LITMIR.BIZ

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say you did a pretty good job.” He plucked at the hospital gown barely covering his thighs. “You didn’t know they’d have me stripped and defenseless.”

      She snorted. “If they thought taking your clothing was enough to render you defenseless, they don’t know Asher Knight like I know Asher Knight.”

      Tilting his head back and forth, he loosened the knots in his neck for probably the first time since he’d regained consciousness. Somebody knew him, and that deep pit of abandonment in his gut ached a little less.

      He heaved out a sigh.

      “Underwear, T-shirt, socks, jeans, long-sleeved shirt, boots and a jacket. Do I need to write that down?”

      “You’re the one with the memory problems, not me.” She poked him in the side and grinned. “Like I said, I even know all your sizes. You stay slumped down in the seat while I go inside. I’m going to have to use my credit card though. I want to save the cash I have for later. Do you think the army is going to track me down through my credit card?”

      He pointed out the window to the turnoff for the resort. “Very real possibility, but there’s not much we can do about it. I have no money. No cash. No cards. No memory. No life.”

      She veered right onto the ramp and swiveled her head in his direction. “That escalated quickly. Are you okay? I mean other than the obvious?”

      “Just a little brush with self-pity.” He smacked the side of his face with his palm. “I’ve recovered now.”

      “You’ve shown zero self-pity. I think you’re allowed a second or two.”

      “We need to come up with a way to get our hands on some cash. Maybe my old man stashed some away for a rainy day.”

      “Actually—” she slid him a sideways glance “—the feds thought he had, but he never copped to it.”

      “If he ever told me about it, I would’ve forgotten that along with everything else.” He rubbed the goose bumps on his arms. The temperature had been steadily dropping outside and the heater inside hadn’t kept pace with it.

      Paige cranked it up higher. “We’re not going to wait to find piles of cash somewhere while you freeze to death with no clothes.”

      The car bounced as she drove into a large parking lot for the ski resort. “We’ll get you dressed and then maybe just get out of here. You don’t really think it’s the US Army that’s after you, do you?”

      “At first I took everything the army told me at face value. In Germany, my physical wounds were treated and everything seemed okay, except for the fact that my Delta Force unit wanted nothing to do with me because of my allegations against Major Denver. It’s when they started messing with my mind and then sent me to that so-called rehabilitation center that things started rubbing me the wrong way.”

      “Let’s put that on hold for now.” She hunched over the steering wheel and peered through the windshield. “I see a clothing store on the periphery of the shops. Start scrunching down or it’s back in the trunk with you.”

      He pushed the seat all the way back and slid down. “Go for it. This hospital gown is getting old...and baby blue is not my color.”

      She swung into a parking space. “Look at you, making jokes. You must be on the mend—and you look good in any color...or nothing at all.”

      Before he could think of a comeback, she slammed her door and the car shook.

      How were they going to go anywhere under the radar if the army really was tracking Paige through her credit card? He didn’t even know if he had any money. Let alone how to access it. His doctors had told him he was from Las Vegas. He must’ve met Paige there. Had he known her for a long time?

      Even if he had money, they were about as far from Vegas as they could get.

      He closed his eyes, although his instincts told him to keep watch. The orderlies in the van couldn’t have gotten out of that mess fast enough to determine he and Paige would head for this ski resort and then give chase.

      They might’ve sent word back to Hidden Hills and sent someone else up here to look for them though. He and Paige had made it easy for them, but the doctors at Hidden Hills had made it hard for him. Where else was he supposed to get clothes?

      One thing he did know was they couldn’t use Paige’s credit card to check into some lodge or hotel here. They’d be sitting ducks.

      A shadow passed over the car, and Asher’s eyelids flew open. He inched his head up and pinned his gaze to the rearview mirror. A figure moved behind the car.

      Asher ducked his head, clenching his fists, holding them at the ready. They were the only weapons he had and wouldn’t be very effective against a gun—not that his jailers at Hidden Hills could get away with murdering him in a parking lot. Could they?

      In the silence of the car as he waited, his heart hammered in his ears. The rush of adrenaline ebbed and flowed in his body and he fought off the dizziness it caused.

      If the guy had spotted him in the car, why hadn’t he made a move? Asher scooted up in his seat and looked in the rearview mirror first. The man had moved on—probably just someone making his way through the parking lot.

      Asher sat up straighter and his gaze swept the lot. A shuttle bus waited at the curb at the base of the broad steps that led to the shops and ultimately the ski lifts. A few people were milling around the steps. When the shuttle pulled away, two women and a solo man were left behind.

      The women seemed to be conferring about something over their phones, but the man watched...and waited.

      Asher kept his eye on him as the man’s head swiveled from the parking lot to the shops. Was he waiting for his wife?

      He could be the man who’d passed by Paige’s car. Asher didn’t see any other single men in the parking lot and not another man in red plaid.

      Asher locked on to him, studying his every move. When Paige appeared at the top of the steps laden down with shopping bags, Asher sat up, every sense on high alert.

      The stranger seemed to come to attention, too. He turned his back to the parking lot to watch Paige’s descent, his hands shoved in his jacket pockets.

      With his fingertips buzzing, Asher clicked open the car door. His first step on the cold asphalt with his bare foot sent a shock through his system, but it only served to jolt him into action.

      He left the car unlocked and then weaved through the parked vehicles, ducking and crouching in case the man decided to peel his eyes from Paige.

      As she hit the last step, her vision and movement hampered by the bags swinging from her arms and clutched to her chest, the stranger made his move.

      He reached his arm out to Paige as if in assistance...but Asher knew better. He shot forward, shouting and waving his arms.

      “I’m here. I’m here. I’m the one you want.”

       Chapter Five

      Paige had been moving away from the man and now she turned her face toward Asher barreling down on both of them. Her mouth dropped open and she stumbled to the side, away from the stranger and his outstretched hand, the rest of his body twisted in Asher’s direction.

      His right hand still out of his pocket, the man swiveled around to face Asher. He swayed to his left and in a split second Asher took advantage of his imbalance.

      He charged the man, his hospital gown flapping around him, and shouted. “Run, Paige!”

      With a few feet between him and the stranger, Asher made a flying tackle at him that would’ve made his friend Cam the football player proud. Before the man could reach into his pocket for whatever weapon he had, Asher drove his shoulder into the guy’s

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