The Renegade

by Rhonda Nelson

  Curiosity spiked to fever pitch. “Tell me what?”

  “If I yell or thrash around in my sleep, just give me a sharp jab, okay? Just a quick poke to wake me up.”

  She felt a frown furrow her brow. Yell or thrash around? “You mean, like a nightmare?”

  The shame on his face was utterly unmistakable and equally heart-wrenching. “Something like that, yes.”

  Nightmares of what? Of war? she wondered, figuring that was the most likely answer. Her own heart gave a little squeeze and, though her first instinct was to lay a hand on his and comfort him, she knew that wasn’t what he needed. And he damned sure didn’t need her asking a lot of questions.

  She merely nodded, purposely keeping it light. “Sure.”

  Seemingly relieved that the subject was closed, he polished off the last bite of his burger. He picked up Moe and slung him over his shoulder. “I’m going to jump in the shower.”

  Her lips twitched. “You’re taking Moe?”

  “I’m not supposed to let him out of my sight.” His gaze grew speculative. “Or you, either, technically. Come on,” he said. “Bring a book and you can sit on the commode.”

  Mia smiled. “You’re joking, right?”

  “No,” he said, though she caught a telltale twinkle in his eye. “It’s standard procedure.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” Mia told him.

  “Fine,” he said. “Stubborn, disagreeable woman,” he muttered.

  “I imagine any woman who doesn’t do exactly what you want is labeled ‘stubborn’ and ‘disagreeable.’”

  A slow smile shaped his lips. “To tell you the truth, I don’t run into many of those.”

  She felt the tops of her ears burn. Of course, he wouldn’t. He would “run into” the kinds of women who threw themselves at him, who didn’t have any expectations, who didn’t want anything more from him than a couple of drinks and a quick roll in the hay. She hated those women, each and every slutty one of them.

  “Then this is going to be a novel experience for you then,” she said, lifting her chin.

  To her surprise, Tanner guffawed. “On my first assignment for Ranger Security I’m traveling with a former girlfriend and a fertility statue with purported magical powers, which is under threat from a variety of difference sources. That’s novel,” he said. “You being stubborn and disagreeable is the only thing about this trip that’s not unique.”

  Mia grinned, despite herself. “Smart-ass.”

  “See what I mean,” he said, gesturing as if she herself were evidence. “This is what I mean about you. I knew you were going to offer some sort of comment like that.”

  “Clearly, I am going to have to work at being less predictable then.”

  He passed a hand over his face and shook his head. “I’d rather you didn’t.”

  “Because you like that I’m predictable?”

  “Because I like you,” he said simply, and the unexpected compliment reverberated pleasantly through her. “I’m getting in the shower. Don’t open the door for anyone.” He paused as though a thought had struck. “Have you ever fired a gun?”

  “No.”

  If she’d said “I like to kill puppies for fun” he couldn’t have looked any more shocked. “You don’t even have one for protection?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve got a baseball bat at home and a can of Mace in my purse.”

  He grimaced and she watched him retrieve the handgun from its holster. “Keep the Mace handy,” he instructed. He bent down and carefully put the gun in her hand, closing his fingers around hers. “This is the safety,” he explained.

  “Yep. I’ve heard of those.” The weapon felt cool and heavy against her palm. Solid.

  “You’re going to take it off, like this,” he said, demonstrating for her benefit. “Then you’re ready to fire.”

  She gulped and her hand began to shake. “You mean, it’s loaded.”

  He smiled, his eyes crinkling around the corners. That smile tugged at something in her belly. He was so close she could smell his cologne again. Yum. “It’s not much use otherwise, is it?”

  “Well, no, but…” She bit her lip. “Do I really need to know this?”

  “You should have already known this,” he told her, censure leaking into his tone. “You need to know how to protect yourself.”

  His advice was definitely ironic, coming from the only man who’d ever truly hurt her, Mia thought. Her heart had felt like it had been put through a wood chipper after he’d gotten through with it. It had taken years to put it back together. But, ultimately, she knew that wasn’t what he was talking about. Point of fact, she’d had friends tell her as much and knew that he was right.

