“I’m sorry.” Jack gestured toward Lola. “This is Lola Famosa. Lola, Lars Olafson.”
Lola smiled and shook his hand. “Do you live in Miami?”
“Naw, the wife—” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder “—and I are taking a little vacation away from the kids. How about you, Jack? Any kids?”
“Not that I know of.”
Lars guffawed and slapped Jack’s shoulder. “We didn’t hear much of you once you joined that special team. I mean, we had our share of operations in Afghanistan, but you guys…I guess you can’t talk about it, huh?”
“No more than you can, Lars.” Jack sipped his water and folded his hands around the sweating glass. Maybe he could get some intel out of the guy.
“Did you ever talk to the colonel who did the recruiting for the team?” Jack held his breath. Could Lars give him the name of the colonel who had trained Jack in the art of resisting interrogation?
“We didn’t know anything about the recruiting. We figured they already had their guys picked out, and we weren’t surprised they snapped you up, Coburn—your knowledge of languages, your level of fitness, Stanford grad.”
“Stanford!” Lola smacked the table and the ice in the glasses tinkled. “You never told me you went to Stanford, Jack.”
As Lola kicked him under the table, Jack slid a glance to her animated face. Uh-oh. The woman was up to something.
“If you haven’t known Jack long, you’ll find out he’s a modest guy. Graduated from Stanford with honors while working a few jobs, too—scholarship boy, right Jack? Or maybe I should keep my mouth shut.”
Lola reached across the table and pressed three fingers against Jack’s lips. “He doesn’t mind at all. Tell me everything you know about Jack Coburn.”
Lars’s brows rose to his nonexistent hairline as he glanced at Jack.
Jack shrugged and rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, Lola. I don’t know much about Jack—private guy, liked to quote Shakespeare. Intense, fierce, dedicated warrior. We figured he’d be the least likely of any of us to settle down and get married.” His ears reddened when he realized what he’d said. “N-not that he’d never get married.”
Lola giggled. “Oh, that’s okay. I’d already had him pegged as a perennial bachelor.”
“There you are. I was looking for you in the bar.” A petite woman with fluffy reddish hair grabbed Lars’s spatulalike hand and leaned her head against his upper arm. “Friends of yours?”
“This is my wife, Nadine. Nadine, this is Jack Coburn and Lola…I’m sorry, I forgot your last name. Jack was in the Seventh Special Forces Group in Afghanistan at the same time I was there with my SFG. I think I mentioned him before.”
Jack breathed a little easier as he shook hands with Nadine. She didn’t look like a lethal threat.
“You probably did, Lars.” She leaned toward Lola as if including her in a confidential conversation. “Lars talks a lot about the good old days as a Green Beret. Jack, too?”
“Talks about it all the time.” Lola waved her hands in the air as Jack nudged her foot with the toe of his shoe.
Lola carried on a bright conversation about Miami and even got Nadine to whip out the kids’ pictures. Jack murmured the appropriate responses to Lars’s musings about Afghanistan, but his brain was hatching strategy.
He’d been a Green Beret. He’d graduated from Stanford. Maybe he could get his records and find out about his family—a family who didn’t seem to care if he was dead or alive.
Finally the Olafsons left, and Jack stared at Lola across the table.
She clapped her hands once and then interlaced her fingers. “That was a bit of luck. Why didn’t you just tell him about your amnesia and then grill him about your identity?”
“I didn’t want to be at his mercy. Plus, he’d think it was weird of me to be pumping him for information. Wouldn’t he figure I’d go to the authorities? Then what? Tell him I’m a wanted man?”
She sucked in her lower lip and toyed with a fork, drawing patterns on the tablecloth. “I see your point. I’m not sure he knew anything about you, anyway. You guys were in different groups, but you must’ve had a reputation.”
“A Green Beret quoting Shakespeare?” He dragged a hand through his hair. “Yeah, a reputation as a nut job or annoyingly pretentious.”
