CHAPTER 2 (PART 1)

Rafe sat in the jail cell, silent, staring unblinking at the stone wall across from him, trying to ignore the blood that stained his clothes nearly two days after Jaymi’s death. The sheriff refused to allow them to change clothes or shower. Swabs had been taken for DNA. But despite the tech’s request for the clothes, it had been refused. Sheriff Tobias commented that he needed to wear Jaymi’s blood a while longer to realize what he had done to her.

He could hear his recruiting officer in the sheriff’s office yelling. Ryan Calvert had a strong, booming voice. It carried through the jail and caught attention, but for Rafe, Logan, and Crowe there was very little that could penetrate their shock, even now.

“I know I killed him.” Crowe repeated again. “I put that knife straight inside his kidney. It was a kill blow.”

At twenty-two Crowe shouldn’t even know how to make a kill blow with a hunting knife.

But he had. Unfortunately, the blow had come too late.

They had come too late.

Rafe was yanked back, hours before, to the memory of Jaymi’s screams echoing through the forest, jerking the cousins awake as they camped at the side of the lake and sending them crashing through the forest to find her.

They had followed the glow of a fire higher up Crowe Mountain. Followed her screams which were agonized and enraged. They had rushed into the clearing as her attacker’s knife plunged into her side.

Crowe hadn’t been able to save her.

After the black-garbed figure had jumped from her, his pants still pushed below his hips his round eyes filled with fear as he ran. Crowe had crashed after him, tackling him to the ground as Rafe ran for Jaymi. He’d been aware of Crowe struggling with Jaymi’s attacker. Crowe’s knife had gleamed in the moonlight before a high-pitched scream had sounded and the assailant had managed to grip a stone and slam Crowe in the head with it, before escaping.

The knowledge of her death shadowing her gray-blue eyes, Jaymi’s last thoughts were of her sister. She was sick. “Take care of Cami,” Jaymi begged, crying. As he held her, as her blood soaked into his clothes and Logan made the desperate 911 call.

“Please, Rafe, swear it.” The harder she had sobbed, the faster her blood had flowed from her body.

“I swear, Jaymi,” he vowed hoarsely knowing she was struggling to hang on. “I swear I’ll always watch out for her.”

There was no saving her.

Rafe had applied pressure on the wound. He held her. He screamed at her and demanded she live. And still, she had reached up with one hand shaking, touched his cheek and whispered, “She loves you, Rafe. She’ll always love you so much, just as I love my Tye. Give her a chance when she grows up.” Tears had washed her face as he rocked her, his own cheeks damp as he realized he was losing her forever. “Promise me. Take care of Cami.” Then Jaymi had looked over his shoulder and smiled before whispering, “Rafe, it’s Tye.” Her lips had trembled as such joy flooded her face, her dying gaze. “He’s finally come for me, Rafe. Tye finally came for me—”

And she had died. With the greatest joy that Rafe had seen on her face since the day she had married her precious Tye, he watched Jaymi slip from life as he screamed out her name.

But the sheriff hadn’t believed the men.

The sheriff and his deputies had arrived ahead of the state police. Immediately he and his cousins had been handcuffed and arrested as Jaymi’s murderers. And now they were trying to pin the five other murders that had occurred that summer on Rafe and his cousins.

The black-masked serial killer had been caught on surveillance taking Jaymi outside the pharmacy the night before. Her sister, Cami, had reported Jaymi’s disappearance hours later when Jaymi didn’t return to the apartment with the medicine she had gone for.

That morning when the pharmacist went to unlock the back door he had found the medicine, Jaymi’s key, and the door unlocked.

When he had pulled up the camera footage for the sheriff, they had seen the abduction, which had been taped just hours before Logan made that desperate 911 call. She had been taken at the same time witnesses had seen him and his cousins getting gas in town several blocks away.

