Renegade (5 page)

“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.”

“Y
OU 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 her self.

“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.

“I went right into the army afterward, from one special ops assignment to another. Occasionally I did jobs in concert with other governments. When I got out of the army, I went
freelance. I had nothing to live for and nothing to lose, and I got rich.” He stiffened. “I didn't need anybody in the old days. I was hard as nails. Funny, nobody tells you that there are things you can't live with, until you've already done them.”

Her soft hand reached up to his lean, scarred cheek, and traced it tenderly. “You're still there,” she said quietly, and her eyes had an eerie paleness as they met his reluctant ones. “You're trapped in your own past. You can't get out, because you can't let go of the pain and the hatred and the bitterness.”

“Can you?” he shot right back. “Can you forgive your attacker?”

She let out a soft breath. “Not yet,” she confessed. “But I've tried. And at least I've learned to put it in the back of my mind. For a long time, I hated the whole world and then Rory came to live with me. And I realized that I had to put him first and stop dwelling on the past. I can't let go of it completely, but it's not as much a burden as it was when I was younger.”

He traced her eyebrows with a lean forefinger. “I've never spoken of this to anyone. Ever.”

“I'm a clam,” she replied gently. “At work, I'm everyone's confidant.”

“Same here,” he confessed with a light smile. “I tell them that governments would topple if I told what I know. Maybe they would, too.”

“My secrets aren't that important. Feel better?” she asked, smiling up at him.

He sighed. “In fact, I do,” he said, surprised. He chuckled. “Maybe you're a witch,” he mused, “putting spells on me.”

“I had an uncle who said our family came from Druids in ancient Ireland. Of course, he also said we had relatives who were priests and one who was a horse thief.” She laughed. “He
hated my mother and tried to get custody of me when I was ten. He died of a heart at tack that same year.”

“Tough break.”

“My life has been one long tough break,” she replied. “Sort of like yours. We've both been through the wars and survived.”

“You don't have my memories,” he said quietly.

“You might think of bad memories like boils,” she commented, not totally facetiously. “They get worse until you lance them.”

“Not mine, honey.”

Her eyebrows lifted. She was fascinated by the endearment, uttered in that soft, deep tone. She colored a little. Odd, because she hated that word when it was tossed around by a parade of would-be lovers who used it like a weapon against her femininity.

He lifted a single eyebrow and looked roguish. “You like that, do you?” he drawled. “And you know that I don't use endearments as a rule, too, don't you?”

She nodded. “I know a lot of things about you that I shouldn't.”

His chin lifted and he looked down his long, straight nose at her. “I only
thought
you were dangerous in Jacobsville. Now I know you are.”

She grinned. “Glad you noticed.”

He laughed and let her go. “Come on. We're going to qualify as an exhibit if we stand here much longer.” He held out his hand.

She cocked her head. “Is that the only body part you're offering me?” she asked, and then colored wildly when she realized what she'd just said.

He burst out laughing, linking her fingers with his. “Don't
be pushy,” he chided. “We haven't even had a torrid petting session yet.”

She cleared her throat. “Don't get your hopes up. I have a prudish nature.”

“It won't last long around me.”

“I call that conceit.”

“You won't when you see me in action,” he teased, and his fingers contracted. His voice dropped as he leaned closer. “I know twelve really good positions, and I'm as slow as the blues in bed. If I weren't so modest, I could even give you references. I am a sensual experience that you'd never forget.”

“And so modest,” she teased.

“A man with my skills can do without modesty,” he murmured wickedly.

She wouldn't admit it, but the prospect made her utterly breathless. He saw that in her face. The smile grew broader.

 

T
HEY HAD LUNCH
in a Japanese restaurant, where Tippy and Rory were fascinated to hear Cash converse fluently with the waiter. He was competent with chopsticks, too.

“I didn't know you spoke Japanese,” Tippy ex claimed. “Have you been to Japan?”

“Several times,” he replied, lifting a piece of chicken to his mouth with the chopsticks. “I love it there.”

“Do you speak any other languages, Cash?” Rory wanted to know.

