Dressed in a long, ankle-length white cotton skirt and matching sleeveless blouse, her feet pushed into sandals similar to Amara"s, Sophia looked cool and playfully flirtatious as she shot Archer a teasing grin.
"Crowe also forgets that Resnovas remember well their roots. We weren"t always suspected international-crime figures." Gregor moved into the room with a predatory stroll. "It"s not that hard to remember how to speak as a peasant, especially when you remember well what it"s like to be that peasant."
He came to Crowe"s back and clapped him on the shoulder as he grinned at Anna. "h.e.l.lo, Ms. Corbin. I"ve heard quite a bit about you."
"Don"t pretend much of it was good if it came from Crowe," Anna stated.
"All good, and most of it actually did come from your cousin," he a.s.sured her as he shook her hand with a broad, calloused hand.
Anna crossed her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s and shot Crowe a chiding look as Gregor released her.
"He is a very bad boy," Sophia sighed, though she slid Crowe a teasing, sideways look. "They are all bad boys though, do you not agree?" The look she shot Anna invited feminine secrets and an air of conspiracy against the males surrounding them.
"Just as the good sheriff is," Gregor stated, his accent sensual and thick with Russian influence. "I see he has managed to capture one of the most beautiful of the women it"s been my pleasure to meet since I arrived."
"Watch it, Romeo," Crowe drawled mockingly. "Archer might seem like a man who will tolerate your flirting with his woman, but trust me, he has ways of getting even."
Archer shot Crowe a surprised look, as though he had no idea what he was talking about.
Of course he didn"t, Anna thought mutinously. A man was only jealous or possessive when he acknowledged he might not willingly allow a woman to leave his life.
Archer didn"t even appear to desire her anymore, let alone care if another man flirted with her.
"Gregor is my head of security, and currently training several of Brute Force"s agents in the job," Ivan stated. "Archer was kind enough to provide a reference to Gregor"s naturalization application."
"No matter the crimes he"s suspected of," Crowe muttered, then grinned at the glares Ivan and Antoli shot him.
"We ignore him when he turns into a brat," Sophia a.s.sured Anna with a grin that revealed her pleasure in his smart-a.s.sed comments.
"Which means they ignore him often." Archer chuckled as Crowe leveled a mock warning look in his direction.
"One of these days we might be tempted to teach him the error of his disrespect." Gregor"s comment was more a warning.
"Ah, such children," Sophia chided them before turning back to Anna. "Now I must see to the snacks my nephew has requested for this evening. Excuse me, if you please."
Giving Anna another quick hug, Sophia turned and swept from the living room to the open kitchen, from which the most delightful scents were coming.
"Rumor"s rampant you brought the Resnovas here," Anna stated, more than a little impressed. "Where the h.e.l.l did you meet them?"
"I was one of the agents with the FBI, a.s.signed to protect Amara from the DC Vigilante just before I took my leave of absence from the bureau." Skye linked her arm with Anna"s, then Jeanne"s, as Cami moved behind them and led them to the patio doors on the other side of the room.
"She knows every d.a.m.ned FBI agent who"s walked through the front door," Cami quipped. "And there"ve been a lot of those."
"She knew the CIA agent who slipped onto the property last week to talk to Ivan too," Cami pointed out.
Cami wrinkled her nose at the accusation. "A female CIA agent who flipped him on his a.s.s the second she saw him."
Amara rolled her eyes at Cami. "She was just flirting with Dad. She has an odd way of showing her affection."
The younger girl moved past them as she headed for an outdoor television on the other side of the patio, beneath a shaded pergola next to the newly installed pool.
"G.o.d, I love that pool," Cami sighed as she stared at the glistening water.
"What an odd admission, considering you called the crew responsible for installing it a.s.sholes and backwoods yokels with more inbred genetics than common sense," Skye pointed out with a laugh.
"Well, he implied Rafe didn"t have the money to have it installed, then once he found out about Off Road Excursions and Brute Force Security Training he had the nerve to imply Rafe, Logan, and Crowe didn"t have enough business sense to make them profitable, and perhaps he should check with the Corbins for permission to build the d.a.m.ned thing," Cami sniffed. "A good businessman doesn"t give a d.a.m.n as long as he gets paid.
Anna took a seat beneath the umbrellaed patio table a few feet from the door as Cami and Skye chose their own seats, while still bantering back and forth.
Listening to their laughter, Anna stared around the well-fenced backyard wishing she had the ability and the comfort to laugh and tease with the others.
Once, years ago, Anna had had that ability to tease and play. Then Skye had graduated and Anna"s parents had moved her again, requiring yet another school transfer. After that move, trying to fit in once again, then another move, Anna had finally just given up. Skye hadn"t been there to ease her into the transition, and no one else had seen the stomach-knotting nerves and dark loneliness Anna had dealt with.
"Anna, are you okay?" Skye reached forward, her hand covering Anna"s knee as she stared at her in concern.
