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.
“Touche, Ms. Flannigan,” he murmured. “Touche. 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.
