Chapter Three
Shelly could smell bacon. Eggs. She paused outside of her bedroom, her body tensing even as the tempting aromas filled her nose.
She’d always been such a bacon addict. Her bare feet inched forward.
She’d showered and dressed, putting on jeans and an oversized, green sweater.
She’d wondered if her mystery guy would still be in the cabin.
She’d crept out of her room, but then stopped cold when she realized that yes, he was there.
A quick beat of rock music had her hurrying down the stairs. She knew that music. It was actually a ring tone that she’d reserved for Blane. Her phone was on the table near her repaired door, and she quickly scooped it up. “Blane?”
“Shelly!” A bit of static crackled on the line. “Shelly, there’s something you need to know…”
Sunlight peeked through her curtains, faint rays because dawn had just arrived.
“Your hero from last night?” Blane continued grimly. “The guy disappeared.”
She heard a clatter in the kitchen. She inched toward the sound. Saw her mystery man. Her hero. He was only wearing his jeans. He turned toward her, and a quick smile lit his face.
Her heart immediately jumped into a double-time rhythm.
“I’ve had men searching for him all night. The guy leapt out of the ambulance, and he ran into the woods.” Blane’s words were gruff, tired. Because he’s been up all night. “With his injuries, the poor fellow is probably dead out there.”
“I thought he was dead before…”
“No, probably was just near death. That’s what the EMTs figure. He woke up, confused, disoriented, and he fled. God, I wish we could have found the bastard.”
The bastard in question put bacon and a pile of eggs onto one of the plates that he’d already set on her kitchen table. Two plates. One for him. One for her.
“I ran his prints—they were all over the inside of that stolen truck. And you aren’t going to believe this…Shit, I know it’s probably a mistake but—”
She turned away from her mystery man, hunching her shoulders. “You know his name.” Excitement made her voice too sharp.
Behind her, well, there was just dead silence.
If he could hear through walls, if he could hear whispers from a hundred yards away, she figured her stranger could overhear every word of her conversation with Blane.
“The prints matched up to a John Smith.”
John Smith? For real? That sounded like a fake name to her. An obviously fake name.
“He was a decorated Army Ranger. Served two tours before he went into the private sector. According to what I could gather, the man was a serious bad ass.”
She slanted a glance over her shoulder. The bad ass in her kitchen had frozen. His gaze was locked on her.
“But he died,” Blane added grimly. “He was stabbed by an unknown assailant. The guy was working some kind of private security gig in Miami. Things went south, and he wound up dead in an alley.”
A chill skated over her skin. The chill came both from the fact that Blane had said that John Smith was a dead man and from the fact that the guy had died in Miami. She lived in Miami. The city was her home base.
“I’ll keep the search crews looking for him.” Blane exhaled on a long sigh. “We’ll find the guy’s body, bring him in. Figure out who the hell he really is because there must have been some mix-up with the prints in that truck.”
She didn’t think there had been a mix-up. And she didn’t want Blane to continue searching needlessly. Why waste that time and manpower when the missing guy was right in front of her? “Blane, he’s—”
Right in front of me. The stranger—John?—had moved with that super speed of his, and he was literally right in front of her. And his hand—his hand was over her mouth.
He leaned in toward her, and his lips brushed over her ear as he said, “Don’t tell him I’m here.” His voice was so low. Barely a breath against her left ear.
She shivered.
“Shelly?” Blane blasted. The phone was still at her right ear. “Everything okay? I don’t have the best connection with you.”
No, calls in the mountains were always terrible. John’s hand slid away from her mouth.
John. I can start calling him John. She licked her lips. “I’m okay.”
“I’ll call you later, all right? Got some men waiting on me.” And then he was gone. Blane had ended the call before she could say anything else.
John took the phone from her. He put it on the counter. He stared at her with his incredible eyes. “I’m not going to hurt you.”
Her chin notched up. “Why are you saying that?”
“Because you looked scared as hell of me, and I’m trying to reassure you.”
Her gaze slid over his body. Over the faint scar marks. “Being in the military would fit. I mean, it would fit with your scars. Some of them look like bullet wounds. Maybe even…knife slices?” Her gaze rose and she found that his stare was still on her. “And your hair looks like a military cut.”
“I like it short,” he muttered. “Your…friend…the sheriff thinks I’m John Smith.”
