A Man Worth Remembering

by Delores Fossen

  And they waited.

  The minutes crawled by. One by one. Leigh counted off the seconds in her head.

  But there was no sign of the gunmen.

  Either those men had given up, or else Gabe had truly managed to lose them. Leigh tried to pick through the sounds in the woods. The breeze rattling the leaves. The few birds that they hadn’t scared off. What she didn’t hear was the sound of a car engine.

  Oh, God.

  That frightened her even more than if she had heard one. Did that mean the gunmen had stopped and were now circling around from behind? Or was it possible they were on foot? Obviously, Gabe had already thought of that because she noticed his gaze darting all around them.

  It made her wonder if they’d been in situations like this before. Possibly. After all, at one time she’d been an agent, too. Perhaps they had worked cases together. That stirred something deep inside her. What exactly, she couldn’t say. But even though the situation itself didn’t feel familiar, the camaraderie, and the intimacy of it, certainly did.

  Too familiar.

  An image flashed through her mind. Not of gunmen or chases through the woods. It was an image of Gabe, naked. Beautifully naked. He had his hands on her. Their embrace was beyond intimate. The mental picture was so clear, so overwhelming, so erotic that Leigh gasped.

  “What’s wrong?” Gabe glanced around them, obviously looking for what had alarmed her.

  “Nothing,” she said on a rush of breath. “A memory, I think.”

  “Of what?”

  She couldn’t tell him. Leigh didn’t even think she could get her mouth to say the words. She forced herself to think of the danger. The gunmen. It didn’t completely wash away that image of Gabe, but it helped.

  “How much longer do we wait?” she asked.

  “Not long. If they were coming after us, they would have already done it.” He started the truck again. “But cover us just in case. I’m getting us out of here.”

  Leigh didn’t argue with that. She didn’t want to stay in the woods any longer.

  While Gabe maneuvered the truck through the path and back onto the dirt road, Leigh watched for any sign of the gunmen. It didn’t disappoint her when she didn’t see them, but it did create more questions in her mind.

  “Why didn’t they follow us, Gabe?”

  “Maybe they didn’t like the odds of coming at us head-on. I sure wouldn’t have.”

  That made sense. Gabe had established high ground by the way he parked the truck, but high ground had merely given them a temporary advantage. It hadn’t secured a victory. “That means they think they’ll have a better opportunity to come at us later.”

  He made a sound of agreement. That didn’t do a thing to ease the tension in her body. “So, is someone feeding them information as to our whereabouts?”

  “Maybe,” Gabe said quickly enough to indicate he’d already given the idea some thought. “Or maybe they’re just lucky.”

  Leigh didn’t think luck had a whole lot to do with this. “Could Jinx or Teresa Walters have let these guys know where we are?”

  “Not Jinx. He’s on our side, Leigh. And it’s Teresa’s job to find that cache of stolen weapons. I doubt she’d want to see what could be her star witness dead, especially since this case could lead to a promotion for her.”

  “That theory only works if Teresa isn’t Dayton’s accomplice.” Leigh silently added Jinx into that equation, too. And anyone else that had anything to do with Dayton. Leigh had no idea how long a list that would be.

  “I don’t have a good feeling about either Jinx or Teresa,” Leigh continued. “For now I’d prefer they not know where we are.”

  Gabe didn’t agree or disagree. He turned onto a paved road and sped up. “So, what exactly did you remember back there, huh?”

  Great. Just great. Of all the things they could discuss, why would he bring up that? She checked to make sure no one was following them—not that it was necessary. Leigh had hardly taken her attention away from the rearview mirror. Still, it gave her a moment to try to figure out what to say. And after a moment, she still had no clue how to answer him.

  “Was it about us?” Gabe asked.

  Leigh nodded but didn’t offer anything else. She took a deep breath when the same image flashed through her mind again. Good heavens, the man certainly had a beautiful body, or maybe she just had a good imagination. If so, then she also imagined that he had a tattoo on his right hip.

