Delta Force Daddy

After Asher gave his muffled assent, Paige slid from the car and pushed the door closed with a click. It took her ten minutes to throw her stuff in a bag. She dumped the three bottled waters from the fridge into a plastic bag, along with her leftover sandwich from the day before.

She strode to the motel office, swinging the room key from her finger. The bell on the door jingled when she swung it open.

Charlie, the motel’s proprietor, peeked around the corner of the back office. His eyes widened when he saw her. “You’d better get out of here.”

The key flew off her finger and her jaw dropped. “Why?”

“They’re looking for you.”

Goose bumps rippled across her flesh. “Who?”

“Those folks at the rest home on the hill.” Charlie looked both ways as if the two of them weren’t the only ones in the room. “Government folks.”

She stooped to pick up the key and smacked it on the counter. “They’re looking for me by name?”

“You...and others.” He swept the key from the counter and dropped it in a drawer. “They came charging in here asking about this one and that one—mostly men—but then they mentioned your name, Paige Sterling. Said you also might be using Paige Knight.”

Paige gripped the strap of her purse. “They asked for me by name? What did they want to know?”

“If you’d been here, checked into the motel.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the parking lot and her rental car with one big Delta Force soldier stashed in the trunk. “And you said...?”

Charlie folded his arms and narrowed his eyes. “Told ’em they’d need to come back with the cops and a search warrant if they wanted to see my guests’ names. I did tell them I didn’t have any single women staying here.”

“Thank you, Charlie. I’m not involved in anything illegal.”

He waved a hand. “I don’t trust that bunch up there. Wouldn’t give ’em the correct time of day if they asked.”

“I don’t trust them, either. I’m out of here. You can put the balance for the room on the credit card I used.”

“Will do. Too bad I already ran it. That can be traced now.”

“When I checked in here, I didn’t realize...” She shook her head. “It’s all right.”

“Safe travels.”

She slammed the office door harder than she’d intended and jogged to the car. She opened the back door and tossed her suitcase and pack onto the seat. When she slid behind the wheel, she turned her head to the side. “They’re already looking for me, and others. They must realize you had help. The guy at the motel didn’t tell them anything, so they can’t know I’m the one who’s here.”

A thump resounded from the trunk, and Paige knew Asher had heard her.

She squealed out of the parking lot and raced toward the town. As she turned down the main street, she said, “Can you pound on the trunk again or something so I know you’re still alive back there?”

Another loud thump answered her but did nothing to calm her nerves. “As soon as I get the chance, I’ll let you out of there. We need a place to go.”

She pulled up behind a white van at the one stoplight in town. The red light turned green, and she removed her foot from the brake pedal and held it above the accelerator as the car rolled forward.

The van hadn’t moved, and she slammed on the brake. The car heaved forward and back. “Sorry, but there’s some idiot who won’t move.”

Her hand slid from the steering wheel and rested on the horn in the center of it. “I’m going to give this guy two more seconds.”

In less than a second, both doors of the van swung open and a hulking man dressed in the scrubs of a hospital orderly burst out of the passenger side and into the street.

He pinned her with a menacing glare and started to charge toward her.

“Oh my God, Asher. It’s them. They found us.”

Chapter Four

Adrenaline pumped through his body, and Asher’s limbs jerked with the power of the sensation.

Paige screamed and he flushed with rage. She had to get out of here, had to move the car. Unless they had her boxed in. A car in front and one in back that she didn’t notice?

He pounded on the roof of his prison with his fist. The car jumped in Reverse, and his head whacked the side of the trunk. He didn’t even care. They were in motion.

He heard a man shouting. Sounded like that giant oaf Granger. The tires squealed and the smell of burning rubber assailed his nostrils.

The car jerked to the left. Asher felt like he was on some amusement park ride that kept you in the dark so you couldn’t see the next turn of the track.

Paige must’ve floored it, because the car leaped forward and then the back fishtailed. As the car picked up speed, a crash echoed outside the trunk. Asher braced his body for an impact, wedging his bare feet against the side of the trunk...but none came.

