by Lora Leigh
He moved to her, kissed her neck, then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him.
He kissed her gently at first, and would have gone for more if his own stomach hadn’t decided to begin growling.
Cami laughed at the sound before pulling away from him and moving back to the ingredients she had laid out.
Just then, Crowe’s cell phone rang and they heard his cousin walk down the hall to take the call.
It wasn’t long before Crowe came back.
His expression was a hardened demand that spurred Rafe and Logan both into action.
“What’s happened?” Rafe questioned harshly as Cami moved to his side, her face etched with concern.
“It’s Archer on the phone,” Crowe growled. “Jack Townsend’s garage outside of town just exploded. Jack’s tow truck and Jeannie’s car were both in the parking lot and no one saw them leave.” He glanced at Cami as a small, unconscious sob finally tore from her, only to quiet just as quickly. “It looks like they were killed in the explosion.”
CHAPTER 20
Cami felt numb inside as Rafe pulled the Denali SUV into the parking lot of Jack’s Towing and Repair just outside Sweetrock city limits no less than fifteen minutes later. Staring at the burned, charred mess of the building, she couldn’t imagine how anyone could have survived such an explosion. Especially if they had been in the apartment overhead where Jack and Jeannie had lived.
More than half of the garage was just gone, with the debris scattered through the parking lot, vehicles lying in a tangled mess here and there. One lay in the field across from the garage. There were more than half a dozen that had been parked in the waiting lot, ready for needed repairs.
There was no repairing the damaged messes they were now. Cinder blocks, mortar, and metal had been slammed onto the vehicles. The wreckage defied any sense of logic or attempts to make sense of what had happened.
Cami stepped out of the truck, aware of being surrounded by Callahans and all the eyes that turned to them as three hard-cored, hard-muscled, steel-eyed Callahan men wrapped themselves around her and defied anyone to attempt to get close to her.
As she stared up at the garage, her heart in her chest, she tried to blink back the tears she couldn’t hold back any longer. She couldn’t believe this had happened.
“This wasn’t an accident,” Crowe muttered from behind her and Rafe as she felt his arm tighten around her back, his hand falling to her hip, his fingers gripping it firmly, as though she would attempt to tear herself away from him.
At the moment, her emotions were so torn, conflicted, and thrown into chaos that she couldn’t imagine moving away from the only person who seemed to ground them.
“No,” Rafe growled. “It wasn’t an accident.”
“How can you be so certain?” she asked faintly. “Why would anyone want to hurt Jack and Jeannie?”
“We’ll find out,” Rafe promised as Cami glimpsed Archer amid a group of volunteer firefighters and several state police officers.
Catching sight of the Rafe and Cami, Archer lifted his hand in acknowledgment before excusing himself and moving quickly across the debris-strewn parking lot. “The fire marshal is refusing to allow anyone onto the premises.” Archer’s voice was low as he reached them, his gaze filled with somber anger. “I can’t check for the bodies, Rafe.”
Cami wanted to close her eyes; she wanted to deny that this could have happened. That there was a chance that Jack and or Jeannie could have been in that building. But Jack’s tow truck was there, as was Jeannie’s little gray car. Was there even the smallest chance that they weren’t in the building?
“Neighbors saw Jack going in maybe half an hour before the explosion,” Archer sighed. “They didn’t see anyone else.”
“He was at the house the other day,” Cami told Archer softly. “He remembered the accident Jaymi was in just before she was killed; his father towed the car in and repaired it. The brake lines had been deliberately cut.”
As the four men stared at her, their expressions cast in hard, brooding lines, Cami detailed the meeting and the information Jack had given her.
“You’re getting the same phone calls,” Rafe stated when she finished. “You’re getting them and you didn’t tell me. Someone else had to tell me.”
He was furious.
Cami could see the pure rage burning in his eyes now, as well as the silent promise that it was a subject they would discuss in detail later.
She could feel the regret then, that feeling that had hidden inside her for the past weeks, teasing her, brooding in her mind. It was regret, and the knowledge that when Rafe did learn what she had been holding back from him, everything she had been holding back for him, the time to pay would come.
That time was growing closer by the second, and she was suddenly very aware of what she could lose.
His trust.
Whatever emotion burned in his gaze for her.
She could lose Rafe, and she suddenly realized that despite the distance she had placed between them, she didn’t want to lose him. She couldn’t bear to lose him.
For the past five years she had lived for the rare times they had come together. She had waited for him, watched for him, and she longed for him with a strength that had kept her from settling for any other lover.
And in that second, gazing in his eyes, she realized that was what she would do if she wasn’t very careful. She was going to damage whatever it was between them that had kept them coming to each other over the years. That bond of hunger, and something, something she simply couldn’t define, that kept the hunger growing ever stronger.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered. “I should have told you, Rafe. I should have told you so many things.”
She should have never kept the secrets she had kept. Not just about the phone calls but about most especially about the child she had lost. That part of Rafe, that part of the soul-deep need she had for him that she had so longed to give birth to, that had been taken from her.
She should have told him. And now, it just may have come too late.
