A Thin Disguise by Catherine Bybee
CHAPTER TWELVE
Olivia stood in front of the mirror wearing only a bra and panties. How was it possible that a week had passed since she arrived in Colorado and she was no closer to knowing who she was than the day she left the hospital?
She looked at her hair, which rolled midway down her back. Except for the chunk that had been shaved so the doctors could staple the parts together that split open when she’d fallen to the ground. She ran her fingertips along the edges of the scar she couldn’t see. Hair prickled under her touch as it started to grow in. Rolling her head from one side to the other at night had woken her up more than once with the pressure on her sensitive skin.
She moved her fingers to the back of her neck, then around to her right collarbone. She hesitated and then moved back to the center of the bone.
A flash . . .
She’d broken it.
Olivia palpated the bone, could feel a slight bump. She immediately moved her finger to her left side and compared the two.
“No class until the doctor says you’re clear.”
The words were plain as day in her head.
She’d been young, or at least still in school.
But where was she and who was talking?
Olivia placed both hands on the rim of the sink and squeezed her eyes shut. “C’mon, damn it. Give me more than that.”
No class.
Not allowed to go to class.
What class?
“What class?”
She tapped on the counter, trying to catch the edges of the memory.
“Bloody fucking hell!” She swiped her hand out, caught a cup and the toothbrush holder. Both went crashing to the ground.
Movement without sound flashed in her peripheral vision.
There was no thought, just action.
Her body twisted, and her left arm came up to swing through as her right hand moved in to punch whoever was in her personal space.
Sasha avoided the swing and ducked the punch. She came up with both hands in front of her, palms spread. “Hey . . . it’s me.”
Every muscle in Olivia’s body was keyed up. Her skin was fire, her eyes laser sharp, and her heartbeat had gone from sixty to a hundred in two seconds.
“It’s me.”
The small space of the bathroom felt as if it were closing in.
Get out!
Get out!
“Olivia . . . take a deep breath. You’re okay.”
Footsteps pounded up the stairs, voices calling out.
“Olivia?”
“What’s going on?”
“Everyone, back off.”
The room slowly came into focus.
Her short breaths fought to overpower her.
Sasha stood an arm’s distance away.
Leo was at Sasha’s side.
All the others piled into the bedroom but stood far away.
“Slow, deep breaths,” Sasha continued to coax.
That’s when Olivia felt the pull on her left side. She looked down at the angry scar that had just started to feel better.
She put her right hand over her skin as if protecting it now would do any good. “Oh, God.”
Pam pushed past Leo and Sasha. “Okay. All boys out,” she demanded. “C’mon. Let’s lay you down before you pass out.” She pushed under Olivia’s right arm as if she couldn’t walk on her own two feet.
Though the first few steps suggested Pam had the right idea.
“Out!” she shouted when the men had yet to leave.
The room spun and heated. “I need to sit.”
“Aw, fuck.”
All Olivia remembered was Leo reaching for her as the world faded away.
“We’re here.” Leo’s voice called her out of the fog.
Someone had placed a cold washcloth on her forehead.
She was on her bed, her feet propped up on pillows.
“Olivia?” Sasha stood behind Leo.
“I attacked you.”
“It’s okay.”
Olivia tried to sit up.
“Oh, no. You lay right there.” Pam had a blood pressure cuff on Olivia’s arm and was blowing it up. “Give it a few minutes.”
“I could have hurt you.”
“Didn’t come close,” Sasha told her with a small smile.
“I needed to get out of the bathroom. You weren’t going to stop me.” She’d felt like a caged animal. “Why would I do that?”
Pam sighed. “Seriously. Calm down.”
Leo stroked her right hand. “It’s okay. It’s over.”
“I don’t understand what happened . . .”
“I’m going to get you some ice water.” Sasha moved toward the door.
“I am sorry.”
“We’re good. Let it go.”
Olivia rolled her head toward Pam, looking for answers. “What’s going on?”
“I’m not a neurologist.”
“Don’t give me that,” Olivia chided.
Pam glanced at Leo. “Could be your memory trying to come back. Your body reacted instinctively. Hard to say.”
“So I attack Sasha?”
“Did you remember something?” Leo asked.
Olivia looked down at her chest, realized only then that someone had tossed a sheet over her. “I broke my collarbone. When I was a kid.”
Sasha returned with the water, and Leo and Pam helped Olivia sit up in the bed.
After a couple of sips, she relaxed against the headboard. Her side hurt like a bitch.
“You remember breaking a bone as a child,” Leo redirected her.
Sasha sat on the edge of the bed and listened.
“I don’t remember breaking it. I just know that it was broken.” She took Leo’s hand, guided it to her collarbone, and pressed his fingertips to the bump she’d discovered earlier. She grabbed his other hand, ignoring the sheet as it slipped to her waist, and pressed it on the left side. “Feel that?”
