Unforgettable

“I’d feel better if you put the gun down.”

“Not a problem.” He placed the SIG on a red heart-shaped trivet in the center of the table, took a step to his left and sat in the chair closest to the kitchen. From this angle, he had a clear view of the front door.

She asked, “Do you mind if I check your weapon?”

“Knock yourself out.”

She wasted no time grabbing the gun. Expertly, she removed the clip. “Good thing you had the safety on. Carrying a gun in your waistband is a good way to shoot your butt off. Why are you carrying?”

There were plenty of lies he could tell her about why he was armed, but an efficient liar knows better than to volunteer information. “It never hurts to be prepared.”

She gave a quick nod, accepting his response.

Apparently, he was good at deception. When she’d asked about his military service, he hadn’t hesitated to cite the 10th Mountain Division, even though he didn’t remember being in the army or being deployed.

His story about the car accident had been a simple and obvious lie. Everybody had car trouble. Claiming an accident prompted automatic sympathy.

If he’d planned to stick around for more than a couple more minutes, he would have felt bad about lying to her. She was a good woman. Kindhearted. When he’d said he was hurt, she’d rushed to help him, offered her shoulder for support.

Taking his gun with her, she headed toward the kitchen. “I hope egg salad is okay.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“I told you before, call me Caitlyn. I’m not old enough to be a ma’am.”

And you can call me Jack, even though I’m pretty sure that’s not who I am. He rolled the name around in his memory. Jack Dalton. Jack. Dalton. Though the syllables didn’t resonate, he didn’t mind the way they sounded. Henceforth, he would be Jack Dalton.

Caitlyn poked her head into the dining room. “If you want to wash up, the bathroom is the first door on the right when you go through the living room.”

He followed her directions, pausing to peek into the closet near the front door. If he was going to be on the run for any period of time, he’d need a jacket. A quick glance showed a couple of parkas and windbreakers. Nothing that appeared to be his size. A rifle stood in the corner next to the vacuum cleaner.

At the bathroom, he hesitated before closing the door. If the men who were chasing him showed up, he didn’t want to be trapped in this small room with the claw-footed tub and the freestanding sink. He checked his reflection in the mirror, noting the bruises on the right side of his face and a dark swelling on his jaw. Looked like he’d been in a bar fight. Was that the truth? Just a bar fight? The simplest answer was usually the correct one, but not this time. His problems ran deeper than a brawl. There were people who wanted him dead.

He searched the medicine cabinet. There was a wide selection of medical supplies. Apparently, a woman who swaggered around with a tool belt slung around her hips injured herself on a regular basis. He found a bottle of extra-strength pain reliever and took three.

After trekking through the forest, his white T-shirt was smeared with dirt, and he didn’t exactly smell like a bouquet of lilacs. He peeled off the shirt and looked in the mirror again. In addition to patches of black and blue on his upper right arm and rib cage, a faded scar slashed across his chest from his clavicle to his belly button. He had a couple of minor scratches with dried blood. A deeper wound—newly healed—marked his abdomen. What the hell happened to me? These scars should have been a road map to unlock his memory.

Still, his mind was blank.

He washed his chest and pits. His worst injury was on the back of his head, but there wasn’t much he could do about it. No matter how he turned, he couldn’t see the damage.

There was a sound outside the bathroom door. A car approaching? They could be coming, could be getting closer. Damn it, he didn’t have time to mess around with bandages or sandwiches. He needed to get the hell away from here.

He slipped through the bathroom and looked out the front window. The scene in front of her house was unchanged. Nobody was coming. Not yet.

Caitlyn called out, “Hey, Jack.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She charged into the living room and stopped when she saw him. A lot of women would be repulsed by his scars. Not Caitlyn. She stared at his chest with frank curiosity before lifting her gaze to his face. “White or rye?”

“Did you get a good look?”

She shrugged. “I’ve seen worse.”

Her attitude intrigued him. If he hadn’t been desperate to get away from this area, he wouldn’t have minded spending time with her, getting to know what made her tick. “Are you a nurse?”

“I used to be a reporter, embedded with the troops.” She moved closer. “I know some basic first aid. I could take care of those cuts and bruises.”

He didn’t like asking for assistance, but the head wound needed attention. He went to his chair by the table and sat. “I got whacked on the back of my skull.”

Without hesitation, she positioned herself behind him. Her fingers gently probed at the wound. “This looks bad, Jack. You should be in the hospital.”

“No doctors.”

“That’s real macho, but not too smart.” She stopped poking at his head and pulled a chair around so she was sitting opposite him. Their knees were almost touching. “I want you to look at my forehead. Try to focus.”

“You’re checking to see if my pupils are dilated.”

“If you have a concussion, I’m taking you to the hospital. Head injuries are nothing to fool around with.”

He did as she asked, staring at her forehead. Her eyebrows pulled into a scowl that she probably thought was tough and authoritative. But she was too damn cute to be intimidating. A sprinkle of freckles dotted her nose and cheeks. Her wide mouth was made for grinning.

In her blue eyes, he saw a glimmer of genuine concern, and it touched him. Though he couldn’t remember his name or what kind of threat brought him to this cabin, he knew that it had been a long time since a woman looked at him this way.

She sat back in her chair. “What really happened to you? You didn’t get that head injury in a car accident.”

How could he tell her the truth? He didn’t have the right to ask for her help; he was a stranger. She didn’t owe him a damn thing. “I should go.”

“Stay.” She rested her hand on his bare shoulder. Her touch was cool, soothing. “I’ll patch you up as best I can.”

For the first time since he woke up this morning, he had the feeling that everything might turn out all right.

Chapter Three

Caitlyn only knew one thing for sure about Jack. He was stoic—incredibly stoic. His ability to tolerate pain was downright scary.

Moments ago, she’d closed the wound on his head with four stitches. Though she’d used a topical analgesic spray to deaden the area, the effect wasn’t like anesthetic. And she wasn’t a skilled surgeon. Her clumsy stitching must have hurt a lot.

He hadn’t flinched. When she had finished, he turned his head and calmly thanked her.

After that, he had wanted to leave, but she insisted that he stay long enough to eat something and have some water. After sewing him back together, she was invested in his survival.

Also, she was curious—an occupational hazard for a journalist. She wanted to get Jack’s true story.

They sat at her dining room table, and she watched as he devoured an egg salad on light rye. She’d found him a faded black T-shirt that belonged to her brother, who wasn’t as big as Jack but wore his clothes baggy. The fabric stretched tight across Jack’s chest. Underneath were all those scars. How had he gotten wounded? In battle? The long ridge of puckered flesh on his torso was still healing and couldn’t have been more than a couple of months old. If he’d been injured in military service, he wouldn’t have been discharged so quickly.

She nibbled at her own sandwich, trying to find a nonintrusive angle that might get him talking. In her work, she’d done hundreds of interviews, some with hostiles. The direct question-and-answer approach wouldn’t work with Jack.