“About six, I think,” he replied lazily. He smiled at the boy's fascination. “If you ever want to get into intelligence work, languages will get you further than a law degree.”

“No, you don't,” Tippy told Rory when he started to open his mouth. “You're going to get a nice job as a computer technician and get married and have a family.”

Rory glared at her. “I'll get married when you do.”

Cash chuckled.

“Better yet,” Rory added, “I'll get married when
he
does,” and he pointed to Cash.

“I wouldn't take that bet,” Cash advised Tippy.

“Neither would I,” she had to admit.

He glanced at her curiously, but he didn't smile. In fact, he was feeling sensations he'd never experienced in his life, and getting a vicious case of cold feet. This woman made him want things, need things, that he feared more than bullets. He ached to take her to bed, and it was becoming obvious that she would let him. It was a prospect that made his head swim. He could al most picture having that perfect body under his on crisp sheets, feeling her long legs curling around him, her full lips clinging to his mouth. She knew nothing about consensual sex, she'd said, but he could teach her. He had plenty of experience, plenty of skill, and he could introduce her to a veritable feast of physical pleasure. In fact, he was dying to do just that. Could she see it? Did she know?

Her eyes were full of delight in his company. She might be second cousin to a virgin, but she certainly had the intelligence to see desire in a man's face, as well as in his body. Of course she knew. He felt trapped.

He forced himself not to look at her while he tried to decide what to do next. Coming to New York, he told himself angrily, had been a bad idea. He needed to get out, while there was still time.

 

H
IS CHANGE OF ATTITUDE
was all too evident to Tippy, who was suddenly very sensitive to nuances of expression in his hard, lean face.

She withdrew as well. She was polite and cheerful, but the same distance that was in Cash now was also in her.

They went back up to her apartment, where a boy about
Rory's age was standing at the door, ringing the bell impatiently. He turned at the approach of the others.

“Hey, Rory! Mom says she'll take us to see that new fantasy flick, and you can spend the night!” He glanced at Tippy and Cash and grimaced. “I guess you won't want to, though, since you've got company…”

“Oh, Cash isn't company, Don, he's family,” Rory said without hesitation, completely unaware of the expression on Cash's face. “I'd love to go! Can I, sis?”

Don Hartley and his family lived next door, and they knew about Tippy's troubles with her mother. They'd never let Rory out of their sight.

She hesitated. “Well…” she began.

“I'll bet Cash is dying to take you out somewhere fancy, just the two of you,” Rory prompted. “And you won't even have to bribe me!”

Cash burst out laughing. “We could go to the ballet,” he said. “I, uh, have tickets. I didn't know if you'd want to go…”

“I love ballet,” she said huskily. “I wanted to study it when I was a child, but…I never had the opportunity.” She looked back at Don. “Okay, he can go. Just until breakfast, though. I won't get to have him around for very long, because we start shooting again the day after New Year's.”

“You're joking!” Cash exclaimed.

“I'm not. The producer told us that his director has to start shooting a new film in Europe in March, so he's in a hurry to get this one in the can.” She sighed.

“You'll get bruised even more,” Rory groaned.

She shrugged. “What can I say?” she asked, and then grinned. “I'm a star!”

 

R
ORY PACKED
an overnight bag and went next door. Cash returned to his hotel to change into a suit, while Tippy went
grasping through her entire wardrobe looking for just the right dress. She'd only found it when Cash was at the door again.

She caught her breath at the sight of him in evening clothes, with a spotless white shirt and black tie, finely creased trousers and shoes so polished that they reflected the ceiling. His hair was loose at his neck, slightly wavy and jet-black. He looked devastatingly handsome.

“You're going in a housecoat, then?” he asked, nod ding.

She pulled it closer. “I was looking for the right dress.”

He checked his watch. “You've got five minutes to find it,” he pointed out. “I have reservations at the Bull and Bear for six o'clock.”

Her jaw fell. “That's one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city…”

“At the Waldorf-Astoria,” he added for her. “I know. The ballet starts at eight. I'm ready. If you're not going in that—” he indicated the ankle-length blue housecoat “—you'd better get cracking.”

She left a vapor trail getting into her bedroom.