Secret Sins (14 page)

“Fuck my part. And don’t think for a second you won’t get her killed if you tell her
what we’ve just divulged. I’ve protected her from the so-called truth for a reason.
She’s a damned good girl, but she trusts people, Archer. Too much. She’d need someone
to talk to and she’d tell someone. She tells her friend Amelia everything. I can’t
tell you the times Wayne Sorenson has snickered over Anna sneaking out of the house
to catch sight of you at those damned socials over the years. Or how often his daughter
has told him about the arguments Anna has with me. Because Anna can’t keep her mouth
shut. And that’s beside the fact that she doesn’t know how to stay the hell away from
those boys. They’ll get her killed.” Her grandfather was raging, albeit without the
raised voice she was normally used to.

Her fists clenched as humiliation tore through her.

Her grandfather didn’t trust her with whatever this “truth” was, because she told
Amelia about their arguments? Or because she’d slipped from school a few weekends,
hoping to see Archer or find a moment to talk to the cousin who had been so unfairly
ostracized?

She had been told all her life to stay the hell away from the Callahans. Crowe was
her cousin and she wanted to get to know him, especially now that she had been disowned
as well.

But to be thrown out of her family, to be forced from her home and never told why,
because they based whether or not she could be trusted on those few instances?

It was beginning to feel as though there was a hell of a lot more going on than her
family’s arrogance and determination to have their way. She’d always known something
dark existed in her family, but she’d never revealed that suspicion. Not to anyone.
Even Amelia.

Still, her family didn’t trust her.

It hurt.

Oh God, it hurt so bad.

That knowledge was digging razor-sharp talons into her chest and ripping her apart.

She was twenty-four years old, not a baby. She was a grown woman, and regardless of
what her grandfather believed, there were a hell of a lot of Corbin family secrets
she did know. Knew, and had never told another soul.

“The Callahans aren’t a threat, John,” Archer argued. “But they could damned sure
help. And don’t try to tell me how to do my job or how to protect Anna. I won’t stand
for it.”

Anna’s eyes narrowed at his tone. He sounded awfully possessive for a man who had
already made the whole no-emotion-no-relationship rule. And it was beginning to sound
as though the feeling she had of a conspiracy revolving around her was true.

“Whoever’s behind this knows you’re sleeping with her.” Her grandfather’s harshly
voiced declaration had Anna flushing with mortification, even though she knew there
wasn’t a chance anyone could know about it. Hell, it had only happened little more
than an hour before. “It’s one of the reasons I agreed to meet you, Archer. Not just
to explain what we could, but to try to get you to see how much he knows and how dangerous
he is. That bastard has been blackmailing us since before those boys were born. And
no more than hours before you called, he contacted me. He knew she was here, and he
knew she would be sleeping in your bed.”

Who the hell was this “he”? There had been no time for anyone to have known anything.

“He told you he knew Anna was here?” Archer asked carefully. “If you don’t know who
he is, John, then how does he communicate?”

Anna could feel the confusion building inside her now.

“He calls. I can tell his voice is disguised, and tracing the call to find the number
has been impossible over the years. He’s furious that she’s here, and still in Corbin
County. When she came home two weeks ago he contacted me by letter. Said she would
die if she didn’t leave. He’s threatening to make certain she pays for it if I don’t
get her out of your house and get her out of Colorado.”

“If he’s becoming angry, then he’ll make mistakes,” Archer decided.

“He knows the two of you were in that grotto two weeks ago. That’s how I found out
about it. God, Archer, please listen to sense. She can’t know about this, and she
can’t stay here.”

“If he doesn’t like her living arrangements, then he can take it up with me,” Archer
drawled, his tone dangerously low. “Because Anna will be with me, and I promise you,
to get to her, he will have to go through me. You’re not going to keep her safe by
lying to her, or hiding this from her. She has to at least know her life is in danger.
She can make the decision after that.”

A flood of weakness—fear- or anger-induced, Anna couldn’t differentiate—raced through
her body. She could feel her knees trembling, her lips shaking as she lifted her fingers
to them to hold back the rage that wanted to consume her.

