“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 believed 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.”
“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.