A Man Worth Remembering

by Delores Fossen

  “Gabe, this is ridiculous. What do—”

  “Damn it, what did she say?”

  She pulled back her shoulders. “About what?” Her voice rose to his level.

  “You know about what. Now quit playing games with me. What the hell did Teresa say about the baby?”

  LEIGH FELT as if he’d slapped her. The breath swooshed of her mouth. “Baby?” she managed to say. “What baby?”

  But Gabe didn’t answer. “Stop the car,” he ordered Jinx.

  Jinx glanced back at them. “Do I need to remind you that you’re not out of danger?”

  “Just stop the car, damn it! I need to talk to Leigh.”

  Jinx added some profanity of his own while he pulled onto the shoulder of the road. The moment he stopped, Gabe threw open the door, obviously ready to get out.

  “Stay put,” Jinx insisted. “But try not to take too long with this little heart-to-heart, will you? It’s not a good idea to hang around here.”

  “What baby?” Leigh repeated the moment Jinx stepped outside and shut the door.

  Gabe stared at her a long time before he answered. “Our baby.”

  She was absolutely certain she’d misunderstood him. That’s why Leigh repeated those two words to herself. Our baby. Our baby.

  “What are you talking about, Gabe?” But she was almost afraid to hear what he had to say. “We have a baby?”

  “No.” Gabe cursed softly and looked away. “You thought you were pregnant, but it was a false alarm.”

  She almost asked for an explanation, but Leigh didn’t need him to tell her. Images began to race through her head. Images of her standing in the middle of a room in a hospital gown, of her arm bandaged in a sling. Words followed those out-of-focus images. Words that wouldn’t have made sense if Gabe hadn’t just told her that she’d once thought she was pregnant.

  “You shouldn’t be out of bed,” Gabe had said to her.

  Leigh had just stared at him, her eyes filled not with tears but with anger. “I heard what you said to Jinx. I heard every word. You didn’t want me to have a baby.”

  “I just wasn’t expecting this. I thought—”

  But Leigh had cut him off and moved into the hallway outside the room. “I know what you thought. Well, don’t worry, Gabe, you got your wish. There isn’t a baby. The doctors did a test, and the results were negative.”

  “My God, I remember.” Leigh leaned her head against the window.

  Almost afraid of what she’d see, she glanced at Gabe. He looked at if he’d just had a knife plunged into his heart. “How much do you remember?”

  She wasn’t even sure she could say it aloud. She took a deep breath. “The conversation we had in the hospital. You must have just found out that I wasn’t pregnant.”

  “You were very upset,” he said as if that explained everything. Gabe didn’t even look at her. He stared out the other window. “We were upset,” he added a moment later.

  Leigh waited for him to continue—mainly because she didn’t have a clue what to say. Or do. This had obviously been a miserable time in their lives. The lowest of low points. Even now, it hurt just to recall those memories.

  Gabe pushed his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know that you suspected you were pregnant until the day before Dayton tried to kill you. You told Jinx, and then he told me.”

  She fired a glance at the man standing outside the car, but he had his attention focused on their surroundings. “Jinx?” she repeated. “Why would I tell him something like that before I let you know?”

  “He’s our friend, Leigh. I guess you thought you could talk to him about it. You asked him to keep it a secret. But he didn’t. He came to me because he thought it was something I should know.”

  So, Jinx had betrayed her. Well, in a way. She hoped that was the only reason she had the feeling she couldn’t trust the man.

  “You overheard Jinx telling me,” Gabe continued a moment later. “I didn’t take the news well.”

  No, he hadn’t. And just like the other images and past conversations, Leigh suddenly remembered that, too. “‘I can’t believe this,’” she repeated. “That’s what you said to Jinx. ‘I can’t believe she’d do this knowing I’m not ready to be a father.’”

  Gabe slowly brought his gaze back to her. “I did say that, yes.”

