Whoever she was, she was my responsibility now. Goddamnit.
After a long, tense minute, I took a deep breath and wrestled my temper under control. “Now that I’ve saved your half-naked ass from getting raped or killed, you mind telling me what the hell you’re doing?”
“What I’m doing?”
Though she was still angry, her voice sounded shaky. Now that I looked closely, she seemed frail and in need of a good bath. Her hair was covered with fine red dust. Her t-shirt was torn at the hem, like somebody’d grabbed it when she tried to run away. She was somewhere between her mid and late twenties, but there was something girlish about her, an alluring innocence under all that explosive fire.
She wasn’t half as tough as she pretended to be. I could see it in those gorgeous, melancholy eyes.
“Listen,” I said in the tone I normally reserved for abused mutts. “I’m sorry I had to kiss you, but it was for your own good. I hope you know that.”
Her smirk told me more than words ever could. “Right.”
“You didn’t seem to mind it too much, until you slapped me, that is.”
“It happened too fast,” she said.
“Tell me about it,” I said, rubbing my cheek. “You hit hard, you know that?” I smiled but she didn’t smile back. Her lips were trembling and her face was drawn in spite of that golden tan.
I cleared my throat. “Listen, uh – I have to ask. Did somebody hurt you?”
She stared at me, unblinking. Eventually, she shrugged.
A slow chill crept through me. I almost wished she were stoned or psychotic, something that could explain this bizarre detour in my afternoon. But her face was bright and alert, and she was practically looking through me with those whip-smart eyes.
Whatever was up with her, I couldn’t begin to guess what it was.
“Do you have any water?” she asked.
“Sure,” I said, taking the plastic bottle from the drink holder. “It’s probably warm.”
“I don’t care.” She unscrewed the cap and drained the rest in four swallows. Watching her drink, it occurred to me that might have been walking in the heat for hours.
“Thank you.” She clutched the empty bottle so hard it collapsed in her hand. Her torn nails bore traces of bright red nail polish.
“We can get more if you’re still thirsty,” I said.
“Thanks. I’m okay.”
She caught her lower lip between her teeth. Then a single tear trickled slowly down her cheek, leaving a glistening trail in the dust on her skin. Somehow, this woman could make even crying look pretty.
I resisted the urge to catch the tear with my finger. “What’s the matter?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Something’s the matter and you’ve gotta tell me what it is.” Wherever this was going, I was starting to get pretty damn curious.
“Well…I just need to ask a question, that’s all.”
“Go ahead,” I said. “Ask me anything.”
She blushed like a little girl. “It might sound a little strange.”
Why was I not surprised. “I can handle it. Just ask me, okay?”
She nodded slowly. Swallowing hard, she stared at me with the most faraway eyes I’d ever seen and said, “Are you my husband?”
CHAPTER TWO
It was the second time I’d hit him in ten minutes, and this time I got him on the ear.
“I’m not going anywhere with you! Pull over and let me out!”
He gripped my arm with one hand and drove eighty miles an hour with the other. “I’ll let you out when we get to the police station,” he said, glaring straight ahead. “How’s that?”
All right. So he wasn’t my husband.
Turning around and seeing him for the first time – it was a jolt that had rocked me to my soul. The way he’d kissed me, as if I were his long-lost love, it was no wonder I’d started to hope. Maybe he was my answer, my home, my memory.
But according to the man in question, he was none of those things.
It was no surprise, really. No man that tall, that built, that thick-haired and hazel-eyed would be married to a woman in my pathetic condition.
“No cops,” I begged. “Please.”
He quirked his perfectly chiseled mouth. “You could have gotten us killed back there. You won’t tell me your name or where you live, and for some reason you think we walked down the aisle together. Sounds like a matter for the authorities, don’t you think?”
“I wish you hadn’t helped me,” I spat out. “I was doing fine on my own.”
He let out an infuriating, dismissive laugh. “If that was fine, I’d hate to see you on a bad day.”
“It’s bad now,” I said. “Thanks to you.”
We sped under another highway sign – Camino Real Drive, ¼ mile. Did I know that street? I squinted my eyes shut and scoured my brain but it meant nothing to me. It was just another place I’d never heard of.
“What do you have against the police, anyway?” he asked, flashing his brights at the car in front of him. “There a warrant out for you?”
I hadn’t thought of that, but considering all the crap I’d pulled the last three days, it was a definite possibility. “I don’t want to go, that’s all.”
I tried to twist my hand free but he was too strong. As much as I hated it, there was something consoling about that powerful grip. It gave me a tiny sense of security, a feeling of being grounded after days of panic and fear.
“Too bad,” he barked. “You’re going anyway.”
“Like hell I am. You have no idea the kind of scene I can cause.”
“No idea? After that bullshit with the Bandidos?”
“I was just getting started.”
With a growl of frustration, he whipped the wheel to the right, crossed two lanes of traffic, and squealed to a stop in the breakdown lane. He stared out the windshield, drawing in heavy breaths, before turning his narrowed gaze to me.
“I tell you what,” he said, dropping my hand into my lap. “I’ll take you wherever you want to go. I don’t care how far it is. You just give me the whole story, who you are and what you’re doing here.”
