overgrown children. Very dark, very cynical, but nonetheless as wild as hell and without the normal cautious attitudes most adults displayed at their age. Hell, their time in the Marines as snipers should have fucking matured them. At least by a few more years than it appeared it had.
Sighing heavily, he turned, tamped the cigar out in the small ashtray kept on a ledge by the door, then slipped back into the bedroom.
Cami was still sleeping peacefully, sprawled out on her stomach, her pretty rounded ass emphasized by the silk sheet lying over it.
He pulled the comforter over her body then tucked it to her shoulders before moving for the door. Opening it he headed to the kitchen his steps quick and silent as he moved down the wood stairs.
He’d forgotten about the clothing left tossed on the floor until he stepped into the brightly lit kitchen to see Logan twirling a pair of tiny violet panties on one finger while he held up a matching lace and silk bra with the other. He looked from one to the other with curious moss-green eyes. As though trying to determine exactly what it was or why it was there.
Glancing at Rafe, he dropped the lingerie on the table, then picked up the sweatshirt and read the front of it. Rafe watched as his cousin visibly tensed before turning the sweat shirt and reading the back.
“Cami Flannigan,” Logan mused softly as Rafe began picking up the clothes, folding them haphazardly, and laying them on the counter. “Did you lose your mind sometime between the agreement we made about Corbin County beauties and whenever you picked her up at?”
The agreement? They weren’t to fuck any woman within a hundred miles of Sweetrock.
“Don’t start, Logan,” Rafe warned him quietly, unwilling to start an argument with Logan that could end up waking Cami.
“You don’t think her father caused us enough trouble after Jaymi was killed? Come on, Rafe, he bombarded your commanding officer with e-mails about us for years. Even Clyde wasn’t safe from Mark Flannigan’s vindictiveness. Do you really want to give him another shot at us? What the hell do you think he’s going to do when he learns you’re fucking his baby girl?”
Mark Flannigan wouldn’t give a damn one way or the other Rafe knew. From what Rafe had learned over the years, Cami’s relationship with her father had only grown colder. The only reason Cami’s father would even pretend to care would be if he could destroy the Callahan cousins with it.
“What I think is that this is my business,” Rafe informed him as he moved to the other side of the kitchen and began making more coffee. “Now, tell me why the hell you’re here in the middle of a blizzard rather than sitting in front of a fire in the house?” Rafe shot him a disgruntled look. “Didn’t we just spend three days opening the house and moving you in?”
And it had sucked, too. Every day neighbors had glared at them from porches or through their windows. Old men had shot them the finger while teenage boys steered a wide path around them. It was more than apparent they weren’t welcome and they sure as hell weren’t wanted.
“I was bored.” Logan shrugged, his expression smoothing out to cool disregard.
“Try again,” Rafe snorted. “Why are you here?”
Sure, he was bored, but his cousin had ridden over thirty miles in a blizzard on a snowmobile. The fact that Crowe had tinkered enough with the engine to make the vehicle capable of it didn’t mean it wasn’t still a damned dumb decision.
Logan leaned back against the inside of the bar counter, crossed his arms over his chest, and stared back at Rafe quietly. Behind him, the darkened living room reflected the fiery red glow of the coals in the fireplace and the large oil portrait of Rafe and his mother when he had been three, standing at her knee.
With long blond hair, dark blue eyes, and porcelain, delicate skin his mother had been Corbin County’s homecoming queen her senior year in high school, voted most likely to succeed, and was considered one of the most beautiful young women in the county.
Her father had commissioned the portrait when she was eighteen. It had taken three years for the artist to get to it. When she’d insisted on including her son, he’d refused to complete payment. Her mother’s older brother Clyde had paid for it instead and hung it over the fireplace.
As she was elegant, considerate, and compassionate, it was often hard to imagine she was actually a part of the cutthroat, icy-eyed Roberts clan. Sometimes, Rafe had heard his father joke, he believed his mother-in-law must have had a lover who fathered Ann Roberts Callahan, because there was no way in hell the heartless Marshal Roberts could have fathered a child so beautiful and warm-hearted. But Rafe had always heard how Marshal had spoiled and adored his daughter. And how he’d fallen into a drunken rage the night she eloped with Sam Callahan.
Logan shifted, drawing Rafe’s attention back to him. “I tried to call, but the phones aren’t getting reception and the land lines are down somewhere between here and town. I thought I’d head out and check on you.” He made it sound as though he had done Rafe a favor.
“In a blizzard?” Rafe arched his brow quizzically. That wasn’t like his cousin. “What happened Logan?”
Rafe could feel the suspicion building inside him stronger now. He knew Logan, and he knew that was bullshit.
“You heard from Crowe lately?” his cousin asked rather than answering the question.
“This morning. He met me out at one of the line shacks to check the condition of it. He seemed fine and didn’t mention any problems. Do we have any problems?” They sure as hell didn’t need any.
Logan shook his head. “Probably just my paranoia,” he finally sighed. “Or the fact I’m the one in town and easier to access.”
“No doubt it’s ‘not’ your paranoia,” Rafe growled. “What was it?”
He grimaced. “Someone was in the house while I was out at the grocery this morning. When I returned, the tape placed at the top of the door had been moved and replaced and the strand of hair in the lock was gone.”
“That doesn’t sound like paranoia to me, Logan,” Rafe growled. “What makes you think it could be?”
Logan’s lips thinned. “Because nothing was on the security camera but the neighbor kid knocking. If he was messing with my locks at the same time, I might have to kill him.”
Rafe hid a smile. The boy, Logan’s neighbor’s brother, had decided to torment Logan however possible.
“Maybe he’s bored,” Rafe suggested with mocking sobriety.
“Yeah, fucking bored,” Logan grunted with a roll of his eyes. “Or maybe he has a death wish I could accommodate.”
Rafe stilled his laughter as he watched the irritation that settled in his cousin’s expression.
“Do you have any idea what he wanted?” Rafe asked as he fixed his cousin’s coffee and slid it across the counter.
“No, to aggravate the hell out of me, maybe? Neighbors are damned sassy, though. All but the kid’s sister that lives next to me. Fucking night owl.” Logan almost grinned.
Evidently that fucking night owl had managed to entertain his cousin in some way.
“Why would the kid care enough to try to pick your lock?”
“For the hell of it? Because he’s a damned teenager?” Logan grunted after sipping at the coffee, then turned and moved to the table.
Before sitting down, Logan stared at the wood table top for a long, thoughtful moment. “You fucked her on the table, didn’t you, cuz?” There was an edge of irritated resignation that Rafe sensed stemmed from the neighbor kid’s sister.
Rafe merely lifted his cup and sipped at his second cup of strong coffee that night. If this kept up, then he was going to start drinking decaf. No wonder his chest was tight with a sense of foreboding.
“Drink your coffee, Logan.” Rafe almost allowed himself to grin. “You can sleep in the downstairs guest room tonight. We’ll check out the house in the morning.” Hell, he’d hoped to get out of letting Cami know about the snowmobile.
Logan stared back at him mockingly. “Storm is supposed to last three days, with a healthy helping of four to maybe six more feet before it’s over, and up to three days to dig out if the temperature stays in the teens as they’re predicting. You really want to lose your houseguest that soon?” Logan’s smile was knowing as he continued.
“I’m fairly certain she doesn’t know about your snowmobile, or she wouldn’t be upstairs in your bed. You’d be on the road trying to navigate the storm and your lust.”
