She swung the door open and took a step back. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming back to get me.”
His eyebrows collided over his nose as he lifted his shoulders. “Why would you think that?”
“I don’t know.” She stood to the side and gestured him into the room. “Out of sight, out of mind.”
“You may have been out of sight but never out of my mind.” He held up the bags, stuffed with clothing, swinging them from his fingers. “I even got you some stuff to wear.”
She pressed a hand against her warm cheek. What did he mean she was never out of his mind? And the clothes? She shouldn’t get too dependent on Rob, but what choice did she have? He was it—the extent of her relationships. She could probably add Rosie, Anna and the cooks and busboys at Rosita’s to her list. And El Gringo Viejo.
Why did a drug dealer want to see her dead?
“Th-that’s so thoughtful of you. I hope you didn’t go to any trouble on my behalf.” She lifted up one foot encased in a new sandal. “I was able to buy a few things at the thrift shop, too.”
“Oh, you went out?” He turned the bags upside down over the bed and dumped out the articles of clothing. They landed on the bedspread in a tangle of colors and textures.
“Just for a short time.” She sat on the edge of the mattress and picked through the items. “Where’d you get all this stuff? Looks all the same size and hardly thrift store quality.”
“I hit up my coworker’s wife. I figured you two to be about the same size.” He cocked his head, his gaze scanning her from head to toe. “Maybe she’s a little taller. My other buddy’s girlfriend is maybe more your size, but...”
“But what?”
“She’s a cop. She’s attending the police academy right now.”
Jane curled her hands around the edge of a floral sundress, bunching the silky material in her fists. “Oh.”
“Yeah, oh.” He ran a hand through his thick dark hair. “She’d be suspicious...and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”
“No. I mean, the fewer people who know about my particular situation, the better.”
“Your situation.” Rob dropped his chin to his chest. “Anyway, the woman who gave me the clothes, April, she’s always trying to help someone—to a fault.”
“Sounds like you.”
“I told you. I’m a sucker for...ladies in distress.”
The tension between them vibrated like a plucked string. She grabbed one of the T-shirts and held it up. “Nice. Thank you.”
“What did you do today besides hit the thrift store?” He meandered to the window and flicked aside the drapes, peering outside.
“Slept mostly.” She patted her stomach. “I hope some dinner is in our future. I’m starving. I—I can pay half from the money Rosie gave me.”
He dropped the curtain fold and pivoted toward her. “That doesn’t make any sense. You need that money to get back on your feet, get yourself home or wherever it is you want to go. I already ordered us some dinner, and if we don’t get going, the dinner is going to get to the house before we do.”
“I’ll try some of these things on at your place, then.” She began to shovel the clothes back into the bags. “Tell your friend thanks for me.”
“Will do.” He waited for her with his back to the door, his arms folded.
Had April questioned him about her? Was he having second thoughts?
Maybe she should get out of Paradiso before El Gringo Viejo came looking for her. Hopefully the two men who’d set fire to her car had done a good job convincing their boss that they’d killed the prey.
She needed help—real help from a professional to get her memory back. She hadn’t wanted to face her past, but now it seemed as if it were more dangerous not to remember.
She grabbed the bags full of clothes, patted the knife in her pocket and spun around with a smile pasted on her face. “I’m ready.”
He opened the door and stood aside for her, saying, “I kept the room for you, so if you want to get settled here, you have a place.”
She nodded, blinking her eyes. Something had changed. Rob didn’t want her in his house, didn’t want to help her anymore. He’d be even more reluctant to help her if he knew she had some connection to El Gringo Viejo.
When they got to his house, he pointed to the room she’d used the night before. “You’re welcome to try on some of those clothes. I’m sure you’re sick of what you’re wearing now, although that T-shirt from Rosita’s looks good on you.”
She pulled the T-shirt away from her body, glancing down at the logo for the café. “Rosie saved my life today...and you. Thank you. Have I said thank you?”
“You pulled a knife on me, instead.”
She clutched a bag of clothing to her chest. “I’m sorry for that. You can understand why I did it.”
“Sure.” His lips stretched into a fake smile.
“I’ll try some of these on.” She dragged her feet down the hallway to Rob’s guest room. He was definitely having second thoughts. Maybe April, the owner of the clothes, told him he was crazy. Maybe he’d told the other friend, the cop, and she was on her way right now.
She slammed the door behind her and dropped the bag of clothes on the floor. She’d stay away from Rob and his friends. Work at Rosita’s for some cash, keep the motel room and make her way to Tucson and find herself a psychiatrist. If she were mixed up with this El Gringo Viejo and the cartels, she could disappear. Get a new identity. What would it matter? She had no identity now.
She pulled on and yanked off jeans, capris, shorts, blouses, T-shirts, sweaters. April had covered all the bases.
She left on a pair of olive capris and a red T-shirt and surveyed the rainbow pile of clothes on the bed. She’d use the money Rosie gave her today to get settled, and she’d get out of Rob’s way.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. Leaving Rob would be like losing her only friend.
Squaring her shoulders, she followed the smell of garlic into the kitchen. She tipped her nose in the air. “Italian?”