“I can’t.”
“Okay. Then you’ve made your choice.” He put the gear shift back into drive.
“Wait,” I said, grabbing his arm.
His bicep flexed, and in my imagination I saw it naked – strong, blue-veined, and sexy. Had he really been hard for me back at the bar, or was it just a lonely illusion?
He glared at me until I pulled my hand away and sat back. “I can’t give you the whole story,” I said. “I don’t know what it is.”
“That’s not gonna fly.”
“It’ll have to.”
We stared at each other. His jaw clenched. He was probably one more pitiful excuse away from throwing me out on my ass.
“Listen, lady,” he said. “I’m just in town looking for somebody. Back home, I’m a pretty busy guy. I don’t have time to play games with a girl who won’t be straight with me. You got clothes somewhere? Somebody to stay with?”
I hesitated, knowing the truth would only make things worse. “Um…I don’t know.”
He dropped his head back and groaned. Sunlight streamed through the back window and lit up the mahogany undertones in his hair. My fingers twitched, aching for one crazy instant to touch it.
“You sure know how to stick to your guns,” he said.
I shrugged. “They’re the only guns I’ve got.”
He clenched his fists as if fighting to stay calm. “So, why do I have a feeling you’re leaving some details out?”
“I’m not doing it on purpose,” I said. “I promise.” The truck shook as a semi roared by the window.
“You know, it’s pretty easy to give basic information to a guy who just saved your life. I’ll show you how it’s done, okay?” He widened his eyes as if speaking to a child. “I live in Houston and my name is Drexel Cougan. People call me Drex. I’
m twenty-nine years old and I own twelve billiards halls in Texas and Louisiana, about to open three more. I was born in this crazy shithole of a town and almost didn’t get out alive. I’d like to make sure I do this time.” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “See? Not so hard, was it?”
Stunned into silence, I stared at him. How had a man like this come into my life? Knife-sharp jaw, etched cheekbones – he was almost too good-looking to believe. After the wackos I’d run into over the last seventy-two hours, it was like being rescued by a god.
If only he didn’t want to dump me at the nearest police station. If only I could tell him what he wanted to hear.
I looked down at my lap. “All of that stuff you just said? I’m sorry. I – I can’t do it.”
“You have to give me something,” he insisted. “At least explain why you don’t like the police.”
Well, that I could do.
Not that I wanted to. But if I didn’t explain fast, he was going to take matters – and me – into his own hands.
“You really want to know?” I asked.
Oh, that cocky grin. “I’m on the edge of my seat, Blue Eyes.”
I sighed. “Two days ago, I was walking through a small town, maybe thirty miles from here. An unmarked squad car pulled up and an officer got out. He asked me if I was okay. Something about him made me nervous.”
“Why?”
“He was alone. He looked like he was off-duty. I think…he’d been drinking.”
Drex’s gaze was so intense, I felt it like a shimmer of heat on my face.
I swallowed and forced myself to continue. “He pushed me into the back seat and tried to get on top of me. I fought but he held me down. Somehow I got an arm out and elbowed him in the throat. That’s how I got away.”
“Jesus,” he said. “Is that what happened to your clothes?”
I shook my head. “No, that was…another time. The next day, at a motel.” It was all I could do not to wince. “I’d rather not talk about it, if that’s all right.”
I turned my head toward the passenger window. I’d cried only one tear since this whole nightmare started, and I wouldn’t cry more than that. No matter how much I wanted to.
After a minute, I felt Drex’s hand on my shoulder.
I let my eyes close. Crazy as everything was right now, I couldn’t help but respond to a gentle touch. His warmth seemed to slither through my chest and into my belly, sparking a flame in my core. My nipples stood up, hard as diamonds against my shirt. And I was wet, with only a thin piece of silk between me and the hot truck seat. The pleasure of it was so strong and so new, I almost moaned out loud.
I must have felt it before. I was a grown woman, and if the ring on my left hand was any indication, I might be a married one, too.
“How did this all start?” he asked.
I took a long breath and forced myself to look at him. “I couldn’t tell you.”
“Okay,” he said evenly. “What can you tell me?”
I could tell him quite a lot, actually, though none of it made any sense. “I woke up on a park bench in a town I’ve never seen before,” I said. “No money, no phone, just the clothes I had on. That’s all I know.”
For the first time since he’d sweet-talked me out of a tight spot with the bikers, Drex was speechless.
“That was three days ago,” I said.
“Three days? Okay…uh, what did you do after you woke up?”
The memory had blurred into a hazy dream of dust, hot sun, and empty roads. “I started walking. It was the only thing I could of.” I took a deep breath and told him what I hated to admit even to myself. “Walk and try to figure out who I am.”
His brow creased. “What do you mean, who you are?”
“When I woke up, I couldn’t remember anything. Who I was or how I got there.”
The look in his eyes chilled me. “Holy Christ,” he said, shaking his head slowly.
“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”
At first, I hadn’t known anything was wrong. But then everybody I met started asking the same questions. What’s your name? Where are you going? Don’t you remember?
