Midnight Sins

by Lora Leigh

  Jaymi had seen the pictures herself, but still found it hard to believe. That wolf had acted more like an overgrown pet than a wild animal.

  “No, he hasn’t said anything,” she finally answered. “He’s refusing to even discuss the issue with Mother. It will split them up.”

  But as far as Jaymi was concerned, her mother should have never returned after leaving years before. This time, however, Jaymi could feel the explosion coming, and when it did she had a feeling it was going to hurt Cami more than anyone.

  Mark Flannigan had been offered a promotion at the communications firm he worked at in town. It meant a move to Aspen and he wanted to accept it. The problem was, he didn’t want Cami moving with them. He had convinced Jaymi to go with them before she learned he’d asked his brother, Eddy, to take custody of Cami. That betrayal to Cami had broken Jaymi’s heart. But the fact that her mother’s answer to solving the problem was to up her dosage of Ativan infuriated Jaymi.

  “Poor kid,” Rafe murmured. “It sucks bad enough when it’s other family members, aunts. When it’s your parents, it has to slice clear to the soul.”

  “She doesn’t know yet.” Jaymi knew her mother was doing her best to avoid the situation while Mark was continuing on with his plan to move.

  Jaymi and her mother had managed to protect Cami so far from learning his plans, but that wouldn’t last for much longer.

  “You can’t protect her forever,” he said sadly, echoing her own thoughts.

  “As long as I’m alive I can.”

  She lived for Cami. Knowing that Cami would suffer at her father’s hands if she was gone, was all that kept Jaymi from joining Tye. From escaping the agony that met her each day in the knowledge that he had been taken from her so quickly.

  There were days, nights, that she swore she could hear Tye calling her name. She would turn, expecting him to be there, certain that somehow he had found a way to return to her. If it were possible, Tye would have found a way.

  Then, there were the dreams.

  “What price would you pay to be with him?” The disembodied voice would whisper through her mind as she watched Tye doing one of the things he loved best. Playing touch football with the kids. Laughing, showing them how to play.

  “I would pay any price,” she always whispered.

  “Would you leave her?”

  The scene would change then and she would see her sister. Guilt would flay her as she watched Cami crying, sobbing as though she were in agony as Rafe stood behind her, staring back at Jaymi with a question in his eyes.

  “I would leave her.” That was always the answer.

  “What pain would you endure to be with him again?” The voice would whisper.

  “Any pain.”

  And for a moment, just a moment, she was with him again. Surprise would reflect in his gaze, then regret. He would touch her. “What happened?” he would whisper.

  Jaymi would shake her head. She didn’t know what had happened, she didn’t care, all she wanted, needed, was his kiss, his touch. And for just a moment, she had it again. As though it were real, his lips on hers, his hands pulling her close, the whisper of his voice as he welcomed her into his arms.

  She ached for him down to the bottom of her soul. Life no longer held promise, the future no longer appeared exciting or bright.

  Jaymi had lost her future in a desert a world away when the enemy’s bomb had taken out the vehicle he was driving.

  Turning her head, she watched Cami again, saw the hurt in her sister’s gaze at the sight of Rafe’s arms around her, and wanted to sigh at the intensity of emotion she glimpsed in her sister for the man there was no chance of having for a very long time.

  Yes, she knew her sister’s pain well. And she knew, after tonight, she would never add to it again.

  * * *

  Rafe knew as he pulled the pickup into the parking spot in front of Jaymi’s apartment that the relationship was over. He could feel it in the very air, and though there was a sense of regret, there was no anger.

  They both knew the reason why they were together.

  Jaymi was searching desperately for the husband she had lost, and the closest she could get to him was the man he had called his best friend.

  Not that he had cared. Rafe wasn’t looking for love, it had no place in his life at the moment. Besides, the day he’d realized Jaymi’s sister had a crush on him, Rafe had known this was coming.

