Assumed Identity

chapter Nine



Jake was screwed. He’d exchanged his stark downtown haunts where he knew every alley and fire escape, every place trouble could hide, for the domestic mousetrap of Robin’s rambling brick farmhouse on the outskirts of the city.

The twentieth-century home had more doors and windows than one man could watch at any one time. They’d been updated with new locks, but there were a detached garage, a barn and a gardening shed he’d need to keep an eye on, too. Plus, sight lines didn’t allow him much of a heads-up to anyone approaching the house on foot. While Robin didn’t run the place as a working farm, there were still rolling grass hills between the house and the highway, as well as a forest of native pines and deciduous trees running along her property to the south and east.

Despite its remote location away from the incidents around her downtown shop, her home would be a nightmare for one man to defend, even if he were at the top of his game. Jake was far too distracted tonight to be at the top of anything.

First, there was the house. Even at night, its tree-lined drive appealed to his need for isolation in a much prettier way than the lumpy sofa bed, thrift-shop table and tight space of his apartment did. Then there was the food. Robin had claimed she could cook, but leftover stew and banana-nut muffins shouldn’t taste like the best meal he’d eaten in two long years.

Finally, there was Robin herself. She’d kicked off her shoes as soon as she got inside the house and ran around in her bare toes and butt-hugging jeans, somehow managing to pull off sexy while she heated up some dinner and gave Emma her bath. Every room of the house was a reflection of some aspect of her—practical and efficient, stylish and comfortable, beautiful in a subtle, take-a-man-by-surprise kind of way.

He liked it all. He liked her.

If he stayed here too long, he’d get soft and be useless as the protector Robin and Emma needed. He was equally certain that the moment he dropped his guard would be the moment that his past caught up with him. And whether he remembered the details or not, he doubted the reunion would be a pleasant one. Being with Robin and Emma would put them right in the middle of whatever dangers were lying in wait for him.

After another late-night sweep to make sure every door and window was locked, Jake wandered into the nursery, where Robin was cleaning up after putting Emma down in her crib. The dim light from the lamp on the dresser and the soft strains of classical music playing in the background made Jake drop his voice to a whisper. “Everything is as secure as I can make it.”

“Thank you.” Robin’s voice was just as quiet. She stifled a yawn before gathering up a towel and the clothes Emma had been wearing earlier. “I’ll get your room ready next.”

He was about to tell her not to go to any trouble on his behalf when a little whimpering noise came from the crib. Jake crossed the room to look down at the pink, squirming ball of Emma Carter. Her eyes were closed, but she was batting at the gingham sheet beneath her, pinching her face and moaning like she was gearing up to cry. “Is she okay?”

“Of course. Full tummy, warm bath. She’ll be asleep in no time.” Robin was folding up the Noah’s ark quilt that had been tossed over the rocking chair where she’d given Emma her bottle.

“Then why is she crying?”

“She’s not. She’s stubborn like her mama and fighting to stay awake.” Another yawn betrayed Robin’s fatigue and the late hour. She needed to get to bed. They all needed to get some sleep if they were going to stay sharp and vigilant against any other threats. “Just nudge her thumb to her mouth. She never took a pacifier, but sucking her thumb seems to calm her right down.”

“You want me touch her?”

Robin warmed the room with a smile. “Of course. She won’t bite.”

Jake was a grown man who outweighed little Emma by at least two hundred pounds. Still, he needed a fortifying breath before he reached over the oak railing and caught one of Emma’s tiny fists between two of his fingers. He guided the hand to her mouth. As soon as it touched her lips, the thumb popped right in and the unhappy noises stopped. And she did it all without opening her eyes. “That’s my girl.”

Entranced by the scent of baby powder and innocence, Jake splayed his hand across Emma’s tummy and got a little choked up in the wonder of how warm she was beneath the soft lavender sleeper she wore. Even his big, callused hand could feel her tiny lungs expanding and contracting, and her heart beating at a strong, even pace beneath his fingertips.

Oh, man. His boss, Robbie, was right. Jake was smitten with little Emma Carter.

He was distracted enough by the unfamiliar tumble of emotions that he didn’t hear Robin move up beside him until she spoke. “You’re good with her. You’re especially gentle.”

Jake pulled his hand away to wrap it around the top of the crib rail. “I figure I have to be. I don’t always know my own strength.”

