Tempting Faith

by Susan Mallery

  No danger, unless she came armed. His gaze moved back to her face. Mid-to late twenties, he thought, then dismissed the idea that she and Jeff were lovers. They stood close together, as if they’d known each other a long time, but there wasn’t anything between them. The throbbing in his leg picked up a notch, and he shifted his weight to relieve some of the pressure.

  “Faith, this is Cort Hollenbeck,” Jeff said, placing his hand on the small of her back and urging her forward. “Cort, Faith Newlin.”

  “Nice to meet you.” She extended her hand.

  It took him a moment to untangle himself from the crutches. Most people would have been uncomfortable and dropped their arm, mumbling something about it not mattering. She stood there patiently, waiting as if she had all the time in the world.

  Her grip surprised him. Not so much the strength of her grasp—given her wardrobe, she wasn’t a socialite. No, it was the rough skin he felt on her palm, the calluses. This woman did physical labor on a daily basis.

  Their eyes met. Not unattractive, he thought. He studied the straight short nose and full lips that curved up slightly. As he’d decided before—ordinary. Little temptation there. Just as well. He didn’t need the complication.

  “Ms. Newlin.” He nodded.

  “Faith.” Again her lips curved up slightly, as she withdrew her hand.

  “I’m ready, if you are.”

  “Fine.” She glanced at Jeff. “What about medication?”

  “Something for pain, some antibiotics in case of infection. I’ll get them.” He looked at Cort. “You’ll want to be armed. A Beretta?”

  Cort raised his eyebrows. “Works for me.”

  “Faith?” Jeff asked.

  She shrugged. “I have rifles, but only one handgun. A small revolver.” She looked at Cort. “You’d probably be embarrassed to be seen with it.”

  Interesting. A woman who knew about guns. He hadn’t had a chance to think about this new assignment, but so far it wasn’t too bad. Close quarters with Faith Newlin. She wasn’t a fashion model, but all cats were gray in the dark. Maybe the thought of bullets flying would scare her. Just enough, he thought, trying to remember how long it had been since he’d eased himself between a woman’s welcoming thighs.

  “I’ll get the medication and the gun and meet you at the truck,” Jeff said, handing her the duffel bag and leaving.

  Faith hung back, but Cort shook his head. “I’ll go behind you,” he said.

  “Suit yourself.” Her long hair, pulled back at the front, but otherwise left free, hung over her shoulders. With a quick flick of her wrist, she sent the strands flying out of her way. “I’m parked in the rear lot. Do you want a wheelchair?”

  The look he tossed her had often caused armed criminals to flinch. She simply blinked twice and waited patiently for his response.

  “No,” he said at last.

  “It’s your neck.”

  “Actually it’s my leg.”

  She smiled quickly, and he had the thought that it made her look pretty.

  “Humor,” she said. “A good sign.”

  As she walked past him, he inhaled the scent of her perfume. French. The name of the brand escaped him. Expensive. Out of place. The information joined the rest of his mental file on her. Shifting his weight, he swung the crutches in front of him and started down the hall.

  They’d covered about twenty feet when she started to turn right down another corridor. Suddenly she gasped and jumped back, blocking his path. He couldn’t see what had startled her. He heard a loud crash.

  Instinctively he dropped the crutches. With one arm, he grabbed Faith around the waist and threw her to the ground. He dropped to the floor, rolled to cushion his fall, biting back a grunt of pain as his weight settled on his injured leg. He came to a stop beside her. With a smooth, practiced motion, he reached for the gun in his waistband.

  Nothing. No holster, no weapon. He looked up. Two terrified orderlies stood beside the pile of fallen trays. They started forward to help, took one look at the expression on his face and turned in the opposite direction.

  Faith raised herself up on one elbow and studied him. Her blue eyes radiated nothing more than concern. “Did you hurt yourself, Mr. Hollenbeck?”

  “Cort,” he grunted, between waves of pain. “I’m fine. What about you?”

  She pushed herself into a sitting position. “Nothing broken. Do you need help up?”