The fact that Archer was demanding she be told the truth did nothing to ease the unbelievable
knowledge that her family had kept such things from her.

What the hell was going on? What had her grandfather and his friends managed to get
her mixed up in? And why, why hadn’t her parents ever told her this? All the years
of being alone, of being so lost and feeling so abandoned, all because they refused
to trust her with the truth?

“You’re using her as bait,” her grandfather charged, giving voice to the suspicion
rising inside Anna.

“For God’s sake, John, she’s a target no matter where she’s staying. If he was going
to strike out at her, he would have already. Trust me to know what the hell I’m doing
here. And trust Anna. She’s not a child, nor is she unable to keep this to herself.”

Confusion filled her, but it didn’t obliterate her anger at her family. There was
some awful conspiracy shadowing her family and threatening her? And they couldn’t
tell her?

As for Archer, she had no doubt he was using her, especially if he had somehow suspected
whatever was going on. His desire to use her in whatever this situation was hadn’t
made his dick hard, though. He wanted her for other reasons and she knew it.

She had been a virgin, but she wasn’t stupid. She was a woman, and a woman knew when
a man wanted her simply because he couldn’t keep his damned hands off her.

She might not have a chance at his heart, but in Archer’s arms, she had a chance at
something almost as important. The chance to learn why she’d been pushed away by her
family so long ago.

CHAPTER 8

It was all she could do to stand in place, to listen, to make herself absorb what
she was hearing. Remaining silent through it was one of the most painful, heartrending
things she believed she had ever done in her life.

She wanted to rush in, ask questions, and demand explanations.

She wanted to rage and cry and scream—

Oh God, she wanted to scream at her grandfather, to slice at his heart as hers had
been sliced over the years because of the forced isolation from her family and from
coming home.

She wanted to cry. But if she cried, if she let the first tear fall, then the objectivity
she was forcing herself to use would be lost. She would be a child again, crying into
the night and begging Mommy and Daddy to please, please let her come home.

So much of it didn’t make sense. And so much of it was destroying her even as it gave
her a glimpse into all the questions that had raged in her mind for so many years.

“There’s no way to keep the Callahans out of this, or Anna away from Crowe, John,”
Saul Rafferty stated, his tone weary, surprising Anna with his presence. She hadn’t
known he was there. “Whoever’s behind this, his only focus is destroying us and our
grandsons. If she stays hidden, if she stays in the shadows and we continue to do
as he orders, then he’ll never reveal himself.”

“And I’ve tried to convince you that girl could give a clam a run for tight lips if
she knew the truth of this.” Marshal Roberts sighed. “I understand your need to protect
her better than anyone does, but Archer’s right. We haven’t protected her. All you’ve
done is let that little girl grow up without family and without friends because some
madman found another way to punish you. Let Archer fix this, before it’s too late
for any of us.”

“She’s too damned stubborn for her own good,” her grandfather grumbled. “If she had
just gone to France she would have been protected.”

“And you would have lost even more time with her than you’re losing now,” Archer growled.
“That’s beside the fact you should have known she would never agree to it.”

“She’s far too much like Kim was before she died.” The grief in her grandfather’s
voice made Anna’s chest tighten.

The family had never recovered from her aunt’s death. It still shadowed them, just
like whatever danger was shadowing them, and her as well.

“Was he right about your relationship with Anna?” Her grandfather ignored Archer’s
previous statement. “Are you sleeping with my granddaughter?”

Her fists clenched at her side as she laid her forehead silently against the wall
and closed her eyes.

This was none of his business.

He would have seen her living a solitary, cold life rather than trusting her. He had
no right to know if she was sleeping with anyone or who she might be sleeping with
now.

“My relationship, whatever it may or may not be or develop into, is none of your business,
John. But let the Slasher believe whatever he wants if it means taking them out of
their comfort level and making them angry enough to make a mistake.” Archer’s tone
remained respectful, despite the fact that he had just told her grandfather it was
none of his business if he were sleeping with Anna.

