by Jan Irving
“Yeah, I am!” He looked away.
A tense moment drew out like a string about to give on a guitar. I waited, but still Caleb didn’t speak, didn’t look at me. It was like he was hiding. From me or from himself, I didn’t know. “All right. I want to take a better look at you now we’re here at Lilah’s,” I said, falling back on routine. “Strip.”
“I told you I was fine.”
I just laughed at that one. When he still didn’t move, I decided to throw some logic into the picture. “You don’t know what’s happened to you, even…who you are. Consider that your body is like a clue in an episode of CSI.”
He lifted one of his hands, broad in the palm, scarred on the wrist. “I don’t remember how I got this scar.” His tone was so mild it spooked me.
“So we’ll get it back. We will, Caleb. Despite my recent reversal of fortune, I’m a damn good doctor, so strip.”
He blinked at me, then something that might have been a smile on anyone else touched his mouth. “You were never into domination, Doc.”
“How do you know that?”
“I…” He winced, shook his head. “Like your driving. Just…do.”
“He should be in a hospital!” Lilah grumbled.
“You think?” I glared at Caleb.
Without a word he put aside the box he hadn’t wanted to leave behind in my car and began to strip out of his borrowed clothes. Lilah opened her mouth then shut it, as if she’d decided she might as well treat herself to a look at Caleb.
Looking at him in the mix of sepia and shadows reflected from the street, I flashed back to the first time he’d stripped for me. The motel with the stereotypical flashing light—rooms available, twenty-four-seven. His body in charcoals, highlighted by neon.
Our first time.
As soon as we entered the motel room, Caleb put his hands on his hips, glaring at me. “What, you were expecting, true heart Valentine’s? This is a fuck. You are going to get fucked. I am going to fuck you.”
I sat up on the double bed, glaring back. “I know why we’re here.”
He cocked his head. “How many boyfriends have you had?”
“How many for you?” I shot back.
“None.”
I blinked. “Um, you’re a virgin?”
He smirked. “Oh, hell, yeah.”
“Liar.”
“Let me guess,” he said as he slowly lifted his T-shirt up, revealing smooth, olive skin like warm
human silk over muscle, his tightly beaded nipples, the heavy shoulders, the thin runner’s waist. “You have relationships.” “They’re the most satisfying.” Why was I with him? He was a jerk. Then I saw the cowboy hat he’d left on the side of the bed and remembered. Oh, yeah, sexy cowboy. That fantasy really worked for me…but it didn’t explain the way my breath got caught in my chest when I looked at him, hurting. “You’re an asshole.”
“You need to remember that.”
“Why are you doing this?”
“Doin’ what?”
“Being such an asshole. It’s not necessary.”
He moved to the window, looked out at the parking lot. “I shouldn’t be with you, Doc. I should know better.”
“I don’t understand you.”
“Better for you.”
I got up, went to the window, deciding I wanted to look into his eyes, get a shot at reading his expression. “I don’t think so.”
He took hold of me. Fingers fisted in my T-shirt, he slammed me against the wall. The breath left my body in shock and I wasn’t sure if he was going to hurt me. There was violence crackling like summer lightning in those blue eyes.
And then he kissed me, devoured me, and it was Caleb who was shaking, Caleb seeking comfort.
“What’s wrong, tell me what’s wrong?” I asked softly.
But he only knelt at my feet, looking up at me like I was the rising moon. “I want to see you,” he said.
I swallowed, feeling hot and sweaty and goddamned awkward. This was, oh yeah, why I never did one-nighters. They were just too…embarrassing. “I’m not much to look at.” I winced, hating the adolescent insecurity I hadn’t been able to shake. I was usually much smoother now with my lovers but they were always friends, their bodies familiar, comfortable.
Caleb was about as friendly as a rabid wolf and as comfortable as an earthquake.
“I disagree.” His voice was absorbed as he lifted my T-shirt and put his mouth to the centre of my chest. A soft brush of lips, almost tickling me as I closed my eyes and all my awareness lived in that moment.
