Amelia was aware of it as well.
How strange, Cami thought, that even after all these years she could read Amelia as though they had never spent the past three years as all but enemies.
“I’ll see you later then.” Rafe gave a short nod of his head as his arm once again curled around Cami’s back, his fingers lying close at her hip.
Wayne didn’t acknowledge the agreement; he merely turned on his heel and stalked away as though the simple courtesy of saying, Good-bye, See you later, or, Fuck you, Callahan, didn’t apply in the least.
Amelia moved more slowly, and as she turned she pulled her hand from the pocket of her coat and a piece of paper dropped free.
Rafe’s foot immediately covered it, and just in time.
“Amelia?” Wayne turned back to her, his gaze going past her to Rafe, Logan, Crowe, and then Cami, as though searching for something, as though he had expected Amelia to try to stop and talk or, perhaps, to attempt to warn them of something.
“I’m coming, Father.” Her hands were back in her coat, as though they had never slipped free.
God, what was going on?
Cami couldn’t take much more. She couldn’t handle the hell that Corbin County was turning into any longer or the haunting agony the past and the present merging was creating.
It was her fault her best friend, the one person she had had who believed in her, who loved her, whom she could trust, had turned into this unemotional robot that Amelia had turned into.
It was all Cami’s fault, because she had allowed Wayne Sorenson to learn the secret that Amelia had held close to her heart and had never told anyone but Cami.
The fact that Crowe Callahan had kissed Amelia. That he had held her and made her want more. That he had filled her with such a hunger for him that she had told Cami she understood why the loss of the child Cami and Rafe had created had nearly destroyed her.
She could feel her hands shaking. She could feel something inside her stomach trembling, as though the tremors attacking her fingers had begun in her stomach and refused to dissipate.
As several firefighters, Archer, Jack, and Jeannie moved between Rafe, Cami, the Corbins, and Wayne Sorenson, Rafe quickly bent and retrieved the folded note from beneath his shoe.
Turning his back on the group, he held it between his fingers as he watched Cami expectantly.
Allowing Rafe, Logan, and Crowe to shield her, she took the note and slowly unfolded it.
The house is being watched. Trying to get there. Kick some ass. Love you. Your twin.
Cami felt her lips tremble. Why, after all this time, was Amelia making contact?
“She’s going to try to slip to the house.” Cami frowned, confused. “Why would she have to slip over to see me?”
This was going beyond fear of gossip or of Amelia’s father being angry. It was going beyond the fact that the Corbins rewarded anyone who stood against the Callahans and punished those who stood with them.
And Amelia had signed the note: Your twin. They had always sworn they were somehow kidnapped at birth and taken from loving parents to be forced to exist with those they suffered through. They called each other twin when they were afraid of being caught passing messages during the frequent groundings they both had suffered as young girls and as teenagers.
Amelia was afraid of someone finding the note or learning she had written it.
Her twin. If anyone had ever been meant to be Cami’s twin, then it was Amelia. And to learn that at least something had survived the past three years and the horrible mistake Cami had made had tears wanting to fill her eyes again.
She hadn’t been this emotional since the first six weeks of her pregnancy. She had cried at everything then, and that was what she felt like doing now. Sobbing, because there was nothing that made sense anymore except the thought that she had to find an alternative to leaving her home if it was truly bugged. She wasn’t ready to leave. She wasn’t ready to leave the security and the memories of her mother yet.
“Crowe, get Tank out here,” Rafe muttered. “Get the house checked over for bugs, and until he gets here we need something that will generate a cover for anything said there.”
“She’ll be at the house tonight,” Crowe said quietly. “She’s going to end up endangering herself if she does that.”
Cami shook her head. “The fact that I was attacked in my own home and that whoever it was is trying to mimic Thomas Jones will keep her in. She wouldn’t risk herself like that.”
“You did,” Crowe pointed out.
She stared back at him, his expression and the somber tone of his voice instantly registering with her.
Amelia would be there to see him if she could find a way to slip past whoever was watching.
“Keep an eye out for her,” Rafe told him. “Unlock the back door and see if you can spot whoever’s watching.”
“If they’re watching, I’ll find them.” It was Logan’s voice, pitched low and filled with danger that had a chill racing up Cami’s spine.
There were rumors he, along with Rafe and Crowe, had trained as snipers in the Marines. That they were three of the military’s sharpest, coldest killers.
She could believe it. The lives they had lived hadn’t exactly been easy in Corbin County. That dark bitterness could have easily transferred into a rage that would see Rafe going after more than one target.
“Let’s go,” Rafe said, his voice carefully low. “I want to give Crowe time to meet the agent from our security company in Aspen to pick up some equipment we need.”
“And I want to make damned sure if she slips into the house that I’m there to greet her.” There was nothing welcoming in Crowe’s voice as he turned and began leading the way to the SUV they had driven to the ruined garage in.
“This is getting out of hand,” Cami protested as the fear still crawled through her system like a potentially killing virus. “What are they hoping to accomplish? Why do you and your cousins’ presence threaten them to the extent that they would go to these lengths?”
“We remind them of the past,” Crowe stated quietly. “And of a loss they don’t want to accept.”
“And you accept that?” she asked, more surprised than she would have thought she would be. “That’s not a good enough reason, Crowe, and it’s gone far enough.”
“Evidently it hasn’t gone far enough,” Rafe answered her, his voice cool. “They’re still pushing, Cami, and I have no intentions of leaving this county again. They’ll find out fast enough, they can’t run us off now any more than they could do it twelve years ago. The Callahans are home to stay.”
CHAPTER 22
Cami stood at the wide bay window of the breakfast nook just off the kitchen and stared into the backyard that night, her arms crossed over her breasts, her fingers curved over the balls of her shoulders.
And she waited.
Darkness had finally rolled in. That pure pitch dark that only came when winter was putting up its final battle before acceding to the coming spring warmth.
The back porch light was turned off. The house lights were out and Rafe, Logan, and Crowe were sitting at the breakfast table, their voices low, barely discernible amid the static pouring from the AM radio sitting in the center of the table.
Static, Rafe had explained, would cover their voices if they had somehow missed the bug that might have been placed within the house. Or not. Either way, he explained, it was insurance.