"Midnight Sins" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leigh Lora)

CHAPTER 10

The mid-April morning glistened across the Colorado mountains with a wave of warmth that gave rise to the hope that the snow would melt soon. Everyone in town was crossing their fingers that the weather would definitely cooperate in time for the Spring Fling Social, the first night of weekend socials hosted by the county every Friday through Sunday evening.

The first social, a more formal affair for the adults, was the highlight of the beginning of the spring and summer season. It was time to dust off dancing shoes and evening jackets and polish social smiles.

Cami had purchased her dress the month before while in Denver helping her father choose the rest home they would be placing her mother in.

She’d found the perfect strapless little number at one of the small exclusive stores there, and had bought it immediately, despite its hefty price tag.

That morning, the sun streaming through the skylight above her bed filled the room with heat, pulling her eyes open after a restless night and greeting her with the feel of its heated warmth.

The warming temperatures managed to give her an energy she hadn’t had since the blizzard. Putting it to use after a quick shower, she found herself cleaning house, the back deck, and her front porch as the heat glistened off the landscape and the snow slowly began to melt.

It wasn’t a heat wave, but it was warm enough to allow the citizens of Sweetrock to begin clearing the fluff and the winter collection of dust and gloom that had accumulated.

Families were gathering in their yards along the block, working as a unit, parents overseeing and helping the younger children in many of the chores. The spurt of energy Cami felt was also infecting others it seemed.

For most of the day, laughter and generally good-natured comments could be heard echoing around the block, reminding Cami why she had bought the home her parents had owned. All around the neighborhood there was a sense of the one thing she had never had.

That sense of family.

As she worked, both in the back yard that faced the wide alley and on the front porch, her gaze moved constantly to the vehicles driving by. She kept hoping, not expecting, she assured herself, Rafer to make an appearance.

She didn’t want to admit to herself that there was a part of her that hoped Rafe would show up. The nights spent tossing and turning restlessly had given her too much time to think. Too much time to realize things she didn’t want to realize.

She needed him. The ache that seemed to spread through her body, that need to touch and be touched that was driving her crazy, was all because of him.

When dusk began to close in and the temperature dropped once again, families began to retreat into the warmth of their homes. Quiet began to fill the street as Cami stepped out to the wide, covered front porch carrying the piece of porch furniture she’d pulled from the garage, and gazed around the darkness silently.

The street lights cast shadows along the bare limbs of the trees lining the sidewalk. The almost sinister cast of the long-reaching fingers of darkness had a chill chasing up Cami’s spine.

She had never noticed it before. She had never paid attention to how easy it would be for someone to watch her house, or even to find a secretive path to her home if they wanted to.

She had security, but security could be bypassed.

She had never realized the weaknesses in her protection until the phone calls had begun. But then, she remembered Jaymi too had become more diligent in her home security when she had been receiving the threatening calls.

There had been two blocked calls in the past two days. One each night, and they kept her nerves on edge as much as the restless hunger for Rafer did. If she left the house, she wondered if she was being followed. When she came home, she was a paranoid wreck until she realized no one had managed to breach her security, such as it was.

It would often take her hours to remind herself that Jaymi hadn’t been taken while inside her home.

Still, the paranoia was there and strong enough that as the chill swept through her, Cami immediately retreated into the house and began locking up.

Windows and doors were checked, curtains were securely pulled closed. As she closed the last of the curtains, she stood in her bedroom for a moment and gazed around the room. It had been her mother’s room. Not her parents’ room, just her mother’s.

The master suite with its small sitting area and inviting, king-sized bed she so loved. The cream-colored walls and ceiling were a perfect backdrop for the dark oak floors and furnishings, which the bedclothes, dripping with lace from the sheets to the comforter, lightened and feminized the room just enough to keep it from being ostentatiously girly.

The old-fashioned vanity table and lace-draped chair took care of that on its own.

It was hers, and the thought of losing it out of fear rather than choice just pissed her off. She hated fear. She was learning just how much she hated being frightened.

As she was coming back downstairs, the sound of the doorbell, unexpected and overly loud in the quiet house, had her jerking back so hard she nearly stumbled on the stairs.

