The Renegade
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Kaitlyn Rice
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15,5K
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15
Chapter One
Tracy Gilbert closed her eyes and lifted her face to the soothing spray of the shower. As she allowed the water to flow through her hair for a final rinse, she calculated the time required to do her morning chores. First, the dry cleaner, then the grocery—the list was already in her purse. An hour should do it. Two at the most. If she told the baby-sitter she’d be home by lunchtime, she might be able to squeeze in a quick trim at Cecilia’s shop.
Turning off the tap, Tracy stepped out of the stall. She was just reaching for a towel, when she heard a door slam. Strange—the noise seemed too solid and loud to have come from an interior door. Besides, Hannah should still be asleep and she always left her bedroom door open.
Tracy’s mind scrambled to discount the sound. Claus, her cat, might have jumped down from some high perch. A passing car might have backfired. Yet the sound had been a sharp scrape of wood on wood, a span of quiet and then a jarring boom.
Her alarm grew. Neither Claus nor a car could have made that noise. Horrid possibilities flashed through her mind—a home invasion or, worse, a child kidnapped right from bed. A child lost to his or her family for five or ten years. Perhaps never seen again.
Had she locked the door last night? She thought so, but maybe that was the night before last. Was Hannah in her bed? Tracy took off down the hall, wrapping the towel around herself on the way. When she reached the door of her daughter’s bedroom and looked in, she breathed a sigh of relief. She stood there a moment, only vaguely aware of the puddle accumulating on the floor at her feet.
Hannah was fine. Her tiny, four-year-old frame was sprawled sideways on the narrow bed. Her glossy black hair fell over one cheek; her feet lay butted against the wall. Most important, her back moved gently up and down as she breathed. Slowly. Deeply. She was still asleep.
Now Tracy wished she’d donned her robe. She needed to investigate that sound right now.
“Yoo-hoo, Tracy. You here?”
Tracy gripped the towel at her chest and whirled around. Even though she recognized the voice immediately, her surprise was enough to keep her heart racing.
Her next door neighbor, Nellie Bell, strolled into the hall wearing a white chenille robe and curlers.
“Lord, Nellie, you scared me to death,” Tracy whispered. “What are you doing in here?”
“Sorry,” Nellie said, “but I have news. I started to leave a message on your machine, but I knew you were home so I came on over. I rang the doorbell twice.”
Tracy grabbed a bony arm to direct Nellie back down the hallway. “I gave you my spare key to use when we’re out of town,” she hissed, somewhat annoyed. “Not just anytime. I was in the shower.”
When they reached the living room, Tracy let go of Nellie’s arm, wondering if her duplex neighbor even noticed that she was dripping wet and covered only by a towel. She considered ushering her right out the front door, but knew she’d only be delaying the inevitable. Usually, the best tack with Nellie was to go along with the drama, then send her away with a polite, but firm, goodbye.
Tracy shook her head. “Never mind, Nellie. Wait in here for a minute while I dress. And be quiet. Hannah’s asleep.”
Tracy padded back toward her bedroom, closing the little girl’s door on the way past. While she dressed, she decided that she would ask the landlord to install a dead bolt.
She’d also ask Nellie to return the key. She hoped the news was short and significant. The lovely span of blue sky outside the window made Tracy want to finish her chores early so she could take her little girl to the park.
When she’d brought Hannah home from the central Asian orphanage two years ago, Tracy promised herself that her unmarried status would never be a burden to her child.
Tracy wasn’t twenty-nine and single because she was too vacuous or homely to hold a man’s interest; she was twenty-nine and single because life was too short for big mistakes. When she married, she’d marry forever.
Adopting a child could never be a mistake, so Tracy had made that commitment. She did her best to provide well for Hannah, and she also tried to be an involved parent. That wasn’t always easy. Tracy’s office-manager position at Vanderveer Organizing occupied her weekdays, so she sent Hannah to an excellent day-care center that offered preschool activities. Lately, however, Tracy had been bringing work home in the evenings, too. Hence the need for a diligent handling of weekend chores.
