Out of Uniform

by Catherine Mann

  They’d filed an official report. During their afternoon at the station, they hadn’t learned anything new from the police about her. The cops had actually been more interested in the fact that the Suburban plates hadn’t appeared in any data bank. Had Mr. Smith written down the wrong number by accident or on purpose? No way of knowing.

  Jacob gripped the steering wheel tighter. He’d done all he could for today. With a trip to the doctor and the cops. Now he couldn’t avoid thinking about what they’d learned from Doc Bennett.

  Dee had a child.

  Just when he’d thought he couldn’t be surprised anymore, there came the latest bombshell. Jacob slid the key into the ignition and cranked the engine. He hooked his arm along the seat, turning to look out the rear window as he backed out.

  Seeing Dee stopped him cold.

  She wasn’t crying, not outwardly. She simply sat, her fingers gripping the lap belt over her stomach. And she was shaking, not much, but enough for him to notice. Her teeth began chattering.

  “The heat should kick in soon.”

  She nodded tightly, her face front, her gaze veering neither left nor right.

  He slid the truck back into Park. “You okay?”

  Dee nodded again.

  “You’re scaring me a little here.”

  Her head tucked, the bare curve of her neck showing through the glide of her hair. “It’s a lot to take in. That’s all. I’ll be fine. How’s your arm?”

  “I’m cleared to go back to work when my leave’s over in a couple of weeks.”

  “That’s wonderful. I’m so relieved to hear it.”

  Dee’s fists squeezed around the seat belt until her knuckles shone white as the tender line of her neck. He’d watched plenty of women pump out tears over the years, but he’d never seen one try so valiantly not to cry.

  It caught him like a quick uppercut to the jaw. Anger began to take a backseat to sympathy and something else. Something dangerous that lured him to sling an arm along the back of her seat. “You’re not fine.”

  She dipped her head lower and mumbled, “Rocket scientist as well as military hero and motel mogul.”

  Jacob felt a chuckle escape. How could he not admire her grit? He should have realized she’d fire back, a way of going numb rather than launching into overemotionalism.

  He notched a knuckle under her chin and lifted her face. “We’re going to find out who you are. And we’re going to find out about your child. I know you don’t always welcome my help, hell, anyone’s help, but I’m in for the long haul. Understand?”

  She shrugged away, swiping the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’m sorry for not telling you before about the C-section scar.”

  At least she’d begun to thaw, not that it relieved him the way it should have. “I know now, and we’re doing all we can. The world won’t end if we sit tight for a few minutes while you have a good cry.”

  “Sobbing my eyes out won’t fix anything.”

  She had that much right. Why then did he want to convince her she needed a good three-hanky vent?

  Jacob unbuckled her seat belt and allowed himself to cup her shoulders. Even through her coat, he could feel her fragile bones, but he now knew she had a steely spine for support.

  He tugged her toward him. “Come here.”

  She resisted, as he’d known she would.

  “I just need to hold you for a second, okay?”

  Her back bowed as she angled away. “Why?”

  He reminded himself he was only convincing her because she needed to be held. Not because he was locked in the grip of some fierce longing to press her against him and reassure himself. “Because you’re all right. I was worried about you. And because I know you must be scared as hell wondering if you have a kid out there somewhere!”

  Dee sniffled and Jacob smiled, not because he was glad she’d begun crying but because for once he understood her. He could handle tears, dish out comfort. He pulled her to his chest. His forehead fell to rest against her hair. Motel shampoo mixed with the lingering antiseptic scent of the hospital.

  For years, he’d accepted that the honed instinct to protect couldn’t be shut off at the end of a mission. The need to protect the woman in his arms throbbed through him. It scoured him, tearing away boundaries, leaving behind something more basic, fundamental, elemental.

  His hand traveled up to cradle the back of her head, his fingers massaging her scalp. The very feel of her sizzled up his arm, shooting straight through him with a need he’d stamped down for longer than he cared to remember.

