Lovers In Hiding

Taking a quick breath, he prepared to dive under, but a surging wave lifted the car, for a few moments helping instead of hampering his rescue efforts. He reached past the airbag, unsnapped her seat belt and pulled her into his arms.

She didn’t fight him. Didn’t move. Remained completely limp.

Please don’t be dead.

Eyes closed, unmoving, she floated in his arms like a mermaid that the sea had given up to him. Her color was pale, almost gray as death, but he didn’t have time for CPR or mouth-to-mouth. Even the Heimlich maneuver was impossible in the high surf. First, he had to swim her to shore.

Although she didn’t weigh much, the waves caught at her body, trying to tug her from him. Yet this time the wind and the rolling surges pushed them in the direction in which he wanted to go.

His lungs burned with effort as he struggled to carry her. Ignoring the pain in his chest and the cramps in his straining legs, he battled the surging waves, unable to use his hands to swim while he held her, trying to keep her head above water. He fought his way back and finally his feet touched sand. But he didn’t have time to feel relief.

Didn’t have time to consider how long it would take the men in the blue sedan to give up their fragile perch on the car’s roof and make a swim for the beach. Didn’t have time to consider how long it would take them to be within shooting range.

On the beach, he collapsed to his knees beside Melinda and leaned over to examine her. He had no idea whether she had a pulse, doubted he could find it with his wet and cold fingers. One quick glance at her gray skin told him she wasn’t breathing. How long had it been? Two minutes? Three? Four and she’d suffer brain damage.

Brain damage. The ugly words cut like a razor, sharp and painful. Tilting her head back, he cleared an airway, pinched her nostrils shut. Then he placed his mouth over hers and breathed.

“Come on, Melinda.” He spoke to her, each time blowing more air into her mouth.

“Breathe.”

“Breathe.”

Out of his peripheral vision, he saw the men in suits start their swim to shore, like sharks scenting prey. They’d drifted way out, giving him extra minutes to ensure her safety, which would do him no good if she didn’t regain consciousness.

“Damn it. I told you to breathe.”

Her eyelids fluttered. Maybe she responded to the urgency in his tone. Maybe her lungs needed time to fill with air, but whatever the reason, he couldn’t have been more relieved when she coughed. He turned her head to help her to spit out water. Even a teaspoonful in the lungs was enough to drown a person.

Her trembling hand rose to her head and she mumbled, “Hurts.”

Her eyes opened, and her pupils were very large, surrounded by the creamiest hue of caramel he’d ever seen. Dark hair covered her forehead, and when he smoothed back the wet strands, he discovered a lump the size of a golf ball there. Just looking at the knot starting to discolor made him wince. She needed ice to keep the swelling down. Unfortunately, he had none.

He held up two fingers. “How many?”

“Four?”

“Great, you’re seeing double.”

“That’s why there’s two of you,” she muttered then closed her eyes.

“Oh no you don’t. Melinda, you can’t go to sleep. You have a head injury. Maybe a concussion.”

“Hurts.”

Helpless, she lay in his arms, but at least her deadly gray pallor had been replaced by a much more healthy-looking olive tone. “You need a doctor.”

“I need—” Her eyes suddenly opened again, and she bolted into a sitting position, wincing at the pain the effort cost her. “Who are you?”

She sounded as suspicious as an operative on his first assignment, and he almost smiled. He supposed many women might be frightened by his appearance, black leather pants and a black T-shirt—all sopping wet. His size alone could intimidate most men, and he hadn’t bothered shaving this morning, so his jaw sported more than a five-o’clock shadow. For her to wake up in the arms of a stranger had to be unnerving, especially one as scruffy-looking as he probably was.

Of course, she wasn’t exactly ready for a beauty pageant either—not with that bump on her head that was starting to turn a wicked shade of purple. But with her tight tank top plastered to her breasts and short shorts that outlined her hips, she appeared to be a prime candidate for a wet T-shirt competition.