Ryan Calvert, the recruiting officer who had taken an unusual interest in him and his cousins, had managed to get a copy of that security footage before the sheriff had gotten to it. Gunnery Sergeant Calvert hadn’t rushed to the jail to bail them out, or to hire the nearest lawyer. The minute he’d heard the report over his radio and remembered seeing the Callahan cousins in town as he drove to his hotel, he rushed to the combined truck stop/gas station and restaurant and made nice with the manager, Missy Derringer.

Thankfully, Missy was a friend. Perhaps not a friend that publicly claimed the Callahans, but a friend nonetheless. They did have a few, sometimes.

Being the owner’s daughter had helped. She’d quickly copied the security footage before her father could order otherwise and gladly gave it to the brooding Marine demanding it.

It hadn’t helped.

They were still sitting there in a damn jail cell two days later wondering how the hell it had happened.

And Rafe couldn’t get the memory of it out of his head.

The sight of that smile, so filled with love as she whispered Tye had come for her. It sent a chill up his spine, even now. The sense that she had only been waiting, always been watching for him to come for her had swept over him.

Jaymi had made Rafe swear he would protect Cami. She was sick, alone in Jaymi’s apartment, according to Jaymi’s friend and neighbor. Cami cried continually. She was begging for Jaymi, and Cami’s aunt and uncle were considering having her hospitalized due to the severity of the bronchitis.

Rafe could still hear Ryan screaming about a vagrant who had been found with Crowe’s knife in his side, his pants undone, and Jaymi’s blood on him.

Ryan was yelling furiously about taking his own samples to a Denver lawyer and having them analyzed. He was demanding the sheriff release his nephews now, by God, before he sued the county for an illegal arrest. “That fucking security tape is all you dumb shits need,” he raged. “Now let them the hell out now.”

Rafe shook his head.

He and his cousins knew Ryan Calvert was a Callahan, but no one else had, until now. Their grandparents had given Ryan up for adoption, when they couldn’t afford to feed their children any longer, long before Samuel, Benjamin, and David had really been old enough to understand their baby brother was gone.

Rafe didn’t know the whole story; he’d only just learned that the recruiter who had come to Sweetrock was actually the youngest Callahan son. Ryan’s search for his birth family had spanned more than ten years. His commitment to his nephews only grew stronger with the knowledge that his parents, as well as his brothers, were gone.

When his brothers returned, it was learned the child their parents had had so late in life, was dead, or so they believed, and their ranch supposedly sold and split between the Corbins, Raffertys, and Robertses. Their entire lives had been torn apart and all anyone cared about was convincing them to leave Corbin County and accept the losses.

And now that Callahan son was back and raising hell.

Ryan was screaming something about DNA, vagrants, serial murders, and alibis, and Rafe was wondering why he gave a damn.

Standing up, Rafe moved to the door, his hands shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his gaze focused on the night Jaymi died rather than at the stone wall across from him.

How was Cami? He had promised Jaymi he would look after her.

But how was he supposed to take care of her? He’d promised, but he had signed up for the Marines last week. He, Logan, and Crowe. They’d had enough of Corbin County for a while, they’d decided. Like their fathers before them, they thought the military seemed the best option.

For the same reason, perhaps. Because they were tired of the bullshit.

And it all went back to the three families who ruled Corbin County like their own personal little fiefdom.

Generations before, James Randal Callahan had acquired eight hundred acres of prime ranch land from the government as had his three partners James Corbin the First, Andrew Roberts, and Jason Rafferty.

At the time, the four men had been the best of friends as well as business partners. They had acquired the land they needed, the cattle and the horses, then they’d found wives.

They’d settled the land tucked between the rising mountains and proceeded to build a dynasty. But somewhere in those first years, something had happened to change those friendships and the wealth that first James Randal Callahan had brought with him. While the others had thrived, the Callahan family had slowly begun to wither away until Rafe’s grandfather had nearly died of some lung infection.

Hospitalized, weak and fighting for his life, he hadn’t even been aware that the world believed his youngest son was dead. In fact, his wife, Eileen Callahan had contacted acquaintances that she had known were desperate for a child. She’d sold her baby for the money needed to save the rest of her family and the ranch that amounted to everything they possessed.

