Former black ops CIA operative Colby Lane, now retired from his wild years as a mercenary, has found his new calling as assistant chief of security for the mammoth Ritter Oil Corporation. All he wants is a new start. What he discovers, though, is that the past is never far behind. Colby is soon enmeshed in plans to trap a notorious drug trafficker, and it seems that his ex-wife, Sarina Carrington — whom he so cruelly left after one day of marriage — may be more involved than she's letting on. Not only that, but Sarina has a six-year-old dark-eyed daughter whose father is mysteriously absent — or is he? After losing an arm, Colby Lane can no longer work as a mercenary. His second wife, Maureen, repulsed by his loss of limb, has left, but at least he has quit drinking and is ready to become assistant chief of security in a Houston oil firm. At 17 Sarina Carrington was married to Colby for less than 24 hours: he disappeared after a disastrous wedding night. Unbeknownst to Colby, Sarina was pregnant. Since Colby is Apache and their child has mixed blood, Sarina was kicked out of her rich father's house and ended up living in poverty with her asthmatic daughter, Bernadette. Colby doesn't know that he has a child and is unnerved by Bernadette's finely honed psychic powers, powers not unlike his own. Palmer has taken a wounded protagonist and deftly turned him into a true hero and a genuinely likable human being. Palmer's talent for character development and ability to fuse heartwarming romance with nail-biting suspense shine in Outsider. Shelley Mosley Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved "A compelling tale . . . [that packs] an emotional wallop." -- Booklist on Renegade "Diana Palmer does a masterful job of stirring the reader's emotions." -- Lezlie Patterson, Reading Eagle on Lawless "Diana Palmer is a mesmerizing storyteller who captures the essence of what a romance should be." -- Affaire de Coeur "Nobody does it better." -- New York Times bestselling author Linda Howard "Nobody tops Diana Palmer when it comes to delivering pure, undiluted romance. I love her stories." -- New York Times bestselling author Jayne Ann Krentz "Palmer knows how to make the sparks fly . . . heartwarming." -- Publishers Weekly on Renegade "Readers who enjoy stories by authors who know how to pack an emotional wallop, will add Palmer to their list." -- Booklist on Renegade "The dialogue is charming, the characters likeable and the sex sizzling." -- Publishers Weekly on Once in Paris "The ever-popular Palmer has penned another sure hit." -- Booklist on Before Sunrise "This story is a thrill a minute -- one of Palmer's best." -- Rendezvous on Lord of the Desert The prolific author of more than one hundred books, Diana Palmer got her start as a newspaper reporter. A New York Times bestselling author and voted one of the top ten romance writers in America, she has a gift for telling the most sensual tales with charm and humor. Diana lives with her family in Cornelia, Georgia. IT WAS AN UNUSUALLY COLD morning for October in Houston, Texas, and Colby Lane's left arm ached. There wasn't a lot left of it, thanks to a stint as a covert specialist in Africa. He'd been too drunk to take proper precautions and it had been shot off, then amputated from just below his elbow. The state-of-theart prosthesis he wore was classified technology, very advanced, and the hand at the end of it looked real enough to fool most people. He even had sensation in it, thanks to implanted computer chips. He was, he mused, a walking, talking lab rat with stealth capability. He grinned to himself at the mental picture that thought produced. But the smile faded rapidly. He was in a foul mood. It was only his second full day on the job as new assistant chief of security for the Ritter Oil Corporation's Houston branch. He'd taken the job as a favor to his old friend, Phillip Hunter, who was training him to be his replacement. The Hunters were considering a move back to Tucson, Arizona. Meanwhile, Colby was trying to get used to new surroundings and at least two department heads who thought they knew how to do his job better than he did. He'd formerly worked for the international Hutton Corporation as another friend's assistant chief of security. Then the Hutton Corporation gave notice that it was moving overseas. He didn't want to go with it. Colby knew Hunter from his childhood on the reservation. Like him, Colby had Apache blood. But Colby also had an innate dislike of tight schedules, corporate politics and wearing a suit. His background in covert operations as a mercenary soldier, not to mention a brief stint in top-secret intelligence work for the government, made this routine job an uncomfortable fit. Office politics was a far cry from going after the enemy with weapons. The amputation of his arm had cost him the work he'd done all his life. He was bitter about that; in fact, he was bitter about a lot of th