Sucked when someone knew you as well as he and his cousins knew each other.
Rafe sipped at his coffee again, refusing to comment as Logan sat back in his chair and watched him with silent amusement.
“What are you getting yourself into, Rafe?” he finally asked him again the amusement dissipating. “Have you thought about this? Have you thought about how old she is? The same age as Jaymi—”
“Enough, Logan.” He glared back at his cousin. “I won’t think about Jaymi. Not tonight.”
Logan rubbed his hand over his face wearily. “She’s the wrong woman,” he finally growled. “Her father will come after you shooting when he finds out. Are you going to shoot back? Could you shoot back if she were watching?”
“There will be no shooting,” Rafe promised him. “Her father’s in Aspen and he doesn’t come back to Sweetrock very often. Her mother’s health isn’t that good any longer.”
Not that Mark Flannigan had ever taken much interest in his younger daughter. It had been Jaymi that he had shown his love to, and only Jaymi.
Logan shook his head. He was aware of the lack of concern Mark had always shown Cami, especially the summer Jaymi had died. “If she were my daughter, there’s no way in hell I’d sit still while she was in possible danger. Flannigan could end up fooling us.”
“Yeah, and I believe in fairy tales, too,” Rafe drawled cynically. “Trust me, Flannigan’s not going to go to the trouble.”
“And I’m telling you, fucking her is going to rain hell down on you.”
Logan warned him. “For God’s sake, Rafe—”
“Let it go, Logan. As you said, once the storm is over she’ll be gone and she’ll pretend it never happened, just as she has every other time.”
“And the next time the two of you have five minutes alone you’re ripping each other’s clothes off and fucking like minks on top of the kitchen table,” Logan reminded him. “Does that tell you anything?”
“I was too drunk to ignore my hard dick?” Rafe shot back.
“Or too damned stupid to ignore it.” Logan finished his coffee before rising to his feet. Moving to the heavy winter wear he’d taken off after entering the house he told Rafe, “I’m heading to Crowe’s. I doubt very seriously he has a woman in his bed tonight. It would surprise the hell out of me to even learn he’d stayed in the county. That boy ain’t happy to be back. And here he’s the one that talked us into coming back.”
“Why did we come back?” Rafe asked, refusing to stand, knowing how Logan could be. He could get ready to leave fifty times before ever making it out of the door. Knowing Logan as well as Rafe did how and much colder the mountains were as one moved higher into them, he knew damned good and well Logan had probably regretted heading out no sooner than he passed the city limits. Logan was hell for doing his job, no matter how hot or how cold. He was a one-man tracking/killing machine. But he liked his creature comforts and didn’t leave them unless he simply didn’t have a choice.
In his mind, he’d had no choice. He couldn’t reach Rafe by phone and he was determined to ensure his safety. But now he knew his cousin was safe, he’d be damned slow about leaving.
“Why don’t you drop the damned coat and stay here tonight,” Rafe growled as Logan looked outside at the snow and gave a heavy sigh. “If Cami sees you or the snowmobile, then just tell her you’re on your way to Crowe’s and not heading back to town until everything melts enough to drive in.”
That would keep her here without her anger affecting Rafe’s pleasure. And he did intend to have his pleasure until he couldn’t keep her there another second longer.
“That will work.” Logan dropped the coat, but he wasn’t making a move to leave the kitchen.
“What now?” Rafe asked him.
Logan stared back at him, his eyes so hard, so cold, that Rafe wondered if his cousin ever felt warm inside anymore. He definitely didn’t act as though he did.
“You in love with her?” Logan finally asked before giving his head a hard negative jerk as he grimaced. “Yeah, you are,” he answered his own question. “You have been since that first night you spent with her.”
Rafe rose from his chair, finished his coffee, then moved to the sink and set the cup inside it.
“I’m not in love with her.” He turned back to his cousin, confident he wasn’t in love, he couldn’t be in love, he refused to feel anything as futile as love for Cambria Flannigan. She’d run out on him one time too many for him to allow himself to touch that particular fairy tale.
“She’s just a fuck then?”
Rafe’s jaw tightened at the description, some furious, unknown denial raging inside him, demanding he voice the refusal. He held it inside, convincing himself it was simply the too-explicit description his cousin used that bothered him.
“Keep convincing yourself of that,” Logan stated with a mocking smile as he collected his coat, boots, and cold-weather paraphernalia and moved for the living room entrance. “You keep convincing yourself, I’ll keep reminding you, and maybe, when she helps the fine folks of Corbin County decide to try to bury us six feet under and then some, you won’t find that part of your soul shattered.”
As he had before, Rafe wondered as he watched his cousin move through the darkened living room and into the hall that led to the downstairs guest room. Rafe and Crowe had discussed their cousin often, wondering what had happened the year Logan had disappeared from contact completely during a mission he’d been sent on.
Marine snipers were often sent to hotspots that had them out of contact for months at a time. For a year, Logan had been sent on a mission that neither Crowe nor Rafe had been given any information on. Only their uncle and commanding officer, Ryan Calvert, had been aware of what was going on and whether Logan was alive or dead.
When he had returned, he hadn’t been the same man who had left. Logan had been so hard and so cold that for a while Rafe had wondered if his cousin had returned or only his ghost.
Giving his head a hard shake, Rafe checked the locks, checked the lower part of the house, the windows, the latches to the iron window covers, and then moved back upstairs where he repeated the lock check.
Satisfied the house was secure and the alarm system operating fully, he moved back to the bedroom and the woman sleeping in his bed.
She hadn’t moved other than to gather his pillow closer beneath her as though searching for him.
No, she wasn’t searching for him, he told himself. He couldn’t let himself think it or believe it. She was going to walk out of his life the minute the roads were open to afford her escape. And once she left, she wouldn’t return unless she simply had no other choice, as she had had no choice tonight.
Shedding his clothes, Rafe slid back into the bed, eased his pillow away from her, then in surprise felt her moving against him until she settled over his chest once again.
Her head rested on his shoulder, her arm was thrown over his abdomen, one slender, silky warm leg tucked between his, she whispered a discontented little sigh and nudged against him once again.
Pulling the blankets carefully around them, Rafe wrapped his arms around her and held her snug against him. Her next sigh was one of satisfaction, of contentment.
What had he gotten himself into here? he wondered, because holding her felt as natural as breathing and just as imperative. But hell, every time they had come together it had felt like finding home. In his life, nothing had ever felt as warm or as natural as her body against him or the warmth of her sinking into him.
Would she try to leave without waking him if he somehow managed to sleep deep enough to miss her slipping from the bed? In all the years since his training in the military, nothing had ever slipped by him in his sleep as easily as Cami had slipped from his bed that first night.
He’d awakened before she’d finished dressing that morning. For a while he had watched her from beneath his lashes as she hurried and dressed. And he’d let her leave. He had refused to hold her to him and he’d refused to confront her.
It wasn’t a mistake he would make again.
He stared down at her for long moments.
Hell, there was no way he could be certain that he would even awaken this time. It had been three years since the last time she had slipped out of the bed on him. She’d almost been gone before he’d missed her warmth.
Rafe hoped, in the past five years his senses had grown sharper, stronger, and he would know when and if she tried to do it again.