CHAPTER 21
The past was like a ghost, a haunting spectre he couldn’t escape no matter his attempts. No matter the attempts his cousins made. From their births, they had faced the hatred and controversy of their well-loved mothers marrying the town’s least-loved citizens.
The Callahan brothers had been more than the town had known and yet less than it would have taken for Corbin County citizens to ever make the move to ignore the call to ostracize anything Callahan.
Before Rafe’s, Logan’s, and Crowe’s fathers had married the three heiresses, they hadn’t been ostracized. They had been liked, not always trusted but always able to charm their way into the hearts and minds of those they knew. Once their relationships with the Corbin, Rafferty, and Ramsey daughters were known, all that had changed.
James Corbin and Saul Rafferty had been certain that public condemnation would destroy those relationships. They hadn’t realized how stubborn and how deeply their daughters had loved the men they had chosen.
As Rafe stared down at Cami, he was reminded, not for the first time, of the legacy his, Logan’s, and Crowe’s parents had left them. A legacy that made the lives of the women they might love potentially dangerous. A legacy that those women might not be able to adapt to as easily as they had, because they had lived it every day of their lives. Perhaps, in a way, they had grown used to it.
Cami wasn’t a woman known to apologize. Jaymi had once told her that even when Cami had been no more than a teenager, she never apologized. When Jaymi asked her why, Cami had stared back at her with what she described as grim determination and said because she made certain she meant everything she said and everything she did.
She had just been a child then, her life a series of disappointments and chastisements. What Jaymi had said was a teenager’s habit of rebelling, Eddy had described as a result of a young girl constantly being berated instead.
“We’ll talk l
ater,” Rafe promised as he fought to push back the rage that still burned from their earlier confrontation.
It wasn’t a rage directed at her, at least not entirely.
It was directed at life, at the circumstances, at the loss of a life that hadn’t had the chance to even live.
She turned away quickly, the sharp inhalation of breath drawing his attention. Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do. The last thing he intended to do. But neither would he lie to her.
He wasn’t about to tell her to not worry about it, and he sure as hell wasn’t going to tell her it was okay. Because it wasn’t. What he did intend to do was teach her to never fucking hide anything else from him.
She hadn’t exactly lied to him, but the lie of omission could be just as destructive. And if there was a chance in hell of a future with her, then she would have to learn the value of never keeping secrets from him.
Catching her wrist as she moved to turn away from him, Rafe threaded his fingers with hers, gripping her hand and holding her close as the sheriff discussed the explosion with Crowe.
Rafe could see Archer was having problems with the information Cami had given him and the fact that the garage had obviously been deliberately blown to fucking hell.
“Sheriff, we can’t find any bodies,” the fire marshal, Drew Jacoby, stated in a rasping growl. Jacoby, a transplant from Denver whom the city had hired when they moved from the volunteer fire department to a paid force, was a tall, rough-talking Texan who rarely put up with any crap at all. Especially the gossiping kind.
Archer turned from the Callahans as he whipped his hat from his head and pushed his fingers through the short strands of his thick, dark hair.
“Maybe they weren’t there,” he suggested, hope filling his voice.
Jacoby gave a heavy shrug of his shoulders as he turned back to the charred remains of the garage, his expression brooding.
“We can hope—”
“Hey, Sheriff, it’s Townsend!” Deputy Eisner announced, his voice high, excited, as a black sedan raced into the parking lot to come to a bone-jarring stop.
Jeannie was out of the car first, with Jack stepping out more slowly, his expression bemused as he stared at the garage as though he was certain he had to be seeing things.
Cami ran for the couple, aware of Rafe’s hand still gripping hers as he all but pulled her along, his long, powerful legs outdistancing hers.
“Jeannie.” Cami pulled away from Rafe, her arms going around the other woman as Jeannie suddenly began sobbing.
“Oh my God,” she cried, holding on to Cami desperately. “What happened? Cami, what happened?”
“We were so scared you and Jack were in there.” Cami pulled back to glance back at the garage, then to Jeannie and Jack once again. “Thank God you’re all right.”
“But what happened?” Confusion and fear filled her gaze.
“Bastard!” Jack suddenly cursed. “That fucking bastard. He called last night.” Jack turned to Cami, his eyes blazing with fury. “He told me I should’ve kept my nose out of Callahan business and I’d learn the hard way I should have gone to Denver with the rest of the family.”
Cami drew back from Jeannie slowly.
She could feel the guilt moving in, slowly, surely. This was her fault. Jack had been trying to help her. If he hadn’t been the one she had questioned after leaving Rafe’s, if he hadn’t become curious because of her questions, then this would have never happened.
“Cami, this wasn’t your fault.” Jeannie suddenly caught her arm as Rafe, distracted by Jack’s announcement, turned away from her. “You didn’t cause any of this, I swear. Jack has been bothered by too many things lately where his friends are concerned. And pretending the Callahans weren’t his friends when they returned wasn’t happening.”
Cami shook her head. She didn’t believe Jack would have begun questioning his father over the Callahans, though, or learned about the brake lines to Jaymi’s car with the wreck twelve years ago if it hadn’t been for her.
