But it was rumored Rafe never really gave a damn. If a lady left before he did, then oh well, was the attitude he seemed to take. That was the impression he had always given, but Cami remembered Jaymi’s comment once that Tye had told her about the times Rafer had often retreated within himself afterwards. Tye had sworn that those rejections and opposition were destroying Rafe. Cami couldn’t imagine that he had endured them without serious internal scars.
“So, we’re on the sly here then.” He gave a slow nod. “Did I give up my bed for you? Or was I my normal cruel self and forced you to sleep on the couch?”
“Don’t, Rafe.” Cami wrapped her hands around the cup as she stared back at him directly. “Things can’t be any different and you know it. What happened to Jaymi changed everything.”
He snorted. “You were only thirteen then, Cami. I had no thoughts at all of you, sexually. But later—” He shook his head. “You want me until it’s all you can do to sit still in that damned chair and you’ll still deny it, won’t you?”
He leaned forward, pushing the cup slowly out of his way as he braced his arms on the table and glared back at her. “Tell me, Cami, when will it stop mattering to you what the people think?”
“When my job no longer depends on it?” she suggested, feeling his tension, his anger, licking at her now. “When my parents don’t stare at my sister’s picture with such grief and my mother isn’t sobbing because she lost her daughter and the men she believes killed her have gone unpunished.”
Her lips thinned as she breathed out roughly.
Cami’s hand jerked up, covered her lips.
God, she hadn’t wanted to say that; She hadn’t wanted to hurt either of them with the truth he should know by now couldn’t be avoided.
His eyes narrowed back at her as mockery filled his expression. “Yeah, that was real dumb,” he drawled. “We both know there’s no way the Callahan cousins can defend themselves against what the good people of Sweetrock think.” He gave a short bark of laughter at the thought. “Or should I say, what the barons tell them to think?”
Cami could only shake her head at the comment. “You know how they are, Rafe. The barons, for whatever reason, want the three of you out of Sweetrock forever. You’ve had twelve years to try to convince everyone differently and you haven’t even made the attempt. You return home every so often, stare down your nose at them, and pretend they don’t matter. When you know that if you want to stay here, then it does matter.”
“What matters, Cami? Their opinion?” Rafe smirked. “When I was ten and my parents had just died, one of the fine teachers of Sweetrock informed me I was better off without them and while the principal lectured me because I had gotten into a fight with a boy that called my mother a Callahan whore.” By the time he finished he was leaning across the table, almost nose to nose with her, the fury that filled his sapphire eyes frightening in its intensity. “Tell me, why the f**k should I care?”
She hadn’t known about that but she didn’t doubt it in the slightest either.
She knew his life in Sweetrock had never been easy, but she hadn’t known that it had been that terrible when he had been so young. No more than his parents’ lives had been easy. As though there were those determined to make the orphans pay for their fathers’ supposed crimes since their fathers weren’t there to pay themselves.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Pulling back, he shot her a disgusted look before picking up his coffee cup and moving to the sink. It was set in the sink gently, despite the tension raging through him. She had expected him to throw it. She would have.
“Fuck your ‘sorry,’” he grunted. “Your parents for all their love for each other and for Jaymi, they never gave a damn about you. And they had no compassion, and they sure as hell had no sympathy, for three little boys suddenly orphaned and about as alone in the world as they could get. When our parents died every damned one of them turned on us and the few that didn’t ignored it,” he accused. “Tell me, Cami, do you even know why the hell the fine citizens of Sweetrock hated my father and uncles more than they hated any others? What the hell did they do to inspire such f**king animosity toward their children as well?”
Cami could only shake her head. She’d had this discussion with her Aunt, and Ella Flannigan hadn’t been willing to supply the answers.
There had been excuses. There had been embarassment. But, there hadn’t been an explanation that made sense other than the fact that the barons had set the rules on their treatment and everyone seemed to follow.
Even among the teachers Cami had been friends with most of her life seemed unwilling to discuss the Callahan cousins.
She’d always felt as though her parents and their friends were unwilling to face whatever had happened in the past. They were definitely unwilling to discuss their own reasons for so blindly following the cousins’ families in that regard.
Sweetrock was a very small town. A church, a courthouse and sheriff’s office, a single grocer, and several feed and supply stores were all they could boast of. There were fewer than a thousand citizens; the last census counted 605 within the city limits.
“So you’re just going to lie about your little adventure with Rafer Callahan.” He strode back to the table and leaned over, his palms flattening against the tabletop.
“There’s no lie. It was snowing, my car was stuck, and I’m staying here until I can get the car out.” She had to force the words past her lips as she stared into the depths of his burning gaze.
There was anger there. A male fury that burned clear to his soul. But there was also betrayal, and she couldn’t blame him for feeling it or for hating her and everyone else in the county for it.
“If I could get you out of here now, right this minute, I would.” His lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl. “I’ll be damned if I even want you here.”
She rose slowly to her feet, watching as he straightened as well, his chest rising and falling harshly, those blue, blue eyes glaring at her with something akin to hatred.
“I can leave,” she stated.
It shouldn’t be too bad. If she could make it to her car before the storm began again.
If she could get through the freezing drifts before the cold got to her.