Renegade

“We add a new ornament to the Christmas tree every year and we hang a pickle in the tree.”

His fork poised in midair. “A what?”

“A pickle, Cash,” Rory replied. “It’s a German custom, for good luck. Our grandfather on our mother’s side was German.” He finished a bite of meat and washed it down with milk. “What were your people, Cash?”

“Martians, I believe,” Cash replied seriously.

Tippy’s eyebrows lifted.

“Right.” Rory chuckled.

Cash grinned at him. “My mother’s mother was from Andalusia, in Spain,” he said with a smile. “My father’s people were Cherokee and Swiss.”

“Quite a combination,” Tippy remarked, studying him.

He stared at her curiously. “Your ancestors must have been Irish or Scottish,” he said, noting her hair color.

“That’s what I think,” she agreed, but she didn’t meet his eyes.

“Our mother’s a redhead,” Rory interjected. “Tippy’s is natural, too, but lots of people think she dyes it.”

Tippy took a long sip of milk and said nothing.

“I thought about dyeing mine purple, but my cousin, who was our former chief, said it might offend people.” Cash sighed. “That was about the same time he made me take off my earring,” he added disgustedly.

Tippy almost choked on her milk.

“You wore an earring?” Rory exclaimed, delighted.

“Just a simple gold one,” Cash admitted. “I was working for the government at the time and my boss was so politically correct that he wore a sign apologizing for stepping on bacteria and killing it.” He nodded emphatically. “That’s a true story.”

Tippy was wiping her eyes. She laughed so hard that she was almost crying. It had been years since she’d felt so lighthearted with anyone. From their rocky beginning to laughter was a big step.

“She never laughs,” Rory commented with a grin. “Especially on location shoots. She hates photographers on account of one made her sit on a rock in a bikini and she got bitten by a tern.”

“The stupid bird dive-bombed me five times,” Tippy had to admit. “On its final assault, it took part of my scalp away!”

“You should tell him about what the pigeons did to you on that shoot in Italy,” Rory prompted.

She shivered delicately. “I’m still trying to forget it. I used to like pigeons.”

“I love pigeons,” Cash said, grinning. “You haven’t lived until you’ve had them delicately wrapped in puff pastry and fried in olive oil…”

“You barbarian!” Tippy exclaimed.

“It’s okay, I eat snakes and lizards, too, I’m not strictly a pigeon man.”

Rory was all but rolling on the floor. “Gosh, Cash, this is going to be the best Christmas we’ve ever had!”

Tippy was inclined to agree. The man across from her bore very little resemblance to the antagonistic, hostile law enforcement officer she’d met while filming in Jacobsville, Texas. Everybody said Cash Grier was mysterious and dangerous. Nobody said he had a howling sense of humor.

Seeing her confusion, Cash leaned toward Rory and spoke in a loud whisper. “She’s confused. Back in Texas, they told her I kept military secrets about flying saucers in a locked file.”

“I heard it was aliens,” Tippy murmured without cracking a smile.

“I do not keep aliens in my filing cabinet,” he said indignantly. A minute later, his dark eyes started to twinkle. “I keep those in a closet in my house.”

Rory chuckled. Tippy was laughing, too.

“And I thought actors were nuts,” Tippy remarked on a sigh.

AFTER LUNCH, CASH announced that he was taking them to the park. Tippy changed into an emerald-green pant suit and put her hair in a braid, adding just a touch of makeup to her oval face.

Her apartment was on a quiet, tree-lined street. It was a transitional neighborhood that had gone from fairly dangerous to middle class. The renovations were notice able, especially in Tippy’s apartment, which had black wrought-iron banisters that led up the stone steps to her two-story apartment.

In her heyday as a model, she’d had money to burn, and briefly she’d lived off Park Avenue. But after her year’s absence from the profession, when modeling jobs became thin on the ground, she had to budget. That was when she’d moved here, just before she started shooting the movie in Jacobsville that had unexpectedly restarted her career. She could probably have afforded something better now, but she’d become attached to her neighbors and the peaceful street where she lived. There was a bookstore just down at the corner and a food market past it. There was also a small mom-and-pop café which served the best coffee around. It was lovely in the spring. Now, with winter here, the trees were bare and the city looked cold and gray.

Cash’s red Jaguar was parked just outside the steps that led into her apartment building. She did a double take when she saw it, but she didn’t comment. Rory climbed into the back seat, leaving Tippy to sit up front with Cash.

“I thought Central Park was dangerous,” Rory remarked as they strolled along the sidewalk after the short drive, glancing at the pretty carriages hitched to horses that were waiting for customers. “And should you leave your car parked there?” he added, looking over his shoulder at the beautiful car.

Cash shrugged. “Central Park is much safer now. And anybody who can get past my pet rattlesnake is welcome to drive my car.”

“Your what…?” Tippy burst out, looking around at her ankles.

He grinned. “My alarm system. That’s what I call it. I’ve got an electronic monitoring system installed some where in the engine—if anybody tries to hot-wire the car, or steals it, it will take about ten minutes for the police to find it. Even in New York City,” he added smugly.

“No wonder you look so confident,” Rory said. “It sure is a beaut of a car, Cash,” he added wistfully.

“It is that,” Tippy remarked. “I can drive, but it’s impractical to have a car in this city,” she said, indicating the abundance of taxis buzzing up and down the streets. “Usually, when I went on modeling jobs, I didn’t have time to waste looking for parking spots. There are never enough. Cabs and subways are quicker when you’re in a rush.”

“They are,” he agreed. He glanced down at her, fascinated by her fresh beauty that was only accentuated by the lack of makeup.

“Where are you shooting the movie?” he asked.

“Here in the city, mostly,” she said. “It’s a comedy with touches of a spy drama mixed in. I have to wrestle with a foreign agent in one scene, and outrun a gunman in another.” She grimaced. “We only just started filming before we broke for the holidays, and I’ve got bruises everywhere already from the fight coordinator’s choreography. I actually have to learn aikido for the film.”

“A useful martial art,” Cash remarked. “It was one of the first forms I learned.”

“How many do you know?” Rory asked at once. Cash shrugged. “Karate, tae kwon do, hapkido, kung fu, and a few disciplines that aren’t in the book. You never know when you’ll need to fall back on that training. It comes in handy in police work, now that I’m not stuck behind a desk all the time.”

“Judd said you worked in Houston with the D.A.’s office,” Tippy said.

He nodded. “I was a cybercrime expert. It wasn’t challenging enough to suit me. I like something a little less routine and structured.”

“What do you do in Jacobsville?” Rory wanted to know. Cash chuckled. “I run from my secretaries,” he said sheepishly. “Just before I phoned your sister about coming up for the holidays, the new one quit and dumped a trash can over my head.” He made a face and touched his dark hair. “I’m still picking coffee grounds out of my hair.”

Tippy’s green eyes widened. She stopped and looked up at Cash. She couldn’t believe he was telling the truth. She remembered how efficiently he’d stopped the assistant director on her first film from touching her when she’d objected to his familiarity.