The car hit a bump and then...nothing. It sailed forward. “Paige. Paige, can you hear me?”

Several seconds passed, and then he heard the sweetest sound ever.

“We’re in the clear. The van that was blocking me crashed into another car.”

Asher’s lungs ached as he released a long breath in the close confines of the trunk. “Get as far away from here as possible and head south. Can you do that?”

Maybe Paige didn’t have any breath left to answer, but as long as the car kept going forward he’d leave it in her capable hands.

Because his...fiancée had proved herself to be more than capable. In fact, she was a badass.

They traveled for what must’ve been at least thirty minutes before the car slowed down. It bumped and rumbled over rocky terrain before coming to a stop.

Paige threw open the trunk, and Asher blinked his eyes at the daylight.

“Are you okay?” They asked the question in unison, so he answered first.

“I’m fine. What the hell happened back there?” He uncurled his legs and swung one outside the trunk and then rolled out.

“Do you need to stretch out before getting into the passenger seat?”

“I just want out of this area.” He picked his way to the front door of the car as pebbles and twigs attacked the soles of his feet.

Paige got behind the wheel and cranked up the heater. “You must be freezing.”

“Hadn’t noticed...until now.” He rubbed his arms. “Are you going to tell me what went on with that van?”

She cranked her head over her shoulder and backed out of the outlet she’d pulled into. “Came up to the lone signal in Mooseville and pulled behind a white van. When the light changed, the van didn’t move. I was about to pull around it when two goons in scrubs burst out of the van. I knew right away who they were. They must’ve been waiting for me—or any of your other friends on their list—to show up. They must’ve had my picture, and when they recognized me, they made their move.”

“Now they know who helped me.” And they knew that Paige was connected to him in some way. His fiancée. “How did you get away?”

“I reversed, and they jumped back into the van, but they weren’t paying attention. The light had changed, and another car T-boned them.” She smirked. “That van isn’t going anywhere.”

“Buys us some time.”

She flicked her fingers at him. “We have to get you some clothes...and food. Are you hungry?”

“Not at all.” He tapped on the window. “Not sure where we’re going to buy clothes in the middle of nowhere.”

“We’re not exactly in the middle of nowhere. See those mountains?” She tipped her chin forward. “There’s a ski resort up there, and it’s open despite the lack of snow. They’re manufacturing it now and expect the weather to cooperate in the next day or two for the Christmas holidays.”

“You know this area?”

“No. Why would I know this area when I’m from Vegas?” She stopped and bit her bottom lip. “But you don’t know that I’m from Vegas, do you?”

He reached out suddenly and touched her wrist. “No, but I’ll remember. You’ll tell me everything.”

A smile wobbled on her lips. “Looking forward to it.”

He pulled his hand back and dropped it in his lap as guilt nibbled at the edges of his mind. Touching her had been a calculated move on his part because he’d sensed her grief at his memory loss. His amnesia might even be worse for her. At least he didn’t know what he was missing.

It had to be devastating to look into the eyes of someone who was supposed to love you and see a complete lack of recognition or feeling.

He stared out the window. Not a complete lack of feeling. Even locked in the trunk, he’d experienced an overpowering urge to protect this woman when she’d been in danger. Maybe that was normal under the circumstances, but he’d felt a tug at his heart when he first ran into her in the woods, too.

He’d get it all back. From what he’d seen of Paige so far, he had great taste in women.

“How much longer to the ski resort and do you think you can make it to a store before it closes and pick up some clothes for me?”

“Maybe an hour away. I know your sizes. Don’t worry.” A crease formed between her eyebrows. “Do you think it’ll be safe? Would they have any reason to track us there?”

“Hell, I don’t know. I don’t even know why they’d want to track me down. What do they want with me?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. All I wanted to do was visit you, and the army officer who called me wouldn’t tell me where you were. Didn’t believe I was your fiancée.”

“Why’d he call you?”

“I called the army trying to locate you when I heard about the incident. One of your team members called me to tell me about it, but he wouldn’t tell me much. The army finally returned my call after they found my name and number in the favorites on your phone.” She flexed her fingers on the steering wheel and then renewed her grip. “What happened, Asher? Do you remember?”