“Ridiculous,” she murmured as she took a deep breath, her eyes rolling at the sense of melodrama she realized she might be displaying.

She was letting those phone calls get to her way too much. And she wasn’t even certain, she had only suspicions to go by that the phone calls had anything to do with Jaymi’s death. After all, none of the other women who had died that summer had told anyone about any phone calls. And to the best of anyone’s knowledge, the other women hadn’t been one of the Callahan cousins’ lovers.

Moving quickly down the stairs, she lifted herself to look through the peephole, then draw back with a frown.

That sense of unreality once again began to close in on her. It was rather hard to believe that particular person was actually standing on the other side of the door.

Lifting up, she checked again, and once again she saw the same, expensively dressed, arrogant-eyed individual she had seen the first time she had checked.

“Ms. Flannigan, I’m aware you’re on the other side.” Bored and heavy with impatience, the voice drifted through the heavy door. “I’ll only take a moment of your time, if you don’t mind?”

Only a moment of her time, huh?

She had a feeling he was about to take up a hell of a lot more than a moment of her time. This particular person could cause her life to go to hell in a handbasket, which would take up a hell of a lot more than a moment of her time.

Moving back, she quickly opened the door, stepped back, and allowed him in.

Considering who her visitor was, there wasn’t a chance in hell he could kill her without at least someone telling someone who had been there. And once that happened, Rafe would learn who it was that had been at the house.

Then, blood would spill.

Hell, maybe she should have just pretended she wasn’t home.

Pushing the door closed, he didn’t even flinch as it smacked against the frame a little harder than needed.

She wanted to at least give the hint that she wasn’t pleased to see him there.

Flipping the locks back in place, she prepared herself before turning back to him and crossing her arms over her breasts as she confronted him.

“And what can I do for you, Mr. Roberts?”

Rafer’s grandfather.

She’d always thought Rafer looked more like his Callahan father than the Roberts’ side of the family. Staring back at Rafer’s grandfather, though, she realized there was no denying they were definitely related. Closely related.

Marshal Roberts had the same, intense blue eyes Rafer possessed. She’d heard his mother had had the same rich, mesmerizing color of eyes. The arch of the brow was the same, and that same arrogant line of the jaw.

Marshal Roberts’s hair was now a shade of dark silver where it had once been a dark, dark brown. Rafer had that deep raven’s black that all Callahan men had been known for, but he also had that same heavy wave at the front where the rest were ribbon-straight.

He wasn’t as tall as his grandson either. He stood only six feet while Rafer stood a towering six two. But his shoulders were just as broad, and even nearing seventy, he was still an imposing figure of a man.

Marshal looked around, curiosity flickering in his gaze as he seemed to linger on the mantel of pictures over the fireplace.

“Your family?” He gestured to the pictures as he moved to them, reached out and picked up a frame that held an eight by ten of her father, mother, and Jaymi.

“Yes.” As though he didn’t already know.

“Strange,” he murmured, glancing back at her. “I see very few of you here.”

He indicated one or two of her and Jaymi alone. There were no pictures of her with her mother, and definitely none of her with her father.

“Rub the salt in the wound,” she offered mockingly. “Then please be kind enough to tell me why you’re here.”

He turned back and replaced the picture before appearing to peruse the rest.

He was a member of the school board, which meant he held her job in the palm of his hand. He was a member of the city council, once again, a very heavy influence on her job. He was the president this year of the business leaders’ association as well as the cattle ranchers’ association. Okay, so that didn’t have a lot of bearing, just a lot of influence over the other two.

He was a very busy man.

So what was he doing here wasting his time with her?

She could pretty much guess at this point. It was just so out of character for him to really care that she could only stare at him in bemusement.

And where was his driver? Because everyone knew Marshal Roberts didn’t drive himself anywhere. But she hadn’t seen anyone else in the unassuming pick-up truck sitting at her curb and no one was at the door with him before he came in.

Though she honestly couldn’t say she had ever heard of Marshal Roberts visiting any of Rafer’s past girlfriends, lovers, friends, or various associates. He’d always pretended his grandson didn’t exist in any capacity or area of his consciousness. If one mentioned Rafer, she heard he turned away or stared back at them as though they hadn’t spoken. He had his tricks and maneuvers that didn’t quite match his presence here tonight.

