Tears of the Renegade Read online

  “I’m sorry, but that’s the way I feel! Please, just leave me alone! I don’t have anything else you want, anyway; you’ve already got my stock and my vote.” She pushed past him, ducking her head to keep from looking at him. She just watched her feet, mentally commanding them to function. She left the building, and the hot Mississippi sun burned down on her, blinding her momentarily with its brilliance. She blinked and fumbled in her purse for her sunglasses, finally extracting them and sliding them on her nose. The sun felt good on her chilled skin, she noticed dimly. She would go home and sit on the patio in the sun, and sleep if she could. That was the most ambitious plan she could make at the moment, with her mind so dulled by pain.

  She drove home slowly, carefully. Emily, bless her, didn’t ask any unnecessary questions. Moving like an automaton, Susan shed her dress and slip, and peeled the hot panty hose away from her legs. The freedom afforded her by an old pair of shorts that she usually wore only while gardening, and a plain white sleeveless blouse with the tails tied in a knot at her midriff, made her breathe easier for the first time in days. It was over. She had lost more than anyone else, but she could rest now.

  She pulled a chaise longue out into the full strength of the sun and lay down, letting the heat begin the healing process in her exhausted body. Her eyelids each weighed a thousand pounds; she was unable to keep them up, and after a moment she stopped trying. She dozed in the sun, her mind blank.

  Emily woke her once with an offering of iced tea, which Susan accepted gratefully. The chill was gone now, and she felt pleasantly hot, her skin damp with perspiration. She drank the tea, then turned over on her stomach and slept again. During the worst of the heat Emily came out and pulled the big patio umbrella into position to shield Susan, then went back in to finish the chores Cord had set for her.

  Susan awoke late in the afternoon and wandered in to eat the light salad and stuffed tomato that Emily had prepared. Her eyes were still heavy, and she yawned in spite of everything she could do to prevent it.

  “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m still so tired.”

  Emily patted her arm. “Why don’t you go watch the evening news? Just put your feet up and relax.”

  “That’s exactly what I’ve been doing for hours,” Susan sighed, but it was still an outstanding idea.

  It was inevitable that she’d go to sleep in front of the television. Her last memory was of a stalled low-pressure system on the weather map.

  She was stiff when she woke, and she stretched leisurely, trying to ease the kinks out of her back and legs. Her lashes fluttered open, and she stared straight into Cord’s eyes.

  With renewed energy she sat up abruptly. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, her eyes wide, the haunted look creeping back into them.

  “Waiting for you to wake up,” he returned calmly. “I didn’t want to startle you. Now I’m going to do exactly what I wanted to do the first time I saw you.”

  She pressed herself back into the corner of the couch, watching him warily as he approached and leaned over her. “What was that?”

  “Throw you over my shoulder and carry you off.” He gripped one of her wrists, gave a gentle tug, and to her astonishment she found herself being hoisted over his shoulder. He settled her comfortably, one arm locked around her legs to hold her steady, while he patted her bottom with the other hand.

  Dizzily she grabbed at his belt loops to anchor herself. “Put me down!” she gasped; then, as he moved deliberately around the room, switching off the television, turning off the lights, she said, “What are you doing?”

  “You’ll see.”

  It wasn’t until he carried her outside into the warm, fragrant night air that she began to struggle, kicking futilely against the band of his arm. “Let me down! Where are you taking me?”

  “Away,” he answered simply, his boots crunching on the gravel of the drive. In an effort to see Susan braced her arms on his back and raised herself, looking over her shoulder. His Blazer was sitting there, and he opened the door, then very gently lifted her off his shoulder and placed her on the seat.

  “Emily packed your clothes,” he informed her, leaning in to kiss her sweetly astonished mouth. “I’ve already put them in the Blazer. Everything’s taken care of, and all you have to do is ride. I still have that blanket in the back, if you’d rather sleep,” he finished huskily, his tone telling her how clearly he remembered the last time he had used it.

  Susan sat in dazed astonishment as he shut the door and walked around to the driver’s side. He was really kidnapping her, with Emily’s cheerful aid! She supposed she should feel more indignant, but she still felt slow and drowsy, and it just didn’t seem worth the effort to protest.

  When he slid under the steering wheel, she asked quietly, “How did you know I wouldn’t try to run while you went around to get in?”

  “Two reasons.” He started the motor and shifted into Reverse, turning to look over his shoulder as they backed up. “One, you’re too smart to waste what little energy you have in a useless effort.” He braked, then changed to first gear and smoothly let out the clutch, his powerful legs working. “Two, you love me.”

  His logic was iron-clad. She did love him, even though she was still trying to deal with the hurt he’d inflicted. She supposed that she could best describe her feelings as those of being ill-used, shuffled about with little regard in the high-stakes game he and Preston had been playing.

  Cord slanted her a searching look. “No fervent denials?”

  “No. I’m not a liar.”

  The simple dignity of her statement, coupled with her listlessness, shook him to the core. She loved, but without hope. He felt as if a flame that had been given into his care was flickering on the brink of extinction, and it would take tender nurturing to bring it back to full strength. His first thought, when she’d left the office earlier in the day, had been to give her time, let her rest and recover her strength, but as the day wore on he’d been seized by an urgent need to do something, to bring her back into the circle of his arms where she belonged. His arrangements had been hurriedly made, as he swept all obstacles and protests out of his path.

  He’d thought she would sleep, but she sat very still and erect in the seat, her eyes on the highway. When he’d gone past every destination that she’d guessed, she finally asked, “Where are you taking me?”

  “To the beach,” he answered promptly. “You’re going to do nothing but eat, sleep, and lie in the sun until you gain back the weight you’ve lost and lose those smudges under your eyes.”

  Susan pondered his answer for a moment, since they were evidently not going to the stretches of beach that she was familiar with. She sighed. “What beach?”

  He laughed aloud, a rare sound. “I’ll narrow it down to Florida for you. Does that help?”

  She did sleep, finally, before they reached their destination. In the early hours of the morning Cord pulled the Blazer up to a darkened beach house and put his hand on her shoulder to gently shake her awake.

  The house was right on the beach, and the luminescent Gulf stretched out before her as far as she could see. The white sand of the Florida panhandle looked like snow in the faint starlight. When she climbed from the Blazer, the constant wind off the Gulf lifted her hair, bringing with it the scent of the ocean mingled with the fresher scent of rain.

  It was a basic Florida beach house, built of whitewashed cement blocks, with large windows and low ceilings. Following Cord as he moved through the house turning on the lights, she saw a small, cheerful kitchen in yellow and white, a glass table in an alcove, with a ceiling fan above it, and a living room with white wicker furniture; then Cord led her to a small white-painted bedroom. He brought in the single suitcase Emily had packed for her and placed it at the foot of the bed.

  “Your bathroom is through there,” he said, indicating a door opening off the bedroom. “I’ll be in the room straight across the hall, if you need me for anything.”

  Of all the thing