Undercover Memories (3 page)

Taking a deep breath, she turned the key while staring at the front door. The car roared to life, but at that second, the door opened and John emerged wearing his slacks and nothing else, glaring at her as he advanced across the porch.

“Stop,” he yelled.

Sure.
Pushing down on the gas pedal, she jammed the shift into Reverse. The car jerked backward. John looked mad enough to jump in front of the car. Let him.

Instead, he raised his hand and she saw what she hadn’t noticed before. He was holding a gun.

Merciful heavens. He was going to kill her! She shifted into forward and gunned the engine again, but the back end had apparently wound up in a ditch or something and the car wouldn’t go forward. The tires just spun uselessly in the muddy snow.

She reached down and pushed the door lock button, still revving the engine and going nowhere fast.

He was at her window. “Stop the car,” he demanded.

The rearview mirror revealed blue smoke billowing out the tailpipe. There was no point in burning up her engine. She took her foot off the gas pedal.

“Stop the car and get out,” he said. He didn’t raise the gun; he didn’t need to. He knew he’d won.

She switched off the engine and pounded on the steering wheel, then opened the car door.

He grabbed her arm and hauled her out. His powerful chest was as bruised and battered as his arms. “Get in the house,” he said.

She walked through the snow, her feet in the wet socks freezing now. He was barefoot and gave no sign he even felt it.

“This is the thanks I get for letting you have the bed?” she snarled as he closed the front door behind them.

“You mean the swamp?” He ran a hand through his hair. “What happened, Paige? Why did you bolt?”

So, what did she do? Inform him he was wanted for nearly killing a man? Might that not give him ideas? Her gaze strayed to the television. She hadn’t turned it off but the volume was so low she couldn’t hear it from ten feet away. The same reporter as before was back on the screen. They were replaying the same story.

She looked away, but too late. She’d caught John’s attention, and he stepped behind her to see what she had been watching. His picture filled the screen, then faded away as an ad came on.

John looked down at her, the gun by his side.

“Why was my picture on television?”

“You seriously beat a man,” she said. There was no point in not telling him. All he had to do was wait for the story to loop around again.

“Tell me what you know.”

She repeated the few details, pausing after announcing he was actually John Cinca, looking for some sign the name clicked with him. There wasn’t one. He made a brief comment about the coincidence of giving himself a pseudonym that was actually his real first name, but that was it.

Next she told him he was a bodyguard living in a city two hundred miles away and that he’d rented a car that was still in the campground although probably impounded by now.

As she spoke, he made a fist of his left hand and gazed at his knuckles as though searching for proof he couldn’t have beaten someone senseless. But his hands were not only large and powerful, they were covered with bruises and cuts. And the knots of muscles in his chest and upper arms that flexed when he moved were further proof that if motivated, he could easily inflict some serious harm.

A shiver of fear snaked down Paige’s spine. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his lean frame. Whoever he was, he kept himself fit.

“So, you tried to leave because you realized you were in a small cabin with a would-be killer,” he said.

“What would you have done?” she whispered.

“Tried to leave.” He shook his head. “I obviously have a gun. Why would I beat someone up?”

“I don’t know, John. Noise, maybe?”

“Where did this happen?”

“At the park on top of the bluff.”

“I wonder how I ended up in the river. Wait, were there eyewitnesses?”

“They didn’t mention any.”

“Then they don’t know for sure I did it, right?”

“I don’t think so. But they’re looking for you. It’s only a matter of time before they start checking out these cabins, you know.”

He nodded in a distracted fashion.

“What are you going to do?” she asked him.

“Beats me.”

“Well, for starters, could you maybe put the gun away?”

He fiddled with it for a second, she assumed flicking on the safety. Then he looked into Paige’s eyes and offered her the gun.

“What are you doing?”

“You have to look out for yourself. If I’m capable of something like what you described—”

“Then you could easily kill me with your bare hands,” she said, and then stepped back inside her mind and stared at herself a second. Was she crazy? The man had confronted her over the barrel of a gun just a few minutes ago. She took the weapon. It was the first time in her life she’d ever held a gun, and she was surprised at how heavy it was.

