by Alice Sharpe
“No. You aren’t Brian,” she said.
“Pity.”
She shook her head. “Not really.”
He pulled a chair out from the table and sat down as though it was either that or fall on his face.
Who was he, and what was he doing in her cabin? Now that she’d seen his face, she wasn’t as frightened of him, and why was that? There wasn’t one cuddly thing about him. She should be running for her life.
Instead, cleaver still in hand, she sat down on a chair opposite him, the two of them trapped in a puddle of yellowish light that portended poorly for the flashlight batteries. “You think you fell down a waterfall?” she asked.
“I don’t know for sure,” he said, touching his lip and wincing.
“You must know something,” she insisted.
He raised his gaze to hers. “I wish I did, lady, but I’m afraid that what you see is what you get.”
Chapter Two
While she built up the fire, he told her about waking up on the riverbank in his current condition. It was a struggle to get the words out. For one thing, his head felt as if it was going to explode. And for another, he was tired beyond endurance.
He didn’t mention the gun, which was still in its holster tucked under his jacket. He wasn’t sure why he was reluctant to tell her. He just was.
“The second time I woke up I was in the forest. It was almost dark and it was raining,” he added as she handed him a cup of tea she’d brewed on the gas stove in the kitchen. She was a restless woman, or maybe she was just nervous, which, given the circumstances, wasn’t surprising. Still, given the state of his head, he wished she’d stop moving around so much.
He had a feeling that at any other time in his life, he would have enjoyed watching her move. She was very slim with blond hair cut kind of uneven in a quirky way, falling long over one side of her face. Her ears were each pierced two times, and she wore small stones that glistened in the flickering light from the fire just as the whites of her eyes did. She looked to be in her late twenties.
“So you just stumbled around until you came to my cabin?” she asked.
“I broke into another one first,” he admitted. “But there wasn’t anything to eat. Yours looked lived in, so I came through a window in the mudroom. You had food in the fridge and your bed looked too good to pass up.” He paused for a heartbeat. “In retrospect, probably not the best idea to pass out in an obviously occupied place, but my thinking was a little fuzzy.”
She studied him a minute. “You really don’t know your name?”
“No.”
“I have to call you something.”
“Call me John Doe. It’s as good as anything else. What should I call you?”
“Paige Graham. Okay, John Doe. What do you want to do?”
“Sleep,” he said, quite honestly. “Though if you want me to leave, I understand.”
“I’m not going to force you out into a thunderstorm,” she said.
“I appreciate that.” He rubbed the back of his neck and did his best not to groan. “How about we put off making further decisions until morning? Maybe if I sleep, my memory will return. You take the bed—”
“That’s okay. It’s kind of…swampy. You can have it. I’ll take the couch. If you’ll hand me your damp clothes, I’ll hang them here by the fire. And I should bandage a couple of these cuts—”
He waved her off with a limp flick of his fingers. “I’m too tired to worry about anything right now. You’re sure about the bed?”
“Positive.” He saw the way her gaze flicked toward the front door. There was no way to keep her from leaving as soon as he closed his eyes. Nor was there any way to make sure she didn’t use the big knife she’d hidden in the desk drawer unless he tied her up, and he wasn’t going to do that. Frankly, at that moment, he didn’t particularly care what she did. He had to sleep.
He got to his feet and looked into her gray eyes. “Good night, Paige Graham.”
She almost smiled. “Good night, John Doe.”
* * *
THE LIGHTS WENT ON AT 6:45 a.m. Paige knew this because she’d spent the night sitting on the sofa with the cleaver, just in case. At the moment when the lamp blazed, she was staring at the clock, trying to figure out what to do.
Getting power back made that decision easy. The first order of business was to see if there was anything on the news about an escaped convict or a serial killer. She got up quickly and crossed the room to the small television set that sat inside a hutch. She turned it on and adjusted the old-fashioned rabbit ears until the only channel she’d been able to pick up was clear enough to watch.
She heard the shower start running, but she kept the volume low anyway. More rain was predicted for today. A woman in New York had won the lottery. Firemen had saved a puppy that fell through the grating into a culvert. Interest rates were up. Unemployment was down. She was about to give up and go start a pot of coffee when the picture on the screen changed to one of a forest. A reporter stood next to what appeared to be an abandoned campsite.
As Paige listened to the sketchy details, her fingernails bit into her palms. At a nearby park that was still closed for the season, an unidentified man had been savagely attacked. He’d been airlifted to Green Acre and was listed in critical condition and in a coma. Another man was wanted in connection with the attack. His name was John Cinca and he was a bodyguard working out of Lone Tree, Wyoming. Police were combing the area looking for him. A car rented under his name was found abandoned in the park. Another car was there, as well, abandoned, this one stolen. There were no witnesses and the reason for the attack was unclear.
They flashed a picture of John Cinca on the screen.
John Doe.
Paige found herself standing. She had to get out of here! She ran to the door and looked through the window.