  Gabe mumbled something under his breath. “All right, if you won’t answer, I’ll fill in the blanks. We had some bad times along with the good ones. Very good ones. Yes, we argued, but with the exception of the last argument, we always made up. And yes, we loved each other enough to stand in front of a priest and take vows that we swore we’d never break.”

  She was about to say that wasn’t what she’d remembered—that it was nothing nearly as reverent as wedding vows and priests—but Gabe continued. “We had all the hopes, dreams and problems of any other couple in love. We cared for each other.” He cursed. “And yes, damn it, we even had great sex.”

  Bingo.

  He must have sensed that he’d hit upon something. Maybe it was the change in the air that suddenly crackled between them. Or maybe it was just the look on her face. For whatever reason, he gave her a considering glance.

  “Great sex,” he repeated, changing the inflection not from a comment to an assertion.

  Leigh fought it, but the image stayed with her. The image of Gabe sliding his hands over her breasts. And lower. He touched her as if he knew every inch and every place of pleasure on her body.

  He probably did.

  And that was what Leigh had to push aside. She had no doubts that they’d had great sex, but it could have no part in what was going on now. They were in danger, and she wasn’t even sure she trusted him.

  “I won’t get involved with you again,” she said as if that answered everything. Now she only hoped her body understood the statement she’d just delivered.

  “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” he asked, that Texas drawl coming through and kissing each word.

  The answer to that was easy.

  Both.

  GABE DIDN’T LIKE the silence he heard on the other end of the line. Teresa Walters hadn’t said anything for a full five seconds. He knew that’s how much time had passed because he’d counted.

  He didn’t want to count much longer.

  It wasn’t safe to hang around the Tip-Top gas station since those gunmen might still be in the area. It’d been nearly an hour and over fifty miles of back roads since he’d last seen that dark blue car, but he didn’t want to wait around for it to return.

  With the phone cradled against his shoulder, he glanced up when Leigh made her way out of the bathroom. She didn’t dawdle, and several times she checked their surroundings. Obviously, she wasn’t ready to let down her guard either.

  “What makes you think Leigh’s getting her memory back?” Teresa asked, paraphrasing what he’d told her all those seconds earlier.

  “I don’t think she’s getting it back,” Gabe assured her. He finished filling the gas tank and replaced the nozzle. He’d already paid the attendant in cash and was more than anxious to get out of there. “I know she is.”

  It was a lie. Or better yet, a test. He’d wanted to hear how Teresa would react to such news. Besides, Leigh had remembered something when they were in the truck. Just what he didn’t know, but he would bet a month’s paycheck that it was raunchy and involved sex. The look on her face had said loads about what had crossed her mind.

  “What has she remembered exactly?” Teresa went on. “Does she know where her brother is?”

  “No idea whatsoever. But she wants to find Philip as much as we do. I don’t suppose you’ve learned anything?”

  “Nothing. I’m having someone check to see if he’s with his mother in England.”

  The chances of that were slim to none. Philip disliked his mother as much as Leig
h did. That’s the last place he would have gone. Unfortunately, that didn’t narrow down their search area nearly enough.

  “How about Dayton’s accomplice?” Teresa again. “Does Leigh remember anything about that?”

  “Not yet, but I don’t think we’ll have to wait too much longer.” Leigh joined him and got back into the truck. “Her memory’s coming back pretty fast.”

  Leigh’s eyebrow arched. When he was done with the call, he’d have to explain this game of cat and mouse he was playing with Teresa. Then he’d have to remind Leigh that in the grand scheme of things, they were still the mice.

  “All right,” Teresa said as if he was about to deliver a decree, “where exactly are you now?”

  “In Texas. At a place called Ed’s Café.”

  Leigh’s eyebrow rose again, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a half smile. Maybe he wouldn’t have to explain things to her after all. It had to be fairly clear that he didn’t intend to trust Agent Walters with their whereabouts, but Leigh had said right from the start that she didn’t trust Teresa either. Gabe wasn’t as convinced as she was, but it didn’t hurt to be cautious.