She handed it back to him. “Take out the bullets.”

He ejected what looked like a slender package of cigarettes. “It’s called a clip.”

“Give me the clip, then, and you keep the gun.”

He smiled at her.

Okay, really, he had the sexy, glowering alpha male bit down to a T. In fact it seemed effortless. But when he smiled, he turned into a guy who probably had a perfectly normal life somewhere. A wife maybe, or a girlfriend. Children. A mortgage.

Again, she took a mental step back. Had she just dismissed the fact that he had probably beaten a man to a pulp less than twenty-four hours before? No, but it was hard to believe it was true. Impossible, almost. He could just as easily have been another victim, or the injured man might have attacked him first.

“Would you really have shot me?” she asked.

“No,” he admitted. “I just grabbed the gun like it was a habit of some kind.”

“There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen. A couple of your wounds need bandaging. I’ll get it for you.” When she returned with the kit, he thanked her.

“We both could use some coffee and food, and then I think we better get you to the police,” she said as she took off the coat and hooked it over the back of a chair.

He’d looked cooperative until the last part. He shook his head. “No way.”

“I’m putting on a pot of coffee. We’ll talk about it.”

“You can talk all you want,” he said. “I’m going to finish getting dressed.”

“Aren’t you afraid I’ll take off as soon as you close the bedroom door?”

Now he laughed, and if the smile had transformed him, the laughter lit him from the inside, even as he flinched and touched his lip. “After the way you jammed your car into that ditch? Not really.”

He turned to walk back to the bedroom, and that’s when she saw the scars on his back. Paige produced an involuntary gasp.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, whirling to face her.

She approached him. “You’ve been burned in the past. Your back is scarred.” She resisted the urge to touch him, the first such urge she’d had. All this bare, male flesh reminded her she was supposed to be here with her new husband....

“So are my legs,” he said. “And there’s a three-inch scar on my thigh. I think I’ve led a colorful life.”

“That’s one way to put it,” she said.

He turned away and then back again. “If you do think of a way to get out of here in the next few minutes, will you do me a favor?”

“I don’t know. What do you want?”

“Don’t turn me over to the cops, okay?”

“I’ll think about it,” she said, but the truth was she wasn’t going anywhere. And she had the feeling he knew that damn well.

Chapter Three

There was no option but to redress in the torn clothes he’d woken up in. They were still on the damp side and were getting pretty ripe. He slapped a bandage on his chin and one on his forehead and called it good.

Man, he was a mess. The eye wasn’t as puffy as before, but he had at least a day’s growth of dark beard to go with the bruises and cuts. No wonder Paige had looked frightened of him—he was the bogeyman of a nightmare.

“You sorry bastard,” he told his reflection.

There was something else, too. He’d had dreams during the night. Vivid ones. They’d woken him in a cold sweat, driven him into the shower to try to wash away the images. Faces of children, fire, mayhem. Screams…

Like a war. And something flying, hovering, threatening.

Was he a soldier or had he been one in his youth? And what about the children in the dream? Had he done something terrible to children? He couldn’t believe that of himself. He didn’t know
who
he was, but he did have a sense of
what
he was, and it wasn’t a murderer.

Yet even now, wide awake, remembering the images made his stomach roll like a set of slow ocean waves.

He splashed cold water on his face and told himself to get a grip. His memory would return any minute and he’d figure out what went wrong, what had happened to him, and maybe more important, what he’d done to someone else.

The aroma of coffee drew him into the kitchen, where Paige handed him a mug, then set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him.

“What is it like? I mean, not knowing who you are?” she asked as she sat opposite him again.

“Weird,” he said as the first hot swallow of coffee washed down his throat. “Empty.”

“About the police—”

He’d picked up his fork but set it aside again. “No police. Not until I can remember what happened. I’m willing to face the music when it comes to paying for my crimes, but if they’ve decided I’ve almost killed a man, how can I prove I didn’t?”