  Better safe than sorry.

  And that was a sentiment she desperately needed to keep in mind over the next few days.

  6

  THOUGH HE’D TAKEN EVERY precaution he could think of, and had scanned the immediate area of the hotel many times, Tanner couldn’t shake the uncomfortable sensation that they were being watched. Call it gut instinct, a premonition or the onset of sudden psychic ability, the end result was always the same.

  Someone was watching them. He could feel it.

  Initially, he had to admit that he’d sort of thought this mission was a joke—certainly there was lots of potential for humor when one was guarding a large, stone penis—but the actual seriousness of the situation suddenly hit him like a ton of bricks.

  Ackerman’s showing up at Mia’s apartment should have been enough of a clue, yet it hadn’t set off the warning bells it had truly warranted. How had Ackerman known where Mia was staying? The address wouldn’t have been in any research the man could have come across. It was Harlan’s apartment, after all. Obviously the reporter had either followed her there or had gotten information from an inside source. The former was more likely, he thought, and the idea of the sneaky little man scuttling furtively behind Mia made his blood boil.

  Yet Mia seemed to regard the older reporter with a strange sort of tolerant fondness, one he admittedly didn’t understand. When he’d asked her about it, she’d insisted that Freddie was enthusiastic, but harmless, that he was more of a nuisance than anything else. But Tanner wasn’t so sure.

  His gaze slid to Mia, who was calmly reading the paper while she sipped her coffee. There was a swanlike grace about her, Tanner noted, in the way she tilted her head, in the smooth economy of movement in her slim hands. A sleepy flush still clung to her cheeks, like rosy porcelain, and contrasted beautifully with her dark, shiny hair. Occasionally she’d read something that made her frown or provoked a slight upturn of her mouth and he found himself suddenly desperate to know what was going on in that head of hers, what had prompted those intriguing expressions. He’d stopped himself twice from asking her what she was thinking—the single most invasive question there ever was, one he’d never felt compelled to ask before—and berated himself for wanting to know. He shouldn’t care, dammit. Ultimately what she thought or didn’t think, didn’t matter. He had a job to do, a life to put back together.

  This morning she’d laced her hair into a single thick braid that hung over her right shoulder and she’d dressed in a clingy bright green shirt that showcased the most beautiful breasts he’d ever seen. Just looking at them made his mouth water, made him want to nose the fabric aside and nuzzle the valley in between.

  She made his blood run hot for another reason altogether, he thought broodingly, and that was no doubt why he’d failed to see the obvious yesterday. How humiliating. He’d had years of training, hours and hours of elite military conditioning and he’d missed something so glaringly obvious because seeing her again had turned him inside out.

  Intellect told him he should call Payne and tell him he needed to get another agent on this case ASAP, that he should excuse himself from the mission at once based on his personal history with Mia. Hell, he should have done it the minute he’d seen her picture. Or better still, when Jamie had tossed him the box of condoms.
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  Unfortunately, intellect was no match for his pride and that substantial ego combined with the genuine fear that they’d fire him, leaving him nowhere to go, kept him from making that call.

  He absolutely could not fail here. Landing this job had been the one thing that had made him feel like he wasn’t the washed-up disgrace his father had accused him of being.

  You’re weak. You disgust me. Your grandfather and I handed you a heritage and you’ve dishonored it.

  Tanner had known when he made the agonizing decision to leave the military that he’d incur his father’s derision, but he hadn’t worried about losing the old man’s good opinion. His lips twisted bitterly. How could you lose what you’d never had in the first place?

  No success—be it in the classroom, on the football field or in the military—had ever been met with a single “atta-boy.” Criticism on the other hand? There’d always been plenty of that to go around.

  In light of his father’s habitual fault-finding, Tanner had always discounted his commentary. But because there was a nugget of truth in this instance, the ridicule had struck a nerve. He’d even avoided contacting his grandfather, afraid that the old man would share his father’s opinion.