Until the morning of their deaths, they had been worth a fortune. For some reason, that morning they had withdrawn every cent they had at the bank, and accepted a paltry couple of hundred thousand for a ranch that was worth three times as much in stock alone.

That night, they had been racing toward Colorado Springs along the curving mountain road with its sheer drops and spectacular cliffs. Somehow, JR Callahan, the great-great-grandson of James Randal Callahan, had lost control of the truck and plunged down one of those cliffs.

Their vehicle had exploded on impact with such force that the explosion had been heard across the mountains. It was the next day, though, before anyone had seen the faint tendrils of smoke rising from the canyon below.

And how strange that years later, their three sons and the women they had married had died in the same manner when their SUV had gone over a cliff as they drove from Denver. The coincidence was simply too great. The deaths too similar.

“Ryan’s stopped blasting their eardrums,” Logan stated quietly as he and Crowe stood up from the cots they had been sitting on.

When the metal doors at the other end of the cell area opened, Gunnery Sgt. Ryan Callahan Calvert, of the Boston, Massachusetts, Calverts, strode in, followed by two military police personnel and the lawyer he’d brought from Denver the day before.

Ryan was scowling. His strong, weathered face was stone hard, his blue eyes like chips of ice, as he followed the sheriff, Randal Tobias, to the cell Rafe and his cousins had been confined in.

The fact that Ryan wasn’t happy was only eclipsed by the fact that Sheriff Tobias was glaring at the cousins with pure, vicious hatred.

“The little bastards fucking well better keep their asses in the county.” He shoved the key in each cell door, twisted it furiously, and slammed the iron doors open. “Fuck up and I’ll put a bullet in your heads myself.”

Rafe sneered. “Only if the barons give you permission,” he drawled, using the mocking nickname given to the patriarchs of the three families.

In the next second, Tobias buried his fist in Rafe’s ribs, stealing Rafe’s breath for a second and shoving him into the metal bars. Fury surged through Rafe in the next instant, pounding through his veins and throwing him forward after the sheriff, when Logan, Crowe, and Ryan suddenly grabbed him.

“Let it go, son,” Ryan snarled in his ear. “You should have kept your mouth shut or prepared for it.”

He was right. Rafe knew he was right. But still, Rafe wanted to take the bastard apart with his bare hands.

The sheriff sneered back at him.

Funny, Rafe thought distantly, the sheriff’s son, Archer, seemed to have a streak of honor and had been one of the few people in the county to come forward and object to the treatment Rafe and his cousins had suffered in the past few days. That was one of the reasons Tobias was so furious now. Having his son defend the three cousins couldn’t have gone over well with the barons who told Tobias when to breathe, when to fuck, and when to piss.

Rafe let his lip curl in the sheriff’s direction. “That’s okay, sir,” Rafe drawled. “You’re right: I should have been prepared. But I think the sheriff is very well aware of the price he’s paying for the orders he follows.”

He’d lost his son. Archer Tobias had stood in his father’s face the day before and told the other man he couldn’t believe they were related and that he prayed stupidity wasn’t hereditary.

“You little fucker,” Tobias snarled. “You’ll be back. When you do Archer will see you for the murdering fuck you are.”

Rafe shook his head. “Naw, he’ll see you and the barons for the manipulative monsters you are. That’s too bad, too, because I think Archer is tired of defending your eagerness to jump when they tell you to jump.”

“Get him out of here, Calvert,” the sheriff ordered. “Before I save the county the money to prosecute him and shoot him myself.”

Two military police laid their hands purposely on the butts of their weapons. The action didn’t go unnoticed.

“Let’s go,” Ryan ordered. “You all have a meeting with your lawyer, then you’re going to settle in somewhere until we can take care of this.”

“I have to take care of something else,” Rafe stated as they headed for the door.

“The hell you do,” Ryan growled as he followed close behind Rafe. “Don’t argue with me, Rafe. Not here.”

Rafe waited until they were outside. Turning back to his uncle, Rafe stared the other man in the eye, determination tightening his body and burning through his veins. “I promised Jaymi.” His fists clenched at the thought of what he had to do. “I’ll meet you wherever you need me to, but I have to take care of something first.”