“I hear you spent a few days at the Triple R ranch?” His head jerked around, his gaze piercing as he asked the question almost casually.

As though he would catch her doing something, or an expression on her face that would give him an answer of some sort.

She was tempted to simply roll her eyes again, just to show him she wasn’t in the least intimidated. Though, actually, she might have been, just a little bit intimidated.

“I did,” she admitted.

There was no denying it after all. Martin Eisner had seen her kissing Rafer before she left. That spurt of reckless challenge that Rafer always awakened in her had ensured she didn’t walk away from him without throwing caution to the winds. Caution and his belief that she could ever be ashamed of having a man like Rafer Callahan in her bed.

It wasn’t shame that held her back. It was that debilitating fear. That overriding knowledge of the risk he could bring to her soul and her survival.

It wasn’t one of her brightest moments, though, she admitted, but definitely one of her most honest.

He turned back to her, his hands pushing the edges of his silk business jacket back as he shoved them into the pockets of his nicely pressed blue jeans.

That was a rancher. Jeans and a silk business jacket.

It was standard for for this particular baron of Corbin County, as he and his two cohorts were called.

His head tilted to the side as he watched her carefully, a hint of curiosity in his gaze.

“What a contradiction of expressions on your face,” he mused thoughtfully. “Tell me, Ms. Flannigan, is he aware you’re in love with him?”

A frown jerked between her brows. “I’m not in love with, Rafer, Mr. Roberts. There are just—” She paused. Her teeth clenched as she fought for the reason. “There are just things between us. That’s all.”

“Things?” Arrogant and mocking, and fully aware of his own sense of knowledge, the arch of that dark brow assured her he believed otherwise.

“Exactly. Just things.” She cocked her hip as her arms tightened over her breasts. “Do you mind telling me what you need? I’m rather busy with lesson plans and so forth tonight.”

If he intended to threaten her with her job, then she would allow him the opportunity now rather than later.

He didn’t speak immediately. He just continued to stare at her thoughtfully for long moments. Finally, he gave a small shake of his head as his lips quirked knowingly.

“I’m going to assume you’re aware you could lose every friend or acquaintance you have in this county,” he said then, his voice soft. “Tell me, Ms. Flannigan, are you certain you want to continue in this relationship that seems to be developing between you and Rafer, considering the risks and losses you’re looking at?”

Someone else who called him Rafer.

She could see the frown on Rafer’s face now, especially considering the fact that there had been times it had seemed he was uncertain if he wanted her calling him by the full version of his name.

“He doesn’t like being called Rafer,” she stated. “He only tolerates it from me, you know.”

And she was rather possessive of the privilege. Rafer had been known to get into fistfights over that name. But it seemed to suit him so very well.

“He’s never tolerated it from anyone else, but his full given name is Marshal Rafer Callahan,” he stated, and for a moment she saw something, sensed something she never had in her life. Pure, icy grief. “His mother loved her father,” he said softly then.

And the rumor had been that the father had cherished his daughter.

“Your middle name is Rafer?”

“As is his,” he inclined his head slowly. “But you’re digressing, Ms. Flannigan, and being much too curious. I asked you a question.”

“My friends won’t walk away if they’re my friends.” She shrugged. “If they do walk away, then I don’t need them in my life.”

His lips quirked as an expression of insultingly sardonic amazement crossed his face. “How incredibly innocent. And stupid.” He paused then, his jaw tightening before he said, “Haven’t you already lost one friend because of the Callahans? I believe she even told my granddaughter that you were so besotted with him and the child you carried for such a short time that nothing else mattered to you.”

She breathed in deeply, fighting the pain that wanted to tear at her soul. She couldn’t believe Amelia had actually told anyone in that horrible family about the child she carried.

“Does anyone else know?” she whispered, wondering if Rafe knew, or if there was a possibility of any of the Callahans learning of it.

He snorted at the thought. “My granddaughter told only me, and Amelia hasn’t even told her father as far as I know.”

Cami rather doubted that. If she had told Marshal Roberts’s granddaughter, supposedly her best friend and co-worker, then her father, Wayne Sorenson, knew as well.