“That’s what’s weird.” He scratched his jaw. “I do remember what happened right before my fall.”

“That is unusual.”

He jerked his head toward her. “You think so, too?”

“Since you don’t know anything about me,” she said with a sniff, “you don’t know I’m a psychologist. I handle a lot of PTSD cases and repressed memories.”

He raised his eyebrows. “That’s convenient... A shrink. A shrinky-dinky.”

She jerked the steering wheel. “Why did you say that?”

“Shrinky-dinky? I don’t know. The silly phrase keeps coming to me every time I say or hear the word shrink.” He studied her profile—the slightly upturned nose and the firm chin. “Why?”

“When I finished my hours and got licensed to practice, that’s what you’d call me.” She licked her lips. “You remembered that on your own.”

“I did. Thank God. It’s all going to come back, isn’t it?”

She dropped her chin to her chest. “I can help you, Asher. I can help you recover your memories. It doesn’t sound like the damage to your brain is permanent if a nickname came to you like that. Did the doctors mention anything about a permanent injury?”

“No. They kept assuring me that I’d fully recover my memory.”

She let out a sigh. “That’s good. It is strange though that you happen to remember the incident itself. What did happen? Can you tell me?”

“I can tell you. It’s not classified or anything, and if it were, I guess I can’t remember the classification level, anyway.” He poked her in the side and got a smile out of her. “There are a few advantages to memory loss.”

“There can be.” Her pale cheeks flushed. “So, what happened out there in Afghanistan?”

“My commander, Major Rex Denver, was supposed to be having a meeting with a snitch from one of the groups that holds control of that area. The guy wanted to start feeding us intel and Denver was the man. He took me along and an army ranger. While we waited for the contact to show up, Denver took control. He shot the army ranger and then came at me. He took me off guard and pushed me off the edge of a cliff. I fell—” he tapped his head “—hit this thing and blacked out. An army ranger unit rescued me. Somehow, I managed to escape any severe physical injury, but I had a gash on the back of my head and I couldn’t remember a damned thing when I came to.”

“Except the incident that sent you over the edge.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I didn’t remember that right away, either. That unfolded for me when I got to an army hospital in Germany and much more when they got me to Hidden Hills.”

“Hidden Hills is an unfortunate name for that place.” Paige lodged the tip of her tongue in the corner of her mouth. “That kind of selective memory is unusual.”

“I stayed in Germany for a month before they shipped me to that crazy place. The hospital in Germany dealt more with my physical injuries—my head wound.”

“And your Delta Force team members? Did they ever come to visit you?”

“No.” Asher curled his hands into fists. “They didn’t like what I had to say about Major Denver. Didn’t believe me and blamed me because Denver went AWOL.”

“I tried calling a few of them, too, with no luck.” Paige drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel. “Denver went AWOL after what happened with you?”

“Right after. Apparently, he took off after he attacked me. Left me for dead, but at least he got word to someone that my body was lying at the bottom of that drop-off.”

“He did? He reported your location and condition?”

“Yeah, great guy, huh? He thought he’d killed me.”

“D-do you remember Major Denver and the others?”

His eye twitched as pain throbbed against his temple. “No. I only recall Denver in that moment. I don’t remember anything about him or working with him...or the others.”

“Maybe it’s your defense.” She lifted her shoulders. “He did such a terrible thing to you, you’ve blocked out anything good about him to protect yourself.”

“I don’t know.” He squeezed his eyes closed as the pain spread across his forehead.

“Grab my purse in the back seat.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I have some ibuprofen in there. That plastic bag on the floor has some bottled water and a leftover sandwich if you’re hungry.”

He reached around and dragged her purse into the front seat. “Where?”

“The bottle’s in the makeup bag.”

He unzipped the little leopard-print bag and plucked a small bottle from it. He shook three gel caps into his hand and tossed them into his mouth. He chased them with a gulp of water and eased his head against the headrest. “I’m going to try to rest my eyes.”