“I want to see you too,” I groaned. He was the chocolate cake, the dessert I wanted to reward myself with, even though I knew he was bad for me. From the first moment I’d seen him with that attitude blazing and those low-cut jeans, I’d wanted to see him in nothing but skin.
“Beautiful skin,” I muttered now as I tugged on his T-shirt.
“Hey there, Mr Impatient. It’ll be better if you wait.”
“I’m sexually deprived and you’re tall, dark and brooding. That’s foreplay.”
He laughed and I grinned back. Well, well. He also has a sense of humour. Nice.
Then he put his mouth against my abdomen, sucking gently.
A raw sound burned out of my throat. Never. Never had I felt anything like that. He touched me and I came alive, like I’d never been alive before.
“Earth to Murphy.” Lilah’s sharp tone was a slap. “Oh, Caleb,” I whispered. He was thinner than I remembered, almost emaciated, his ribs standing out like spines on a fan. “What have they been feeding you?”
Not only thin, but bruised, dark flowers blooming under the flesh. The healer in me had to reach out with compassion. Not for the first time I wished I had it in me to heal someone just from my touch.
I ran my hands over his chest and Lilah appeared at my side with a paper and pen.
“Bruising on the upper chest. On the belly.” Fists. Someone had done this with fists. Anger lit like a match in my gut.
I looked at Caleb but he remained silent, looking at the damage on his body with a distant kind of curiosity.
“Do you remember how you got them?”
He shook his head. “Look a couple of days old from the colour.”
“What were you doing a couple of days ago?”
“I…” He rubbed his forehead. “In the woods. I was in the woods.”
I stroked his shoulder. “Good. That’s good, Caleb.”
“It doesn’t tell me why!”
“Pieces. This is a puzzle, remember? And I thought the SEAL’s motto was ‘the only easy day was yesterday’?”
“Yeah.” He cleared his throat. “Pieces. I will come back from this.”
“Damn straight.” I had him raise his arms and ran my hands over him but all I discovered was that he was extraordinarily sensitive on the inside of his wrists and underarms. His wrists were also circled in bruises. From being restrained? When I asked, I got another shake of the head—he didn’t remember.
I was quick and impersonal as I examined his lower body, though I remembered putting my lips on his thighs, on his—
I closed my eyes, inhaled sharply, then I snapped back into action, even looking at the space between his toes. “Little red bump here. Possibly from an injection?” I took a closer look at the juncture between his big toe and second toe.
“I don’t…” Caleb didn’t finish.
“All right.” I worked my way up the back of his legs and thought maybe there were other possible injection sites on the backs of his knees. It was odd… Why inject him there, unless in the hope it was somehow more discreet? Unless he’d been injecting himself with something, a drug that might have resulted in memory loss?
Lilah recorded everything as I reached his rear end and gently separated the cheeks. “Caleb, any discomfort here?”
He frowned, then his eyes widened. “No.”
I nodded, relieved.
I stroked up his back, feeling each vertebra, then came to a d
ead stop. “Oh…”
“What?” Caleb twisted around, annoyed.
“Your back.”
“What about it?”
I touched the first of the scars. “You didn’t have these a year ago,” I said.
He reached back and brushed at the scars that covered him from mid back to his shoulders. “Nothing new.”
No. From the look of them, white snakes breaking his skin, they’d been inflicted some time shortly after he’d disappeared from my life.
“Do you remember how you got them?” I asked.
“No.” He studied my face. “They don’t hurt, Doc.”
“Not now.” But they must have hurt and, from the look of them, no one had bothered to stitch up the deeper ones. “Jesus.”
I sat back on my heels, feeling how much bigger this was than me, a country doctor wannabe. “Those men and now this… What the hell are you into, Caleb?”
He reached for his pants.
I sighed, then headed for Lilah’s small Chinese-replica cabinet. She kept the Jameson there. I poured myself a glass, swallowed it whole, then could breathe again.
