“That’s not a good enough reason, Rafer,” she said, saddened not just because of the life she knew he and his cousins had lived but also because he seemed to have accepted it as deeply as everyone else in Corbin County. “Coincidences like this don’t happen. There has to be more to it.”
“The reason doesn’t matter, Cami,” he assured her with an edge of mockery. “And coincidences are called that for a reason, I’ve learned. Sometimes, it truly is a coincidence. Now I’m not concerned with the past, with grandparents or with Marshal Roberts. I want to know about those phone calls.”
“I told you about the phone calls, Rafer,” she argued with a surge of anger. The fear was being overshadowed now. Overshadowed by the anger that Rafer refused to even consider the fact that danger could be haunting him. “Why aren’t you willing to listen to me?”
He gave a heavy sigh.
“Did you know the Corbins began this little campaign?” he asked her softly. “Crowe’s granddaddy stood at the entrance to the funeral home when Logan, Crowe, and myself arrived at the funeral home with Clyde. He barred our way. The Callahans had no place there, he said. They murdered his daughter and he refused to have one attend her funeral, and Saul Rafferty, Logan’s grandfather, and Marshal Roberts backed him on it. We weren’t welcome there.”
Cami had heard that story more than once, and each time she’d seen the conflict most people still had over it. She had also seen the knowledge that James Corbin had drawn the line that day and over the years and he’d enforced it. Marshal Roberts and Saul Rafferty hadn’t, though, if she remembered the Callahan history correct. And she was pretty certain she did.
“James Corbin enforced it,” she repeated. “Not the others.”
“The other’s backed him, Cami,” he growled, frustration filling his voice now. “Mine and Logan’s grandfathers were just as much a part of it as James Corbin was.”
“I don’t think Marshal Roberts was,” she argued. “I don’t know about Saul Rafferty, but I do know he moved from Corbin County just after his daughter’s funeral. He only returns to oversee certain aspects of the ranch, other than that his manager handles everything. He’s separated himself from the entire situation, hasn’t he?” She knew he had. She had made it her business in the past few days to find out.
“Let it go, Cami,” Rafe warned her. “This isn’t your fight, and it’s a fight you’ll lose. For God’s sake, if any part of what you suspect is true, then can you imagine the danger it would place you in?”
“You already suspected it?” she whispered, shocked that he was fighting her if he had already suspected something wasn’t right about the past.
“No, Cami, I don’t,” he told her, his tone short now as he denied the charge. “Do you think we haven’t thought of every question you’ve come up with?” He reached out, his fingertips caressing down the side of her face before he pulled back and watched her quietly for long moments. “Honey, this time, coincidence is coincidence.”
“You’re just accepting it?” She couldn’t believe it. That Rafe wouldn’t fight against the suspected murders of his family? Especially his parents and his uncle?
“It’s not a question of accepting it or not accepting it,” he informed her brusquely. “It’s the way things are, plain and simple. The only reason you want to change it at this point is so you can fuck me without having to worry about the fine citizens of this county looking down at you for sharing a bed with a Callahan.”
Could she blame him for believing it? How many people had ever questioned how the Callahan cousins had been treated over the years?
How many had ever stood up for them?
Or had they, like her, been torn by the fear of losing someone they would love with all their hearts and the three men who only sneered in the face of their unacceptance and flaunted the fact that they didn’t give a damn? Men who dared their enemies to strike out at them or anyone who loved them.
“Why did you even come here tonight if all you wanted was to know about your grandfather’s visit?” She was angry at herself, but a part of her was even angrier at him. “What did it accomplish, Rafer? You should have just called.”
He chuckled at her question then, a dark, sexy sound of male amusement as the frustration and anger eased from his gaze.
“What did it accomplish?” he asked arched his brow, and gave her a heavy-lidded look of complete male satisfaction. “Other than eliminating your need for that fake dick tonight? It accomplished a hell of a lot of pleasure and the best come I’ve had since the last time I had my cock buried in your sweet little pussy.”
“It’s last time it’s going to be buried,” she retorted, knowing it was an empty threat, but growing so furious now that her pride kicked in. “You should have stayed home, Rafe.” She pushed away from him, sliding from the bed as she acknowledged she wasn’t going to walk away from him unscathed. Not now, and not in the future. “You’re not willing to fight for anything, are you, but I’m supposed to risk every part of my heart and soul for the pleasure of having you in my bed? Does this seem a little skewed to you somehow? Tell me, Rafe Callahan, do you even care what a woman would go through in this fucking county for you? Would it even make a difference if you knew you had broken her heart after she had already placed herself on the firing line?”
Rafe grunted behind her, watching the slender, graceful curve of her back as she moved from the bed.