She slid her hand over Jake’s and the emotions bombarding him almost made it hard to breathe. Her soft question echoed his own thoughts. “Do you think you ever had any children, Jake? Any nieces or nephews to dote on?”

“I don’t know,” he answered honestly. But if he felt this pull, this protective vibe about a child he’d only known for a week, wouldn’t he have some sense of those same feelings about a child of his own—even if he couldn’t recall a name or face? “I doubt it. The kid here seems as foreign to me as she is beautiful.”

“She is, isn’t she?” Robin reached over to smooth that thick, dark hair off Emma’s forehead. “Beautiful, I mean.”

“Nobody’s going to hurt her, Robin.” He laced their fingers together and looked down over the jut of his shoulder at her. Good guy or bad guy, he felt that promise deep in his bones. “I won’t let anyone take her from you.”

With a slight nod, she tugged on his hand and led the way out of the room. Once in the hallway, she turned to the right while Jake pulled the door to behind them. “I’ll put you in the room next door where my parents stay when they visit.”

Jake released her hand and headed in the opposite direction, back to the room with the flat-screen television and stone fireplace. “I saw an easy chair in here that’ll do for tonight.”

Even with those silent bare feet, he sensed her changing course and hurrying after him. “You can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day. None of the threats or calls have come to the house. I think it’s okay to drop your guard for a little bit here.”

“Are you in the phone book?” He picked up his go-bag off the red-and-white-checked couch and looked for a better spot to stash it.

“Yes.”

“Then it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to track you down.” He saw the slightly hidden yet easy-access spot under the big square coffee table and stuffed it underneath. “It’s probably only a matter of time before your perp escalates his game and brings the threat here.”

“You’re doing it again—talking all doom and gloom like there’s no hope in the world.”

Robin stood at the edge of the couch, hugging herself in that nervous way that made him want to wrap her up in his arms and promise everything would be all right. But his concentration was already compromised by the difficult admission of his amnesia—a self-reliant secret he hadn’t shared with anyone in K.C. Then there was that fairy-tale interlude he’d just had in the nursery with Emma.

No connections. No commitments. No caring.

The Carter girls had blown the philosophy that had served him so well these past two years right out of the water. If he wanted to recapture the fighting edge that made him such a ruthless survivor, he needed to nip all this touchy-feely normalcy in the bud. “You want comfort, talk to your girlfriends. You want protection, I’m your man.”

“Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst? Is that how a man like you thinks?”

She deserved an honest answer. “There isn’t always hope. But I can always be prepared.”

Her skin paled at the bleak response. But she’d made him promise to keep talking, even if she didn’t like what he had to say. “What made you such a hard, unsociable man, Jake? Who hurt you?”

The pity in that question took him by surprise. He’d always thought of himself as the monster dealing out the pain. That was the story his nightmares told. He’d gotten so used to believing he was the bad guy that it was a challenge to consider he might not always have been this way. “You think I know? Say good-night to Sunshine in there and get to bed. If I get too tired, I’ll sack out on the couch.”

“I have guest rooms.”

Un-uh. A bed would feel too cozy. Too normal. And protecting the Carter girls from whoever was threatening them required those skills that normal men didn’t possess. “I’d rather be between you two and the front door in case something happens.”

“All right.” Giving up her insistence on civility, Robin left the room. She came back a minute later with pillows, sheets and a quilt. She unfolded one of the sheets to cover the couch, and set the rest of the bedding on top, letting him decide just how civilized he wanted to be tonight. “I owe you more than you can know for the peace of mind you give me by being here. Someday I hope you’ll let me repay...” A clear conscience was the only payment he’d asked for, and this time she let the subject die. “I know. Good night.”

After a moment’s hesitation, she circled the coffee table, braced her hand at the center of his chest and stretched up on tiptoe to press a soft, gentle kiss to his lips. Her eyes sought out his before she gave him another kiss, just as tender, just as sweet. It was the gentlest, most beautiful touch he could remember and he couldn’t help but move his lips against hers.

As raw and passionate as that kiss at her shop had been, this one warmed and healed. The sweet, soothing connection tamed something raw inside him. It pulled him from the lonely curse he’d lived with for far too long. When the first sizzle of heat entered the kiss, Robin dropped to her heels and pulled away.

“Good night, Jake.”