“We need to look in the box I retrieved,” Caleb said.
We. That was something else different about him. He’d always been the ultimate loner, making it clear that he didn’t see himself in a relationship. Ever. How fucking perfect the universe was that when he opened up, it was because he was broken.
He sat on the floor and opened the box. It was disappointingly empty except for two things. I knelt beside him, staring at the photo.
He looked at it, then at me.
“Um.” Lilah headed for the cabinet. “I think I need a drink too.”
The photo had been taken at dawn in my bedroom. Caleb must have pushed back the curtains I used habitually to block out the sun so I could get as much sleep as possible. I was spread out on my bed, naked, and still damp from good sex.
I was sleeping.
“You took this,” I said.
He reached out and traced the line of my back much the same way as I had his a few moments before. “Yes.”
“You remember?”
“No. But… I had to keep it secret, that’s why it was in the box.”
He picked up the key that was the second item, turning it over in his hand.
“Looks like it opens a bus locker, maybe,” I said. “Look, there’s some printing.”
He frowned, squinting. “Can’t make it out.”
“Try a rubbing.” Lilah went to her desk and retrieved more paper and a pencil, bringing it to Caleb. He nodded his thanks and then began scribbling. Letters appeared in relief…
“Mason depot.” He was rubbing his forehead, hard. I grabbed his hand, pulled it away.
“Hurts?”
“A little.”
“I really think we should get you into a hospital.”
“I go there, I die. And then they’ll come for you. I can’t protect you if I’m dead.”
“But how do they—whoever they are—know about me?”
“Because of who you are,” he said. “They must have found out.”
“Found out what?” This was getting more and more confusing.
“Are you up for a road trip, Doc?” He slammed the empty box closed, pocketing the key…and the photo.
“Found out what, Caleb?” I glared at him, making it clear I went nowhere until he explained himself.
“That I love you,” he said flatly.
Chapter Four
“I’m not running out on Murph,” Lilah said, blasting me a look to remind me of my birthday. Damn, like I was going to forget that miserable night. It had been a year ago and I’d been so sure Caleb would call me, maybe show up and—
But it hadn’t happened.
“You need to stay safe for Murphy,” Caleb said quietly. He was hunched in the shadows so about all I could make out was the gleam of his eyes. He was sitting at Lilah’s small dining room table, putting together a pack of necessities—which included knives from her butcher block. The plan was we would light out before dawn, but Lilah wasn’t happy about that.
Of course my best friend wanted to come with us.
Caleb was against the idea. So was I.
“You don’t even know who these men were, Murph,” she said, turning to me. “What if they worked for the government?” Her meaning was clear. In other words, what if Caleb was hunted man for good reason?
I swallowed around a suddenly bone-dry throat. “I don’t know, Lilah. They didn’t act on the up and up. They tried to kill me and they didn’t exactly show off identification.”
“They had none,” Caleb said. “The bodies didn’t have any identification.”
The bodies. I swallowed, swallowed again.
Lilah looked sick too. “Is that significant?”
“Yes.”
We waited but he didn’t add anything.
“Enough with the cryptic!” Lilah burst out. “Why is it significant to those of us who haven’t attended super-spook school?”
“They didn’t want to be identified if something went wrong with their op.”
“Which was?”
“Find me. Either secure or kill me. Kill Murphy.”
“Kill…” Lilah gripped my hand. “Murph, what have you got into?”
“That’s just it, Lilah. Caleb and I have to find out and we can’t do that if we’re worried about you.”
“Sexist…”
“Hardly. But if you want to hang me for being protective, then fine. It’s the way I’m wired.”
“I don’t need your protection, Murph.”
“Listen to me, Lilah.” Caleb’s voice signalled he was out of patience. “This isn’t your ordinary life. This is something you have no experience with.” Caleb shoved the pack aside and knelt beside Lilah, where she was seated next to me on the sofa. He took her face in his palms. “These men are very good at what they do. The best. And they will find you and they will interrogate you and you will not enjoy it. After you’ve outlived your usefulness, they will end your life. Believe it, absolutely.”
