Renegade

by Alers, Rochelle

  We’ve found nothing on Omar Knight which would lead us to believe he’s dealing. It had taken Lucas eight weeks to come up with nothing—nada—on a student Dumas Gellis suspected was dealing drugs at Weir.

  Summer had replayed Lucas Shelby’s statement in her head over and over as she sat in the auditorium that was quickly filling up with students, faculty, staff and family members for Weir’s Holiday Concert.

  When she’d told Lucas about Dumas’s over-the-top physical confrontation with Omar, Lucas had merely shrugged it off, saying the assistant principal was overzealous like many of his agents.

  Lucas’s assessment of Dumas bothered her, because whenever he directed a bust he always cautioned those on his team about going above the law. What she had wanted to do was remind him of the time he’d punched her in the face during the Robertson bust.

  Focusing on the activity on the stage, she stared at the students warming up their instruments. The girls were dressed in black skirts and white blouses, the boys in white shirts and black slacks.

  She and Gabriel hadn’t seen much of each other since their return from Mississippi, except on weekends, because of his rehearsal schedules. Most days found him lingering behind after the dismissal bell to practice with his students for the concert. Not sharing dinner with him during the week permitted her more time to write the skits for her spring concert. She had just completed one for the Big Band era. She had given herself a December thirty-first deadline to complete the production.

  Tomorrow would become the last day of classes until January second. The entire school system was scheduled to close for the winter recess, and on Sunday she and Gabriel were scheduled to fly to Florida for a weeklong celebration with the Coles. She looked forward to reuniting with her new family with an excitement that was somewhat frightening. It would become the first time in a very, very long time that she would feel a part of a real family.

  After Thanksgiving, she had embarked on a shopping spree with a vengeance that surprised even her. Never one to brave the stores and malls during the Christmas shopping season, she had made the rounds of toy stores, shops that sold clothing for the newborn through preteen, prowled the children’s section of bookstores, and purchased gift certificates for Gabriel’s sisters, brother, and many cousins. She had bought a magnificent Waterford vase for her future mother and father-in-law. She’d mailed a gift certificate to her grandmother for her to redeem at her favorite apparel shop for a new wardrobe for her upcoming cruise.

  She spent hours wrapping gifts with festive paper, ribbon, and name tags before she packed them in large cartons to be shipped to Martin and Parris Cole’s residence in West Palm Beach, Florida. The gifts, which would be placed under a massive tree, would be opened Christmas Eve at the stroke of midnight.

  The only gift she hadn’t shipped to Florida was Gabriel’s. She had purchased a status bracelet with alternating links in platinum and yellow eighteen-karat gold. It was what she’d called an impulse buy. She saw it and put down the plastic before she could question herself as to the price tag.

  The stage’s spotlights dimmed and Gabriel walked onto the stage, hair flowing to his shoulders and dressed in his ubiquitous black. Summer’s breath caught in her chest at the same time a loud roar went up from the students sitting in the audience. Gabriel had become one of their favorite teachers. They claimed he was “cool” because he understood and respected their music.

  He was cool to the students while Summer thought he looked “hot” strutting on stage in a black cashmere jacket with a shawl collar, a mock turtle cashmere sweater, flannel slacks, and a pair of low-heeled boots. His salt-and-pepper wavy hair grazed his shoulders whenever he moved his head.

  Observing him from a distance made her aware of the little things in the man to whom she’d committed her future that she hadn’t noticed before. Gabriel Cole did not walk, but swaggered, methodically placing one foot in front of the other as his shoulders rocked from side-to-side. He had a way of raising his chin slightly in what she thought of as a haughty or challenging gesture. And whenever he smiled it usually wasn’t spontaneous, but slow in coming like a drop of heated wax sliding down a lit candle.