“He thinks there was a mix-up with the fingerprints. John Smith is a dead man.”
Now he laughed. The sound was rusty, but deep.
Sexy. “That’s the truth.” He turned away from her, his broad back moving away as he motioned toward the table.
“Since you gave me a place to stay, I figured the least I could do was make breakfast. I know how much you like bacon, so when I found a pack in the fridge, I went ahead and prepared it all. I also put extra milk in your coffee, because you like—”
“How do you know that?” She was rooted to the spot.
His hand lowered and his fingers curled around the back of a nearby chair.
“You said you only remembered me.” It was an effort to keep her voice at a semi-calm level. “And I’m trying to follow along, I swear, I am. But how do you know I like bacon? That I put extra milk in my coffee, that—”
“That you have a half-moon birth mark on your right hip?” He looked back at her. “That you like to read every single night before you go to bed? That you curl up with a patchwork quilt in a condo that overlooks the Miami beach, and you read until you fall asleep?”
Her heart seemed to have stopped beating.
“I don’t know.” He shook his head. “I wish like hell that I did. I know all the details about your life, but not a damn thing about my own.”
She should probably run from him. Race away as fast as she could.
Not that she’d be faster than him. John…
he really wasn’t like other men. And pretending all of this stuff wasn’t real, that it was just some crazy dream—well, that wasn’t going to work.
So she took a step toward him. Then another.
And her hand reached out to touch his arm.
Still so warm, warmer than her own skin. “You’re John Smith.”
His gaze was fixed on her.
“We have a name. That’s something to work with.
We can use the computer in the den. I mean, come on, it’s the social media age.
There has to be a picture out there. We can look at the picture and compare it to you.
John Smith, in Miami.” Okay, sure, John Smith was way too common of a name, but it was a starting point.
She squeezed his arm. “You were in the military. A Ranger. You were one of the good guys.”
“Are you sure I’m good?”
She forced herself to smile at him. “You’d better be. Or else I’m in some serious trouble.”
He didn’t smile back at her. Instead, he turned his body toward her, and the hand that had been gripping the back of the chair rose. His knuckles trailed over her cheek. “I can remember everything about you,” he rasped. “Except…”
“Except what?”
His gaze fell to her mouth. “I don’t remember how you taste.”
Her stomach clenched. “That’s because we’ve never kissed.” They’d never met. Right?
“I know what you look like when you’re barely dressed. When you’re walking on a beach wearing a blue bikini and driving me insane.”
Over the spring and summer, she’d worn her blue bikini plenty of times in Miami. Perhaps he’d seen her. Maybe they’d even met on the beach. Chatted in one of those quick, hello talks that people had. Could it be as simple as that? No, no, that wouldn’t explain how he knew about her coffee or her—
“I’d like to taste you, Shelly.”
OhmyGod. “John, no.” But somewhere inside of her, a little voice whispered, Yes, please.
She saw his pupils expand and she knew he’d just read her mind. “I told you to stay out.” The words burst from her.
He gave a jerky nod. “Breakfast is getting cold.”
He backed away from her. Her knees had locked.
He pulled out the chair, holding it for her.
She was still not moving. And she was still thinking about the fact that, dammit, yes, she did want to know what he tasted like, too.
Because there was an awareness between them, a stark desire that she’d never felt before. Primitive. Basic.
So hot that her skin felt singed.
Shelly sat down. He pushed her chair forward and his fingers lingered on her shoulder. “When you’re ready for my mouth, tell me.” He walked around the table. Sat across from her. Stared at Shelly with glittering eyes. “Because, baby, I’ve been ready for you a very, very long time.”
She didn’t speak. Mostly because Shelly didn’t know what to say. She grabbed the bacon. She grabbed the eggs. She used her mouth to eat. And she tried not to think about just all the things that John Smith would be able to do to her…with his mouth.
***
He had a name. John Smith.
John.
“That’s you.” Shelly’s fingertips were poised over the keyboard. They were in the den, with its tall, sweeping ceiling and the walls made of gleaming wood. She glanced over her shoulder, her gaze worried as it landed on him. “That’s definitely you in the picture.”
They’d pulled up an obituary for John Smith of Miami. A short and simple piece that stated the thirty-three-year-old former Army Ranger had been killed in an unsolved attack. The picture of him—well, the picture appeared to be a few years old, but Shelly was right.
It sure as hell was him.