“What is high on your list of priorities, Logan?” Crowe asked absently. He wondered if Logan even understood what direction he was headed in. Or if he had any idea about the woman he was heading in that direction with. Sometimes, that worried Crowe more than the fear that Logan would care about the wrong person too much. His cousin was doing more than simply caring too much. He was on the verge of becoming too involved. Even more so than Rafe.
“Tying my dick in knots, unraveling it, then tying it again?” Logan chuckled. “Whatever it takes to stay footloose and fancy-free, Crowe, while having all kinds of fun. What about you?”
There were very few things Logan allowed himself to possess or to care about. His home had been in Crowe’s name for years. It was an attempt to keep Logan from giving it the hell away and Rafe had insisted on it.
The Harley was in Rafe’s name; the black Denali SUV was in Crowe’s name. The only thing Logan owned, sort of, was the snowmobile, and it was simply in all their names.
Logan had a serious problem where owning things were involved. Even he didn’t know why he didn’t want to own anything, and Crowe also hadn’t yet figured out why.
“I didn’t hear an answer there, Crowe,” Logan said as he leaned forward, dislodging the snow that had gathered on his shoulders.
“Footloose and fancy-free sounds fine to me.” Crowe shrugged. “Seems to me that as long as we’re in Corbin County, footloose and fancy-free is all we have.”
It wasn’t as though a future were going to happen with any of the fine ladies in Sweetrock or at the outlying ranches. Too many people knew their pasts. There were too many of the fine citizens of Corbin County willing to follow any and every order the barons gave.
The barons. His grandfather, James Corbin Rafer, Marshal Roberts, and Logan’s grandfather Saul Rafferty. The three largest ranch owners and three of the most powerful financial families to reside in Colorado. Their ranches were the size of small countries. Each ranch resided in a different county, but strangely something tied the three patriarchs of these families together. A loyalty and friendship that spanned decades, fluctuating riches, and the temperaments of three power-hungry men.
Logan sighed. “There’s always Aspen. Lots of pretty ladies there. Who says we have to pick from Corbin County anyway? Hell, we might get tired of footloose and fancy-free.”
There was an edge of regret in Logan’s voice, as though he’d actually had someone in mind. Someone he knew he couldn’t have. Hell, Crowe just hoped it wasn’t who he thought it was. That was just going to turn into a mess if it was.
“What about your neighbor?” Crowe looked back at Logan, restraining the knowing mockery in his tone. “She’s not from Sweetrock.”
Logan’s eyes widened in shock and male outrage. “That O’Brien girl? Hell no! I watched her tear that builder Ken Stiles’ ass up one side and back down the other a few days ago. Accused him for ten minutes of milking hours on that back porch he was building for her. She was right in his face, that little finger shaking like a weapon, and she was ready to use it.” He gave a mock shudder. “I think I prefer something a little softer. A little less temperamental.”
Crowe snorted. “You mean a little less able to kick your ass when you’re acting like an ass?”
Who the hell did Logan think he was fooling?
“That’s cold, man,” Logan sighed. “So cold.” His eyes twinkled in laughter. “But so fucking true.”
“And this weather is fucking cold.” Crowe couldn’t feel the cold; the Thinsulate he wore was military issue and would keep him warm at far colder temperatures.
Where he felt the chill was in his spine, a sure sign that things were going to go from sugar to shit soon. And that chill had the power to send ice coursing through his veins. The last damned thing they needed, no sooner than they returned to Corbin County, was trouble. Especially when women were a part of that trouble.
“Think we should disturb the little lovebirds?” Logan suggested. Anticipation filled his voice, as did amusement. Logan sometimes seemed years younger than his age.
“I think someone should,” Crowe said as he turned his gaze back to the house. “This will be over soon, and when it is, the whole town of Sweetrock will converge on him once they learn where Miss Flannigan had been forced to stay during the storm. I think Rafe could probably use the backup if that happens.” Especially considering the fact Cami’s uncle was a part of that road crew.
“Protection is more like it,” Logan retorted. “Talk about a man with his dick and his heart tied up in knots. Our little cuz is there, I believe.”
But then Crowe had a feeling Rafe had been there for a while; he just hadn’t been aware of it. There had been too many chance meetings between Rafe and Cambria over the years. Too many near misses. And in the past few years there were too many times Rafe had obviously been watching, waiting, for someone who hadn’t shown. His anger then had gone soul deep.
“Well, the road crew isn’t far from finding the car, or making their way to our little cousin’s love nest. I guess the kindest thing we could do is warn him, don’t you think?” Crowe drawled.
Logan’s curse sizzled through the line, seconding Crowe’s thoughts and sending a wave of tension to clench his jaw and tighten his muscles.
Breathing out roughly, Crowe twisted the handle grip of the powerful machine he’d ridden down from the mountain, listening to the low, carefully muffled power that vibrated through the machine. He’d modified the machines himself, his as well as his cousins’, to ensure the power that vibrated and throbbed through the motors was silenced as much as possible. Worst-case scenario, he would bank the power and speed and run at near silence if absolutely necessary.
There were times that more power and more sound could be a life-threatening hindrance. And times that any sound could mean certain death.
“Let’s go see if we can help him unknot his dick then,” Crowe said as he gave a hard twist of the opposite grip and shot down the mountain, carefully balancing his weight, watching the terrain and landmarks for known hazards beneath the snow, aware Logan was riding in his tracks.
Exactly where Crowe needed him to ride.
Crowe had done this all their lives, going first to clear the way for the other two. All but once. Rafe had managed to race ahead of Crowe just one time, and they hadn’t been the only ones who had paid for Crowe’s lack of speed. Jaymi Flannigan Kramer had paid with her life, and her death had left a mark on their souls ever since.
“He’s not going to be happy with us,” Logan promised, the wry humor coming through the earpiece he wore as Crowe navigated around the heavy trunks of the sheltering trees.
“But he’ll live, and that’s the point.” Actually, that was really all that mattered to Crowe. That Rafe and Logan lived, stayed free, and managed to find some small portion of happiness.
Crowe hadn’t been certain that returning to Corbin County was the best way to achieve that, but he knew it would never stop haunting them, that the nightmares wouldn’t cease until they faced what had happened there and the consequences of it.
And if he was lucky, very lucky, then Crowe himself intended to face whoever or whatever had begun the events that had destroyed all their lives twelve years before.
* * *
Rafe paused the coffee cup halfway to his lips as a low muted sound reached his ears.
He knew that sound. There were two snowmobiles approaching the house, and he knew the sound of the muffled motors, barely discernible above the sound of the wind howling outside the house.
The storm was over, the sun rising to a crisp, icy-cold morning and reports of crews beginning to move out in force to dig out drivers and houses alike from the massive amount of snow that had fallen.