Renegade

by Diana Palmer

  "No comment?" he drawled poisonously, without looking down at her.

  "Was she very young?" she asked softly.

  "She was my age."

  She lowered her eyes to his hands on the steel rail. He wasn't

  showing any emotion at all, but his knuckles were white from the pressure he was exerting on the bar.

  "I won't step on an insect if I can avoid it," she said quietly. "I would never be able to sleep with a man without using protection unless I loved him. I think a child is part of that."

  His head turned slowly and he looked down at her curiously. "She was right. I was

  a cold-blooded killer," he said flatly. She searched his hard face and her eyes were soft and tender. "I don't believe that." He scowled. "I beg your pardon?" "Rory's commandant told him that you were part of a crack military unit in special

  ops," she said. "You were sent in when negotiations failed, when lives were at stake. So don't try to convince me that you were a hit man for the mob, or that you killed for money. You aren't that sort of person."

  He didn't seem to be breathing. "You know nothing about me," he said abruptly. "My grandmother was Irish. She had the second sight. It's a gift. All the women in my family have it, except for my mother," she added. Her eyes softened on his face. "I know things that I shouldn't know. I feel things before they happen. I've been very worried about Rory lately, because I sense something dangerous connected to him." "I don't believe in clairvoyance," he said stiffly. "It's a myth." "Maybe it is to you. It isn't to me." She glanced around the room, looking for her little brother and picking him out of a crowd looking up at a stuffed coelacanth suspended from the high ceiling of the room. Cash felt violated. He felt as if he'd become transparent with this woman, and he didn't like it. He kept to himself, he kept secrets. He didn't want Tippy walking around inside his brain.

  "Now I've made you angry. I'm sorry," she said gently, without looking at him. "I'm going to the Einstein shop. Rory wants a T-shirt. I'll meet you both in the lobby in an hour or so."

  He caught her hand and tugged her back to him. "No, you won't. We'll go together." He tipped her chin up so that he could see her eyes. "I told Rory once that I value honesty."

  "No, you don't, not if it concerns having anyone else guess about your private life." "I told you about my private life," he replied. He took a slow breath. "I've never told

  anyone else about my child." "I have that kind of face," she said with a tender smile. "Yes, you do." He touched her cheek lightly. "I've got more emotional scars than

  you have, and that's saying something. We're both damaged people. That being the case, it would be insane of us to get involved with one another. So that's not going to happen."

  Her eyes became shy, curious. "You would.. .you've thought about...getting involved with me?" She asked the question as if she didn't believe what she'd heard.

  That it flattered her was obvious. He was surprised. He hadn't thought she felt attracted to him. It would be difficult for her, with her past.

  "With your past..." he murmured aloud.

  She moved a step closer to him. It made her breathless. "You're forgetting something. You're a cop." "And that's why you're not afraid of me?" he murmured. He was feeling a little breathless himself at her proximity. She smelled like flowers. One perfect shoulder lifted nervously. "Judd Dunn was a Texas Ranger. I felt safe with him." "Are you making a point?"

  She nibbled her lower lip and her high cheekbones flushed a little. "I don't

  feel.. .safe...with you, exactly. You stir me up inside. I feel...shaky. I feel swollen all

  over. I think about touching you, all the time. I keep wondering," she whispered

  while they were briefly isolated from the other visitors, "how it would feel if you

  kissed me."

  He couldn't believe she'd said that. But her eyes were saying it, too. She seemed

  almost dazed.

  His lean hands contracted a little roughly, pulling her up closer to the long,

  heated, muscular length of his fit body. He felt her breath catch. His dark eyes

  dropped to her full lips. "I think about touching you, too, Tippy," he said deep in his

  throat. His thumbs edged out under her arms, tracing just at the curve of her full

  breasts. His mouth hovered inches from hers. His breath was warm, minty. "I think

  about the silky feel of your skin against my chest. I think about breaking your

  mouth open under mine and tasting you, inside, with my tongue."

  Tippy gasped. Her body trembling. She leaned her forehead against his chest while

  she tried to breathe normally. Her nails bit into his chest. "Cash," she groaned.

  His thumbs became insistent. Desire coursed through him like a great flood. He felt himself going rigid, losing control. He thought about stepping back, but her hips moved just faintly and he shuddered at the lash of pleasure he felt.

  She looked up, surprised by the immediate response of his body. She knew why men's bodies grew hard like that, but it had always been repugnant to her before. Now, it was fascinating, glorious. Her lips parted as she searched his stormy eyes. He wanted her!

  She started to move again, desperate to please him, but his hands suddenly dropped to her slender hips and grasped them roughly.

  "If you do that again," he said through his teeth, "there's going to be a whole new definition of public exhibition, and we're both going to figure in it prominently."

  "Oh. Oh!" She swallowed hard, looking around with embarrassing color. Fortunately, nobody seemed to be watching.