  God, he wanted her. Not that he could do a thing about it. The woman had just been subjected to a traumatic morning filled with an invasive physical and a police interrogation.

  With shaky restraint, Jacob fenced in his own needs and continued rubbing gentle, small circles into her head. A moan whispered from her lips, nothing much, just a small little breath of sound.

  A small sound that charged the air.

  Her fingers dug into his arms, tighter, then crawled to his shoulders and into his hair. She tilted her face just as she pulled his down to meet her.

  What the hell? He’d promised himself he wouldn’t do this.

  But he wasn’t. She was.

  “Thank you, Jacob.” She skimmed her lips over his.

  Cradling her to him, still half-afraid she might be as fragile as she looked, Jacob brushed her mouth with his in a tender salute. The thread of longing between them pulled tauter, drawing him deeper. Gently he traced her lips, then teased her tongue with his, tasting morning coffee and acquainting himself with the unique flavor of Dee.

  She flattened herself to him. Her fingers gripped the neck of his shirt and tugged, hard. “More.”

  So much for thoughts of restraint.

  His mouth settled over hers with a firm rightness he could have never predicted, and wasn’t quite sure he could handle while maintaining any semblance of sanity.

  Dee all but wrapped herself around him as she kissed him back, fiercely, with an intensity that rocked all his plans for reserve. Maybe he’d thawed her a little too much. Her kisses had a frenzied edge that went beyond passion.

  A chill settled over Jacob. She didn’t really want him, just somebody, anybody to shake her from the numbing sensation that had come from her messed-up life.

  Talk about the proverbial bucket of cold water. If—when—he made love to her it wouldn’t be in the front seat of a truck, and it wouldn’t be because she was running from something.

  He wanted her running to him.

  “Dee, we have to stop.” With more than a little regret, he untwined her arms from around his neck. “We’re in a parking lot.”

  And damned if that didn’t make him start looking over his shoulder again as he’d done during their drive into town. Luckily nobody appeared to be paying any attention to a truck with fogged windows.

  She stiffened, then flung herself away against the seat. “I can’t believe I did that. Like you haven’t already got a thousand reasons to think all sorts of crazy things about me, I go adding more ammo to the impression.”

  “I’m not thinking anything other than you needed to blow off some steam, and this isn’t the right way. It’s okay.” Well, it wasn’t, but it would be once he could suck in a few more breaths.

  Her sigh rippled through the air before she nodded and smiled, a wry, wobbly grin that caressed his hand. “What a first kiss, huh?”

  “What?”

  “My first kiss. Even if I’ve been kissed a thousand times before, it’s not like I remember any of them. So this is it. My new first. Is that strange or what?”

  “Or what.” A new chill seeped through Jacob, dousing his need more effectively than a dive into a snowbank.

  Yes, he wanted her, and he couldn’t help but notice she might want him a little in return. But they had a problem.

  He’d considered any number of reasons why he shouldn’t lunge across the truck cab and convince her to find the nearest bed—or even
ask her out to dinner and a movie. She had a life out there somewhere. He had a mess of a life here.

  But he hadn’t considered one fundamental reason to tread warily, if at all.

  This woman beside him, a woman who signed into a motel as “Mrs. Smith,” a woman who’d given birth to a child, a woman who might well have a husband, this woman was for all intents and purposes—a virgin.

  Chapter 7

  H e hated that damned virtuous act of hers. Of anyone, he knew how she really acted in bed.

  His foot pressed the accelerator, the SUV’s tires gripping for traction even with the four-wheel drive. He forced his focus back on the road as he neared the Lodge. He just needed to see her, find out what she was doing, be sure she wasn’t making it with some other guy.

  Everybody should know what a slut she was. They should hear the truth about her, but he couldn’t tell them. He’d needed to be attentive, loving. Appearances mattered. What people thought of him mattered if he ever wanted to put his life back together again.

