Midnight Sins (18 page)

closer.

He had hoped he could return home, slip in

without too much of a ripple, keep to himself, and find

the life he’d searched for around the world.

And God knew he’d searched for that place in

the world where he could, at the very least, be content.

He wasn’t asking for happiness. He’d learned long

ago that was far too much to ask for. Contentment,

though, hadn’t seemed too high a price to charge for

the years he had spent defending his country. After all,

he’d also been defending this little corner of America

that had decided he and his cousins had no place in

their midst.

Or perhaps those other places just weren’t the

place whose proud mountains sustained them. That

place where their fathers, their grandfather, and his

father before him had planted Callahan roots. Those

other “places” hadn’t been home.

Logan and Crowe too had found that

contentment eluding them. Crowe had actually

resigned from the Marines the year before Rafe and

Logan had and spent those months alone searching

for a place he could call home. Crowe had traveled

around for a while, but as he’d written in his last e-mail

before they’d returned, evidently there really was no

place like home.

For Crowe no place like the cabin his mother had

left him that overlooked the sheltered valley below.

For Rafe it was the small ranch his Uncle Clyde had

owned. The one that his grandmother had been

raised on before marrying JR Callahan.

For Logan it had been the house his mother had

owned before her death. The one she and his father

had lived on. The one he had been born in. It was flat

in the middle of Sweetrock. A two-story traditional

American with a wide porch surrounding all sides. In

the back was the roomy yard he and his cousins had

played in as toddlers. Next to it was the garage where

his father had allowed him to “help” work on the family

car.

The house was surrounded by other similar

houses. Once, long, long ago, before his mother had

given in and married the father of her child, Logan had

played with the neighborhood children there. He had

been accepted, and had known a childhood

happiness that Rafe only barely remembered while

Logan refused to discuss. And none of them could

pinpoint why it had changed. Why had their

grandfathers, their entire families, turned on the

children left behind? What had made them suddenly

hate and despise the sons that cherished daughters

had given birth to? And why didn’t anyone seem to

have the answers to those questions?

Rafe puffed on the cigar again, frowning into the

swirling snow and listening to the moan of the wind.

Rafe knew it had begun with the daughters marrying

the Callahan brothers. Still though, that animosity

hadn’t grown against their children until after their

deaths.

A grimace tightened his face as he forced

himself away from the maze he was beginning to step

into. Questions without answers, they could pile up

into a mess inside his brain if he let them. There was

simply no way to figure out why the families that he

and his cousins should have been able to turn to had

turned their backs on them instead.

They were the sons of the daughters those three

men were known to have once cherished and adored,

until the night they had eloped with the three brothers.

Three brothers who had spent every day since their

return from the military accusing the barons of having

murdered their parents, JR and Eileen Callahan.

After twenty-two years of asking “Why”? and of all

but begging the good people of Corbin County to just

explain what sin they felt their parents had committed,

Rafe, Logan, and Crowe had simply stopped caring.

They’d had enough of it the three days they’d sat

in that tiny jail cell, frozen with shock and horror,

accused of killing a woman all three of them

considered their best friend.

It had taken three days for Uncle Calvert, a

Marine recruiter, and the lawyer he had hired, to get

their release.

Then for another three days Rafe and his cousins

had lived in silent shock beneath the care of the man

who had raised them and the uncle they hadn’t known

still lived.

If it hadn’t been for Ryan, they would have rotted

in prison. If they had lived that long. Before Ryan had

made it to the jail with the lawyer, all three of them had

been beaten so badly by the sheriff and his deputies

that it had taken all they had to walk out of the jail.

The evidence at the scene of the crime had been

conclusive, the judge had decided. The DNA testing

on the blood indicating an older male had gone along

with the FBI’s profile of the serial murderer. A profile

the FBI stated the Callahans in no way matched. The

judge had further concluded that as much as he would

love to see Rafe, Logan, and Crowe Callahan locked

up for the rest of their natural-born days, he couldn’t in

all conscience bring them to trial for a crime he was

certain they hadn’t committed.

A man who didn’t know them and hadn’t taken

the time to learn anything about them would have

loved to see the three of them locked up for the rest of

their natural-born days.

Son of a bitch, that memory still had the power to

amaze him, and never failed to confuse him.