  Holding a baton loosely between the fingers of his right hand, he snapped it once on the music stand, and in one measured motion violins and viola went from thighs to chins, cellos positioned between knees, bows touched the strings of bass violins, and the mouthpieces to clarinets, oboes, flutes, trumpets, saxophones, trombones, French horns hovered next to waiting lips. Gabriel’s hand went up in a graceful arc and the familiar strains to “O Come All Ye Faithful” swelled in the auditorium. Halfway through the classic carol Summer knew the concert should not have taken place without choral accompaniment.

  The song ended with applause, then a hush fell over the assembly as Gabriel picked up an acoustical guitar laying across a chair and sat down near two flutists and played the beautifully haunting notes of “Joy to the World” as cellos, violins, flutes and French horns provided a quiet background.

  “Joy to the World” segued into a jazzier version of “What Child Is This” as a sax player and percussionist had everyone nodding their heads in time with the tune also known as “Greensleeves.”

  The pace and tone changed when a student placed a microphone in front of Gabriel and adjusted the height. The sound of tinkling bells, crisp plucking of the guitar strings, and his passionate voice singing “River” sent chills up and down Summer’s spine.

  She stared at him, stunned by the passion in his face as he closed his eyes and sang from his heart. Gabriel’s singing Joni Mitchell’s “River” was as moving as the version she had Kenny Lattimore sing.

  He accompanied the orchestra, they watching him carefully when he set the rhythm with either his hand or head. Forty-five minutes and six carols later the first half of the program ended with a standing ovation and whistling. Gabriel stood, bowed, then motioned for his students to stand. On cue, they stood and bowed their heads as one. Seconds later the curtain closed, and the lights brightened.

  Summer sat, grinning from ear to ear. Gabriel was right—his students were extremely talented. When she had asked him what he was working on with his students, he refused to tell her, saying she would have to wait until the night of the concert. Well, she had waited, and there was no doubt the wait was more than worth it.

  The lights dimmed again, the curtain opened, and this time there was no guitar. He tapped the stand with his baton, and there were gasps of recognition when the students began the allegro non troppo from Beethoven’s Symphony no. 9 in D minor.

  Summer’s eyes glittered with excitement. The first time she’d appeared as a principal singer in a production at the school of dramatic arts in St. Louis had been to sing soprano for Beethoven’s Ninth. Singing the part wasn’t as challenging as learning to sing it in German.

  She found herself on her feet, cheering with the others when the overture ended and the final curtain came down. Tears pricked the backs of her eyes as she struggled not to cry.

  Gabriel was magnificent!

  His students were magnificent!

  She loved him so much that she felt lightheaded with the soaring passion sweeping her up in a maelstrom of desire that threatened to stop her from breathing.

  Pushing her way through the throng, she made it back to her office and waited for Gabriel. It was almost forty-five minutes later when he walked in, his eyes shimmering with excitement. Closing the door behind him, he turned and smiled at her.

  “How did you like my kids?”

  She quelled the urge to go to him and kiss him with all of the passion and desire heating her blood. “They were fabulous. You were fabulous.”

  He nodded. “Thank you, Summer.” His expression changed, becoming almost somber. “Will you come home with me tonight?”

  Summer felt the repressed energy radiating from him, recognizing it immediately. It was the joy, the thrill of knowing you had given the best performance you could. It was as if you�
��d bared your soul for everyone to see, and they had made the sacrifice worthwhile.

  “Yes.” The single word was a whisper. “Let me go home first and pick up something to wear tomorrow.” Her bags for her weeklong stay in Florida were already at his house.

  He nodded. “I’ll pick you up in half an hour.”

  Reaching for her coat and handbag, she brushed past him, their bodies barely touching, walked out of the office and then made her way out of the school to the parking lot.

  Summer shivered as she huddled against Gabriel as they made their way to the front door. “It feels like snow.”

  “Let it snow,” he sang at the top of his lungs. He dropped his arms and unlocked the door. Heat swept over their chilled faces, welcoming them in.

  Summer left her bag on the chair in the entryway, hung up her coat on a nearby coat tree, and followed Gabriel through the living room and into the kitchen.

  He made his way into the half-bath. “How about a latté?”

