Secret Sins (36 page)

“That was why she wanted me to leave,” Anna guessed as he hit the auto open feature
for the doors.

“That’s why.” Archer nodded, leading her through the exit. “She’s been playing a very
deadly game, Anna, and judging by the letter Sorenson left on my truck while I was
in his house, it’s just gotten deadlier for her.”

Head down, her hands shoved into the pockets of her jeans, Anna hunched her shoulders
almost defensively.

“He’s evil,” she whispered.

“Well, that’s a good word for him,” Archer agreed.

Hitting the remote door release, Archer followed her to his SUV, opened the passenger
side door, then gently lifted her to the seat.

Helping her swing her legs around and latch her seat belt, Archer waited for Anna
to say more. When she didn’t, he closed her door and loped around the vehicle before
stepping into the driver’s side.

Damn, they had to talk. He had to explain her birthmark to her, make the most sense
out of what little he knew and still didn’t fully understand.

“You said you want to go home—”

“Your home,” she finished for him, uncertainty flashing in her gaze.

Archer nodded, started the vehicle, then slid it into drive and pulled out of the
parking spot.

“Was Wayne just crazy?” she asked him.

“Not from what I’ve seen, Amelia.” He glanced over at her quickly. “Driven. Arrogant
and bloodthirsty, but I don’t think he’s crazy at all. Just certain he could have
his hobby, keep it a secret, and acquire the Callahans’ land in the process.”

“No one can acquire the Callahans’ land,” she stated. “He should have read the fine
print.”

She had read the fine print, but even more, she understood it. Wayne Sorenson hadn’t
taken the time to really believe her grandfather and the other Barons would so blatantly
fuck the terms with all the clauses that had been added. It was written to be misleading,
and it had been just that.

“Why can’t anyone acquire the Callahans’ land?” he asked as he pulled into the driveway
of his home and turned to look at her. “The Barons tried for years.”

“The terms of the estate,” she said as she stared down at her hands. “John Corbin
and Wayne Sorenson both knew there was no way to acquire that land until I turn twenty-five.”

She could almost feel Archer tense, confusion raking the air around him.

“What do you have to do with the estate, Anna?” he asked. “Only Crowe Callahan stood
to inherit that portion of the estate.”

She shook her head slowly. “So did his sister.”

Anna lifted her gaze and stared up at him, expecting to see shock or surprise. Confusion
perhaps. What she saw instead was bleak suspicion.

“You know who I am, don’t you, Archer?” Had he always known?

“I remembered where I saw the birthmark last night,” he finally answered, his voice
soft, filled with regret. “Sorenson told you, didn’t he?”

Anna could only shake her head as she took a ragged breath and reach for the door
latch.

Once again, Archer beat her in exiting the truck. He was around it and standing at
the open door to help her out before she could navigate getting out herself.

She turned to face him as he closed the kitchen door behind them, then turned to face
her. “Anna?” he questioned her, reminding her of the conversation.

She didn’t need a reminder.

“He told Amory,” she admitted. “He had no intentions of doing anything but frightening
me out of town last night. He just wanted me to leave. He needs me alive until I turn
twenty-five. The judge ruled, based on my grandfather’s suggestion, of course, that
the portion Sarah Ann Callahan would have inherited be held in trust until the end
of the year that she would have turned twenty-five. Sarah Ann Callahan would have
turned twenty-five three weeks before Anna Callahan. I turn twenty-five at the end
of August.”

A tear fell down her cheek as all the years of loneliness and unanswered questions
began to come together in her head.

It had taken a while for her senses to clear of the sedative Amory had given her.
With the slow dissipation of the drug, Anna found herself putting so many things together.

“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Archer said.

A second later Anna found herself in his arms, her ear against his chest, the feel
and the sound of his heart a comforting beat beneath her head.

“That’s why they kept me away from the Callahan cousins,” she said. “Away from Crowe
and Corbin County. That birthmark.”

