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