These people’s opinions should have never mattered for even a second, but she had pretended as though they had, to save her own heart. To keep her emotions shielded and her secrets closely guarded.
There were no secrets any longer. Rafe knew the past, and he would either accept it or walk away. She wouldn’t demand anything from him either way.
“You’re staring at Eisner’s back as though you’re going to send a dagger through it,” Rafe murmured beside her as she realized she was indeed staring at Eisner, wishing she could kick him, scream at him, hurt him as he had tried to hurt the Callahans so many times for the very people he was now talking to.
James Corbin and his son, William.
But standing with them and glaring at Eisner as well was William’s young daughter, Kimberly Ann Corbin.
Ann Corbin at nineteen favored her father’s side of the family. Long auburn hair fell nearly to her waist in a riot of curls while sea-green eyes stared at Eisner, her expression creased in anger.
Her father, Will, kept trying to shoo her back. The more he tried to shoo her, the closer she got until she was standing at his elbow.
Both Corbin men would glare at her; they would cut Eisner off at some points. William rubbed at the back of his neck in frustration as he shot her several irate looks. She was the darling of the Corbin family, though. The spitting image of her dead aunt, Crowe’s mother, in both looks as well as temper. And if her expression was anything to go by, an explosion could be imminent.
“Eisner deserves the dagger more than most,” Cami muttered. “The two men he’s talking to even more so.”
“That’s the first time I’ve seen the girl out in years,” Logan commented. “They usually keep her away from town.”
“She and Jeannie are good friends,” Archer interjected before blowing out a hard breath and staring around in frustration. “It’s going to take this crowd hours to disperse, and Jack’s not in a good frame of mind if anyone decides to get ignorant with their mouths.”
Cami almost grinned at the saying “get ignorant.” The fine art of the smart-assed remark that could be delivered mockingly, snidely, sarcastically, or in a rage. It went along with having done something “for a minute,” which usually indicated more than a few days, and asking a person if they had taken their “smart pills” or if they were mixed up with the “stupid pills.” The locally grown little sayings had always amused her, and she had found herself missing them when she had been away at college.
“Yeah, well, getting ignorant is what some of them do best,” Rafe breathed out roughly. “Get your fire marshal to take him over the damage, then drive him to the hotel outside of town. Keeping him away from the homegrown yokels is your best bet unless you want to see blood shed.”
Cami looked around again, her gaze caught by the flash of a red Mercedes as it pulled in next to the Corbins’ black four-door Jaguar.
Wayne Sorenson, Corbin County’s attorney, stepped from the car accompanied by his daughter, Amelia.
After Amelia had taken the teaching position in Aspen, Cami rarely saw her and they never spoke. Amelia had never forgiven Cami for revealing the secret Sorenson had learned when he read the journal she had so carelessly left lying in her dorm room that day.
Amelia had changed.
Once, she had dressed in fashions that highlighted her unique temperament and sense of adventure. Now, she was dressed in a dark peacoat, black slacks, a gray sweater, and staid, low-heeled black pumps. The very type of clothes she had once sworn no one would ever catch her dead wearing.
Was this maturity? Cami wondered. Or was it a conformation aimed at attempting to gain Amelia’s father’s love as well?
It seemed to be working for her, just as easily as it had worked for Cami over the years.
Which was not in the least.
How long would it take Amelia to realize that no amount of conforming would gain the acceptance and the love she needed from her father?
“Cami?” Rafe’s hand at her back and the questioning tone of his voice had her head lifting. “Are you ready to leave?”
Was she ready to leave?
Did she really want to stay and watch the girl who had once been as close to her as a sister pretend to be something and someone she wasn’t?
“I’m ready.” She’d rather face Rafe’s wrath than watch the Amelia doll pose with tense expectation next to the father who didn’t even know she was there.
As Cami began to turn away, Amelia’s head lifted and Cami couldn’t help but be drawn to a stop.
For the briefest second it seemed as though misery and a plea were reflected in the emerald depths of Amelia’s eyes before she quickly turned away.
“We still have that meeting to make,” Crowe reminded Rafe as they headed to the car.
At that moment, Wayne detached himself from the Corbins, his expression dark with irritated anger as his fingers curled around his daughter’s upper arm and pulled her along after him.
Rafe and Cami drew to a stop, watching as Wayne neared them. As he drew closer, Rafe carefully slid her between his back and the cousins behind him.
She nearly rolled her eyes as she pushed from between the three men, her elbow pushing warningly into Rafe’s stomach as Wayne and Amelia stopped in front of them.
“Rafe.” Wayne nodded to the men in general.
“Wayne,” Rafe drawled.
The fact that Rafe hadn’t addressed him more formerly had Wayne’s lips tightening for a second as Amelia pushed her hands into the dark peacoat she wore and looked down at the ground. If Cami wasn’t mistaken, Amelia might have been hiding a smile.
“We’re going to have to reschedule the meeting we had this afternoon.” Wayne lifted his head, his nostrils tightening as though he smelled something rotten. “I’ll have my secretary contact you to reschedule.”
Rafe’s arms crossed over his chest.
Narrowing his eyes, Rafe watched Wayne suspiciously. Cami could feel the tension that began to radiate in his body and the sense of distrust that filled the air around the three men where the county attorney was concerned.
Amelia was aware of it as well.
How strange, Cami thought, that even after all these years she could read Amelia as though they had never spent the past three years as all but enemies.
“I’ll see you later then.” Rafe gave a short nod of his head as his arm once again curled around Cami’s back, his fingers lying close at her hip.
Wayne didn’t acknowledge the agreement; he merely turned on his heel and stalked away as though the simple courtesy of saying,
Amelia moved more slowly, and as she turned she pulled her hand from the pocket of her coat and a piece of paper dropped free.
Rafe’s foot immediately covered it, and just in time.
“Amelia?” Wayne turned back to her, his gaze going past her to Rafe, Logan, Crowe, and then Cami, as though searching for something, as though he had expected Amelia to try to stop and talk or, perhaps, to attempt to warn them of something.
“I’m coming, Father.” Her hands were back in her coat, as though they had never slipped free.
God, what was going on?
Cami couldn’t take much more. She couldn’t handle the hell that Corbin County was turning into any longer or the haunting agony the past and the present merging was creating.
It was her fault her best friend, the one person she had had who believed in her, who loved her, whom she could trust, had turned into this unemotional robot that Amelia had turned into.
It was all Cami’s fault, because she had allowed Wayne Sorenson to learn the secret that Amelia had held close to her heart and had never told anyone but Cami.
