Midnight Sins (43 page)

her fist as she laughed back at him. The love between

them was apparent, though. It was actually so

apparent that the gossipmongers loved attempting to

cast suspicion on it.

“Come on in,” Cami invited, still confused at the

visit. “There’s fresh coffee and store bought cinnamon

rolls.”

Cami led the way into the kitchen after closing

and locking the door securely behind them.

She admitted she had become paranoid in the

past weeks. The phone calls might have stopped, but

that feeling of being watched had her wary. Perhaps

her caller had grown tired of calling and decided to

act.

She couldn’t tell if the caller knew about the last

night Rafe had been at the house or not. The

suspense was making her as nervous as hell, though.

“I thought it best to stop in and talk to you, versus

the phone,” Jack stated as she poured the coffee and

set cups in front of both Jack and his wife at the

kitchen table. “Some conversations you simply don’t

trust to normal channels of communication.”

The last comment had her tensing.

“Jack’s paranoid,” Jeannie admitted. “We’ve

received a few calls warning him about consorting

with Callahans.” She rolled her eyes. “I swear, you’d

think we were involved in political intrigue or

something. Or perhaps a return to the Middle Ages?

Tell me, Cami, are the Callahans traitors perhaps?

Did they steal national secrets? Attempt to

assassinate the president?”

Consorting with Callahans. “No,” Cami said

softly, her gaze meeting Jack’s. “But I’ve been getting

similar phone calls.”

Cami quickly related news of the calls she had

been receiving to Jack and watched the couple

exchange a worried look. She omitted the visit by

Marshal Roberts, but over the weeks she had been

surprised that no one else had mentioned it. Whoever

had seen Rafe’s grandfather here evidently wasn’t

telling anyone else.

“Hell.” Jack plowed his fingers through his dark

hair as he sat back in the chair slowly. “Did you tell the

sheriff?”

Cami shook her head.

“I’d suggest it,” Jack warned her. “I called Archer

first thing, not that we’ve been able to trace the calls;

they don’t last long enough. But at least I have a paper

trail if I have to cap someone’s ass for messing with

what’s mine.” He shot his wife a quick look, the

possessiveness and concern touching.

“The thing is,” he continued, “I was worried

enough I called Dad and Taggert. Dad acted so

damned strange that Jeannie and I went to Denver

over the weekend to talk to him. They had some very

interesting information. Some things I had forgotten

over the years and a few things I didn’t know about.”

As Jack continued talking, with Jeannie injecting

information where she remembered a few things,

Cami began remembering things she had forgotten

as a girl as well.

The Corbins’ attempts to take Crowe Mountain

just after Crowe’s parents’ deaths were well known.

What Cami hadn’t heard was the Corbins’ attempts to

destroy the Ramsey ranch after Clyde Ramsey,

Rafe’s uncle, had taken all three boys in.

Corbin hadn’t managed to destroy the property,

but he had managed to affect it financially for several

years.

Then there had been the acts of vandalism, cattle

missing or poisoned, equipment sabotaged, and

several pastures salted.

As the Corbins were targeting Crowe, Logan’s

grandparents, Saul and Tandy, had gone after

Logan’s inheritance: the two-story house in town that

was listed as one of the first houses built in the county,

as well as a cash inheritance that at the time had

come to more than a million dollars.

Crowe’s trust fund was larger, the inherited

account coming from the trust his mother had

inherited from her grandparents as well as the

property and cash her parents had added to it. She

had died only days after coming into the inheritance

and within hours of signing the will that made her only

son her beneficiary.

Then there were the bits of information that

seemed more sinister. The night the three couples

had been killed, the sheriff had closed the accident

site completely off. Only the coroner and a young

attorney Wayne Sorenson had been allowed onto the

site for hours.

Even Clyde Ramsey, Marshal Roberts’s brotherin-

law, had been barred from the site. In those earlymorning

hours he received a call from a ranch hand in

the area who suspected Clyde’s niece and her

husband had been in the accident along with the

Raffertys’ daughter and son-in-law, and in the

Corbins’ case, their daughter and son-in-law as well

as the newborn infant daughter—the only child her

parents had taken with them to Denver that day while

supposedly visiting friends.

It had been learned later that it hadn’t been

friends they were visiting. Rather, it had been a lawyer

and a well-known resort developer. The sons of JR

and Eileen Callahan, the first Callahans to have

considered turning their property into a resort, had

passed that dream on to their sons.