During the night, the rain had turned to snow and left a few inches on the ground. She would leave a visible trail if she attempted to walk away. Her car was right there. She had to get her keys.
But John was in the bathroom, and so were her jeans with the keys in the pocket. The bedroom door was ajar and opened the rest of the way noiselessly. She all but floated across the floor to the bathroom. That door opened silently, as well. She could discern the outline of John’s body through the shower curtain. Yikes, he was muscular! She grabbed her jeans, closed the door and retraced her steps across the bedroom.
Once in the living room, she pulled the keys from the pocket and snagged her coat and handbag off the back of a chair. She glanced back at the bedroom door—the coast was still clear although the shower had gone off. Man, why hadn’t she grabbed her shoes? No matter, just get out while the getting is good.
She opened the door and tiptoed onto the deck, avoiding the plank she’d noticed squeaked the day before. Looking back as often as she looked forward, she made it to the car but chose to unlock it with the key rather than risk the noise it made with the keyless entry button. The door opened quietly and she slipped inside. She left the door unlatched but the car started beeping when she inserted the key, so she closed it, wincing at the thud it made.
Taking a deep breath, she turned the key while staring at the front door. The car roared to life, but at that second, the door opened and John emerged wearing his slacks and nothing else, glaring at her as he advanced across the porch.
“Stop,” he yelled.
Sure. Pushing down on the gas pedal, she jammed the shift into Reverse. The car jerked backward. John looked mad enough to jump in front of the car. Let him.
Instead, he raised his hand and she saw what she hadn’t noticed before. He was holding a gun.
Merciful heavens. He was going to kill her! She shifted into forward and gunned the engine again, but the back end had apparently wound up in a ditch or something and the car wouldn’t go forward. The tires just spun uselessly in the muddy snow.
She reached down and pushed the door lock button, still revving the engine and going nowhere fast.<
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He was at her window. “Stop the car,” he demanded.
The rearview mirror revealed blue smoke billowing out the tailpipe. There was no point in burning up her engine. She took her foot off the gas pedal.
“Stop the car and get out,” he said. He didn’t raise the gun; he didn’t need to. He knew he’d won.
She switched off the engine and pounded on the steering wheel, then opened the car door.
He grabbed her arm and hauled her out. His powerful chest was as bruised and battered as his arms. “Get in the house,” he said.
She walked through the snow, her feet in the wet socks freezing now. He was barefoot and gave no sign he even felt it.
“This is the thanks I get for letting you have the bed?” she snarled as he closed the front door behind them.
“You mean the swamp?” He ran a hand through his hair. “What happened, Paige? Why did you bolt?”
So, what did she do? Inform him he was wanted for nearly killing a man? Might that not give him ideas? Her gaze strayed to the television. She hadn’t turned it off but the volume was so low she couldn’t hear it from ten feet away. The same reporter as before was back on the screen. They were replaying the same story.
She looked away, but too late. She’d caught John’s attention, and he stepped behind her to see what she had been watching. His picture filled the screen, then faded away as an ad came on.
John looked down at her, the gun by his side.
“Why was my picture on television?”
“You seriously beat a man,” she said. There was no point in not telling him. All he had to do was wait for the story to loop around again.
“Tell me what you know.”
She repeated the few details, pausing after announcing he was actually John Cinca, looking for some sign the name clicked with him. There wasn’t one. He made a brief comment about the coincidence of giving himself a pseudonym that was actually his real first name, but that was it.
Next she told him he was a bodyguard living in a city two hundred miles away and that he’d rented a car that was still in the campground although probably impounded by now.
As she spoke, he made a fist of his left hand and gazed at his knuckles as though searching for proof he couldn’t have beaten someone senseless. But his hands were not only large and powerful, they were covered with bruises and cuts. And the knots of muscles in his chest and upper arms that flexed when he moved were further proof that if motivated, he could easily inflict some serious harm.
A shiver of fear snaked down Paige’s spine. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on his lean frame. Whoever he was, he kept himself fit.
“So, you tried to leave because you realized you were in a small cabin with a would-be killer,” he said.
“What would you have done?” she whispered.
“Tried to leave.” He shook his head. “I obviously have a gun. Why would I beat someone up?”
“I don’t know, John. Noise, maybe?”
“Where did this happen?”
“At the park on top of the bluff.”
“I wonder how I ended up in the river. Wait, were there eyewitnesses?”
“They didn’t mention any.”
“Then they don’t know for sure I did it, right?”
“I don’t think so. But they’re looking for you. It’s only a matter of time before they start checking out these cabins, you know.”
He nodded in a distracted fashion.
“What are you going to do?” she asked him.
“Beats me.”
“Well, for starters, could you maybe put the gun away?”
He fiddled with it for a second, she assumed flicking on the safety. Then he looked into Paige’s eyes and offered her the gun.
“What are you doing?”
“You have to look out for yourself. If I’m capable of something like what you described—”
“Then you could easily kill me with your bare hands,” she said, and then stepped back inside her mind and stared at herself a second. Was she crazy? The man had confronted her over the barrel of a gun just a few minutes ago. She took the weapon. It was the first time in her life she’d ever held a gun, and she was surprised at how heavy it was.
