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longer,
    long before Samuel, Benjamin, and David had really
    been old enough to understand their baby brother was
    gone. Rafe didn’t know the whole story; he’d only just
    learned that the recruiter who had come to Sweetrock
    was actually the youngest Callahan son. Ryan’s
    search for his birth family had spanned more than ten
    years. His commitment to his nephews only grew
    stronger with the knowledge that his parents, as well
    as his brothers, were gone.
    When his brothers returned, it was learned the
    child their parents had had so late in life, was dead, or
    so they believed, and their ranch supposedly sold and
    split between the Corbins, Raffertys, and Robertses.
    Their entire lives had been torn apart and all anyone
    cared about was convincing them to leave Corbin
    County and accept the losses.
    And now that Callahan son was back and raising
    hell.
    Ryan was screaming something about DNA,
    vagrants, serial murders, and alibis, and Rafe was
    wondering why he gave a damn.
    Standing up, Rafe moved to the door, his hands
    shoved in the pockets of his jeans, his gaze focused
    on the night Jaymi died rather than at the stone wall
    across from him.
    How was Cami? He had promised Jaymi he
    would look after her.
    But how was he supposed to take care of her?
    He’d promised, but he had signed up for the Marines
    last week. He, Logan, and Crowe. They’d had enough
    of Corbin County for a while, they’d decided. Like
    their fathers before them, they thought the military
    seemed the best option.
    For the same reason, perhaps. Because they
    were tired of the bullshit.
    And it all went back to the three families who
    ruled Corbin County like their own personal little
    fiefdom.
    Generations before, James Randal Callahan had
    acquired eight hundred acres of prime ranch land
    from the government as had his three partners James
    Corbin the First, Andrew Roberts, and Jason Rafferty.
    At the time, the four men had been the best of
    friends as well as business partners. They had
    acquired the land they needed, the cattle and the
    horses, then they’d found wives.
    They’d settled the land tucked between the rising
    mountains and proceeded to build a dynasty. But
    somewhere in those first years, something had
    happened to change those friendships and the wealth
    that first James Randal Callahan had brought with
    him. While the others had thrived, the Callahan family
    had slowly begun to wither away until Rafe’s
    grandfather had nearly died of some lung infection.
    Hospitalized, weak and fighting for his life, he
    hadn’t even been aware that the world believed his
    youngest son was dead. In fact, his wife, Eileen
    Callahan had contacted acquaintances that she had
    known were desperate for a child. She’d sold her
    baby for the money needed to save the rest of her
    family and the ranch that amounted to everything they
    possessed.
    Until the morning of their deaths, they had been
    worth a fortune. For some reason, that morning they
    had withdrawn every cent they had at the bank, and
    accepted a paltry couple of hundred thousand for a
    ranch that was worth three times as much in stock
    alone.
    That night, they had been racing toward
    Colorado Springs along the curving mountain road
    with its sheer drops and spectacular cliffs. Somehow,
    JR Callahan, the great-great-grandson of James
    Randal Callahan, had lost control of the truck and
    plunged down one of those cliffs.
    Their vehicle had exploded on impact with such
    force that the explosion had been heard across the
    mountains. It was the next day, though, before anyone
    had seen the faint tendrils of smoke rising from the
    canyon below.
    And how strange that years later, their three sons
    and the women they had married had died in the
    same manner when their SUV had gone over a cliff as
    they drove from Denver. The coincidence was simply
    too great. The deaths too similar.
    “Ryan’s stopped blasting their eardrums,” Logan
    stated quietly as he and Crowe stood up from the