Ultimate Sins (38 page)

“Ethan would have contacted you then,” she swore, frowning in confusion. “He would have offered to keep Kimmy until the Slasher was taken care of.” Her heart rate picked up as the glow of gold in his eyes seemed to spark like flames. Her own anger rose then, racing through her senses as she remembered those agonizing weeks after Kimmy's birth. “What do you want me to say, Crowe?” she cried, reaching out to him before pulling her hands back and wrapping her arms across her breasts defensively. “If I had told you about Kimmy none of us would have been safe and you know it. You were in the military; they wouldn't have just let you leave. We didn't know who the Slasher was, or the lengths he would go to. I was terrified for you and Kimmy. Terrified I'd cause you to lose more than you already had.”

“You didn't trust me to protect you and our child,” he rasped dangerously. “Is that it, Amelia?”

“You know, Crowe, I didn't trust my father, my uncle, and their team to protect my daughter if anyone learned of her, before we discovered who the Slasher was,” she reminded him painfully. “It had nothing to do with trust and everything to do with the fact that I was terrified for both of you.” She dashed at the tears that escaped her eyes. “I wouldn't have been able to live if anything happened to either of you, because of me. I wouldn't have survived it.”

She couldn't have drawn another breath had it happened.

Turning away from him, she fought the sobs rising inside her.

“I did my best, Crowe,” she whispered. “I did my best.”

“You died!” he snarled again as he swung her around to face him, the savagely hewn lines of his face filled with such fury, such pain, she lost the battle with the tears.

“And if saving you and our daughter meant never drawing another breath in this life then that was the price I'd pay,” she cried out, her hands fisting in his shirt, jerking at the cloth, desperate to make him understand. “That was all that mattered to me, Crowe. Nothing else. I couldn't bear losing either of you. I couldn't live with it.”

Sobs tore from her chest, the desperation that filled her that night a bleak, haunting memory.

“I would have been there.” Naked, burning, the fury that filled him whipped in the air like a brutal wave. “I would have been with you, Amelia. I would have been there for you and you took that choice away from me.”

“And I knew you'd be furious,” she sobbed. “I knew the chance I was taking that you would hate me forever, Crowe, that you would never forgive the choices I had to make. Is that your prerogative only? Is no one but you allowed to make the hard choices to protect those that mean the most to them?”

“I will kill a thousand times over for you. That choice is far different…” His hands tightened at her shoulders, the hold firm. He didn't hurt her; he would never mark her skin and she knew it. But the brutality of his pain was killing her.

“Crowe, I would die a thousand times over for you,” she whispered. “For you and Kimmy. I'd give my last breath just as easily as you would have given up your freedom if you were caught.”

Except he wouldn't have been caught.

Crowe knew he wouldn't have been, but it was a knowledge he knew Amelia didn't have.

Releasing her slowly, he stepped back.

Distance. He had to find a distance, he thought, forcing back the emotion for the brutal objectivity that had ensured his survival over the years.

“Crowe…” Her tear-filled voice was breaking him.

“I'm not angry with you.” Keeping his voice calm now, pushing back the rage, he moved slowly, tiredly to the door.

“Crowe…” She whispered his name again.

“I have to stop this.” He forced the words past his throat then. “Until Wayne's dead, neither of you is safe. Until he's dead, neither of you really belongs to me, do you, Amelia?” He turned back to her then, hating the tears that fell down her face. “Because I won't let you or our daughter live in this fucking nightmare one second longer than I have to.”

He forced himself from the bedroom and went to the security room, all the while feeling his soul howling.

She had died. And he hadn't even been there.

 

CHAPTER 24

It was the sound of Kimmy's screams, high-pitched and echoing shrilly through the house, that woke Amelia from a sound sleep, two days later.

Before her eyes were fully open she was out of the bed and racing across her bedroom to the door. Throwing it open and running along the hall, she was only dimly aware of the sun spilling weakly through the tall foyer windows to the middle of the curving staircase.