She was just damned determined to piss him off, and if he was honest with himself then he admitted she was getting close to that edge.
It wouldn’t be pretty once he let that anger build inside him. He’d pushed those emotions back in his teens, determined to never let them free again. He’d fought his last battle when his Clyde had died and Rafe had realized how many friends the man had lost when he had taken in the three orphan cousins when no one else would have them.
“You know, kitten, you amaze me,” Rafe drawled. “You lay in this bed with that little toy of yours, fighting to get off, knowing damned good and well that it’s my dick you’re fantasizing about, and still, you’re determined to run my ass off. I’d like to understand the logic behind that one.”
There it was. The anger was beginning to simmer inside his chest.
“You know the logic behind it, Rafer.” Soft, filled with an anger he couldn’t help but acknowledge.
She kept her back to him, drew the silky robe over her naked body before quickly belting it. “You simply refuse to accept it. Why should I fight this alone when you refuse to even acknowledge it? When you don’t even give a damn about what’s happening around you or why?”
“Acknowledge what? That you need everyone else to approve of who you’re sleeping with?” He slid her a hard look, determined to hold back the years of resentment and anger that had once been buried. He refused to allow her to resurrect them.
He stared up at the ceiling for a long moment before rolling from the bed himself and jerking his clothes off the floor. He’d be damned if he was going to fight with her over this. It simply wasn’t worth it and reminded him far too much of the arguments he had with her sister the summer she had been killed.
Why the hell did they insist on attempting to tie together events that even he and his contacts couldn’t prove had a connection? And they were the ones who had fought that battle all their lives.
No matter how hard they had tried, they couldn’t find a single piece of evidence to link their parents’ or their grandparents’ deaths. And God knew they would have loved to.
Socks and jeans were pulled on quickly before he sat on the bed and shoved his feet into his boots. Rafe straightened again, collected his shirt from the chair where it had fallen and pulled it over his shoulders as well.
All the while, he was aware of her watching him, her eyes sheening with tears every few minutes before she blinked them back.
“You’re a coward, Cami,” he finally told her as he secured the buttons of his shirt. “A damned little coward that would cut her own nose off to spite her face if it meant her daddy wouldn’t get mad at her. If it meant he would love her.”
She turned away from him, hiding the truth from him, he thought, knowing that was exactly why she wanted him out of her bed after he fucked the want out of her.
God forbid her daddy should find out about it, Rafe thought furiously.
“You won’t even try to fight against the Corbins or to understand why they want you and your cousins out of this county so badly,” she argued fiercely.
“Oh hell, yes, I do know why.” He gave a bark of mocking laughter. “The inheritances our mothers left us were far more important to those bastards than the grandchildren those daughters left. Especially grandsons that looked too much like their hated Callahan fathers.”
“Then tell me why Marshal Roberts grieved for you?” she asked him, burying the knife that was the past deeper inside his soul and twisting it cruelly. “Why, Rafer, did he show up on my doorstep at a time he would be least noticed to attempt to warn me of something more than his wrath if I continued to see you?”
“Because he’s a smart, manipulative, evil old bastard, and if he died tomorrow I wouldn’t shed a tear for him,” he growled, wondering himself if that were even true.
“Or is it because you’re too damned scared to know the truth? All three of you are,” she accused.
She didn’t know the effect that accusation had on him. She couldn’t have known the bitterness that filled him, Logan, and Crowe, or the questions that haunted them as well. Questions they had no hope of finding because those with the answers were dead.
“There’s not a damned thing I’m scared of in this county, Cami,” he informed her furiously as he stared at her back, watching as her shoulders tightened, as she refused to turn back to him.
“I really don’t want to discuss this with you any longer,” she informed him, her voice low as he stood watching her, the fact that she had her back to him bothering him more than he wanted to admit. “I have things to do in the morning, Rafer, and I don’t have time to deal with you before I leave.”
And she sure as hell didn’t want anyone to know he was here, he thought mockingly. God forbid someone on her street would actually realize she was screwing one of the Callahan cousins.
Son of a bitch if he wasn’t sick and damned tired of dealing with this bullshit with every lover he’d had. He’d thought Cami, with her fire, her restless courage, and warmth would have cared more about whatever they could feel growing between them than whether or not her daddy approved of her lover.
“Do you think I don’t get damned tired of this, Cami? Why don’t you just admit to the fact that you’re so damned scared of daddy finding out you’re fucking his daughter’s killer that you’ll come up with any excuse to put a wedge between us?” he snapped furiously. “And the least you could do is turn around and face me, damn you!”
She shook her head furiously, her hand lifting in rejection, and in that moment, he knew she was crying.