Shaking her head, she moved away from Archer, turned and faced him again as fists
clenched at her side. “Do you know how many times I’ve heard about the Callahan mark
since I moved into Sweetrock? Or how the Callahans were marked so there was no way
one of them could hide?” A sharp pain-filled laugh left her lips. “And I was so stupid,
because I didn’t even think to question the unusual mark I carried myself.”

The birthmark resembled a broken arrow with the point pointing toward the middle of
her back.

“I hate them,” she suddenly screamed, anger pouring through her, from her now. “I
hate them. I hate their lies and deceit, and I hate all the years we had to suffer
and all the evil that thought it could destroy us. I hate it!”

She was sobbing. Her heart was breaking in her chest as she felt the strength that
had kept her upright suddenly leaving her knees. She was sinking and the only thing
that kept her from falling to the floor was Archer.

“I have you, baby,” Archer said as he caught her and pulled her against him again.
“I have you, Anna, and I won’t let you go. I swear I won’t let you go.”

Her hands fisted in his shirt as she held on to him, her tears dampening the fabric.

“It’s okay, baby. It’s okay, my heart.” His words shocked her, stealing her breath
for one long, impossibly unreal moment before she forced herself not to question it,
not to hope for more.

“You—” She shook her head. “You knew I was a Callahan?”

His hand reached up and cupped her cheek, a thumb brushing a tear from beneath an
eye. “I saw the birthmark, really saw it, last night. I hadn’t paid enough attention
and I’m sorry for that, sweetheart. I should have known, but to be honest, I’ve only
seen it once, and it was a lot of years ago.”

“I’m scared, Archer.” A bitter, broken sob escaped her lips.

Thankfully, she was able to hold the rest of them back. She didn’t want to cry now,
not now. First she wanted to figure out how to handle it all.

“Even knowing what we’re going to face when all this blows up,” she said, “will you
still want Sarah Ann Callahan?”

Would he ever be able to love her?

As the question left her lips, she saw Archer’s gaze lift to a point behind her as
he suddenly stiffened, his golden brown eyes narrowing.

Anna jerked around in his arms, staring at the three men standing in the kitchen doorway
at the foyer, staring back at her with anger so deep and black that for a moment,
one helpless moment, she felt consumed by it.

Then Crowe blinked. He blinked and swallowed tightly, glancing away for a second as
his cousins stared back at her in shock.

“He couldn’t help but love you,” Crowe said, turning back to her, his tone as bleak
as his expression. “Just as I couldn’t help but love you, even when I believed you
were my cousin and no better than any other Corbin you lived with.”

His voice was so hoarse, so ragged, Anna flinched.

“You didn’t know?” she’d wondered, feared he had and hadn’t wanted her.

“If I had known, you would have never been left alone all those years,” he swore,
his wolf eyes burning with inner fury and pain. “God help me, I would have given it
all up. I would have given those bastards whatever they wanted, Anna, to know you
were alive and to protect you from the isolation you suffered. If I had known—” As
though he couldn’t bear his thoughts or the sight of her any longer, Crowe turned
and stalked away.

Seconds later, the slam of the front door caused her to flinch violently and a sob
to escape her lips as she faced her cousins.

They were her cousins too, not just Crowe’s. They were her family.

Logan and Rafer stared back at her as though she were an apparition, a ghost so insubstantial
they couldn’t be certain she was actually standing there.

“John Caine told us to be here.” Logan cleared his throat as he glanced at Archer,
shifting his stance and running his fingers through his hair with a rough movement.
“We weren’t eavesdropping. When you came in, we came looking for you.” He shrugged
uncomfortably.

“It’s okay, Logan,” Archer breathed out roughly.

Logan’s lips tightened before, with a jerky movement, he was suddenly stalking across
the room.

Anna didn’t know what she expected, but she hadn’t expected Logan to pull her away
from Archer and into an almost desperate hug. “Welcome back, cuz,” he murmured at
her ear. “It’s damned good to see you.”

As he stepped back, Rafer was there as well to pull her into his embrace.

“Crowe will come back, you’ll see,” he told her. “When he was a kid, he would hide
and cry for his little lost sister just as much as he hid and cried for his parents.
He’ll be back.”