She had prayed Amelia would keep that to herself.

“My granddaughter understands family loyalty,” he assured her as though it were a question. “Trust me, it wasn’t information we wanted bandied about.”

Of course it wasn’t. God forbid that the grandson he had disowned would dare to have children of his own. Or that any woman would desire to have his child.

“Did you have a drink to celebrate the loss of your great-grandchild, Mr. Roberts?” she asked painfully, certain he would have. “I hope you enjoyed it.”

Her voice rasped, the inability to hold back her pain in front of this man was galling.

“No, Ms. Flannigan, I did not.” The flash of some emotion she thought could have been regret flashed in his gaze. “I grieved, just as I grieved when I lost my daughter.”

“You still had your grandson. Did you grieve when you disowned him?” Anger was beginning to churn inside her now. What the hell made him think he was wanted here? “You’ve had more than twenty years to show him you grieved and what have you done, Mr. Roberts? Better yet, why are you even here?”

She didn’t want to deal with him. He had broken his grandson’s heart. If his daughter had been living, he would have destroyed her if what he said was true, and she had loved him so dearly she had named her only child after him.

“I’m here to reason with you, because you carried my great-grandchild at one time,” he said softly. “And because I know you grieved when you lost that child. I don’t want to see you hurt further, Ms. Flannigan. And regardless of what you think, I don’t want to see Rafer hurt anymore than he has already been. It may be in your best interests to consider severing the relationship now. Or convincing him to leave Colorado altogether. His chances at happiness would be greatly improved if he would do so.”

She frowned back for a moment. “Isn’t there some codicil in the inheritance his mother left him, and that was left to her, that states the heir can only be a resident of Corbin County? Not any other Colorado county or other state? And doesn’t it only give certain reasons why he can be away for more than a year, with the military being one of those reasons?”

He stared back at her for long moments, his gaze icy before his lips quirked, though the ice in his eyes remained.

“Touché, Ms. Flannigan,” he murmured. “Touché. And did Rafer give you these details?”

“He didn’t have to. The details are a matter of public record for anyone who cares to check,” she informed him.

“And of course, you cared enough about the man who fathered the child you lost to check,” he said softly.

It hurt. The memory of the child was like a deep, burning wound that refused to stop bleeding with bitterness, or aching with an agony she couldn’t dim whenever she allowed herself to think about it.

“Besides the point,” she retorted. “What makes you think you have the right to steal what his mother wanted him to have?”

“Because his mother knew it wasn’t hers to begin with,” he suddenly snapped before quickly turning his back on her, his shoulders bunching with the obvious anger surging through him.

When he turned back seconds later, his expression lacked any emotion whatsoever. “Is that inheritance more important than his happiness?” he finally asked, his voice dripping with ice.

“Evidently, as Rafer is still in Corbin County, it appears the two go hand in hand,” she retorted with mocking anger, her emphasis on the fact that he shouldn’t have to choose apparent.

As his lips parted, another question pushed past her lips almost unbidden as the thought came to her. “Are you the son of a bitch behind the threatening phone calls I’ve been getting? Because if you are, you can inform whoever you’ve put up to making them that they aren’t effective in the least. I will not be frightened away from something I want, Mr. Roberts. Or something I feel I deserve.”

He seemed to freeze. For a second, she thought she might have seen fear flash in his eyes, but Marshal Roberts wasn’t a man known for feeling fear. To the contrary, he was known for being rather fearless in the face of most situations.

“No,” he finally said, his voice soft, his expression tightening and forming a hardened, emotionless cast. “I haven’t put anyone up to calling you, Ms. Flannigan, and definitely not to threaten you. Have you told the sheriff of the calls?”

“Not yet.” She’d had no intention of telling Archer. She preferred not to, suspecting the information might get back to Rafer.

She wasn’t certain if she was ready for that.

Slowly, his hand lifted, and for a second, every one of his near seventy years was reflected clearly on his face as he covered it with his hand.

Weariness slumped his shoulders and the image of a man at the end of a particular rope had Cami pausing for a second. It was gone as quickly as it had flashed across his face, though. If it had even been there to begin with.