  “No.”

  She scrambled to her feet. After retrieving the crutches, she stood patiently while he maneuvered himself upright. She handed him the crutches.

  “I’m not crazy,” he said, knowing exactly how it all looked. Had they told her he’d lost part of his memory?

  “That thought never crossed my mind.” She turned and continued walking down the hall.

  He could feel blood oozing out of the stitches in his leg. Damn. It had finally begun to heal. Maybe he should get somebody to look at it before—

  No. It would stop soon enough. Now that he was close to leaving the hospital, he realized how much he’d hated the confinement. He’d been pretty out of it the first week, but the last few days had crawled by. He’d slowly been going crazy trying to force himself to remember.

  Faith stopped at the rear entrance and stepped on the automatic door pad. Smiling at the guard on duty, she spoke her name, then Cort’s. The older man punched a few keys in his computer keyboard, then nodded.

  Freedom. Cort inhaled the dry desert air and held back a sigh. Sweet and clean. Enough to go around.

  Suddenly the ground shifted and his vision blurred. Instead of the guard and the woman, he saw the dusky interior of a South American warehouse. Dank smells indicated he was near water. The ocean? Was the scent salty?

  Danger! The thought exploded in his mind. Get out. Yet as he turned to run, the picture dissolved. His crutch caught on the lip of the door pad. As the flashback receded, he felt himself slipping. Faith leapt to his side and grabbed the shaky crutch. One strong arm gripped his waist and held him steady.

  She had curves under that baggy work shirt, he thought as her right breast flattened against his side. The intellectual information battled with a sudden rush of sexual interest. That, more than the fall, returned him completely to the present.

  “You all right?” she asked, looking up at him.

  She was wary, but not afraid. She should be. Hadn’t Jeff told her what he was capable of? His head began to throb. He’d remembered. Not a lot, but something new. Sweat coated his body. He just wanted to get out of here.

  He jerked himself free. “I’m fine. Where’s your car?”

  She pointed toward a battered four-wheel-drive pickup.

  He angled himself in that general direction and began to lurch toward it.

  Jeff met them at the truck. “This should keep you comfortable.” He held a bag of medicine in one hand and a gun in the other.

  Cort thought about telling him he’d remembered something, but he held back. He’d know soon enough—when the whole memory returned. Jeff opened the car door and tossed the medication on the dashboard. Cort hopped until the seat pressed against the back of his thighs. After sliding on the cracked vinyl, he lifted his bum leg into the cab and handed Jeff his crutches. Jeff settled them in the back and gave him the pistol.

  “Here’s a spare magazine and a hundred rounds.” He set a small paper bag on the floor of the cab. “Try not to shoot yourself in the foot.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  Faith dropped his duffel bag in the back of the truck, then gave Jeff a hug. “Don’t forget about my rain check,” she said.

  “I won’t.” He held her for a minute.

  Cort watched the expressions chase across his boss’s face. He knew the flash of pain came from remembering his wife. Cort looked away. Caring turned a man inside out. Exposed him. That’s why he would never get involved.

  Faith slid in next to him and fastened her seat belt. She stared at him until he did the same. Then she smiled
. Again, he thought it made her look pretty.

  “You going to hold that in your hand the whole way?” She pointed at the gun.

  He stared at the weapon, then thought about how he’d reacted to the crashing sound in the hospital. He was tired, and the surgery two days ago had used up the little reserves he’d had. What he needed was twelve hours of sleep. Until then, he wasn’t going to be much good at protecting anyone.

  “Here.” He handed her the gun. “You keep it until tomorrow.”

  She studied his face. “Fine with me.” She checked the safety, then pressed the button to release the magazine. After pocketing it, she jerked back the slide and looked in the chamber to make sure it didn’t contain a round.

  He raised his eyebrows. “I’m impressed.”

  “Then you impress easy.” The gun went in the glove box. “And you’re exhausted. We’ve got over a six-hour drive. Why don’t you get some sleep? I need to make one stop. I’ll wake you there and you can eat something.”