  She crowded into the bathroom with him. “Yes, thank you.” Pushing her hands under the running water, she smiled up at Gabriel as he washed her hands, kissed her fingers, then dried them.

  “Why don’t you go upstairs and get into bed and I’ll bring you your latté.”

  She kissed his cheek, inhaling the faint scent of his woodsy aftershave on his skin. “Okay.”

  She climbed the staircase, removing the cardigan to reveal a pale yellow twin set. A lamp on a table in the sitting area spilled soft golden light onto the bedroom. Undressing and leaving her clothes on a padded bench at the foot of the king-sized bed, she went into the bathroom and removed her makeup and brushed her teeth.

  She was in bed, wearing one of Gabriel’s T-shirts when he walked in with their lattés. He handed her hers before he placed his cup on the table on his side of the bed. Leaning over, he kissed her hard on the mouth.

  “Don’t run away, I’ll be right back.”

  “Where am I going in this weather, wearing this?” She pulled up the T-shirt.

  “Don’t,” he groaned, staring at the outline of her firm breasts rising and falling sensuously over a waist small enough for him to span with both hands.

  Summer giggled softly and watched him as he disappeared into the bathroom. The latté was too hot, so she waited for it to cool. She lay with her back against the pillows when Gabriel reemerged from the bathroom, naked.

  Her admiring gaze was trained on him as he moved closer. Even though he had confessed to loving her, even though she wore his ring, she found it difficult to believe she had fallen in love with someone who had truly become her soul mate. His relatives thought of him as moody, while she thought of him as reflective. They hadn’t understood his tuning out everything around him whenever he heard, as he had explained to her, music in his head. And she was secure enough to know that his periods of silence had nothing to do with her inability to engage him in conversation.

  Gabriel slipped into the bed beside Summer, reaching for her. “Is it too cold in here?”

  “No,” she murmured, her face pressed to his hairy chest. She placed tiny kisses over his shoulders and throat, and moved lower over his flat belly.

  She rested her cheek on his belly, and he reached down and rested a hand on her head.

  They hadn’t made love last week because she’d had her period. He had asked her about contraception, because twice they had made love without his protecting her, and she’d confessed to being on the Pill. And although they’d talked about waiting to start a family until after they married, the urge for fathering a child had overwhelmed him with its intensity after seeing Summer with his young cousins. She was a natural with children, and several of the children had become tearful when they realized Summer was leaving to go back home to a place where they wouldn’t see her for a long, long time.

  He was godfather to Michael and Jolene’s son, Joshua Michael, and holding the infant in his arms while the priest had anointed the child with oil and water had left Gabriel shaking with emotion. Michael and Jolene Kirkland had offered him the responsibility of caring for their son if anything were to happen to them, and that was when he realized there was the remote possibility that he might have to take care of someone other than himself.

  His initial reluctance to become responsible for a child had changed because he wanted Summer to have his baby; he had teased Tyler about making babies, while harboring his own fear that perhaps he would not be able to father a child.

  Everyone teased Emily, although they knew she loved her children, because she complained about their sibling rivalry, while Sara and Salem Lassiter’s children did not compete or challenge each other the way hers did. Gabriel had been the one to tell her that she was rearing her children like his parents did—as free spirits, wherein the Lassiter household was more structured and subdued. He’d teased her, saying she should look to have a musician or artist in any one of the three. His explanation seemed to belie some of Emily’s apprehension as she kissed him and thanked him for his observation, but tapped him on his shoulder once he reminded her that the DNA of the late Alejandro Delgado-Quintero and Joshua Kirkland has been passed along to her children.

  The Delgado children’s grandfathers were men who were unique in their own way. The elder Delgado and Kirkland’s destinies were entwined when Alejandro identified prominent Mexican drug traffickers for a major U.S.-Mexican drug sweep orchestrated by retired U.S. Colonel Joshua Kirkland, former associate coordinating chief of the Defense Intelligence Agency.

  It was after his conversation with his cousin that he wondered how would he raise his own children—the way his parents had or more like Sara and Salem Lassiter?