  “It’s a mom-and-pop place near the I–10,” he added for Teresa’s benefit.

  Even as he told that additional lie, Gabe glanced at the sign that said Tip-Top Gas. Louisiana Hospitality was in fading red letters just below that. And the place wasn’t anywhere near the interstate.

  “See if you can find out who followed us, will you, Teresa?” Gabe asked, and he gave her the car’s license-plate numbers. The real numbers. With some luck, and if she was so inclined, she might be able to find out who was after them. It was a long shot, but Gabe had gotten lucky with long shots before.

  “Will do,” Teresa assured him. “You stay put, and I’ll have someone out to you in a couple of hours.”

  “Sounds good.” Or it sounded like a trap. If so, it’d be a trap that wasn’t anywhere near Leigh and him.

  Leigh handed him a bottle of water from the cooler when he put away his phone. “That was Teresa,” he let her know.

  “I heard.” She got some water for herself. “What will you do if it turns out that she’s the one behind this?”

  “Then I’ll deal with her.” And speaking of dealing with unpleasant things, there was something else he should have already checked. Gabe cursed himself for not handling the whole situation better. “I need to find out if you’re wearing a transmitter.”

  The bottle of water stopped halfway to her mouth. “A what?”

  “A tracking device that would allow someone to follow us. While you were in the bathroom, I checked my clothes and shoes. Now I need to check yours.”

  Alarm and maybe something else flashed through her eyes. Gabe didn’t want to hope that other flash was a result of what she’d recalled earlier.

  “I’ll check my own clothes,” she let him know. “Why don’t you go through the gym bag?”

  “It’s clean. Jinx put it together himself.” Of course, she knew that, and that’s why she’d suggested it. For whatever reason, she didn’t trust Jinx.

  “Why don’t you check it anyway?” She put her water aside and felt around the pockets of her shorts. “So, exactly what am I looking for anyway?”

  “A device about the thickness of a penny and a third the size.”

  He hadn’t meant to watch her do a clothes check, but he rather liked the idea of watching Leigh run her hands over her body. It reminded him of the times she’d done the same to him. And vice versa.

  She patted and felt around every inch of her clothes and finally shrugged. “Nothing.”

  “Hand me your shoes.”

  Gabe looked carefully at the flip-flops but saw nothing. He shook his head and handed them back to her.

  “Maybe it’s on the truck,” she suggested. “Or maybe there isn’t one at all.”

  The truck was out—Jinx would have already checked for such things, using the best equipment the Bureau had to offer. But it was possible those gunmen had just gotten lucky. Gabe, however, didn’t want to rely on that. In fact, if he’d been thinking straight, he should have done this search the night before when they were in the bayou. It might have saved them that latest run for their lives.

  He studied Leigh carefully, looking for possible hiding places. After all, there’d been a good hour where she was out of his sight when they were at the clinic. The doctor, MRI technician, Jinx and Teresa had all been with her at various times, and it was possible the doctor had been on the wrong payroll. Or maybe Teresa hadn’t wanted to take any chances with Leigh getting away from her.

  “Lean forward,” he told her. Gabe climbed onto the seat next to her and reached for the bandage on her forehead.

  “You think there’s a transmitter in my bandage?”

  “Only one way to find out.” As gently as he could, he peeled off the tape. No transmitter, but there were some angry-looking stitches and a bruise covering a good portion of the side of her forehead. It turned his stomach to see that on her. It reminded him of the monster they were up against. A monster he very much wanted to deal with when the time came.

  Gabe was actually looking forward to delivering some payback.

  “What is it?” she asked, obviously seeing his alarm.

  “Nothing.” He quickly replaced the bandage and reached for her foot.

  She gave him a puzzled glance. “So, why did you tell Teresa I’d gotten my memory back?”

  Oh, that. He’d figured Leigh would want to know about that conversation, especially since he hadn’t given her any warning about what he’d planned to say. “It wasn’t a complete lie.” As he’d done with the bandage on her forehead, he lifted back the tape and began to unwind the layers of gauze on her ankle. “Of course, I doubt you’d be willing to share with me exactly what you remembered, huh?”