Thank God, a man like him would never be attracted to his charge. He didn’t go for petite, curvy brunettes with eyes like melted taffy. He preferred his women cool, blond and intellectual. Melinda Murphy, with her delicate jaw and suspicious glare looked precisely like the type of woman who was trouble with a capital T.

She’d nearly died, he reminded himself, and she wasn’t out of danger yet. Luckily the escalating wind and rising current were on their side, hindering her pursuers’ progress back to shore. Within moments, they would be swept around the point.

He didn’t want to scare her by mentioning the men after her, not while her hands trembled and her eyes reflected confusion. “I’m Clay Rogan.” He pointed to the choppy sea, noting that the blue sedan and the swimming men were now totally out of view and around the bend. “When I saw your car go under—”

Bewilderment filled her eyes, and she frowned, her full lips forming a lusty pout full of suspicion. “My car? Underwater?”

“I’m lucky I got you out. I’m afraid I couldn’t do much about the—”

Her head jerked back and forth in denial, her eyes wildly searched the churning waves as if she’d lost a dear friend. “I don’t suppose you nabbed my purse?”

“Sorry.”

Her bottom lip quivered. Oh, hell, she was going to cry.

“Don’t cry.”

He hated when women cried, because then he gave in to their demands and hated himself for it later. Only, this half-drowned mermaid wasn’t making demands. Yet she was so suspicious of him that he didn’t know whether to feel sorry for her.

Her eyes brimmed.

“Don’t,” he repeated softly but firmly, as he would to an injured child.

She paid absolutely no attention to his demand. Tears overflowed her eyes and rolled down her cheeks.

He bit back a curse and gently lifted her into his lap, cradling her against his chest, tucking her head beneath his chin. Her entire body shook, a sob escaped and instead of offering her additional reassurances, his first thought was how holding her in his arms made him feel like keeping her there for a long time. She had a toned body, teasing curves and a bottom lip he wanted to taste.

What the hell was wrong with him? The woman was crying and all he could think about was her bottom lip? Forcing his thoughts back to practical matters wasn’t easy, although usually his focused mind stayed on the subjects he intended it to. But her combination of strength and defenselessness called to him on a level he couldn’t quite comprehend. He only knew he had to regain control of himself, before he did something stupid—like kiss her.

“Are you in pain? You need a doctor?”

“Not a doctor. I need a psychiatrist.”

A shrink? Was she crazy?

Actually he must be the insane one around here. She wanted a shrink. And he wanted to kiss her. What kind of a secret agent was he anyway?

A bad one.

Damn it! This mission would be hard enough with a reasonably sane woman. And Melinda Murphy seemed anything but reasonable. Or sane. In fact, she hadn’t made much sense since the moment she’d opened those soulful toffee-colored eyes and raised his protective armor.

Perhaps he needed to humor her. “Okay. Why do you need a psychiatrist?”

“Because I have no memory.”

“What do you mean you have no memory?”

“Which word don’t you understand?” she countered. But the tears still rolling over her cheeks took the sting out of her strong words.

He suspected she was trying to be brave, especially since he could feel her trembling. So he gentled his tone even more. “You don’t remember your accident?”

She shook her head and angrily wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. “Tell me what happened. Maybe it’ll come back to me.”

Finally, a good suggestion. But they needed to get out of here in case anyone else showed up. Before the men he’d seen swimming around the point made it to shore and headed back here for Melinda.

Still, Clay hesitated, knowing she was in a fragile emotional state. He couldn’t be so callous, wasn’t so pressed for time that he couldn’t make a few explanations.

Clay ignored the storm clouds darkening overhead. They were already soaked, their clothing sticking to them like a swimsuit. A little rain would only wash off the salt. “When I arrived on the beach, I saw a blue sedan force your car into the water.”

She straightened in his lap, pulling her head from under his chin. She looked up and down the beach, her spine stiff, her arms crossed over her chest defensively. “I don’t see another car.”

“The vehicle chased you into the ocean. And sank.”