He nodded. “I do.”
“I remember a voice . . . someone telling me that I couldn’t go to class until it was better. The harder I thought about it, the more distant the memory felt.” She sighed, let go of Leo’s hand, and placed hers in her lap. “I didn’t see you walk in,” she said, looking at Sasha. “Next thing I know—”
“I heard you yell. I came in.”
Olivia glanced at Pam. “Is this what I can expect? Every time a memory sneaks in I’m going to pass out?”
“You were hyperventilating. Maybe next time a memory starts to emerge, sit down and slow your breathing. Call one of us.”
She nodded a few times. “I should be happy I remembered something. My reaction was ridiculous.”
“The brain is powerful. Don’t underestimate your reactions. They’re likely there for a reason,” Sasha told her.
The ache behind her eyes started to spread to the back of her head.
She reached down and placed her hand on Leo’s. “I think I’ll skip this morning’s walk. See if I can’t get rid of this headache.”
“That’s the best idea you’ve had so far,” Pam said as she removed the blood pressure cuff.
He lifted her hand to his lips, pressed a kiss to her fingertips. “Let us know if you need anything.”
Leo and Sasha left the room, but Pam lingered. “How about some Tylenol?” she asked.
Olivia didn’t respond. She simply adjusted herself in bed and pulled the sheet over her shoulders.
“That’s what I thought,” Pam muttered before closing the door behind her.
Who the hell am I?
The more she asked the question, the more afraid of the answer she became.
Clouds surrounded the log home, cocooning it in a dense shroud of moisture. The gray skies matched the mood inside the house.
Olivia’s unexpected outburst had given everyone a stark reminder that her memory was going to come back, and when it did, her reaction may be just as unexpected as it had been in the bathroom.
The way Neil’s team gave Olivia space showed Leo just how much room they needed to avoid injury.
She didn’t emerge from her room until long after lunch. By dinner she was a little quicker to smile, but slower to move.
It was meatloaf night for the second time, and she insisted on making the mashed potatoes.
“You really don’t have to,” Isaac told her. “I’m sure we can manage.”
“I don’t welsh on bets or go back on my word. You make the hamburger thing, leave this to me.”
Leo joined her at the sink and washed his hands. “I’ll help you peel.”
She gave him room and not an argument.
He counted that as a notch in the right direction.
“Did your mother make you help in the kitchen?” she asked him.
“My grandmother. My mom hates to cook. Nana, on the other hand . . .”
“Is she still alive?”
He turned the water on in the sink. “They both are. Nana lives in a retirement community, always talking about how she drives the widowed men crazy. Insists that she has at least one marriage proposal every six months.”
“You grandma sounds like someone I’d like to know,” Lars said from his perch in the living room.
Leo thought of his nana’s smile and easy nature. “You might just be young enough for her,” Leo suggested.
Olivia’s laugh was the first one he’d heard all day.
“You’d like her. She says what everyone else is thinking and doesn’t care who it offends.”
“Best way to live,” Isaac said.
Olivia hacked away at the skin of a potato with a vegetable peeler, and Leo used a small knife to do the same job.
“How old is she?”
“Eighty-two. Still has all her faculties . . . walks on her own two feet.”
“So why the retirement place?”
“She says she needs people around, and if it wasn’t for where she lived, she’d be bugging her family to entertain her. She’s the woman that is first on the group bus to Vegas or when they go wine tasting in Temecula. She does a senior cruise once a year.”
“Isn’t senior cruise an oxymoron?” Isaac asked.
Leo nodded, finished with one potato, and moved to another. “She’s enjoying her life. We should all be so lucky.”
Just talking about his nana made Leo wonder about Olivia’s family.
Who were they?
Did she even have a family?
Did any of them?
Or were they all like the toys on Misfit Island, odd, damaged, and alone?
A splatter of rain drew his attention away from thoughts of Neil’s crew and out the window.
“I felt this coming,” Lars said, staring at the rain.
“Oh?” Olivia asked.
“My right leg has been talking to me all day.”
Olivia glanced up at Leo, a knowing smile on her lips. “When did you break it?” she asked.
“In the service.”
Damn if she hadn’t been right about the injury. Not that Leo had noticed any limp, even after Olivia brought it up earlier that week.
“Don’t make it sound all heroic,” Isaac teased.
“Are you suggesting Lars wasn’t playing Superman at the time?” Olivia asked.
“I was flying through the air.” Lars laughed.
“Jumping out of a plane on a training mission. Came in too hard.” Isaac opened the oven and put their dinner inside. “Catch Lars after a few beers, you’ll hear the story three different ways.”
“That true, Lars?”
