Midnight Sins (31 page)

proved that Thomas Jones was the man Crowe

stabbed that night managed to clear them.”

“Yet they’re still treated worse than rapists and

murderers who admit to their crimes,” she pointed

out. “I thought it would get better for them, but in the

past twelve years it seems to have only grown worse.”

“It’s easy to blame them,” Archer suggested.

“Thomas Jones is dead, and they’re alive.”

Could it possibly be that simple?

It wasn’t enough to satisfy her though, just as she

knew she had an ulterior motive. She wanted Rafe.

She wanted back in his bed, she wanted to know why

she couldn’t forget him, why she ached for him, and

that wasn’t going to happen if she wanted to live and

work in Sweetrock.

“Thanks for the ride home, Archer,” she said

dropping the subject and hoping she had given him

enough for him to investigate it as he drew closer to

where she lived in her two-story little ranch.

“I’ll call Jack’s Towing before heading back up

the mountain,” Archer told her. “He can bring your car

in sometime today.”

She nodded slowly. “That’s fine; thank you

again.”

She wasn’t going to need it today anyway.

Archer sighed as he turned the car down Main

Street and drove closer to the dark, probably cold,

and definitely lonely house she had bought from her

parents.

It was all she could do to keep from begging him

to take her back to Rafer’s. To beg Rafer to hold her

just a little while longer. But the fear was like a

padlock, locking the words and the ability to reach out

to Rafer in such a way deep inside her.

“I don’t know what’s going on.” She rubbed her

temple with her fingers, finally glancing at Archer

again as she breathed out a hard sigh. “Why did he

have to come back, Archer? Why did he have to

change everything?”

“He’s not changing anything for you without your

help,” Archer said gently. “And from what you just said

about Jaymi, you be damned careful. It might be a

good idea to be a little cautious for a while.” Archer

knew about the nights they had spent together, though

he didn’t know about the child she had lost.

A sardonic smile twisted her lips. Hadn’t that

been the same advice she had given her sister twelve

years before?

“I’ll be sure to do that,” Cami promised as she

slid out of the sheriff’s vehicle and closed the door

before heading to the house.

She turned and waved good-bye as she stepped

into the silent house.

Yes. It was cold. Lonely.

Closing and locking the door behind her, she

turned the thermostat up, hoping to alleviate the chill

inside her as well as the one that filled her home. She

hadn’t really been warm in years, until Rafer had held

her again. Now the lack of that warmth was damned

painful.

The cell phone rang out its strident ringtone to

alert her she had a call. Caller ID was clearly blocked,

and until now she didn’t think she’d ever received a

blocked call.

“Hello,” she answered cautiously.

The voice, despite its gentle sadness, held a

sinister, malicious edge.

“You better hope you spent your time with Rafer

Callahan wisely. You should have chosen someone

else to dirty yourself with if you needed a hard fuck,”

the voice warned her somberly. “If it happens again,

you could meet the same end as your sister. Wouldn’t

that be a shame, Ms. Flannigan? Wouldn’t it hurt your

family, your friends, to find your body broken and

discarded for fucking that bastard?”

Who the hell would call and say something so

cruel? She and Jaymi had been close, much closer

than most sisters with such an age difference

between them.

But she remembered the calls Jaymi had

received while sleeping with Rafe, and she had once

told Cami that the caller’s voice had sounded tearful

and filled with regret.

“I’m always careful,” Cami told him quietly,

confidently. “And I don’t do bullies. Or cowards.” She

disconnected the call quickly, then ignored the next

several as she moved back to the kitchen and laid the

device on the table. She stood back by the counter

and simply watched it as though it were a snake,

coiled and hissing as “
blocked number
” showed on

the caller ID again.

As a third-grade teacher for the only elementary

school in the county, she ended up meeting most

people, whether they were parents or not, more than

once. She recognized that voice, even as carefully

disguised as it had been.

Still, she would remember whose voice it was,

and when she did, unlike her sister, Cami would raise

hell and make damned sure he paid for attempting to

terrorize her, let alone threatening her.