  He put her completely away and straightened, reciting multiplication tables in his head to divert his thoughts. It had been a long dry spell, but even so, his reaction to Tippy was unsettling.

  She was feeling something similar. She'd gone from frigid apprehension to passionate anticipation in the space of seconds. Suddenly, all she could think about was a bed, with Cash in the middle of it. She could almost picture that powerful body without clothes...

  She made a faint sound and couldn't have looked at Cash to save her life.

  He couldn't help the soft chuckle that escaped his tight throat. She was an open book. It was flattering to know that he could arouse her with such innocent love play. She stirred him up, too, but he didn't trust her. Or did he? He'd never told another living soul about his wife.

  As if seeking comfort, her beautifully manicured hands went to his shirt and pressed there, unsteadily. She kept a discreet distance between her body and his. She didn't dare look up at him. She'd never felt so insecure, so shy. She'd never felt so happy or so...stimulated.

  His big hands caught her tiny waist and pressed there. Around them, people were moving, talking, laughing. But they were alone in the world. It was a sensation Cash could never remember feeling in his life.

  "I could hurt you," he bit off. "And I don't mean physically. I'm a bad risk. I'm

  too used to my own space. I don't share. I don't...feel much emotion anymore."

  He sounded vulnerable. She was fascinated. Her soft green eyes looked up into his

  turbulent dark ones and it was like lightning striking. She actually caught her breath,

  and it was audible. "I'm feeling things I never dreamed I could."

  His hands jerked on her waist. His teeth clenched. "It would be suicide!" he said roughly. She remembered a line from a book, and her eyes were brilliant as she whispered, with faint amusement, "Well, do you want to live forever?" It broke the tension. He laughed. Her face was radiant. "I didn't know if I could be with a man, even a few days ago," she confessed huskily. "But I'm almost sure I could be with you. I know I could!" Now he looked fascinated, too. He studied her in a rapt silence. 'To what end, Tippy?" he asked after a minute. Her mind wasn't working. Her body felt bruised with need. "End?" she said blankly. His chest rose and fell. "I do not want to get married again," he said flatly. "Period."

  Her eyes widened and she realized wha
t she'd been insinuating. She had just enough wit left to spare herself any more embarrassment. "Now, just you wait a minute, buster," she said, "that was not a proposal of marriage. I hardly know you. Can you cook and clean house? Do you know how to keep a checkbook? Can you darn a sock? And what about shopping in the mall? I absolutely could never think seriously about a man who didn't like to shop!"

  He blinked twice, deliberately, and twisted his ear. "Could you say that again?" he asked politely. "I think my brain took a brief recess..."

  "Besides all that, I have high standards for a prospective husband, and you aren't even in the running yet," she continued, unabashed. "Stop rushing your fences, Grier. You're only on probation here."

  His dark eyes twinkled. "Ooookay," he drawled.

  She pulled away from him with a toss of her head. "Don't get a swelled head just because I agreed to go out with you. And remember that we have a chaperone, so don't get any ideas."

  He began to smile. "Okay."

  She frowned. "Do you know any two-syllable words?"

  He grinned wickedly and started to speak.

  "Don't you dare say it!"

  His eyebrows arched.

  "I know you don't believe I can read minds, but I just read yours, and if I were your mother, I'd wash your mouth out with soap!" The reference to his mother wiped the smile off his face and made him introspective.

  She grimaced. "Sorry. I'm really sorry. I shouldn't have said that."

  He frowned. "Why?"

  She avoided his eyes and moved toward a skeleton in a case. "I know about your mother. Crissy told me." He was utterly silent. "When?" "After you made me cry," she confessed, not liking the memory. "She told me it

  wasn't personal, that you just didn't like models. And she told me why." He rammed his hands deep into the pockets of his slacks. Terrible memories were eating at him. She turned and looked up at him. "You can't forget it, can you, after all those years?

  Hatred is an acid, Cash. It eats you up inside. And the only person it hurts is you."

  "You'd know," he said curtly.

  "Yes, I would," she said, not taking offense. "I know how to hate. I had the living

  hell beaten out of me, so that I was in such pain that I couldn't even fight back. I was

  bruised and bleeding, and afterward I was raped over and over again, screaming for

  help that never came, while my own mother..." She swallowed hard and averted her

  eyes.

  He was sick to his stomach, looking at her, feeling her pain. "Somebody should have killed him," he said in a flat, emotionless tone. "Our next-door neighbor was a cop," she said huskily. "I've always thought he might be my real father, because he was always looking out for me. He heard the screams

  and came running—fortunately, it was his night off. He arrested Stanton and my mother and had them both carried off to jail. He took me to juvenile hall himself. He was so kind to me." She swallowed hard. "Everyone was kind. But my mother could talk her way out of murder, and so could Stanton when he really tried. I knew they'd find a way to get me back, and I'd have preferred death. So I sneaked out past a sleeping guard and took off."

