Renegade Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand closed possessively over her fingers.
    Summer felt the strength in his fingers, inhaled the clean fragrance of his cologne mingling with his body’s natural scent. In an instant everything that was Gabriel Cole seeped into her. Without hearing him speak, she recalled the drawling cadence of his baritone voice, saw the long wavy ponytail flowing down his back, remembered the comforting feel of his arm around her waist when they’d walked the hallway earlier that morning, and recalled his blatant threat to the photographer when he thought she would be harmed.
    If you touch her, even breathe on her, I will hurt you
.
    A slight smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. She couldn’t remember the last time a man, other than those on her team whose, “I’ve got you covered,” offered to protect her.
    “What are you smiling about?” Gabriel whispered close to her ear.
    “You,” she said, not taking her gaze off the student fingering the keys on an alto sax.
    “What about me?”
    “It’s what you said to that photographer when he came at me,” she whispered back.
    Gabriel brushed his mouth over her ear; the hair on his upper lip tickled her skin. “I wasn’t issuing an idle threat, Summer.”
    “What happened to music soothing the savage beast?” she teased. Turning her head, she stared up at him, their mouths only inches apart.
    Peering down under lowered lids, Gabriel committed everything about Summer to memory: the way she stared at him through her lashes, the straight bridge on her short nose and the poutiness of her lower lip.
    “There is a side of my personality that even music can’t soothe. Thankfully it doesn’t surface very often.”
    She affected a mysterious smile. “Everyone wears two faces, Gabriel, but the trick is not letting your opponent unmask you.”
    He stared at her, pondering her cryptic statement. “Is that what you really believe?”
    She held his gaze. “Yes.”
    The boy completed his scales, and Gabriel refocused his attention. “Very nice, Howard.”
    The pimply faced student smiled. “Am I in, Mr. Cole?”
    Gabriel nodded, smiling. “Yes, you’re in. I want you to practice your scales over the weekend until you feelcomfortable with the fingering. Monday I’ll test you to see whether I want you to play with the orchestra or the jazz band.”
    “Thanks, Mr. Cole.” Removing the mouthpiece, he bent down and put the instrument inside its carrying case.
    “You should always clean your horn before you repack it, Howard.”
    Howard blushed. “Sorry. I forgot.”
    Gabriel smiled. A few of the Weir students in the music program were quite talented, but lacked the discipline to expand their talent. He planned to identify those and work closely with them.
    He stood up, gently pulling Summer to her feet. “Are you ready?”
    “Yes.” And she was ready for Gabriel and the time they would spend together.
    He helped her into her raincoat. She anchored her handbag over her shoulder, and walked with him out of the building to the parking lot. The mist had stopped and the sun had burned away the fog, leaving a brilliant blue sky with puffy white clouds.
    Gabriel held the door while she slipped into the Porsche. The car smelled new, and she thought about what Lucas had said about the sticker price. Some people would have to work ten years to save enough money to buy a car like Gabriel’s. Meanwhile he thought nothing of handing a car dealer close to a quarter of a million dollars for a vehicle he probably thought of as a toy—a very, very expensive toy. He maneuvered out of Weir’s parking lot, driving quickly through the early afternoon traffic toward Route 3.
    Relaxing on her seat, Summer said, “Your car is very nice.”
    “Thank you.”
    “It still has a new-car smell.”
    “I’ve had it for six months. It was my birthday present to me.”
    She smiled at him. “You’re very generous to yourself.”
    He gave her a quick glance. “I hadn’t had a new car for more than