Midnight Sins (46 page)

didn’t bring their own. The community center, also

facing the square, remained open the full weekend.

From Friday afternoon through Sunday evening

teenagers as well as young children joined the

weekend slumber parties.

If Rafe remembered correctly, the teenagers

brought their own sleeping bags or pillows, supplies

were donated for pizza making, chips and drinks

were brought by the sponsors and chaperones. In

holding the weekend events a place was provided to

keep the kids off the streets and entertained through

the summer months, keeping them from running wild.

It was a pretty cool little setup. And to give the

county credit, there hadn’t been a single time that he

and his cousins had been turned away when they

were younger. Despite the fact that Clyde Ramsey

used the weekend activity as a babysitter while he

went to Aspen for what he called his adult fun.

Never had the Callahans been turned away from

a weekend social or ostracized during one, unless it

was their peers ostracizing them. Which it usally was.

And that was enough for the cousins. As soon as

they were old enough, Rafe, Logan, and Crowe had

begun camping out on the weekends Clyde was

gone. He hadn’t totally trusted any of them.
Blood will

tell,
he was known to mutter as he locked up the

house and drove them into town. He didn’t want

anything stolen out of his house.

Not that the cousins had ever stolen a damned

thing in their lives. They hadn’t. And they hadn’t been

able to find a single time when anyone had been

certain their fathers had stolen anything. It was all

supposition and suspicion.

The cousins might not have been ostracized from

the socials as teenagers, but as adults it was another

story. Standing together in their dress blacks,

combed and polished, they were well aware of the

looks they were receiving and from which direction.

The citizens of the county who had been there

when the Callahan cousins were growing up watched

them suspiciously while the new residents, those who

had come in since, watched them curiously. And more

of the single women than not at least glanced their

way in appreciation.

There had been a time Rafe and his cousins

would have shown this county exactly how their fathers

had managed to catch and marry the boys’ mothers,

heiresses though they were. There were several

Corbin County moneyed daughters as well as a few

he recognized from the social pages from Denver,

Grand Junction, and Aspen. And if he wasn’t

mistaken— He allowed his lips quirk into a grin as

one of those moneyed daughters arched her brow in

invitation.

At any other time he would have taken her up on

the silent invitation, especially here, in front of every

bastard who had ever turned his nose up at a

Callahan.

But then Cami had happened.

He was damned if he would mess up a chance to

experience the pleasure he found in the sleek, hot

depths of the sweetest pussy he’d ever known. And

he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt, if he so much

as considered taking another woman to his bed, then

he would never so much as glimpse Cami’s bed

again. Rafe’s gaze slid to her once again, watched as

she stood talking to one of the other teachers at the

elementary school where she taught.

The bouncy little redhead was full of vivacious

laughter, and her gaze kept straying to him, then back

to Cami. As though she knew more than she had

seen the night before. More than Martin Eisner had

told.

Though, honestly, Eisner hadn’t told near as

much as Rafe had expected him to. For a damned

gossip, he’d been amazingly reticent so far.

“Tell me why we’re here again?” Logan muttered

behind Rafe, just loud enough to reach both his and

Crowe’s ears.

Logan wasn’t happy to be here either, evidently.

But, just as he had done when they were younger,

Crowe had all but forced them out of the house and

into town.

“Because we’re not hiding anymore,” Crowe

answered firmly, not bothering to lower his tone any

more than necessary. He wasn’t trying to keep

anyone from hearing him, but neither was he trying to

tell everyone around them either.

“I wasn’t aware we were hiding before,” Rafe

snorted. “Simply uninterested. I’m still not interested.”

And that was a lie of major proportions. The

more he watched Cami, the more interested he

became in the Sweetrock Saturday night social. He

could see where and why the event could come in

handy. At least he had a legitimate excuse for being

in the same vicinity she was in. If he had his way, he’d

have a hell of an excuse for holding her in his arms

and staking a silent, though very clear claim on the

woman he was considered his own. That sense of

possession was growing stronger by the day.

“Well, I am,” Crowe drawled. “If you two want to

leave, then find your own ride. Personally, I intend to

have a little fun.”

Rafe looked back at him wryly. “I knew riding in

with you was a bad decision.”

And it had been all Crowe’s idea. Hell, he should

have just brought the Harley, but the mountain air was

still colder than hell.