Had he brought her to his home and to his bed to catch a killer? Was she wrong? Had
the thought of catching the Slasher, or whoever was threatening the Corbin family,
actually made his dick hard?

“She has a heart, Archer,” her grandfather gritted out. “A tender one. And one I’d
prefer not to see broken. She’s not had a lover, and I know she hasn’t taken one because
she thinks she’s already in love. Once she gives the man she loves that gift, she
will never stop loving him. No matter how he hurts her, she’ll always love him. And
if you don’t realize that, then you’re a bigger fool where she’s concerned than I
ever thought you were.”

Thanks, Grandfather
. That was exactly what she wanted her new lover to hear.

“What the hell do you mean by that?” Archer growled.

“I mean you’ve been too blind to see that Anna’s been in love with you since she was
a teenager. And she’s refused to settle for anyone else. She’s always considered any
other man second best.”

Anna cringed. She hadn’t thought anyone had realized just how deep her affection for
Archer had actually grown.

“Anna’s too smart for that, John,” Archer argued, though his voice had changed, thickened.
“Love like that is a fairy tale for little girls playing dress-up with their mother’s
clothes. Anna’s not a little girl anymore.”

Her heart broke. Right then and right there, standing outside Archer’s study, wearing
one of the sexy gowns she’d always imagined seducing him in, she felt her heart break
in half.

Because her grandfather was right; she loved Archer Tobias. She loved him with all
her heart, and nothing would change that.

She couldn’t deal with this anymore.

In a single conversation she had learned her grandfather was somehow tied to the Slasher
through a conspiracy that now involved her, and that Archer was possibly using her
to draw the Slasher out into the open.

She was turning to leave when her grandfather said, “I’ve lost not just my baby girl,
but also her son—the grandson I have found so much pride in, Archer. Genoa and I would
have given our lives to know Crowe. Now that bastard has forced us to push Anna out
of not just our lives, but also her parents’. My son hates me, and rightfully blames
me for all of it. My daughter-in-law and my wife haven’t stopped crying since she
left. God help us. If we lose Anna, it will finish the destruction of the Corbin family.”

They were forced to disown her because of all this? Her heart was racing, adrenaline
coursing through her veins as she tried to make sense of what was going on.

“The Callahan brothers and their wives were murdered, weren’t they?” Archer’s question
nearly stopped her heart. “By the same man, or men, calling themselves the Slasher?”

God, she wished she could see her grandfather’s face, and though she expected him
to answer Archer, it was Marshal who spoke up instead.

“I was the one who advised the three girls to change the terms of their trusts to
their children once they acquired them. We prayed it would ensure their safety. No
one knew they had gone to do so that day, together. But it was the only time the couples
had gone out together in years. They had known that to do so was too dangerous. The
confusing part was the couples had all left separately and at different times in their
own vehicles. Yet only one vehicle had been used to travel back in, while the two
others were left abandoned in a mall parking lot. We don’t know if it was the Slasher
who killed them, just as we don’t know if it’s the Slasher who’s been destroying us
all these years, Archer. We suspect there’s a plot to acquire the Callahan land. We
just don’t know why, or how someone could ever imagine killing our daughters or destroying
their sons could help acquire it. Or why they would want it so damned bad.”

Archer stared at the three men, careful to keep his expression blank.

So Crowe, Logan, and Rafer’s parents had indeed been murdered.

“I know you suspected it, Archer,” Saul stated. “Your father knew. He was sheriff
at the time. But there was nothing he could do. There was no evidence, and no way
to prove murder. All we had was that bastard and a note he sent to each one of us.
If you had listened
— And that was all it said.”

“Listened?” he questioned them softly. “To what?”

“To his demands that we find a way to force the girls to leave their husbands and
deny their sons,” John said, shaking his head, confusion flashing in his gaze. “God,
Archer. They loved those men. Loved them like you couldn’t believe. We even tried
telling them the truth. Tried explaining it and urged them to change their trusts
and their wills. And still, we couldn’t save them.”