  And, ultimately John Crawford’s was the only one that had ever truly mattered.

  Seeing disappointment in his father’s face was nothing new, familiar even. But seeing it in his grandfather’s was another matter altogether and Tanner wasn’t certain he could handle it. He would at some point, of course. He couldn’t forsake his family forever—at least the ones who wanted to see him, like his mother and sister. His grandfather, too, he knew. But Tanner had to admit, he was worried about looking the old man in the eye, was afraid of what he’d see there.

  The same could be said when he looked in the mirror, for that matter.

  Between the shame, the guilt and the nightmares, finding his way back to his former self—if that was even possible—was proving to be damned arduous, much more so than he’d imagined. He’d caught a glimmer of that guy when Colonel Garrett had told him about Ranger Security and knew that this job was an integral part of redefining his purpose.

  That Mia was along for the ride, quite honestly, was a bad piece of luck he could have done without. A reunion in any other circumstances would have been welcome, but now? Troublesome, distracting and potentially disastrous came immediately to mind. As did hot, frantic and cataclysmic.

  Sheesh.

  “What?” Mia asked, in the process of slathering cream cheese onto a toasted bagel.

  Confused, Tanner looked at her. “What do you mean what?”

  “You grunted,” she said.

  So he had, but he hadn’t spoken. He arched a baffled brow.

  “What did it mean?”

  Mean? He still wasn’t following. “The grunt?”

  “Yes,” she said, slightly exasperated. She opened a small tub of strawberry jam and smeared it on top of the cream cheese. “It sounded fatalistic, a little disgusted.”

  Tanner chuckled. “You got all of that from a grunt?”

  “Men articulate more through grunts, groans and growls than through actual language. Much like apes,” she added, hiding her smile behind her coffee cup. “That grunt could have meant anything from ‘Damn, I missed Baywatch last night’ to ‘Pity no one has discovered a cure for cancer.’”

  Tanner smothered a grin. “I’ll put your mind at ease then. I wasn’t thinking either one of those thoughts. Like apes,” he muttered with an eye roll, once again struck by her bizarre sense of humor. “Tell me something,” he said. “Have you ever noticed Ackerman following you before? Seen him hanging around Harlan’s apartment?”

  She mulled it over. “No, not that I’ve noticed.”

  “Had you ever told him where you were staying?”

  Her gaze sharpened. “No, definitely not.”

  “Could he have found out through anyone close to you? Your assistant, perhaps? Other employees working the exhibit?”

  A frown knitted her brow. “I can’t imagine that anyone working the exhibit, my personal assistant included, would give out that kind of information about me. Sophie and the others were staying at a hotel near the museum and it was common knowledge among staff that I was staying at Harlan’s. But none of them would have any reason to divulge that information.” Her keen gaze searched his. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because Ackerman found you there yesterday,” Tanner told her. “How did he know you were there? Did someone tip him off or did he follow you?”

  From the look on her face, neither scenario was pleasing. “If I had to guess, I’d say he followed me,” Mia finally said. She glanced out the window and froze, a strange look capturing her face.

  “Something wrong?” Tanner asked, going on instant alert.

  She continued to peer out the window, then turned to look at him, her expression not readily readable. “No,” she said, still frowning. “I thought I saw my fath—” She shook her head, dismissing whatever idea had taken root there. “I’m being ridiculous. Never mind,” she told him. “Back to Ackerman. It’s possible that he went to the hotel where the rest of the staff were booked and watched enough to know that I wasn’t with them, but…”

  Tanner scanned the parking lot, looking for whatever Mia had thought she’d seen. The lot was empty, the cars unattended. Mildly satisfied, he found her gaze once more. “If he’d gotten Harlan’s name, he could have easily pulled the address. Who on site knows of Ranger Security’s involvement?”

  “Just Ed Thompson, of course, and Sophie.” Her steady gaze found his. “And before you even suggest it, I trust both of them implicitly.”

