A Man Worth Remembering. Delores Fossen
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They ducked behind it just as the door to the laundry area flew open. Milky yellow light poured out into the darkness.
So did two armed men.
Gabe latched onto her hand and forced her to run. “Stay with me.”
Shots shattered the near silence, sounding so close that Leigh didn’t want to know just how close they were coming to Gabe and her. She lost count of how many times the guns fired, but they seemed to keep pace with her racing heartbeat.
Leigh hadn’t remembered her flip-flops or her hurt ankle until they started to sprint. Not ideal running shoes, and the stitches tore at her skin. Somehow, Gabe managed to keep her on her feet, even when they left the pavement and darted over a patch of uneven ground.
The yard, such that it was, melted into a greenbelt cluttered with stubby trees and rocks. An eight-foot-high masonry fence was just beyond that. Gabe didn’t ask if it was something she could climb—he just scaled it, dragging her like a rag doll with him.
When they reached the other side, she noticed the motorcycle. It was nestled between two scrub oaks, but not even the darkness could camouflage the chrome.
“We’re riding that?” she asked in a frantic whisper.
“Yes.” He slipped his gun back into his shoulder holster, straddled the leather seat and started the engine. “Keep your weapon handy. We just might need it before this is over.”
She nodded. Somewhere behind them, close behind, those men were probably gaining ground. Still, she took the time to eye the motorcycle. “Do you have helmets?”
“No!”
It wouldn’t do any good to point out that riding without helmets was dangerous. He’d no doubt point out that bullets and gunmen were even more deadly.
And he’d be right.
Gabe didn’t try to alleviate her fears. He merely latched onto her wrist and hauled her on the bike behind him. Within seconds, he had the motorcycle rumbling through the night and away from the gunmen.
Leigh quickly learned she had to hang on or fall off, and the easiest thing to hang on to was Gabe. While still clinging to the gun, she wrapped her arms around his waist, pressed her cheek to his back and held on. And she prayed, hoping the God of whichever religion she professed would hear her. Right now, she needed someone of a divine nature on her side.
After all, she was with a man who killed as easily as he breathed, and Leigh knew all too well that he held her life—and possibly even her heart—in his hands.
Chapter Four
Gabe had a lot of questions. And too few answers.
That did not please him.
He was reasonably sure he’d lost the hired guns. Fairly certain he could remember his way down the dirt roads that snaked around the bayou. And he was hopeful he’d managed to save their lives. For the time being anyway. However, he wasn’t at all sure what the heck was going on. Or who’d just tried to kill them.
Still, none of those things occupied his thoughts for long. It was the woman behind him that he couldn’t get off his mind. His wife.
At the clinic, Jinx had ordered him to be nice to Leigh. But that was only the tip of the flipping iceberg. They also wanted him to lie through his teeth. He was supposed to tell her everything was all right between them. That they’d had problems in the past but had worked them all out.
Yeah, right.
Between the lies and being nice, he was also supposed to get her to trust him. Just like that. He was supposed to erase all the bad feelings between them and regain her confidence. He’d have an easier time forgetting that she’d ever been his wife.
However, it didn’t matter if the task was impossible. The Justice Department expected him to give his all. Heck, he’d already done that.
And then he’d made it worse by kissing her.
That shouldn’t have happened. What the devil had he been thinking when he put his mouth on hers? That was just it—he hadn’t thought. He’d acted. Reacted. And much to his disgust, he’d even enjoyed it. He couldn’t let it happen again, not with so much at stake.
Easy to say. Hard to do.
It was especially hard since she was right behind him. She had her arms wrapped around his waist—apparently holding on for dear life. No surprise there. Leigh hated motorcycles.
Of course, she probably hated him, too.
He wouldn’t mention that to her yet. If she was faking this amnesia, then she already knew how she felt about him. If her memory loss was real, it would be a stupid time to remind her of their past.
Gabe drove nearly two hours before he stopped. Until then, he stayed on narrow dirt roads, using only the moonlight to keep him out of the ditches. When he finally found familiar ground, he pulled the motorcycle into a clutter of trees and turned off the engine.
“Any idea where we are?” Leigh asked, climbing off the seat. She massaged her backside and made a few sounds of discomfort.
He got off, too, and stretched. “Between Baton Rouge and New Orleans.” Actually, they were still very close to New Orleans, but he’d taken the most circuitous route to get there. Hopefully, that had given Jinx enough time to get a few things under control. If not, then it would be one long night.
“Are we safe here?”
Gabe glanced around at the dense brush. “Hopefully.”
“You don’t sound hopeful.”
He shrugged. “Guarantees are a rare thing in life, Leigh, but we’re a heck of lot safer here than we were back at that clinic.”
She stayed quiet a moment. “And you don’t believe those men will follow us here?”
“No.” Well, he was almost certain they wouldn’t anyway. Getting to this particular area of the bayou wasn’t easy unless a person knew the way. He knew the way. God willing, the gunmen didn’t.
“So, is this the part when you tell me what’s really going on?” she asked.
Gabe groaned. He didn’t want to play a question-and-answer game tonight. Keep her alive. Catch the bad guys. Oh yeah, and, Be nice to her. At no time had anyone said a thing about answering her questions.
“You know what’s going on,” Gabe briskly assured her. “Some gunmen came after us, and we got away.”
“There’s more to it than that. How about letting me in on who those men are and why they want to kill us?”
“That, mi vida, is the big question of the day.”
“Are you saying you don’t know who’s behind this?” She didn’t wait for him to confirm that. “That breach of security at the clinic didn’t happen by itself. And who’s to blame for that, huh? Who was in charge of guarding the place?”
Gabe spat out some profanity. “The FBI.”
Her mouth dropped open. “Your own people? Well, that’s just great.”
It didn’t exactly please Gabe either, but the breach hadn’t necessarily come from anyone in the Bureau, especially not from Jinx. It could have been an outside source. In other words, he still had nothing definite. Gabe didn’t like that. He wanted something definite.
“Come on,” he insisted. “We need to get moving.”
“On foot?”
“Well, since there’s deep mud ahead, and the motorcycle would get stuck, I don’t see any other way.” And with that, he took her gun, put it in the waist of his jeans and snagged her around the hips. Like a caveman claiming his woman, he tossed her over his shoulder.
“Hey! What the devil do you think you’re