“And I would have never treated you any different even if your names hadn’t come up in her death.” Eddy was in Rafe’s face, glaring, his entire demeanor one of defensive anger. “You were arrogant little shits as kids who slapped away every helping hand extended to you. You only slap my hand once, Callahan. And count yourself lucky, because of that girl in there.” Eddy’s finger stabbed toward the hospital room door. “Because of that girl, you’re getting another chance. See if you can be appreciative this time.”
The man had lost his mind. “When did you ever extend a hand to any of us?” Rafe bit out in disbelief. “You stood with the rest of this county every damned time they wanted to accuse us of something.”
“And you made it so damned easy, didn’t you?” Eddy settled back on his heels with a tough, mocking smile. Like a banty rooster standing in challenge. “You little shits. You were ten.” He looked at Rafe. “Twelve.” His gaze met Logan’s. “And thirteen.” He inclined his head to Crowe. “And that damned chip on your shoulder was bigger than each of you were. I offered you a ride to school one morning.” He stared at Rafe expectantly, his look withering.
It was Crowe who nodded slowly. “It was snowing and damned cold,” he murmured, his golden-brown eyes sharp, intent. “You were driving that beat-up old four-wheel drive of your brother’s.”
And Rafe remembered it then.
“You saw me, not Mark,” Eddy growled, his gaze suddenly brooding rather than confrontational.
Crowe shook his head. “I saw Mark Flannigan, and I saw the day before as he came around that curve you drove around that morning. He came around it so fast that if Logan hadn’t jumped for the ditch he would have run him over. And he didn’t even stop to make sure he was okay.”
“That was the winter after our parents died,” Logan said quietly. “I don’t remember much of that year. Except that lawyer Rafe’s uncle got us to keep the Raffertys and the Corbins from stealing the inheritances our mothers left us.”
For a second, abject regret filled Eddy’s eyes. Remorse and shame flashed in his gaze before he hurriedly jerked his eyes away. When he turned back, it was with a sense of resignation and acceptance, though the remorse was still a heavy presence in his expression.
Eddy backed down. “Hell, I’m who I am,” he stated, obviously making the connection that what he had seen as childish arrogance had been lingering shock and grief. “An asshole on a good day, but I’m not stupid.” He turned to Rafe. “Jaymi and Cami both have defended you, against everything and everyone. When you were arrested for Jaymi’s murder, Cami just about went crazy. She swore every day you didn’t do it. She would sit up at night forming arguments for your lawyer, she said.” He shook his head and sighed heavily. “God help me if I’m wrong.” He turned his head, his gaze tormented now. “But that’s mine and Ella’s girl. We’ve done what we can to teach her to be smart, and to know her own mind. And she’s damned certain you’re a good man. And I’m damned certain I know every crime you’ve been accused of you weren’t anywhere around when it happened, except Jaymi’s death. And she wasn’t the only innocent young woman that died that summer.”
It didn’t make up for the years of the man’s confrontational insults and jeering attitude. But one thing Rafe could say in Eddy’s defense: he was one of the few who hadn’t called the cousins rapists and murderers to their faces, or behind their backs as far as Rafe knew.
Eddy was mocking, snide, sarcastic, and those were his good days, but he wasn’t cruel, and he had never gone out of his way to be mocking, snide, and sarcastic either. It was simply what you found when you found Eddy.
The sound of the door opening drew all their attention, and Rafe had to force back a growl of fury at the timid, cautious pace of each step and the proof that the blows to Cami’s body hadn’t been made as a warning. The attack had been meant to be deadly.
“Get a wheelchair!” he snapped to Logan, turning, only to see Crowe jerking one from the nurses’ station and wheeling it to her.
“Sit, baby.” It was an order, cloaked in silk, she thought as she hid a smile and sat down gingerly in the chair.
The bruise on her hip from stumbling on the stairs was actually the worst of the it. Well, except for the bruise the doctor said her skull might have.
It wasn’t so bruised that she wasn’t well aware of the fact that Rafe was in command mode.
Which was really rather amusing. Why bother to hide it now with that dark, husky male tenderness? It was like throwing a tablecloth over the elephant in the living room, she thought, struggling not to grin.
“I see that grin tugging at your lips,” he told her as he moved behind her and leaned close, his lips at her ear. “What’s so funny?”
She wasn’t touching that one with a ten-foot pole.
“So much for saving you from any more trouble,” she sighed instead. “I was hoping to avoid this for you, Rafe.”
“Trying to protect me, were you?” he asked as he knelt beside the chair, reached up, and brushed her hair back from her cheek.
Cami was tempted to close her eyes at the stroke of pleasure against her flesh, the warmth and calloused rasp of his fingertips against her skin.
“Maybe I was trying to protect us both.”
“Cami, I’ll be at the house this evening with your prescriptions and to check you out.” Ella moved from the room, her voice brisk and no-nonsense, her expression fierce as she moved in front of Cami.
Ella was all but glaring at Rafe as he came to his feet. “I
Cami watched her aunt in confusion. She had never known her aunt and uncle to be so protective. Well, perhaps that wasn’t particularly true. Since her parents’ move to Aspen four years ago, Cami’s aunt and uncle had seemed to take more of an interest by the month in her.
“I understand, Aunt Ella,” she promised.
Ella’s gaze flicked to Rafe. “You take care of her, or you’ll deal with me and Eddy, young man.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He nodded. “We should go now. I’d like to get her home and get her settled in.”
Ella leaned down, hugged her gently. “Call me if you need me,” she whispered.
“I will. I promise.”
As Ella moved back, Cami’s uncle took her place. He touched the side of her gently, a facsimile of his normal firm grip, and kissed the top of her head. “I’ll be by with Ella,” he promised. “Just let me know if you need me.”
“I’m going to be fine. You two act like I’m going away forever or something,” she chided them both softly.
They invited her to dinner, to the movies, to their Sunday drives when they were both off work together. And it was something Cami realized she sometimes forgot.
She wasn’t totally alone; she never had been. She had always had Eddy and Ella.
But they weren’t her parents; they had their own family. Cami always felt on the outside looking in, and that had made her feel even lonelier. She hadn’t just felt as though she were on the outside looking in; she had been.
It wasn’t their fault. It was hers and perhaps, in some ways, her parents’.
Giving her aunt and uncle a final quick hug, Cami allowed Rafe to wheel her to the elevator where he, Logan, and Crowe crowded around her. The doors were closing before she realized something.
“They never believed you hurt Jaymi,” she murmured, frowning at the doors as the elevator moved slowly to the lobby floor. “They couldn’t have, or they wouldn’t have let you leave with me so easily.”
She didn’t look at Rafe, but she heard his grunt, mocking, disbelieving.
She shook her head. “You don’t understand, Rafe.” Eyes narrowed, she glanced up to where he stood at her side. “If they even suspected at the time that you had hurt Jaymi, they would have been going crazy over me leaving with you.” It didn’t make sense. “Why would Uncle act as though he believed it, if he didn’t?”
“Because he’s an ass,” Rafe grunted.
“Because, like everyone else in Corbin County, he believed if our mothers hadn’t married Callahans then they wouldn’t have died,” Crowe answered for him. “Kim Corbin, Mina Rafferty, and Ann Ramsey weren’t just best friends and the daughters of the most financially successful families on this side of the mountain; they were also very well loved by everyone in the county. So much so that during those years before they they died in that wreck