“Really?”

She didn’t believe him. He could see it in her eyes, which glinted like ice glimmering through a fog, and in the stiff way she scooted off his lap and stood, looking uncertainly around her. But he could no longer point out the two swimming men, since they’d made it around the point. Or the tire tracks that the waves had washed away.

She spied his black leather jacket, his boots, then his motorcycle, and took several steps back, her eyes narrowed with the wariness of a cornered cat.

“You don’t remember the accident at all?”

“Must be the bump on my head.”

“Okay, let’s backtrack. Did you notice the blue sedan following you from your house?”

“I don’t remember.” Her bottom lip, slightly purple with cold, quivered again, but she fought back the tears with a valiant sigh.

“Hey, don’t let it upset you. You obviously got whacked upside the head. Maybe that made you forget. But even if the head injury didn’t cause your memory loss, unless they’re trained to notice, most citizens won’t pick up a tail.”

The information didn’t seem to reassure her. If anything, his words made her even more vigilant as she curled her fingers into fists. She shivered and looked at him as if he were a crab that had crawled out from beneath a rock.

“Citizen? What are you, some kind of military—”

“I work in an office on a computer,” he told her. If there was one thing Clay hated, it was lies. Yet the truth would frighten her and make her trust him less than she already did.

“Then how do you know about tails?”

He shrugged, slipped on his boots, picked up his jacket and walked toward her, holding the jacket extended as a peace offering, intending to wrap her in its dry warmth. “I watch TV like everybody else.”

Teeth chattering, she backed up, staying out of reach, even though she obviously needed his jacket. Her lips were definitely bluish purple and goose bumps rose on her flesh. “How do I know you weren’t the one who forced my car into the water?”

“On a motorcycle?”

Car tires had left imprints all over the beach but there was no way to prove which tracks belonged to which vehicles. Waves had washed away the critical ones that led directly to the water. “You’ll have to take my word, Melinda.”

As he said her name, she retreated again, her teeth chattering. “Just how do you know my name?”

Damn! He didn’t want to lie to her. It went against the grain. But if he told her he’d been sent by the CIA’s director of operations to protect her, he’d be breaking his orders not to reveal his cover. Yet he needed her to trust him. Enough to let him look at the documents her brother had sent her.

“You told me your name when I pulled you out of the car.”

“Liar!” She took another step back, spun on her heel and raced away from him as if her life depended on eluding him.

She’d called him a liar, and his jaw dropped in astonishment. How had she known he’d lied? She hadn’t been conscious and couldn’t know she hadn’t mumbled to him. Why was she looking at him as if he were a criminal with violence on his mind?

He let her run, knowing he could easily catch her on his bike. But then he realized chasing her down with his Harley would frighten her even more.

And while he stood there second-guessing himself, the woman had a damn good head start. With a muffled oath, he took off after her, wondering how one small brunette could cause so much trouble. He should have ridden the Harley. Maybe if he scared her enough, she’d be more cooperative.

He wasn’t cut out for this kind of work. As he pounded down the beach in his leather boots that weren’t made for running any more than they were made for swimming, he thought once again that the director had made a mistake in choosing him for this assignment. He simply didn’t have the experience to provide good protection. Didn’t have the kind of practice necessary to handle Ms. Melinda Murphy.

With her tears and her sobs and her angry defiance, she’d twisted him around inside. She was manipulating him in a way he found impossible to fight. Because she didn’t fight fair. She used those feminine weapons that did a man in every time. But he couldn’t let her big tawny eyes stop him from doing his job.

She ran like the gusting wind and straight into the thundering storm, her lean legs eating up the distance with remarkable speed. It took longer than he’d have guessed to catch her. Then, after he’d almost caught up, she put on a burst of speed and dashed straight toward the water.

“Oh no you don’t.”

He’d had enough swimming thank you very much. Lunging, he tackled her and they both fell, rolling in the sand. He landed on his back with her on his chest, snuggled between his thighs. For a moment those soft curves pressed to his body kindled a primitive response.

