Susan Kearney - Lovers In Hiding

His lips moved but thunder roared so loudly, she couldn’t hear his answer. When he dragged her against him, she instinctively yanked back. Found herself caught like a mosquito in a giant spiderweb.

Her stomach knotted so tightly, she had to fight to suck in air. He’d finally stopped trying to talk to her. She braced for a fist to her jaw or a jab to her churning stomach.

But he didn’t so much as slap her.

Instead, inexorably, his superior strength overwhelmed her struggles and forced her chest right up against his, her hips cradled to the hard quadriceps in his thighs. Even with wet clothing between them, she could feel heat radiating from him, feel the frustration he’d kept locked beneath rigid muscles and a stern scowl. He was so powerful, with his large traps and biceps, that she didn’t stand a chance of escape. At that realization, she gulped air and a little rain, choking on what could be her last breath.

When he dipped his head and spoke in her ear, she finally realized that he’d only pulled her close so she could hear him above the storm. “Do you know anything about guns?”

“I don’t know. I don’t remember.” She swayed with the fear swelling up her throat as he took out a gun.

He pried open her fingers and placed the gun in her hand. The cold metal and unfamiliar feel of the grip set her hand to shaking. Stunned, confused, she tried to read the expression in his eyes, but the lightning refused to cooperate and flash. The wind kept roaring, blowing bits of sand that pinged against her exposed flesh and shredded her reasoning until she could barely read her own thoughts.

Again, he spoke into her ear. “Does holding this gun make you feel any safer?”

Why should it? She didn’t know how to use it. However, as the weight settled in her hand, she finally realized that he’d given her the gun in an attempt to alleviate her fear. Her hand stopped shaking as some of her panic subsided.

When he leaned over this time to speak above the howling wind, she didn’t automatically jerk back. He pointed to a little switch on the gun. “The gun won’t fire unless you flick the safety to the off position.” He demonstrated, then flicked the switch back. “Once the safety is off, you only have to pull the trigger and the gun will shoot. If I let you keep the gun, will you ride with me on the bike? I need one hand for the clutch, one for the throttle.”

If she refused, what would he do? She really didn’t want to find out. Besides, while she knew he was trying to stem her fears, she didn’t want to seem like a pushover. But she didn’t want to tick him off by remaining so suspicious when he so obviously wanted her to believe him.

As her teeth chattered and her terror slowly subsided, she finally let him float his jacket over her shoulders and placed the gun in the pocket. The leather enclosed her in a cocoon of black warmth and quiet heat. She liked the scent of the leather mixed with his own spicy musk. “Where are we going?”

When they reached his bike, he said, “First, to find you a doctor.”

Melinda nodded in agreement. A doctor could keep her safe—call the police and verify Clay’s story.

He placed an extra helmet on her head and donned his own, revved the bike’s engine and then helped her sit behind him. He guided her feet to foot pegs, and then, uncertainly, she wrapped her arms around him. She couldn’t reach completely around his huge body, so she twisted her fingers through his heavy leather belt.

As soon as they started down the beach, she realized that, due to their speed, his body sheltered her from the worst of the elements. But wind whipped at their already wet clothing, making her extra grateful for the protection of his jacket.

If he intended her harm, he wouldn’t have given her his jacket, would he? Nor would he have insisted that she keep the gun.

Yet she couldn’t help wondering if he’d made the gesture just to win her cooperation, to woo her into a false sense of security. As he smoothly drove off the beach and onto the road up the coast, she considered whether she should try to flee at the first red light.

She couldn’t run faster than Clay on foot, never mind Clay on his bike. Deciding she had no choice but to stay with him for now, she vowed to focus on regaining her memory.

She studied the storefronts, hoping for a few more flashes, glimmers into her past that she believed had momentarily surfaced back on the beach. Nothing came to her until they passed a grocery store, the same chain where she shopped! She was sure of it, Just as she’d known when she’d run from Clay that if she could have made it to the water, she could swim. Somehow she knew she was an excellent swimmer, yet she had no concrete memory to pin her facts on.

She kept peering through the rain, wondering if she would recognize her house if she saw it. Her house? A picture of a tiny bungalow with a sagging roof and a cute mellow-yellow front porch with lots of hanging plants came to mind. She thought she lived there, maybe rented the house. She envisioned the cozy layout, two comfortable bedrooms divided by a bath, a small, friendly living room, a tidy but minuscule kitchen. She stored her windsailing equipment in the roomy shed out back and tried to think of a number on her mailbox or a street sign to help her figure out her address.

Nothing.

Frustrated, yet pleased that parts of her memory seemed to be returning, she tried to be patient. The man on the cycle in front of her caused another entirely new set of problems for her to consider as he repeatedly checked his rearview mirror as if expecting someone to follow them.

Did he watch so vigilantly for the police? Or the return of the two men he’d claimed had run her off the road?

Either scenario made her stomach churn with anxiety. If Clay feared the cops, then he was a bad guy. If he worried over the return of the two men, then someone had just tried to kill her.

As Melinda worried over whether or not to trust Clay Rogan, she felt the heavy gun weighing down her pocket and considered whether she could shoot someone and snuff out a life—for eternity. Without a lifetime of memories, she figured that her biggest handicap was that not only didn’t she know if she could trust Clay, she didn’t know if she could trust herself. She didn’t know her own values. She didn’t know if she voted Republican, Democratic or Independent. She didn’t know how she’d react to danger, didn’t know if she could aim the gun and pull the trigger—not even if her life depended on it.

CLAY SAW NO SIGN of pursuit. But no way could he relax or forget their pressing problems with Melinda pressed so tightly to him. Even through the leather jacket he’d given her to wear, he could feel her shivering on the seat behind him. So far he hadn’t done such a hot job of protecting her, but now that he’d found her, he was determined that would change.

With the sky dark from horizon to horizon, rain teeming down in giant buckets and lightning occasionally striking nearby, the huge thunderstorm showed no signs of abating. Without a direct sign of pursuit, he couldn’t justify fleeing with Melinda possibly still in shock and injured. She needed to be warm. Needed to see a doctor.

His first thought was taking off her wet clothes and heating her with his own body. But he shoved the inappropriate image aside almost immediately.

Instead he peered through the rain and spied a coffeehouse in one of those strip malls that included an ice-cream shop, a ladies boutique and a gift emporium. After parking the bike where it wouldn’t be easily spotted, he took her icy hand in his. Guilt stabbed him for not taking better care of his charge. First she almost drowned, then almost froze to death. “Come on.”

“Where’re we going?” She spoke slowly between chattering teeth.