Read Online Renegade: A Taggart Brothers Novel by Lisa Bingham - Free Book Online

tinged with gray, in the morning light, they were a sparkling, lake blue.
    “Barry nearly drowned in a car accident when he was ten years old. The resulting brain damage has left him . . . ten years old, for the most part. But he’s a good kid.”
    A kid trapped in a body burgeoning on manhood.
    “He lives with you?”
    Jace turned to the refrigerator, gathering a family-sized bottle of ketchup and a mason jar filled with homemade salsa.
    “Mostly, although he spends a good deal of time with Elam, my elder brother, and his girlfriend, P.D. My parents and little sister were killed in the same wreck. Elam was stationed out of the country at the time and my younger brother Bodey wasn’t old enough to see to himself, let alone anyone else, so I took care of Barry.”
    Bronte was speechless. She’d thought that her problems seemed insurmountable at times, but she couldn’t imagine negotiating such a devastating tragedy on her own. If her scrambled, mental estimations were even close to being true, Jace had probably been in his early twenties when he’d assumed the responsibility of both younger brothers.
    She was saved from a response by Kari who clattered down the staircase and burst into the room. “Are we going to eat, or what?”
    “Barry has nothing on my daughter’s lack of an edit button,” Bronte said under her breath, and Jace laughed.

F IVE

    A S if a silent dinner bell had been rung, Lily skipped down the stairs, and then came to a halt in the doorway. As soon as she saw Jace, her guard was up, even though she remembered him from the night before. She eased up to Bronte, wrapping her arm around Bronte’s waist and shielding herself from full view behind her mother’s body.
    “Morning, pumpkin. Did you sleep well?”
    Bronte felt Lily nod against her.
    Barry burst in from outside, followed by another tall, gangly teenager with a shock of wavy blond hair and an infectious grin.
    “Car’s fixed,” he announced, sliding into the chair beneath the window.
    Jace gestured to his hired hand with a serving spoon. “Bronte, this is Tyson. Tyson, that’s Bronte Cupacek and her daughters, Kari and Lily. They’ll be living here for a while. Kari and Lily, this is Tyson and my brother Barry.”
    Bronte watched as Kari nearly dropped her iPod, giving Tyson—who had to be at least nineteen—one of those half-flirting, half-gobsmacked smiles of an adolescent who foundherself right in the middle of a raging crush. Since Bronte had made it clear to Kari that there would be no dating, no boy-girl parties, no coed socializing of any kind until she was sixteen, she lacked the social skills to pretend to be casual. With barely a glance at Barry, she chose the seat next to Tyson, her iPod miraculously tucked into her pocket so that she could nervously fluff her hair.
    Bronte fought to keep a straight face, finally turning to draw Lily toward the table. “Have a seat, pumpkin. We don’t want things to get cold.”
    When Lily hesitated, Bronte sat next to Kari and pulled Lily down in the chair beside her. Too late, Bronte realized that she should have arranged for Lily to sit in the middle. Being forced to sit next to a stranger was tantamount to torture for Lily. But before Bronte could offer to change seats with her, Barry looked at Lily—really looked at her. Apparently, his shyness only extended to adults.
    “Annie has a tree house out back,” he blurted. “It’s high. Really high. I can show you after we eat.” He made the offer to include Kari as well.
    Bronte cringed, anticipating a crushing reply from Kari, but she merely stared at Barry as if he’d lost his mind to suggest something so juvenile, so
plebeian,
as a tree house.
    Lily, on the other hand, peeked at Barry in curiosity, clearly intrigued by the idea. Her gaze bounced to Bronte as if seeking permission and Bronte rushed to reassure her. “I think that’s a great idea.”
    “We could go now, Emily,” Barry said. “Do you want to go