RENEGADE'S REDEMPTION Page 13

  Her glance followed the suitcase. She bit her lip.

  “I know, I know. I’m a skunk and a devil and an all-round son of a gun, but the Fourth of July comes only once a year and Tommy said he’d never been to one, and…” Royal was running out of diversions. He felt like throwing up his hands and telling Tommy he’d done his best, but it hadn’t been good enough.

  “Please, Mommy?” Tommy’s voice was small and unsteady. His bottom lip quivered pitifully.

  No question, Royal would have given in. He wasn’t that tough. Elly was. She didn’t yield. She looked from the suitcase to Tommy and then back to Royal.

  “I’m sorry, Mommy. I tried not to do no more swears. And Leesha said I was doing real good. Please,” he said, and even Royal could see the little squirt was trying not to cry, “please let me go. ‘Specially if we’re going to mo—” He buried his face in Elly’s neck. “Please, Mommy.” This tine he sobbed, a tiny, smothered sound.

  Royal kept silent. Elly wouldn’t welcome his suggestions. Tommy wasn’t his kid. He was Elly’s. And Scanlon’s. Royal took a step back. He had no right to interfere.

  “Oh, honey, please don’t cry.” Elly smoothed Tommy’s hair back from his face, the curve of her body protecting him and signaling her distress.

  “I’m trying not to,” he sobbed, his whole body shaking. “I am, but I cannot help myself.”

  Royal backed out the door, reaching down for the suitcase and taking it with him. Moving swiftly in spite of his sore body, he took it into the kitchen and out of sight. From the bedroom, he heard Tommy’s sobs subside, Elly’s murmurs, the creak of springs as she sank onto the bed with Tommy.

  Royal wouldn’t take advantage of her son’s innocence, but he had no compunctions about investigating the mother, not when an opportunity was practically slapping him in the face. In his mind, he saw a distinction. No one else might, but he did, and operating on that distinction, he placed the suitcase on the kitchen table.

  Reaching into his pocket, he retrieved his keys. Using a slim metal pick dangling from the ring, be popped the lock and opened the lid.

  No sweaters.

  But he hadn’t expected any.

  Senses alert, he didn’t touch the neatly stacked clothes. Several sets of shorts and tops for Tommy. A pair of jeans, slacks and a dress for Elly. Sneakers. Underwear for both of them.

  Elly’s current taste seemed to run to plain white, cheap cotton. Except for a lacy, skin-colored bra of French lace that was more expensive than his leather belt that she’d mocked. He liked her taste in French lace. He’d give a year’s salary in a hummingbird’s heartbeat to see her in that bit-of-nothing bra. But, of course, he didn’t have a year’s salary.

  With one finger, he carefully lifted the stack of underwear, not disturbing its arrangement in case she’d made provisions for snoopers like him. Although he didn’t see an obvious arrangement that would reveal her stuff had been tampered with, he wouldn’t put it past her to have taken care of that detail, too.

  He was learning that Elly Malloy was a very careful woman. He continued his quick inventory. A clear makeup case filled with toothbrushes, lipstick, a vial of perfume. A wallet.

  Carefully flipping it open, he saw the wad of bills … a stash of one thousand dollars in fifties and twenties. She also had a new driver’s license. Elena Malone would be spending that money.

  But not in Palmaflora.

  She didn’t kid around when she said she didn’t like surprises, that she planned ahead. In spite of her fragile appearance, Elly clearly had no intention of being caught like a mouse in a trap. Not by him. Not by anybody. She’d stripped her bed. She had no ties to Palmaflora, to the rental house. She was ready to run.

  Well, too bad for her, but he had no intention of letting her vanish into the night. The second he’d checked the contents of her beat-up suitcase, he’d made up his mind. He’d do whatever he had to in order to keep her in sight.

  He had to.

  He was beginning to see that the stakes were higher than he’d dreamed, and he was in the middle of the biggest gamble he’d ever taken in his entire life.

  As the sobs diminished in the room down the hall, he snapped the suitcase shut and moved swiftly and silently to Elly’s bedroom door. She’d shifted toward Tommy, and her back was toward Royal, the softness of her hair moving like cobwebs in a summer breeze as she nuzzled her chin into the boy’s belly.