Leaning against the balcony railing, Rafe flicked

the cigar ash over the edge of the railing and

narrowed his eyes against the snow.

Their fathers hadn’t been scions of society, but

neither had they been the dregs of humanity. And for

not the first time in Rafe’s life he was beginning to

wonder exactly what three cherished daughters could

have done to their families to ricochet back on those

daughters’ children? And once again he was asking

questions he couldn’t answer.

Now, here Rafe was, right back where he had

started, and wondering what the fuck he had come

back for. What had made him, Logan, and Crowe

hunger for this particular little place in the world?

Because insanity must run on the Callahan side

of their genetics, he decided as he puffed the cigar

once again and relished the aromatic burn that filled

his senses.

He’d be damned if he knew where to go from

here, though. He could rebuild the ranch; it had been

damned profitable before Clyde Ramsey had died.

Rafe, Logan, and Crowe had had plans for the

ranch. They’d been certain the climate would have to

be different when they returned and living there

wouldn’t be the hardship it had once been. He’d be

damned but they couldn’t have been more wrong.

The quiet musings and his enjoyment of the cigar

were disrupted by the sound of a powerful

snowmobile motor cutting its way through the heavy

windswept snow falling from the sky as well as that

layered on the ground.

Strong LED lights cut through the white walls of

fluff falling around them and traversed at least two feet

of heavy, wet snow as the powerful machine made the

precarious turn between snow-hidden fences.

Logan or Crowe. The new snowmobiles were

unmistakable, and only they were insane enough to

be riding through a blizzard for whatever it was they

wanted. It could be as simple as sharing a cup of

coffee or as complicated as heading back out for

whatever wild-assed idea one of them had.

They were bored. He’d sensed it weeks before.

And things could get dangerous, especially for Rafe,

when Logan and Crowe were bored.

There were times Rafe felt as though he was the

adult and his cousins were no more than wayward

overgrown children. Very dark, very cynical, but

nonetheless as wild as hell and without the normal

cautious attitudes most adults displayed at their age.

Hell, their time in the Marines as snipers should have

fucking matured them. At least by a few more years

than it appeared it had.

Sighing heavily, he turned, tamped the cigar out

in the small ashtray kept on a ledge by the door, then

slipped back into the bedroom.

Cami was still sleeping peacefully, sprawled out

on her stomach, her pretty rounded ass emphasized

by the silk sheet lying over it.

He pulled the comforter over her body then

tucked it to her shoulders before moving for the door.

Opening it he headed to the kitchen his steps quick

and silent as he moved down the wood stairs.

He’d forgotten about the clothing left tossed on

the floor until he stepped into the brightly lit kitchen to

see Logan twirling a pair of tiny violet panties on one

finger while he held up a matching lace and silk bra

with the other. He looked from one to the other with

curious moss-green eyes. As though trying to

determine exactly what it was or why it was there.

Glancing at Rafe, he dropped the lingerie on the

table, then picked up the sweatshirt and read the front

of it. Rafe watched as his cousin visibly tensed before

turning the sweat shirt and reading the back.

Flannigan #12, Corbin Co. Teachers Softball

League
.

“Cami Flannigan,” Logan mused softly as Rafe

began picking up the clothes, folding them

haphazardly, and laying them on the counter. “Did you

lose your mind sometime between the agreement we

made about Corbin County beauties and whenever

you picked her up at?”

The agreement? They weren’t to fuck any woman

within a hundred miles of Sweetrock.

“Don’t start, Logan,” Rafe warned him quietly,

unwilling to start an argument with Logan that could

end up waking Cami.

“You don’t think her father caused us enough

trouble after Jaymi was killed? Come on, Rafe, he

bombarded your commanding officer with e-mails

about us for years. Even Clyde wasn’t safe from Mark

Flannigan’s vindictiveness. Do you really want to give

him another shot at us? What the hell do you think

he’s going to do when he learns you’re fucking his

baby girl?”

Mark Flannigan wouldn’t give a damn one way or

the other Rafe knew. From what Rafe had learned

over the years, Cami’s relationship with her father had

only grown colder. The only reason Cami’s father

would even pretend to care would be if he could

destroy the Callahan cousins with it.

“What I think is that this is my business,” Rafe

informed him as he moved to the other side of the

kitchen and began making more coffee. “Now, tell me

why the hell you’re here in the middle of a blizzard