Yeah. He wanted more than the satisfaction of knowing he’d done all he could to help these two damsels in distress. He wanted a thousand more kisses like that. He wanted to learn how to change a diaper. He wanted what other men had—a good woman, a beautiful child. Laughter. Love. A real home. But he wasn’t other men. So he let Robin walk to her room and close the door without voicing the wishes stirring in his heart.

* * *

THE NIGHTMARE HAD him at its mercy again.

Wheezing through the pain that seared him inside and out, Jake crouched in the darkness. “You have to stop him.”

A hazy apparition moved in the shadows, a faceless threat he had to destroy. He flipped the knife into his hand and hurled it. With a choking scream, the apparition sank into the darkness.

Just like that, his enemy was dead. But there were other threats in the shadows. If he couldn’t find them all, people would die. He’d seen so much death. He couldn’t survive another.

“Jake?”

He heard the soft voice calling to him through the mists and death of his dream.

“Robin.” He had to save her.

He couldn’t think through the heat and the pain, couldn’t claw his way out of the darkness to get to her.

“Don’t hurt her.” Now the gun was in his hand and he was running. His lungs were burning, his shoulder bleeding. He wasn’t fast enough.

He wiped the sweat from his eyes and caught a glimpse of pale skin and rich brown hair. She reached out to him, but those sweet, gray-blue eyes were so afraid.

“Jake?”

Shadows from every corner of his mind rushed at her, knocked her down, consumed her. “Robin!”

He raised his gun, stroked his finger against the trigger. But he had no target. He was losing her. He was too late. He couldn’t save her.

“Ken?”

The darkness exploded around him. Fire seared through his flesh. Terror ripped through his heart. He moaned through his despair.

She was gone. Everything that mattered was gone.

And then he heard the baby crying. He crawled toward the sound. He peered into the flames of his burning world and saw the shadows again, emerging, one by one, darting toward that heartbreaking cry.

Jake pushed to his feet. They couldn’t have her. He was the man who saved people. He couldn’t fail again.

“Otto? Please.”

He followed the baby’s cries through the flames and the darkness. “I’m coming,” he muttered. “I’m coming.”

He reached the shadows and dove into the heart of their blackness. They shifted their target and came at him—pummeling, pulling, cutting, killing.

“Go,” he whispered, taking on death itself to save that innocent life. “Be safe.”

“Lonergan!”

Jake came awake on a voiceless roar and lunged at his attackers. He caught one by the shoulders and flipped him to the ground beneath him.

“Jake!”

He knew that voice. Not a threat, but a hope. A wish. He shook his head to clear the shadows from his mind and orient himself in the hazy darkness. Red-and-white checks. Short, dark hair. He blinked. “Robin?”

He blinked again and saw her slender body pinned to her sofa by his big hands and lower body. He saw the fading bruise on her collarbone peeking out beneath the baby-blue pajama top she wore and feared he’d just put similar marks on her.

“Are you okay?” she whispered, brushing her fingertips against his bare, damp chest. She was petting him again, taming the instinctive fight response out of him while he...

“Oh, hell. Oh, honey...” Jake swore at what he’d done, at the violence that seemed to be a part of every heartbeat. He shifted his hips off hers and sat up, scooting to the far end of the couch. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He tried to push to his feet, but she got up on her knees and threw her arms around his neck before he could stand. “You can’t run and hide this time.” Her knees found a spot on either side of his left thigh and she pulled herself against his chest, sliding her soft cheek against his and hugging him close. “You’re all right. It was a nightmare. Let’s deal with it. Let’s face this together. You’re all right.”

“I hurt you.” He gripped the back and arm of the couch, fighting what his body wanted to do. “I didn’t mean...” And then her warmth and strength and stubborn spirit moved past the guilt and fear, and Jake wound his arms around her, squeezing her tight. “Oh, God, honey, I need...” He needed the warm human contact to ground himself back in reality. “I just need to hold you. Can I hold you?”

She nodded, rubbing her cheek against his. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”

“Safe?” He swiped at the tears that stung his eyes and buried his face in the fragrant softness of her hair. “I’m supposed to protect you.”

Her palms slid up against his scalp and across his back, wrapping him up in her shielding strength. “You’re not going to win this argument. Just talk to me.”

He almost laughed at the idea of her bossing him around. But it had been too long since he’d laughed, too long since he’d shared any part of himself with another person.

