The Renegade

by J. R. Ward

  “I’ve finally figured out that I’m angry at you and frustrated with myself. And I’ve felt this way for a while.”

  In the silence, she stared at his familiar face, studying the cheeks and the eyes and the forehead and the silver hair.

  Then she looked at his left earlobe. Seeing the little gold hoop he’d worn triggered a memory of something that had happened in the beginning of their marriage.

  Reese had decided on his fiftieth birthday to get his ear pierced. He’d wanted to get a tattoo, probably because Alex had one, but he’d been smart enough to admit that getting some ink was probably a little too hard-core for him.

  The two of them had gone to a suburban mall, to a Claire’s boutique. He’d sat down on the stool, acting all macho and flirting with the woman who was going to do the deed. It was all kicks and giggles until she got out the piercing gun. One look at that thing and Reese broke out in a cold sweat. The excuses had started rolling, and before Cass had known what was happening, they were back out in the mall.

  As they’d returned to Manhattan, he was unusually quiet in the car, and when they got home, he’d gone into his study. He’d come to bed very late and had woken her up, distraught. He’d wanted to try the piercing again. First thing in the morning.

  Calming him down had taken some time and it had taken even longer before he could tell her what was wrong. He’d been worried that she wouldn’t think he was strong enough to take care of her. Just because he’d balked at the boutique. She’d tried to reassure him, but he’d had none of it.

  The next day they’d gone back to Claire’s, and he’d come out of there with a stud in his lobe. Even though he’d trembled all the way through it.

  She thought about the will he’d drafted. She was more than taken care of; he’d left her the bulk of his private estate. And he’d set up things so she had total control of the trusts, so she could have whatever she wanted, whenever.

  Cass frowned, trying to remember what his last words to her had been. He’d called her before he’d set out with Alex that day of the storm. What had she talked about with him? An upcoming party in the Hamptons. Arrangements for a trip to Rome. But there was something else…

  A limerick. He’d given her a limerick. How had it gone?

  There once was a man on a boat,

  Who had the whole ocean to float,

  He went here and there, to find himself something at which to stare,

  When all along what he needed was home.

  He’d laughed and said he didn’t care that the last word didn’t rhyme because he was taking poetic license. Then he’d hesitated. He’d told her he loved knowing she was home and safe because it gave him such peace. And then they’d ended the phone call with what had turned out to be their last goodbyes.

  They had been warm ones, she realized with relief. She’d been touched both by what he’d said and the tentative tone in his voice. He’d known, she realized. He’d known that she was aware of what he was doing. And he’d had regrets.

  Tears pooled and fell, but they were not hard to bear this time.

  Her chest cavity had been swept clean of anger, the dark emotions leaving a calm acceptance in their wake. And that peace gave her the ability to remember other parts of him, other parts of them.

  The fondness. The mutual respect. The caring.

  “Oh, Reese. We tried, didn’t we? And we would have remained friends when we’d split. That much I know.”

  As the grandfather clock chimed behind her, she wiped her face and went to the guest room she’d started staying in about a year ago. She fell into bed and slept for twelve hours.

  Cass woke up hungry, but for some reason all she wanted was eggs. As they were the only thing that appealed, she had seven of them. Fried in butter.

  God, how gross, she thought as she finished the last one and considered having an eighth.

  Marie, her maid and dear family friend, arrived at ten, and Cassandra chatted with the woman for a while before taking a shower. Under the rush of water, the nausea came back, but then what could she expect considering she’d wiped out a henhouse for breakfast?

  As she opened up her walk-in closet and tried to decide what to wear and how to spend the day, she heard a bleating noise from her purse over on the dresser. Her cell phone was ringing.

  She dug it out. “Hello?”

  Doc John’s voice came across loud and clear. “Congratulations! You’re pregnant.”

  Cass took the phone away from her ear and stared at it. Actually thought about shaking the thing a little.

  “Hello?” he said in a tinny reverberation. “Can you hear me?”

  She put the phone back to the side of her head. “I’m sorry, I can’t be pregnant.”

  “You’re going to need to see an obstetrician, and I’d like to call you in a prescription for prenatal vitamins. Also, you have to eat more. Find things you can stomach and start munching. Think high fat, lots of carbs. You need to put on some weight fast.”

  “But you don’t understand, I can’t get pregnant. I’m not pregnant.”

  “You are.”

  Cass thought about the nausea and exhaustion, but couldn’t believe they were tied to a baby. They had to be from some sort of flu. After all, she and Alex had been together only twice, well, three times really. The first of which being only about three weeks ago. So it was way too early for morning sickness—

  Wait a minute. There had been that time right before Christmas. Which was like, what, six weeks ago? Except he hadn’t—

  “Cassandra? Are you still there?”

  “Ah, yes. I think so. I’m not sure.”

  He laughed softly. “Do you have any questions for me?”

  How much time do you have? she thought.

  “I…I’m not up north,” she said, “so don’t bother with the vitamins. I’ll see my doctor today. Uh, thank you.”