  “Tickles,” he giggled, his tear-damp face wrinkled in glee.

  “Want me to stop?” She blew a raspberry in the vicinity of his navel.

  “Want to go to the rodeo.” He opened his eyes and looked up at her pleadingly. “And Royal wants me to go with him, too.”

  With one foot, Royal eased the suitcase back into position a tick-tock before Elly turned her head.

  “Royal,” she said, exasperation clear in her voice, but something else there, too, something that let him think she wasn’t altogether disappointed to see he’d stuck around.

  “Yeah, sugar, it’s me.”

  “For some silly reason, I thought you’d gone home.”

  “Now, why would you think something like that, Elly?”

  “Gosh, I don’t know. Wishful thinking?” Ironically amused, her eyes met his.

  “Isn’t there a caution about being careful what you wish for? Confess. You’d miss me if I disappeared, wouldn’t you?”

  “Absolutely,” she said, nodding amiably. “About the way I’d miss a nail poking up in my shoe.” And then she turned brilliant red.

  Royal took pity on her. “Anyway, how could I leave? Young Thomas—” Royal caught the way the muscles at the corners of her eyelids tightened in a reaction similar to the one she’d had last night “—and I made breakfast, and no one’s eaten anything except toast. Be a shame to toss all that food. Wasteful.”

  “And you’ve never wasted food, right?”

  “Nope. I’m a bona fide member of the clean-plate club.”

  “Me, too.” Tommy lizard-slid off the bed and onto the floor. “We made eggs and cheese, Mommy. And we cooked ‘em dry so no salmon bugs would swim in our gizzards.”

  “Wonderful.” Elly’s sigh of resignation could have been for the salmon bugs or for the eggs and cheese.

  They ate. They drank juice from the matched set of cartoon glasses. Royal made Tommy laugh until he snorted orange juice through his nose.

  And he made Elly smile until the shadows that had been in her eyes vanished and she laid her head on the table, weak with laughter, her eyes sparkling like sunlit bayous.

  They were going to go to the rodeo.

  Elly had no chance to stick to her guns, not with Royal working overtime to persuade her that a Palmaflora Fourth of July rodeo was an event no one should miss, a once-in-a-lifetime experience. “It’s an educational opportunity, Elly,” Royal said with a perfectly straight face. “You know. Horses. Cows. Creatures with horns and hooves. Men in boots and hats.”

  “Been to the rodeo often, have you?”

  “Once or twice. Cow country isn’t my territory. But every kid needs to see the parade and hear the bands. It’s almost a religious moment, Elly.”

  She hooted, her fork sprayed scrambled eggs onto the table and she clamped her lips together.

  Royal thought she’d changed her mind when orange juice dribbled down Tommy’s face, but he wasn’t sure. Yet every time Tommy giggled, Elly’s face softened and warmed.

  She was a pushover for the kid.

  And Royal used that against her. He wanted her to go to the rodeo. There were things he had to do, and he wanted her within reach, within sight.

  After they finished eating, Royal and Tommy cleaned up. Tommy chattered nonstop. “I’m not a lot of trouble and underfoot all the time, and you like me, don’t you, Royal?”

  “Yeah.” Royal handed him a plastic bowl to dry. Elly was back in the bare bedroom rummaging through her closet for a hat and sunscreen lotion. “You kind of grow on a man, squirt.”

>   “Huh?” Tommy spun the purple bowl on his finger like a Frisbee. “Whatcha mean, Royal?”

  “I mean you’re the kind of guy another guy could get used to being around.”

  “Oh.” Tommy climbed on the stepladder and shoved the plastic bowl and plates inside a cupboard.

  Royal hoped it was the right one.

  Climbing down the top step with the dish towel dangling from his hand, Tommy stopped, the toe of one battered sneaker hanging in midair. Royal prepared himself for another Tommy launch.

  “You know something, Royal? You kind of grow on me, too.” Tommy’s jug ears almost waggled with pleasure. “Isn’t that great?”