She nodded as he released her.

“Archer.” Rafer extended his hand. “I hope we’re welcoming you into the family, man,
because you break her heart, and Crowe just might kill you. I know for a fact we will.”
He grinned.

“I wouldn’t expect anything less,” Archer promised as he accepted the handshake.

He turned back to Anna then. “Crowe will be back when he can think again. I promise.”

Anna nodded, then watched as the two men left the kitchen through the foyer. Seconds
later, the front door closed firmly.

She turned back to Archer slowly. “You were going to tell them, weren’t you?” she
asked.

“Only after I told you,” he promised, his rough features tightening into a grimace.
“It’s been kept from the four of you too long now. You deserved to know.”

Reaching up, she laid her hand against his hard jaw as he stared down at her, all
the emotions, the gentleness and the love she had dreamed of seeing clearly reflected
in his eyes.

“I thought I’d lost you.” He lifted a hand and covered hers, holding it against his
face. “When I realized Callie had been attacked to draw me away from you, I felt everything
in my world turn dark, Anna. I’ve loved you all along and I wasn’t even smart enough
to realize it.”

“Of course you realized it,” she told him with a teary smile. “You haven’t let me
go even once since you came after me, Archer. You knew, you were just too stubborn
to admit it.”

He nodded slowly. “Okay, we can work with that explanation,” he promised, a smile
tugging at his lips. “We can work with that.”

His lips touched hers. “I can work with anything but losing you.”

What had started as a soothing kiss became something more, something far deeper than
Archer had expected.

His lips brushed hers, parted them, let the taste of her draw him in, and the sudden
feeling of a connection, a bonding he hadn’t known how to describe before, tightened
around them again.

It had always been there, he realized. Since the first moment his lips touched hers,
it had been there.

Her breathing accelerated, her cheeks flushing a delicate pink as her pert little
tongue swiped nervously over her lips, brushing against his and sending a surge of
lust to explode in his senses.

She had come to him, had given every part of herself, even believing he didn’t believe
in love. He could see it in her eyes every time he had touched her; he had seen the
hunger and need for his love, the need to love him fully, openly.

There was no way he could turn from the aching feminine need that matched the hardcore
vein of emotion throbbing inside him.

Archer brushed his lips against hers.

Holding her gaze with his, he watched as the agony slowly eased from her eyes, the
inner pain and conflict being replaced with a slow, easy quest for pleasure.

That was what he wanted. He wanted that dark pain eradicated, and if this was the
only way to do it, then who was he to deny her? After all, there was nothing he ached
for more than her heart, her touch, her kiss.

His cock throbbed with aching insistence beneath his jeans as he eased the kiss into
a deeper caress. Brushing against her lips again, again using his own lips to slowly
part hers, he watched the pleasure build in her gaze.

Archer took her kiss slow and easy.

Leaning into her, his head tilted as she lifted hers up to him, giving him unlimited
access, giving him everything he could have ever wanted in life.

His kiss was hot and tempting. The need beginning to flame through her body, arrowing
between her thighs and striking at her clitoris and vagina, rose with the knowledge
that she didn’t just love, she was loved in return.

Each time his lips sipped at hers, his tongue licked at hers, sensation swirled at
the sensitive, nerve-laden flesh between her thighs as though ghostly kisses were
being laid at her pussy as well.

Tightening her thighs, a little whimper escaped her and slipped into the air around
them. Beneath her fingers the hard muscles of his shoulders bunched, flexed as though
the battle to hold his hunger back was as much physical as mental and emotional.

Anna, innocent though she might be, had been kissed before Archer. She hadn’t just
accepted that she belonged to Archer. She had often at least attempted to find pleasure,
to find happiness without him.

It just hadn’t existed without him, that was all.

Pressing her lips further apart, Archer’s tongue licked against hers, teasing her
to play.

She wasn’t completely certain how to play yet, but following his lead, she licked
back at him, retreating quickly, only to lick at his lips as he eased back, to shift
her head just enough to evade a full possession of his lips before nipping at his
lower lip when he returned.