When Tracy returned to the living room, Nellie was sitting on the sofa munching on a doughnut. A white cardboard box containing the rest of the dozen was open on the coffee table in front of her. It looked as if Nellie was settling in. Tracy sighed.
“Here, have a doughnut,” Nellie said, nudging the box. “I didn’t think to bring drinks. Would you mind?”
Tracy held back a groan and started for the kitchen. “Orange juice?”
“That’d be great.”
As she poured the juice, Tracy reminded herself that Nellie was probably just lonely. Besides, this was Kirkwood, Kansas, where major change was generally met with stalwart resistance. Although the student population at Wheatland University caused the town to boom to city size every autumn, permanent residents clung to the ways of their pioneer ancestors. Neighbors talked across fences and borrowed cups of sugar. They lent a hand if a hand was needed. Nellie simply carried that old-fashioned friendliness a step too far.
Make that a few steps. A mile. In fact, she was a total nuisance.
Tracy returned to the living room and set Nellie’s glass of juice on the table. “So what’s the news?”
Nellie finished chewing her doughnut and blurted, “Riley Collins is back!” Then she scanned Tracy’s face with pale, wild eyes.
Tracy’s heart started to race again, but she crossed her arms and waited.
“My friend Ruth saw him at the market early this morning, and he was buying a cartful—cereal, bread, cleaners. He bought out the supply of macaroni and cheese. Like he’s staying.”
Tracy drew a deep breath, summoning every ounce of her patience. This was stunning news, absolutely. She still wanted her neighbor out of here. Maybe even more so now.
“He was probably shopping for his grandma,” Tracy said as she bent down to close the lid to the doughnut box.
Nellie frowned when Tracy placed the box in her lap, but she didn’t stop talking. “Would an old woman use shaving cream and men’s razors?”
“Okay, so he’s visiting for the weekend.” Tracy picked up the full juice glass and walked toward the front door. Just as she expected, Nellie got up and followed her, carrying the box and talking all the way.
“No one would eat a dozen boxes of macaroni and cheese in one weekend. My friend Ruth said he was at the old house all night.”
When Nellie noticed that Tracy had opened the door and was handing her the glass of juice, she frowned again.
“I have my own box of doughnuts in the kitchen,” Tracy lied. “They’ll get stale. You can keep the glass.”
Nellie glanced outside and spoke in a louder voice. “We think Riley Collins is hiding out in that old house.”
Tracy put a finger to her lips. “The Kirkwood grapevine is thriving, isn’t it.”
“Aren’t you upset?” Nellie asked incredulously.
“Riley is ancient history to me,” Tracy said. “And I need to be out the door in twenty minutes.”
As Nellie headed toward her own door, she said, sounding put out, “Be that way. I’ll bet you another dozen doughnuts that no one else in town has forgotten him.”
Tracy closed the door and drooped against it.
Nor have I.
Riley Collins—the town’s most notorious delinquent.
The cause of the Gilbert family’s biggest heartache.
And Tracy’s first friend.
Padding back through the living room, Tracy headed down the hall to wake Hannah. The baby-sitter would arrive soon, allowing Tracy to do her away-from-home chores. She’d fit the park visit in after lunch. Later, there was an overflowing laundry basket to contend with, and she’d promised her boss she’d type some reports this weekend. Damn. So little time.
When Tracy noticed her cat sunning on a forbidden windowsill—it was where she displayed a couple of china figurines—she stopped in the middle of the room and glared at him. “Are you up there again, Claus? Down!”
Other than blinking, the big white tomcat didn’t move a muscle. Tracy scooped him up and sank with Claus in her lap into her favorite chair. “I don’t know what he’s thinking, coming back here,” she said. The last time she’d seen Riley, he’d been in some sort of trouble with his father, the equally notorious Otto.
Riley had been out at the curb working on his car that morning, with Otto yelling that he was a good-for-nothing troublemaker from the porch. The next day, Riley had left town in his battered convertible.
That was thirteen years ago. As far as Tracy knew, this was the first time he’d been back.