Leo enjoyed the amusement on Olivia’s face as she learned the team’s secrets.
“I only remember the story when I’m drinking,” he told her.
“Be sure and add beer to the next run to the store,” she said.
“No can do. Hard to play bodyguard when you’re drunk.”
Leo finished the last potato and rinsed off his hands. “We’ll have to ask the questions when this is behind us,” he suggested to Olivia.
She laughed. “I expect every one of you to line up to buy me drinks,” she said.
“Is that so?” Isaac asked as he pushed his way into the space between Leo and Olivia at the sink to wash his hands.
“Well, yeah. Men have to buy me a drink before they see me in my underwear. The way I see it, you owe me.”
Leo couldn’t help but glance down below her chin.
Isaac kept his eyes straight ahead, his mouth shut.
Leo had seen more than enough to fantasize about, but he hadn’t enjoyed it at the time.
“I’ll buy you a few drinks, Olivia.” Lars pushed off the couch and walked out of the room.
“I’ll remember that,” she called after him with a smile.
“Meatloaf will be done in an hour.” Isaac backed away from the sink, turned toward the mess he’d made preparing dinner.
Leo leaned a little closer to her. “I don’t think anyone really noticed.”
“That’s unfortunate. Apparently, I take care of this body.”
That she did.
“You didn’t notice?” she asked in a whisper.
Slippery slope, Leo.
“Nope.”
“Hmm . . .” She walked behind him, removed the pot they were going to boil the potatoes in. “What color is my bra?”
“Black,” he said without thinking.
“That is my cue to vacate the kitchen. Feel free to clean up my mess,” Isaac said behind them with a dramatic slide of one palm against the other as if he was brushing away a fistful of dirt.
Once they were alone, Leo started to laugh. “You sure know how to clear a room.”
She plopped the potatoes into the pot as it filled with water. “I didn’t scare you off.”
He wiped his hands on a dish towel, turning to lean against the counter beside her. “That’s because I’m probably the only one that’s been wondering what you look like in next to nothing.”
“Not that you’re acting on that.” She turned off the water, took the towel from his hands, and dried hers.
“Which you are not making easy.”
She laughed, looked down at the towel, and tossed it on the counter. “Busting your balls is the only time I feel normal,” she told him.
“That’s a recipe for disaster,” he said.
He felt her fingertips as she reached out and brushed his hip.
Suddenly the memory of that black bra and slim waistline wasn’t so fuzzy from the stress of the moment.
“Makes me wonder what else will feel normal.”
She stepped into his personal space, leaned into him.
His cock jumped to attention. Damn thing was his truth serum.
Leo inched his gaze to her shoulder, then moved up to her chin, and finally those eyes he envisioned every night before he fell asleep.
This is a bad idea.
“No?” she asked as she dropped the hand she’d used to touch him. She sighed as if giving up and put space between them.
His hand shot out, stopped her from leaving.
Her eyes showed surprise when he reached for the side of her face and pulled her in.
Their lips touched with a physical spark, the kind that came from walking across carpet. Maybe that stalled their kiss, but something put it on pause, and they took a breath at the same time before he tilted his head and made sure she’d remember his kiss long after this moment passed.
She was soft in his arms as he folded her in. Those tempting lips opened slightly as if testing the waters.
He gave in, letting her lead.
A touch of her tongue against his retreated and then returned for more.
He released her hand and placed his own on her hip.
Hers fell on his leg, dangerously close to his erection. Not that he had any intention of doing anything with that other than giving it a cold shower.
No, this kiss was for her. Give the woman what she had all but asked for.
But the dig of her fingertips on his leg told him her raw need matched his . . . and that had to be curbed. Stopped.
He didn’t know who slowed down their kiss, but they pulled back just enough for him to feel her rapid breath on his lips. “Feel better now?” he whispered.
She nodded. “Ah-huh.” And then she shook her head. “You’ve been holding out, Mr. FBI.”
“It’s the right thing to do.”
“I don’t think I do the right thing very often,” she said, looking up into his eyes.
Damn, she was sexy. “Now would be a good time to start.”
She leaned fully into him, from knees to chest, pulled her lips away.
All the hard parts of him pushed into the soft parts of her.
The woman may not have the memory of where she’d learned to seduce a man, but her body knew exactly what to do. “The only reason I’m walking away is because my chest is killing me, and I don’t want any distraction when we make this happen.”
Her mentioning the gunshot wound had him placing a hand farther up her side, softly, as if he could make it better with his touch. “That bullet should have been in me.”
“I don’t want to hear you say that again.”
“It’s how I feel.”
“Get over it.” Her eyes searched his. “Now kiss me again.”
He leaned down even when the neon sign flashed in his head.
Danger.
Danger.
Her hips pushed against his and snuffed that danger sign right to the depths of hell.