Rob glanced up from dumping some spaghetti onto a plate. “Is that okay?”
“Smells good.” She popped a lid from a plastic container. “I’ll do the salad.”
Stepping back from his task, Rob waved a fork up and down her body. “The clothes fit?”
The look in his eyes sent a little tingle up her thighs. He may have changed his mind about being friends with her, but the attraction he had for her hadn’t died out.
Her fingers fidgeted with the hem of the T-shirt. “Most of them. She is taller than I am, but it’s close enough. Beggars can’t be choosers.”
“Don’t think of yourself as a beggar.” He nabbed a drop of marinara sauce from the counter with his thumb and sucked it into his mouth. “You’re someone in need, and April likes nothing more than helping someone in need.”
“Did you tell her about me?” She pinched the edges of the salad bowls between her fingers.
“Just a few basics. She’s not the one you have to worry about.” He turned his back to her, and she nearly dropped the bowls.
“Worry about?” She set the dishes on the table harder than she’d intended and they sent a clacking sound through the air that made her grit her teeth.
“I mean about being nosy. April just has to hear someone needs her help and she’s the first to offer a hand. Emily’s the cop—or at least she’s going through the police academy right now. She’s the one who’d want your life story.”
Jane scooped her hair back from her face and said, “It’s a good thing she’s busy with the academy, then.”
She hovered over the salads, her face turned away from him, waiting for a reply. All she got was the crinkling of foil.
“Do you like garlic bread?”
She supposed she did, as the smell of that bread had been maki
ng her mouth water ever since she’d left the bedroom. She took a deep breath. “I do.”
He emerged from the kitchen, a plate of spaghetti and meatballs in each hand, a wedge of garlic bread balanced on the edge of the plates.
Rob tipped his head back. “Do you want to get some silverware? It’s in the drawer by the toaster.”
She ducked around him into the kitchen and pulled open the drawer. She grabbed two place settings and spun around, almost bumping into Rob, who’d already delivered the food to the table.
His eyes widened for a split second as his gaze dropped to the utensils clutched in her hands. “Knives for spaghetti?”
“Those meatballs looked pretty big. I’d prefer to cut mine with a knife civilly instead of trying to saw it with the edge of the fork and have it shoot across the table.” Her lips turned up at the corners, but her grip on the silverware tightened. He didn’t trust her with a knife in her hand.
Would he ever forget their meeting in the desert? What had he expected her to do when confronted with a stranger at night in the desert after someone had just tried to kill her?
Of course, Rob didn’t know her whole story, and just as she’d been about to tell him, El Gringo Viejo had come between them. She couldn’t tell him now. He’d never believe her.
“Good point.” He scooted past her, his body tense. “I’ll get some water. I’d offer you some wine, but I’m not sure your head needs alcohol right now—unless you want some.”
“Water is fine.” All she needed was to get drunk and babble her troubles into his sympathetic ears—ears that didn’t seem so sympathetic now. Although maybe if she got loaded, her inhibitions would fall away and she might remember something of her life before the crash. She’d have to ask her psychiatrist if that would work—when she got one.
She positioned the silverware on either side of the plates in perfect order. How did she remember inconsequential stuff like place settings but not her own name? Another question for her future shrink.
She sat in front of one plate and waited until Rob returned with the glasses of water before plunging her fork into the steaming pasta. She twirled the spaghetti around the tines and sucked it off her fork. The red sauce dribbled on her chin and she dabbed it with a paper towel.
He pulled the salad bowl toward him and stabbed at a piece of lettuce. “How long do you plan to stay in Paradiso?”
“Until I feel safe.” That was no lie. How could she go out into the world with people trying to kill her? They thought she was dead. They wouldn’t be looking for her. Would they be watching the TV for news about a car wreck with a dead body burned to a crisp? And when they didn’t see it, would they go back?
“You don’t like the spaghetti?” Rob jabbed his fork in the air toward her plate.
“It’s good.” She picked up the knife and cut one of the huge meatballs in half and then quarters. “You see how neat that is?”
“I guess I’d better not stuff the whole thing in my mouth like I usually do.”
Prodding the other meatball on her plate with her fork, she shook her head. “You’re lying. I can’t imagine you doing that.”
“What would make you feel safe?”
She dropped her fork. Was he trying to catch her off guard?
“Oh, just to know my ex isn’t looking for me.” She toyed with the pasta. “Do you feel safe?”
Two could play this game.
His dark brows shot up. “From you?”
She picked up the knife and plunged it into a meatball. “Are you afraid I’m going to stab you in the night?”
“Are you?”
“I already slept under your roof one night—uneventfully. Besides, I didn’t mean feel safe from me. Do you feel safe from your past?”
The Adam’s apple in his neck bobbed as he swallowed—and he didn’t even have any food in his mouth.
“My past? I feel safe. I escaped it, remember?”
She tilted her head. “Did you?”
“What does that mean?” He gulped some water. “Are you sure you’re not a shrink? You talk like one.”
“How do you know what a shrink talks like?”