“And what the hell could be more important than your freedom?” Ryan snarled as he gripped Rafe’s arm and pulled him around again.

“A promise,” Rafe snapped as he jerked his arm back. “And I don’t break my fucking promises.”

Cami was sick; Jack and Archer both had told Rafe she was alone at Jaymi’s apartment, and she hadn’t gotten her medicine. It was confiscated as evidence when it was found outside the pharmacy, and Rafe didn’t know if anyone had even cared to check on her.

He’d never imagined his life could come to this. At twenty, he thought he had the world by the tail, and despite the problems he and his cousins had faced in Corbin County, he’d believed it would all right itself in the end.

He couldn’t have imagine this could happen, not even in his worst nightmares.

That Jaymi could die in his arms. That he could have been arrested for her murder when he’d done everything he could to save her.

And as he stepped out into the bright summer light to the sight of nearly two dozen of Sweetrock’s residents glaring at him in accusation, he thought that perhaps he should have expected it.

Moving through the crowd was Clyde Ramsey, Rafe’s uncle on his mother’s side. A hard scowl covered Clyde’s face as he strode the distance in a bowlegged walk that bespoke his years on the little ranch he owned between Sweetrock and Aspen, Colorado, well away from the family his sister had married into.

Clyde had raised Rafe and his cousins when no one else would have them. Would he disown them now as well?

“Well, let’s go,” he growled as he stopped in front of them. “I have cattle to feed and horse stalls to clean. I don’t have time to waste.”

He’d come for them. When everyone else stood glaring at them, as usual, Clyde was there to protect them in his own gruff way.

“I have to make a stop first,” Rafe said quietly.

Clyde’s scowl deepened as he blew out a hard breath. “Course you do,” he harrumphed. “Let’s get it done so we can get home and figure this one out.” He shook his graying head. “Saving the three of you is turning into a mission in life, Rafe. And I’m an old man. Find a way to fix this.”

He didn’t give them time to answer. He turned on his heel and strode to his truck, expecting them to follow.

“Go on; we’ll be behind you,” Ryan told him. “And hurry with that stop you have to make. We have a long day ahead of us if we’re going to figure this out, as you say.”

They had more than a hard day ahead of them, Rafe thought. There would also be a hard life because he, Logan and Crowe would be back. He knew his cousins, he knew himself, and he knew there wasn’t a chance in hell he was going to let the barons get rid of him this easy.

There wasn’t a doubt in his mind that the security footage would be enough to prove their innocence. They were never stupid, and they never let anyone know their plans. They’d learned better than that as young teenagers when they were accused of stealing cars, cash, and a variety of other items.

No one, not even Clyde, had known they were camping out at the lake that weekend. Most weekends they spent alone at the ranch after the ranch hands left, working on fences or equipment.

Killing Jaymi that close to their campsite was a clear attempt to frame them. Rafe was beginning to wonder if the murders the FBI had put down to a serial killer weren’t an attempt to frame the Callahan cousins instead.

“Here. The keys to the street and trail.” Logan stepped in front of him as they neared the vehicles parked on the other side of the town square. “You’re going to check on Cami, aren’t you?”

He gave a brief nod.

“We’ll follow behind you. Listen to me, Rafe,” he snarled as Rafe moved to shake his hand. “This town is crazy right now, man, and you know it. Let me call Jack and Tobias. They’ll come get her and make sure someone takes care of her. You can’t protect her right now. It’s going to take all we can do to protect ourselves.”

And he was right. Too damned right.

“Give me a few minutes to make sure she’s in the apartment,” Rafe told him. “If she’s not there, then she’s at her parents’. I just want to be sure.”

After stopping behind the apartments long enough to quickly change into the fresh jeans and T-shirt his uncle had thought to bring him, Rafe headed upstairs to Jaymi’s apartment.

He still had the key. She had never asked for it back. Unlocking the door, he stepped inside before closing it securely behind him and staring around silently.

