Lovers In Hiding

“Murphy.” The name evoked no emotions. Not even a sliver of recognition.

“Am I a student?”

“You’re a massage therapist.” She had no emotional reaction to that information either, but a fleeting tingle raced across her hands as if she could recall her fingers kneading muscles. Was the image a memory? Or something she’d envisioned when he mentioned her occupation? If he’d told her she was a teacher or a doctor, would she have had the same reaction and imagined chalk dust on her skin or a scalpel in her hands?

“Am I married?”

“No.”

She couldn’t decide whether his answer pleased her or not. While she could imagine how awful it would be to return to a loving husband or child and not recognize them, the idea of leaning on someone who loved her had its own merits.

The fact that Clay knew more about her than she knew about herself left an eerie hollowness in her that she wanted to fill with more facts. He could be making up the information, lying to her, and she’d never know, but why would he do that?

“Do I have family?”

“You were adopted, and your adoptive parents divorced when you were little.”

Lightning flashed, zigzagging over the water and brightening the sky in a blaze of white light followed by cold, damp darkness. They needed to get off the beach, but her thoughts distracted her. In her mind, she saw a woman’s face, just for a moment, and then it was gone. The woman was weeping, fat lonely tears. Another memory? Or her mind playing more tricks on her? Seconds later, thunder rolled across the beach with the razor-sharp wind, slicing the sand against them.

Clay pulled her into a run. “I’ll tell you everything once we get out of this weather. The most important thing you need to know is that I’m CIA and I was sent to protect you.”

Yeah, right. And she was Lois Lane. She dug her heels into the sand and tried to jerk him back. Only her action didn’t go quite the way she planned. Clay simply had too much bulk for her to yank him to a halt. He kept going, as if her resistance was futile. However, while he failed to stop, she ended up flying forward, smacking into him with a force that made her knees wobble. To steady her, he let go of her wrist, and his arms came around her, anchoring her.

“If you wanted me to carry you, you could have just said so,” he teased without the slightest smile, but the warmth in his tone calmed her a little.

She refused to lean into that warmth. “I suppose you can prove you’re with the CIA.”

He reached into his back pocket and took out very official-looking identification with his picture sealed beneath the plastic. In the picture his black hair was shorter, his jaw clean-shaven, but it was definitely him. But then, anyone could create fake documents with a computer and a good color printer.

“How come you didn’t identify yourself earlier?” she asked without bothering to hide her doubts.

“I’m not supposed to.” He frowned, as if breaking the rules was something he didn’t do lightly. “But with your amnesia, it now seems necessary.”

She glanced from the ID back to him, wishing she had her memory, wondering if she could be in some kind of trouble. Or maybe she was wrong. Despite how scared she’d felt earlier, she had no facts or memories to back up her conviction that she’d been fighting for her life. But whom had she been fighting? And why?

What could a massage therapist know that would be critical to her government? Had she had some important client who yakked in her ear while she rubbed the stress out of his shoulders?

And didn’t the FBI handle domestic problems and the CIA operate overseas? What would the CIA want with her, a massage therapist? She tapped his ID. “You have an office I can call to verify this?”

“I’m undercover. I’m only allowed to check in after the first part of my mission is accomplished.”

“How convenient.”

His eyes narrowed as he accepted her insult and tossed her words back in her face. “It’s not convenient at all. I’d prefer to have backup.”

“Then why don’t you have help?” she asked, wondering if she’d feel better or worse if he had an accomplice. An accomplice could verify his lie as well as the truth and then she’d have to outwit two of them to escape—not that she was doing so jamup terrific with just him.

His lips moved but thunder roared so loudly, she couldn’t hear his answer. When he dragged her against him, she instinctively yanked back. Found herself caught like a mosquito in a giant spiderweb.

Her stomach knotted so tightly, she had to fight to suck in air. He’d finally stopped trying to talk to her. She braced for a fist to her jaw or a jab to her churning stomach.

But he didn’t so much as slap her.

Instead, inexorably, his superior strength overwhelmed her struggles and forced her chest right up against his, her hips cradled to the hard quadriceps in his thighs. Even with wet clothing between them, she could feel heat radiating from him, feel the frustration he’d kept locked beneath rigid muscles and a stern scowl. He was so powerful, with his large traps and biceps, that she didn’t stand a chance of escape. At that realization, she gulped air and a little rain, choking on what could be her last breath.

When he dipped his head and spoke in her ear, she finally realized that he’d only pulled her close so she could hear him above the storm. “Do you know anything about guns?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She swayed with the fear swelling up her throat as he took out a gun.

