Outsider

by Diana Palmer

  Their wedding night was payback for Colby. He still regretted it. Of course, a day later annulment papers were filed, the minute the millionaire found out from the private detective he’d hired that Colby had considerable Apache blood and that his total worth was somewhat shy of the impression his luxurious style of dress had led the older man to believe it was. Colby didn’t know how Sarina had responded to her father’s demand that she lie about her wedding night and sign the annulment papers. He’d left her in tears in the early hours of the morning, so angry and full of self-contempt that he didn’t even look at her as he left the room.

  Before that final meeting, in the early days of their friendship, they’d talked about children in a casual sort of way. She’d always wanted children. A girl, she told him dreamily, and she’d name her Bernadette. There was an old movie she’d seen, and that was the heroine’s name. She thought it was beautiful.

  “We’d heard that Hunter wanted an assistant,” she said, glancing at him. “There was some sort of drug raid and an arrest last night,” she added without meeting his eyes. “They said Hunter was in on it.”

  “So was I,” he replied.

  That was a surprise, but she was good at hiding her emotions. “Were some of our people here involved?” she fished.

  He closed up. “I don’t discuss ongoing cases with civilians,” he said.

  She gave him a long look. “You haven’t changed,” she said. “You’re just as enigmatic and cold as you were then.”

  “Well, you’ve changed,” he said flatly. “I wouldn’t have recognized you.”

  “I’ve grown up,” she replied. “Children do.”

  “You were no child when you followed me around like a lost puppy,” he said, wanting to hurt.

  She hesitated, but she didn’t want to admit how young she’d been. Or how stupid. “It was just a bad case of hero worship. I don’t do it anymore,” she replied sarcastically. “I took the cure. Remember?” she added with pure venom.

  He didn’t reply, but he avoided meeting her eyes. “Life goes on.”

  “So they say.” She took a disk out of the drawer and fed it into her CD-ROM drive. “I have some paperwork to finish. I’m sure you have duties of your own.”

  He hesitated. “About the kid…”

  She looked up. “Bernadette isn’t used to strangers being harsh with her, even if she does have mixed blood.”

  “Hispanic,” he agreed, assuming that she meant the child had Hispanic ancestry. He didn’t notice the faint flicker of Sarina’s eyelids. The little girl certainly spoke Spanish with some fluency. His eyes blazed with anger. “My own blood is mixed, if you remember,” he retorted.

  “As I recall, you did your best to hide your Apache ancestry. But, then, I remember as little about you as I possibly can, Mr. Lane,” she said with a cool little smile. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m quite busy.” She turned her attention back to her computer, ignoring him completely.

  He turned on his heel and stalked out. He could have chewed tenpenny nails.

  SARINA LET OUT THE BREATH she’d been holding since he walked into her office. She felt drained of life, exhausted, burned out. She’d loved Colby Lane. But her relationship with him had destroyed her life. One look into those black eyes had resurrected memories that were much better left dead.

  She wondered what Bernadette had said to him to provoke such a reaction. The child had odd little flashes of insight, almost like precognition. Sometimes she frightened other children with her predictions. She frightened her mother, too. Bernadette’s grandfather had possessed the same sort of mental insight. There was a Comanche uncle in Oklahoma who also had it. She hoped it wasn’t going to cause Bernadette trouble as she grew older.

  Right now, though, her concern was how she was going to manage her job with Colby Lane in such proximity. He didn’t know anything about her, least of all why she was here, and she couldn’t let him find out. She hoped Bernadette didn’t slip and say anything to him in Apache. Apparently he spoke Spanish, because he’d answered Bernadette in the same tongue. She’d have to talk to Hunter. He and Jenny missed Tucson but it was news to Sarina that they were planning to go back, because Jenny was pregnant with their second child and in the care of a local obstetrician.

  Bernadette and Nikki, the Hunters’ daughter, were best friends. The two families were close. That was going to make the situation more difficult. There were things that Sarina didn’t want Colby to find out. She’d have to caution the Hunters to keep quiet about her background—and Bernadette’s special gift. The last thing in the world she wanted Colby Lane to know was who Bernadette’s father was. What a tragedy that he should turn up now.

