Hard Night

by Jackie Ashenden

“Can we have this discussion later?” She brushed her finger over the screen of the tablet to get rid of the document she was looking at, pleased that it didn’t shake. Pleased too that her voice was steady. “I have a few important e-mails to send.”

  The driver’s door opened, their driver starting to get in.

  “We’re not ready.” Jacob’s deep, rough voice was curt. “Go have another smoke.”

  The driver obeyed instantly, shutting the car door once more.

  Faith focused hard on the tablet screen as the tension in the car climbed, trying not to be aware of it or the man sitting bare inches from her.

  He was very long, very muscular, and very, very powerful. So much bigger than she was, so much stronger in just about every way.

  She didn’t know why she found that exciting or why he scared her, a combination of feelings that should be mutually exclusive but weren’t. There was also a familiarity to him that she’d sensed the moment she’d woken up that morning in the hospital to find him bending over her, which was why she’d never questioned being told he was her cousin.

  Except, as the days had gone by, she gradually realized that he couldn’t be her cousin. He never talked about their supposed family, plus cousins generally didn’t call each other by their surnames. Of course, that left her with no explanation for that sense of familiarity, though it did suggest she’d known him or met him before she’d lost her memory. Whatever, it was . . . disturbing.

  Basically, everything about him disturbed her.

  In the six months since she’d been living with him, he’d been nothing but kind. Nothing but generous. Taking care of her and making sure she had everything she needed. Yet, that threat sense went off whenever he was around and so she made sure there was always distance between them, both physical and emotional.

  She checked her physical distance now, surreptitiously from beneath her lashes. His powerful thigh, wrapped in black wool, was near hers, but not too near. Not touching. Even so, she could feel his heat. He radiated it like a furnace.

  Her breath caught and she glanced up at him, again through the protective veil of her lashes, unable to help herself.

  He wasn’t at all pretty, not like Kellan, one of the other 11th Hour team. No, his features were too strong, like a boxer’s or a warrior’s. Hard jaw, a blade of a nose that looked like it had been broken not once but twice. Scars on his cheeks and deeply set eyes that were the blackest she’d ever seen. An undeniably compelling face, if not strictly handsome.

  He was watching the way he always did. Intense. Sharp. Like an X-ray searching the contents of her soul.

  Well, if he could see it, then good luck to him. Maybe he could tell her what was in it because she hadn’t a clue.

  He can tell you, remember?

  A rush of cold iced her veins.

  She tore her gaze away, looking back down at the tablet and trying for calm. Getting emotional was a mistake. It brought back those horrible days after she’d first gotten out of the hospital, when she hadn’t known who she was and there was nothing but a black hole where her memory was.

  It had taken her months to overcome her terror of finding nothing familiar and everything strange, but overcome it she had. Taking comfort in a new identity and a new life, finding familiarity in a new routine.

  She didn’t want anything to put that at risk.

  Like finding out her real name, for instance.

  Jacob said nothing. Waiting.

  Faith gritted her teeth.

  There was an exercise that the psychologist she’d seen in the first month after leaving the hospital had recommended to her, where she paid attention to her body, focusing on her muscles and the way she was sitting, the movement of air across her skin. It was a grounding exercise, designed to make her feel more present in her body and in the moment, and she liked it because it calmed her.

  She practiced it now, letting herself become aware of the stiff fabric of her blouse and how it felt against her skin, the tightness of her skirt around her thighs, reminders of the armor she wore every day, the shell of her identity.

  Faith Beasley. Who worked with the 11th Hour team. Whose boss was Jacob Night. Who liked lavender bath gel, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, and good Earl Grey tea.

  Who was very, very conscious yet again of her boss’s thigh near hers, and his heat. And of the strange, compelling, magnetic quality to his presence that she tried daily to ignore and failed to most of the time.

  “As I said,” she murmured into the silence, calmly swiping over the screen, “we can have this discussion later.”

  “No.” Jacob was just as calm. “We can’t.”

  Damn.

  “Fine.” She risked a fleeting glance directly at him, felt the impact of his dark gaze deep inside her. It was always unsettling, which was why she seldom looked him in the eye. “I’ve only just gotten comfortable with being Faith. I’m not in any rush to be someone else.”

  “But you wouldn’t be someone else,” he pointed out. “You’d be yourself.”

  “I’m myself already, thank you very much.” She looked down at her tablet once more, conscious of how fast her heart was beating. “Why do you want to tell me so badly anyway? Getting sick of the invalid already?”

  He was silent.

  She wasn’t going to risk another glance at him, so she busied herself with calling up the mail app and checking her e-mail.

  “No,” Jacob said eventually. “You know that’s not the case.”

  “Well then.” She typed in a couple of words, not paying attention to what she was writing. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready to know. But I’m not ready now.”

  And quite honestly, she didn’t know when she would be.

  She’d lied when she’d told him that her sleep was fine and that she wasn’t having nightmares. They’d begun a few weeks ago, completely out of the blue. Nightmares about fire and running down a dusty street, her feet bleeding. About knowing someone was behind her, chasing her, and a terrible, awful fear tightening every muscle . . .