  “Summer?”

  “Hmmm.”

  He smiled. Her voice echoed the heavy satisfaction making it difficult for him to move. “I’d like for you to consider something.”

  “What?”

  “I want us to consider trying for a baby now.”

  Her head came up, and she stared at him as if he were a stranger instead of someone with whom she had pledged her future. “A baby?”

  Sitting up, he reached down, anchored his hands under her arms and pulled her up to lie flush on his body. “Yes, a baby.”

  Her brow furrowed slightly. “Are you telling me to come off the Pill?”

  He shook his head. “No, darling. I’d never tell you to do anything that has to do with your body. I’m asking, Summer.”

  Her frown deepened. “What happened to us waiting until after we marry?”

  “I’ve changed my mind.”

  Summer registered the depth and quiet emphasis in his words. He’d changed his mind. He wanted a baby now. She also wanted a baby now, but the reality was that she did not want to carry a baby while still undercover.

  Moving up, she pressed her mouth to Gabriel’s, feeling his breath feather over her lips. “Why now, Gabriel? I don’t want to be a bride walking down the aisle with a belly.”

  “You won’t be the first pregnant Cole bride.” He chuckled when he heard her slight gasp. “My mother was at least three months along with me when she married my father. Alexandra was pregnant when she married Merrick. Regina waited until after she’d delivered Clay to marry Aaron. The one to take the rag off the brush was Uncle Martin. Regina was nine before he found out he had a daughter.”

  “Who wasn’t pregnant?”

  “Emily, Sara, and Arianna.”

  “What about Jolene?”

  “I forgot about her. She, too, had a little bun in the oven when she married Michael.”

  Summer wanted to tell Gabriel that there was nothing she wanted more than to become his wife and the mother of his children, except for a little obstacle. She was playing a dangerous masquerade, one that she did not know how it would play out.

  She and Merrick had argued during the return flight from Mississippi, both managing to keep their voices low and expressions impassive while she told him to back off. He had stubbornly refused saying that he would use hi
s own methods to make certain nothing happened to his unborn daughter’s aunt.

  “I can’t, Gabriel.” He stared at her so long that Summer felt as if his shimmering gold eyes were going to burn her face with their intensity. He was angry while she was resolute in her decision.

  Without warning, she kissed him, her tongue pushing into his mouth. At first he resisted, then he parted his lips. She teased, tantalized until his hands moved down and cradled her hips. Within seconds, the T-shirt she wore slipped off the bed and onto the carpeted floor. She slid down his body, her mouth and tongue charting a determined path.

  “No!” Gabriel bellowed when he felt her take him into her mouth. He collapsed to the mound of pillows on his side of the bed, breathing heavily through his open mouth as her hot mouth and tongue worked their magic.

  He forgot his annoyance at her stubbornness to marry before the school year ended; he forgot about her reluctance to get pregnant, and once his flesh swelled between her teeth he even forgot his own name.

  The women rule and the men serve.

  She had come to fully understand the family motto because she had found herself an equal with Gabriel out of the bed, while she had assumed control in bed. And she was not above using her body in the most skillful way possible to get him to agree to anything she wanted. And this moment she was in control and ruling with the absolute power of a despot.

  “No, Sum-m-er!” He’d groaned her name out in three syllables instead of two. She was driving him crazy. Her hot mouth was doing things to him that threatened to strip him bare where he’d become more malleable than soft clay.

  Tears of pleasure—pure and explosive—pricked the backs of his eyelids as he convulsed violently. His control shattered as a growl escaped his constricted throat and somewhere where sanity and insanity merged he found the strength to extract Summer’s mouth from his swollen flesh.

  He picked her up like a small child, pressed her back to the mattress, lifted her legs over his shoulders and entered her like a heat-seeking missile striking its target.

  This coupling, this joining was so passionate, intense, that Gabriel was certain he had experienced le petit mort for the first time as he and Summer climaxed simultaneously. He was dying, drowning in the pure and explosive pleasure of the woman writhing sensuously under him.