  As soon as she hung up, Cass called her own internist who said she could come in at twelve-thirty. When she put the phone down, she went back into the bathroom and dropped the towel. Standing naked before the mirror, she smoothed her hand over her belly.

  What if…

  Her eyesight went blurry.

  She’d thought she’d accepted the fact that she couldn’t have children. She honestly had.

  But now a door that she’d assumed was locked forever had unexpectedly opened. What was on the other side was…high voltage joy, bright and warm as sunlight.

  Okay, now she was really crying.

  Were the weepies another sign of pregnancy? she wondered as she sniffled.

  A baby. She was going to have a—

  Cass thought of Alex.

  Oh, God.

  She closed her eyes, happy tears drying up instantly. What was Alex going to think?

  * * *

  When Cass let herself back into the apartment that afternoon, she said hello to Marie and went straight to her room. It didn’t take her long to pack an overnight bag.

  She was six weeks along. Six weeks pregnant with Alex Moorehouse’s child.

  Somehow that first time they’d been together, enough of him had gotten into her…and biology had taken care of the rest.

  She was driving back to Saranac Lake because it was the only thing to do. News like this was not something you wanted to spring on a man over the phone, and explaining it all was going to be tough. She was pretty sure he was going to be horrified.

  But she wasn’t. She was carrying the baby of the man she loved. So even if she couldn’t have Alex, she would always have a part of him.

  Cass paused while stuffing a flannel nightgown into her Vuitton duffel. Funny, it had never occurred to her that Reese might be the reason she hadn’t gotten pregnant before. The fact that he’d been twenty years younger when his first children had been conceived just hadn’t seemed particularly significant.

  She checked the clock. It was almost two. If she made good time, she’d be up at the lake by six-thirty. She’d stay overnight and come right b
ack.

  She’d been told if she wanted to keep the baby, she better get eating and get some rest. She had every intention of following that prescription to the letter. There was no way in hell she was doing anything to jeopardize the gift she’d been given.

  She told Marie she would be back in the middle of the following day and hurried out of the penthouse. Punching the elevator button, she waited, tapping her foot. She was in a rush to go up to the lake, do the talking and return home.

  The doors opened.

  She staggered back against the wall in the hallway. “Alex…”

  Chapter Twenty

  Alex reached out, thinking Cass was about to faint again. “Are you okay? You’ve gone white as snow.”

  “What—are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you.” He eyed her bag. “Look, you’re obviously going somewhere, but can we talk? I won’t take long.”

  “How did you get to Manhattan?”

  “Spike. He’s waiting downstairs.”

  “Oh, of course.”

  Her eyes latched on to his face and she stared at him in the strangest way. As if he were…he didn’t know what. He couldn’t decide whether her eyes were glassy or reverent.

  “Cassandra? Can we go inside?”

  “Of course. Come in.”

  Alex took a quick look around as he went through the door. He’d never been in their penthouse before and wasn’t surprised it was tricked out like a museum.

  But the decor didn’t interest him because he was focused on Cassandra. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing her parka. As if she were going to the country.

  He knew better than to think she’d be coming to see him and wondered where she was off to. Not asking was killing him, but he reminded himself that it wasn’t his business, even though he wished liked hell it was.

  “Marie,” she called out. A dark-haired woman came around a corner. “Perhaps you’d like to take the rest of the day off?”

  Marie nodded and smiled. “Merci, Madame.”

  Cassandra said something in French to the woman. Then she lifted her hand, indicating an ornate doorway.

  “Let’s sit in here.”

  The room they went into was a nice parlor kind of thing. Silk couches, big view, grand piano.

  God, he hoped he could get through this in one piece.

  Cassandra sat down on a chair, arranging herself as if she were in a ball gown, not slacks and a sweater. Her innate elegance astounded him, drew him, floored him. He was struck by the need to fall to his knees in front of her.

  Instead he did his best to play real man even though he felt as if he was falling apart. He took the couch, stretching his leg out.

  “Alex—”

  “Cassandra—”

  They both shut up.

  He took the lead in ending the silence. “I need to tell you about…Reese. And that night. In the storm. I know you have an idea of what happened, but I want you to know everything.”

  Cassandra went perfectly still.

  “The storm came up on us hard and fast. We’d expected bad weather, but not on that kind of magnitude. No one did. The barometer kept falling and falling and we’d decided to head back to shore when we got caught in the hurricane. We weathered the first hour or so fairly well, but then our mast snapped in half from the wind. Reese went aft to try and cut the sail loose because the gusts were grabbing it and pulling us off keel. He was struck in the shoulder by a loose piece of rigging. I saw him hit the deck, and then a wave came crashing over the bow. He didn’t have his harness on and he couldn’t find anything to hold on to. I scrambled to get to him. I grabbed his safety jacket, but it slipped and then I caught his hand. I…”

  He stammered. Fell silent.

  “Alex?”

  He rubbed his face, bearing the horrible memories with no strength whatsoever. He felt as if he couldn’t breathe.

  “Alex, what is it? What happened?”

  He looked at her. When he spoke, his voice was so thin, it was barely audible to his own ears. “I…killed him.”