Whoa, Jesus. Navy SEAL meets Terminator.
“Baby, just go stay with your folks in the Appalachians. Whatever’s happening, I don’t want you to be a part of it. And Caleb’s sure they’ll trace you sooner or later because you’re a close friend of mine.”
“But I don’t want to leave you,” she repeated.
“Yes, you do,” Caleb said. “You really do.”
“That’s reassuring,” she snapped. “You already did a number on Murph. I mean, has he slept with anyone else since you? No.”
I winced.
Caleb’s eyes were hot when he looked at me, reminding me of that night in the crappy bar when we’d first met. “No one?”
“Can we stay on topic here?” I held Lilah’s gaze. “I need to do this with Caleb.”
“You need a wingman—or, in this case, wingwoman. I can see leaving my place for a while, but I can check into a motel under another name.”
I looked at Caleb and he shrugged. Short of mind control, I think it was the only way I was going to get Lilah safe. “Okay, that will work. You could be the base of operations. Caleb and I could hook up with you after we track down the locker his key opens.”
“Go to the bank in the morning,” Caleb instructed. “Take out cash. Not too much for it to look suspicious but enough to hold you for a while. Don’t use your debit or credit cards anywhere. Can you switch cars with anyone?”
She chewed her lip. “Yeah, I guess. Millie would probably do that. Her car’s a real beater so she’d love to drive my SUV. She could also cover for me at work…as long as this doesn’t drag on forever.” Lilah looked mournful at the idea of leaving her car and job, but she was obviously getting into the game. “Anything else?”
“Leave your cell phone here. Buy an anonymous one.” Caleb pulled out one of those temporary cell phones from his pocket and gave Lilah the number. “And don’t contact anyone you know. You need
to disappear, Lilah. We’ll be in touch.”
He picked up the pack and looked at me and I realised he wanted to leave. Now.
Lilah grabbed my arm. “I’ll be in a motel that takes pets.”
“All right.”
“Murph…” She lowered her voice, glanced at Caleb. “Be careful. I’m not sure you can trust him.”
Caleb’s expression was bland, though he must have caught Lilah’s words.
“Bus is leaving,” he told me.
“Can I ask you something?” I rubbed my eyes, slumped in the passenger side of the car Caleb had stolen at three a.m. that morning. “Did you refrain from telling me the big heaping news that you’re in love with me because of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’?”
Caleb blinked, bars of light and darkness from the highway hitting his face and making it even harder for me to read. “No.”
“Do you know why you were such an asshole when we were together?”
He frowned in concentration. “No.”
“Uh-huh.”
He reached over and slid a hand through my hair, stroking it off my face. The gesture was so tender I caught my breath. “You need to sleep, Doc.”
“I’m not sure I can do that.” I was beyond tired after the long shitty shift in the OR, then finding Caleb and almost getting killed. My heart ached as if it was bruised. Why did it hurt to know he’d loved me? I curled up and rested my head on the window.
“I won’t let anyone hurt you,” Caleb said. “That’s a promise.”
“It would help if we knew who was trying to hurt me.”
His face hardened. “When I find out, it won’t be an issue.”
I believed him. One thing Caleb was, for sure, was a man of his word. He cleared his throat, looked at me. “Will you…tell me about yourself?” “Huh?”
His lips quirked. “Since I don’t remember anything about you, other than you’re a doctor and you’re cute as hell.”
“Cute?” I wasn’t sure I liked being called cute. Okay, the way he was looking at me, I guessed it was all right. “I don’t know what to say.” This felt as awkward as that night in the bar. Hello, you’re hot. Let’s get it on.
“Do you have any, you know, hobbies? Like growing orchids?”
“I’m not Nero Wolfe,” I said.
He laughed, obviously getting the reference to the iconic detective who had grown orchids.