  He turned off the highway onto the side road, hunting rifles rattling in the floorboards as he bumped and jostled toward the out-of-the-way restaurant. All he’d wanted was money and a way out of the ball-and-chain life he’d been stuck with.

  So why didn’t he just leave? Loose ends. If it weren’t for their kid, he would have walked away from her a long time ago.

  He couldn’t wait for luck to turn his way any longer. He needed to take fate into his own hands.

  Dee stared out the truck window. She wanted to ask more about Jacob’s military world, a place where he felt comfortable, even if the gates and fences and airplanes roaring overhead left her feeling a bit claustrophobic. But Jacob was even more reticent than he’d been on the drive earlier.

  Perhaps the icy roads simply demanded his full attention.

  At first, she’d wondered if Jacob’s moodiness could be a by-product of her having thrown herself at him. What had she been thinking? Obviously she hadn’t been thinking of anything but soaking up the comfort of his strength.

  Dee spun thoughts of him over and over as they drove along the gravel road toward Marge’s Diner. She could imagine him in a uniform. The mental picture was more than a little exciting, the brooding, twenty-first-century warrior. It seemed right somehow.

  The same man running a motel for years on end…That image didn’t gel at all. Already she recognized his need for action, his inescapable manner of taking charge. It wasn’t frenzied, just even-paced, steady, as he took care of everything from filing a police report to making sure she remembered to eat.

  Jacob slowed the truck, wheels crunching across the diner’s parking lot. Trucks and Suburbans dominated the unmarked spaces. A replica of a prairie schoolhouse sat perched by a lake. The candy-apple-red building splashed color onto the otherwise gray mountainous horizon. A pier spiked out of the frozen waters, providing a narrow wooden path above the sheet of ice.

  Not at all what she’d expected.

  She’d been looking for some fifties throwback diner with jukeboxes and counter service. Had she subconsciously substituted something from her own hometown into expectations for Jacob’s area? She reached into her mental recesses in hope of finding the face of her child….

  Jacob parked between a pair of slush-caked 4X4s. “Ready to eat?”

  “What?” The shadowy vision melted like the ice cream she would never see eaten. Disappointment avalanched over her, nearly smothering her with frustration. Dee reached for her seat belt and jabbed at the button. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m actually hungry.”

  Three jabs later, she still couldn’t wrestle the buckle open. Jacob covered her hand with his and released the latch. His hand didn’t move away with the seat belt. “Is something wrong?”

  “It’s nothing.” Could have been everything. “I’m just tired of how it feels like a memory is right there, but I can’t chase it down.”

  Absently he caressed the inside of her wrist with a callused finger. “Maybe while we’re waiting for supper, we could play some word association games, see if we can stir up your past.”

  “Good idea.” She wanted to imprison his hand. Better yet, haul him back into the truck, into an embrace, the only place she’d been where the insidious whispers of loneliness had faded.

  Instead she allowed herself a selfish moment to rest in the heat of his eyes as they studied her, as they held her in a grip equally as powerful as his arms ever could be. His musky scent permeated the interior of the truck, and she breathed in the reassurance of pure Jacob.

  Gently he released her hand. “Let’s get moving.”

  So much for making new memories. She would be better served hunting for the old.

  Climbing the diner steps, Dee leaned against Jacob’s arm until they reached the double doors. Nerves pattered a jig in her stomach. She assumed she understood the basics of etiquette, but she didn’t want to embarrass Jacob, even unwittingly.

  Part of her wanted to hide out in her dark but familiar motel room until she remembered. Another, stronger part of her insisted she step back into the world if she ever hoped to regain her past and find her child. To do that, she needed Jacob’s help. The diner could well provide a wealth of information about him, a man who intrigued her, yet unsettled her. A man she had to trust with everything.

  She strode into the restaurant with the long-shot hope that someone might recognize her. The inside of Marge’s Diner matched the outside decor. Long, rough-hewn picnic tables filled with customers lined the room, everyone from families to a table of military members in uniforms—more flight suits to torment her imagination. Apparently the appeal of this place enticed people to drive a long way in crummy conditions.