“Prospero.”
“Yeah, I got the connection.”
“You did name the group, Jack.”
“That I remember. I was hoping old Lars could give me the name of the colonel who put the group together.”
“That would’ve been a plus, but we know you were a Green Beret and at Stanford. We can start there.”
“We?”
“I’m in this until the bitter end.” She waved at the waiter. “I want to find my brother.”
Jack eyed her as she ordered a slice of key lime pie. That’s right. Lola wanted to find her brother. What else did she want? She wanted to save him, to make him all better. He didn’t want pity from Dr. Lola Famosa, but he could think of a few things he did want from this fiery woman with the luscious body.
Her gaze locked with his and her nostrils flared. “What?”
“You’re getting dessert?”
“We deserve it.” She folded her hands on the table. “Should we start with the Army first? Those records might contain your contacts.”
Jack folded his arms and stretched his legs, almost tripping the waiter balancing a plate on his outstretched palm. He waited until the waiter placed the pie on the table along with two fresh forks.
“I’m not sure we’ll get anything from the Army records.”
“Why is that?” She dipped the tines of her fork into the whipped cream slathering the pie.
“Think about it. I’m in the Green Berets, Special Forces, and then I get plucked out and dropped into a covert ops group, so secret other Green Berets like our friend Lars don’t know a thing about it. Do you really think my records are going to be available online or even by request from the U.S. Army?”
She slid the fork out of her mouth and waved it at him. “You have a point there. Stanford it is.”
Jack picked up his own fork and dug into a corner of the pie. The sweet-tart flavor invading his tongue made his mouth water. “I wonder what I studied there. Seems unlikely for an English major to wind up in the Army Special Forces. I can’t believe I ran around Afghanistan quoting Shakespeare. What a jerk.”
Lola tilted her head, licking her sticky lips in a manner that made his mouth water even more. “I don’t know. I think quoting Shakespeare is kind of sexy.”
“In battle?”
“In bed.”
The fork froze halfway to his mouth. He skewered Lola with a gaze beneath half-lidded eyes, and a pink color flared in her cheeks as she concentrated on her key lime pie. Did her rescue plan include seducing him?
He didn’t need any help in that department. None at all.
LOLA TOSSED HER PURSE on the table in the foyer as Jack punched in the security code for the front door to lock it behind them. Then she slipped off her high heels and padded on bare feet into the kitchen. “Do you want some water? That pie was good but it made me thirsty.”
“The wine made me thirsty. I’m not sure we needed a whole bottle of the stuff.”
Yanking open the fridge door, she called over her shoulder. “That was part of my plan—weaken your inhibitions to jog your memory, and then we had the good luck to run into Lars.”
Jack wedged a shoulder on the arch framing the kitchen. “You’re putting too much faith in Lars. He didn’t give us…me much.”
“Stanford and the Green Berets.” She repeated it like a magical mantra, as if those two entities held the key to Jack’s identity.
She’d been interested in those two facets of Jack’s life, but the comment that had jumped out at her was Lars’s belief in Jack’s eternal bachelorhood. She’d grasped that one as if it were a lifeline.
She filled two glasses with water from the
gallon container in the refrigerator. As she handed one to Jack, she said, “Thanks for dinner.”
“It’s your million.”
She punched him in the shoulder, her fist meeting solid muscle. “Stop with that.”
“I must be very good at what I do to command that figure, and you must be very rich to pay it.”
“Emilio said you were the best. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me much more about you, or I could be a lot more help.”
He sat down on the arm of the couch. “You avoided the second part of my comment.”
“I am rich, Jack. Both Gabe and I inherited millions. But the money’s tainted.”
“So give it away.”
“Believe me, I do, but Gabe is less scrupulous than I am. He figures at least some of the money came from Dad’s legitimate business deals, so we may as well spend that portion.”