He pried open her fingers and placed the gun in her hand. The cold metal and unfamiliar feel of the grip set her hand to shaking. Stunned, confused, she tried to read the expression in his eyes, but the lightning refused to cooperate and flash. The wind kept roaring, blowing bits of sand that pinged against her exposed flesh and shredded her reasoning until she could barely read her own thoughts.

Again, he spoke into her ear. “Does holding this gun make you feel any safer?”

Why should it? She didn’t know how to use it. However, as the weight settled in her hand, she finally realized that he’d given her the gun in an attempt to alleviate her fear. Her hand stopped shaking as some of her panic subsided.

When he leaned over this time to speak above the howling wind, she didn’t automatically jerk back. He pointed to a little switch on the gun. “The gun won’t fire unless you flick the safety to the off position.” He demonstrated, then flicked the switch back. “Once the safety is off, you only have to pull the trigger and the gun will shoot. If I let you keep the gun, will you ride with me on the bike? I need one hand for the clutch, one for the throttle.”

If she refused, what would he do? She really didn’t want to find out. Besides, while she knew he was trying to stem her fears, she didn’t want to seem like a pushover. But she didn’t want to tick him off by remaining so suspicious when he so obviously wanted her to believe him.

As her teeth chattered and her terror slowly subsided, she finally let him float his jacket over her shoulders and placed the gun in the pocket. The leather enclosed her in a cocoon of black warmth and quiet heat. She liked the scent of the leather mixed with his own spicy musk. “Where are we going?”

When they reached his bike, he said, “First, to find you a doctor.”

Melinda nodded in agreement. A doctor could keep her safe—call the police and verify Clay’s story.

He placed an extra helmet on her head and donned his own, revved the bike’s engine and then helped her sit behind him. He guided her feet to foot pegs, and then, uncertainly, she wrapped her arms around him. She couldn’t reach completely around his huge body, so she twisted her fingers through his heavy leather belt.

As soon as they started down the beach, she realized that, due to their speed, his body sheltered her from the worst of the elements. But wind whipped at their already wet clothing, making her extra grateful for the protection of his jacket.

If he intended her harm, he wouldn’t have given her his jacket, would he? Nor would he have insisted that she keep the gun.

Yet she couldn’t help wondering if he’d made the gesture just to win her cooperation, to woo her into a false sense of security. As he smoothly drove off the beach and onto the road up the coast, she considered whether she should try to flee at the first red light.

She couldn’t run faster than Clay on foot, never mind Clay on his bike. Deciding she had no choice but to stay with him for now, she vowed to focus on regaining her memory.

She studied the storefronts, hoping for a few more flashes, glimmers into her past that she believed had momentarily surfaced back on the beach. Nothing came to her until they passed a grocery store, the same chain where she shopped! She was sure of it, Just as she’d known when she’d run from Clay that if she could have made it to the water, she could swim. Somehow she knew she was an excellent swimmer, yet she had no concrete memory to pin her facts on.

She kept peering through the rain, wondering if she would recognize her house if she saw it. Her house? A picture of a tiny bungalow with a sagging roof and a cute mellow-yellow front porch with lots of hanging plants came to mind. She thought she lived there, maybe rented the house. She envisioned the cozy layout, two comfortable bedrooms divided by a bath, a small, friendly living room, a tidy but minuscule kitchen. She stored her windsailing equipment in the roomy shed out back and tried to think of a number on her mailbox or a street sign to help her figure out her address.

Nothing.

Frustrated, yet pleased that parts of her memory seemed to be returning, she tried to be patient. The man on the cycle in front of her caused another entirely new set of problems for her to consider as he repeatedly checked his rearview mirror as if expecting someone to follow them.

Did he watch so vigilantly for the police? Or the return of the two men he’d claimed had run her off the road?

Either scenario made her stomach churn with anxiety. If Clay feared the cops, then he was a bad guy. If he worried over the return of the two men, then someone had just tried to kill her.

As Melinda worried over whether or not to trust Clay Rogan, she felt the heavy gun weighing down her pocket and considered whether she could shoot someone and snuff out a life—for eternity. Without a lifetime of memories, she figured that her biggest handicap was that not only didn’t she know if she could trust Clay, she didn’t know if she could trust herself. She didn’t know her own values. She didn’t know if she voted Republican, Democratic or Independent. She didn’t know how she’d react to danger, didn’t know if she could aim the gun and pull the trigger—not even if her life depended on it.