Crowe shrugged, the perfect fit of the black silk

evening jacket he wore barely shifting over the broad

width of his shoulders. “Sucks to be you boys, then

don’t it?”

His cousin was scanning the crowd again, as

though searching for someone. As though he knew

why he was there and who he was there to see.

Just why was Crowe so interested in being

there?

There had to be more to this than simply wanting

to force Corbin County to accept them. Because none

of them really gave a damn if Corbin County accepted

them or not. If they followed through with their plans,

then the county would have to accept them anyway.

Attending a damned social wasn’t going to make a

difference.

Rafe glanced over at Logan. He was staring

above them at the brightly strung lights in the newly

budding trees overhead.

The white- and peach-colored lights weren’t that

interesting. Rafe had always considered them rather

bland and boring himself. Peach wasn’t exactly his

favorite color.

“You boys are boring me,” Rafe muttered as he

lifted the glass of beer he had bought earlier and took

a hard drink of the warming liquid as he kept his eyes

on Cami.

It was a damned good thing he liked the taste of

beer, because it wasn’t at its best after it warmed.

“Well, by all means, don’t let us hold you back,”

Crowe grunted. “You’re not chained to us, you know.”

“Hmm.” He all but ignored his cousin as he

watched Cami lift her hand, her graceful fingers

pushing back a strand of gold-and-walnut-streaked

hair back from her cheek as a man,
another man
,

walked up to her, smiled, and handed her a flute of

champagne.

And she dared to smile at him?

Her lips curved with charm and graciousness,

and was she flirting with the bastard? Were her

lashes lowering over her eyes deliberately, giving that

son of a bitch a sleepy, sexy, take-me-to-bed look?

Rafe straightened slowly from where he’d been

leaning against the post of the pergola he and his

cousins were standing beneath.

This wasn’t going to happen.

He glared over at her, as though the force of his

look alone would send the son of a bitch running.

Cami’s admirer leaned closer and whispered

something in her ear as she leaned in to him.

Fucker! Whoever the hell he was, he was risking

his life.

Then, the other man’s hand reached up, his

fingers curling around her upper arm.

Another man was touching what was Rafe’s? He

could feel his jaw clenching.

Were those his teeth grinding?

He’d be damned if he would have this.

He set the empty beer glass down slowly,

unaware of even having finished the warming brew

before shoving his hands in the pockets of his slacks

and clenching his fists.

Mine!

“Did you say something, Rafe?” Crowe asked

behind him.

He didn’t say a damned thing. Not out loud at

least. Had he?

Then the man standing with her gestured to the

dance floor, where another slow song was beginning

to fill the night air.

It was an invitation, and it was an invitation that

just might get the bastard into more trouble than he

could have imagined.

“Ah fuck, don’t do it, Cami,” he muttered.

He practically felt the blood beginning to boil in

his veins as a surge of some impossibly possessive

urge tore through his senses.

He felt like an animal.

He wanted nothing more than to snarl in primal

rage that some son of a bitch thought he could claim,

for even a moment, what Rafe had already tried to

mark as his own.

Oh, if he hadn’t marked her yet, then he would.

Tonight.

Tonight, he’d show her exactly how he could

mark her. How he could take that collection of erotic

toys in her bedside drawer and turn her little world

inside out. She would be convinced he lived under her

skin when he was finished with her.

She would know who that lush, graceful little body

belonged to.

She would know exactly who claimed not just her

kisses and her juicy little pussy but also every fucking

dance she was willing to give away.

He took a step forward.

“Ah, Rafe, wait just a minute.” Logan caught

Rafe’s arm, bringing him to a stop only because of the

warning in his cousin’s voice. “Are you sure you want

to do this here?”

He turned to the other man slowly, his head

lowered, his gaze boring into his cousin’s with a fury

Logan didn’t know how to handle.

“Do what?” he asked between clenched teeth.

“Dance? Why, I’m quite certain I do.”

And he knew exactly who he intended to dance

with. Exactly who he intended to show this entire

fucking town belonged to him. Rafer Callahan wasn’t

just a kid they considered as from the wrong side of

the tracks. He wasn’t just the son of the bastard who

had stolen Ann Ramsey from the marriage pool and

impregnated her. Hell no, Rafe was also Cambria

Flannigan’s lover and before the night was over the

world would fucking know it whether she liked it or not.