Hidden Identity (Harlequin Intrigue)

by Alice Sharpe

  Her gaze darted around the landscape. “What do we do?”

  “Stay in the forest,” he told her.

  She nodded, but she had to be thinking the same thing he was: sooner or later they would have to leave the shelter of the trees. Then what?

  Chapter Four

  Determined not to pepper Adam with questions, Chelsea channeled her energy into gripping the Jeep’s rusty frame with both hands. Instead of questioning her own origins and identity, she concentrated on the few facts she knew. One, she was the sole survivor of a crash and a man she knew had found her. Two, someone had shot the pilot. And three, someone was now chasing after them, causing great fear in her heart, something she saw mirrored in Adam’s eyes. Except on him, the fear came across more as anger.

  She snuck a look at him, struck by his strong profile and the aura of concentration his body language communicated. Rain had flattened his bleached blond hair close to his head while drops glistened in the short beard that darkened his jaw. His gray eyes peered into the ever-increasing twilight, apparently discerning signs of trails she could barely see. But, of course, she wasn’t trying very hard to see anything. For now it was enough to trust that this man who seemed capable of anything would get them through the night in one piece. She had to face the fact that her brain wasn’t up to much work right now. All she wanted was to lay her head down and sleep for a week.

  It appeared they were traveling deeper and deeper into the forest. Every once in a while, Adam would slow down and check a compass, but as it got darker, even that ceased. At least the rain had quit; heavy, humid air filled her lungs.

  As darkness claimed the underbelly of the woods, Adam switched on headlamps but then immediately turned them off.

  “What’s wrong?” she asked.

  He laughed softly. “What’s not wrong?”

  “Why did you turn off the lights?”

  “They’re too bright. I’m not positive how close we are to the highway. No need to advertise our location.”

  “Then you think those men are still out there?” she said with a quivering voice and a strong reprimand to pull herself together.

  “Yes, I do,” he said. He veered off the semi-road they’d been traveling and followed a gully of relatively clear land back behind a grove of small trees. When he finally applied the brakes and turned off the key, the quiet and stillness tucked itself around them like a heavy blanket. For a few seconds, they sat very still, as though waiting.

  Waiting for what, she wondered. Waiting for whom?

  “Do you see any lights anywhere?” he asked her at last, his voice little more than a whisper.

  “No. I guess we aren’t that close to a highway after all.”

  “I guess not. Let’s make camp.”

  Camp meant lying down and, truthfully, that’s the only thing in the world she desired. Her body protested as she unwound herself from the front seat, aches and pains radiating to and fro, maybe the result of the crash she’d survived, maybe caused by the constant adjusting to the motion of the Jeep navigating roads that had seen much better days. Her left knee throbbed and she limped between the dark shadow of the Jeep and the darker shadow of a small tent. Adam had erected it with an apparent wave of his hand, and was now carrying rolled damp bedding, which he dumped inside. He soon handed her a flashlight and took one for himself but it was a few seconds before either one of them turned them on.

  “It’s so bright,” she mumbled.

  He turned his off.

  “Do you have any tissues anywhere? I need to find a bush.”

  He snatched a small tissue package from the pocket in the Jeep door and handed it to her. “Don’t go too far,” he cautioned, and stared down at her with a worried expression.

  “I won’t.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “No, just tired,” she replied.

  “Other than that, do you feel okay?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Where else do you hurt?”

  “My knee.”

  “No pain, you know, like inside, like internal bleeding or a ruptured something-or-other?”

  She cocked her head. “No. What exactly are you asking?”

  “You were in a terrible crash,” he said, studying her face. Then he shrugged as though dismissing his earlier concern. He switched his light back on as he retrieved an ice chest. “I’m just trying to make sure you’re not seriously hurt,” he added over his shoulder. “You’ll tell me if any new pain develops or bleeding or...anything?”

  “Who else am I going to tell?”

  “I mean it,” he said. “Tomorrow we’ll find you a doctor—”

  “Let’s take it one day at a time,” she said. With that, she walked away from him, using the flashlight in spurts to make her way until she found a big downed tree and climbed over it to the far side for privacy.

  Who exactly was Adam in relation to her? How did they know one another?

  Or did they? What proof did she have that they knew each other, that her name was Chelsea Pierce, that one word he told her was true?

  The answer was so obvious it was like a shout in a quiet room. None. No proof at all. Zero.

  Her head began throbbing anew as she tried to recall every gesture, every nuance, every word that he’d said since the moment she opened her eyes after the crash. Nothing jumped out except the kiss. That had seemed spontaneous and real, but right that moment she was no judge of character, let alone motives.

  But wait, how many times had he asked her how she felt, if she was bleeding, if she was in pain. Surely that meant concern on his part.

  But why?

  Was she being paranoid or prudent?

  Either way, she vowed to also be cautious.