“Go ahead. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

“I don’t think I’ll be falling asleep.”

As much as he tried to keep his eyes open, closing them soothed the pain in his head and he allowed his heavy lids to drop. He would drift off, but something urgent kept prodding him and he’d jerk awake with a start.

In a short time he’d become dependent on the drugs that had eased his passage into sleep each night. He didn’t want that anymore. He didn’t claim to be any expert, like Paige apparently was, but being drugged up had to be interfering with his memories. How could he remember his past when half the time he couldn’t remember what he’d eaten for lunch?

“Give in to it.”

“What?” Opening one eye, he rolled his head to the side and pinned her with his gaze.

“You’ve been nodding off and jerking awake for the past forty-five minutes. Is it that you can’t fall asleep or don’t want to?”

“Maybe a little of both. Maybe I snore and drool in my sleep.”

“You don’t drool—at least not when you’re sleeping.”

He twisted his lips into a smile. This woman who knew him...intimately could do more to restore his memory than all the drugs and doctors in the entire US military.

Why had they tried to keep her away from him?

The signs that flew by the car window announced cabins and lift tickets and ski rentals. “We must be close.”

“We are.” She snatched her phone from the cup holder and tossed it at him. “First things first. Can you look up a clothing store? Even if it’s a ski shop, I’m sure it’ll have pants and shirts, jackets and boots.”

He tapped the phone’s display and then shook it. “No internet connection yet. We may have to drive straight to the ski resort to get connectivity. I’m sure there are stores there. Any reason you don’t want to shop at the resort?”

“Those people from the prison...I mean rest home, might see this as a logical place for us to land.”

“Probably, but we have a head start on them, and how do they know you didn’t have clothing and an escape plan waiting for me?”

“I should have.” She skimmed her hand along the side of her head. “When I saw the situation yesterday, I should’ve put more thought into breaking you out of there.”

“I’d say you did a pretty good job.” He plucked at the hospital gown barely covering his thighs. “You didn’t know they’d have me stripped and defenseless.”

She snorted. “If they thought taking your clothing was enough to render you defenseless, they don’t know Asher Knight like I know Asher Knight.”

Tilting his head back and forth, he loosened the knots in his neck for probably the first time since he’d regained consciousness. Somebody knew him, and that deep pit of abandonment in his gut ached a little less.

He heaved out a sigh.

“Underwear, T-shirt, socks, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, boots and a jacket. Do I need to write that down?”

“You’re the one with the memory problems, not me.” She poked him in the side and grinned. “Like I said, I even know all your sizes. You stay slumped down in the seat while I go inside. I’m going to have to use my credit card though. I want to save the cash I have for later. Do you think the army is going to track me down through my credit card?”

He pointed out the window to the turnoff for the resort. “Very real possibility, but there’s not much we can do about it. I have no money. No cash. No cards. No memory. No life.”

She veered right onto the ramp and swiveled her head in his direction. “That escalated quickly. Are you okay? I mean other than the obvious?”

“Just a little brush with self-pity.” He smacked the side of his face with his palm. “I’ve recovered now.”

“You’ve shown zero self-pity. I think you’re allowed a second or two.”

“We need to come up with a way to get our hands on some cash. Maybe my old man stashed some away for a rainy day.”

“Actually—” she slid him a sideways glance “—the feds thought he had, but he never copped to it.”

“If he ever told me about it, I would’ve forgotten that along with everything else.” He rubbed the goose bumps on his arms. The temperature had been steadily dropping outside and the heater inside hadn’t kept pace with it.

Paige cranked it up higher. “We’re not going to wait to find piles of cash somewhere while you freeze to death with no clothes.”

The car bounced as she drove into a large parking lot for the ski resort. “We’ll get you dressed and then maybe just get out of here. You don’t really think it’s the US Army that’s after you, do you?”

“At first I took everything the army told me at face value. In Germany, my physical wounds were treated and everything seemed okay, except for the fact that my Delta Force unit wanted nothing to do with me because of my allegations against Major Denver. It’s when they started messing with my mind and then sent me to that so-called rehabilitation center that things started rubbing me the wrong way.”