And then her knee lifted, aiming for his groin.

“Lady, I swear if you kick me in the balls, I’ll deck you,” he threatened, knowing he wouldn’t and hoping she wouldn’t realize it. Due to an oversize workload, Clay had gotten less than ten hours of sleep in the last five nights. Twenty-three-hour days of nonstop pressure were starting to catch up with him, fraying his temper, increasing his irritability. This assignment had pulled him off an important job—one that could make a difference in setting U.S. diplomatic policy for a decade. His reactions and temper reflected a measure of his frustration. He twisted to the side, rolling them until he ended up on top, with her on her back beneath him, her black hair splayed across the sand like an exotic fan.

Before she could scratch the flesh off his face, kick him in the groin or chin, he pinned her wrists. She shook a stray lock of hair out of her way, her eyes burning coals of outrage. “Let me go, you biker bully.”

“I won’t hurt you.”

She rolled her eyes at the raining sky. “Oh, sure. Like I’m really going to believe you.”

Thunder roared overhead, pounding over them in flashing echoes. He paid no attention, focusing on the storm brewing beneath him. “Why shouldn’t you believe me? I saved your life, lady.”

“So you say.”

“You should be grateful.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” she said with saccharine sweetness and mockery. “Now that I’ve thanked you, you’ll let me go, right?”

He ignored her question. “Why did you run from me?”

She heaved a sigh of frustration and tried to shift him off by bucking her hips. He let her struggle, knowing she’d soon come to the conclusion that he was bigger and stronger, and she wasn’t escaping until he got his answer and freed her of his own accord.

“Look, mister biker-dude.”

“Don’t call me that.”

She arched a haughty eyebrow. “You haven’t told me your name.”

“I believe I did. It’s Clay. Clay Rogan.”

“Fine, Mr. Clay Rogan. I don’t know you. I have no memory of you before opening my eyes on this beach to find you standing over me. You say someone else forced my car into the water. But my car isn’t here. You say another car forced mine into the water, and guess what? That car isn’t here either. Then you said I told you my name—an outright lie. Don’t deny it, mister—you did lie.”

“Okay, I admit that was a mistake. If I told you the truth, you wouldn’t believe me.”

“Why should I?”

“Exactly my point. Why bother with a difficult truth when you obviously didn’t believe the easy stuff?” He paused to rein in his aggravation. “I assume, until you drove the car into the water, you had no idea you’ve been in danger?”

Her eyes widened, she struggled to free her wrists. He held her tighter.

She winced. “You said you wouldn’t hurt me.”

He loosened his grip slightly. “Will you get it through your stubborn head that the danger isn’t from me. Someone is after you.”

“So you say.”

“Look, this all started before I got here. You do remember leaving your house and driving to the beach?”

“Mister. Clay,” she amended, “you listen about as well as I remember.”

What had he missed? As he searched her eyes, he saw a turbulence of emotions, fear, anger and hesitation. “Tell me again.”

“I knew you’d lied about how you knew my name because I couldn’t have possibly given you that information.”

“Why not?”

All her sarcasm and sass evaporated, just as the rain poured down, soaking his back with slashing droplets of ice. “Because I haven’t just forgotten the accident. I don’t remember anything.”

“Nothing?”

“Not my name. Not my address. Not even what I do for a living.”

Chapter Two

She’d known the moment she opened her eyes on the beach that something was very, very wrong. Her heart pounded too hard, and her adrenaline had been sapped, her energy stolen as if she’d just run a marathon. Fear coiled through her body, leaving a sour taste in her mouth and twisting her gut into a hard knot, but she had no idea why she was so afraid.

She’d discerned her memory loss almost right away, and the realization knocked her for one doozy of a loop. While she gasped for air, her brain sucked in details of her surroundings; a wide beach pounded by rain and a devastatingly handsome, dangerous-looking man hovering over her, his grim expression as dark as the black leather clinging to his massive thighs.

