Someone she had trusted had opened that window.
Crowe had locked it back, and now the cousins were going to see about giving that someone a chance to slip in and unlock it again.
That meant getting her out of the house without it appearing as though he had deliberately gotten her out of the house. The meeting was the perfect opportunity for that.
Besides that, he knew for a fact that the county attorney, Wayne Sorenson, would have a much harder time playing the bastard with Cami sitting there watching him.
Cami and Wayne Sorenson’s daughter, Amelia, had been best friends. They had practically grown up in the same house. Amelia’s mother had been best friends with Cami’s mother, and the two girls had been inseparable as children and young adults.
Wayne and Mark hadn’t associated with each other much, though. Wayne had been younger and hadn’t seemed to connect with Mark’s aloof bigotry.
“It may not be a good idea to take me to that meeting with you, Rafe,” Cami advised him as the last of the breakfast dishes were cleared away more than an hour later.
She was still limping a bit, the bruise on her hip obviously bothering her as she shifted in her chair again, accepting the cup of coffee Logan reached to her as Crowe finished loading the dishwasher.
She had watched them as though they were aliens as they cleaned her kitchen. Or as though she had expected them to leave the mess for her.
“And why is that?” Rafe asked as he rinsed the skillet he’d used to prepare the meal and turned back to her.
Drying his hands, he watched her as she nibbled at her thumbnail, a concerned expression on her face as she watched him.
“Wayne’s not exactly enamored of me any longer,” she finally sighed. “And Amelia and I haven’t spoken in ages.”
There was a shadow of hurt in Cami’s gaze before she looked down at her coffee, but there was also a shadow of deception in her eyes. She was hiding more half-truths and shadows of lies than Rafe could have ever guessed.
What the hell had happened to her since he had been gone?
Rafe glanced at his cousins in a silent exchange that had the other two men making their excuses and leaving the kitchen. Several minutes later the sound of the front door clicking shut had her head lifting once again. She was obviously surprised that the other two had left the room and she was now alone with Rafe.
And she didn’t look comfortable with him.
What the hell did it take, he wondered, for her to get a clue that she was stuck with him?
“Why haven’t you and Amelia spoken for the past few years?” he finally asked Cami.
She breathed out heavily as her shoulders lifted in an uncomfortable, defensive little gesture more telling than words.
“Things happen.” She shrugged. “It began before we graduated college. That last year actually. I started work as a substitute and Amelia already had an offer for her own classroom in Aspen for a while.” Cami smiled at something that she obviously still found to be a pleasant memory before rubbing at the side of her neck a bit nervously. “Something changed that year, I guess. No matter what I did, I couldn’t stop her from disassociating herself from me.”
Rafe knew she had been twenty-two that year. She and Amelia had roomed together at college and watched out for each other as they navigated the much larger city after being raised in near isolation in Sweetrock. It didn’t make sense that they would have just grown apart.
“There’s more to it, Cami,” he probed. “The half-truths are only going to piss me off. Now tell me what the hell happened before I have to begin questioning others. You don’t want to push this much further.”
Her lips thinned as a flash of anger clouded her eyes. She glanced away from him for a second, obviously searching for some other way to get out of answering the question.
Rafe stalked to the table, planted his hand on the top of it, and leaned close as she stared back at him in surprise, her eyes widening as he leaned in, nearly nose to nose with her.
“I asked you a question,” he growled furiously as he felt that primal instinct itching between his shoulder blades again. The secrets she was keeping had somehow contributed to the isolated, near-friendless life she was living at the moment.
“Lie to me and I’ll paddle your ass.”
Delicate little nostrils flared. “Perhaps I’ll like it,” she snapped back. “Go ahead and try it, Rafer.”
“Oh, you’ll like it,” he promised her as he came in closer. “You’ll love it, Cami. You’ll beg for it. Your pussy will become so hot, so wet, so desperate for release that you’ll beg me to fuck you. You’ll beg for my cock as deep and as hard as you can take me.”
Her face flushed, her eyes darkened.
“And I’ll even give it to you,” he promised, dropping his voice until he knew the lower, rougher tone would take on a brooding, rasping quality that never failed to affect her.
And it did.
Her face flushed, arousal heating her cheeks at the very sensual promise.
“And that’s supposed to convince me—”
“Do you know what that does to a woman, Cami?” he whispered. “You don’t see yourself as submissive. You’re an independent, freethinking woman. But once you’ve come until you can come no more, once you think it’s all you can do to breathe, once you think it’s over.” His voice dropped further. “I’ll do it again, Cami. And I’ll do it again. And when it’s over, when it’s all you can do just to breathe, what you’ll realize is what will sear you to your very soul. You’ll realize I didn’t just spill my come inside you so many times, pumping it as deep inside you as possible. You’ll realize I own you. Heart and soul. You’ll be completely mine, Cami, and you’ll love being mine. You’ll ache for more of it. You’ll come to me when I so much as whisper your name, because I’ll be buried so deeply inside your soul that you won’t be able to cut me out. There will be no forcing me out. Is that what you want now? Is that a step you think you’re ready to take at this moment?”
It was a step she had already taken and one she that had nearly destroyed her. Those horrible, bleak days were still a part of her, still a part of her memories, and the scars were still a part of her soul.
It would destroy her to belong to him so completely again. And she couldn’t risk his attempt to do just as he said he would, because he could. She was too weak where his touch, his kiss, was concerned. Too weak, too hungry. He was already too much a part of her.
“Now, I’m going to ask you again, kitten. What happened?”
She swallowed tightly. “Amelia used to keep a diary,” she whispered, her gaze lifting to him as the anger faded from her gray eyes and they darkened in pain instead.
He eased back slowly. “And someone found it?”
Cami drew in a slow, deep breath. “It wouldn’t be hard to guess. Her father did while helping Amelia move the year we graduated. He learned both our secrets.”
“And what were those secrets?” It was worth a try.
Cami shook her head, stubborn determination smoothing all but the final, last vestiges of emotion. “It’s her secret,” Cami whispered. “I’ll never betray her, not in any way.”
“She betrayed you, evidently.”
Cami only shrugged.
“And what did he learn of your secrets?” Rafe asked her instead.
“He learned of the night we had spent together and how I felt about it.” She licked her lips nervously. “How I felt about you. And while he was being nosy, he learned something Amelia had fought to hide from him. After that night, she never spoke to me again.”
That secret must have been a huge one. If Rafe remembered correctly, there was some sort of gossip surrounding her return and the hasty marriage that took place weeks later.