Amelia parted her lips to scream, praying someone heard her.
The sound came out as a squeak.
Between one breath and the next the three men were suddenly thrown back, tossed like mannequins in a demon"s grip as Crowe"s snarl rumbled in his chest like some d.a.m.n animal.
Thick black lashes surrounded eyes that were now more amber than brown as rage contorted the savage features of his face, made the hard planes and angles sharper, more defined.
And Rory wasn"t exactly standing still.
The security agent didn"t just throw the largest of the three brothers back, but caught him before he fell and shook him like a helpless pup.
Of course, Dwight was whimpering like a helpless pup, which rather helped the image along a bit.
Nothing was private in Sweetrock, either. Customers were pouring out of the pub like rats from a sinking ship. Where no one had so much as poked their heads out of the door as the three brothers surrounded Amelia, now the sight of Crowe and Rory tossing them around like oversized toys had the entire bar emptying out to observe the confrontation.
Some were cheering at Crowe and Rory to "Do it again," while others were encouraging the Carter brothers to get up and fight like men.
Amelia wondered if it were possible to find a rock to hide under as the bar patrons hooted and hollered, no doubt hoping to see bloodshed.
"What the h.e.l.l is going on?" It was Archer, stepping from the entrance to the town square, no doubt drawn by the brothers" drunken cries as Crowe and Rory advanced on them now. His fiancee, Anna, stood behind him in confusion, her gaze catching Amelia"s as she quickly gave a hissed, "What the h.e.l.l happened?"
"You don"t want to know," Amelia sighed, the answer more or less working for both of them.
"The h.e.l.l he doesn"t," Crowe refuted, her hope that he would ignore the question shot to h.e.l.l as he glowered at her with pure male outrage.
Moving from the Carters, he reached her in two long strides, glaring down at her with such anger that she couldn"t help but wince as he turned to Archer. "Let me guess. The two of you were meeting here with her and those f.u.c.king entertainers she was so desperate to see yesterday?"
Archer frowned before glancing at Amelia, then Anna. "I was under the impression we were meeting both of you. Anna?"
Crowe and Archer both turned to Anna just as Amelia tried to shoot her friend a warning look.
Anna was no one"s dummy.
Her eyes widened innocently. "I honestly didn"t think to ask."
Bulls.h.i.t. Amelia almost smiled.
Anna had been suspicious. She had actually asked, and Amelia had stated that she was certain she wouldn"t be alone. It wasn"t as though Crowe ever gave her five minutes of peace. If she couldn"t have slipped from the house then she would have brought him along. Him and the hulking-shouldered agents who refused to give her so much as a sliver of an opening between them to see the streets she had yet to plan the decorations for.
Crowe grunted at the answer.
"Look, I"m already here, just let me finish this so I can-"
"Forget it." Crowe gripped her arm as she turned toward Anna. "I"ll be d.a.m.ned..." He stared at his empty hand in surprise as Amelia suddenly ducked, twisted, and managed to escape his grip in a move it had taken John less than three days to teach her when he"d first moved into Wayne"s house with her.
"Amelia." Growling her name, he stared back at her in warning now. "I"ll be d.a.m.ned if you"re going to be rewarded for scaring the s.h.i.t out of me. Those entertainers can go to h.e.l.l for all I care, and you can get your a.s.s back to the house."
In what tiny particle of his mind had he decided that he could make decisions for her? That he could order her around like a ten-year-old?
She stared at him in complete amazement as the realization dawned that Crowe didn"t see her as an adult so much as the eighteen-year-old she had been seven years before, looking for adventure despite the danger it represented.
"I"m not your d.a.m.ned kid and I"m sure as h.e.l.l no teenager you can drag back to the d.a.m.ned house for not keeping curfew." She was shaking with fury. "How dare you, Crowe Callahan. How f.u.c.king dare you decide what I can and cannot do, and what the h.e.l.l makes you think you can tell me what I will and will not do?" She turned on Archer, outraged as he frowned back at both of them. "You are not to allow him to drag me out of here, Sheriff Tobias," she ordered him, determined to regain at least a measure of her independence. "If he does, then you better do something about it."
More than two dozen of the bar"s customers were suddenly silent, their gazes trained on her, drunk, sober, and in between, soaking up every word and no doubt making mental lists of who they would call first. She was certain several were taking videos with their smartphones.
Just what she needed, her own little page of notoriety on Facebook.