  "Did they look for you?" he asked.

  "Apparently, but Cullen covered my tracks and he had enough money to keep me safe. I was made legally his ward when I was fourteen, and my mother wasn't stupid enough to try to take me away from him. He knew certain people in dangerous professions," she added—with a wry smile at him—because he certainly fitted the category. "He had a friend who used to be big in mob circles, Marcus Carrera. He's legitimate now. He has ca

  sinos down in the Bahamas and elsewhere, and he and Cullen were partners in a venture of some sort. He's really reformed in recent years, although his reputation is enough to keep most people from making trouble for him."

  "Carrera's not gay. I know him myself," Cash mused. "He's a decent sort, for a former gangster."

  "Anyway, Cullen told my mother that if she made any attempt to regain custody of me, he'd have a talk with Marcus. She knew about his reputation. She never tried to get custody of Rory, after that."

  "Do you see her?"

  She folded her arms across her chest. "No. I don't see her or talk to her, except through my attorney. But the last I heard she was down to her last dime and talking about the tabloids again." She looked up at him. "I'm just starting in a new career. I can't afford to have my name splattered all over in such a way that it would adversely affect my ability to work. Mud sticks. I could lose everything, including Rory, if she started talking about my past. She has nothing to lose."

  CHAPTER FOUR

  "You DON'T KNOW ME YET," Cash told her quietly. "But I hope you know that I'd do anything I could for you and Rory. All you have to do is call and ask."

  She studied him worriedly. "It wouldn't be fair to involve you," she began.

  "I have no family," he said flatly. "Nobody, in all the world."

  "But you do," she protested. "I mean, you told me that you have brothers and that your father's still alive..." His face hardened. "Except for Garon, my oldest brother, I haven't seen my other brothers or my father in years," he replied. "My father and I don't speak."

  "And you and your brothers?" she pressed.

  His eyes were dark and troubled. "Only Garon," he repeated. "He came to see me a few weeks ago. He did say that the others wanted to bury the hatchet."

  "So you're on speaking terms, at least."

  "You could call it that."

  Her thin brows came together. "You don't forgive people, do you?"

  He wouldn't look at her. He wouldn't answer her, either. He turned his attention to the skeleton they were standing in front of.

  "She must have been a very special person, your mother," she ventured.

  "She was quiet and gentle, shy with strangers. She loved to quilt, crochet and knit." He sounded as if the words were being torn from him. "She wasn't beautiful, or exciting. My father met the junior league model at a cattle show, where they were filming a fashion revue at the same time. He went crazy for her. My mother couldn't compete. He was cruel to her, because she was in his way. She found out that she had cancer, and she didn't tell anybody. She just gave up." His eyes closed. "I stayed with her in the hospital. I wouldn't even go to school, and my father stopped trying to make me. I was holding her hand when she died. I was nine years old."

  She didn't even think about other people around them. She turned and put her arms around him, pressing close. "Go ahead," she whispered at his throat. "Tell me." He hated this weakness. He hated it! But his arms closed around her slender body. The offer of comfort was irresistible. He'd held it inside for so long...

  He sighed at her ear, his breath harsh and warm. "He had his mistress at the funeral, at my mother's funeral," he said coldly. "She hated me, and I hated her. She'd conned two of my three brothers, and they were crazy about her and furious with me because I wouldn't let her near me. I saw right through her. I knew she was only after Dad's property and his wealth. So to get even, she threw out all my mother's things and told my father that I'd called her terrible names and that I'd make my father get rid of her."

  He drew in a long breath. "The result was predictable. I guess, but I never saw it

  coming. He sent me away to military school and refused to even let me come home

  at the holidays until I apologized for being rude to her." He laughed coldly, his arms

  hurting around her slender body, but she never protested. "Before,I left, I told him that

  I'd hate him until my dying day. And that I'd never set foot in his house again."

  "He must have seen through her eventually," she prompted.

  His arms loosened, just a little. "When I was twelve," he replied, "he caught her in

  bed with one of his friends and kicked her out. She sued him for everything he had.

  That was when she told him that she'd lied about me, to get me out of the way. She

  laughed about it. She lost
the lawsuit, but she'd cost him his oldest son. She rubbed it

  in, to get even."

  "How did you know?"

  "He wrote me a letter. I refused to answer his phone calls. He said he was sorry, that

  he wanted me to come home. That he missed me."

  "But you wouldn't go," she guessed, almost to herself.

  "No. I wouldn't. I told him I'd never forgive him for what he did to my mother and not to contact me again. I told him if he wouldn't pay to let me stay in the school, I'd work for my keep, but I wasn't going back to live with him." He closed his eyes, remembering the pain and grief and fury he'd felt that day. "So I stayed in military school, made good grades, got promotions. When I graduated, they said he was in the audience, but I never saw him.