By time Archer Tobias pulled into the drive and parked, they were dressed and ready for whatever the world, karma, or fate decided to throw at them. They were also waiting at the end of the drive for him.
The cameras were on and recording, audio was functioning, and everything set to record anything that might or might not affect the final outcome if Archer had arrived in any official capacity.
They were stepping through the gate as Archer stepped from the vehicle, his expression heavy enough that Rafe felt that first tight clench of his chest.
Moving from the vehicle, Archer faced the three of them, though his gaze was clearly focused on Rafe.
There was something in Archer’s eyes that had a small, shadowed corner of Rafer’s soul clenching in terror.
For the first time in his life, Rafe refused to allow the impulsive intuition he sometimes carried free.
“What are you doing here, Arch?” Rafe growled.
“I’m sorry about this, Rafe.” Archer shook his head as he breathed out wearily. “I need to know where you were last night after you left the dance.”
Rafe felt his jaw lock. Every damned time there was a robbery, an attempted rape, a stolen car, whatever, it seemed the sheriff headed to the ranch if they were in town.
First it had been Archer’s father, and now it was Archer. The fucking past kept repeating itself, and each time it did so, it just pissed Rafe the hell off more.
He was damned sick of it too.
“We came back here, Archer,” Crowe informed him when Rafe refused to answer.
“Did anyone see you?” Archer glanced above their heads to one of the few cameras that could possibly be detected. If a person was knowledgeable enough to know what to look for. “Do you have a time stamp on the recording the camera would have made?”
“I have a stamp,” Crowe said. Rafe felt his lip curling in disgust that Archer was even here for the Corbin bastards.
And hell yes, Rafe’s cameras were time-stamped. The cousins had learned early to protect themselves, and they’d learned to make damned sure to watch every step they made where this was concerned.
They didn’t take chances. They’d learned young to watch their backs against circumstantial evidence.
Archer tilted his hat back and propped his hands on his hips as he stared back at them. “I just asked, Crowe.” He turned back to Rafe.
“And I just answered you definitively,” Crowe informed him. “That way, there’s no misunderstanding.”
“I didn’t expect we would have a misunderstanding.” Archer’s gaze connected with Rafe’s. “Would anyone know how to mess with your system? How to make certain your arrival wasn’t recorded?”
Rafe glanced at his cousins as they shook their heads, their gazes sharpening on Archer’s now. “We don’t spread our business around, Arch,” Rafe told him. “But to answer your question, no, no one should know anything about the system or even that it exists.”
They had friends now, where they hadn’t had before, security specialists who had assisted in the installation and programming of a security and surveillance system that would be almost impossible to crack.
But the questions Archer was asking had that cold, tight fist to Rafe’s chest clenching again. He could feel it; something wasn’t right. Something had happened.
Something had happened that Archer was hesitating to tell him.
That meant something that could potentially force Rafe or all three Callahan cousins to lose the control they had kept such a firm grip on in the past months.
There were few things that could or would threaten that control.
For Rafe, there was only danger or harm to his cousins or to—
Rafe felt his body tense.
The truth was there in Archer’s eyes, in the somber cast of his expression. And there was only one connection they had that would put that look in the sheriff’s eyes.
“Ah God,” Rafe whispered, feeling as though he were choking, ready to gag from the implications of that look. “Fuck, is she okay?”
He could feel the world suddenly threatening to crash down on him. Not Cami. Ah God, please, please not his Cami.
Logan and Crowe jerked toward Rafe as Archer’s hands dropped from his waist, one hand on his weapon.
“How did you know?”
“Answer me, damn you.” Rafe could himself begin to lose his control, fury building, burning.
Evidently Archer saw something in Rafe’s eyes, that killing rage Rafe could feel beginning to burn inside him. It convinced the sheriff to start explaining fast.
“She’s alive. Bruised, scared to damned death, and suffering a concussion, the doctor thinks, but she’s alive. She was still unconscious the last I saw her, but before she passed out she was asking for you,” he sighed.
“We’ll follow you and the sheriff, Rafe,” Crowe told him as he pulled his keys from his pocket, his attention focused on getting to Sweetrock, rather than the sheriff or any other questions he might have. “We’ll bring her back to the ranch.”
“Now, hold on,” Archer began to protest.
“Argue on the way to the hospital,” Rafe suggested as he strode to the sheriff’s vehicle. “I don’t have time for this; let’s roll out.”
He was jerking open the passenger side door and sliding into the passenger seat as he pushed aside a clipboard, a book of tickets, and several other packets that lay there.
“I didn’t invite you to ride with me,” Archer informed him, though he slid into the driver’s seat and put the vehicle in gear.
Behind them, Crowe and Logan threw dirt and gravel as Crown’s Denali tore from the drive and raced ahead of them.
“I’m going to give those bastards a ticket,” Archer muttered.
“Wait until we get to the hospital,” Rafe suggested. “But tell me what happened.”
Archer pulled out onto the main road and laid his foot to the gas to catch up with Crowe and Logan.
“She was attacked last night just after arriving home from the social,” Archer told him. “Her alarms went off, alerting her neighbors and calling nine-one-one. When I got there, she was leaning against the bottom of the staircase. It looks like he hit her in the head several times, and he has a hell of a fist if her head is anything to go by. She was displaying signs of a concussion, a severe one if my guess is right. Her dress was ripped down the front and she kept saying your name. It took me forever to figure out she was asking for you rather than accusing you. Just before she passed out, she said she had to ‘warn Rafer.’”
She was asking for him. She was trying to warn him, of something.
His pride had done this. If he had gone with her as he’d intended, followed her home, and slipped in the back door, then he would have been there for her. She wouldn’t have been hurt. He would have made certain of it. He would have never allowed some bastard to lay the first hand on her.
“You should have called me sooner.” His fists were clenched at his knees, the need for blood pounding through his veins. “Waiting wasn’t a good idea, Archer.”
The sheriff should have called immediately. They’d be discussing that when Archer wasn’t driving and Rafe wasn’t desperate to get to Cami.
“I’ve been a bit busy, Rafer,” Archer informed him mockingly. “There was a friend to get to the hospital for X-rays and MRI. There was a crime scene to process. All those sheriffy little things that take up so much damned time.”
“You could have saved close to thirty minutes by simply calling me.”
“I had to make sure you had the camera proof that you were here when she was attacked,” Archer stated. “I wasn’t certain and I had to be certain that the cameras on the outside of the house were cameras or really the birdhouses that were built around them. I’ll need your permission to have the security consultants copy the digital and send it to me.”
“Get a fucking warrant,” Rafe snapped. “Fuck the bastards that don’t want to believe what’s right in front of your eyes. Do you think I’d fucking hurt Cami, Archer? I thought we knew each other better than that.”