Nothing had been mentioned about the sons

passing the legacy on to their sons. Or why the

daughters of the barons who had married the

Callahan sons would have considered something

their families would have found so heinous.

The bodies had been burned beyond

recognition, and only DNA had confirmed the

identities of the dead. The coroner had quickly

identified the three couples and the infant before the

burials had been hastily arranged.

That was when the campaign to ostracize the

cousins began, Jack told Cami, though it had been

there even before the parents’ deaths. So much so

that the three couples were looking at selling Crowe

Mountain and the Rafferty house in town and

gathering together the inheritances of the three

women and buying a ranch farther west. There had

even been talk that Clyde Ramsey had discussed

selling his property as well and following them.

Kimberly Anna Corbin Callahan had been so

enraged with her parents and brother that she had

told several people that despite her brother’s affection

for her daughter, she would never allow any of them

around her. Anna was done with her parents as well

as the brother she had once idolized. She had even

had them removed as secondary beneficiaries on her

will. The papers had actually been signed with an

attorney in Denver that day. Clyde had been named

as that beneficiary barring any children Crowe or her

daughter might have had.

Her daughter hadn’t had a chance to see her first

birthday, let alone reach maturity and the chance to

conceive. She had barely been three months old at

her death.

Then there had been the confrontation at the

funerals. With only one funeral home, the three

couples had been there together. Shockingly, the

wives had been placed in another room and

separated from their husbands. At first. Until Clyde

had threatened to sue the funeral home, the director,

and the families involved. Then, when Crowe and

Logan had attempted to go in to attend their parents’

funerals, their way had been blocked by their

grandfathers and, in Crowe’s case, by his uncle as

well.

The entire county had attended those funerals

and had seen the families’ treatment of the cousins.

Most of the county worked the Corbin and Rafferty

ranches or in some other way benefited from their

business. They hadn’t been able to afford backing the

boys and hurting their own finances or positions.

The result had been the steady unearned

condemnation of an entire community toward three

young, grief-stricken boys.

Clyde Ramsey had done the best he could by

taking not just his own nephew in but also the others

and raising them himself. His own grief at losing his

treasured niece, and his inability to understand the

hatred directed at their children had nearly destroyed

him.

Clyde had suffered from the decision, though.

Ranch hands quit on him, accidents happened around

the ranch, and he was constantly warned to leave the

county. But stubbornness had been set in his bones

and he had refused to go, even as he advised the

boys to fight against them. That this was their parents’

home, they owned part of it, and they should never

forget that fact.

As Cami fixed more coffee, Jack broached

another subject she hadn’t expected.

“Did you know about the phone calls Jaymi got

before she was killed?” he asked gently.

Cami remained silent for long moments, finished

the coffee, then turned back with the pot to refill the

cups. She needed time to gather the strength to talk

about Jaymi. No one mentioned her anymore, and

Cami found it hurt more with each passing year.

She gave a brief nod as she sat down again. “I

was here when she got a few of them. They were

similar to the ones I’m receiving, except Jaymi figured

out who her caller was a few nights before Thomas

Jones—” She couldn’t say it. She had relived that part

of the past too much in the last few weeks the way it

was. “I know that voice, too though,” she said fiercely.

“I know it; I just haven’t been able to place it.”

She described the voice. The regret. The hint of

tears.Jack nodded. “I remember that though Jaymi

didn’t say anything about realizing who the caller was,

she left the social early that night, and she appeared

angry.”

“She was angry when she came back to the

apartment too.” Cami swallowed tightly. “When she

answered the call that night she went to the bedroom.

I’m not sure, but I think I heard her say something

about her knowing why her caller hated ‘him’ so bad.

Though I don’t know who the ‘him’ was, and she

wouldn’t tell me. I always suspected it was Rafe they

were discussing.”

Jack and Jeannie exchanged a frown, though

Cami didn’t see a sense of recognition in their gazes

either. When Jack turned back to her, he leaned forward

intently, his gaze somber. “Dad was managing the

garage then. But do you remember the accident

Jaymi had about a month before she was killed?”

Cami nodded warily. “She nearly went over one

of the mountain cliffs that day.”

It had terrified her, and Cami knew Jaymi had

been shaken by it. Her brakes had failed on one of