If he hadn’t known Jaymi was dead, then he would have expected it the minute he entered the apartment. Her presence had always been there when she was alive.

It was gone now, replaced with the heavy weight of grief that wrapped around him and seemed to permeate the entire room.

He had hoped Cami would be at her parents’. That was where he had expected her to be. He damned sure didn’t expect her to be there alone. As he stepped to the open bedroom door, he saw how wrong he was. She was here alone, huddled in the bed, exhaustion marking her sleeping face.

But at least she had her medicine and beside the bed was a glass of chilled water. Someone had been checking up on her at least.

Breathing out roughly, he sat on the side of the bed and tucked her blanket around her shoulders gently.

Instantly, feather-soft lashes lifted, and soft, blue-ringed dove gray eyes filled with an overload of tears.

“Rafe.” Her breathing hitched as the tears overflowed.

“Come here, Cami-girl.” He opened his arms to her, his throat tightening as she threw herself against his chest, the sobs tearing from her as he closed his eyes and fought against his own pain.

“Go ahead and cry, sweetheart,” he whispered gently as he laid his cheek against the top of her head and ignored the trail of liquid warmth he felt ease from his eyes. “Cry for both of us.”

He’d lost his best friend, and he was damned if he knew how to handle it. He hadn’t been able to protect her as he’d sworn to Tye he would do. He had broken the only promise the man who had called him brother had ever asked of him.

As he held Cami, rocked her, and felt the grief that tore through her, he wondered why Jaymi had thought to entrust him with her sister’s protection when he’d just failed to protect Jaymi.

How could he even trust himself now to protect this little waif who had managed to worm her way into his heart?

He’d promised. He’d find a way to do it.

Jaymi couldn’t have known what she was asking. She had no idea he and his cousins were signed to go into the military. They’d all chosen the Marines. And who did that leave to look after Cami?

“Oh my God!”

The frightened squeak had his head jerking around to see Ella Flannigan, Cami’s father’s sister-in-law as she stood poised just inside the doorway.

She looked like she was ready to run screaming.

“Rafer Callahan, you just scared the shit out of me.” Her expression turned chastising rather than terrified as she noticed the way her niece held on to him as though he were a lifeline.

Compassion and sorrow filled her eyes.

“I promised Jaymi.” He swallowed tightly as Cami’s sobs began to ease as exhaustion seemed to tax her weakened body. “I promised to look after her.”

She blinked quickly before nodding. “I’ll be in the living room with Eddy.”

Her husband hadn’t been here when Rafe entered the apartment and he hadn’t heard anyone come in. Ella looked as though she had just woken up, so he sincerely doubted her husband was here. But he would be here quickly enough considering their small house was only blocks away.

He nodded, his hand stroking down the back of Cami’s head as he felt her relaxing marginally.

She would be asleep in a minute, he thought. The bronchitis medication was obviously keeping her sedated enough to allow her to rest.

“I miss her, Rafe,” she whispered, her weary and tear-thickened voice slicing across his heart.

“So do I, sweetheart,” he whispered. “Go to sleep now. Get better for me, okay?”

He couldn’t leave while she was still ill, and the second he and his cousins were cleared, he was out of there. For a while.

“Don’t leave me, Rafe.” Misery filled her voice. “Please, don’t you leave me, too.”

“I’ll be here, Cami,” he promised. “For as long as possible, I’ll be here.”

He wouldn’t upset her more by telling her he would have to leave soon.

It eased her enough to allow her to drift back into sleep, though, and when he laid her back in the bed and pulled the covers over her, he wiped his hand down his face tiredly.

He wondered if he would ever sleep again. If there was any way in the world to sleep at all after Jaymi’s death.

Moving to the living room to face her aunt and the smart-assed sarcasm her uncle Eddy had in abundance, Rafe found himself unwilling to listen to any further insults.

Mark and Eddy hadn’t been outside the jail when they were released, despite the fact that he had more than expected Mark Flannigan to cause a public scene.

For once, Eddy Flannigan was quiet when Rafe walked into the room.