"I warned you," Rory muttered behind her, obviously to Crowe.
"What did you do to her?" Anna hissed at her brother.
Archer lifted his gaze heavenward as he tilted the dun-colored hat back on his head. "I say my prayers," Archer sighed. "I go to church when I can and I even take old women to the grocery store when they need me to. And this is the thanks I get."
"And I voted for you," Amelia snapped back. "Now make him leave me alone while I do the job I came here to do, or next time I"ll vote for old Charlie Weaver if he runs again."
Archer frowned down at her. "Charlie Weaver"s in the rest home now, Amelia. You can"t vote for him."
Crossing her arms over her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, she could feel her teeth grinding as frustration threatened to overwhelm her.
"I swear, Archer, I"ll campaign so hard for your compet.i.tion that you"ll think I"m related to them if you don"t get me to that meeting and get me to it now."
"I"m going to paddle your a.s.s," Crowe muttered as though dazed, or astounded, behind her.
"Just listen to him." She stepped closer to Archer, throwing her hand back at Crowe as the crowd began to press closer around them. "He"s threatening bodily harm now, Archer. I"m about to demand police protection."
"Police protection?" Archer questioned softly before his gaze suddenly sliced up and over her shoulder toward the crowd.
"Police protection," she repeated, her tone low despite the determination filling her. "I"m certain you heard him threaten me. Shouldn"t you be arresting him or something?"
It was all Archer could to do to keep from laughing in her face. Amelia found herself having to fight her own smug smile as she propped her hands on her hips and faced him with a forced glare.
Okay, so she wasn"t as p.i.s.sed as she had been moments earlier. No doubt the dazed astonishment in Crowe"s voice as he threatened to paddle her had something to do with that.
"Police protection," Archer sighed, staring out behind her as he slowly shook his head. "Some days, I wish I could give this job to old man Weaver." He stared back down at her. "This is one of those days."
"Nice little fantasy," she commiserated in a less-than-sympathetic tone. "Now, if you don"t mind, I believe I have several entertainers waiting for me in the conference wing of the Community Center, and you and Anna promised to help re-measure those two grottoes before I leave." She glanced over at Crowe, a shiver working up her spine at the focused glare he directed at her.
"We will discuss this later," he promised her as the crowd behind them, no doubt bored at this point, began breaking up and turning back toward the bar.
A careless shrug was her only answer as she directed a speaking look back to the sheriff. She didn"t dare let herself do more than glimpse Anna from the corner of her eyes. Her friend, and Crowe"s sister, was obviously fighting giggles as well as the urge to agitate the situation further.
"Fine." Archer rubbed at the back of his neck as he glanced at Crowe, then behind her-likely at Rory, she thought-before turning his gaze back to her, a grin tugging at his lips. "And you used to be such a quiet little thing, Amelia."
The amus.e.m.e.nt evaporated instantly. "Yeah, and that did me a lot of good, too, didn"t it, Archer?"
The situation itself might have amused her for a moment, but the underlying reason for her escape from her own home still stood. She wasn"t a child, and she wasn"t going to allow Crowe to treat her like one any longer just because she was his ticket to catching Wayne and making him pay for the h.e.l.l he"d put the Callahans through.
She understood his need for vengeance. She understood his belief that only through her would he find the chance he needed to capture Wayne. But keeping her locked out of sight wasn"t going to help his cause.
She wasn"t in danger of Wayne aiming a rifle in her direction, lining her up in a set of rifle sights. The man believed he was her father and had no intention of shooting her, and he was a lousy shot to boot. No, Wayne wouldn"t take such an easy route. He wanted to punish her and, through her, punish Crowe.
Before he ever killed her, Wayne would make sure she wished she"d never been born.
CHAPTER 13.
Crowe was dangerously silent.
Shadowing her through the meetings with the entertainers and the subsequent walk around the band gazebo and dance square, he didn"t say a word other than to speak into the earbud link he wore to direct Rory Malone once they left the Community Center and walked to the square.
The comedian Amelia had signed for the late-summer act was one of the more popular national figures in the field. His handsome face, fit body, and deliberately outrageous one-liners had her and Anna in gales of laughter more than once; Archer chuckled and shook his head at the entertainer"s ability to find a joke in d.a.m.ned near everything.
He was even brave enough to poke fun at Crowe"s silence and dangerously intent expression as Amelia explained a few of the themes that would be carried into the grottoes surrounding the square.