Cami was watching as well, her gaze concerned, her expression encouraging.
"I"m fine, Skye, Cami. I promise." They were making her extremely uncomfortable now as she reached up and scratched at her collarbone.
A move Skye watched worriedly. Anna was uncomfortable; she knew all the signs of it and regretted it.
"Considering you were disowned, abducted, and you"re now being stalked and shot at, I think you"re doing amazingly well," Cami stated.
Anna shrugged. "The two of you have faced the Slasher as well."
"We weren"t disowned and left all but alone with no one to turn to," Cami pointed out. "My father never cared much for me anyway, and I knew it, but I had my aunt and uncle, friends, and Rafer. It has to be harder the way you"ve been kept from the County. It must seem as though you have no connections here at all."
Anna just gave an uncomfortable shrug.
"Anna, talk to us," Cami urged her then, sympathy marking her expression as her eyes filled with a rare empathy. "Skye and I have learned that talking about it goes a long way to easing the nightmares."
Anna"s gaze jerked between them in surprise.
"Yeah, the nightmares are brutal," Skye sighed. "But, Anna, your eyes are breaking my heart. I swear, the pain and fear are so clear in them that it makes me want to kill the Corbins as painfully as possible."
Anna quickly averted her gaze. She"d forgotten about that. Skye had always told her that her innermost emotions reflected as clear as day in her eyes.
There was no way to hide it, she thought in resignation. Once she would have just hidden in her room, weeping until she couldn"t cry any longer. When she was finished crying, her natural optimism would return.
She wasn"t a child anymore though, and sitting and crying took precious time that she could be using in her attempt to enjoy life and to carve a future for herself in Corbin County.
"Have you even tried to call your parents-"
"Skye, please," Anna protested, wanting nothing more than to just hide again. They had to stop this. They had stop poking and prodding at the pain radiating with each question. "I don"t want to offend you, but I really can"t talk about this."
Not without getting out of here and crying like the child she used to be.
The understanding in Cami"s and Skye"s eyes was comforting, but she couldn"t handle it right now. The pain was too close to the surface and too hard to deal with.
She could ignore it, if she didn"t have to talk about it. But if she had to talk about it, and be honest, then she actually had been able to deal with her family. They were doing what they felt they had to. She didn"t agree with them. She couldn"t understand how they had imagined that was the best route to take, and she missed them so bad sometimes it ached.
But she knew there was hope they loved her.
No, if there was pain in her eyes, then Archer had helped put it there.
"Anna," Skye drew her attention. "Promise me, if you need someone to talk to, day or night, you"ll call one of us."
Anna nodded swiftly. Anything, she thought, to divert their attention elsewhere. "I promise. Both of you, I promise."
Skye wasn"t happy, and the look she shot Cami was doubtful. Anna wasn"t the teenager she had been when they had first met.
Disillusionment and a lifetime of loneliness and empty promises had led to all the emotional misery that lay trapped inside her now.
Skye just prayed that Archer, with his disbelief of being "in love" and his determination to remain commitment-free, didn"t permanently break the heart that had already been broken far too many times.
"Tell me, Sheriff Tobias, have you yet found someone, anyone, that I can punish for the h.e.l.l those three young women are being put through?" Ivan asked as he turned back to them after watching Jeanne step onto the patio to join the other women.
She"d become a steady visitor to the house, bringing information, gossip, and often helping Sophia, as she had just finished doing; his sister had arranged cheese, meats, and crackers for a snack while the Callahans and their friends were there.
"Stand in line," Archer sighed as he tossed back the remainder of the whisky he"d been sipping. "I"d beat you there."
"And her parents" disavowal had nothing to do with her pain? Nor her grandparents"?" Ivan asked with icy calm as Antoli joined them from his normal position close to the front door. "Do not deny what I have already learned myself, my friend."
Archer slid the bottom of his gla.s.s back and forth in front of him, refusing to answer the other man just yet.
"They"ve kept her away from Corbin County since she was nine," Jack said as Archer lifted his gaze and looked out to the patio, at the woman who made his chest both tighten and melt whenever he saw her smile. "Her parents changed her schools almost yearly. They moved around as though money didn"t matter, and old man Corbin financed every move. For a few years my cousin was employed by his accounting firm. The things he heard and saw where the Corbins" determination to keep her out of Corbin County were concerned, were outrageous."
"Such an accounting firm should not exist," Ivan murmured.
Jack"s look was cynical. "Come on, Ivan. I like you, man, I do, but we both know ole Mother Russia ain"t much better."
Ivan"s lips quirked. "Perhaps not. But my sense of outrage over that young woman"s pain and the danger she faces has nothing to do with such things. I want to know why- Why have they kept her from the bosom of her family? Why was she made to be alone, forced to be isolated, by parents who should have wished only to have her with them and to see to her happiness, who should have only wished to love her."