Those particular questions were the ones that had made Jack a target. Just as they had made her a target.
“Let me find the son of a bitch and I’ll kill him,” Jack snarled as Cami turned to see him staring at the bulding with naked pain.
“Jack, think of Jeannie,” Archer warned him, his voice low. “If you’re out chasing the bad guys, who’s going to protect her? Leave this to me. I promise you, I’m not my father. I’ll find out who’s behind it.”
“Dammit, Archer, you think I’m just going to sit around and wait for that son of a bitch to just find me and Jeannie and announce his presence again?” A tight, savage smile curled his lips. “Hell no, I won’t. You better hope you find him before I do. Because when I get my hands on him there won’t be anything to prosecute.”
He was enraged, but at least he was alive, Cami thought as she felt Rafe’s arm curl around her back, his fingers gripping her hip to pull her closer to him.
He was making a statement. As the crowd grew around the destroyed garage he was making it a point to show everyone who bothered to look exactly whom she was with there.
And there was plenty of looking. She could feel the gazes, some antagonistic, others curious, and still others calculating.
She met those gazes defiantly. She’d spent too many years running from what she wanted, running from the only man who did anything to fire her blood or to make her feel more than friendship.
These people’s opinions should have never mattered for even a second, but she had pretended as though they had, to save her own heart. To keep her emotions shielded and her secrets closely guarded.
There were no secrets any longer. Rafe knew the past, and he would either accept it or walk away. She wouldn’t demand anything from him either way.
“You’re staring at Eisner’s back as though you’re going to send a dagger through it,” Rafe murmured beside her as she realized she was indeed staring at Eisner, wishing she could kick him, scream at him, hurt him as he had tried to hurt the Callahans so many times for the very people he was now talking to.
James Corbin and his son, William.
But standing with them and glaring at Eisner as well was William’s young daughter, Kimberly Ann Corbin.
Ann Corbin at nineteen favored her father’s side of the family. Long auburn hair fell nearly to her waist in a riot of curls while sea-green eyes stared at Eisner, her expression creased in anger.
Her father, Will, kept trying to shoo her back. The more he tried to shoo her, the closer she got until she was standing at his elbow.
Both Corbin men would glare at her; they would cut Eisner off at some points. William rubbed at the back of his neck in frustration as he shot her several irate looks. She was the darling of the Corbin family, though. The spitting image of her dead aunt, Crowe’s mother, in both looks as well as temper. And if her expression was anything to go by, an explosion could be imminent.
“Eisner deserves the dagger more than most,” Cami muttered. “The two men he’s talking to even more so.”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen the girl out in years,” Logan commented. “They usually keep her away from town.”
“She and Jeannie are good friends,” Archer interjected before blowing out a hard breath and staring around in frustration. “It’s going to take this crowd hours to disperse, and Jack’s not in a good frame of mind if anyone decides to get ignorant with their mouths.”
Cami almost grinned at the saying “get ignorant.” The fine art of the smart-assed remark that could be delivered mockingly, snidely, sarcastically, or in a rage. It went along with having done something “for a minute,” which usually indicated more than a few days, and asking a person if they had taken their “smart pills” or if they were mixed up with the “stupid pills.” The locally grown little sayings had always amused her, and she had found herself missing them when she had been away at college.
“Yeah, well, getting ignorant is what some of them do best,” R
afe breathed out roughly. “Get your fire marshal to take him over the damage, then drive him to the hotel outside of town. Keeping him away from the homegrown yokels is your best bet unless you want to see blood shed.”
Cami looked around again, her gaze caught by the flash of a red Mercedes as it pulled in next to the Corbins’ black four-door Jaguar.
Wayne Sorenson, Corbin County’s attorney, stepped from the car accompanied by his daughter, Amelia.
After Amelia had taken the teaching position in Aspen, Cami rarely saw her and they never spoke. Amelia had never forgiven Cami for revealing the secret Sorenson had learned when he read the journal she had so carelessly left lying in her dorm room that day.
Amelia had changed.
Once, she had dressed in fashions that highlighted her unique temperament and sense of adventure. Now, she was dressed in a dark peacoat, black slacks, a gray sweater, and staid, low-heeled black pumps. The very type of clothes she had once sworn no one would ever catch her dead wearing.
Was this maturity? Cami wondered. Or was it a conformation aimed at attempting to gain Amelia’s father’s love as well?
It seemed to be working for her, just as easily as it had worked for Cami over the years.
Which was not in the least.
How long would it take Amelia to realize that no amount of conforming would gain the acceptance and the love she needed from her father?
“Cami?” Rafe’s hand at her back and the questioning tone of his voice had her head lifting. “Are you ready to leave?”
Was she ready to leave?
Did she really want to stay and watch the girl who had once been as close to her as a sister pretend to be something and someone she wasn’t?
“I’m ready.” She’d rather face Rafe’s wrath than watch the Amelia doll pose with tense expectation next to the father who didn’t even know she was there.
As Cami began to turn away, Amelia’s head lifted and Cami couldn’t help but be drawn to a stop.