“What had they been waiting on?” she asked, wondering why Jaymi hadn’t told her. “They could have left at any time.”
“They were waiting for you to get out of high school from what Jaymi said,” Jack related. “Your parents didn’t want you to have to deal with changing schools.”
No, her parents hadn’t wanted her to be with them, period, she guessed. If they had, they would have told her their plans rather than remaining silent.
Even her mother.
God, that hurt. Even Cami’s mother had remained silent about the move. Had they been that determined to escape her?
At least she knew Jaymi hadn’t intended to leave. Tye was buried closer to Sweetrock than to Aspen. She would have never left him.
“We have to go.” Jack glanced at his wife before they rose from the table. “I’m sorry, Cami; I know what Dad did was wrong—”
“It wasn’t you, Jack.” She shook her head at the apology as she rose from her own seat. “And thank you for coming to tell me what you had learned.”
He gave a sharp nod before glancing at his wife and wrapping his arm around her. “You know, Dad might be right. Maybe it is time we leave Corbin County. The lock certain families have on this place sickens my gut, and to learn how they use their influence only makes me ashamed to be a part of this place.”
“I can’t blame you for feeling that way,” she said as she faced them, knowing that wasn’t an option she was willing to choose yet.
Once everyone who disagreed with those families was gone, who would be left to teach the children differently?
She couldn’t help but consider the kids she taught. Third graders were sharp as hell; they saw so much more than people realized and were so much more influenced that it was frightening.
As Jack and his wife left, Cami glanced around the kitchen and breathed out heavily.
Tonight was the Spring Fling Social, the first night of the year’s social activities. For all its undercurrents of intrigue, Corbin County and its residents had made inroads to protect their children that she hadn’t heard of in other towns.
The weekend social gathering that was held in the town square during clear weather had begun unofficially the night before. The crowd that had gathered had been part of the volunteers stringing lights and decorating for the first weekend to celebrate spring. And if the weather didn’t cooperate, then they gathered in the large community center.
Every Saturday night beginning in April with the Spring Fling Social, one of the dressier, more formal events held, the socials kicked off. Cami doubted there was a single family that didn’t attend, and very few children that didn’t spend the entire weekend at the community center.
The town square would be lit up like Christmas, the businesses surrounding it closed early, except the town’s single bar, located in the town square which would remain open through most of the night and well past the last call.
The socials were open to all, but they were heavily monitored and the alcohol strictly watched. Through the years, the event had had its ups and downs, but the dedication of the city council and the parents involved with the project kept it going.
The Spring Fling Social itself was highly anticipated. The winter months closed down the socials to allow for skiing activities and the influx of tourism for the skiing season in the surrounding counties. Several outlying ranches in those surrounding counties had turned into resorts with a focus on winter activities, making participation in the socials much lower during the skiing months. April saw the winter activities tapering off, though. The snow began to slack and finally melt. Frozen streams and icy rivers melted and began to run with an abundance of fish and wildlife as the trees began to green and their tiny buds made their debut.
And for the third year in a row, Cami didn’t have a date. She could have had one. If Rafe had returned her phone call, she might have had one.
She had her dress, her shoes, and all her accessories, and she was driving herself to the social, unless she wanted to walk it the second night in a row. Of course, driving meant finding a parking spot which would be impossible. Vehicles were already backing up along her street. On the other hand, finding company to walk home with wouldn’t be a problem.
It would be decidedly harder for anyone to follow her, and not be noticed than it was the night before.
For a moment, she wondered if Rafe would have attended if she had asked him or even if she had simply left him a message.
What did he look like in dress black or a tux? Would he have danced with her? Would the women at the social watch her with envy and longing as Rafer danced with her, as they had the night before?
And why the hell had he left so abruptly come to think of it? This spring was definitely beginning rather oddly, and Cami wasn’t entirely certain she was comfortable with it.
On second thought, hell, no, she wasn’t comfortable with it.
And yes, she thought, Rafer would have danced with her again. He would have held her close as she laid her head against his shoulder, swaying to the music and counting the time until they could leave and find a bed.
She shook her head quickly, trying to chase away the images running through her mind and the needs that rose inside her from those images.
Three weeks. Too damned long.
As she headed to the shower she couldn’t stop the visions of sexual satiation from dancing through her head. Long, hot kisses, the sight of his lips at her breasts, covering a hard, sensitive nipple, his cheeks hollowing as he sucked at the hardened tip, flicking it with the tip of his tongue.
The feel of those lips kissing their way down her torso, running over her belly, moving between her thighs. The feel of his tongue fucking her.
She wanted to moan in need. She was on the verge of screaming in frustration and making a decision she knew she would end up regretting.
Of course, he hadn’t even tried to follow her home, otherwise he would have caught sight of her shadow the night before. If he’d had satisfying that hunger in mind, then he wouldn’t have left her for a second.
She had told him to stay away from her; he was only doing what she had demanded. But even then she had been honest with herself, albeit silently.
She didn’t want him out of her life. She wanted to change the past. She wanted to make things different. She wanted to be able to go to that damned social and dance in his arms before coming home to sleep in them.
She wanted everything she had dreamed of having, everything she had fantasized about having. She wanted Rafe until she was ready to cry with the frustration building inside her.
And Rafe was the one thing she couldn’t have. The one man denied herself. The only man who could destroy her soul.
She wished it was only shame that held her from him. Shame would have been so very easy for her to conquer. The pleasure she found in his arms had shame beat all to hell. The ecstasy that surged bright and hot through her body as her release swept over her would have had such an edge on shame that it wouldn’t have stood a chance.
No matter how much she wished differently though, it wasn’t shame.
And she couldn’t even say in all honesty that it had anything to do with the fact that the county refused to accept the Callahans. She knew it didn’t.
The county had changed a lot in the twenty years since the Callahan cousins’ parents had died. The school board wasn’t from the same deeply rooted families that it had once been. Their ties to the community were new, their influence by the Corbins not the same as it had been with past board members despite Marshal Roberts’s presence there.
The principal at the school where Cami worked lived in Aspen rather than Corbin County or Sweetrock. The mayor had been in the military for years before returning to the county and had run his election on the fact that such political cronyism would come to an end.
Not that she expected it to happen, but it wasn’t as pervasive as it had been when Cami had been a teenager.