  The girl was damned confusing, just as he had told Jaymi. She’d managed to slip in beneath his defenses despite the fact he’d been on guard against it. She made him feel protective, made him want to look out for her.

  He was aware of the crush she had on him, and was flattered by it. He teased her gently, let her flirt, just as his cousins did, and made damned certain he never let her become hurt by it.

  But as Jaymi told her sister gently to go on up to the apartment, Rafe saw that flash of brutal pain in her soft gray eyes before she quickly hid it.

  “Night, Rafer.” She opened the back door slowly as though reluctant to leave him alone with her sister.

  “Night, wildcat.” He flashed her a smile and a little wink, pulling a little smile from her as she moved from the car and closed the door behind her.

  They watched as the girl moved across the narrow strip of grass to the door of the apartment across from the truck.

  She unlocked it quickly before disappearing inside and flipping on the inner lights.

  As much as he used to expect it, he never saw her at the curtains spying. She would move through the brightly lit room occasionally but never come close to the windows.

  “So, this is it, huh?” he asked Jaymi as he laid his arm over the steering wheel and continued to stare at the window.

  He felt her surprise before turning his head to watch her.

  Dark blonde lashes swept over her eyes for a second before she met his gaze, regret shimmering in her dark brown eyes.

  “I think it’s time,” she said softly. “Cami needs me right now, Rafe. With the crap Dad is trying to pull on her, and this crush she’s picked up for you, she’s going to be hurt enough.”

  A small grin tugged at his lips. “She’s lucky to have you, Jaymi.”

  He’d never resent her for it. Hell, he couldn’t even blame her.

  “I wish you’d had someone to protect you,” she said then, sadness flashing over her delicate expression. “You’re too good for the family you have.”

  He had to chuckle at that. “Of course I am, they’re all assholes.”

  He played it off, but he remembered the days, the nights, that he’d agonized over being disowned, wondered what he and his cousins had done wrong that all of them had been turned away by everyone but his mother’s uncle.

  “Yes, Rafe, they’re all assholes,” she agreed softly. “And I’m so sorry for the hell they put you through.”

  “Stop, Jaymi.” He gave his head a short shake at the regret that filled her voice. “You have no reason to be sorry for what others did. You’re a good friend, and I’ve always known the reason we were together. You didn’t lie to me.”

  “I didn’t tell you though,” she whispered. “I should have.”

  “You told me, sweetheart,” he informed her gently. “With the lights out, every time you called me by Tye’s name. I knew.”

  Her lips parted, her eyes filled with tears, and the response assured him that she had never been aware she had cried out for the husband she’d lost each time he was with her.

  “Rafe—” Pain filled her voice.

  “Jaymi, stop torturing yourself,” he told her, his voice hardening at the tear that slipped from her eyes. “Did you know Tye came to me before he went on that last tour?”

  “No.” Her lips trembled as she shook her head and pushed the long dark blonde bangs back from her face. “Why would he do that?”

  “To make certain I knew what he expected from me,” he told her with a small grin, remembering the visit with the same affection he’d
felt the day the Navajo warrior had made his appearance at Rafe’s uncle’s ranch.

  “What did he expect?” she whispered, so unconsciously eager for a new experience, a new memory of her husband that she could cherish, that she was now hanging on every word.

  Rafe reached out, pushed back the long curl that fell down her face then, noticing, not for the first time, how Jaymi’s hair was as curly as her mother’s and her father’s. Cami’s was much straighter, and naturally shot with various shades of caramel, dark golds, and lighter browns amid the heavy strands of dark brown.

  “He expected me to stand for him,” he told her gently. “And those were his exact words. ‘If anything happens to me, Rafe, I give you leave now, to stand for me however my heart needs you to stand’.” From the day he had married Jaymi, Tye had called her ‘his heart’. “I didn’t know what he meant at first,” he confessed as he watched her eyes fill with tears again. “He told me if he didn’t come home, then he expected me to protect you, to clothe you, to feed you, and if you needed it, he expected me to warm you. Then he looked at me with those black eyes of his eyes and he said ‘Rafe, if she needs, turn out the lights and let her pretend it’s me. Don’t let my heart suffer alone’.”