She pressed a kiss against his grizzled cheek and pulled back enough to stroke her fingers beside his eyes and beside his mouth. “Your face was contorted in such pain. You were thrashing and moaning. You scared me.”

“I’m sorry.” He leaned forward and stole a quick kiss. “I didn’t mean to. Usually, I just deal...” Her hands settled atop his shoulders and she waited expectantly for him to continue. “That’s why I was there that first night you were attacked.” He reached down to pull her legs from around his and settled her squarely on his lap. “I’d had a nightmare, and I thought a cold, long walk in the rain would clear my head. At first I thought...” He tangled his fingers into her sleep-mussed hair and tucked it behind her ear. “When I heard you scream, for a split second I was reliving...something. I had to save you. I’ve got this thing about saving people.”

“I know.” Her hands never left his skin; her gaze never left his face. “Was it the same nightmare tonight?”

Jake nodded. She asked a question—he tried to answer. That was the deal. Every time Robin forced him a little closer toward that civilized behavior she kept insisting on, the easier it became. “In my dreams, I have to kill someone or I’ll be killed.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I’m killing shadows—stabbing, shooting, strangling with my bare hands—any way I can.” She gasped softly at the graphic images he described, but let him continue. “I think I’m saving lives but maybe I’m just saving my own skin. Either way, I’m failing. I’m bleeding. I’m...”

“Do you think it’s a memory trying to surface?”

“It sure feels real.” He clenched his teeth so tight against the images he’d seen that the muscles in his jaw were shaking. “You and Emma were there tonight, mixed up in all the violence. I couldn’t save you.”

“Oh, Jake.” She squirmed against his groin, waking something far more basic than the gentle warmth she stirred in other parts of his body as she lay her head on his shoulder and wound her arms around his waist. He felt the bead of a firm breast brush across his skin and every muscle she leaned against quivered in response. “Shh. We’re okay. Both of us are okay.”

Jake didn’t want to be feeling this desire heating his blood. Robin was lean and soft, wearing cotton pajamas that were far too thin for her not to notice the swelling response of all this touching and talking and tenderness. He pulled his fingers from her hair and set her on the rumpled sheet beside him. He pushed to his feet and stalked across the room, scrubbing his hand over his face. “I damn near snapped you in two. How is that okay?”

“I’m still here, Jake. I’m in one piece. I think you must have some kind of post-traumatic stress. I know you didn’t mean it.” He silently cursed the face reflected in the mirror above the empty fireplace. But Robin came right after him. She pulled his hand back to her cheek and turned her face into his palm. “I’m not any part of your nightmare. I’m real. I’m now.”

With that much of an invitation, his fingers inevitably wound into the silky waves of her hair. “I wish I could remember. The doctors said with an injury like mine, the memories sometimes never come back.” The moon outside filtered through the windows, casting a cool light over her beautiful face. “I wish I knew if I was a good guy who deserved you, or some murdering S.O.B. you need to be running from.”

“I can’t imagine what that’s like, to have lost so much of yourself. But I do know this. To me, you’re Jake Lonergan. You’re the man who saved my life and my daughter’s. And that makes you a very good guy in my book.”

“But what if—”

She pressed her fingers over his lips and cut off his argument. “No what-ifs. Only certainties tonight, okay? Maybe you’ll never get your past back. But you have the present. And you have a future. A man gets to choose who he wants to be every day of his life. Decide who you want to be right now. Choose to be a hero. Choose to be with us. Forget about whether or not you killed someone, whether you did it out of self-defense or... Oh.” A pink blush stained her cheeks as she pulled her hand away with an apology. “Forget was a poor choice of words but—”

Jake cupped her face between his hands, pulled her onto her toes and kissed her. Hard. She tumbled into his chest and he kissed her again. “I get it. I choose you.” He thrust his tongue into her mouth, surrendering to her stubborn faith in him, claiming the compassion and understanding she gave. “I choose here. Now.”

Her lips chased after his, parted, welcomed. He took anything she offered, and damn, the woman was generous. She braced her hands against his chest and curled her fingertips into his skin, igniting ten hot spots of desire that fed the need simmering deeper inside him.

“I need you, Robin.” One more kiss and his body was just as hot as it had been during the throes of that nightmare, but in a very different, much more pleasurable way. “I need to hold on to you. And reality.” She nodded, understanding, and Jake swung her up into his arms and carried her back to the sofa. “I need you.”