Another full-throated scream was followed by a muted, male growling sound that made very little sense.

It was after noon. Wayne never attacked during the day, it was always at night, she thought hysterically as she began running for the stairs, terror pumping through her senses. Any sense of safety she had felt over the past two days evaporated as though it had never existed.

Pure terror raced through her, blinding and filled with the agonizing certainty that somehow, some way, Wayne had gotten to her baby.

The sound of her daughter's screams ripped through the silence of the house again.

“God no. Kimmy.”

Gripping the banister desperately, her fingers locked on the heavy wood, Amelia felt her heart pounding from her chest as she paused only a few feet down the stairs to get her bearings. Listening desperately, that muffled male growl rasping across her senses, Amelia searched the foyer as she fought to figure out which direction to run in.

“Where are you, baby?” she whimpered, fighting to remain quiet, to figure out where her daughter was before wasting time by rushing in the wrong direction.

A deep-throated male roar suddenly erupted in the silence, followed immediately by—girlish giggles?

Kimmy tore across the foyer from the family room, running hell for leather into the formal living room as she laughed uproariously in joy. Behind her, shrouded by one of the checkered blankets Amelia kept thrown over the couch, the tall, broad form of an obviously chuckling male followed her.

Amelia sank quickly to the stairs, sitting on one of the wide steps as weakness flooded her limbs. Tears fell from her eyes as relief rushed through her. She felt suddenly dizzy with the realization that Kimmy wasn't in danger after all.

Another of those deep “dying bear” growls rasped from the living room—was it Crowe shrouded in that blanket, playing with their daughter? Was he the one causing those high girlish giggles that were music to her ears as he pretended to growl at her? The thought of it had a smile beginning to tremble on her lips.

At that moment Kimmy tore from the living room again, releasing another laughing scream and racing into the foyer. Rounding the wide, curving steps, her giggles echoed through the high-ceilinged foyer and traveled through the house.

“Dammit, Logan, how many times do I have to tell you that Amelia's still sleeping?” Crowe's voice snapped from the library doorway as both Kimmy and Logan came to a hard stop.

Looking through the narrow gap between the wide spindles Amelia could see her daughter's expression instantly transform from childish joy to wariness.

Kimmy stood perfectly still, just staring at her father's expression for long moments, her gaze narrowed on him.

That wasn't a good sign.

Oh God, please don't let her—

“That's a bad word.”

Amelia winced at the disapproval in Kimmy's voice and the narrow-eyed glare the little girl was directing at the man standing in front of her.

Then her stance shifted. Placing her little hand on her hip, she stuck out her chin stubbornly as her lips drew into a thin line.

The stance and her expression were identical to Crowe's. The only difference, Amelia noticed, was the way Kimmy lifted that little chin into the air. Though Amelia feared that had more to do with the fact that Crowe was looking down at his daughter rather than head-on.

The two faced off, father and daughter, each sizing the other up like two boxers would before beginning to dance around each other.

“I'll be sure to watch out for that in the future.” His jaw clenched as he obviously fought against some tightly held emotion.

Or anger.

“But, as I said,” he continued, “your mother is sleeping—”

“You just don't like me!” Kimmy's skinny little arms crossed over her chest as her sweet voice held an unfamiliar note of anger. “I thought you just didn't like kids, but you spent all morning playing with Logan's little baby instead and wouldn't play with me at all.”

Her anger was fierce. An indication of how deep that anger glowed.

“Now you don't even want me to play with my uncle Logan?” Outraged incredulity filled her voice.

Crowe wiped a hand over his face before reaching back to rub at the back of his neck, staring beseechingly at Logan.

“You made your bed, sleep in it.” It was more than obvious that his cousin was upset with him, and now Crowe knew it as well.

He breathed out wearily, the look he directed to Logan hinting at retribution.