  They were so real, so vivid, and every time they woke her up she wondered if they meant her memories were returning. Because if so, she didn’t want them to.

  Right now she lived moment to moment and although she may not be exactly happy, she wasn’t actively unhappy. She was comfortable with how her life was going. She liked her job and the people she worked with. She had a home she was familiar with, a routine that helped her stay on track when she forgot things, as she did from time to time, and an identity that made her feel grounded, like part of the world again.

  She didn’t want anything to change.

  The silence lengthened, deepened.

  Jacob shifted, leaning forward, his hands clasped loosely between his knees, and she tried to keep herself still, resisting the urge to pull away from him and his heat.

  “Here’s the problem, Ms. Beasley.” He never called her Faith. “I need you to remember who you are.”

  A cold rush of shock hit her.

  Things are going to change whether you like it or not.

  Very carefully she typed another word in her e-mail, though she had no idea what it was, using the time it took her to think past the shock clouding her brain.

  He hadn’t talked directly about her memory before, not beyond the usual physical health questions. He’d always been very calm, very patient. Allowing her distance and never pushing.

  But she didn’t make the mistake of thinking he was doing this out of the kindness of his heart.

  He wanted something from her. And she couldn’t shake the sense that she was like a lamb in a cage and he was the hungry lion prowling around outside it. Waiting for the cage to open.

  And now he has the key?

  She fought to keep her breathing steady. “I see. And why do you need me to do that?”

  “Because there are things in your head that I want.” He sounded so reasonable. “Things that only you know.”

  The rush of shock became a river, th
reatening the stable little life she’d built over the past six months. A life built on foundations that she’d always known were made of sand, that were now being washed away.

  Oh, come on. Did you really think he was one of the good guys? A man like him doesn’t take care of a stranger with no memory for six months for no reason at all.

  It was true. So why was she so very shocked? If she’d learned anything about Jacob Night, it was that he never did anything without a reason. Those reasons might be oblique, but he always had them, and even subconsciously she’d been aware of that. Why else would she have kept her distance from him all this time? Despite the fact that he fascinated her in a way she didn’t want to think too deeply about.

  “Here I was thinking you were my Good Samaritan,” she said, pleased that her voice was quite level. “You never do anything for free, do you?”

  “Oh, come now, you didn’t really think I was your Good Samaritan, did you? I’m a mercenary. You know that.”

  Yes, it was true and essentially that’s what the 11th Hour was: guns for hire. But she’d never thought of them like that. The missions Jacob accepted usually entailed protecting people who needed it, or taking down people who deserved it, so it seemed simplistic to label them as basic mercenaries.

  “So.” She typed another word into her e-mail. “You lied to the doctors by telling them I was your cousin, and you took me out of the hospital, gave me a job, took care of me for six months, purely because you want something I have no memory of.”

  He didn’t reply.

  She was suddenly angry, though that may have been her shock and, deeper, the fear that ran underneath everything like an underground stream, acid and bitter, undermining her strength. The fear that had never gone away. The fear she didn’t want him to know about.

  The fear of who she really was.

  Her fingers dug into the sides of the tablet. The doctors had told her emotional extremes would happen after a TBI and she’d had a fair few of them in the first month or so. But not since.

  Shit, she didn’t want one now.

  But he’d casually destroyed the fragile bubble of normality she’d built for herself with one simple sentence.

  You knew. Deep down, you knew he was the lion outside the cage.

  “You know what I am,” he said eventually, lifting the thought directly from her head, a dark current running through his already dark voice. “You knew the day I took you home.”

  Her throat was dry. She tried to swallow, conscious more than ever of just who she was sharing the car with.

  Despite that lingering sense of familiarity, he’d always been a stranger to her. The mysterious man who’d pulled her from her hospital bed and taken her back to his huge home on the clifftops above the ocean in San Diego. He hadn’t told her anything about himself and even though she was living in his home, she hardly ever saw him. He kept to himself and any discussions they had were limited only to his inquiries about her health and management of the 11th Hour team.

  The only thing she knew about him was that he was dangerous and he was right, she’d known that the day he’d taken her out of the hospital. But she’d accepted everything he’d given her without thinking too hard about it because she’d had no other choice.

  She’d let him become the only familiar thing in a world where nothing else was, because he was the only person she knew.

  A lion is just a big cat. Until you come face to face with his teeth.

  Long, blunt fingers wrapped suddenly around her tablet and before she had a chance to protest, it was pulled from her hands.

  Her head snapped up, his gaze clashing with hers.

  There was no anger in his expression, only an intensity of purpose that made panic claw up inside her.

  “After all,” he went on, perfectly calm as he laid the tablet down on the car seat beside him. “There’s a reason you keep me at such a distance. Isn’t there, Ms. Beasley?”

  Faith opened her mouth, but nothing came out.

  “I’m normally a patient man,” Jacob Night said. “But my patience is not limitless, especially not after six months. I want your memories, Ms. Beasley. And I will do everything necessary to help you remember.”