“Yes.”

The single word was a gift he didn’t deserve, but one he needed to hear as he laid her on the overstuffed cushions and slid on top of her. His jeans and shorts were uncomfortably tight and he couldn’t help but rub against the juncture of her thighs. She held on to his neck and kissed his throat, his jaw, the corner of his mouth, fueling the fire that was already burning dangerously beyond his control.

Jake pushed up the hem of her shirt, running his hands over her smooth skin, exposing her pretty breasts to the moonlight and feasting his eyes on the tight, rosy peaks. “I need you to keep the nightmares away.”

“This is you and me. We’re real. I want—” He closed his hungry mouth over her breast, suckled the pebbled tip against his tongue and she bucked beneath him, gasping his name.

Oh, damn. He’d hurt her.

“It’s too much, isn’t it. Too intense.” Denying his own raging need, he pushed himself up, carefully pulling his body away from hers. “You don’t have to do this. I can take a cold shower.”

“Don’t you dare.” With a determination that shouldn’t have surprised him, Robin pushed him against the back of the sofa and climbed into his lap. She straddled his arousal and reached for the hem of her pajama top, stripping it off over her head and shaking her hair loose around her face as she tossed the shirt aside. She was the most glorious thing he’d ever seen. “I need you, too. I’ve been on my own a long time, Jake. It’s hard to be alone—even if you can manage it. And I’ve never been drawn to anyone the way I’m drawn to you.”

He groaned at the need pulsing through him and fisted his hands on the couch. “I haven’t been with a woman since... I can’t remember.”

She reached for his hands and placed them over her breasts, showing him with her body that he hadn’t hurt her at all. “Then we’ll rediscover how it’s done—together.”

There were no more words and not nearly the finesse this woman deserved. In a flurry of bumping hands and stolen kisses, they shed the rest of their clothes. He found a condom in his go-bag and she rolled it onto him. Jake palmed two handfuls of her round, beautiful bottom and lifted her over his lap, nudging at her entrance before pushing into her tight, welcoming heat.

Her fingers dug into his shoulders as he moved beneath her, sliding in faster, deeper—growing impossibly harder with every feverish thrust. He captured her nipple in his mouth again and drew on her until she moaned his name and her moist sheath began to spasm around him.

“Jake.” She leaned back, rocking her hips against his. He palmed her breast, tunneled his fingers into her hair. “Jake.” He tightened his grip around her buttocks and thighs, anchoring her to him as he thrust up inside her. Everything in him rushed to the spot where they were joined—all the guilt, all the doubt, all the need, all the fire. He could scarcely breathe. He could barely think. But he could look. He could feel. Her body gripped him like a firm, urging hand and he shook with his release deep inside her. “Jake!”

He’d never forget the wondrous look in her eyes as she flew apart in his arms.

He’d never forget her cuddling close as he stretched out on the sofa and pulled her down beside him afterward. He spread the quilt over them both as their bodies cooled, and he savored the skin-to-skin trust of Robin dozing off beside him.

He’d never forget how right and humbling and perfect it felt to be fully in the here and now, making new memories with Robin to store in his mind and heart.

“You need to sleep, too,” she whispered some time later, perhaps sensing that he’d been awake, trailing lazy circles along her hip, watching over her. She snugged that perfect little bottom against the cradle of his thighs and laced her fingers together with his, pulling his arm across her stomach. “Were you thinking about the nightmare again?”

Jake ignored the leaping impulses of his body, waking again at the intimate contact. There was something more than sex he needed from Robin tonight. He needed the peace this woman brought to his fractured mind. He needed the light she brought to his frozen heart. He needed to be the man—that good man—she believed he could be.

“No.” Jake pulled her hair aside and pressed a kiss behind her ear. “Can we hear Emma in here if she wakes up?”

Robin nodded. “I brought the monitor with me when I came to check on you.”

“Good.” He nuzzled the nape of her neck. “Because I don’t think I’m a strong enough man to let you go right now.”

“I’m not going anywhere, Jake. Promise me you won’t...go anywhere, either.”

He could guess she wasn’t just talking about staying with her physically. “I’ll do my best.”

After checking to make sure his knife was beneath the pillow, and his gun was within easy reach beneath the coffee table, Jake let his eyes drift shut. With his body sated and Robin tucked safely against him, he slept through the rest of the night.