She handed it back to him. “Take out the bullets.”
He ejected what looked like a slender package of cigarettes. “It’s called a clip.”
“Give me the clip, then, and you keep the gun.”
He smiled at her.
Okay, really, he had the sexy, glowering alpha male bit down to a T. In fact it seemed effortless. But when he smiled, he turned into a guy who probably had a perfectly normal life somewhere. A wife maybe, or a girlfriend. Children. A mortgage.
Again, she took a mental step back. Had she just dismissed the fact that he had probably beaten a man to a pulp less than twenty-four hours before? No, but it was hard to believe it was true. Impossible, almost. He could just as easily have been another victim, or the injured man might have attacked him first.
“Would you really have shot me?” she asked.
“No,” he admitted. “I just grabbed the gun like it was a habit of some kind.”
“There’s a first-aid kit in the kitchen. A couple of your wounds need bandaging. I’ll get it for you.” When she returned with the kit, he thanked her.
“We both could use some coffee and food, and then I think we better get you to the police,” she said as she took off the coat and hooked it over the back of a chair.
He’d looked cooperative until the last part. He shook his head. “No way.”
“I’m putting on a pot of coffee. We’ll talk about it.”
“You can talk all you want,” he said. “I’m going to finish getting dressed.”
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll take off as soon as you close the bedroom door?”
Now he laughed, and if the smile had transformed him, the laughter lit him from the inside, even as he flinched and touched his lip. “After the way you jammed your car into that ditch? Not really.”
He turned to walk back to the bedroom, and that’s when she saw the scars on his back. Paige produced an involuntary gasp.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, whirling to face her.
She approached him. “You’ve been burned in the past. Your back is scarred.” She resisted the urge to touch him, the first such urge she’d had. All this bare, male flesh reminded her she was supposed to be here with her new husband....
“So are my legs,” he said. “And there’s a three-inch scar on my thigh. I think I’ve led a colorful life.”
“That’s one way to put it,” she said.
He turned away and then back again. “If you do think of a way to get out of here in the next few minutes, will you do me a favor?”
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
“Don’t turn me over to the cops, okay?”
“I’ll think about it,” she said, but the truth was she wasn’t going anywhere. And she had the feeling he knew that damn well.
Chapter Three
There was no option but to redress in the torn clothes he’d woken up in. They were still on the damp side and were getting pretty ripe. He slapped a bandage on his chin and one on his forehead and called it good.
Man, he was a mess. The eye wasn’t as puffy as before, but he had at least a day’s growth of dark beard to go with the bruises and cuts. No wonder Paige had looked frightened of him—he was the bogeyman of a nightmare.
“You sorry bastard,” he told his reflection.
There was something else, too. He’d had dreams during the night. Vivid ones. They’d woken him in a cold sweat, driven him into the shower to try to wash away the images. Faces of children, fire, mayhem. Screams…
Like a war. And something flying, hovering, threatening.
Was he a soldier or had he been one in his youth? And what about the children in the dream? Had he done something terrible to children? He couldn’t believe that of himself. He didn’t know who he
was, but he did have a sense of what he was, and it wasn’t a murderer.
Yet even now, wide awake, remembering the images made his stomach roll like a set of slow ocean waves.
He splashed cold water on his face and told himself to get a grip. His memory would return any minute and he’d figure out what went wrong, what had happened to him, and maybe more important, what he’d done to someone else.
The aroma of coffee drew him into the kitchen, where Paige handed him a mug, then set a plate of scrambled eggs in front of him.
“What is it like? I mean, not knowing who you are?” she asked as she sat opposite him again.
“Weird,” he said as the first hot swallow of coffee washed down his throat. “Empty.”
“About the police—”
He’d picked up his fork but set it aside again. “No police. Not until I can remember what happened. I’m willing to face the music when it comes to paying for my crimes, but if they’ve decided I’ve almost killed a man, how can I prove I didn’t?”
“Then how about getting some expert help?”
“Like a shrink?”
“No, like a retired cop. I happened to have had dinner with one last night. He and his wife seem like real down-to-earth types. He might be able to advise you about what to do next.”
He picked up the fork again and took a few bites. The eggs tasted pretty good. They were the first thing he’d eaten since stealing yogurt out of Paige’s refrigerator the evening before.
He studied her for a minute. “Who’s Brian?”
She looked away from him.
“You called me that last night.”
“I remember.”
“So, who is he?”
“Brian Witherspoon. He was my fiancé up until about three days ago.”
“Who broke up with who?”
“And that is your business because?”
“Because my head is a vast wasteland. Give me something to think about besides my life, which currently sucks big-time. Throw me a bone. Have a heart. Anyway, I’m curious. You got tired of him, right?”
“You think so?”
“Yes. Hard to picture someone skipping out on you, so you must have done the skipping. Then you came up here by yourself to get away from his incessant pleas to get back together. How am I doing?”
