“Answers to what, Rafer? Why I refuse to fuck around or fuck men who would just love to advertise it? What business is it of yours?”
“Liar!” His lips drew back as the word rasped from his lips. “You’ve been running from me for six years now, Cami. Sneaking out of the bed like a damned thief when the sun rises and avoiding me like the plague for the past three years. And I want to know why.”
“Well, it sucks to be you, Rafer,” she announced archly as she fought the anger she could feel rising more sharply inside her now.
“And what the hell do you mean by that?” he growled back at her, the muscles of his jaw flexing tightly.
“Exactly what I said.” Shrugging, her lips pursing to hold back the anger, she jerked her arm out of his grip before rolling quickly away from him and to her feet. “I need a shower. Do me a favor and stop listening to gossip. You should know yourself exactly how destructive it can be.”
She stalked from the living room, all but running from the living room and the questions she knew were getting ready to come from him.
Why had she begun ignoring him?
Why had she stopped making the trips to Denver that allowed him to waylay her for those few hours that allowed her to slip away at dawn? And why did she refuse to even question why they couldn’t resist that sexual pull that kept bringing them together?
And they were questions she simply refused to answer. There was too much pain, too many emotions she had no choice but to keep buried inside her.
“Things are going to go your way and be done your way, no matter what. Right?”
“Pretty much,” he agreed.
She so didn’t think so.
Rather than stating the obvious, she turned and stalked to the shower, slamming and locking the door behind her.
He should have followed her. It was his bathroom, his damned house. And by God, she was his damned woman. That was a decision he’d made six years ago, when she was more than eighteen years old. When he left the Marines, when he came back to stay, Cami would be his.
He’d kept track of her. The few contacts he still had in Corbin let him know if she was dating anyone, if it was getting serious, what she was doing, and if she needed anything. He’d taken the decision he’d made very damned seriously.
Cami was his, and he figured it was time he let her know that little fact.
She would fight him. He wasn’t certain why she would fight him, but it was more than apparent that that was exactly what she had in mind.
He hadn’t expected a challenge from her, but he wasn’t about to turn away from one either. It would only make her surrender sweeter, he thought. One of the reasons he’d looked forward to this return was the chance to finally claim Cami once and for all. He might not have that romantic, sweet idea of Prince Charming that she might think she wanted, but he knew how to keep her warm when the nights were cold.
He knew how to please her.
He knew how to protect her.
Now if he could just convince “her” of those few, though no doubt important, facts.
“Has he lost his fucking mind?” Crowe Callahan asked Logan the next morning, speaking through the voice-activated link to his cousin’s communications set. Crowe sat on the winter-white snowmobile, the winter camo protective gear he wore insulating him against the freezing wind as he held the matching binoculars to the eye slit of the thermal full-face ski mask.
Staring from his position on the snow-covered mountainside, he couldn’t believe Rafe was actually standing out in the freezing cold and smoking yet another of the cigars Crowe and Logan kept trying to convince him to throw away.
“Told you,” Logan said as he leaned back, ignoring Crowe’s intense, questioning look.
Dressed in identical snow gear, Logan rested casually against the pack strapped to the back half of the seat as the now gently falling snow, the final edge of the blizzard, collected on the protective face mask and shaded goggles he wore. “What’s he doing this time?”
The lazy, unconcerned drawl of his voice was distinctly at odds with the worry Crowe had seen earlier in his cousin’s face.
Shaking his head, Crowe turned back, lifted the military-issue binoculars back to his eyes, and watched as his cousin leaned against the support post of the sheltered porch below, the cigar clenched between his teeth, tension radiating in the stiff set of his shoulders and the dark glower on his face.
“He didn’t close the curtains to the living room,” Crowe mused as Cami Flannigan pulled the man’s long-sleeved white shirt over her naked body after rising from the bed of pillows, feather comforters, and quilts that Rafe had obviously made the night before.
Like an animal creating a nest for his mate. Soft, warm, comforting, and protective. The aura of intimacy was so heavy it made Crowe’s back teeth ache in frustrated anger. His baby cousin was making nests, getting intimate, and staring into the stark snowscape furiously. Just before his little lover stalked from the room. Then, Rafe just had to follow the girl.
“Really?” Logan rose from his reclined position. “Let me see.”
Crowe snorted. “Pervert. She’s left the room now.”
“And you got to see her naked?” Logan chuckled. “Hell, man, what made you get so lucky and not me? Can I tell Rafe you got to see his lady naked?”
Crowe shook his head in amusement as he lowered the device once again. “That boy’s going to get himself in trouble.” He sighed. “Cami Flannigan is the last woman he should be screwing, especially under the current circumstances.”
Especially considering the past and the circumstances of her sister’s death. As the sister of Jaymi Flannigan Kramer, the last in a series of serial rapes and murders twelve years before, Cami was a problem waiting to happen. Crowe and his cousins had nearly gone to prison for it at the time. Because of that, Cambria was the last woman in the world Rafe should even be in the same vicinity with let alone in the same bed.
“Hey, I didn’t notice a lot of choice when I was there with him,” Logan pointed out with a hint of laughter. “And I’m sorry, man, but if I was stuck in a blizzard with Cami Flannigan I’d be all about fucking her too.”
“Fucking her, not making yourself crazy over her.” Crowe sighed in resignation. You can fuck your women, Logan, without letting your heart get tangled up with your dicks.”
“My dick’s untangled just fine, thank you very much, cousin,” Logan informed him with a hint of heavy amusement in his voice. “Matter of fact, it’s about as untangled as a dick can get.”
Untangled, Crowe’s ass. Just give it time. Logan was all but hogtied and just didn’t know it yet. Dammit. How the hell was he supposed to protect his cousins’ asses without their help?
Crowe stared back at his younger cousin as Logan’s green eyes twinkled back at him. the laughter in his gaze made the dark green depths seem to shimmer.
“Really?” Crowe drawled mockingly. “And that little neighbor of yours isn’t putting a kink in it at all, right?” He couldn’t see the frown that pulled at Logan’s brow because of the cold weather mask, but Crowe saw the flash of ire in his cousin’s gaze.
“Shut up,” he muttered, his voice muffled by the face mask he wore.
Crowe breathed out roughly in resignation before turning back. He lifted the binoculars back to his eyes, and staring down at the two-story ranch house Clyde Ramsey had willed to his nephew, Rafer Callahan, along with the ranch.
As Crowe swept over the valley with the binoculars, it didn’t take him long to find the road crew slowly working its way up the mountain toward the ranch.
No one might know where Cambria Flannigan was yet, but it wouldn’t be long before her uncle Eddy Flannigan would be the first to figure it out. Shit was going to hit the fan when that happened, and Rafe would be stuck in the thick of it with no way out. Because there was no denying she had spent the duration of the blizzard there. It would be the perfect opportunity for Cami to try for a little revenge where her sister Jaymi was concerned. After all, the rest of her family believed the Callahans had killed her sister; over time, there was the possibility Cami could have been convinced.
It would be too damned easy for her to accuse him of raping her, kidnapping her, or performing any other illegal act that could possibly get him thrown into prison.
This was just what the hell the cousins needed.
Not that the Cami he had known eleven years ago could have done such a thing. But that was eleven years ago and this was now. Who knew how she had changed? And Crowe was a suspicious bastard.
They had to returned to Corbin County to find that “something” missing, not to help Rafe find his way into prison.
“Did you check out the car?” Crowe asked as he watched Rafe move through the house, the light curtains on the windows giving a clear view into his home. It appeared Rafe had followed Cami for some sort of confrontation.