His leaving town, or rather the way he left town and with whom, had proved his father right. Riley was nothing but trouble.
Tracy put Claus on another windowsill and headed for Hannah’s room. She wouldn’t allow herself to get ruffled. Nellie’s informant could be mistaken. The truth would surface eventually, and Tracy could wait to react.
She didn’t change her mind until she was strolling down aisle five at Dot’s Supermarket. She noticed an entire shelf empty of macaroni-and-cheese boxes, and saw in her mind’s eye a tall, blond man tossing them in his cart.
She had to know. She spun around and nearly crashed into an elderly couple conferring over a bottle of olive oil. She retraced her steps, returning the milk to its case and the apples to the stacks, then left the store.
As her car sped north out of town, she thought about what she’d say. Riley’s return couldn’t be good for anyone but his grandmother, Lydia, and even that was questionable. He had a right to visit Lydia, of course, but he should have no reason to stay. Riley didn’t belong here anymore. Tracy had to make sure he knew that.
But when she rang the doorbell at the old house a few minutes later, no one answered. The ugly beige curtains that had always hung over the large front window were open. Tracy would be able to see movement inside, if there was any.
She pressed the bell again. Still receiving no answer, she stepped off the porch to peek through the garage window. The glass was filthy, but she could see there wasn’t a car inside. Good. If he’d been here, he was gone now.
Tracy jogged back to her car and grabbed the carafe of green tea she’d left in her cup holder. She’d give herself a few minutes to look around. If she wore an old suit to work on Monday, she could scratch the dry cleaning off today’s list and grocery-shop tomorrow.
Hitching up a pant leg, Tracy stepped over the sagging fence to Riley’s backyard. It was hard to believe the child’s swing set was still back here. The primary stripes that had once painted a falsely optimistic picture of children soaring to the sky had long since mutated to flaking paint and rust. She crossed the lawn quickly and set her drink on the seat of the middle swing. Turning to face the hazy blue hills north of town, she grasped the chains of the swing farthest from the house—always her favorite—and wriggled onto the seat.
The plastic was cold. The weatherman had said it would be warm for late April, but even sixty degrees felt cold through her well-worn “Saturday jeans”. The swing seemed solid enough to hold her weight, so she pushed off with her feet and swung forward, toward the hills.
“You’re trespassing.”
Tracy knew the strange flip of her stomach had nothing to do with the motion of the swing. She skidded to a stop and jumped off the seat, then turned around with her heart in her throat.
It was Riley, standing inside the open storm door at the rear of the house holding a coffee cup. It had to be him. Other men may share a similar combination of smoke-gray eyes and dirty-blond hair, but when you added the teasing smile and dare-me-to-care expression, you had to be looking at Riley.
“Riley?” she called, in case her thoughts were somehow affecting her eyesight.
“I’m flattered you remember me,” he said as stepped out and let the door slam behind him.
As if she could have forgotten.
He set his cup on top of a wood box near the door and started across the lawn toward her. As he neared, her throat went dry. Riley had always had a certain heart-wrenching appeal, but he’d improved with age. The eighteen-year-old boy had transformed into every woman’s fantasy of confident good looks and muscular build. His hair was longer now, but rather than shaggy and unkempt, it lay smooth, catching the sunlight and making him look sexy. Dangerously so.
Tracy’s early-morning stint on her exercise bike had been unnecessary. Her heart had been getting a rather rousing workout ever since her shower. She picked up her tea and took a long swig.
When he reached the swing set, Riley looped an arm over the top beam and ogled her with one side of his mouth tilted up. “Criminy. You’ve grown up, little girl.”
“Guess that happens to everyone.” She drank again to wet her throat with the warm liquid, then clutched the carafe against her pounding chest. “I’m not a little girl anymore.”
His gaze shot down her body, and back up. “I’ll say. What’s it been, about a million years?”
The man was too hunky for his own good, and she was tempted to mimic the obvious way he’d checked her out. Instead, she trained her eyes on a lock of hair falling across his forehead. “I was almost sixteen when you left, and I’m twenty-nine now. You were the math whiz.”