“I agree with Gabe, and as long as you’re using it for some good deeds, it evens out in the end.”
She shrugged and pointed to the laptop. “Do you think we should do some research tonight? We could at least search some public Army records.”
“Let’s give it a rest.” Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re not going to find my Army records on the internet. No way. And as far as Stanford? To get those records, I’m going to have to supply them with a Social Security number or at least a birthday. Neither of which I have, not for Jack Coburn, anyway.”
His words popped her bubble. Not that she’d expected to find Jack’s life online, but she’d hoped Lars’s revelations would lead to something. Maybe Jack didn’t want to return to his life. Maybe he wanted this life.
“Come here.” Jack had placed his glass on a magazine, part of the mail Rosa had brought over from her house.
He opened his arms wide and she went to him. Stepping between his legs, she fell against his chest. He wrapped one arm around her waist and stroked her back with his other hand. She nestled her head in the hollow of his shoulder and released a pent-up breath.
She should be comforting him. Why did it always turn out the other way around?
He dragged his lips across her hair and pressed a kiss against her temple. “I think my best bet is with Lesley and the truth serum. The memories are there, just within my grasp. I need a little push over the edge.”
She shivered and he hugged her tighter. “What’s wrong?”
“A push over the edge. That’s what started your whole nightmare, isn’t it? You fell or were pushed over the edge of a cliff.”
“Or I jumped.”
She jerked her head up, clipping his chin. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know.” He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t want to think anymore tonight.”
He traced a finger along her jaw, his dark eyes burning with a different kind of need. Her lips parted in a silent invitation, and he sealed his mouth over hers.
His kiss stole her breath away, and she sagged against him. Not the marrying kind. Not the marrying kind. He couldn’t have a wife in real life. He wouldn’t be able to kiss her like this if he had someone else. Bits and pieces of memories had returned to him, but not once had they contained any hint of a woman.
If he belonged to her, she’d make sure he never forgot her. She’d burn herself into his brain so thoroughly that memories of her would stick with him through any torment…get him through any torment.
He closed his legs around her in a vise. Then he tipped back on the couch, taking her with him. She fell against his chest with a soft gasp. The stubble on his chin scratched her cheek and her legs stretched out behind her at an uncomfortable angle, but the thud of his heart beneath her body erased any discomfort she felt.
She walked her fingers beneath his shirt, his skin as smooth as warm butter. The hard muscles shifting beneath his flesh, reminded her of his training and his background as a Green Beret. But she didn’t want to think about that right now.
Splaying her hands across his chest, she closed her eyes and pretended she had a doctor on her couch or maybe an accountant. Someone safe.
He kissed her eyelids and murmured something unintelligible. If he thought he could hold her off again, put her aside in some misplaced chivalry, he’d better think again.
Curling up her legs, she rolled to the side and ran out of couch. She began to slip to the floor and her arm flailed out, banging the coffee table.
“Whoa!” Jack made a grab for her as her fingers dug for purchase on the smooth surface of the table.
She slid to the rug, sweeping the neatly stacked mail to the floor with her. Her laughter died in her throat when her gaze locked onto the black scrawl across an envelope that had landed in her lap.
A letter from Gabe.
Chapter Ten
Lola grabbed the grubby envelope in her hand and brought her knees to her chest as she pressed her back against the couch. “It’s a letter from Gabe.”
“Recent?” Jack’s warm breath stirred her hair as he leaned over her shoulder.
Lola squinted at the postmark and drew in a sharp breath. “It’s postmarked about the time he disappeared. It must’ve been here all this time.”
With shaking fingers, she ripped open the envelope and yanked out a single piece of paper. She unfolded it and gripped the sides.
“Damn, can you read that?”
Lola peered at Gabe’s slanted writing across the page and read the missive aloud.