  “Oh God.” Her hand flew to her lips as they shook, a sob suddenly tearing from her as he reached for her, pulled her into his arms, and held her gently. “Oh God, Rafe. I miss him.” Agony pierced her voice. “I miss him so much I don’t know if I can bear it.”

  Holding her, rocking her, Rafe felt his chest tighten with pain as she cried against him, wondering if perhaps he shouldn’t have told her.

  He and Tye had talked a lot that day, and his friend had told him that the day would come when he might believe it was time to tell Jaymi the request Tye had made of him. Rafe thought it was time, but hell, he’d been wrong before.

  “I wouldn’t have survived without you,” she whispered tearfully against his chest as he rubbed her back, kissed the top of her head gently. “I couldn’t have been here for Cami. I couldn’t have protected her in the last year, Rafe, if you hadn’t done as he’d asked.”

  She sobbed softly, the never-ending pain he knew she felt filling the air around them.

  “I’ll always be here for you, Jaymi,” he promised her as her head lifted. “For both of you.”

  Damp eyes stared back at him, filled with misery and loss.

  “Thank you, Rafe.” She reached up, touched his cheek, then laid her palm against it gently. “One day, someone will love you the way I loved Tye. I know they will.”

  “I hope not, Jaymi,” he whispered, meaning every word of it. “Love like that comes with far too much risk.”

  And she shook her head, the smile that curved her lips suddenly filled with life, with the memory of love. “I wouldn’t have missed it for the world, Rafe. Even if I had known one day he would be gone, I wouldn’t have missed it.”

  And Rafe knew, Tye had felt the same.

  His friends had been two parts of a whole, and with Tye’s death, there were times Jaymi seemed almost crippled with grief.

  But in her eyes, in that moment, he saw another side of it. A side that held no regret. That loved so deeply that the pain was worth it.

  And he promised himself, swore to himself, he’d never love that way. He’d never let another person in that deep. He’d never allow himself to be broken by losing them.

  Two weeks later

  The bronchitis was getting worse.

  Jaymi sat beside Cami’s bed and read the thermometer worriedly. Her temperature was edging over 102, her sister’s face was flushed, her lips dry, and fever glittered in her dove gray eyes.

  “But you were getting better,” she sighed as Cami stared up at her with overbright eyes.

  “Lost my medicine,” her sister admitted, struggling for breath as she coughed again, the labored, rough sound worse than it had been when her sister had showed up at her doorstep earlier that day.

  Their mother had sent her to the apartment, a good twenty-minute walk from the house that would have taken Cami much longer as she labored for breath.

  She glanced at the clock, willing the doctor to call her back about the prescription before it was too late. She worked at the pharmacy, but still, Mr. Keene wouldn’t like it if she had to let herself in tonight to fill the prescription.

  If he were in town, he would have come in himself and done it, she knew. He liked Cami. Hell, everyone liked Cami, except their father.

  “How did you lose your medicine?” Cami’s answer perplexed her. Her sister wasn’t an irresponsible child. She’d been forced to grow up young, and hadn’t had the luxury of being able to forget the simplest things. Mark Flannigan, their father, had little patience for teenage angst or forgetfulness from his youngest child.

  Cami shrugged at the question and turned her gaze away to stare at the wall on the other side of the bed.

  “Cami?” Jaymi touched her sister’s chin gently to turn her gaze back to her. “What happened to your medicine?”

  “I don’t know.” Her dry lips trembled as her eyes filled with tears. “Dad came in the bedroom and he was upset because there were dirty clothes on the floor and the tissues were on my table. I think he threw them away when he started throwing everything in the trash.”

  Jaymi’s lips thinned.

  She knew better than to call him, or to appear at the house furious over it. Mark always had a way of making it look as though it were Cami’s fault, or even pretending innocence.