“Kimmy.” He spoke with the air of man forced to push the words past his lips. “I do not dislike you—”

“You are not my daddy.” A small finger jabbed in his direction before Kimmy placed both hands on her hips, obviously out of patience where her father was concerned.

Amelia's eyes widened with shock even as pride began to fill her broken heart.

“The hell I'm not, little girl.” Crossing his arms over his chest, he glared back at her. “Sucks to be you, but you look just like me.”

For the briefest second he seemed to have surprised himself with the response.

“You said a bad word again. Don't you know daddies don't do that in front of their little girls?” Her tone was scathing, her little face flushing with hurt and anger. “I know you're not my daddy because my mommy says my daddy is a hero and everyone knows heroes do not say bad words in front of their little girls.”

Sweet heaven, where had Kimmy heard that? Were her parents allowing her to watch too much television again?

“Kimberly.” Crowe's tone indicated his intent to berate her.

“My name is Kimmy, just like my grandma who went to heaven to be my guardian angel after that bad man killed her,” she informed him imperiously as Crowe's expression reflected his shock. “My mommy said my daddy fights bad men and wins. She says he likes to fish and he knows how to play really cool games.” Her chin lifted a notch in a surfeit of pride. “She said my daddy will love me more than a kid loves ice cream. My mommy doesn't lie to me, so you lied to her when you told her you were my daddy. You are not my daddy!” She screamed the final declaration to him, dry-eyed and filled with childish fury.

Turning, Kimmy raced back to the family room, passing Logan and ignoring his attempt to stop her.

Amelia watched, filled with anger for her daughter's sake and a pain-ridden sense of loss as she watched Crowe's expression change the minute Kimmy was no longer facing him.

“Geez, Crowe.” Logan stared back at his cousin in complete astonishment. “Until now, I never believed you were actually stupid. Too much pride maybe, but not stupid.”

“Shut up, Logan,” Crowe snapped, glaring at the doorway his daughter had disappeared through.

“Fuck that,” Logan muttered, causing Crowe's gaze to swing to him, narrowing.

“Logan…”

“Just shut up,” Logan ordered, his voice low now. “I know you, Crowe. You're dying to wrap that kid in cotton and hold her tight enough to smother her with your love. Yet you won't even play with her? You don't even try to talk to her.” Logan shook his head in confusion as his hands went to his hips and his expression turned caustic. “Asshole. Remind me when young Beauregard Logan gets a little older that you're grounded from playing with him until you learn how to be a daddy.”

Turning away from his cousin, Logan headed to the family room where the sounds of Kimmy's favorite cartoon began to play. “I'd rather watch SpongeBob with Kimmy than talk to you. At least that stupid yellow sponge tries to make sense.”

He disappeared into the room as Amelia slowly rose to her feet, staring down at Crowe for long, silent moments.

*   *   *

Fuck!

Crowe would have muttered the word aloud, but he really was trying to clean up his language.

The confrontation brought a memory from his youth that he hadn't realized he'd had, though. A memory he couldn't force back into that dark little void where he usually kept them.

The girl Crowe was playing with threw sand at him, the fine grains filling Crowe's thick hair and tickling his scalp. He used one of the words he'd heard his father use once.

Hearing the word, his father, who never seemed to be far enough away when he was being bad, came to the sandbox and pulled eight-year-old Crowe from it firmly.

His father was disappointed. That knowledge had Crowe hanging his head and scuffing his shoe in the dirt as his father sat back down on the park bench, watching him for long moments.

“Sorry, Dad,” Crowe muttered.

David Callahan sighed wearily as he leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees.

“Look at me, Crowe.” Firm but gentle, his father's tone still wasn't one Crowe could ignore.

“Men don't use vulgar language or curse in front of women or children, son,” his father berated him.

“You cuss around Mom,” Crowe, in all his childish wisdom, felt the need to point out. “I heard you while me and Logan were playing out back.”

“Hiding out back you mean?” his father suggested knowingly as he gave Crowe “that” look. The one that assured Crowe he'd done something else he shouldn't have done.