This is insurance, Lola. I don’t want to involve you any more than I have to. I have a formula on my computer at the lab. It’s a vaccine for a dangerous virus that some very bad people want to compromise. The password for my computer is 23fRv8. Give the password to Cain so he can access my files. He’ll know what to do with the formula. Not sure I’ll make it out of here alive. Too long and complicated to explain. Thought research science was about as far as I could get from the dangerous family business. Sorry to bring chaos into your life again, Lola. Know that this is a just cause and that I love you.
She dropped the piece of paper and it floated to the floor. She wrapped her arms around her legs and rested her forehead on her knees, weak and drained.
Jack put one hand on her back and reached for the letter with the other. “He was working on a formula. That’s why they grabbed him. They want to suppress the vaccine for this virus.”
The warmth of Jack’s hand soaked into her skin and she lifted her head. “How’d he get that letter out? Had they already grabbed him? Was he already a captive?”
Jack shrugged. “Don’t know. The important thing is he got it out. Who’s Cain?”
“Cain is Gabe’s research partner. We’ll turn over Gabe’s password to Cain. He’ll know what to do.”
Jack slid his hand to her shoulder and caressed her tight muscle. “They know about the letter, Lola. Somehow they know he got some information out to you.”
A chill snaked up her spine, despite the steady pressure of Jack’s hand. “This is what they’re looking for. This is why they want me.”
“They may not know what they’re looking for.” Leaning forward, he draped his arm around her shoulders. “But somehow they know Gabe communicated with you.”
“What does it mean? Why would a terrorist group be interested in a vaccine for a virus?”
“Think about it.” He pressed two fingers against his temple. “They don’t want Gabe to develop a vaccination against the virus because—”
She cut him off, realization piercing through the fog of her brain like a shaft of white, hot light. “They want to use the virus as a weapon. They don’t want a cure for this virus or for the symptoms to be diminished in any way.”
Jack’s arm fell from her shoulder, and he grabbed his head. He groaned. “God…”
Lola swiveled toward him, reaching out, her arms freezing in midair. He’d told her to let him ride out the next headache. The pain acted like a key to his past, a past that he needed to unlock to find Gabe…to find himself.
He moaned, a tortured sound that
twisted her heart. His fingers curled into claws as they raked through his black hair. He rocked forward, his head touching his knees.
She scrambled to her feet, and then took a position on the cushion next to him. Her fingers tingled with the desire to stroke his back, to comfort him as he’d comforted her. She bit her lip and the salty tang of her own blood spiked her tongue as she pierced the flesh.
Jack emitted a low growl. Every muscle along his shoulders and back coiled into tight springs.
Tears flooded her eyes. The sight of this strong, fearless man incapacitated by pain plucked a chord deep in her soul.
She ached to soothe him, but he didn’t want that from her. He didn’t want to be nurtured. He wanted and needed a partner. He required a different kind of strength from her, the strength to allow him to tame his own demons. Regardless of the agony.
Jack was a soldier, a Green Beret. He’d been trained to endure pain.
His body shuddered, and she shuddered with him. His T-shirt, soaked with sweat, clung to the ridges and planes of his back.
His shoulders heaved. A gasp escaped from his lips,
Lola’s hand hovered over his shoulder, the heat from his body scorching her palm.
And waited. Several minutes passed.
His head jerked, and his hands clasped the back of his neck. He groaned.
“Jack.” Lola whispered his name, afraid to break the spell, afraid not to.
A bead of sweat ran down the side of his face. His eyes began to blink, and his tight jaw lost its rigidity. His breath, which had been blasting out in short spurts, slowed. His chest heaved once, twice.
He massaged his temples with the heels of his hands. Words rumbled from his throat. “That hurt like hell.”
Lola held her breath, afraid any movement from her would set off another episode. Jack couldn’t endure another headache. She couldn’t endure another one of Jack’s headaches.
He unfolded his body and reclined on the couch, his chest rising and falling with each steadying breath.
“D-does it still hurt? Do you want an ibuprofen?”
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