Secret Sins (20 page)

“We were always afraid he would focus on her,” Crowe growled.

“Maybe Ivan’s right,” Rory pointed out. “Having her show her faith in you would give
more credence to your innocence than anything else could. And it’s always been more
than obvious she’s believed in the three of you.”

“Maybe,” he murmured, shaking his head at the thought before checking his watch again.

Hell, they’d been in there a half hour. Would they come out already?

He had to leave soon. He had things to do. After Archer had appraised them of the
information the Barons had given them the night before, Crowe had known the confrontation
with his grandfather was coming.

Thirty-four years of hell because they had wanted to “protect” their grandchildren?

He didn’t think so.

Whatever event they had been framed for was the key to this, and he wanted to know
what the hell it was.

The door to the conference room opened and Anna and Archer stepped out.

Anna tucked her hair behind one ear, looking up at Archer with somber intensity, a
shadow of uncertainty, and all the love a woman could hold in her heart, and Crowe
froze inside.

It was always like that. Every time he saw her she did something, said something,
that reminded him of his too-delicate mother.

He’d only been twelve when she’d been killed on that mountain, but he remembered her
so clearly sometimes that it felt like only yesterday. The sound of her voice, the
way she would hold his infant sister and sing so sweetly to her. The same way she
would cuddle him when he’d been a child, and tell him how much she loved him.

He’d adored his mother.

She had been the center of his young universe, and losing her, his father, and the
baby sister he’d cherished had killed something inside him.

Anna nodded as Archer said something. The sheriff let his hand trail gently down her
arm in an intimate caress that assured Crowe the other man was definitely in over
his head where Anna was concerned.

He’d have been pissed as hell if anything else were the case.

And he had no idea why.

CHAPTER 11

Watching this bullshit was going to drive him to drink.

Anna should have left Corbin County by now. She should have missed her family, her
money, her car, all the little comforts the Corbin money bought her, and done what
it took to be back in their good graces.

Instead, she was fucking that sheriff like some cat in heat, and hadn’t even bothered
to contact her family. And he knew she hadn’t bothered to do so. He had enough spies
in the Corbin household that he would know if she were in contact with them.

She hadn’t called. They hadn’t called.

And she hadn’t left town.

Watching as she left the new offices of Brute Force, he did nothing to restrain the
erection rising beneath his slacks.

He’d warned John Corbin to get her out of town, out of the County, or suffer the consequences.
And still she was there.

Those consequences would be visited upon her soon.

As he watched, the newcomer to town stepped from the bar and with a quick grin fell
into step with her.

Rory Malone.

The black-haired bastard was from Texas. He’d come in several mornings before and
applied at the bar for the position of bartender that was being advertised.

He’d rented the garage apartment the Brocks had advertised near the sheriff’s house,
and in the past few days had seemed to become quite cozy with Anna. He walked her
to work each morning as he went in himself, and walked her home as he was getting
off from work.

Archer could have a rival for her affections if he wasn’t careful, he thought with
amusement. And perhaps, if he was lucky, he could manage to convince his partner to
strike out at her for that reason alone.

The thought of his partner left a grim anger sparking at his senses.

The bastard.

The rules he had once found so quaint were now becoming a pain in the ass. Not enough
of a pain to get rid of him, of course. Good partners were damned hard to come by
in his line of employment.

He couldn’t chance her presence in Corbin County much longer, or in the sheriff’s
bed. The sheriff was much too close to the Callahans, and his knowledge of them was
possibly dangerously deep.

The only way she could be allowed to live was if she lived out of the County.

This was what he got for allowing the treacherous weakness he felt for her mother
to rule his good sense.

“Please, please don’t hurt her,” her mother sobbed as she cradled her child to her
breasts and knelt next to the body of her dead husband. “Please. Oh God, Wayne, please
don’t hurt her. She’s just a baby. She’s just a baby.”

“A Callahan baby,” he raged, the fury of her betrayal making him sick to his stomach.
“She could have been mine, Kimberly. She could have been our child.”

How he had loved her. She had been the world to him. And now she sat before him, sobbing
for her dead husband and the child they’d had together.

One of the children they’d had together. If her son, that trashy Callahan bastard,
had been with them, he would have put a bullet in his head as well.

“Please, Wayne,” she continued to sob as the baby whimpered from the cold, her little
limbs turning blue from where he’d jerked the blanket from Kimberly as David Callahan’s
body had collapsed onto the ice and snow. “Please, I’m begging you.”

Her head had bowed.

How defeated she looked with her long red hair cascading over her baby’s fragile body,
her shoulders slumped and all the fight seeping from her body. He wished he hadn’t
revealed himself. He could have let her live.

Fisting the blanket in his hand for long moments, he finally tossed the thick covering
to her.

Her head jerked up, tears still pouring from her incredible green eyes.

God, how he loved her.

“I’ll save the girl,” he told her. “Your brother’s child died this morning in the
hospital in California. If he’ll return home and take Sarah as that child, then I’ll
let her live. If he doesn’t, she’ll die, Kimberly.”

He had to harden his voice. He had to harden his soul.

She wrapped the covering snugly around the baby, kissed her forehead.

“Mommy loves you, Sarah Ann,” she whispered, the sobs tearing from her soul. “Always
remember how Mommy loves you.”

The baby whimpered weakly.

Slowly, her arms trembling, she extended the baby out to him.

She was delicate, light.

For a moment he was tempted to toss her over the cliff out of pure hatred.

But the look in Kimberly’s eyes stopped him.

She trusted him.

Shock trembled through him. He had just killed her husband, and she knew she was going
to die in this blizzard as well, and still she trusted him.

