Renegade: A Taggart Brothers Novel by Lisa Bingham Page B

It’s close to the bathroom and the windows look out over the yard and the creek. I think Annie would like that.”
    She reached overhead again, lifting on tiptoes, and indoing so, the hem of her shirt lifted, revealing a sliver of velvety flesh.
    Jace knew he shouldn’t look, but he couldn’t help himself. Just as he couldn’t help drinking in the nipped-in spot at her waist and the sweep of her spine as—
    Bronte turned, catching him red-handed. He averted his eyes, but not before twin spots of color appeared on her cheekbones, chasing away some of the worry from her eyes.
    “Sorry,” Jace mumbled, knowing there was no sense denying that he’d been ogling her. “It’s been a long time since someone as pretty as you has crossed my path.”
    His honesty heightened the color in her cheeks, but to her credit, she didn’t chastise him. Instead, she seemed rather pleased by the offhanded comment.
    “Maybe you need to get out more,” was all she muttered as she turned away again, loaded cinnamon rolls onto two plates, then hooked two mugs through her finger.
    “Coffee?” she asked.
    He looked at the huge pastry on his plate. “I’d rather have milk, if you have it.”
    “Sure.”
    She took a gallon jug from the refrigerator and two glasses from the drainer near the sink, then snagged a small bowl of icing. After drizzling the almond-scented glaze on each roll, she took the chair diagonal from him.
    “This is amazing,” he said, looking down at the treat she’d laid out in front of him. The cinnamon roll was as big as the saucer, light and fluffy and golden brown. The filling swirled in dark counterpart to the golden dough, the rich cinnamon, and brown sugar studded with raisins and chunks of walnuts.
    “Don’t be too impressed. I can bake—bread, rolls, quick breads, cookies, cake—but that’s about the only talent I have for cooking. Phillip, my . . . the children’s father, mourned the fact that I could never figure out how to cook turkey tofu so that it was edible.”
    What the hell?
    “Why, on earth, would you want to eat turkey tofu in the first place?”
    His question seemed to please her, because she beamed.
    Needing to shield himself from the power of that smile, Jace used a fork to cut off a bite of his roll. As the flavors rolled over his tongue, he was immediately inundated with memories of his mother. At the first snow of the season, she’d always made a cinnamon coffee cake, and this was just as good, if not better. There was a hint of another flavor, one he couldn’t pinpoint. A spice that seemed to deepen the flavor of the spiral filling.
    “What’s in this? There’s something besides cinnamon, something . . .”
    “Cardamom. It’s in the candied nuts.”
    “You’ll have to let P.D. taste one of these.” His voice emerged much too husky and he quickly cleared his throat. At Bronte’s questioning look, he explained, “My older brother’s girlfriend owns a restaurant in town. She’s always looking for new recipes.”
    Again, Bronte’s cheeks turned pink and Jace wondered how long it had been since someone had offered her a compliment. Not recently enough, apparently.
    Unbidden, his gaze skipped to the hand circling her glass. She had beautiful, delicate hands with neatly trimmed nails painted in pale pink. But they weren’t pampered hands. Nicks and faint scars testified that she was accustomed to hard work. Even more telling, there was a faint ribbon of paler skin around her ring finger rather than a wedding band.
    She shifted beneath his gaze, drawing her hand into her lap. Then she changed her mind, setting her palm flat on the table.
    “I’m not with my husband . . . my ex-husband . . .” She sighed. “My husband and I are divorced for the most part . . .”
    Jace’s brows rose. “For the most part?” he echoed. For some reason, his pulse had begun to drum in his ears. “Exactly how does that work?”
    She sighed, beginning to trace the pattern of