this county so badly,” she argued fiercely.
“Oh hell, yes, I do know why.” He gave a bark of mocking laughter. “The inheritances our mothers left us were far more important to those bastards than the grandchildren those daughters left. Especially grandsons that looked too much like their hated Callahan fathers.”
“Then tell me why Marshal Roberts grieved for you?” she asked him, burying the knife that was the past deeper inside his soul and twisting it cruelly. “Why, Rafer, did he show up on my doorstep at a time he would be least noticed to attempt to warn me of something more than his wrath if I continued to see you?”
“Because he’s a smart, manipulative, evil old bastard, and if he died tomorrow I wouldn’t shed a tear for him,” he growled, wondering himself if that were even true.
“Or is it because you’re too damned scared to know the truth? All three of you are,” she accused.
She didn’t know the effect that accusation had on him. She couldn’t have known the bitterness that filled him, Logan, and Crowe, or the questions that haunted them as well. Questions they had no hope of finding because those with the answers were dead.
“There’s not a damned thing I’m scared of in this county, Cami,” he informed her furiously as he stared at her back, watching as her shoulders tightened, as she refused to turn back to him.
“I really don’t want to discuss this with you any longer,” she informed him, her voice low as he stood watching her, the fact that she had her back to him bothering him more than he wanted to admit. “I have things to do in the morning, Rafer, and I don’t have time to deal with you before I leave.”
And she sure as hell didn’t want anyone to know he was here, he thought mockingly. God forbid someone on her street would actually realize she was screwing one of the Callahan cousins.
Son of a bitch if he wasn’t sick and damned tired of dealing with this bullshit with every lover he’d had. He’d thought Cami, with her fire, her restless courage, and warmth would have cared more about whatever they could feel growing between them than whether or not her daddy approved of her lover.
“Do you think I don’t get damned tired of this, Cami? Why don’t you just admit to the fact that you’re so damned scared of daddy finding out you’re fucking his daughter’s killer that you’ll come up with any excuse to put a wedge between us?” he snapped furiously. “And the least you could do is turn around and face me, damn you!”
She shook her head furiously, her hand lifting in rejection, and in that moment, he knew she was crying.
Damn her. He didn’t want to see her tears. He didn’t want to see the hurt in her eyes, or the pain that drifted down her cheeks.
His Cami should never cry. And especially not because of him.
The knowledge of those years was like a dagger shoving inside his gut. Why would she care? For God’s sake, nothing was going to change the past, nothing would ever affect the barons until he, Logan, and Crowe established the vengeance they’d returned home to put in place.
Striding across the room, he gripped her shoulders, pulling her around as he gripped her chin with one hand and lifted her face to see it in the low light on her bedside table.
And she
Silent, miserable tears washed over her cheeks and dripped down her face to her neck. Her gray eyes were dark, filled with pain, and silently begging him for something he didn’t know how to give her.
“You need—” Her voice hitched. “You need to leave.”
She tried to pull away from him, to hide her tears from him again.
“And you’d rather stand here with your back to me and cry than fight for a damned thing you want. And you have the nerve to berate me?”
He released her slowly.
“You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” she cried out roughly. “I haven’t cared what
“Oh, baby, trust me, I’ve heard that accusation more times than you could ever throw it at me.”
He released her quickly before striding a few steps away from her. “At least I’m willing to admit to it. I know damned good and well that I could be a clone of that old bastard. But you, Cami?” He flicked her an angry look. “You won’t even admit to the fact that the only reason you’ve slipped out of my bed at dawn and run like a scared cat over the years is because you didn’t want that son of a bitch father of yours to know who you were screwing.”
He couldn’t get around her. He couldn’t touch her because he didn’t trust himself. Because he was getting hard. He was so damned ready to fuck her again he couldn’t stand it. And how much sense did that make? She had him so mad he could probably bite nails in half, and what was his response? A fucking hard dick and a need to push her over the bed and fill the liquid heat of her pussy with every throbbing inch of it.
“You think you just know it all,” she bit out, the anger suddenly pouring through her, filling her voice, roughening it as her gaze flickered with the same aroused rage.
God, she was getting just as hot, filling with the same fiery blast of lust that he could feel striking at him.
“That son of a bitch father as you call him probably couldn’t care less who I was fucking,” she suddenly yelled back at him. “I’m so low on his fucking radar these days that he only calls me when he needs my signature at the nursing home to authorize payment for medical care. To see her, I have to pay for the expenses her medical insurance doesn’t. Other than that, I’m lucky if I get to see my mother at all, and I sure as hell don’t care what my so-called father thinks.”
Hell, he hadn’t known that. He couldn’t imagine the anger Jaymi would have felt if she had known how their father was using his youngest daughter.
“He didn’t even care when—”
He watched her face suddenly pale.
Her lips clamped closed as she turned quickly away from him once again and pushed her fingers through her hair before clenching the strands in a gesture of pain and rage.
Rafe’s eyes narrowed on her.
“When what, Cami?” he asked softly. “What happened that he didn’t care?”
He could feel a hard, tight ball of suspicion forming in his gut that Cami was hiding something from him. He’d always known when she was hiding something. It seemed even when she was a teenager, before Jaymi’s death, he’d known how to read her much easier than any other female he’d known.
She had been a bright, curious teenager with what he had believed was no more than a strong crush. He’d never imagined in those days that he would end up wanting her more than he wanted air to breathe at times. Or that she would become as vital to him as he could sense her becoming.
Watching her, touching her, seeing her laugh and even cry were experiences he hungered for when it came to Cami.
“I don’t want to talk about this any further,” she told him, her expression closed and tight as she all but glared back at him over her shoulder. “It’ll be dawn soon, Rafer, and you really need to leave. There’s nothing going on, and there’s nothing wrong except the fact that I really don’t want to deal with the aggravation for a man who even refuses to see the danger that’s chasing him. Not to mention the danger chasing his lovers. I have enough problems.”
She had enough problems?
And she was lying to him. What the hell was going on besides those fucking phone calls?
Whatever it was, she had no intentions of telling him. He could see it in her closed expression, in her eyes, which despite the tears were filled with steely determination.
Damn her, he hated it when she lied to him.
His lips tightened as his head jerked up, nostrils flaring in anger.
As if he were going to just walk away after learning some bastard was calling her, threatening her. If he’d known Jaymi had been receiving such calls, he would have ensured she was protected better. But he hadn’t. He couldn’t bring her sister back for her, but he could do everything in his power to make damned sure that no one dared to hurt her as they had hurt her sister.
He would leave now. Not because she didn’t want anyone to see him, because he was suddenly aware if he