  “And then it turned out I wasn’t pregnant after all.” Leigh shuddered. There was one advantage to having amnesia. She was able to see the incident through eyes not clouded with so much emotion. Unlike Gabe. One look at his face and she knew he was experiencing an even greater pain than she was.

  “Earlier, you said we’d agreed not to have children?” she asked.

  “We’d agreed to disagree.”

  Oh. Leigh hadn’t considered that angle. “And we had agreed to wait,” she concluded. “Any particular reason, or do you just not like kids?”

  “I like kids. A lot. It’s just I’ve seen enough crime scenes and enough dead bodies to know just how fast life can end.”

  There was more to it than that. During their entire ordeal of running from gunmen and nearly getting killed, Gabe had shown absolutely no signs of weakness. But he was showing it now. Leigh figured she was getting a glimpse of a vulnerable side of Agent Gabe Sanchez that few people ever saw. It intrigued her. And made her ache.

  “When I was eight, someone kidnapped my sister, Emily,” he said softly.

  “The one in the picture at your parents’ house?”

  Gabe nodded. “She was only eleven, and we were on our bikes less than a half mile from our house. A car pulled up next to us, and a man reached out and grabbed her.” He snapped his fingers. “Just like that, she was gone.”

  Leigh barely managed to muffle her gasp. “My God. What happened to her?”

  He kept his attention focused outside. “They found her body a week later in a dry creek bed. What they didn’t find was the man who killed her. Every time you’d talk about wanting a child, all I could think about was losing someone I loved to a monster.”

  “I see.”

  And she did. From Gabe’s point of view, having a baby would be like playing a game with stakes that were too high. There were tears in her eyes now, but Leigh hadn’t been aware of them until she felt one spill down her cheek.

  “I’m sorry about your sister. About Emily. And I understand why you didn’t want to risk having a child of your own.” She paused to collect her breath. “It’s my guess that our disagreement about the pregnancy got all mixed together with what happened with Dayton. The truth is, I was probably as shocked about the possibility of being pregnant as you were. I’d just had a little more time to adjust to it than you had.”

  He looked at her then, his gaze combing over her face. “Is that what you remember?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t have to remember the incident to know that I probably didn’t give you a fair shake because of all the mental junk I was going through.”

  For a while they said nothing else. He just looked at her, and Leigh just looked at him. In his eyes, she saw the swirl of emotions that had brought them to this point.

  “I’m sorry,” she let him know.

  Surprised, he glanced at her. “Why are you sorry?”

  “For the way everything turned out.” She shook her head. “I don’t even know if I’m the same person I was two years ago, but I suspect you haven’t changed much.”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve changed a lot.”

  And not necessarily for the better. She was responsible for that. She’d let the anger and bitterness drive her away from him. It didn’t feel good to know that she’d been a quitter at one of the most important things in her entire life.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say,” she continued, “is that the things that brought us together five years ago are still there in full working order. The feelings. The connection. The people we are when we’re together.”

  Gabe didn’t say a word. He just stared at her.

  She tried
again. “I’m sorry about the argument, Gabe. Sorry that I left without trying to work things out with you. Sorry that I threw away what was no doubt a good thing. And I’m especially sorry that it took me all this time to figure out that I was wrong.”

  Leigh held her breath, and waited. She didn’t have to wait long.

  Gabe reached out and pulled her into his arms. Not for a kiss. Or even a hug. He just held her. And that was exactly what she needed from him.

  Chapter Fourteen

  There wasn’t a car in the driveway in front of Philip’s house, but there was a huge Doberman sitting on the porch. The dog looked pretty territorial, and since they were about to invade its territory, Gabe hoped it didn’t object too much.

  “This might be just a weird case of nerves,” Leigh said, staring at the porch as well. “But I don’t think I like the idea of that dog being there.”

  “It’s not a weird case of nerves,” he assured her. “Not exactly anyway. You had a bad experience a couple of years ago. Some Dobermans came after you when you went to a house to interview a witness. You weren’t hurt, but it scared you pretty bad.”

