It wasn’t a heat wave, but it was warm enough to allow the citizens of Sweetrock to begin clearing the fluff and the winter collection of dust and gloom that had accumulated.
Families were gathering in their yards along the block, working as a unit, parents overseeing and helping the younger children in many of the chores. The spurt of energy Cami felt was also infecting others it seemed.
For most of the day, laughter and generally good-natured comments could be heard echoing around the block, reminding Cami why she had bought the home her parents had owned. All around the neighborhood there was a sense of the one thing she had never had.
That sense of family.
As she worked, both in the back yard that faced the wide alley and on the front porch, her gaze moved constantly to the vehicles driving by. She kept hoping, not expecting, she assured herself, Rafer to make an appearance.
She didn’t want to admit to herself that there was a part of her that hoped Rafe would show up. The nights spent tossing and turning restlessly had given her too much time to think. Too much time to realize things she didn’t want to realize.
She needed him. The ache that seemed to spread through her body, that need to touch and be touched that was driving her crazy, was all because of him.
When dusk began to close in and the temperature dropped once again, families began to retreat into the warmth of their homes. Quiet began to fill the street as Cami stepped out to the wide, covered front porch carrying the piece of porch furniture she’d pulled from the garage, and gazed around the darkness silently.
The street lights cast shadows along the bare limbs of the trees lining the sidewalk. The almost sinister cast of the long-reaching fingers of darkness had a chill chasing up Cami’s spine.
She had never noticed it before. She had never paid attention to how easy it would be for someone to watch her house, or even to find a secretive path to her home if they wanted to.
She had security, but security could be bypassed.
She had never realized the weaknesses in her protection until the phone calls had begun. But then, she remembered Jaymi too had become more diligent in her home security when she had been receiving the threatening calls.
There had been two blocked calls in the past two days. One each night, and they kept her nerves on edge as much as the restless hunger for Rafer did. If she left the house, she wondered if she was being followed. When she came home, she was a paranoid wreck until she realized no one had managed to breach her security, such as it was.
It would often take her hours to remind herself that Jaymi hadn’t been taken while inside her home.
Still, the paranoia was there and strong enough that as the chill swept through her, Cami immediately retreated into the house and began locking up.
Windows and doors were checked, curtains were securely pulled closed. As she closed the last of the curtains, she stood in her bedroom for a moment and gazed around the room. It had been her mother’s room. Not her parents’ room, just her mother’s.
The master suite with its small sitting area and inviting, king-sized bed she so loved. The cream-colored walls and ceiling were a perfect backdrop for the dark oak floors and furnishings, which the bedclothes, dripping with lace from the sheets to the comforter, lightened and feminized the room just enough to keep it from being ostentatiously girly.
The old-fashioned vanity table and lace-draped chair took care of that on its own.
It was hers, and the thought of losing it out of fear rather than choice just pissed her off. She hated fear. She was learning just how much she hated being frightened.
As she was coming back downstairs, the sound of the doorbell, unexpected and overly loud in the quiet house, had her jerking back so hard she nearly stumbled on the stairs.
“Ridiculous,” she murmured as she took a deep breath, her eyes rolling at the sense of melodrama she realized she might be displaying.
She was letting those phone calls get to her way too much. And she wasn’t even certain, she had only suspicions to go by that the phone calls had anything to do with Jaymi’s death. After all, none of the other women who had died that summer had told anyone about any phone calls. And to the best of anyone’s knowledge, the other women hadn’t been one of the Callahan cousins’ lovers.
Moving quickly down the stairs, she lifted herself to look through the peephole, then draw back with a frown.
That sense of unreality once again began to close in on her. It was rather hard to believe that particular person was actually standing on the other side of the door.
Lifting up, she checked again, and once again she saw the same, expensively dressed, arrogant-eyed individual she had seen the first time she had checked.
“Ms. Flannigan, I’m aware you’re on the other side.” Bored and heavy with impatience, the voice drifted through the heavy door. “I’ll only take a moment of your time, if you don’t mind?”
Only a moment of her time, huh?
She had a feeling he was about to take up a hell of a lot more than a moment of her time. This particular person could cause her life to go to hell in a handbasket, which would take up a hell of a lot more than a moment of her time.
Moving back, she quickly opened the door, stepped back, and allowed him in.
Considering who her visitor was, there wasn’t a chance in hell he could kill her without at least someone telling someone who had been there. And once that happened, Rafe would learn who it was that had been at the house.
Then, blood would spill.
Hell, maybe she should have just pretended she wasn’t home.
Pushing the door closed, he didn’t even flinch as it smacked against the frame a little harder than needed.
She wanted to at least give the hint that she wasn’t pleased to see him there.
Flipping the locks back in place, she prepared herself before turning back to him and crossing her arms over her breasts as she confronted him.
“And what can I do for you, Mr. Roberts?”
Rafer’s grandfather.
She’d always thought Rafer looked more like his Callahan father than the Roberts’ side of the family. Staring back at Rafer’s grandfather, though, she realized there was no denying they were definitely related. Closely related.
Marshal Roberts had the same, intense blue eyes Rafer possessed. She’d heard his mother had had the same rich, mesmerizing color of eyes. The arch of the brow was the same, and that same arrogant line of the jaw.
Marshal Roberts’s hair was now a shade of dark silver where it had once been a dark, dark brown. Rafer had that deep raven’s black that all Callahan men had been known for, but he also had that same heavy wave at the front where the rest were ribbon-straight.
He wasn’t as tall as his grandson either. He stood only six feet while Rafer stood a towering six two. But his shoulders were just as broad, and even nearing seventy, he was still an imposing figure of a man.
Marshal looked around, curiosity flickering in his gaze as he seemed to linger on the mantel of pictures over the fireplace.
“Your family?” He gestured to the pictures as he moved to them, reached out and picked up a frame that held an eight by ten of her father, mother, and Jaymi.
“Yes.” As though he didn’t already know.
“Strange,” he murmured, glancing back at her. “I see very few of you here.”
He indicated one or two of her and Jaymi alone. There were no pictures of her with her mother, and definitely none of her with her father.
“Rub the salt in the wound,” she offered mockingly. “Then please be kind enough to tell me why you’re here.”
He turned back and replaced the picture before appearing to peruse the rest.