  * * *

  THOUGH THERE WAS a definite chill in the air, Adam decided against building a fire. He retied the tarp over the back of the Jeep to guard against curious night critters and early morning dew, stowed the ice chest inside the tent and shouldered the rifle. As he stood in the dark waiting for Chelsea, he grew increasingly concerned. Had she gotten lost or fainted, or was it something even worse? Had she discovered blood, was she losing their baby?

  Or had someone found her, taken her, planning to use her to get to him once again...?

  “Chelsea?” he called in a soft voice that he hoped would carry.

  A light momentarily blinded him and he raised the rifle.

  “It’s just me,” Chelsea said.

  He lowered the firearm immediately. “Sorry. Everything okay?”

  “Fine.” Her voice sounded terse and tense. Well, whose wouldn’t?

  Once his vision returned, he crossed the distance between them and put an arm around her shoulder. “You’re trembling,” he said. “Why don’t you crawl into the tent and get warm.” He handed her a small electric freestanding lantern, hoping that as well as a little reassuring light, it would also emit a tiny bit of heat to ward off the chill.

  “Sure you aren’t hungry?” he asked as he followed her inside and opened the ice chest.

  “Positive.”

  He downed a bottle of water and a handful of nuts, then opened the flap. Picking up the revolver he’d rested beside the ice chest, he handed it to her. “Do you remember how to use this?”

  “Yes,” she said, “although I have no idea why.”

  “I taught you,” he told her.

  “So we know each other,” she said. “Explain that to me. Tell me who I am and who you are to me.”

  “I will, I promise, as soon as I get back from answering nature’s call. Meanwhile, keep the gun with you. When you hear someone coming, I’d appreciate you checking first to make sure who it is. If it isn’t me, go ahead and shoot.”

  “I will,” she said, her voice shaky.

  Using his flashlight until he saw the trail he wanted, he moved o
ff into the dark carrying the rifle. The forest was still and quiet and, to his relief, the dim light from inside the tent seemed to disappear behind the dense undergrowth at a surprisingly short distance. He couldn’t stay up guarding the site all night—his eyes already felt grainy and fatigue had started to gnaw on the fragile edge of usefulness. At some point he was going to have to sleep.

  The overriding question on his mind now was how much to tell Chelsea. How much could she bear to know, and when did the out-and-out truth of what they’d meant to each other become a burden she would have to shoulder alone once they separated? Every word of the current truth had marinated in a hot tub of lies—he wasn’t even sure where to begin.

  Plus, how would she handle the fact she was pregnant while running for her life? Wouldn’t the best thing to do be to find her a safe spot where she could heal and he could go on alone?

  He thought back to that moment on the ridge—he was positive the men at the cabin had caught a glimpse of him, but there was no way they could know Chelsea had escaped the helicopter before it blew. For that matter, there had been no sign of emergency or rescue response. That meadow was the closest staging area—if someone had arrived to search for the helicopter, there would have been visible evidence of it. That meant as far as everyone currently knew, Chelsea had disappeared or died in the chopper.

  He had to make that work for her and yet in his gut, he knew she was safest if she was with him.

  Oh, really, his subconscious said in a snarky voice. Is it safer for her to be with you, a hunted man, or is it just possible you can’t bear the thought of losing her again now that you’ve found her? Maybe the idea she’ll regain memories that include the fact you allowed her to grieve for you, that you left her to fend alone, maybe that’s what’s really bothering you.

  But his next thoughts spoke just as clearly. You left her once and they used her. They could easily have killed her. She’s damned with or without you.

  He called out as he approached the camp to announce himself before veering to dig maps out of the Jeep’s glove box. His first priority had to be to get them out of this forest and somewhere reasonably safe. Chelsea moved aside as he crawled into the tent. He set the rifle in front of the flap and turned in the tight space to sit down. She’d unrolled a couple of sleeping bags and had wrapped one around herself.

  “Okay,” she said. “For starters—“

  “Just a second,” he said as he grabbed the wilderness map. “Let me check something out.” He unfolded the map and did his best to locate their position. It appeared to him that the road they’d been on had emptied into the town of Black Boulder several miles before. What if they doubled back? If he were Holton’s men, he would have staked out that town yesterday afternoon and perhaps moved on to others down the line by now. Scanning the map more closely, he decided that would be their best bet. The added bonus was the place appeared big enough to support a few amenities and services. It had begun to prey on his mind that he’d lost phone connection with Whip. The old guy might have been an Arizona cop for years but he was also a consummate worrier.

  Adam looked over more of the map, half plotting a route east, when he recognized the town of Spur located less than twenty miles from Black Boulder right over the state line in Nevada. With a twinge of hope, he wondered if another of his dad’s longtime friends still lived there. Doc Fisher could be a lot of help if he’d maintained his Nevada address.

  “Are you stalling?” Chelsea asked.

  He looked up from the map to find her knees bent, arms wrapped around her legs, eyes piercing. In a few weeks, a pregnant belly would prevent that position.

  “A little bit.”

  “Start by telling me who I am.”

  He folded the map and set it aside. Her dark hair glimmered in the dim light as she peered at him. Who was she? The love of his life; the mother of his baby; the woman he would take a bullet for. That’s who she was, at least to him.

