“But I am here.”
Staid, buttoned-down. This was the Amelia who had broken Cami’s heart for the past three years.
Amelia’s long hair was bound at the back of her head, a thick bun that gave her a schoolmarmish appearance. Sensible shoes, no jewelry. Strangely, she wasn’t even wearing her wedding band.
“You’re not supposed to be here.” Lowry gave his head a quick shake, his lips tightening as anger began to burn in his gaze.
No, that wasn’t just anger. It was demented rage.
Cami stepped back farther, her intent to get to the door on the wall closest to her.
It looked like a closet, but the door led instead into another bedroom and then out into the hall.
“If you fire that gun, Rafe and his cousins will hear it,” Amelia pointed out. “Is that what you want?”
“Do I have a choice?” he asked as something akin to resignation flashed in his eyes. “We could have done it the easy way.” He turned his attention back to Cami now. “Now, we’ll just have to do it my way.”
His finger began to tighten.
Cami felt the scream that tore from her throat as the bedroom door crashed inward in that second and Rafe came hurtling into the other man. His body much taller, heavily muscled and controlled, Rafe took the other man down as the first shot rang out.
Cami looked around, desperate, terrified of where that bullet had gone and whom it had struck.
Amelia was thrown back against the wall, eyes wide, her palms flat against the wall. Logan and Crowe were running a second late behind Rafe.
It was as though hell had opened up and poured a crazed strength into Lowry. He should haven’t been strong enough to resist Rafe’s pure, possessive fury. Yet Lowry was. He fought back, kicking and screaming and pouring out his hatred of Cami as he fought the man determined to save her.
At first, it looked as though they had to pull Rafe off, that for whatever reason, he was unable to get to his feet on his own. Then, Cami saw the damage.
She stepped forward, one foot, one step, a sob tearing from her throat as Rafe rushed for her, pulling her into his arms as his hand went to the back of her head to hold her against his heart.
“Ah God, Cami.”
“How did you know?” she cried, her arms locked around his neck as she fought to hold on as tight as possible, to pull him into her skin if there was any way she could do it.
“Crowe had a receiver up here, baby,” Rafe answered, his voice raw, torn. “Thank God. He put the receiver up here earlier. The minute I saw the voice activation was blinking I knew—” His hold tightened on her. “Oh God. Baby. I was almost too late. I was almost too late.”
She held on to him, certain that if she let him go, if she let her arms release him, let him out of her sight, then she would find out it was all a dream and once again she would be alone.
So alone.
Her hold tightened.
She couldn’t be without him again.
She couldn’t allow herself to waste so much as a single moment that they could be together.
She had lost so much time. She had nearly lost him.
“I love you,” the words tore from her lips as the sobs finally escaped.
More than twelve years of holding them inside, of telling herself it didn’t hurt so she could survive. Seven years of loving him, of aching for him, of realizing that nothing, that no one, could ever touch her, hold her, kiss her as Rafer did.
And she could never love anyone as she loved him.
“Ah, Cami.” Pulling his head back, he rested his forehead against hers, staring down at her, his gaze so dark, so filled with emotion.
And that emotion had always bound them.
That bond she hadn’t been able to decipher hadn’t been so hard to figure out; she just had to allow herself to get past the denial. The denial that she had lost their child, that she had lost her dearest friend, and the knowledge that if she lost Rafe again, then like Jaymi, she wouldn’t want to live.
She believed that. How many times had she heard Jaymi whisper that she didn’t know if she could wake up another morning without her heart?
And now, Cami understood. She knew what her sister had felt, how she had loved, and knew that if she had nothing left of Rafe to hold on to, no reason to get up every morning, then she too would wonder just how much longer she had to wait.
“He’s dead, Rafe.” Crowe’s voice drew their attention back to the scene in the middle of her bedroom floor.
Lowry Berry, the shy, socially reclusive teacher whom she and Jaymi both had called friend, had been a crazed child rapist and a killer.
“Who the hell was he working for, though?” Logan muttered as he propped his hands on his hips and stared down at the bloody corpse.
There was a single gunshot wound to Lowry’s chest, directly into his heart. A self-inflicted wound. He had killed himself rather than face trial or have to face the fact that his crimes would be brought to light.
“What do we do now?” she asked as Crowe pulled his phone free of the holder at his hip.
“Now, we call Archer,” Rafe breathed out roughly before turning to Amelia, then back to Crowe. “Let Logan call the sheriff. You get her the hell out of here and back home. We don’t need her name in this.”
Amelia still stood against the wall, watching, her face pale, her eyes locked on Lowry’s lifeless form.
“He called me last night.” She lifted her gaze to Cami, misery reflected in their depths. “He’s never called me before, Cami. He said friends should say good-bye.” Amelia gave her head a hard shake as her gaze lifted back to Cami. “I didn’t know what he was talking about until I heard Jack’s garage had blown up.”
“Get her out of here, Logan,” Crowe growled. “Now.”
“I thought that was your job?” Logan muttered.
Crowe shot him a dangerous, brooding look. “I think she comes with more trouble than I need.”
Cami’s breath caught at the pain that suddenly flashed in her friend’s eyes.
Amelia’s shoulders straightened, though, her emerald eyes turning dark and emotionless.
“I didn’t need any help getting here, and I don’t need any help leaving,” she informed them.
Then, steady and calm, she moved to Cami.
“It would kill me if anything happened to you,” Amelia said evenly. “And I never blamed you for what Father found. He was looking for something and he found it.” She shot Crowe a cold look. “It was my fault.”
“Amelia—”
“I hear fucking sirens. Get her the hell out of here if she’s going,” Crowe rasped.
Amelia turned on her heel and, with Logan close on her heels, hurriedly left the bedroom.
Cami listened until the sound of Amelia’s footsteps on the stairs faded away and nothing else was heard.
Rafe’s arm slid around Cami once again, pulling her against him, the warmth of his body, the steady strength found there, a balm to what had been her shattered soul.
How had she managed to survive without him for the past three years?
“We don’t know who was behind it,” she said softly as the sound of the sirens grew closer.
“But now, we know he’s out there,” Rafe said, his hold on her tightening. “We know he’s there, Cami, and we know to watch our backs.”
Looking over her head to his cousin, Rafe made a vow to himself. Whoever it was. Whatever had made them a target for whatever reason. They would find him. They would find him, and they would make damned certain he paid with his life as well.
Rafe was thirty years old and he’d believed a single coincidence, Jaymi’s death, had marked his life forever.
His life had been marked for far longer than the years after Cami’s sister’s death. It stretched back to his and his cousins’ childhoods and possibly even to the deaths of their parents.