“Got me.” He formed his fingers into a gun and pointed at her. “Are you kidding? With my upbringing, the school was always sending me to the school psychologist. ‘Are you okay, Roberto?’ ‘How does that make you feel, Roberto?’”
He’d changed his voice with the questions to mimic a woman.
“How did it all make you feel? The violence? The instability?”
He pushed away his salad and attacked his spaghetti. “Made me feel like taking control of everything and never letting go. Made me feel like hunting down every drug dealer and giving him some rough justice.”
His words caused goose bumps to ripple across her skin, but she resisted rubbing her arms. She took a sip of water. “So, you became a Border Patrol agent.”
He nodded, sucking the last of his pasta into his mouth. The action resulted in a drop of marinara landing on his chin.
She crumpled the paper towel in her lap and raised it to dab his chin.
He flinched, but she swiped it off anyway.
“Can’t take me anywhere.” He scrubbed his own paper towel across his mouth until his chin was redder than the original drop of sauce.
“Do you feel like you make a difference in the drug war?”
“I wouldn’t stay in this job if I didn’t think that.” He dragged the tines of his fork through the sauce on his plate. “And what about you? Where do you live? What do you do for a living? Do you have any children?”
She pinned her hands between her knees. She shouldn’t have gotten personal with him. He demanded reciprocity. He’d shown her his, and now he expected her to show him hers.
“I—I’m a teacher—an art teacher.” She pressed a hand against her heart. Something felt so real about that statement. Could it be the truth? Were her memories brimming at the edge of her consciousness, ready to overflow and make her whole?
He nodded, stuffing a meatball—just a piece of one—into his mouth. When he finished chewing and swallowing, he said, “That would explain what you’re doing out here in the middle of the summer.”
It would explain that. She obviously hadn’t been going to or coming from a job. Had she been in Mexico? She hadn’t noticed the license plates on the car before it went up in flames. If she had memorized the license number, maybe she would’ve been able to discover her identity. Had she left a purse in the car? ID? Money? Why hadn’t she thought of all that before scrambling from that car?
“Are you all right?” Rob planted his elbows on the table on either side of his plate.
The words expressed concern, but his face didn’t match. His dark eyes drilled into her, probing her vacant mind. If he could read it, more power to him.
“I’m fine. I’d rather not discuss my life.” She pushed back from the table so abruptly the chair tipped over, and she saved it from falling.
She stacked her bowl onto the plate. “Can I get your dishes? Are you finished?”
Rob curled his fingers around her wrist, his light touch feeling more like a vise due to the intensity in his dark eyes.
Her pulse fluttered, as she leaned toward him, the magnetic draw of his gaze reeling her into his realm. This attraction between them couldn’t be stopped, even though she hadn’t a clue who she was. She could be married with four children, and not even that possibility could dampen the fire that kindled in her belly for this man.
Her eyes drifted closed. Her lips parted. Her breath caught in her throat.
But when she felt the warmth of his mouth inches from her own, the imminent kiss turned into harsh words.
“How the hell do you know El Gringo Viejo?”
Chapter Seven
Jane blinked her whiskey-colored eyes, and Rob clenched his b
ack teeth, trying hard not to imagine whether or not her lips would taste like the color of her eyes. He could’ve satisfied his curiosity by indulging in a small nip before dropping his bombshell, but that just didn’t seem right.
Realizing she was still poised for the kiss that hung suspended between them, Jane jerked back. Her gaze darted around the room as if looking for an escape. Then she took a deep breath, her chest rising and falling in the red T-shirt borrowed from April.
When her eyes found their way back to his face, they narrowed. Her nostrils flared, and she pulled back her shoulders. Ready for conflict.
“Why do you think I know El Gringo Viejo?”
Squeezing his eyes shut, Rob pinched the bridge of his nose. Did he think this was going to be easy? He scooted his chair out from beneath the table and clasped his hands on his knees. “I saw your search history on the library computer.”
Her left eye twitched. “You were spying on me all this time?”
He’d been around criminals long enough to know they went with a swift offense when backed into a corner. “Did you think I’d let a strange woman into my home for an overnight stay without doing a little checking?”
“You didn’t do any checking that first night.” She thrust out her chin.
“You were injured, confused. I wasn’t going to turn you away, but I did keep that knife from you and I retained your water bottle for fingerprints.”
Her head snapped up, and she gripped the seat of the chair. “You ran my fingerprints? You know who I am?”
“You probably already know I didn’t find a match.” He tilted his head to the side, studying her face. “So, I know you’re not an art teacher. Teachers’ prints are on file.”
Her shoulders slumped in disappointment. “You didn’t find out my identity from running my prints, so you followed me around this afternoon and snooped into my activities at the library?”
“Snooped?” He rolled his eyes, smacking his hands on his thighs.
She flinched.
“You’re giving me too much credit. I happened to see you walk away from the library when I went to the main drag to pick up some food for dinner. You told me you were going to nap this afternoon, so I got curious. That’s when I discovered your first search was for El Gringo Viejo.” He crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, as if to give her plenty of room to hang herself. “Why?”
Unraveling Jane Doe (Holding The Line Book 3) Page 6