The Renegade (The Moorehouse Legacy #3)(15)

With Nirvana blaring in his ears, he pumped through his exercises, tearing up his muscles so that they could rebuild stronger, better. The burn felt good. It felt healthy. It felt normal to him.

And he was hungry for normal.

He’d always made demands of his body and he expected it to respond with power. One of the hardest things about being laid up had been the weakness. Pain he could handle. Frailty was unbearable.

After his first set, he sat up, breathing hard and resting his arms on his knees. Usually Spike worked out with him, but today the guy was busy. Which was kind of a bummer. He liked having a buddy with him. Made the time pass quicker, plus Spike was pretty damn amusing.

Alex reached down and took a slug of water from a bottle.

The shop was really working out for him, he thought. Even if Cassandra would no doubt—

Stop it.

The twin bed he slept in was right next to the potbellied stove. December was really cold stuff this far north, and with his tendency for kicking off the covers when the nightmares came, he needed to be close to a heat source at night. His clothes were in duffel bags lying open and pushed against the wall, like drawers on the floor. Shoes were in an orderly line in front of them. Fleeces and jackets were hanging on pegs. Laundry went into a wicker basket.

Everything had its place.

All of the order made him think about Cassandra. Why? Who the hell knew. What didn’t make him think of her?

Tilting his head around, he glanced out of the shop’s picture window at White Caps. His family’s home looked as if it had been bombed and abandoned with all the plastic sheets covering burned-out windows and doors. It was hard to believe the place was ever going to be right again, but if anyone could fix it, Cassandra could.

When Frankie and Joy had campaigned to have her take on the project, they’d shown him photographs of her work. She’d designed and constructed houses, additions and out-buildings all over America and specialized in rehabbing antiques. She had an absolute genius for making the new look old.

So, professionally speaking, she was perfect for what they needed. There had been no way he could refuse.

Alex lay back down and gripped the bar again.

Plus he hadn’t really wanted to refuse.

It had been so hard to see her leave Gray’s those many weeks ago. Like a pathetic idiot, he’d watched from a window as she’d walked out of the house with O’Banyon. The man had had his hand at the small of her back while he’d guided her to his Mercedes and settled her in it.

The two of them going off together had made Alex grit his teeth so hard his gums had gone numb. He’d wanted to tear her out of that car and take her upstairs to the bed he slept in and keep her there by lying on her with his naked body.

But of course he’d let her go. And as those taillights had flared at the end of the driveway, it was clear she belonged in a fancy car with a man like O’Banyon. She was a refined kind of woman who was used to being on Manhattan’s A-list. Living in a penthouse on Park Avenue. Wearing beautiful clothes.

Alex was a comparative savage and he always had been. Since day one, he’d had a deep core inside of him that was uncivilized. And not as in cursing-in-mixed-company uncivilized, as in primitive-male uncivilized. The real world, the modern world, didn’t have a lot of places for a man like him. He belonged where the beast inside of him could be free to roam. He belonged on the ocean.

O’Banyon, on the other hand, would be fine and dandy at one of Cassandra’s parties. That lady-killer had plenty of hard in him, that was obvious, but there was a high-gloss sheen over all that rough and tough. When he escorted Cassandra out on the town, no doubt he showed up in the right suit and treated her like a queen and pressed palms with the best of them.

Mr. Slick probably even knew how to waltz.

Alex let the bar go and sat up, grabbing a towel and using it to wipe his face.

O’Banyon was definitely the type of man she should be with, though it was a little surprising she’d moved on, only a matter of months after Reese’s death. But then again, why should she be alone if she didn’t want to be? Mourning and a new lover didn’t have to be mutually exclusive. She could miss her husband and still not want to spend the nights by herself.

O’Banyon was no doubt taking good care of her. Alex might not like the guy, but there hadn’t been a stupid bone in that big body. The man had to know the rarity of what he held in his hands.

Alex lay back down, grabbed the bar and pushed up hard, feeling his pecs burn as though the muscles were shredding apart.

*

Cassandra pulled up in front of White Caps and turned off the Range Rover’s engine. The Rover had been Reese’s birthday present to her the year before last. He’d maintained he felt safer with her in a big car, but she’d always thought it was more than she needed.

Now, she could see his point. Here in Saranac Lake there was a dusting of snow on the ground already. As winter pressed on and the drifts piled up, she was going to appreciate the traction and the mass of the Rover. Besides, all her luggage had fit in the back.

She looked at the house briefly, a clinical review that confirmed her first impressions and refreshed her memory. Then her eyes slid over to the large barn behind it. A tendril of white smoke drifted lazily from a chimney stack.

Alex was living there now. His sister had told her so.

And he was doing much better. His leg had been spared and he was healing up well.