  Another problem presented itself as she thought about Bernadette’s violent upset in Colby’s presence. The child had been diverted to go find Nikki, and she seemed all right. But often it took a few hours for the symptoms to appear, and she had sounded very hoarse as she left Sarina’s office…

  She turned her attention back to the computer. She didn’t even want to think about it until she had to. Maybe, maybe, it would be all right! Damn Colby and his hot temper!

  COLBY STALKED INTO HUNTER’S office with black eyes blazing. He closed the door sharply, bringing the other man’s surprised gaze to his face.

  “What’s biting you?” he asked Colby.

  “That little girl, the one who knew about my arm…her mother is Sarina Carrington,” he said harshly.

  Hunter eyed him cautiously. “So?”

  Colby glared at him. He hesitated. “Sarina’s my ex-wife.”

  Hunter actually dropped the pen he was holding. He and his wife had known Sarina for seven years, and they were aware that she knew Colby Lane. But she’d never mentioned a prior marriage.

  Colby barely noticed. He went to the window and looked out, his hands jammed into his pockets. “It was a long time ago,” he said. “We were only together one day before she filed for divorce.”

  “What a smart woman,” Hunter murmured dryly.

  The memory of the brief marriage was like a knife through Colby’s gut. He didn’t say anything for a minute. “She was in college when I left,” he said aloud. “I thought she’d go into teaching or some profession. She’s a clerk here, I gather.”

  Hunter averted his eyes from his friend’s piercing gaze. “A records clerk,” he said, hoping he still had a poker face. “I understand she dropped out of college. She wanted a job with less pressure so that she had time for her daughter.”

  That was a laudable goal, and Colby couldn’t fault it. But he was upset. He’d never expected to see Sarina again, much less find her working in a corporation that had just hired him. The job would necessarily foster contact between them. He didn’t want a daily reminder of his cruelty.

  “Why isn’t she working in Tucson? I know you’ve got a branch office there now. You were working in it at one time.”

  “Yes. She was briefly reassigned here to fill in for another employee,” Hunter said, grasping for any reasonable explanation. “They’ll probably go back to Tucson in the near future.”

  Colby relaxed, just a little. “That’s probably a good thing.”

  “Listen, I’ve got a meeting with Eugene. Want to come?”

  “Do I need to?”

  It would be tricky if he did. Hunter was keeping secrets. He couldn’t let Colby in on them.

  “Not really. I’ll brief you. Just routine stuff. You can skip this one,” Hunter said with a smile. “If you want something to do, you can go around and introduce yourself to the department heads. You know. Practice diplomacy.”

  Colby glared at him. “My gun’s in my desk drawer.”

  Hunter gave him a wry look.

  Colby shrugged. “All right, I’ll work on my people skills.”

  “Good idea.” He picked up his notes. “Did you make up with Bernadette?”

  Colby shifted his arm uncomfortably. “Her idea of making up would involve a skinning knife, from what I saw.”


  Hunter almost bit his tongue trying not to make a joke about similarities between the child and the man. “She likes most people.”

  “She hates me,” Colby said shortly. “And I’m not keen on kids who make personal remarks to total strangers.” He scowled. “But how in the hell did she know about my arm?” he asked angrily. “I haven’t had any contact with Sarina for seven years, so the kid couldn’t have found out from her mother. And if you’ve never told Nikki,” he finished, letting the remark speak for itself.

  “Bernadette knows things,” Hunter said. “I don’t know how. Maybe there was a shaman in her ancestry somewhere.”

  Colby frowned. “I thought she was Hispanic.”

  “Sarina doesn’t talk about her ancestry,” Hunter said, hoping he could avoid any revelations about Bernadette’s background. He didn’t dare let on. Sarina would kill him.

  “Do you know who her father is?”