“Then how about getting some expert help?”

“Like a shrink?”

“No, like a retired cop. I happened to have had dinner with one last night. He and his wife seem like real down-to-earth types. He might be able to advise you about what to do next.”

He picked up the fork again and took a few bites. The eggs tasted pretty good. They were the first thing he’d eaten since stealing yogurt out of Paige’s refrigerator the evening before.

He studied her for a minute. “Who’s Brian?”

She looked away from him.

“You called me that last night.”

“I remember.”

“So, who is he?”

“Brian Witherspoon. He
was
my fiancé up until about three days ago.”

“Who broke up with who?”

“And that is your business because?”

“Because my head is a vast wasteland. Give me something to think about besides my life, which currently sucks big-time. Throw me a bone. Have a heart. Anyway, I’m curious. You got tired of him, right?”

“You think so?”

“Yes. Hard to picture someone skipping out on you, so you must have done the skipping. Then you came up here by yourself to get away from his incessant pleas to get back together. How am I doing?”

“Perfectly,” she said. Then she blinked, her eyes bright, and shook her head. “Actually, he left me. At the altar. In front of everyone when his ex-wife showed up for the wedding. The preacher said that line about anyone having doubts, and she stood up and announced she still loved him.”

“Ouch.”

“So I came on my honeymoon by myself. Pathetic, huh?”

“I think it’s kind of gutsy.”

“How about you show some guts? Come with me to talk to Jack Pollock. He’s a good man.”

“He’s a cop.”

“Ex-cop.”

“Same thing.”

“Well, there now, see? You know something about yourself after all. You don’t like the police.”

He finished off his eggs. “I also know cops are all alike.”

“That’s silly. Of course they aren’t. Anyway, I told you, he’s retired.”

“He’s still a gun-toting—”

“No, as a matter of fact, you’re wrong. His wife told me last night that he won’t have a gun in the house. He’s left all that behind him. And as for gun toting, that seems to describe you, doesn’t it?”

He stared at her a second and sighed. “Yeah, I guess so. Okay, you win, we’ll go see your friend.”

“Good. I’ll clean up and get dressed while you figure out how to get my car out of the ditch.”

He watched her turn to the sink. She was wearing a tight pair of jeans that made her rear look pretty damn enticing. She turned back, leaning down to take his plate, and their gazes locked. She wasn’t wearing a bra, which was evident every time she moved. The look in her eyes gave him the impression she knew exactly what he was thinking.

His gaze landed on something gold and silver and shiny hanging from a chain around her neck. It had slipped out from beneath her clothes when she leaned forward and now lay against her blue T-shirt between her breasts.

He sucked in his breath and didn’t know why.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice alarmed.

“Your necklace—”

“This?” She fingered the pendant. “Is something wrong with it?” she added as she lowered her gaze to look.

He shook his head, embarrassed by his visceral, gut-level reaction to such a silly thing.

“My father gave it to me,” she said. “It’s an owl, see? His little wings move up and down and his eyes are tiny topazes—”

She stopped talking, her expression alarmed. “You look spooked, John. Why?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. That thing just creeps me out.”

She slipped the owl under her shirt again. “All better?”

“Yeah,” he said, but even knowing it was there made him antsy. He pushed the chair away from the table. “I’ll see about the car,” he said, anxious to move around a little and get his feelings under control.

It took a shovel, three old boards and a little digging, but he freed the car just as Paige emerged from the cabin. She’d changed clothes and donned a coat. Beneath its unbuttoned contours, he could see the thin strap of her purse bisecting her torso. Looked as if she’d put a bra on under a blue sweater, which was a shame, but at least the damn pendant was covered.

With her bright eyes and fresh face, she looked like a coed on her way to a class—way too young for him, not just in years but in life experience.

Which was an odd thing to think, as he couldn’t recall any life experiences before about eighteen hours before, but he still knew it was true. The gun that felt so natural in his hand was a good indicator of that. He got into the passenger seat and she slid behind the wheel.