Opening his coat, he tucked the girl against him and rebuttoned it.

As she moved to lie next to her husband, he snarled in fury.

“Move away from him. I won’t let you die beside him. I won’t let you cuddle to him
in death, Kimberly.”

She was sobbing. Weak. Cold. The bodies of her brothers and sisters-in-law were scattered
around her. Dead.

With each step she took away from her husband she cried harder until she had only
the strength to cry, and collapsed in the ice and snow several feet from him.

She stared back at him, her tears falling so fast they were like streams down her
face as he leveled the gun at her head.

“I love you,” he whispered. “I always loved you, Kimberly. You were to be mine. We
could have ruled Corbin County together.”

He wasn’t even aware the moment he pulled the trigger.

It was a perfect shot straight into her heart.

He didn’t put a bullet in her face. He couldn’t risk damaging her perfect face.

She crumpled to the ground and, damn her to hell, if she had had a breath left in
her he would have killed the brat in front of her for her final betrayal.

As she fell to the ground, her arm reached out, her fingers burying in her husband’s
all-but-frozen hair.

A howl of rage brought a cry from the baby. A whimpering little sound of distress
that struck at his heart. At a heart he swore he could not still possess the day he’d
realized how she had betrayed him.

But she was so like his own daughter. So small and fragile. And he did love his own
child. His flesh and blood. Amelia wasn’t Kimberly’s daughter, but she was still his
own.

Together they wouldn’t find a treasure others could only dream about. Together they
wouldn’t create their own family. And now, he would never see her smile or know her
laughter again.

It wasn’t the daughter’s fault, it was the son’s.

That little bastard. If she hadn’t become pregnant with him, then David Callahan could
have never convinced her to marry him, Wayne was certain of it.

As he stared at her fallen body, the first teardrop fell.

He’d murdered the Callahans’ parents, and even then he’d felt no sorrow. He’d felt
none until his precious Kimberly had fallen, her hand reaching out to touch her beloved
husband.

Beloved.

She loved him.

The baby girl whimpered at his chest again and his tears only fell faster.

“Kimmy—” he sobbed, and rushed to her.

Holding her daughter to his heart, he lifted her to him, cradled her head to him,
her daughter cushioned between them, and he sobbed.

“Ah, Kimmy. Kimmy, why did you have to take him? Why? Ah, Kimmy, why?”

He shed his tears in her silken hair, so like sunlight and warmth. He sobbed his soul
out to her, sobbed his heart out to her. And there, beneath a blizzard that later
hid the fiery explosion that all but obliterated the bodies in it, he’d killed the
only woman who held his heart.

Obliterated his Kimmy.

A tear slid down his cheek. The first tear in twenty-four years.

Their anniversary was coming soon, just as Anna’s true birthday was coming. That blizzard
had rolled in during September. Anna celebrated her birthday September tenth. Her
true birthday was August twenty-ninth.

This August, she would die, no more than weeks away.

He would take her and laugh at her, though inside, he knew he would shed again each
tear he had shed the night he had taken her mother’s life.

He would rape her and watch her cry.

He would slice into her body with his cock and then with his blade, and his soul would
weep.

And he would send her to Heaven to her mother’s arms.

A soft knock at the office door had him turning, a smile pulling at his lips as his
daughter entered.

His flesh and blood.

As fragile as Anna, as delicate, and just as corrupted by the Callahans.

His Amelia would never forget the night Crowe Callahan had held her, just as he couldn’t
sever that invisible bond of brother and sister between Anna and Crowe.

“I found the information you were searching for.”

He blinked back at her in shock. “Excuse me?”

She entered the room, all smooth, delicate grace.

She looked as he’d always imagined his daughter with Kimberly would look. His hair,
his Kimmy’s eyes. Her smooth, creamy complexion with just that hint of freckles over
her nose.

She moved across the office, balanced on five-inch heels that made her appear all
legs, and laid the file she’d brought in with her on the desk.

“I’m not sure what all of it means.” She sighed. “The private investigator I hired
in California was rushing out on another job and I was late for my plane.” She shook
her head.

She was tired.

He’d had her on the road for weeks, since the day before Anna had returned to Corbin
County. But she’d tracked down the information he’d sent her after.

“You found him, then?” he queried.

Sitting down in the leather chair in front of his desk she nodded tiredly. “Marcus
Duclock is currently residing in San Quentin on a life sentence for the rape and murder
of a prostitute. He’s been there for over ten years.”

“Well, then, we know he had nothing to do with Katy Winslow’s murder.” He sighed,
knowing full well that the bastard hadn’t had anything to do with it.

He’d needed Amelia out of town, though. Out of town and away from Anna Corbin.

She was a treasure, his daughter.

He hadn’t done well by her, though, he admitted. He’d forced her to drop her final
year in college, forced her to relinquish her dream of teaching school and work for
him instead.

So he could watch her.

So he could make damned certain she never returned to Crowe Callahan’s arms.

He’d had to keep her away from the bastard.

“What should I do now?” She stared back at him intently, sincerity reflecting in her
gaze. “It couldn’t have been Duclock. Where do we go from here?”

He rubbed his hand along the back of his neck as though he were truly concerned with
the subject and he shook his head.

As she laid her head against the back of the chair, her weariness apparent in her
expression and the exhausted slump of her body, he decided now was the time to test
her loyalty.

“Anna Corbin moved in with the sheriff while you were gone,” he told her quietly.

Her eyes opened slowly, derision glittering in them for a moment, before she looked
up at the ceiling, once again with a weariness that touched his heart.

“She’s determined to get herself killed.” She sighed.