“My question was purely rhetorical,” he said. “I’m perfectly aware of how long it’s been. I was the one banished from town, remember?”
“What brings you back now?”
He squinted toward the hills. “There’s no reason to stay away now that Otto is gone.”
“Are you visiting your grandma?”
“Not exactly.” He glanced back over his shoulder. “I’m renovating her house. I’ve just come back from the hardware store.”
Tracy studied the dilapidated two-story he’d grown up in. For at least half a century, that house had sat next to her parents’ limestone cottage. The proximity of the two adjacent, tree-lined lots in the country had fostered strong friendships—and stronger feuds.
For years, Tracy’s mom and stepdad had tried to help Otto and Vanessa Collins aspire to better living. Until the night their son had lured Tracy’s underage sister away from home, and changed everyone’s lives in the process.
“I don’t think it’ll take too much to make it livable,” Riley said, turning around again.
Tracy drank her tea and kept her eyes on the house. It definitely needed work, but she’d thought the Collins family would try to sell it as a fixer upper.
When she realized the significance of what Riley had said, Tracy’s tea seemed to curdle in her throat. She choked out, “You aren’t planning to live out here, are you?”
Riley’s eyes turned dark before he averted them. He began to peel flakes of paint from the top beam. “That makes the most sense to me,” he said as he flicked a piece off his thumbnail. “I can work on the place easier if I’m living in it.”
“And then?”
At her question, the gaze he aimed in her direction was so intense that she turned her eyes away, pretending interest in a pudgy robin hopping across the yard. In her peripheral vision, Tracy noted that he had crossed his arms over his chest. The seeming force of his will eventually caused her to look up. “And then I’ll stop working on it.”
“And keep living here?”
He shrugged.
Tracy shook her head. “You think you can waltz back into Kirkwood now and stay?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Tracy sipped her tea once more and realized the last of it was bitter. She unscrewed the thermos lid and poured the liquid onto the grass, then set the container back on the swing seat. Lifting a hand to her mouth, she clamped the nail of her pinkie finger between her teeth.
When he reached out his hand to pull hers from her mouth, she jerked away.
“Don’t get all bent out of shape,” he said. “I was only trying to stop you from biting your nails.”
“Just don’t touch me,” she said, and her loss of composure sent her eyes careering down his body, over the ribbed white undershirt that clung to a muscled chest and revealed, when his arms were raised to the cross-beam, an inch of enticing bare skin at his flat abdomen, just above the low-slung jeans.
She pulled her shocked eyes up to his glittering ones. The realization that she was drooling over her family’s nemesis didn’t help at all. Clenching her hands into fists, Tracy said, “Otto wasn’t the only one who wanted you gone.”
“Oh, really?”
She held his gaze.
“Did you want me gone?” This was said in the same patient voice he’d used when she was a scrawny girl and he was her not-so-secret crush.
“I was a kid. What did I know?”
“You knew me. Did you try to stand up for me?”
She started picking the paint off the swing set, too, thinking back to the day she’d found out Riley was gone. The phone calls had come first. The high school geometry teacher had called the Gilbert house, looking for Tracy’s older sister, Karen. Riley’s basketball coach had called his house. Neither teenager had made it to school that day, the teachers reported. And in retrospect, no one in either family could remember seeing them the night before.
Within a half hour, the two families had discovered empty closets, missing personal items and not a word of explanation.
Everyone had looked to Tracy then, of course. Karen had been seeing Riley for a couple of months, but Tracy had been his buddy since days of training wheels and tree houses. None of the parents seemed to know how hurt Tracy had been by the first betrayal—when Karen had sought Riley’s attention and he had all too willingly given it.
They didn’t know how left out Tracy had felt every time her best friend parked near the train trestle to do who-knew-what with her sister.
They’d expected Tracy to know everything.
She hadn’t known anything.
Somehow, that seemed to be the biggest betrayal of all.
“Did you defend me?” Riley prompted, grabbing her hand.
