“Things?” Arrogant and mocking, and fully aware of his own sense of knowledge, the arch of that dark brow assured her he believed otherwise.
“Exactly. Just things.” She cocked her hip as her arms tightened over her br**sts. “Do you mind telling me what you need? I’m rather busy with lesson plans and so forth tonight.”
If he intended to threaten her with her job, then she would allow him the opportunity now rather than later.
He didn’t speak immediately. He just continued to stare at her thoughtfully for long moments. Finally, he gave a small shake of his head as his lips quirked knowingly.
“I’m going to assume you’re aware you could lose every friend or acquaintance you have in this county,” he said then, his voice soft. “Tell me, Ms. Flannigan, are you certain you want to continue in this relationship that seems to be developing between you and Rafer, considering the risks and losses you’re looking at?”
Someone else who called him Rafer.
She could see the frown on Rafer’s face now, especially considering the fact that there had been times it had seemed he was uncertain if he wanted her calling him by the full version of his name.
“He doesn’t like being called Rafer,” she stated. “He only tolerates it from me, you know.”
And she was rather possessive of the privilege. Rafer had been known to get into fistfights over that name. But it seemed to suit him so very well.
“He’s never tolerated it from anyone else, but his full given name is Marshal Rafer Callahan,” he stated, and for a moment she saw something, sensed something she never had in her life. Pure, icy grief. “His mother loved her father,” he said softly then.
And the rumor had been that the father had cherished his daughter.
“Your middle name is Rafer?”
“As is his,” he inclined his head slowly. “But you’re digressing, Ms. Flannigan, and being much too curious. I asked you a question.”
“My friends won’t walk away if they’re my friends.” She shrugged. “If they do walk away, then I don’t need them in my life.”
His lips quirked as an expression of insultingly sardonic amazement crossed his face. “How incredibly innocent. And stupid.” He paused then, his jaw tightening before he said, “Haven’t you already lost one friend because of the Callahans? I believe she even told my granddaughter that you were so besotted with him and the child you carried for such a short time that nothing else mattered to you.”
She breathed in deeply, fighting the pain that wanted to tear at her soul. She couldn’t believe Amelia had actually told anyone in that horrible family about the child she carried.
“Does anyone else know?” she whispered, wondering if Rafe knew, or if there was a possibility of any of the Callahans learning of it.
He snorted at the thought. “My granddaughter told only me, and Amelia hasn’t even told her father as far as I know.”
Cami rather doubted that. If she had told Marshal Roberts’s granddaughter, supposedly her best friend and co-worker, then her father, Wayne Sorenson, knew as well.
She had prayed Amelia would keep that to herself.
“My granddaughter understands family loyalty,” he assured her as though it were a question. “Trust me, it wasn’t information we wanted bandied about.”
Of course it wasn’t. God forbid that the grandson he had disowned would dare to have children of his own. Or that any woman would desire to have his child.
“Did you have a drink to celebrate the loss of your great-grandchild, Mr. Roberts?” she asked painfully, certain he would have. “I hope you enjoyed it.”
Her voice rasped, the inability to hold back her pain in front of this man was galling.
“No, Ms. Flannigan, I did not.” The flash of some emotion she thought could have been regret flashed in his gaze. “I grieved, just as I grieved when I lost my daughter.”
“You still had your grandson. Did you grieve when you disowned him?” Anger was beginning to churn inside her now. What the hell made him think he was wanted here? “You’ve had more than twenty years to show him you grieved and what have you done, Mr. Roberts? Better yet, why are you even here?”
She didn’t want to deal with him. He had broken his grandson’s heart. If his daughter had been living, he would have destroyed her if what he said was true, and she had loved him so dearly she had named her only child after him.
“I’m here to reason with you, because you carried my great-grandchild at one time,” he said softly. “And because I know you grieved when you lost that child. I don’t want to see you hurt further, Ms. Flannigan. And regardless of what you think, I don’t want to see Rafer hurt anymore than he has already been. It may be in your best interests to consider severing the relationship now. Or convincing him to leave Colorado altogether. His chances at happiness would be greatly improved if he would do so.”
She frowned back for a moment. “Isn’t there some codicil in the inheritance his mother left him, and that was left to her, that states the heir can only be a resident of Corbin County? Not any other Colorado county or other state? And doesn’t it only give certain reasons why he can be away for more than a year, with the military being one of those reasons?”
He stared back at her for long moments, his gaze icy before his lips quirked, though the ice in his eyes remained.
“Touché, Ms. Flannigan,” he murmured. “Touché. And did Rafer give you these details?”
“He didn’t have to. The details are a matter of public record for anyone who cares to check,” she informed him.
“And of course, you cared enough about the man who fathered the child you lost to check,” he said softly.
It hurt. The memory of the child was like a deep, burning wound that refused to stop bleeding with bitterness, or aching with an agony she couldn’t dim whenever she allowed herself to think about it.
“Besides the point,” she retorted. “What makes you think you have the right to steal what his mother wanted him to have?”
“Because his mother knew it wasn’t hers to begin with,” he suddenly snapped before quickly turning his back on her, his shoulders bunching with the obvious anger surging through him.
When he turned back seconds later, his expression lacked any emotion whatsoever. “Is that inheritance more important than his happiness?” he finally asked, his voice dripping with ice.