  He was going to tell her, wasn’t he? Right here, right now, he was going to tell her who she was and there was nothing—nothing—she could do to stop him.

  Faith put her hand on the door handle, a reflexive movement she was hardly aware of making.

  But before she could pull it open, she heard a strange sound, like a muffled impact. Then something whined in her ear.

  She only had time to wonder if a bee had somehow gotten trapped in the car before the window next to Jacob suddenly exploded in a shower of glass.

  And he lunged for her.

  CHAPTER 2

  She had no time to scream or make any kind of sound. One minute she was upright and ready to bolt—though she still didn’t know why her automatic reaction had been to run away—the next she was lying on the floor of the car, pressed right down onto it, with over a hundred pounds of hard male muscle piled on top of her.

  She couldn’t see anything, could barely hear anything. He covered her almost completely, the astonishing heat of him soaking through her clothing and imprinting itself on her skin. He smelled of burning wood and smoke, and for a second she couldn’t do anything but lie there, too stunned by the feel of his body curled protectively over hers.

  Or was it protectively?

  Her brain began to work again, replaying the sound that she’d heard before Jacob had pushed her down onto the floor. A bee.

  But no, it wasn’t a bee.

  She felt his warm breath on the side of her neck, giving her a shiver that raced the entire length of her body.

  “Bullets,” he said roughly. “Stay down.”

  For some reason she wasn’t surprised. Of course the bee was a bullet and how she’d thought otherwise she had no idea.

  More sounds came. An impact above her somewhere and the crack of glass shattering.

  Jacob cursed, low and harsh.

  By rights, she should have been scared—she might work for a paramilitary operation but she never went out into the field because she wasn’t trained for it—and she was scared.

  But that’s not all she was.

  Beneath Jacob’s sheltering heat, her muscles had tightened in a kind of . . . readiness. As if her body was waiting for a signal. Like a runner listening for the starting gun, she felt like she was all set to explode into motion.

  But . . . bullets. Why the hell were there bullets?

  “What’s happening?” she asked, her voice more breathless than she wanted it to be.

  He didn’t answer. Instead the weight on top of her shifted and he moved again, agile as a cat for such a large man, angling himself, then sliding into the driver’s seat, keeping his head low.

  “Stay where you are,” he ordered in a tone that brooked no argument. “And keep your head fucking down.”

  Faith didn’t protest, not when there came another whine and a hole was punched through the driver’s side window, a bullet burying itself into the leather of the seat right where she’d been sitting.

  Her heart was beating fast, fear gathering in the pit of her stomach. And yet that readiness was still there in her muscles, waiting for that signal. As if part of her wanted to grab a gun from somewhere and start shooting back. How strange. Jacob had asked her if she wanted some weapons training but she’d politely declined, some part of her instinctively recoiling at the thought of handling a gun. Again, she had no idea why.

  Not that it was the time to be thinking about those things now.

  The car abruptly started, Jacob gunning the engine.

  “The driver?” Faith asked, remembering.

  “Dead,” Jacob replied brusquely.

  She went cold, but then he must have jammed his foot hard down on the accelerator because the car took off, the air full of burning rubber and the squeal of tires on asphalt.

>   Faith was propelled back against the foot of the seat behind her and as the car picked up even more speed, taking corners way too sharp for safety, she had to brace herself with her arms against the seat in front to stop from being tumbled around on the floor like a ball in a pinball machine.

  She had no idea what was happening and even less of an idea where she was going, but again, although she was scared and upset about the driver, she wasn’t beside herself with fear.

  Puzzling. Then again, maybe that had to do with being part of the 11th Hour and bullets were somehow . . . expected?

  “Jacob,” she managed to force out, bracing herself harder as the car screeched around a corner. “What the hell is going on?”

  “We’re being shot at.” His voice was hard and cold. “So I’m getting us out of here.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Shut up and stay down. I can’t concentrate on driving this motherfucking car and answering questions as well.”

  The car screeched again, making Faith slide toward the other side of the car, and she had the weird urge to tell him of course he couldn’t do both because men couldn’t multitask.

  Why on earth are you wanting to make a joke? Now?

  She had absolutely no idea.

  The car made yet another turn and then straightened out, picking up even more speed. Were they on the . . . freeway maybe? There were no more corners but the car made a subtle motion every now and then as if it was weaving between other cars.

  Yes, they were definitely on the freeway though she couldn’t see which direction they were traveling in. Obviously, they weren’t heading toward the 11th Hour HQ in San Diego’s Gaslamp District because the bar she’d visited just before wasn’t that far away—certainly not enough to warrant a freeway trip. And anyway, Jacob wouldn’t want to lead whoever it was who was shooting at them back to their HQ, which definitely ruled out going back to his place on the cliffs as well.

  They were heading somewhere else, somewhere she didn’t know, leaving behind what was familiar . . .

  The fear in her gut clenched tighter and she had to fight not to panic.

  “Jacob, please.” She hated the shaky note in her voice, but she couldn’t mask it. “I need to know where we’re going.”