A Man Worth Remembering

That shouldn’t have happened. What the devil had he been thinking when he put his mouth on hers? That was just it—he hadn’t thought. He’d acted. Reacted. And much to his disgust, he’d even enjoyed it. He couldn’t let it happen again, not with so much at stake.

Easy to say. Hard to do.

It was especially hard since she was right behind him. She had her arms wrapped around his waist—apparently holding on for dear life. No surprise there. Leigh hated motorcycles.

Of course, she probably hated him, too.

He wouldn’t mention that to her yet. If she was faking this amnesia, then she already knew how she felt about him. If her memory loss was real, it would be a stupid time to remind her of their past.

Gabe drove nearly two hours before he stopped. Until then, he stayed on narrow dirt roads, using only the moonlight to keep him out of the ditches. When he finally found familiar ground, he pulled the motorcycle into a clutter of trees and turned off the engine.

“Any idea where we are?” Leigh asked, climbing off the seat. She massaged her backside and made a few sounds of discomfort.

He got off, too, and stretched. “Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.” Actually, they were still very close to New Orleans, but he’d taken the most circuitous route to get there. Hopefully, that had given Jinx enough time to get a few things under control. If not, then it would be one long night.

“Are we safe here?”

Gabe glanced around at the dense brush. “Hopefully.”

“You don’t sound hopeful.”

He shrugged. “Guarantees are a rare thing in life, Leigh, but we’re a heck of lot safer here than we were back at that clinic.”

She stayed quiet a moment. “And you don’t believe those men will follow us here?”

“No.” Well, he was almost certain they wouldn’t anyway. Getting to this particular area of the bayou wasn’t easy unless a person knew the way. He knew the way. God willing, the gunmen didn’t.

“So, is this the part when you tell me what’s really going on?” she asked.

Gabe groaned. He didn’t want to play a question-and-answer game tonight. Keep her alive. Catch the bad guys. Oh yeah, and, Be nice to her. At no time had anyone said a thing about answering her questions.

“You know what’s going on,” Gabe briskly assured her. “Some gunmen came after us, and we got away.”

“There’s more to it than that. How about letting me in on who those men are and why they want to kill us?”

“That, mi vida, is the big question of the day.”

“Are you saying you don’t know who’s behind this?” She didn’t wait for him to confirm that. “That breach of security at the clinic didn’t happen by itself. And who’s to blame for that, huh? Who was in charge of guarding the place?”

Gabe spat out some profanity. “The FBI.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Your own people? Well, that’s just great.”

It didn’t exactly please Gabe either, but the breach hadn’t necessarily come from anyone in the Bureau, especially not from Jinx. It could have been an outside source. In other words, he still had nothing definite. Gabe didn’t like that. He wanted something definite.

“Come on,” he insisted. “We need to get moving.”

“On foot?”

“Well, since there’s deep mud ahead, and the motorcycle would get stuck, I don’t see any other way.” And with that, he took her gun, put it in the waist of his jeans and snagged her around the hips. Like a caveman claiming his woman, he tossed her over his shoulder.

“Hey! What the devil do you think you’re doing?” Leigh complained.

Gabe began to walk, keeping the same pace he would have had she not been on his shoulder. “Carrying you.”

She wiggled, squirmed and otherwise tried to twist her way out of his grip. “Put me down!”

“No can do. You have stitches in your ankle, remember? Now, let’s see if I can recall basic first aid.” He pretended to think about it. “By now, those stitches have probably worked their way partially loose, so you have an open wound. Add to that some of this sloppy, wormy mud, and I see the potential for a really nasty infection. What do you think?” He didn’t let her answer. “I don’t have time to take you to the doctor, so be still.”

Just like that, Leigh stopped struggling, and her body practically went limp against him. “I suppose it’s too much to hope that other than traipsing through a swamp, you actually have a plan?”

He made his way around a large cypress tree and its kneelike roots that stood almost a foot above the ground. “I have one, but I don’t feel especially good about it.”

Keep her alive. Catch the bad guys. Nope, he didn’t feel good about that plan at all. It definitely lacked the necessary components for a successful mission.

“It’d be a heck of a lot easier if you just had your memory,” Gabe let her know. “Are you sure you’re not faking this amnesia?”

“No, I’m not faking it. You’ve already asked me that. Besides, why would I fake something like this?”

He could think of a reason. Leigh could be using the ploy so she wouldn’t have to tell him why she’d really returned. “I don’t have an answer to that one either, mi vida.”

She poked him hard on the back. “Don’t call me darling.”

Gabe grinned in spite of his rotten mood. Well, she remembered some of her Spanish anyway, along with remembering that she didn’t like him to use that little term of endearment. And that’s why he’d done it. Maybe he could work it into the conversation again. Numerous times. It might make him feel better if she was as annoyed as he was.

He stopped on a solid patch of ground, deposited Leigh on her feet and pulled back some low branches. Just as he hoped it would be, there was the truck hidden behind the curtain of Spanish moss.

“Thank you, Jinx,” Gabe mumbled and opened the door on the driver’s side. “I owe you another one.”

“Jinx?” she asked. “What does he have to do with this?”

“He left this truck here for us, and he sent that warning over the pager to tell us those gunmen were in the parking lot.” Gabe pulled down some moss and used it to clean the mud off his boots. “We’ll spend the night here and head out at first light.”

Leigh stared at him. “Here?”

“Yes, here.” Gabe motioned for her to get inside. He slapped at a couple of mosquitoes that started to feast on his neck. “And hurry up before these things eat us alive.”

She got in all right, after a loud huff, and she scooted toward the other side to get as far away from him as possible. Even then, they were practically shoulder to shoulder when Gabe joined her.

“Might as well get comfortable,” he told her.

Her eyebrow arched. “You’re kidding, right?”

Yeah. He was. There wasn’t much chance of getting comfortable on a narrow seat with Leigh. Still, it probably wasn’t a good idea to say that to her. It would only start another round of questions.

He pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it on the floor along with his holster and all three weapons. “We’ll have to leave the windows up because of the mosquitoes, so it’ll get hot in here. Wanna take off those scrubs?”

She gave him a look that could have withered a new fence post. “Not even if I were on fire and there wasn’t a drop of water for miles around.”