  Dishes clanked, and voices mingled. A family of five studied the daily specials posted on a chalkboard over the cash register. The board also listed instructions not to tattle, spit, pinch or pull ponytails.

  Dee loved it. She unwrapped her scarf from around her head, a sense of utter rightness coaxing her to step farther inside. She needed a haven, some bit of peace to end a day that had stunk. “Oh, Jacob, this place is great. No wonder it’s packed.”

  “I had a feeling you might like it. You’ll have to tell Marge when she brings our order.” Jacob followed the waitress as she pointed to the empty table for two in the back.

  A table that waited just past a field of inquiring faces.

  Nerves returning like a bad penny, Dee stumbled back a step. She couldn’t shake the notion that someone was staring at her. Maybe they all were.

  When they found out about her amnesia, would they label her a liar as Jacob had initially? Or would they think her a nutcase? “Maybe we should order takeout and go back to the motel.”

  “Fried walleye demands to be eaten while hot.”

  As he guided her toward the table, Jacob offered nods and offhand greetings to people who called out and slapped him on the back.

  A hulking tall man in a green flight suit pushed back from his table and stood. “Hey, Mako, everything must have gone okay at the base. I didn’t expect you’d be done so fast.”

  Jacob stopped, placing a steadying hand between Dee’s shoulder blades. “Dee, this big guy is married to Doc Bennett. Bronco, this is Dee.”

  She extended her hand, preparing for a crushing grip. Yet the aviator shook with a firm but not-too-tight clasp. She’d liked his wife and found she already liked the husband, too. “Your wife was very generous with her time today. I appreciate it more than I can say.”

  “You’re with Mako. That makes you one of us and we take care of our own.”

  How much did he know of her problem? She didn’t plan to put it out there and he politely didn’t ask.

  Jacob turned to the other man at the table who was holding a fistful of French fries. “This is Crusty.”

  The wiry guy cranked a megawatt grin as he dumped the fries back on his plate, swiped his hand across his flight suit and shook hers with an energetic pump. “Great to meet you. My wife is gonna b
e torqued that we all got to see you first. Well, and that we saw Mako, too. Maybe you can talk this fella into accepting one of our dinner invitations before he heads back to Charleston.”

  Dee didn’t know what to say to all of that so she simply smiled in return. Within seconds the men were discussing the flight the two had just completed and Dee let herself relax. Then suddenly she didn’t feel so calm after all.

  Back to Charleston. Somehow she’d forgotten what Emily said about Jacob being stationed somewhere else.

  Panic bubbled in her stomach. How could she have become so dependent on a man she’d known for a day and a half? But her life consisted of just those few hours and he’d filled most of them.

  She forced her breathing to even out while they finished their conversation. Then, thank goodness, Jacob powered ahead without pausing to give anyone else a chance to ask the questions stamped in their curious eyes. She shook off the uneasy sensation of being gawked at and charged forward.

  He held the chair for her before settling across the table. She forced her hands to steady, reminded herself to relax.

  With a fingernail, she flicked the edge of a menu that peeked from inside an old school primer. “Can we not tell people about my, uh, memory issue just yet? I don’t want that to be everyone’s first impression of me—crazy amnesiac lady.”

  “Whatever lowers your stress level. I didn’t say anything to the guys over there, in case you were wondering. I spoke straightaway with the doc and she’ll keep patient confidentiality.”

  “Thank you.” Dee stole another glance at the diner’s patrons and wondered if everybody would treat her problems with as much care as Jacob had.

  Table by table, diners stopped staring and returned to their meals. Except for one group over by the potbellied stove soda dispenser. Emily was standing there, draped over a teenage boy. They were with a group of seemingly normal, everyday kids.

  A fragment of Dee’s peace edged away. What kind of life did her own child have? Was she missed along with trips to the park and ice-cream parlor? Dee couldn’t decide which bothered her more—her child crying for her or not missing her at all.