  While he did, their mother would stare at him in resigned accusation before mumbling about taking her medicine and heading for her bedroom.

  She wasn’t going to allow this to continue, she decided. Once Cami was better, they would go to the house and pack her things before bringing them to the apartment. Cami was being neglected in the most despicable way. Even worse, Mark was risking her health. He had to have known he had thrown the medicine away. That wasn’t something that was done by accident, and she knew Cami wasn’t a messy child. She was too neat for her age and Jaymi couldn’t believe there had been enough tissues on the bed table for Mark to have missed the bottle of pills and the cough medicine.

  She just prayed the doctor was willing to fax the prescription in to the pharmacy before Jaymi broke several different state and federal laws and refilled the prescriptions herself.

  She would not allow her sister to suffer more tonight, and the hospital was more than an hour away. After the wreck she’d been in the week before, she was wary about driving the mountain roads.

  There shouldn’t have been anything wrong with her brakes. There had been no reason they would go out as she started down the mountain, causing her to nearly crash over one of the sheer cliffs that dropped to a boulder-strewn ravine below.

  It had been sheer luck that had kept her from going over. That and the fact that a rock slide from the cliff above the road had caused the state to clear a wide area on the other side of the road to make room for debris.

  She’d managed to steer her car to the other side and the very fact that she hadn’t been going fast had possibly saved her life, Joe Townsend had told her.

  But he had acted oddly. He’d refused to look her in the eye, and Joe was the type of man who looked a person in the eye. But when he’d warned her to be careful, and she had taken it as a warning, he’d been more commanding than concerned.

  “Jaymi, watch what you’re doing,” he told her fiercely. “Don’t be taking any chances.”

  She hadn’t been aware she was taking any chances. At least not in her car.

  But the night she and Rafe had stopped seeing each other, another call had come in, and this time, she was certain she knew who it was. Mostly certain of it. There was just enough doubt that she had to see him first, had to look in his eyes as he spoke to her to be certain.

  Each time she called him the call went to voice mail. The one time she’d shown up at his office, he had been “unavailable,” according to his secretary. But he co
uldn’t hide forever. Sweetrock was a small town, she was going to see him eventually.

  The ring of her cell phone had her jerking the device from the table next to the bed and flipping it open.

  The prescription had been faxed in. The pharmacy was closed, but the doctor was certain it would be filled before the doors opened the next morning.

  So was she. She had the keys to the store and she had the license to work behind the counter and fill prescriptions. She was supposed to have it checked by the pharmacist; she wasn’t supposed to fill anything without Martin Keene’s presence. But this was an emergency. It was her sister.

  Cami fought to cough again, nearly losing her breath as she tried weakly to clear the obstruction in her lungs.

  “Cami, I’m going to go get your prescription,” she told her as she rose from the chair and grabbed the jacket she’d laid at the end of the bed earlier. “I’ll be back in a bit, okay?”

  Cami nodded, her eyes drifting closed, her breathing labored as she tried to rest before another bout attacked.

  “Get some rest, baby.” Leaning down, she kissed her sister on the forehead before grabbing her purse and keys and heading out of the apartment.

  It was dark. The street lights glowed weakly in the evening fog, casting sinister shadows along the nearly deserted back streets.

  She considered moving to the front of the block, but it was the quieter part of the evening. There wasn’t much traffic until Main Street and then heading south toward the interstate.

  The pharmacy was only a few blocks from her apartment, which was why she liked the job. She could walk to work and back, and even during the rain and snowstorms, it wasn’t a bad walk. It would just be a wet one.

  Which was why Cami had bronchitis. Her father had sent her the eight blocks from their home to the pharmacy to get their mother’s prescription rather than waiting for Jaymi to bring it to the house after she locked up.

  He had deliberately attempted to get Cami ill, she thought as she tucked her hands into the light jacket she wore and strode faster along the neat, well-lit back street.