beneath her arms was slowly pulled away from her, leaving her beneath his gaze clad only in the short, silky plum-colored nightgown she had donned after her shower.

  “Am I supposed to be helping you out?” she asked him. “It seems you’re only asking rhetorical questions, Rafe. You already know the answers.”

  “Let’s say I know of the subject at hand, but the details have eluded me. And you will give me those details.”

  Would she?

  She had no intentions of allowing him to order her to do anything. Just as she had absolutely no intention of bowing down to the dominance that gleamed in his eyes.

  Submissive she truly wasn’t. She would call no man master, nor would she ever give in to that dominance without a very sensual struggle.

  “There were no details to give, Rafe,” she assured him quietly as he pushed the comforter to her knees as she felt her womb flex and her pussy pulse erotically. The soft slide of her juices from the intimate recess of her body had her fighting not to arch her hips and bring attention to the needy flesh between her thighs.