  Hunter turned toward the door. “No,” he said. It was true that he hadn’t, and he’d never really thought about it…until now. This was dangerous territory. The whole Apache nation was small enough to make it easy to find relatives on the reservations. He couldn’t tell Colby that Bernadette’s ancestry was Apache, and he’d almost let it slip with the shaman remark. Hunter didn’t want Colby asking questions. He still had cousins at a reservation back in Arizona. “I’ll be back in an hour or so. Hold down the fort.”

  Colby patted the cell phone at his belt. “If there is an attack, I’ll ring you.”

  Hunter made a face on his way out.

  Colby made the rounds of the executives. One made an immediate impression, and it wasn’t a good one. He was assistant head of human resources, a real jerk named Brody Vance who had delusions of importance. He had an administrative assistant who was very nice. She was going with a local DEA senior agent named Cobb, according to Hunter. Colby had met her during a raid at the company warehouse the previous night, when she’d driven a car through machine-gun fire to save Cobb’s life—and his and Hunter’s. She was quite a woman.

  He rounded a corner, and there was Sarina. But she wasn’t alone. There was a tall, dark, handsome Latin, about Colby’s age, with her. He was leaning lazily against the wall with his arms crossed, and the two of them were in earnest conversation. They were so engrossed, and he was so intent on them, that he didn’t notice the little girl running toward them until she called to the man.

  “Rodrigo!” she laughed. “Are you coming to my birthday party when we have it?”

  “Of course!” he replied, holding out his arms. He caught her up and whirled her around, laughing deeply. “How could I miss all the cake and ice cream?”

  “You’d miss me, too,” she chided. She kissed him and linked her arms around his neck. “Dear Rodrigo, whatever would me and Mommy do without you?”

  “I’ll make sure that you never know!” he teased, hugging her back.

  Sarina checked her watch. “We’d better go. We still have to stop by the grocery store on the way home. Are you coming over for supper?”

  He shook his head. “Thanks, but I have a meeting.”

  “I forgot.”

  He shrugged. “Another time.”

  She smiled at him in a way that made Colby’s teeth set. “Another time,” she said.

  The man she’d called Rodrigo bent and brushed a careless kiss across her cheek. “Take care of my best girl,” he told Sarina, winking at the child.

  “I always do,” she replied warmly, waving as he went off down the hall.

  Sarina and Bernadette turned together and there was Colby, blocking the aisle, glaring at both of them.

  “There’s that awful man again,” Bernadette said with a cold glare.

  “Bernadette, we don’t make rude remarks about people we don’t know,” Sarina said gently. Not even when they’re richly deserved, she thought silently.

  “Sorry, Mommy,” Bernadette muttered under her breath, but she didn’t stop glaring at Colby.

  Sarina took her hand and walked toward Colby. She stopped when he didn’t step aside.

  “Who’s the guy?” he asked, nodding toward where Rodrigo had disappeared.

  “A friend,” Sarina said before she thought that it was none of his business. “Rodrigo Ramirez. He works here, too. Would you move, please?”

  “Is he the girl’s father?”

  Sarina’s eyebrows arched. “I’ve only known him three years.”

  He looked at Bernadette with a narrow stare. “I hope you don’t have any plans to try to blame her on me,” he said out of the blue, without a clue why he’d made the outrageous remark. “I’d rather be shot than lay claim to a child that rude.”

  She wasn’t a violent woman, but the sarcastic remark hit her in a raw spot. She’d had years of anguish, from her troubled pregnancy to a dangerous delivery, and all the health problems that had come afterward. The comment made her furious. Without pausing to count the cost, she drew back her foot and kicked him in the shin as hard as she could.

  He groaned and bent over to rub his leg with a muffled curse.

  “Good for you, Mommy,” Bernadette said gleefully. “That’s the one that got hit with the baseball bat, too!”

  Colby gaped at her. Only the month before, he’d had to apprehend a man at his former job for Pierce Hutton who was armed with a baseball bat. He’d been hit in the leg trying to subdue the perpetrator. How the hell did the kid know that?

  “Come on, Bernadette,” Sarina said, almost dragging the child along with her past the small café downstairs.