  “So, that explains why my heart feels ready to pound out of my chest. My body obviously remembers a lot of things my mind doesn’t.”

  Gabe read a lot into that statement. Maybe too much. But it seemed pretty evident that Leigh still responded to him at least on a physical level. After the air-clearing they’d had in the car, he thought maybe she might start to respond beyond just the physical.

  He wasn’t sure how to feel about that. It was a lot to absorb, especially with everything else going on. He’d have to take it minute by minute and see how things progressed.

  “We’ll have to get past that dog to get inside, I suppose?” she asked.

  Oh, yeah. And Gabe didn’t think the fellow planned to move anytime soon. He wasn’t barking. Yet. But he appeared to be growling. In other words, he was a watchdog, something he was glad Philip had. It might discourage anyone else from trying to get inside. Unfortunately, that left Gabe with one small problem—he had to find some way to get around the dog so they could get in. He didn’t want to sit out in the open waiting for Philip to get home.

  He parked the car behind an old barn. It was just a precaution, but he didn’t want anyone to know they were there.

  “I could carry you in,” Gabe suggested when he saw Leigh still eyeing the dog.

  “No, I can walk.” But she thought about it first. And she latched onto her gun when they got out of the car.

  Immediately, the dog shot to his feet. His posture was ready for combat, his teeth bared. A whisper-soft, feral growl rumbled from his throat. That put a dent in Leigh’s resolve because she darted behind him. Gabe almost laughed. Here, she’d faced down gunman without so much as a whimper, and yet the dog terrified her.

  “He’ll probably be friendly once he realizes we’re not burglars,” he remarked as they walked up the steps.

  As if to prove Gabe wrong, the dog chose that exact moment to growl. It was more of a perfunctory grumble, but it was enough to send Leigh crashing into him again. “It’ll be all right,” he murmured to both the dog and Leigh.

  He cautiously offered the dog the back of his hand, but the canine didn’t move from his position. Not right away. A few moments later, he stooped lower.

  “Sit,” Gabe firmly told the animal.

  Thank God he listened. Within seconds, the canine’s jaw relaxed, and he began thumping his tail on the porch.

  “See?” Gabe said. “He’s friendly.”

  From the grip Leigh still had on his arm, she probably didn’t believe that. “So, how do we get inside? And please don’t tell me we have to wait out here until Philip gets home.”

  He fished into his pocket and brought out the key. “This was under the mat in your rental car, the one with your fingerprints on it.”

  “And you think it’ll fit this lock?”

  “Only one way to find out.” Gabe slipped the key into the lock and with one turn it opened. “Well, I guess you’ve been here before. Anything look familiar?”

  She stepped inside, her gaze darting around the dark room. “Not so far. Can we turn on the lights?”

  “We’d best not.” Instead, Gabe switched on the small flashlight attached to Jinx’s key ring. It didn’t help much, but he didn’t want someone seeing the light and getting suspicious.

  The place was small, the living room and kitchen bleeding together into one rectangular room. There was a hallway that Gabe soon learned led to two bedrooms. He quickly checked them out and found them unoccupied.

  He breathed a little easier when he saw there was no sign of struggle. No sign to indicate that anything was wrong. Hopefully, that meant Philip was safe.

  “Anything?” she asked when he came back into the living room.

  Gabe shook his head. In this case, no news might be good news.

  He picked up a piece of paper from the small table near the door. “‘Jenny, I might be late,’” Gabe read aloud. “‘I’ve got errands to do after I get off from work. Might not see you until breakfast. There are leftovers if you’re hungry. Philip.’”

  “So, we’re alone?” Leigh asked.

  “Seems that way.”

  He heard her pull in her breath. She put her gun aside on the table, shoved her hands in the pockets of her shorts and walked around the living room. He followed her gaze to every piece of furniture, to every knickknack. If she recognized anything, it didn’t show in her eyes.

  “There are no pictures,” she mumbled.

