Hospitalized, weak and fighting for his life, he hadn’t even been aware that the world believed his youngest son was dead. In fact, his wife, Eileen Callahan had contacted acquaintances that she had known were desperate for a child. She’d sold her baby for the money needed to save the rest of her family and the ranch that amounted to everything they possessed.
Until the morning of their deaths, they had been worth a fortune. For some reason, that morning they had withdrawn every cent they had at the bank, and accepted a paltry couple of hundred thousand for a ranch that was worth three times as much in stock alone.
That night, they had been racing toward Colorado Springs along the curving mountain road with its sheer drops and spectacular cliffs. Somehow, JR Callahan, the great-great-grandson of James Randal Callahan, had lost control of the truck and plunged down one of those cliffs.
Their vehicle had exploded on impact with such force that the explosion had been heard across the mountains. It was the next day, though, before anyone had seen the faint tendrils of smoke rising from the canyon below.
And how strange that years later, their three sons and the women they had married had died in the same manner when their SUV had gone over a cliff as they drove from Denver. The coincidence was simply too great. The deaths too similar.
“Ryan’s stopped blasting their eardrums,” Logan stated quietly as he and Crowe stood up from the cots they had been sitting on.
When the metal doors at the other end of the cell area opened, Gunnery Sgt. Ryan Callahan Calvert, of the Boston, Massachusetts, Calverts, strode in, followed by two military police personnel and the lawyer he’d brought from Denver the day before.
Ryan was scowling. His strong, weathered face was stone hard, his blue eyes like chips of ice, as he followed the sheriff, Randal Tobias, to the cell Rafe and his cousins had been confined in.
The fact that Ryan wasn’t happy was only eclipsed by the fact that Sheriff Tobias was glaring at the cousins with pure, vicious hatred.
“The little bastards f**king well better keep their asses in the county.” He shoved the key in each cell door, twisted it furiously, and slammed the iron doors open. “Fuck up and I’ll put a bullet in your heads myself.”
Rafe sneered. “Only if the barons give you permission,” he drawled, using the mocking nickname given to the patriarchs of the three families.
In the next second, Tobias buried his fist in Rafe’s ribs, stealing Rafe’s breath for a second and shoving him into the metal bars. Fury surged through Rafe in the next instant, pounding through his veins and throwing him forward after the sheriff, when Logan, Crowe, and Ryan suddenly grabbed him.
“Let it go, son,” Ryan snarled in his ear. “You should have kept your mouth shut or prepared for it.”
He was right. Rafe knew he was right. But still, Rafe wanted to take the bastard apart with his bare hands.
The sheriff sneered back at him.
Funny, Rafe thought distantly, the sheriff’s son, Archer, seemed to have a streak of honor and had been one of the few people in the county to come forward and object to the treatment Rafe and his cousins had suffered in the past few days. That was one of the reasons Tobias was so furious now. Having his son defend the three cousins couldn’t have gone over well with the barons who told Tobias when to breathe, when to f**k, and when to piss.
Rafe let his lip curl in the sheriff’s direction. “That’s okay, sir,” Rafe drawled. “You’re right: I should have been prepared. But I think the sheriff is very well aware of the price he’s paying for the orders he follows.”
He’d lost his son. Archer Tobias had stood in his father’s face the day before and told the other man he couldn’t believe they were related and that he prayed stupidity wasn’t hereditary.
“You little f**ker,” Tobias snarled. “You’ll be back. When you do Archer will see you for the murdering f**k you are.”
Rafe shook his head. “Naw, he’ll see you and the barons for the manipulative monsters you are. That’s too bad, too, because I think Archer is tired of defending your eagerness to jump when they tell you to jump.”
“Get him out of here, Calvert,” the sheriff ordered. “Before I save the county the money to prosecute him and shoot him myself.”
Two military police laid their hands purposely on the butts of their weapons. The action didn’t go unnoticed.
“Let’s go,” Ryan ordered. “You all have a meeting with your lawyer, then you’re going to settle in somewhere until we can take care of this.”
“I have to take care of something else,” Rafe stated as they headed for the door.
“The hell you do,” Ryan growled as he followed close behind Rafe. “Don’t argue with me, Rafe. Not here.”
Rafe waited until they were outside. Turning back to his uncle, Rafe stared the other man in the eye, determination tightening his body and burning through his veins. “I promised Jaymi.” His fists clenched at the thought of what he had to do. “I’ll meet you wherever you need me to, but I have to take care of something first.”
“And what the hell could be more important than your freedom?” Ryan snarled as he gripped Rafe’s arm and pulled him around again.
“A promise,” Rafe snapped as he jerked his arm back. “And I don’t break my f**king promises.”
Cami was sick; Jack and Archer both had told Rafe she was alone at Jaymi’s apartment, and she hadn’t gotten her medicine. It was confiscated as evidence when it was found outside the pharmacy, and Rafe didn’t know if anyone had even cared to check on her.
He’d never imagined his life could come to this. At twenty, he thought he had the world by the tail, and despite the problems he and his cousins had faced in Corbin County, he’d believed it would all right itself in the end.
He couldn’t have imagine this could happen, not even in his worst nightmares.
That Jaymi could die in his arms. That he could have been arrested for her murder when he’d done everything he could to save her.
And as he stepped out into the bright summer light to the sight of nearly two dozen of Sweetrock’s residents glaring at him in accusation, he thought that perhaps he should have expected it.
Moving through the crowd was Clyde Ramsey, Rafe’s uncle on his mother’s side. A hard scowl covered Clyde’s face as he strode the distance in a bowlegged walk that bespoke his years on the little ranch he owned between Sweetrock and Aspen, Colorado, well away from the family his sister had married into.