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

The person standing in front of her in a T-shirt and pajama bottoms was half-dead. Alex’s skin hung off his bones, as if he’d eaten little in the three months since the accident, and he was leaning on a crutch, one leg in a cast. His sunken cheeks were brushed with beard. His thick, sun-streaked hair, always clipped tight like a military man’s, was now shaggy.

But his eyes. His dark blue eyes were what affected her most. They were dull in his harsh face. Flat as stone. Even the color seemed to have dimmed.

“Alex…” she whispered. “My God…Alex.”

“Yeah, I’m gorgeous, aren’t I?”

He hobbled back to the bed, as if he couldn’t hold himself up any longer, and he moved as an old person would, with deliberate thought and anticipation. It seemed as though his body was a house of cards, capable of falling to pieces if he wasn’t careful.

“May I help you?” she asked.

His response was a glare over his shoulder as he put the crutch aside and slowly sank onto the mattress. She watched as he maneuvered his leg up using his arms. When he settled back against the pillow, he was breathing heavily and he closed his eyes.

She had a feeling he’d be cursing from the pain if she hadn’t been in the room.

Good heavens, this was not at all what she’d imagined seeing him would be like.

“I’ve been…worried about you,” she said.

His eyelids flipped open. But he stared at the ceiling, not at her.

The silence that followed was thick and cold as snow.

She came into the room a little. Shut the door quietly. “I have a reason for needing to see you.”

Nothing. No response.

“Ah, did Reese ever tell you about his will?”

“No.”

“He left you—”

“I don’t want money.”

“The boats.”

Alex’s face turned toward her briefly. His lips were tight. “What?”

“All twelve of them. The two America’s Cups, the schooner, his antique four-master. The others…All of them.”

Alex put one hand over his eyes. The muscle in his jaw worked as if he were grinding his molars.

She noted absently that he was still built strong, even with the weight loss. On the arm he had up, his biceps were curled thickly, stretching the short sleeve of his T-shirt, and his solid forearms had a network of veins running down them.

Her eyes drifted to his chest and then on to his taut stomach. The T-shirt had ridden up as he’d lain down, revealing a thin stripe of hair that ran from his belly button into the waistband of the pajama bottoms.

She looked back to his face quickly.

“I thought you should know,” she said. “The estate is being probated, but it’s a large, complicated one so it’ll take some time. My point being, you won’t have to worry about storage fees for a while.”

There was another long silence.

His sisters had warned her that he wasn’t letting anyone inside, and they’d been very right. But when had he ever? She could remember Reese saying he knew his partner’s character like the back of his hand, but the man’s thoughts and feelings were totally off-limits.

“So I guess I’ll…I’m going to go,” she said finally.

When her hand was on the doorknob, she heard Alex clear his throat. “He loved you. You know that, don’t you?”

Tears leaped into her eyes as she glanced back at him. God, he was so still. “Yes.”

Alex’s head turned slowly. And he looked at her.

Agony was in his face. Total, abject despair. The depth of the searing emotion floored her, and she came across the room on impulse.

Which was a bad idea.

He shrank from her. Actually pushed his body away, right to the far edge of the mattress.

Cassandra skidded to a halt next to the bed and fought not to completely break down.

“I will never understand why you’ve hated me all these years,” she said, her voice cracking.

“That was never the problem,” he shot back. “Now, please, just leave. It’s better for us both.”

“Why? You were his best friend. I was his wife.”

“You don’t need to remind me of that.”

Cassandra shook her head and gave up. “The lawyers will be in touch about your inheritance.”

She closed the door behind her and quickly went down the hall to the guest room she’d been given. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she straightened a fold in her Chanel skirt, put her hands in her lap, crossed her legs at the ankles—

And sobbed.

*

Alex shut his eyes and took deep breaths.

On the backs of his lids, all he could see was long, thick, copper-colored hair. Pale, smooth skin. Lips that were naturally tinted pink. Eyes that were a soft green, like sea glass.

His poor, miserable, beaten-up body started to crank over, like an old engine wheezing to life. In spite of the fact that he was pumped full of drugs, and hung over, and in pain, warmth spread under his skin.

Feeling something, anything, other than suffering should have been a relief. Instead, the flush kicked up regrets that almost had him crying out.

Reese may be dead, but in Alex’s mind, Cassandra was still very much the man’s wife. And she always would be.