She knew Jaymi had finally realized who had

been calling her. The week before she had died she

had attended one of the county-sponsored street

dances in the town square, and when she had

returned to the apartment she had been more than

upset. She had been furious. She hadn’t said she had

known, but Cami had known her sister and she had

known when the phone rang that night and the look on

Jaymi’s face when the caller ID had come up

“blocked.” Jaymi had taken the phone to the

bedroom, but as she walked into the other room Cami

could have sworn she heard Jaymi say,
Now I know

why you hate him so bad
. But Jaymi had refused to

tell Cami who it was or what was going on. The next

week, Jaymi had been killed.

Cami drew in a hard, deep breath.

What was she going to do now? she wondered.

The implications of the phone calls were frightening.

The phone rang again.

Eyes narrowed, she stalked back to the table,

checked the number, and saw the “blocked” signal

again. Pushing the call button, she brought it quickly to

her ear. She would be damned if she was going to

live in fear. “Fuck off, nutcase,” she snapped.

There was silence for a moment. Long enough

for Cami to realize it wasn’t the unknown, threatening

voice of moments before.

“I just wanted to make certain you got home

okay,” Rafe’s voice came over the line carefully.

Cami’s teeth snapped together. “Here’s a piece

of advice, Rafer Callahan. Unblock your number when

you call; otherwise, I won’t be answering.”

She was not going to worry about missed calls

and whether or not it was Rafe.

“You know, you’re the only person that calls me

Rafer,” he growled, something in his tone warning her

he was more angry than simply irritated. She didn’t

think it was because she was calling him by his full

given name.

“Learn to live with it,” she muttered as she began

moving through the house, closing curtains and

checking locks again.

The normal nightly ritual suddenly had a new,

sinister meaning, and she didn’t like it. Because it

didn’t matter she had already checked them once,

she needed to check them again.

“Your cousin Martin took out close to a thousand

feet of new fence on his way in and out,” Rafe

informed her. “I’m suing.”

Yes, Eisner was her third cousin on her mother’s

side and Crowe’s very, very distant cousin on his

mother’s side.

“And you’re telling me why? I’m not his lawyer;

that’s his cousin Doug Atchinson. Give him a call.”

She had no sense of guilt because she rarely

remembered Martin was related to her. Besides he

should have known better.

“You’re being awful accommodating all of a

sudden.” Suspicion laced Rafe’s voice, and she could

almost see him staring back at her. She could almost

see herself drowning in those bottomless sapphireblue

eyes.

“So are you,” she fired back. “How the hell am I

supposed to pretend we haven’t been occasional

fucks if you start calling to check up on me?”

She needed to get over the past few days, the

heated passion and the feel of his flesh against hers.

She needed to let her body readjust to not having him

inside her. To not having him pumping hard and deep

and stretching her pussy with that delicious pleasurepain

she could have so easily become addicted to.

She might have already become addicted, because

she was dying for him. She needed her fix.

“What happened?” Suspicion laced his voice.

“Was someone at the house when you got there? Has

someone called?”

She tensed. How had he known she was feeling

spooked?

“If there were, and they had, then I know how to

use my Smith and Wesson to deal with it,” she

promised him as that craving for him began to pound

through her blood veins. “And just to set you straight,

Rafer,
you
happened. You’re like some kind of

damned catalyst or something, because every time

you invade my damned space you completely fuck my

life up. Stay on your own side of the county and let me

deal with mine.”

She disconnected the call. But she held the

phone between her breasts, her eyes closed, her

breathing rough, as she fought to hold back her tears

and to contain her anger. She couldn’t let this happen

to her again. She could not allow herself to sink into

that well of physical and emotional hunger as she had

the last time.

She wanted to stomp her feet on the floor like a

child and rage against fate, life and the unfairness of

aching for a man she couldn’t have. Because having

him meant losing herself in him and she couldn’t allow

that to happen again, if she wanted to live in her

hometown.

Other women could have affairs with married

men, cheat on their husbands, or have more than one

lover at the same time. She, on the other hand,

couldn’t even have the man she dreamed about the

most. The one who kept her heart racing and her

pussy so wet she was going to have to change

panties. She couldn’t do it because she didn’t have

the emotional distance to survive if anything

happened to him.

A sigh fell from her lips as she closed her eyes

briefly. Other women knew how to love and still retain

their souls. She didn’t know how to do that, it seemed.

As for her panties, she realized she didn’t have to

worry about changing them because she had

forgotten to put them back on after they had dried

hanging over Rafer’s shower.

“You’re the only one who calls me Rafer.”
The