Remember. I heard that word a hundred times, but hard as I tried I couldn’t seem to do it.
For all I knew, my life had always been this way. I’d been wandering from place to place by myself, forever.
“You’re telling the truth?” Drex asked.
“Yes. I wish I weren’t.”
My cheeks burned as he raked my face and body with his eyes. Even walking around in public half-naked, I hadn’t felt as exposed as I did right now.
“There must be some clue,” he said. “Something about you that will tell us who you are.”
“There isn’t.”
I’d already examined myself obsessively, inspecting every inch of skin in the fluorescent bathrooms of bus stations and cheap motels. I’d hoped for a tattoo, a scar, anything that could point me toward my past, but all I had was my ring, a t-shirt, and a pair of tight, cutoff shorts. Before I’d had to leave the shorts behind and run for my life at night across a busy highway.
“What about your ring?” he asked. “Is there an inscription?”
“No.”
“Is it a wedding ring?”
I looked at the scratched-up piece of silvery metal and wished it could speak. “I have no idea.”
“I don’t hear an accent when you talk,” he said. “Even if I did, I’m not sure what that would tell me.”
He rubbed a hand over his forehead. In the last half hour, that strong hand had grabbed me, dragged me, and hurled me into a truck. Who knew what it could do if I really pissed him off?
“How did you get to Chimayo?” he asked.
“I found twenty dollars in my pocket. It was damp but I was able to buy a bus ticket with it. I rode to the end of the line, hoping to see something familiar. But nothing meant anything to me.”
He let out a hard sigh. “You should go to a hospital. Maybe you were injured. They might be able to help.”
“I went to an emergency room yesterday.”
His eyes brightened. “And?”
“And, I’ve got a little bump on my head and I can’t remember anything. Nothing’s wrong with me as far as they can tell.”
“And what, they just let you go?”
“They couldn’t hold me against my will. My tests were normal. That’s it.”
He arched his eyebrows at me. “No, that’s not it. Somebody’s looking for you, sweetheart. Women like you don’t just walk off without anybody knowing.”
I frowned. “Women like me?”
He rolled his eyes. “Beautiful, okay? Relax.”
Beautiful? Had he taken a hard look at me? Or was this a ploy to keep me talking? Hard as I tried not to, I felt a hot rush of pleasure that he’d said it, no matter what the reason.
“If somebody’s looking for me, I’d be on the news,” I said.
“How do you know you’re not?”
“Because I know. Look it up. I’ll wait.”
He pulled out his phone, typed something, and scrolled down. “Missing woman, Texas,” he muttered. “Blue eyes.” After five minutes of looking, he hadn’t found any results that matched my description.
“That was just a quick search,” he said, pocketing his phone. “It doesn’t mean a thing.”
“Sure, it does,” I said. “I’ve watched every TV and read every newspaper I could find, and no one’s mentioned me. I asked at the hospital, too.”
“The police’ll have a missing person’s report. I promise you that.”
I clutched a hand to my chest. “Don’t make me walk into a police station like this. Please. After these last few days – I can’t. I’ll go tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” He shook his head like I just wasn’t getting it. “Don’t you want your family to find you?”
“If I had a family, wouldn’t I know by now?”
“Everybody has a family.”
“Really? Why didn�
�t they go to the press? You know what it’s like when somebody disappears. It’s all over the news.”
“They might not realize you’re gone yet. It’s only been three days.”
“Only? Three days is a long time. Believe me, I know.”
I could hardly breathe when he stared at me like that, as if he were dismantling me with his eyes. “A bump on the head means you were hurt,” he said, his patience clearly running low. “Something happened. You need to find out what the hell it was.”
I was way ahead of him, finally. “I’ve already seen a doctor. In fact, I saw three at the same hospital. All I need is a good night’s sleep.”
He leveled a look at me. “A woman with amnesia needs a lot more than a good night’s sleep.”
Suddenly exhausted from talking, I marshaled my last shred of humility. “I’m begging you, and I don’t like to beg. If you could lend me a hundred dollars for a motel room…” I felt queasy asking. In my former life, I probably didn’t hit up gorgeous strangers for handouts very often.
He snorted. “No way.”
“Why not? I promise I’ll pay you back.” Everything about him said money, power, privilege. He couldn’t spare a few bucks?
He responded with a harsh huff. “You’re not staying in a motel, not after what you pulled at that bar,” he said, waving a hand. “If you won’t go to the police, you’re coming with me.”
His tone was commanding, as if he were used to giving orders and having them followed.
“What do you mean, coming with you? Where am I going?”
“Does it matter? It’s better than wherever you spent last night, I guarantee you that.”
Considering I’d slept three fitful hours on a bunch of quilting scraps behind a fabric store, I couldn’t argue. “I can’t pay you for anything.”
“I gathered that,” he said, pulling back into traffic. He accelerated hard, pinning me to the seat. Like it or not I was going with him, wherever he wanted to go.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I said. “I mean it.”
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll earn your keep,” he said without a hint of humor. “I’ve been living the last two days without a housekeeper and I’m pretty damn tired of it.”
Descended (The Red Blindfold Book 3) Page 2