“I would highly suggest alerting the sheriff to these calls,” he stated then. “And if I were you, I’d definitely tell Rafer. And then, it would be advisable, Ms. Flannigan, to sever the relationship building between the two of you.”

He was once again the arrogant, coldly commanding Marshal Roberts. The man who had disowned his grandson. The one who had stood stony-eyed at his daughter’s grave site, his son at his side, his granddaughter held in his arms as he deliberately separated himself from his only grandson.

“You can advise all you want, Mr. Roberts,” she told him with a sense of resignation. “Just as I advise Rafer on a constant basis, but it all comes down to him.” She grimaced, admitting to the one person she knew would never tell her secret. “I have an incredibly hard time telling your grandson ‘no’.”

For a second, just a second, his expression seemed to soften. The image of an old man who knew his grandson well flashed across his face. And if she wasn’t entirely mistaken, there was a glimmer of pride as well.

“My wife, God rest her soul, told me the same thing once when we were very young,” he admitted, his gaze connecting with hers in a moment that seemed more connected than she would have liked with this man. “Take care of your yourself, Ms. Flannigan. And should Rafe not take no for an answer, then at least insist that he take careful measure of the security surrounding both of you.”

There was an edge to the words, a deliberate warning that had her arms dropping from her breasts as she confronted him.

“Is that a threat?” she asked carefully.

His gaze was heavy with shadows, and she suspected, knowledge. But it was a knowledge he was refusing to admit to.

“Regardless of belief, I’m no threat to my grandson,” he told her. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t a threat that follows the Callahan family. A curse perhaps?” he suggested warily.

“You won’t threaten him, but you won’t save him either, is what you’re saying?” she guessed.

“I didn’t say that.” Now the anger was back. “I would never stand idly by and allow my grandson to be harmed any more than I stood idly and allowed my granddaughter to die.”

Cami could feel something in the air between them then, a tension that didn’t make sense, as though he were trying to tell her something, warn her of something.

“But Sam and Mina Callahan’s deaths were an accident,” she posed carefully. “Weren’t they?”

“Of course they were.” Emotionless. There was no inflection in his voice. “And this conversation never occurred.”

Her brow arched. “Do you think no one took notice of your pick-up, Mr. Robert?”

“It’s one of my ranch hands’.” He shrugged. “And think of this, Ms. Flannigan. To this point, I’ve actually been one of Rafer’s most staunch allies. Don’t make me his strongest enemy.”

Replacing the western hat on his head, he tilted the brim to fully shade his face before moving past her and unlocking the door.

He paused once again as she watched him silently. “I’m rather good at choosing those I reach out to,” he stated quietly. “You’ve hidden the loss of your child all these years, I suspect, to save Rafer from further pain.”

Cami breathed in roughly, the fact that he had realized that somehow easing a wound she hadn’t known she carried.

“What’s your point?” she asked, unable to hide the evidence of the tears that would come later.

“My point?” He finally turned his head to stare back at her. “I rather suspect you’ll tell no one of this visit. Unfortunately the one you need to hide it from the most will be the very one you ache to tell. Telling Rafer I was here could be a rather bad idea.”

Cami pushed her fingers wearily through her hair and blew out a hard, irritated breath. “If you know Rafer anywhere near as well as I do, then you know damned good and well he’s going to know exactly who it was, no matter the precautions you took. What the hell makes you think for a minute he can be fooled so easily?”

His eyes narrowed. “He doesn’t read minds.”

“He doesn’t have to,” she told him softly. “He has eyes and ears that no one suspects, Mr. Roberts. In forcing Rafer and his cousins to hide friendships and connections, you forced them to create bonds and spies. Have no doubt, for even a second, he’ll know, eventually. And then, I guess we’ll both have to deal with it.”

Silent, almost moody, he glared back at her before nodding shortly. Pulling the door open, he stepped to the porch, the panel closing quietly behind him.

As Cami walked over and secured each lock, she heard the truck start, and a second later, the sound of it pulling away from the side of the street could be heard.

How very, very strange, she thought.

And like Marshal Roberts, she truly hoped Rafer never, ever learned he was there.

That wouldn’t necessarily be a good thing.