Ella stood next to the kitchen, leaning against the door frame while Eddy stood looking through the large picture window.

“Jaymi’s lease is paid through the next three months,” Ella said heavily. “Her father wants her to stay away for a while. And her mother isn’t doing well.”

Eddy turned around, and he and his wife shared a look that had Rafe’s gaze narrowing. “They don’t want their own daughter now, after losing their eldest.”

Eddy’s expression was tight and hard as Ella’s eyes filled with tears again.

“It’s a complicated situation, Rafe,” Ella finally stated. “But we’ll take care of Cami the best we can.”

“Let me know if she needs anything,” he bit out roughly. “I’ll take care of it.”

“She’s not your responsibility,” Eddy growled then. “We will take care of her.”

“Let me know,” he repeated softly, watching as Ella slowly nodded. “I have to leave now, but if you don’t mind, after—” He swallowed, the movement tight and mixed with fury and pain. “Once we’re cleared, we have to leave.”

“Surprise,” Eddy grunted.

Rafe ignored him as his wife sliced a disapproving look his way.

“We’ll take care of her, Rafe, and if she needs anything we can’t provide, we’ll contact you,” Ella promised.

It was far more than he had imagined he would get from the two.

“Thank you, Ella.”

There was nothing more he could do, and no other way to look after Cami as he’d promised her sister he would do.

He left the apartment without saying anything more, and as he closed the door behind him, he could have sworn he heard Cami cry out his name.

Rather than turning back, he forced himself to walk down the hall and down the steps to the lobby before exiting the building at the back once again.

His cousins, two uncles, and the two military police personnel were still waiting on him. Moving to the motorbike, he kicked the ignition and hit the gas the minute the motor throbbed to life. Tearing from the driveway, he headed out of town and toward the Ramsey ranch he had been raised on.

They would be cleared. He knew they would be, but this town would never admit they hadn’t committed the crimes. At least a large majority of it wouldn’t.

That didn’t mean he would stay away. It didn’t mean he had any intentions of giving up the battle to claim the inheritance that was still locked in litigation, or the land that was rightfully his, Logan’s, and Crowe’s.

On the contrary. He would only fight harder.

Cambria at twenty-one

She slipped out of the hotel, her heart racing out of control, pain and regret tearing through her in equal measure. It had taken every particle of strength she possessed to ease from his arms, ease from the big bed, and hurriedly dress. Leaving the hotel room had been even harder.

Her body ached in her most personal places, her nipples were tender, her clit still throbbed with lazy satisfaction, and she could still feel the warmth where his palm had spanked her lightly as he thrust into her from behind.

The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, the blizzard that had grounded the planes in Denver having lifted several hours before. The forecast was for cold and only partly cloudy skies. The text on her phone said her plane would depart in two more hours, taking her home.

Rafer was once again leaving Corbin County and heading back to wherever the Marines needed him.

He had changed in the past seven years, but some things about her hadn’t changed. Rafer still took her breath away. He still made her feel things she didn’t understand and had no idea how to control. But, unlike seven years ago, those feelings were stronger, hotter, and more mature. With that maturity there was the arousal, the lust and hunger that she couldn’t fight.

Rafer’s smile, the hunger in his sapphire-blue eyes, the sensuality that filled his expression. Thick, black lashes that were much too long to fairly belong to a man. His hair wasn’t as long as it once was. Rather than falling to his shoulders, it was almost military short and gave his face a more savage, forbidden cast.

But did she have the good sense to fear what he was capable of doing to her? What she knew he was capable of making her feel?

Of course she didn’t.

Cami?

She lifted her head from the book she was reading, more bored with the story than anything else, but the nearly deserted airport wasn’t providing entertainment of any sort either.

But that voice—

She heard that voice in her dreams so often.

Her gaze rose to meet his brilliant gaze.

“Rafer.” She hadn’t realized his name would slip past her lips so easily until it did.

It was a whisper, and even she recognized the husky need in her own voice.

Her heart began to race at an almost brutal pace, thumping against her breasts erratically as she took a shaky breath.