  He started with the basics. “Your name is Chelsea Ann Pierce and you’re twenty-six years old. You live in San Francisco, where you run a food truck that mostly caters to business clients. You’re a fantastic chef, which makes sense since you graduated from culinary school just a couple of years ago. Your parents’ names are Troy and Helen. They live north of the city in a tiny coastal town called Bodega Bay, where they run a seaside tavern. You have three sisters and two brothers. Everyone lives in Northern California except your oldest sibling, Bill, and he lives in Nevada on a few dozen acres of sand with his wife, Jan, and enough guns to overtake a third-world nation.”

  “Who are you and how did we meet?”

  “My name is Adam Parish. I work construction.” That had been true when he met her and since he was still on the fence about how much to share, he left it at that. “One day, you and your truck rolled up to the building site I was working on. You made me the best pastrami sandwich this side of New York. As you were leaving, your truck rolled over a few nails. I changed the resulting flat and our friendship was born.”

  “Based on deli meat and tires?” she asked.

  “And pickles. We both love dill pickles.”

  His joke didn’t even elicit a smile. Come to think of it, she’d been a little standoffish since she’d returned from the woods.

  “Have you always worked construction?” she asked.

  “Not always.”

  “What else did you do?”

  “I was a cop for a while,” he told her truthfully. “When that fell apart, I became a bodyguard.”

  “And then you decided to build things.”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm, so to be clear—there’s nothing between us except friendship?” she said.

  “Well—”

  “That’s a pregnant ‘well,’” she interrupted. “We were more?”

  “In ways,” he said, unwilling to trot out their romance and getting wound up in details that would no doubt make her furious.

  “Then why was I flying in a helicopter to see you? I take it you were expecting me?”

  “No, as a matter of fact, I wasn’t, especially in that company.”

  “You mean with someone who wanted to hurt you.”

  “That’s what I mean.”

  “Why did he want to hurt you?”

  This was the tricky part. Stick to the truth, he admonished himself. “I testified against a guy who hurt a lot of innocent people. He’s in jail but he swore revenge. Thanks to the witness protection program, I’ve been hiding out. Now it appears he hired the bad guys to catch up with me.”

  “I know about that program,” she said. “How could anyone have found you?”

  “Someone must have ratted me out,” Adam said. Someone like Ron Ballard, his supposed liaison in the program.

  “So that’s why you bleached your hair?”

  “How did you know—?”

  “It’s pretty obvious, Adam. Is that why you also keep a week-old beard on your face?”

  He nodded.

  “And the glasses you sometimes wear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hmm—” She studied him for a second, then added, “Okay, so cutting to the chase, what do I have to do with all this?”

  “Well, like you said, you were traveling to the cabin to visit me. By then I’d left the Bay area. They must have gotten wind you were coming, which meant you knew where I was, and they tricked or forced you into taking them along.”

  “That kind of makes me an idiot, doesn’t it?” she asked.

  He was just about at the point of throwing his arms around her and kissing her into silence, and would have done so willingly if there was a chance in hell she’d let him. He even had a picture in his wallet, so close it burned his backside, but he couldn’t show it to her—he’d ruined being able to do that the moment he told her he was Adam and not Steven.

  “No, it ma
kes you a victim of this creep and I’m really sorry about that,” he said. “You didn’t know about this guy because I never told you. I never warned you. I wish I had. I just thought you were safer not knowing any of the...details.”

  “You and I weren’t really close friends, then?”

  “It’s kind of more complicated than that,” he said.

  She sighed. “Really?”

  “Isn’t it always?”

  “I don’t know, I don’t remember,” she said, sighing. “All this aside, it sounds as though this isn’t my fight.”

  “You’re just caught in the middle of it.”

  She stared at him a moment and bit her bottom lip. “Are my parents the kind of people who would take care of me while I got my memory back?”

  “If they were here, sure.”

  “I think I should go home.”

  “How?”

  “I’ll take a bus.”

  “Not without first seeing a doctor,” he said firmly and knew the second the words left his mouth it had been the wrong thing to say.

  “Tell me you are not issuing ultimatums,” she said.

  “I—”

  “Because that is totally unacceptable. I’m a grown woman.”

  “I know,” he said, “but it’s not that simple.”

  “Is everything complicated to you?”

  “Living is complicated, Chelsea.” He didn’t want to terrify her but the thought of sending her off on a bus made his blood run cold. “Without me to protect you—”

  “I’ll be fine,” she said.

  “Someone could come after you again. They’d figure you know where I was going next.”

  “But I won’t know.”

  “I don’t think your word will carry a lot of weight.”

  “Maybe not, but that’s my decision.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” he said, irritated now. “How are you and your peace-loving parents going to fight off killers like Devin Holton’s merry band of misfits and thugs?”

  “Who’s Devin Holton?”

  He clamped his mouth shut. He hadn’t intended on giving her a name she could repeat at a time when it could cost her dearly. “You’ve been acting kind of strange since we made camp,” he said gently. “What happened?”