  “Yeah.” It wasn’t great at all. No way, no how. Not for Royal, and most assuredly not for Tommy. The kid couldn’t get used to having him around. This was a temporary deal. “Go tell your mom we’re ready to rock and roll.” Royal flipped soapsuds at him, and Tommy ducked, running shrieking out of the room.

  “MommyMommyMommy! Come on!”

  He galloped out of the room like a normal kid. Not in the least like a kid who’d been on the run for six months. Not like a kid with a mother who woke up screaming at the harmless sound of firecrackers on the Fourth of July.

  Watching him screech into the bedroom like a fire engine, Royal slapped his hand against the sink. Hell, he’d known Elly Malloy was going to be trouble, but he sure hadn’t expected her kid to tie his insides into knots.

  He was going to keep his distance from the kid. That’s all there was to it. Simple. Easy as pie. No problem.

  When Elly returned to the kitchen wearing her floppy hat, Tommy trotted by her side, shirtless, a bandage wrapped sloppily around his chest, over his shoulder and back again. With each step he took, the bandage unraveled, leaving a beige elastic tail behind him.

  “Rodeo attire?” Royal picked up the end and tucked it back into the elaborate loops and dangles. How could a man resist a kid who kept looking up at him like he was wearing Superman’s cape?

  Draping a faded kid’s T-shirt over Tommy’s shoulders, Elly smiled. “He likes the no-shirt look.” Her gaze skimmed over Royal like the feathery brush of her hair, and a trail of warmth followed her slow perusal until she lifted her eyes and met his. “He’s adopted you. Monkey see, monkey do.”

  Taking a breath, Royal glanced down at his own naked chest. He’d forgotten his shirt. “Uh, we’re going to have to make a detour. I’m underdressed.”

  “Undressed,” Elly snickered, tossing him his ripped and grungy shirt. “But, hey, who’s complaining?”

  Shrugging gingerly into the tattered shirt, Royal risked a grin. “Turnabout’s fair play.”

  Her face was all pink innocence as she looked at him, her eyes as wide as her son’s. “I have no idea what you mean.” Mischief gleamed in their warm depths as she grinned back at him. “Anyway. I don’t play games. So don’t get your hopes up, Detective.”

  “Spoilsport.” Royal shoved the tail of his shirt into his pants.

  Sashaying past him, she tugged a button hanging by a thread to his shirt. “And button up, buster. If I’m going to the rodeo with you, I don’t want to fight off all the two-legged female creatures.”

  “Growing fond of me, are you, sweetheart? Because that’s an honest-to-God compliment.” Royal laid his hand on her forehead and leaned forward solicitously. “Are you running a fever, Elly?”

  Elly thought maybe she was. Royal’s rough palm sent shock waves of heat right down to her toes in their hand-painted sneakers. “Probably nothing more than indigestion. From the eggs.”

  “I cooked the eggs.” Tommy looked up at her with apprehension.

  “Couldn’t have been the eggs, then,” Elly added hastily. “Must have been all that sweet tea on an empty stomach.” She’d slipped. She hadn’t meant to let Royal know how the sight of his bare chest affected her senses. There was something primitive and overwhelmingly male about the tight wrap around his chest, the curls of hair edging the top with gold and rising to the base of his neck, a column of corded muscles that denied the life of dissipation he proclaimed.

  Before leaving the house, she ran through her mental checklist. Everything she needed was in her purse. The suitcase was in her car. Shutting the door behind her, she wondered, as she did every time she left, whether or not she and Tommy would return to this place.

  “Do you mind if we take my car?” Keys in hand, she turned blithely to Royal, as though he couldn’t possibly mind. “I have to drop off some cleaning supplies on the way to the fairgrounds.” No matter what his answer was, she was determined to have access to her car, even if doing so meant creating a fake errand. “If I can make the stop now, it would save me time tomorrow. We can meet at the fairgrounds. That would work better for me. Okay?”

  “No,” he said slowly, watching her jiggle the keys. “How about swinging by my house and letting me change? I’d say I’d meet you there, but the parking area’s going to be a madhouse. We’d have a hard time linking up. It’s really easier if we stick together.”