  Cassandra’s mouth opened slightly. “What? No, no, you didn’t—”

  He couldn’t bear to look at her because he was afraid he was going to lose it. He put his head in his hands.

  “Cassandra, I let the sea have him. I let him go. I let go…of his hand…I let go of his hand. I let it go…I let go…” He broke down completely, great sobs cutting through his chest, his body. There was no end to the weeping, to the hoarse words that wouldn’t stop coming out of his mouth.

  Eventually he lost his voice and the crying slowed.

  He felt something grip his forearms and then his palms were pulled from his face.

  Cassandra’s green eyes were full of compassion as she stroked his cheeks.

  “Oh, Alex…you couldn’t have kept ahold of him. The wind, the waves, the tossing boat. The Coast Guard told me what it was like. He was taken from you. You didn’t let go.”

  “I did! It happens in my dreams, over and over again. I feel him slipping and…I just let him go.”

  “Shh…it’s all right. I don’t want you to blame yourself. You had no reason to want him dead—”

  “I did. I do.”

  Cassandra recoiled. “But why?”

  He shrugged out of her hold. Got up and went to the window. “He had what I wanted. What I needed. Something I cherished….”

  * * *

  Cass watched Alex as he stood across the room. His back was straight, his legs braced. Against the yawning view of the city, he seemed as rigid as the skyscrapers beyond his broad shoulders.

  “What did you want, Alex? What did he have that you wanted?”

  He turned around. His face was bleak as an Adirondack winter. “You.”

  Cass frowned. Leaned forward a little. “Excuse—What? Me?”

  “I…have…loved you since the first day I saw you. I’ve wanted you, I’ve obsessed about you, I’ve fantasized about you. You…you are my Miracle. I let him go…because I wanted you.”

  His words went into her ears, but her brain couldn’t process them.

  She shook her head. “No, that’s not right. You didn’t like me.”

  “I liked you too much.”

  “You stayed away.”

  “I had no choice.”

  “You…No, you—”

  “I haven’t been with a woman for six years, Cassandra. Because all I saw was you.”

  She rose from the floor. And then thought that sitting on the sofa was a good idea.

  “You didn’t know me.”

  “I didn’t have to. When I saw the sea, I knew it was where I wanted to be. It was the same with you. One look in your eyes and I was lost. I’m like that. I know what I want and where I want to be.”

  Cass released her breath. “But when we were together. You stopped. And then you said only once. You—”

  “I killed your husband. How could I take your body when you didn’t know that?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Except…Oh, God, I did make love to you. And not just once but again and again. I’m sorry. Not that I was with you, but because I wasn’t honest with you.”

  She stared into space, jumbled pictures filtering through her mind.

  “Just so we’re clear,” she said, “I don’t believe you killed him. I think that’s what you fear happened. But I’m willing to bet anything that you held on for dear life and his hand slipped out of yours.”

  “Cassandra—”

  “What was the first thing you did after you felt yourself lose him?”

  “I…I went for the flashlight.”

  “And what did you do with it?”

  “I looked for him.” Alex’s eyes darkened to black. “I searched the waves…for a man in the water. I searched and called out his name and…”

  “And what would you have done if you’d seen him? You would have gone after him, right? That’s why you were looking for him. Because you wanted to save him.” She shook her head. “
Those don’t sound like the actions of a killer to me.”

  Alex opened his mouth. When no words came out, he just nodded. A little.

  “So you didn’t kill him,” Cass said strongly. “No matter what you think you feel for me—”

  “I know what I feel for you. I love you.”

  His face was grim, and his voice reverberated with conviction.

  He honestly did love her.

  Staring up at him, Cass was too stunned to speak. All she could do was look at him.

  Say something, you idiot. The man you love loves you back. Say something.

  Silence stretched out until the air grew tight between them.

  God, she was just stuck. Caught in a morass of disbelief and hesitant, unexpected happiness.

  Alex cleared his throat and started to back up toward the doorway.

  “I’m sorry to dump all this on you,” he said as he headed out. “I just…wanted you to know. I don’t expect you to understand. But I never want to—”

  Say something.

  “I’m pregnant,” she blurted out.

  Well, at least that got him to stop.

  But let’s just make sure he doesn’t go anywhere, she thought.

  Cass burst up off the couch, pounded across the room and threw her whole body around him.

  Alex seemed utterly flabbergasted, but then his arms gripped her. When he would have separated them, she hung on so hard, she heard his neck crack.

  “I love you, Alex. I love you, I love you, I love you…And you’re going to be a daddy.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Sean O’Banyon told his driver to pull over in the seventies on Park Avenue. “I’ll be right back, Joey. Just going up to check on Mrs. Cutler.”

  “Yeah, sure, boss.”

  Sean opened the car door and waited for a hole between taxis that was big enough for him to shoot through. Cass was back in town, evidently. But the only reason he knew it was because he’d called Gray’s after having gotten voice mail for three days straight.

  Something was up and he was damn well going to find out what it was.

  Pulling his dress coat around him, he jogged halfway across Park and paused at the median. That was when he saw the maroon Honda parked in front of Cass’s apartment building with that spiky-haired guy in the driver’s seat.