Renegade by Diana Palmer Read Free Book Online Page B

don’t trust me enough.”
    He rammed his hands into his slacks pockets and glared down at her. “I was married once, years ago. I was in love for the first time in my life and crazy to share everything with my wife. She’d just told me she was pregnant. I was over the moon. I wanted to tell her all about my life before I married her.” His eyes grew cold. “So I did. She sat and listened. She was very calm. She didn’t say a word. She just listened, as if she understood. She was a little pale, but that wasn’t surprising. I did horrible things in my line of work. Really terrible.” He turned away from her. “I had to go out of town on business for a few days. She saw me off very naturally, no fuss. I came back with little presents for her and some thing for the baby, even though she was only a few weeks along. She met me at the door with her suit cases.”
    He leaned forward against the banister. He didn’t look at her while he spoke. “She told me that she’d gone to a clinic while I was away. She’d seen a lawyer, too. Just before she walked out the door, she told me that she wasn’t bringing the child of a cold-blooded killer into the world.”
    Tippy had thought there was something traumatic in his past, besides his work. Now she understood what it was. The hunger he displayed for Judd and Christabel’s twins made sense now. She could almost feel his pain, as if it were her own. She was deeply flattered that he trusted her with something so intimate.
    â€œNo comment?” he drawled poisonously, without looking down at her.
    â€œWas she very young?” she asked softly.
    â€œShe was my age.”
    She lowered her eyes to his hands on the steel rail. He wasn’tshowing any emotion at all, but his knuckles were white from the pressure he was exerting on the bar.
    â€œI 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?”
    â€œRory’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.
    â€œMy 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.”
    â€œI don’t believe in clairvoyance,” he said stiffly. “It’s a myth.”
    â€œMaybe 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 trans parent 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.
    â€œNow 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.