"Strong silent type, is he?" he murmured at Amelia"s ear as she pulled a small notebook from her leather jacket to make a list of not just the comedian"s requirements but also new ideas for decorations to coordinate with his acts.
"Strong definitely," Amelia admitted, glancing at Crowe from beneath her lashes as his expression tightened, his lips a tight, hard line as the comedian leaned close to speak to her.
"Jealous type?" he asked.
"I"m sure he could be," Amelia admitted as she refrained from smiling in amus.e.m.e.nt at the deliberate questions.
"Ah. So, does the strong jealous type guard you, or..." He trailed off before grinning wickedly. "Does he guard your body?"
Her brow lifted slowly. "I and my body are pretty much one and the same," she informed him.
"And here I had so hoped I could run away with your mind," he snorted.
Amelia couldn"t help but laugh.
"Seriously, are you lovers?" he asked her, the deliberate jokes and amusing asides absent as he glanced between them.
"Would it matter either way to your show?" she asked curiously, wondering why he cared.
"Well, if you"re not, then I could pet.i.tion for the position myself," he admitted with a slow grin. "If he is, then I may reconsider..."
"That might be a very good idea."
The sound of Crowe"s voice behind them had them both jumping and turning to face him.
Shooting him a disapproving glance, Amelia turned away from him deliberately.
"I think I"ve listed everything you mentioned needing for your opening act, as well the shorter shows during the band"s breaks on Sat.u.r.day night," she told him. "Is there anything else I need to know?"
She refused to allow Crowe to intimidate her, and despite his wariness the performer evidently wasn"t above teasing wild animals as well.
He shot her a deliberately teasing look. "Is there is anything else you want to know?"
"There"s something you want to know." Crowe spoke behind him, the dangerous rasp of his voice causing Amelia to still as the entertainer turned slowly to face him.
"And that is?"
"I won"t just kill for her, I"ll kill over her. So while you"re deciding if you"re brave enough to try to poach what"s mine, think about that."
A rakish smile curved the comic"s lips. "h.e.l.l, son, if I hadn"t already considered that, I wouldn"t be standing here. I just decided to be nice and let the lady make the choice."
Crowe snorted. "Shows how smart you are." Turning to Amelia, he arched one brow with sardonic emphasis. "Anna and Archer have to leave and she wanted to talk to you a minute first, but-" He slid a look at the entertainer beside her. "-she didn"t want to interrupt." His smile was all teeth. "I didn"t have that problem."
The comedian beside her chuckled, almost causing Amelia to wince as she shot him a warning look. He was pushing at the wrong time. Crowe wasn"t predictable in the least, and he was decidedly dangerous as well.
"I think we"re finished then?" She glanced to the man at her side.
"For the moment." He let a smug little smile tip his lips. "If I can think of anything else I"ll be sure to let you know."
Amelia gave a brief nod before turning to Crowe. "Is Anna still in the conference room?"
"With Archer." He nodded before giving the other man a deliberately mocking look. "The sheriff is even more possessive, my friend, so I"d be careful were I you."
The comedian glanced back at Amelia, his brows arching as his gaze twinkled merrily. "Must be something in the water," he drawled, directing a subtle wink to her as Crowe"s glare deepened.
"There is. Usually the body of the last moron that p.i.s.sed me off."
"And that is my cue to roll," the other man announced with a laugh. "See you soon, Amelia."
A quick nod and a smile and he was striding off quickly, heading to the Community Center and Archer"s patience. Amelia turned to Crowe with a disapproving frown.
"You weren"t nice," she berated him, deliberately s.p.a.cing her words.
"He"s still alive, right?" he growled. "I didn"t shoot him. And trust me, I wanted to. Bad."
"You"re being deliberately provoking," she accused him.
Amber fire gleamed in his narrowed eyes, making the thick, long black lashes appear lusher than ever.
"I have yet to provoke," he promised her. "Trust me, baby, once I get started provoking, there will be no doubt in your mind whatsoever."
"The trouble with you, Crowe," she pointed out, "is that you"re always provoking. Unfortunately, you haven"t seemed satisfied with what you"ve provoked."
Striding quickly past him, ignoring the tight-lipped, less-than-pleased look he gave her, Amelia hurried back to the Community Center where Archer, Anna, and the flirtatious comic were obviously still talking.
She"d managed to slip out of the house, and she"d completed the ch.o.r.es she"d had scheduled, but, like Crowe, she was less than pleased with the results.