  The museum had run their own extensive background checks and had cleared each worker. Then Ranger Security had performed an even deeper search. But there was only so much information that could be found through the usual channels. While a good check could paint a picture of a person’s life, character and immediate circumstances, motivation could be sadly lacking and unfortunately, that’s the sort of information they needed. Ramirez was a collector who thought the statue should be rightfully his—his interest was explainable. But Ackerman?

  Furthermore, Ramirez was too smart to act himself. His M.O. was to have dispensable henchmen in place who, for a price, would be willing to risk imprisonment. Those shadowy figures were the ones Tanner needed to identify, to run background checks on because ultimately, they were the direct threat.

  The Head of Security seemed solid enough, but Sophie hadn’t come across as reliable, in his opinion. Eager? Yes. Even competent. But she had an unmistakable lack of maturity that he found a bit worrisome. It was entirely possible that she’d unintentionally let something slip to Ackerman. Whether the old reporter was a part of the threat or merely being used as a pawn based on his explainable proximity to the exhibit, her potential lack of discretion was still a problem.

  Given Mia’s mulish expression, that was an opinion he was going to keep to himself.

  Finished eating, she set her fork aside. “Listen, Tanner. I know you’re doing your job, but I trust my people. And as far as the rest of the staff is concerned, the dummy statue is the real McCoy. They’re transporting it with as much care as they’ve always done.”

  That still didn’t explain why Ackerman had come to her apartment. Why he’d been so determined to follow her. Was the man really that intuitive, or had he been tipped off in some capacity?

  “Then why did Ackerman want to follow you?” he asked, voicing his thoughts. “By your reasoning, he should be following the exhibit.”

  She paled. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

  Tanner felt his muscles clench. He should have thought of it much sooner. And there was something else he should have thought of, as well, he realized as the back of his neck prickled with that same sense of uneasiness he’d been feeling all damned morning.

  He swore. “Time to resume our happy lovers role,” he announced as he tossed some cash onto the table.

&nbs
p; Her eyes widened. “What? Why?”

  He slid out of the booth, grabbing the backpack in the process, then offered Mia his hand. He leaned in and pressed a kiss to her cheek, felt the touch sizzle to the soles of his feet. “Because I’m 99.9 percent certain that we’re being watched. And I’m even more certain that there’s a GPS device somewhere under the car.”

  MIA GASPED. A GPS device under the car? How? When? What the hell? Her mind whirling, Tanner slung an arm over her shoulder and herded her through the small lobby of the hotel. From the corner of her eye, she watched him covertly scan the room. Tension and irritation vibrated off his powerful frame, making her acutely aware of his sudden displeasure. He leaned over, smiled as though imparting a private thought and whispered into her ear. “Wait until we get into the car before you start firing questions at me, okay, Bossy? I know it’s killing you, but you’ll make it. Now giggle flirtatiously and grab my ass.”

  He said it with such authority that her first reaction was to obey. She’d actually dropped her palm and was on the verge of doing exactly what she’d been told until what he’d said fully registered. She fisted her hand instead and mentally cursed herself.

  She smiled up at him and batted her lashes. “Rot in hell.”

  The wretch actually grinned, then shrugged. “It was worth a shot.”

  “You’re insufferable.”

  “I think you’re a wonderful lover, too,” Tanner said in a tone that carried, much to her mortification. “You rocked my world so hard last night, I think I’m going to have to nickname you The Quake.” He opened the car door for her and she felt his gaze slide over her breasts. Her thighs, damn them, quivered.

  Mia snorted. “And I suppose I should nickname you The Noodle because of your limp—”

  His expression gratifyingly horrified, he gave her a gentle shove, toppling her into the car. Then he shut the door before she could finish.

  Mia was shaking with silent laughter when he slid behind the wheel. “Sorry,” she said, the apology automatic.

  “No, you’re not, you liar. You’re quite pleased with yourself.” He took stock of the parking lot, adjusted the mirrors, then backed away from the curb and aimed the car toward the exit.