Delta Force Daddy

His eye twitched as pain throbbed against his temple. “No. I only recall Denver in that moment. I don’t remember anything about him or working with him...or the others.”

“Maybe it’s your defense.” She lifted her shoulders. “He did such a terrible thing to you, you’ve blocked out anything good about him to protect yourself.”

“I don’t know.” He squeezed his eyes closed as the pain spread across his forehead.

“Grab my purse in the back seat.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder. “I have some ibuprofen in there. That plastic bag on the floor has some bottled water and a leftover sandwich if you’re hungry.”

He reached around and dragged her purse into the front seat. “Where?”

“The bottle’s in the makeup bag.”

He unzipped the little leopard-print bag and plucked a small bottle from it. He shook three gel caps into his hand and tossed them into his mouth. He chased them with a gulp of water and eased his head against the headrest. “I’m going to try to rest my eyes.”

“Go ahead. I’ll wake you up when we get there.”

“I don’t think I’ll be falling asleep.”

As much as he tried to keep his eyes open, closing them soothed the pain in his head and he allowed his heavy lids to drop. He would drift off, but something urgent kept prodding him and he’d jerk awake with a start.

In a short time he’d become dependent on the drugs that had eased his passage into sleep each night. He didn’t want that anymore. He didn’t claim to be any expert, like Paige apparently was, but being drugged up had to be interfering with his memories. How could he remember his past when half the time he couldn’t remember what he’d eaten for lunch?

“Give in to it.”

“What?” Opening one eye, he rolled his head to the side and pinned her with his gaze.

“You’ve been nodding off and jerking awake for the past forty-five minutes. Is it that you can’t fall asleep or don’t want to?”

“Maybe a little of both. Maybe I snore and drool in my sleep.”

“You don’t drool—at least not when you’re sleeping.”

He twisted his lips into a smile. This woman who knew him...intimately could do more to restore his memory than all the drugs and doctors in the entire US military.

Why had they tried to keep her away from him?

The signs that flew by the car window announced cabins and lift tickets and ski rentals. “We must be close.”

“We are.” She snatched her phone from the cup holder and tossed it at him. “First things first. Can you look up a clothing store? Even if it’s a ski shop, I’m sure it’ll have pants and shirts, jackets and boots.”

He tapped the phone’s display and then shook it. “No internet connection yet. We may have to drive straight to the ski resort to get connectivity. I’m sure there are stores there. Any reason you don’t want to shop at the resort?”

“Those people from the prison...I mean rest home, might see this as a logical place for us to land.”

“Probably, but we have a head start on them, and how do they know you didn’t have clothing and an escape plan waiting for me?”

“I should have.” She skimmed her hand along the side of her head. “When I saw the situation yesterday, I should’ve put more thought into breaking you out of there.”

“I’d 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.