  “Sounds great.” He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. She wasn’t the sort of woman he normally picked, he thought as she started the truck and backed out of the parking space. He couldn’t remember a single one of his lady friends ever owning a gun, let alone knowing how to handle one. And although she’d been friends with Jeff for years, his boss had never mentioned her.

  “Here.”

  She thrust something soft into his hands. He cracked open one eye. A sweater.

  “Use it for a pillow. Lock your door first. I don’t want you falling out if I hit a bump.”

  “Thanks,” he muttered as he bunched the sweater and pushed it up against the glass. He pressed down the lock and inhaled deeply. Her scent surrounded him, the elusive essence of that damned French perfume. What was it? He fell asleep still trying to remember the name.

  *

  She saw the first evidence of blood after they’d been on the road an hour. Keeping her attention on the sparsely traveled highway, she occasionally glanced at her sleeping passenger. He rested deeply, barely moving except for the rise and fall of his chest. Her gaze swept over him as she noted his size and strength and wondered at the cause of his injuries. At first she’d thought the dark stain on his white bandage was a shadow.

  “Damn,” she muttered softly. Over the next hour, the stain spread until it was the size of a half dollar. It showed no signs of letting up. He must have torn open his stitches when he’d dropped to the floor in the hospital.

  She picked up a cassette and pushed it into the player. The radio was the only thing new in the cab. The vehicle itself had almost a hundred and fifty thousand miles on the odometer, but the engine had been replaced in the last six months and the tires were only two weeks old. She didn’t care how the truck looked on the outside; she spent the money necessary to keep it running well. Without her truck available to pick up food, the cats would starve in a matter of days.

  Two hours later she saw the sign for her turnoff. She moved to the right of the four-lane freeway then exited onto the two-lane highway that would take her north and home. Her passenger continued to sleep. She turned off at the tiny town of Bowmund and headed for the grain and feed.

  At least one thing had gone right today, Faith thought as she signed for the supplies. Everything was ready. As soon as the boxes were loaded, she could head up the mountain. After picking up a quart of orange juice and a plastic wrapped sandwich from the grocery store, she walked back to her truck. Cort slept where she’d left him, resting his head against her sweater and the passenger window.

  She eased open her door and slid into the seat. Where was that bag of medicine? She saw the white paper in the far corner of the dashboard. As she grabbed it, she glanced down. The blood on his bandage had widened to a circle the size of a grapefruit.

  “If that doesn’t stop, we’re both in trouble,” she said, not bothering to keep her voice down.

  He didn’t stir. She counted out the antibiotic dosage, confirmed that the instructions said to take the medication with food and touched his arm.

  “Cort, wake up. You’ve got to take a couple of pills.”

  Nothing.

  She pressed harder against his biceps, noting the thickness of the muscle. “Cort, wake up!”

  It was like teasing a tiger. Without warning, he jerked upright, then spun and grabbed her. Before she could catch her breath, he’d pulled her head against his shoulder, holding her tight with one arm across her throat and pressing the other arm against her midsection.

  “One more move,” he growled into her ear, “and I’ll kill you.”

  Chapter 2

  Faith didn’t move. She didn’t even breathe. She held herself still, stifling the overwhelming urge to fight him. She wouldn’t win. He had the strength and the skill to snap her neck with one swift jerk.

  Her lungs burned for air. Panic threatened. Don’t, she commanded herself. She’d been in worse situations. The trick was to keep her head. He would figure out she wasn’t the enemy.

  The steely arm around her throat loosened slightly. She drew in a deep breath. Her gasp sounded loud in the still cab.

  Cort swore and released her completely. She fell forward and supported herself by pressing her hands against the seat. She inhaled deeply and coughed. Thank God. The cab darkened for a second, then came into focus.

  After she caught her breath, she gingerly touched her neck, knowing that she would bear bruises for several days. She should have known better than to startle him, she thought, shaking her head in disgust. The same thing would have happened if she’d walked into a cage while a wounded animal was sleeping.

