She jumped into the vehicle, slammed the door, then turned her head, obviously avoiding looking at him now. As though she had pulled a cloak of ice around her emotions, one that went clear to the core, Cami simply stared straight ahead as Archer Tobias drove her out of his life.
Cami was leaving again.
CHAPTER 9
Cami’s chest was tight, her throat felt raw and scratchy. Her eyes ached, and it was all she could do to breathe without whimpering. The pain seemed to go all the way to the depths of her soul, and refused to return to that dark corner she had managed to push it to years ago.
What was wrong with her?
She stared straight ahead, determined to ignore Archer and the questions she could feel silently directed to her.
She hadn’t been aware anyone had paid attention to the few dates she and Archer had had, or why anyone would have cared. Especially, why had Rafer cared enough to have dug up that information?
Focusing her attention on her surroundings rather than the emotions tempting her to come closer and peer in, Cami stared at the dash and center console of the sheriff’s vehicle.
The backseat was enclosed from the front and the back cargo area with black steel bars and bullet-resistant glass — a laptop, radio, rearview and navigation screen, cell-phone holder, wireless radio, and several other electronic gadgets she wasn’t certain the purpose for. She was in the middle of electronics paradise and she really didn’t give a damn. All she wanted to do was demand he turn around and take her back to Rafe.
And that was the most foolish thing she could do. She had been there too long already and had done nothing but add another scar to her heart.
Staring through the window beside her head, she watched as they turned from Rafer’s driveway and passed her little aging sedan as it sat with its front tires buried in the snow that filled the ditch.
She couldn’t believe she had actually found the strength to walk away from Rafer, because everything inside her had been demanding she stay. Just as she couldn’t believe she had actually managed to walk past her uncle without throwing herself in his arms and sobbing as she had done as a child.
He had been defending her all her life, she thought, and she wondered if sometimes he didn’t grow tired of the constant battles he and her father had gotten into since she was a child.
She didn’t want him to have to defend her against her father’s friends as well, such as Archer had been forced to do here.
She couldn’t believe what she had heard from him. She had always thought he was so soft-spoken and kind. To learn he wasn’t affected her far more deeply than she liked.
This was the same uncle who had defended her when her father wished she were dead rather than Jaymi, at Jaymi’s funeral. The uncle Cami had always thought she could depend upon to care for her, no matter what choices she might make in life.
“You okay, Cami?” Archer asked, his voice gentle as she continued to stare into the snow-buried landscape they passed.
The gentleness in his voice had her throat tightening further, had emotions threatening to swamp her. He’d been one of Jaymi and Tye’s best friends as well, and over the years had become one of hers.
“You know,” he said when she didn’t answer, “if there’s something I need to know about, then now might be the best time to tell me, sweetheart.”
She knew what he was asking, and the fact that he felt the need had the emotion tightening her throat instantly easing as frustration tightened her jaw instead. “He didn’t rape me, nor did he attempt to murder me, if that’s what you’re asking,” she informed Archer, as she turned and directed the full measure of anger churning in her on him instead.
“Well now, I didn’t think he had been, but it’s my job to ask.”
“I was unaware that investigating stupid questions and obviously slanderous accusations was part of your job description.”
“Normally it’s not,” he assured her. “But sometimes with some people it’s better to deal with it and get it over with before moving on.”
The Callahan cousins were accused often of all manner of crimes, he had once told her.
“At least they have one friend,” she sighed. “I was beginning to wonder.”
“I’m not the only one, Cami, but as you’ve probably learned by now, it doesn’t do any good to argue with those who aren’t their friends.”
Of course it didn’t. They were the fathers, the mothers, the aunts and uncles who had first followed the dictates the barons had first given where the cousins were concerned.
“Yeah, Jaymi learned that one,” she sighed. She remembered those days far too clearly sometimes.
“Your sister was a fine woman, but she was more a rebel than anyone wanted to admit after her death. But, even more, she lived her life as she felt best, as she wanted to. That’s really all you can do as well Cami. If Rafe is what you want, then that’s what you should have. Don’t let this town’s pettiness affect that. And you and Rafe have plenty of us friends willing to stand by you if the barons decide there are other ways to make their grandsons’ lives miserable.”
She could hear a mild chastisement in his voice and she didn’t understand where it had come from or what made him believe there was anything between her and Rafe that would warrant it.
“We’re not lovers, Archer.” She turned, glancing at his profile before staring through the windshield to avoid his gaze. As lies went, even she wasn’t certain of the lie in that one.
“I never said you were. But, if I were you, I’d remember it was no one’s business if you were. You’re an adult, not a child to be ordered about.”
Neither did she need anyone attempting to push her closer in Rafer’s direction. She was going to feel like a bone between a gang of dogs very soon.
She suddenly remembered her sister Jaymi making a similar comment the summer she had died, while she and Rafer had been living together, or rather, sleeping together.
“Do you ever see the ignorance in this war against them?” she said as she turned to him. “I’ve never understood why his family disowned him, or why everyone made the decisions to either follow suit, or secretly befriend them.”
Archer grimaced. “If you figure that one out, then why don’t you let me know about it?”
“Do you have any idea why?” she asked.
Archer breathed out harshly. “You know, Cami, I’ve known those boys all my life. My father knew all their parents and worked for their grandparents, but I don’t think I’ve ever heard why they disowned them. It might be interesting to know, though.”
She hoped he had better luck than she had in finding out because so far she didn’t have a clue. Even her sister hadn’t been able to explain to Cami or to herself, why it had happened.
She knew the Callahan brothers Rafe, Logan, and Crowe’s fathers had married three heiresses who had already been engaged to three men their fathers had chosen for them. Once those three women had met the Callahan brothers, their hearts had been lost forever, though.
Still, that wasn’t reason enough to try to frame their only children more than twenty years later for the vicious rapes, torture, and murders of the six young women who had died twelve years ago. Nor was it reason enough to hate three children, as those young men had been hated in their youth.
“Why do it?” she murmured, almost to herself.
“Do what?” Archer was obviously paying close attention to everything she was saying.
“Why hate the sons so viciously for whatever their fathers had done?”
And that was what her sister had suspected was behind the animosity directed toward the cousins. Whoever had targeted the cousins’ fathers had immediately turned their attention to the cousins once their parents had died.