filtering through the slowly parting clouds. She shrugged it off and sent out a silent thanks to her former ARIES mentor for pounding home the first rule of undercover work six years before. Stick to the truth, honey, whenever and wherever possible. It’ll save you from getting bit in the ass when you least expect it. Good ol’ Aiden Swift. No doubt about her memory there.
She wished she could say the same for Karl. “I remember checking in to the hotel, but that’s it.”
“Nothing else at all? We know you arrived, because you sent an initial message. Try picturing yourself at the conference, seeing Karl, shaking his hand, sitting down to catch a lecture with him, even a meal. Try—”
“Dammit, I told you. I don’t remember. It’s like the whole conference was sucked into a black hole. There’s nothing to picture because there’s nothing there. I can’t remember if we were supposed to meet in my room or in his. Hell, I don’t even remember if we met at all.” She pushed her fingers to her temples and growled. But again, it didn’t help.
“Take it easy. It’s okay. If the memory’s not there, don’t force it. You’ll only lock yourself up more.”
She lowered her hands and sighed. “Is it permanent?”
“Loss of the final traumatic event that caused the amnesia can be. But given enough time and rest, you may be able to recall the memories leading up to it.”
May? She was stuck in the middle of Rebelia with no idea of who’d smashed in the side of her skull and dragged her across the border, and all Jared could do was tell her she may eventually remember? She turned and stalked over to the pile of gear he’d left at the base of the next tree, resisting the sudden, almost overwhelming urge to kick his rucksack back to Holzberg. And when those damned hands settled over her shoulders, their calming warmth sparked the opposite effect than the one he’d obviously intended, ratcheting her anger up another level.
“Relax.”
She spun around. “Relax? That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one with a great big blank where part of your life should be.”
He shrugged. “Like I said, it’s normal.”
“Normal.” She snorted, unable to let go of the inexplicable fury despite his soothing voice, or maybe because of it. She crossed her arms and glared at him. “You’re awfully calm for someone who just learned his partner has a hole in her brain.”
Another one of those infuriating enigmatic shrugs.
She was a split second from exploding when her fury simply…evaporated. Stranger still, she wasn’t as stunned by that as she was by the intense urge to weep that supplanted it.
Weep?
No way. She did not cry. Dammit, she’d cried a total of three measly times in the past fifteen years. The first when her father died. The second when her aunt Rita had passed away. The third pity-fest had taken place four months later, halfway through graduate school, the day she’d discovered just how much the love of her life wasn’t in love with her. She hadn’t cried since.
So why the devil was she blubbering now?
“It’s the coma.” He tipped her chin. To her utter humiliation, he reached up and smoothed the tears from her cheeks.
“I swear, I never—” She sealed her shame with a violent, shuddering hiccup.
“I know. I told you, it’s the aftereffects of the coma.” He pulled her close and guided her head to his shoulder, stroking his hands up and down her back as she continued to sob for all she was worth, drenching the inky strands of his hair along with the wool sweater beneath. “Shh. It’s okay. The anger, the crying jags, the mood swings. They’re normal, I promise. They’ll pass.”
Eventually they did. At least this one did. Unfortunately, by that time she managed to pull herself together, the shame had set in. She tried backing away, but his arms stopped her.
“Don’t.”
She flinched as he tucked her hair behind her ear. She was simply too raw to prevent it. “Please. Let me go.”
“No.” His fingers slipped beneath her chin. “Look at me.”
Why? It was too dark.
Except it wasn’t. Not this close. Not anymore. The blanket of clouds had thinned even more, spreading apart to leave a generous three-quarter moon and a broad swath of stars behind. The twinkling lights studded the canopy of the pine forest, allowing her to make out that tawny gaze with painful perfection. She didn’t want to see it. To see him. And she certainly didn’t want him seeing her. Not like this. She’d hadn’t felt this exposed in her entire life. In less than two hours, under the obscuring cover of night, this man had managed to see far too much.
God only knew what he’d see in the harsh light of day.
“Are you okay now?”
Not by a long shot. “Yes. Will you please release me?”
He did.
They both breathed easier.
She stepped away from the pile of gear as he hunkered down, fully aware that she was affording herself room, rather than him. He dug through his ruck and pulled out a dark T-shirt. Before she could stop him, he’d stripped the sweater from his chest and he held it out.
“Put it on. We’ve got a decent hike ahead of us.”
“No, you keep it. Since you’ve read my file, you know I did my grad work in Colorado. I doubt I’ll even notice the cold.”
“You’ve also been in a coma for three weeks. Trust me, you’ll notice.”
Three weeks? Just like that, the vertigo returned. She swallowed the nausea that came with it. “That long?”
He nodded…and held out the sweater.
This time she took it. Evidently he was right about the mood swings, because she couldn’t muster the brazenness she’d ridden earlier as she’d stripped the prosthetic from her chest in front of him. She left the filthy shirt tied beneath her breasts and pulled the thick turtleneck on over it. His tantalizing scent swirled through her, suffocating her. Worse, the sweater still carried his heat.
Ignore it.
Somehow she managed—until she glanced up and caught the glimmer of moonlight slipping across that seriously sculpted, dangerously dusky chest. A moment later the rippling muscles disappeared beneath the T-shirt. Disappointment warred with relief as he tucked the hem into his jeans, then leaned down to repack his rucksack. But at least her lungs had kicked in. She breathed deeply as she pushed up the sweater’s sleeves.
Shock yanked the air right back out.
Blood?
She raised her right arm and fingered the damp stitching again, the raw edges of the rip. She leaned closer, this time sniffing the knit fabric, and cursed.
“You were shot.”
He nodded as leaned down to tuck his jumpsuit into the ruck. “Grazed.”
“Let me take a look.”
“I already did.” Before she could argue, he reached into his first-aid kit and pulled out another cravat. He flipped the green fabric over itself and wrapped the resulting triangle around his right biceps as he stood. “But you can tie it off for me.”
Alex retrieved the ends as he stepped in front of her, avoiding the man’s steady gaze as she pulled the fabric snugly against the muscle bulging beneath the bandage. His subtle, smoky scent swirled through her. Dammit, he was fantasy fodder, nothing more. A figment of her dreams. She secured the knot quickly and stepped back. “How far?”
His dark brows rose as he glanced up.
“The hike,” she clarified. “I assume we’re headed to a safe house.”
“We