Read Online Renegade by Diana Palmer - Free Book Online

you told me that you have brothers and that your father’s still alive…”
    His face hardened. “Except for Garon, my oldest brother, I haven’t seen my other brothers or my father in years,” he replied. “My father and I don’t speak.”
    â€œAnd you and your brothers?” she pressed.
    His eyes were dark and troubled. “Only Garon,” he repeated. “He came to see me a few weeks ago. He did say that the others wanted to bury the hatchet.”
    â€œSo you’re on speaking terms, at least.”
    â€œYou could call it that.”
    Her thin brows came together. “You don’t forgive people, do you?”
    He wouldn’t look at her. He wouldn’t answer her, either. He turned his attention to the skeleton they were standing in front of.
    â€œShe must have been a very special person, your mother,” she ventured.
    â€œShe was quiet and gentle, shy with strangers. She loved to quilt, crochet and knit.” He sounded as if the words were being torn from him. “She wasn’t beautiful, or exciting. My father met the junior league model at a cattle show, where they were filming a fashion revue at the same time. He went crazy for her. My mother couldn’t compete. He was cruel to her, because she was in his way. She found out that she had cancer, and she didn’t tell anybody. She just gave up.” His eyes closed. “I stayed with her in the hospital. I wouldn’t even go to school, and my father stopped trying to make me. I was holding her hand when she died. I was nine years old.”
    She didn’t even think about other people around them. She turned and put her arms around him, pressing close. “Go ahead,” she whispered at his throat. “Tell me.”
    He hated this weakness. He hated it! But his arms closed around her slender body. The offer of comfort was irresistible. He’d held it inside for so long…
    He sighed at her ear, his breath harsh and warm. “He had his mistress at the funeral, at my mother’s funeral,” he said coldly. “She hated me, and I hated her. She’d conned two of my three brothers, and they were crazy about her and furious with me because I wouldn’t let her near me. I saw right through her. I knew she was only after Dad’s property and his wealth. So to get even, she threw out all my mother’s things and told myfather that I’d called her terrible names and that I’d make my father get rid of her.”
    He drew in a long breath. “The result was predictable, I guess, but I never saw it coming. He sent me away to military school and refused to even let me come home at the holidays until I apologized for being rude to her.” He laughed coldly, his arms hurting around her slender body, but she never protested. “Before I left, I told him that I’d hate him until my dying day. And that I’d never set foot in his house again.”
    â€œHe must have seen through her eventually,” she prompted.
    His arms loosened, just a little. “When I was twelve,” he replied, “he caught her in bed with one of his friends and kicked her out. She sued him for everything he had. That was when she told him that she’d lied about me, to get me out of the way. She laughed about it. She lost the lawsuit, but she’d cost him his oldest son. She rubbed it in, to get even.”
    â€œHow did you know?”
    â€œHe wrote me a letter. I refused to answer his phone calls. He said he was sorry, that he wanted me to come home. That he missed me.”
    â€œBut you wouldn’t go,” she guessed, almost to her self.
    â€œNo. I wouldn’t. I told him I’d never forgive him for what he did to my mother and not to contact me again. I told him if he wouldn’t pay to let me stay in the school, I’d work for my keep, but I wasn’t going back to live with him.” He closed his eyes, remembering the