Faced with the immediate threat of him, her memory loss shifted to a back burner. His eyes, green as the stormy sea and hard as the stone jetty, clued her in that he wasn’t the brotherly or husbandly type. While she might know him, she had the distinct impression from his sharp curiosity that they were complete strangers. She didn’t know his name, didn’t recognize his stony face, and was positive that if she’d met him before, she would remember something about him. He carried the distinctive scent of masculine leather on his skin. When he spoke, his breath carried an unusual cherry flavor that contrasted with his tough-guy image. His wide-set, sea-green eyes revealed anger and guilt, but she also glimpsed an inkling of concern that reached beyond her fear. His strong jaw, stubbled like a pirate’s, and his generous mouth, set with an arrogant firmness, suggested that this man was accustomed to others obeying his commands.

Not today she wouldn’t. She didn’t care if he had shoulders wider than the Gulf Stream or more muscles than Hulk Hogan, he’d fed her an inedible story that even a ten-year-old kid wouldn’t swallow.

The fact that she currently couldn’t remember her age, her address or her name didn’t mean she didn’t have a working brain. But it sure as hell was one gargantuan handicap. If she had to lose her memory, why couldn’t it have happened among friends? Or family? If she’d hit her head in a car accident—and the knot on her head and the aches in her muscles certainly felt as if she had—why couldn’t she have been rescued by the police, driven by paramedics to a hospital?

Instead she’d lost her memory and ended up with a menacing-looking hunk in black leather. She gazed at the muscular arms holding her down, finding it curious that he didn’t sport tattoos. He wore no earrings to accessorize, either. Maybe the man wasn’t as wild as he’d first appeared. He certainly didn’t seem to want to hurt her. He’d had ample opportunity, yet remained gentle.

He’d tackled her and landed so he’d taken the brunt of the fall. Even now, with her pinned beneath him, he spared her the crushing force of his full weight, while protecting her face from the teeming rain as he leaned over her and surveyed her with assessing eyes. Those eyes again. Caring eyes. Intelligent eyes.

He eased up on her wrists slightly. “When’s your birthday?”

“I don’t know.”

“How old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Parlez-vous français?”

God! A multilingual biker. Did he have to sound so sexy when he spoke to her? “I don’t speak French.”

“But you understood the question.”

“Don’t you know phrases in languages you don’t speak?” she countered, wondering how long this inquisition would go on, wondering what he intended to do with her when it was over. At the realization of his power over her and her helplessness to fight him, she shivered. He could take whatever he wanted from her, and this man seemed accustomed to taking.

Panic rose up her throat, and she reminded herself that he likely wouldn’t have told her his name if he intended to hurt her.

As if reading her racing fears, Clay let out a frustrated sigh. “This is one hell of a mess. Let’s hope your memory comes back real soon. Meanwhile, I’ll have to hide you.”

“Hide me?” She didn’t like the sound of that at all. She didn’t want to go anywhere with this man. She didn’t know him. She didn’t know herself enough to trust her judgment or believe the clear ring of tension in his voice.

“I need to keep you safe.”

“Then take me to the cops,” she suggested.

“You’ll be safer with me than the cops.” He rolled off her and tugged her to her feet, never releasing her wrist. “Come on. I’ll explain on the way back to my bike.”

The moment he released her, the ripping rain and slicing wind bombarded her like hail. She refused to miss the warmth of his arms. Instead, she told herself, she was glad he no longer pressed her back into the cold, wet sand. She didn’t want to go anywhere with Clay Rogan—especially to his bike where he could spirit her away to some isolated place where she’d never be seen again.

Why couldn’t she recall her family? Friends? Or maybe a wonderful husband who might be frantically searching for her even now? It finally occurred to her that if Melinda was her real name, as he claimed, then Clay could tell her more about herself.

“What’s my last name?” she asked as he tugged her along the beach where the waves rolled in, attacked the sand, then receded in a white froth of sucking sounds.

“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.