She probably would have if she hadn’t been nursing a broken heart. She tried to release her hand again, but he held it firmly, confiscating her attention at the same time.
“How could I?” she asked. “You left with Karen before she finished high school. Otto said—”
“Since when would you believe anything my father said?”
Being close to Riley tangled Tracy’s insides like one of Claus’s pilfered balls of yarn. She needed to escape. Wiggling her hand loose, she said, “Since you proved him right.”
“The people of this never-never land sent me out on the plank before they heard a single word in my defense.”
Tracy edged past him, toward the fence. “You had no business taking my sister to California with you.”
“Maybe she was ready to leave,” Riley said from behind her. “And maybe I was a convenient ticket out.”
“People haven’t forgotten.”
“Then people need to enrich their lives.”
He sounded closer. Tracy turned her head and saw that he was following her across the grass with her forgotten thermos. She scrambled over the fence and turned around. “My mom’s health has been fragile,” she said. “I don’t want her to be upset.”
“Don’t worry,” Riley said with a smile that seemed too sincere to be believable. “I was planning to walk over and visit your mom and stepdad later this afternoon.”
“You can’t.”
He shifted his weight. “I’ve been gone for over thirteen years and I haven’t seen your sister in just as long. Your parents will listen to reason.”
“No, I mean they’re not there,” Tracy said. “They’re on vacation. Dad took Mom to visit relatives.”
Riley gave her a long assessing look, followed by a nod. “Gran said your mom had been in the hospital. Is she okay?”
Tracy felt comfort touch her heart as Riley seemed to slide back into his old role as friend. Until she watched him step closer and recognized how easily he could hop the fence and catch her waist between his potent-looking hands.
The thought was provocative in more ways than one.
She stepped back. “Mom had a scare with pneumonia, but she’s better now.”
“That’s good.” Riley’s crooked smile seemed too open, and he was cupping her tea thermos between his hands with a disturbing familiarity. The last thing she needed was to tie herself up with him again, in friendship or anything else.
He was a stranger now. She wanted him to remain one.
Tracy stared at her thermos, willing him to hand it across so she could leave and sort out her thoughts.
A little more than a year ago, Riley’s father had been caught embezzling funds from the company where he worked. Although that particular news hadn’t been shocking, other things had been.
For one thing, Vanessa had seemed unaffected by her husband’s troubles. She’d filed for divorce and headed south to a friend’s house in Oklahoma City just two days after Otto’s prison term began. For another, Tracy’s parents had learned that Riley’s grandmother actually owned the house.
Lydia Stephenson was quirky but harmless. Since she was content in her retirement-village apartment, the house had been left vacant. Tracy’s mother claimed that sometimes she heard the old place sighing in relief. She’d been looking forward to welcoming new neighbors. It was a good thing she wasn’t home this weekend. Tracy could break the news gently.
Riley rested her thermos on top of the fence post and shot a glance down Tracy’s body again. “Are you going to tell me why you’re hanging out in my backyard?”
“I came to see you,” Tracy said. “I rang the doorbell and—”
“It’s busted. My father was a slob.”
Tracy bit back a retort about Riley having faults of his own. “—And when no one answered, I came back to admire the view. It’s better from your yard.”
Riley grinned. “You can swing on my swing set anytime, little girl.”
Tracy’s regard touched on his mouth and dropped down his torso again. When the blood circled back round to her brain and she homed in on his gleaming eyes, she sighed, resisting another urge to chomp her nails.
“What do you want?” he asked in a voice that was in no way like the one he’d used when she was a child. This voice was soft, all right, but it was rich with suggestion.
She frowned.
“You said you came to see me.”
She gazed at the hair that moved around his head as he shook it. She’d driven all the way over here to ask him to leave, but now the words seemed harsh. “Don’t get comfortable here,” she said as she reached up to snatch her thermos from the post. “And I’m saying that for your sake. You won’t fit in.”
His eyes darkened ominously. “You don’t think I will?”
“No.”
“Then watch me.”