  She located the pills she’d dropped when he grabbed her, and she turned slowly to face Cort. He leaned against the door of the cab and stared at her. She couldn’t read the expression in his dark eyes. Something flickered there, something black and ugly, but she didn’t know what it meant. Was he berating himself, or her? Silence stretched between them, broken only by the sound of their breathing.

  “It could have been worse,” she said at last, her voice a little raspy from the pressure on her neck.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “You could have had the gun.”

  He didn’t answer. Apparently he had no intention of apologizing.

  She held out the pills and the container of orange juice. He took them, tossed back the medication and gulped the liquid without taking his eyes from her face. She wanted to look away but sensed he was challenging her. She forced herself to meet his gaze.

  “How long since you’ve been in the field?” she asked.

  “Two weeks.”

  “That explains—”

  “Did Jeff tell you I was having flashbacks?” he asked, cutting her off.

  “No.” She swallowed. Great. “Should he have?”

  “You tell me.”

  He held out the empty juice bottle. She took the plastic container and set it between them. Still his gaze locked on hers. He was making her nervous, but she refused to let him see her squirm. She allowed herself to study the straight line of his nose and the stubble darkening the hollows of his cheeks. He was handsome, she thought with some surprise. Perhaps even beautiful, with the wild unholiness of natural predators.

  She shifted in her seat and reached for the sandwich she’d placed on the dashboard. “You’re probably hungry,” she said. “The instructions said to take the medication with food. I have to hook up the trailer and then we’ll leave.”

  He didn’t answer. She set the sandwich on his lap and turned toward the door. Before she could touch the handle, he spoke. “I tried to kill you.”

  “I know. You’re also trying to intimidate me.”

  “What the hell are you still doing in this truck?”

  “I don’t scare so easy.”

  “Lady, there’s something wrong with you.”

  She detected a note of grudging respect in his voice. “You’re not the first person to notice,” she said, looking at him over her shoulde
r. The early afternoon light caught the gold flecks in his brown eyes. Cat eyes. “How long has your leg been bleeding?”

  He glanced down at the stained bandage. “Since I fell on it at the hospital.”

  “When was the surgery?”

  “Two days ago. I think I ripped out some stitches.”

  “Terrific.” She opened the door, then paused. “At the way station, we’re over forty minutes from town and an hour and a half from real medical care. Do you need to see a doctor?”

  “No.”

  She pointed to his leg. “If it gets infected, I’ll probably just cut it off.”

  He rewarded her with a slight smile. It didn’t make him look any less dangerous. “Deal.”

  She waited, hoping he would say something more. He didn’t. “I’ve got to see to the supplies,” she said. “I’ll be right back.” She slipped out of the truck and closed the door behind her.

  Cort watched as several men finished loading supplies from the feed store into the back of Faith’s truck. Carelessly, he picked at the food she’d handed him. His head ached, his leg throbbed and the pain in his gut came from a lot more than medication.

  He’d almost killed her. If he’d had a knife or, in that split second when he’d lost track of what was real, his gun, she would be dead. For no good reason. She wasn’t the enemy. Just an innocent bystander. He’d never lost control before, and it scared the hell out of him. How was he going to get it back?

  He glanced in the side-view mirror and saw Faith talking to a man with a clipboard. She went down the list and pointed at the boxes they were loading into a separate trailer. The man started to argue. Before he’d said more than ten words, Faith planted her hands on her hips and started in on him. In about five seconds, he was nodding and backing up toward the building.

  Who the hell was she? He tossed the half-eaten sandwich on the seat and clenched his hands into fists. He’d almost killed her, and she acted like nothing had happened. Jeff had said she needed protection. Cort shook his head. She seemed capable enough to him. He stared at the mirror. Faith stood by the back of the truck, counting the crates being loaded. She moved quickly and easily, as if she’d performed this task a hundred times before. Cool and competent—she turned and he saw the curve of her rear—and very much a woman.