"These are questions that I would wish to have the answers to as well," Gregor growled, his dark expression somehow more dangerous for the lack of fury in his cool eyes. "And these questions, my friends, are perhaps yet another piece to your puzzle where the Corbins and the Callahans are concerned."
"How so?" It was Crowe who beat Archer to the question.
Gregor shook his head, frowning. "They have kept her out of this County, and I can think of only one reason to do so."
"To keep her away from her cousin," Archer murmured, feeling the tension that was beginning to settle in the pit of his stomach.
"There is no other explanation." Gregor shrugged, his dark gaze a.s.sessing now. "The five of you have not been born and bred to suspicion, paranoia, and the daily threat of your lives and those of your loved ones being in peril. You have not yet learned-no matter how you think you have, not to the bone-that in all things, the more they are made to appear they do not connect, the more they connect. And that girl-" He nodded to Anna. "Many people, for many years, have worked hard to prove she is not connected."
Breathing in hard, Archer looked to the Callahans, his jaw clenching. "There"s more," he stated, glancing back at the patio, seeing the incredible distance between Anna and the other women, despite the fact that they were sitting close together.
"More? In what way?" Crowe asked, the low tone of his voice a heavy warning.
"There"s more going on," Archer growled. "The killings have been going on far longer than we guessed and have had more to do with your lives than we ever imagined."
"And you know this how?" Logan leaned forward, his gaze suddenly intent.
"Because your uncle, Ryan, and my deputy, John Caine, arrived at the house last night, well after two in the morning, with an incredible story."
Gregor"s expression was hard, pure stone as Crowe"s amber-brown eyes suddenly seemed to burn with fury.
"And?" Rafer injected impatiently. "This ain"t a reality show, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, and I don"t need to be dangled on some f.u.c.king string."
"Has Ryan been in contact?" Archer asked.
"He was," Crowe growled. "And he told us about the contract he accepted this summer to kill all of us. I can"t believe Dave Stone was so f.u.c.king crazy and we never knew."
Archer shook his head slowly. "They"re watching three men as suspects to the ident.i.ty of the Slasher team."
"Who?" Crowe asked, his tone guttural as he demanded the ident.i.ties of the three men.
"We have to wait for more proof, Crowe," Archer warned. "We have just enough right now to make a h.e.l.l of a mistake and end up killing an innocent man."
"Come on, Archer. I"m not a f.u.c.king kid. None of us are," Logan snapped. "Who are they?"
Archer revealed the names and detailed the majority of the meeting he"d had the night before with Ryan and John Caine.
He didn"t mention Wayne Sorenson. He couldn"t, not yet. Not until he had a chance to check a few things out himself, because right now there was just enough proof to get him killed.
Rafer, Logan, and Crowe slowly straightened. At the same moment, Archer glimpsed both Cami and Skye as their heads suddenly turned, their gazes intent, their body language concerned as they looked for their fiances.
There was instinct, and then there was just plain weird, because at the same time Anna had turned, as though searching him out as well. There was no way she could have turned in response to the other two, because he was d.a.m.ned if the three women hadn"t turned at the exact same moment.
Just as they were rising to their feet, then turning to look at each other in confusion for a single heartbeat. Then they were moving faster.
It would have been d.a.m.ned amusing if Archer hadn"t seen it for himself. That instinct. That bond and connection confused the f.u.c.k out of him, and he couldn"t understand how Anna had felt what Rafer"s and Logan"s lovers had felt.
"Caine believes the killer is his natural father, but his mother never revealed the ident.i.ty of his natural father, right?" Crowe mused quietly as Cami, Skye, Anna, and Jeanne made their way back into the house. "What would be the point of killing her?"
"Unless she knew something, had some way of identifying the Slasher. She"d been out of the country for nearly thirty years. If she returned and reconnected with anyone who knew and heard about the Slasher, she might have been able to reveal their ident.i.ties, or even give pertinent information on JR and Eileen Callahan"s murders," Archer stated softly, his gaze on Anna, that tension in his stomach tightening further. "And perhaps that"s even why it"s so important to keep the Callahans out of Corbin County, and the Callahan property away from its rightful owners."
"Perhaps," Ivan mused, "what I have learned can add another piece of the puzzle."
Ivan waited until Cami, Skye, Anna, and Jeanne had joined them before he recounted John and Robert Corbin"s visit to Archer"s study.
Archer watched Anna as the Russian quietly explained the visit and their suspicion that, if not the Corbins, then the Slasher and his partner, were desperate to hide something.
"Perhaps they are also desperate to find something," Ivan stated as he finished. "We Russians, we understand family, and we understand tracking and tracing family in ways Americans have forgotten. You make a hobby of tracing your ancestors. To a Russian, it is not a hobby; it is a part of who and what we are. It is a part of our honor and has much too high a potential to be a part of our disgrace as well. So we must know."
"I"m getting really impatient, Ivan," Crowe warned him.
Gregor snorted. "Remember, Ivan," he mused, "what impatience gained you?"