  Colby walked after them, hobbling a little. “That child is a witch!” he raged in Apache. Sarina didn’t respond to the insult, but the child looked back at him with cold, angry eyes as he followed them down the hall. If his leg hadn’t been hurting so badly, he might have noticed that she understood what he’d said about her.

  Inside the small café overlooking the corridor, maintained for Ritter employees, Alexander Cobb was buying a cappuccino for the young woman Colby remembered from the shoot-out. Colby grimaced as he noticed Cobb watching him with an unholy amused grin. His new job wasn’t starting off on the best of feet.

  CHAPTER TWO

  IT BOTHERED SARINA that Colby had warned her not to accuse him of being Bernadette’s father. Of course, he had no reason to think it was true. He’d said it in a sarcastic manner and was probably trying to score points. He didn’t bother to mention her frantic call, and his chilling response to it, all those years ago when she was pregnant with Bernadette. He’d told Maureen to tell Sarina that he was sterile and the child couldn’t possibly be his. What a joke.

  But not a funny one. She’d called him in her ninth month of pregnancy, desperate for help. She’d been totally alone, with no money, unable to work, and at the mercy of bill collectors and the obstetrician who was trying to save her baby. Colby had told his wife Maureen to tell her that she was lying, it couldn’t possibly be his child, that he never wanted to speak to her again. She was a filthy little liar, Maureen had quoted, and he hated her for trying to ruin his marriage to Maureen. If she accused him again of fathering her child, Maureen added, Colby would take her to court.

  After all these years, it was still painful to remember his rejection. He didn’t believe he could have a child and he’d made sure she knew it. That was something of a relief, but it was disturbing that he’d even alluded to it just now. She loved her daughter. She didn’t want to take any chance of losing her.

  But perhaps she was worrying for no good reason. Colby was surely still married to that horrible woman, Maureen. It was obvious that he didn’t like children. And if he truly believed he was sterile, perhaps his rude remark about Bernadette’s parentage was a defensive posture to protect his pride.

  It was a sad fate that had landed him in her path, especially now, when she was already in so much danger. Her job entailed risks that were becoming more and more unacceptable now that Bernadette was in the line of fire. She was a patriot and she could do a job that
not many other people wanted. But was it fair to put Bernadette at risk? If something happened to her, the child would have no living relative save one. And he didn’t even know about her. Worse, there was the terrifying health issue which would make the child’s chances of adoption unlikely. More and more she was regretting her choice of careers.

  A few days later, she was washing dishes at the kitchen sink when she heard a gunshot. Bernadette had been sitting in a small cloth chair on the front porch, but she came running inside.

  “Mommy, there’s a boy with a gun!”

  She caught the child up in her arms. “Are you all right? You weren’t hit?”

  “No, Mommy. I’m okay.”

  “Stay down!” Sarina said, tucking the child beside the refrigerator. She took down the key from above the door, the one that fit the drawer by the front door, in case she needed what was inside. Then she went carefully to the front of their small apartment and looked out through the curtained window. Old Señora Martinez was standing on her porch with both hands to her mouth, staring after three young men in bandanas who were running wildly toward a waiting car. A fourth man yelled curses after them. He was holding his arm, from which blood poured. Sarina knew the man; he was Señora Martinez’s grandson Raoul. He went to the old lady and soothed her, kissing her forehead. She took his good arm and drew him, fussing, into the apartment and closed the door.

  No doubt the shooter was the old lady’s nephew, Tito. He was fourteen and headed for jail, as sure as the world. He used drugs and he was violent when he was under the influence. Not that this grandson, Raoul, who’d just been shot defending her was any prize—he was, in fact, the leader of one of the more notorious project gangs. She liked old Señora Martinez. She didn’t want her idiot nephew to kill her in a drug-crazed stupor. She was going to mention the incident to a friend in law enforcement. Right now, she didn’t dare call the local police because her name would go on the report. At least, she wasn’t required to take any action. She closed the drawer back and locked it, putting the key over the door as usual.