  “No.”

  It wasn’t hard to see the deer-caught-in-a-headlight glaze in her eyes, and that told Gabe loads. “It was about sex,” he concluded.

  Her chin came up. “Is that all you think about?”

  Gabe saw right through her—that insolent reply wasn’t a very good smoke screen. There was a veneer barely covering the slick layer of emotions just beneath the surface. Something about that memory had shaken her.

  But what?

  And why the heck did he feel this overwhelming need to find out?

  She must have sensed that she couldn’t fool him because she glanced away. “I’m not even sure it was a memory. It could have been…something I saw in a movie.”

  He seriously doubted it. Movie memories didn’t cause people to blush, and that’s what she was doing. “Tell me about it, and I’ll let you know.”

  Leigh hesitated. And hesitated. She began to nibble on her bottom lip. “Do you have a tattoo of a longhorn on your lower right hip?”

  It probably wasn’t a good time to smile, but Gabe just couldn’t help himself. He nodded and continued to unwrap her bandage. “It’s a relic from a trip that my uncle and I took to Mexico for my eighteenth birthday. The only way you could have seen that was if I’d been naked.”

  She nodded almost begrudgingly.

  Gabe laughed before he could stop himself. “We were married, Leigh. Are married,” he corrected. “Trust me, we got naked more than a couple of times. It doesn’t surprise me that you’d remember one of them. Just please tell me I was doing something memorable and not disgusting like drooling on my pillow.”

  Her mouth quivered as if she was fighting back a smile of her own. “You definitely weren’t drooling. But I think maybe I was.”

  There was the sense of humor that he missed. God, did he miss it. It made him ache to know he’d gone so long without it. Without her.

  Her eyes lifted to his, and he saw all the things Leigh was feeling. She obviously didn’t want this heat simmering between them. Neither did he. Yet, neither of them seemed to have what it took to stop it.

  There was a moment when he thought he could talk himself out of wha
t he was about to do. That moment came and went. Then Gabe leaned in and brushed his mouth over hers. It sent a jolt through his body, and the memories of the taste of her came flooding back.

  She didn’t move away when his mouth came to hers again. Their lips touched. Barely. At first. But it didn’t stay that way. Her mouth was warm and yielding. Gabe took it before he could stop himself.

  Her scent curled around him. There were undertones of her arousal. Subtle. Yet not subtle to his own body.

  Gabe hesitated a moment to see if she would stop him. She didn’t. It was Leigh who deepened the kiss. Leigh who adjusted her position on the seat and wound her arms around him. The contact brought her right against his chest. He felt the softness of her breasts, and the hardness of her nipples, which were obviously puckered and drawn from the contact. What was left of his resolve when right out the window.

  Lowering his hand, he slipped his fingertips over her nipples and had the pleasure of hearing her moan in response. He was pretty sure he moaned as well.

  “Leigh,” he whispered against her mouth.

  She gave it right back to him. She said his name. A whisper. A plea. An invitation. He couldn’t accept it, of course, but with each passing moment, it got harder and harder for him to remember why they needed to stop.

  He heard the ringing sound in his ears, but it took Gabe a moment to realize it was his phone and not his body’s reaction to Leigh.

  Hell. He’d obviously lost his mind. He had forgotten where he was and what had happened just minutes earlier. Here he was parked in front of a gas station kissing her. For about a million reasons, he shouldn’t be doing that.

  She made a sound of frustration that he understood all too well and eased away from him. Gabe did his own easing, knowing he had to put some distance between them.

  Before he answered the call, he glanced around to make sure they were still alone. Thank God they appeared to be. The only person nearby was the attendant inside, who still had his face stuck in a magazine. Still, Gabe didn’t plan to take any more chances with her life. He hoped the look he gave Leigh assured her of that.

  He fished the phone out of the gym bag and brought it to his ear.