“Let’s put that on hold for now.” She hunched over the steering wheel and peered through the windshield. “I see a clothing store on the periphery of the shops. Start scrunching down or it’s back in the trunk with you.”

He pushed the seat all the way back and slid down. “Go for it. This hospital gown is getting old...and baby blue is not my color.”

She swung into a parking space. “Look at you, making jokes. You must be on the mend—and you look good in any color...or nothing at all.”

Before he could think of a comeback, she slammed her door and the car shook.

How were they going to go anywhere under the radar if the army really was tracking Paige through her credit card? He didn’t even know if he had any money. Let alone how to access it. His doctors had told him he was from Las Vegas. He must’ve met Paige there. Had he known her for a long time?

Even if he had money, they were about as far from Vegas as they could get.

He closed his eyes, although his instincts told him to keep watch. The orderlies in the van couldn’t have gotten out of that mess fast enough to determine he and Paige would head for this ski resort and then give chase.

They might’ve sent word back to Hidden Hills and sent someone else up here to look for them though. He and Paige had made it easy for them, but the doctors at Hidden Hills had made it hard for him. Where else was he supposed to get clothes?

One thing he did know was they couldn’t use Paige’s credit card to check into some lodge or hotel here. They’d be sitting ducks.

A shadow passed over the car, and Asher’s eyelids flew open. He inched his head up and pinned his gaze to the rearview mirror. A figure moved behind the car.

Asher ducked his head, clenching his fists, holding them at the ready. They were the only weapons he had and wouldn’t be very effective against a gun—not that his jailers at Hidden Hills could get away with murdering him in a parking lot. Could they?

In the silence of the car as he waited, his heart hammered in his ears. The rush of adrenaline ebbed and flowed in his body and he fought off the dizziness it caused.

If the guy had spotted him in the car, why hadn’t he made a move? Asher scooted up in his seat and looked in the rearview mirror first. The man had moved on—probably just someone making his way through the parking lot.

Asher sat up straighter and his gaze swept the lot. A shuttle bus waited at the curb at the base of the broad steps that led to the shops and ultimately the ski lifts. A few people were milling around the steps. When the shuttle pulled away, two women and a solo man were left behind.

The women seemed to be conferring about something over their phones, but the man watched...and waited.

Asher kept his eye on him as the man’s head swiveled from the parking lot to the shops. Was he waiting for his wife?

He could be the man who’d passed by Paige’s car. Asher didn’t see any other single men in the parking lot and not another man in red plaid.

Asher locked on to him, studying his every move. When Paige appeared at the top of the steps laden down with shopping bags, Asher sat up, every sense on high alert.

The stranger seemed to come to attention, too. He turned his back to the parking lot to watch Paige’s descent, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

With his fingertips buzzing, Asher clicked open the car door. His first step on the cold asphalt with his bare foot sent a shock through his system, but it only served to jolt him into action.

He left the car unlocked and then weaved through the parked vehicles, ducking and crouching in case the man decided to peel his eyes from Paige.

As she hit the last step, her vision and movement hampered by the bags swinging from her arms and clutched to her chest, the stranger made his move.

He reached his arm out to Paige as if in assistance...but Asher knew better. He shot forward, shouting and waving his arms.

“I’m here. I’m here. I’m the one you want.”

Chapter Five

Paige had been moving away from the man and now she turned her face toward Asher barreling down on both of them. Her mouth dropped open and she stumbled to the side, away from the stranger and his outstretched hand, the rest of his body twisted in Asher’s direction.

His right hand still out of his pocket, the man swiveled around to face Asher. He swayed to his left and in a split second Asher took advantage of his imbalance.

He charged the man, his hospital gown flapping around him, and shouted. “Run, Paige!”

With a few feet between him and the stranger, Asher made a flying tackle at him that would’ve made his friend Cam the football player proud. Before the man could reach into his pocket for whatever weapon he had, Asher drove his shoulder into the guy’s chest, knocking him backward onto the steps.