Renegade. Diana Palmer
glanced at him with a teasing smile. “Am I going to?”
He shrugged. “It’s up to you. I have a few quirks.”
“So do I. And a few hang-ups,” she added.
He put his hands in his pockets while he stared down at her, to the music of New York traffic. “I don’t like ties very much. I’m making no promises. I want to see you while I’m here. Period.”
“You don’t pull any punches.”
He nodded.
She searched his dark eyes. “I don’t find you repulsive,” she said bluntly. “That’s new. But I’ve got some terrible scars of my own. I can put on a good act as a vamp when I’m around men. But it’s all a ruse. I haven’t ever had consensual sex.”
He whistled. “That’s a heavy load to put on a man.”
She nodded.
He smiled slowly. “So, it’s back to Dating 101.”
She laughed. “I hadn’t thought of it like that.”
“We’ll go slow,” he said, noting Rory’s sudden reappearance. “That took a while,” he commented when the boy came back laughing.
“He wanted to know about military school. Guess what? He was a soldier in Vietnam.” Rory grimaced. “Sad, huh, that he’d end up like that.”
Cash’s eyes were haunted as he studied the man, who lifted a hand and waved before he went back to his bagpiping. Cash waved back. “Too many veterans wind up like that,” he commented quietly.
“Not you,” Rory said proudly.
Cash smiled at him and ruffled his hair. “No. Not me. How about going to the Statue of Liberty? It’s closed, so we can’t go up in it, but we can see it. Are you game?”
“Lead me to it!” Rory laughed.
Cash took Tippy’s slender hand and locked her fingers into his, noting their coldness and faint trembling. It was like electricity sparking between them. Tippy caught her breath audibly. She looked up with wide, fascinated eyes, feeling as if the ground had rocked under her feet. It was magic!
He searched her eyes. “Lesson One, Page One, Hand-holding,” he whispered as Rory paused to look in a store window.
She laughed breathlessly. It sounded like silver bells.
CHAPTER THREE
THE DAY SPENT SIGHTSEEING with Cash was, Tippy thought later, one of the best days of her entire life. He seemed to know New York like the back of his hand, and he enjoyed sharing little-known bits of history with Tippy and Rory.
“How do you know so much about this place?” Rory wanted to know when they were back in Tippy’s apartment that evening.
“My best friend in basic training was from New York City,” he confided. “He was a gold mine of information!”
Tippy laughed. “I have a friend who’s like that about Nassau,” she said. “She’s on a modeling trip now, to Russia, of all places.”
“What is she modeling?”
Tippy gave him a mischievous look. “Swimsuits.”
“You’re kidding!”
“I’m not! The powers that be thought it would be sexy to have her pose with the Kremlin in the back ground, wearing fur boots and a fur coat.”
“She’ll be pickled if she does that here, won’t she?” he asked.
“It’s fake fur,” she pointed out, laughing. “But it’s very expensive fake fur, and it looks real.”
“How about a sandwich, Cash?” Rory called from the kitchen.
“Not for me, thanks, Rory. I’m going back to my hotel to unwind,” he added with a smile. “I had a great time today.”
“So did I, Cash,” Rory said sincerely. “Are you coming back tomorrow?”
“Are you?” Tippy echoed.
He glanced from Rory’s curious expression to Tippy’s radiant one. “Why not?” he mused, smiling. “I can stand a tour of the museums if you can.”
“I love museums!” Rory enthused.
“As long as I don’t have to pose in one.” Tippy sighed. “I have terrible emotional scars from posing with one leg up, leaning back, in front of a Rodin sculpture for four hours.”
“I wonder if it’s the one I’m thinking of?” Cash drawled, chuckling when her cheeks went pink.
“I’m sure it was one that contained totally clothed people,” she lied.
He shook his head. “You wish,” he said. “What time do you people get up on a holiday week?”
“Eight,” Rory said.
Tippy nodded. “We’re not big on late nights around here. One of us is used to military routine, which be gins at daylight, and the other one has to get up before daylight to work on films,” she said, tongue in cheek.
“Eight it is, then. I know where there’s a bakery,” he told them. “They have homemade cinnamon buns, bear claws, filled doughnuts…”
“I can’t have sweets,” Rory replied sadly. He pointed at Tippy. “She has no willpower. If something sweet comes in the door, it will never leave.”
Tippy laughed delightedly. “He’s right. I’ve spent most of my life fighting excess pounds. We have bacon and eggs for breakfast. Pure protein. No bread.”
“Shades of basic training.” He sighed. “Okay. Can we have breakfast here? But you’d better make coffee,” he added sternly. “I am not having breakfast without coffee, even if that means bringing it in a sippy cup.”
“A sippy cup?” Tippy teased.
“I look sexy holding a sippy cup,” he replied, and the smile on his lips was a genuine one. It had been a long time since he’d smiled at a woman and meant it. Well, except for Christabel Gaines. But she was married to his best friend now.
“Well, I’m having a sandwich before I go to bed,” Rory called. “Good night, Cash! See you tomorrow!”
“That’s a deal,” Cash called back.
He caught Tippy’s soft hand in his and tugged her to the door with him. “I’ll check and see if there’s anything good at the opera or the ballet, if you’d like…”
“I love either one,” she exclaimed.
“Symphony orchestras?” he asked, testing.
She nodded enthusiastically.
“I guess it won’t kill me to wear a suit,” he sighed.
“You took Christabel Gaines to a ballet in Houston, I recall,” she said, with just a hint of jealousy that she couldn’t disguise.
It surprised him. His dark eyes probed her light ones until she moved restlessly under the intensity of the gaze. “Christabel Dunn, these days. And, yes, I did. She’d never been to one in her life.”
“I thought she was a spoiled little princess,” Tippy commented. “I was wrong all the way down the line. She’s a very special woman. Judd’s lucky.”
“Yes, he is,” he had to agree. Christabel was still a sore spot with him. “They dote on the twins.”
“Babies are nice,” she said. “Rory was precious even at the age of four.” She smiled wistfully. “Every day’s an adventure with a child.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
She looked