  No. Gabe had looked for that when he searched the place. Maybe Philip hadn’t wanted to add personal touches because they’d been in hiding.

  “I didn’t see any women’s clothes in the closets either,” Gabe explained. He slipped his gun back into the slide holster on his jeans. “So, I guess it’s safe to say you didn’t live here.”

  She ran her fingertips over the back of the sofa while she continued to walk around the room. “Maybe Philip can tell me where I do live. If he knows, that is. Maybe I kept it from him, too.”

  Gabe doubted that. The fact she had a key to the house meant she’d been in contact with her brother.

  She groaned softly. “It seems so strange standing here, knowing I should recognize something. Anything. But I don’t. With the exception of the few things I’ve recalled, the only past I know is the one I’ve made with you these last two days.”

  And with that, Leigh’s gaze skimmed over him.

  Something in the air changed. Not the smell of fear and danger that he’d practically grown accustomed to. No. This was a different sensation. A tangle of heat that could only happen between a man and a woman who’d been intimate in just about every way possible.

  Gabe didn’t even try to talk himself out of the step he took toward her. He reached out. And touched her cheek. Her eyelids fluttered down, and she moved into his touch, letting her lips brush against his fingers.

  He could have just gone with the heat. He could have just taken the moment and pushed it until they ended up in bed. Or on the floor. But he wanted to give her more than some flash that was over before they knew what had hit them.

  “We have other memories,” he said to her. Gabe inched closer, careful to keep a fraction of space between their bodies. That was for his sake, not hers. If she touched him, what control he had left would go straight out the window. “Memories of the first time we kissed.”

  “Tell me,” she whispered.

  “It was in the French Quarter. I’d taken you out to do the tourist thing. A date,” he added. “I kissed you in the doorway of one of those voodoo parlors. Well, maybe it was more than just one kiss. After about ten or fifteen minutes, the owner said we should get a room.”

  She smiled, as he’d hoped she would.

  “And the first time we made love—that’s a memory, too,” he continued. In fact, as memories went, that one was as good as it got. “It was on the back porch at my aunt Martha’s
house near Corpus Christi. A place not much different from this one.” His gaze slid around the room before resettling on her. “And we were alone, the only two people for miles around.”

  “Like now.”

  “Like now,” he confirmed. “Aunt Martha had put an old bed on that screened porch. I used to like to sleep there when I’d visit her. The place had a tin roof, and it was raining. Not loud, just a summer drizzle, but it made enough noise to blend right in with the sounds of that old bed. The springs were rusty and creaked a little each time we moved.”

  “Were the sheets white?” Leigh asked.

  “I think so. Do you remember that?”

  “Maybe.” She shrugged, causing her breasts to brush against his chest. “Or maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

  Now it was his turn to smile. “My attention wasn’t on the color of the sheets. It was on you, Leigh. Completely on you.”

  “White sheets,” she repeated. “An old bed on a porch. Summer rain. Yes. I think I do remember that.”

  With that wistful look on her face, Gabe couldn’t resist tasting her. He touched his mouth to hers.

  “The place smelled like fresh peaches,” Gabe’s drawl brushed over the words. “So did we. We’d been picking them right before the rain started. Our clothes were wet by the time we made a run to the porch.”

  He might have said more, might have continued the seductive game they were playing if she hadn’t caught onto his shoulders. That was all the encouragement he needed to put an end to the talking. He took her mouth instead.

  Gabe latched onto a handful of her hair and brought her to him. The kiss was filled with all the fire and heat that had been simmering between them for days.

  “This time, I’m not stopping,” she mumbled. “I don’t care what I remember.”

  That invitation was just what he wanted to hear. The sound he heard after that, however, wasn’t.

  Gabe cursed. “Someone’s coming,” he let Leigh know.

  Outside, the dog started to bark.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Leigh and Gabe unwound themselves from each other immediately and hurried to the window. A bright red compact car stopped directly in front of the house. They barely had time to grab their weapons before she heard someone walking up the steps to the porch.