  Elly nodded. That suited her. She wanted to see where he lived, too. She needed some answers to her questions about Royal Gaines, ex-detective. His house would give her clues about the man. “Sure. Give me directions, and we’re off.”

  She still hadn’t figured out how the rascal had led her down the garden path until she’d found herself agreeing to the rodeo. But he’d made her laugh until her sides hurt, and for that, she’d even trek to the rodeo with him and Tommy.

  And for the way he treated her son, for that alone, she’d forgive Royal Gaines any number of sins.

  For that casual male affection he showed Tommy, she’d even forgive Royal for making her body sing with need and hunger and longing.

  She would leave Palmaflora. And she’d take with her this aching hunger he’d stirred.

  Unsatisfied, the hunger would linger. Eventually it would vanish. It had to. She had no future here. She had no future with Royal Gaines. The hunger would die.

  But in the meantime, she had to stay alive.

  *

  Chapter 8

  « ^ »

  Backing up her lie, Elly stopped briefly at the rental unit she planned to clean the next day and then headed toward the beach.

  If Royal hadn’t directed her to pull off the main road onto the weed-covered side road right before the bridge to the island beaches, she wouldn’t have realized anyone lived back in the pine woods. He motioned for her to drive into the shell driveway leading to the house.

  Away from the main road and its continuous whine of tires, the clearing was curiously quiet in the heat, the only sound the laboring rattle of her car engine.

  A small frame house with a wooden staircase that stretched upstairs to the living area, the house wasn’t what Elly had expected. The weathered wood was silvery in the shaded thicket of trees and bushes. Sandspurs mixed with the tough grass yard. The house sang to her of permanence, of sanctuary.

  Contrasting with the cool gray of the house, hibiscus and flame vines mixed in a riot of red and yellow and pink. Close to the house, the bright green leaves of a scarlet morning glory vine crawled up the side of the staircase and sent tendrils around the handrail. The golden-throated flame of the flowers drew her eye up, up to the porch with its sagging screen and unpainted door.

  No, it wasn’t what she’d anticipated, but Royal’s house had an odd appeal. There was a wild beauty in its shabbiness that captured her fancy, and the more she stared at the clearing and the house, the more easily she could see Royal living there.

  She’d been prepared for run-down, for shabby. She’d even prepared herself for one of the old Florida mansions, cool and arrogant with high ceilings. She’d prepared herself for a sleek and contemporary house, a single man’s castle, but not for this house that was rooted in its surroundings. She wasn’t prepared at all for the spell it cast over her.

  “So?” Holding the passenger door of her car open, Royal sent her an enigmatic glance. “Coming in?”
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  “Why does that question sound like one on a pass-fail test?”

  “It’s not.” He leaned into the car interior.

  “Really?” The brilliant sunlight streaming around him changed him into a dark silhouette, and she couldn’t read his expression, couldn’t identify the intensity she sensed.

  “I’m not trying to trick you, Elly,” he murmured. “And I’m not playing any games. I’m offering shade from the sun, that’s all. Nothing else. You don’t have to feel uncomfortable. Or … afraid.”

  “I’m not.” But she left the engine running. The engine heat and late-morning humidity had already sent her hair into a fine fizz. The wind whipping in the open window during the drive down Flora Avenue to the unit she was to clean and then on to Royal’s house had given an illusion of coolness… Now, though, perspiration collected along her hairline, and the cotton dress clung to her back and legs… “I’m fine out here. You won’t be long, will you?”

  “No, but I’d like to shower before I change…”

  She closed her eyes against the sudden, unwanted image of Royal in his shower, drops of water beading in the gold of his chest hair free of bandages, water sluicing down the lean muscles of his back, muscles the shape of which she’d learned by braille the night before… His red-gold hair would darken, turn seal sleek with water… Opening her eyes, she discovered that he seemed to have moved even closer to her in the confines of the car, all his bright power focused on her face. She should have kept her eyes shut. “All right… Take your time… Tommy and I’ll wait here…”

  Stretching toward her, he lifted the brim of her hat and traced the damp line of her forehead, his fingertips skimming the line of her scar. “It’s cooler inside, Elly.”

  A tiny quiver rolled from her toes to her forehead, to the spot where his hand lingered.