addresses, three different versions of the same grim face staring back at him. None of them stirred a glimmer of recognition, either. What kind of man needed three aliases? Why would he have taken so many trips to Central and South America? He felt no ties to the DEA—no ties to Houston, St. Louis or Chicago, either. He felt nothing but confusion. The badge might be his. But it could just as easily have been taken off one of the faceless shadows he killed every night in his dreams.
Which one of these names was real? Were any of them?
He scraped his palm over the craggy ridges and hollows of his battered nose and grizzled jaw and cursed. Why couldn’t he remember? Why the hell couldn’t he remember anything before that morning he’d woken up in a tiny Texas border-town hospital?
Was he a cop who’d nearly died in the line of duty? Or the man who’d killed a cop and assumed his identity?
After two years, with no one coming to the hospital to check on him, and no image that matched his face on any television screen in any of the towns he’d lived in between then and now that even felt familiar, he was beginning to believe it had to be the latter. He was a cold-blooded killer without any memory of the monster he’d once been.
He tossed the badge and passports back into the bag. The nightmare wouldn’t come back tonight. But neither would sleep. The blank holes and black walls in Jake’s memory—Jake, because he had no idea what the J on that badge stood for—disturbed him more than the violent images in between.
Some nights he took a cold shower. Other nights he bench-pressed the weights in the corner of the room until his strength was spent. On the worst nights he poured shots of tequila to erase the sweat from his skin and numb the emptiness in his head. Tonight, the rain and a long walk would do.
Without turning on the light, Jake quickly dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and work boots. Before putting away the bag, he pulled out a gun and ankle holster and strapped it to his leg. He slipped a hunting knife from beneath his pillow, flipped it with practiced ease in his hand and tucked it into the leather sheath inside his boot.
He couldn’t remember his own name, but he knew how to wake himself from a nightmare without crying out and alerting his enemies—not that he knew who those enemies might be. He knew how to arm himself before walking out into the shabby side of downtown Kansas City after the sun had set and every reputable business had closed for the night. He knew how to survive in the shadows of society without calling unwanted attention to himself.
But he didn’t know how to remember.
Needing something physical, something familiar, something as rooted in the present moment as he could make it to silence the demons from his forgotten past, Jake set the satchel back into the closet, locked his door and disappeared into the stormy night.
Chapter One
“I know it’s late, Emma. But try to help Mommy just a little bit longer. Just one little belch. Please?” Of all the evenings to outgrow her night-owl schedule, Robin Carter’s infant daughter had decided that the one night her mother wanted to stay up late she would be a fussy pants.
Hiding her frown of frustration, Robin shifted the precious weight in her arms to gaze down into drowsy eyes that were fighting hard not to sleep, despite a full tummy and the midnight hour. From the moment she’d first met her infant daughter, barely two months ago, those blue eyes had been irresistible. Robin glanced over at the clock on her office desk, then back to the baby’s agitated plea. They were still impossible to resist.
“You’re right. We’ll figure out how to make the books balance in the morning. Right now we’d better get home to our comfy beds.” She put Emma back to her shoulder and patted her soft back until she heard the burp. Robin grinned, reassured and reenergized by the healthy sound. “Dainty and delicate and tough as a Marine, aren’t you?”
Despite the difficult circumstances surrounding Emma’s birth, and the adoption that had changed both their lives, Emma did everything in a healthy, robust way. Burping. Eating. Crying. Growing silky brown hair. Claiming her new mother’s heart. The four-month-old was all Robin had wanted but feared she would never have.
Relationships had failed.
In vitro had failed.
Robin was closer to forty than to thirty now. She’d put herself through college on scholarships and hard work, built her own floral design business, invested smartly, bought a house with an acreage just outside of Kansas City and landscaped and remodeled it to become her dream home. But her dream could never really be complete if she was all alone.
With her biological clock ticking like mad and no man she wanted in her life, Robin had listened to the advice of her attorney and gotten on a waiting list to obtain the one thing she hadn’t been able to achieve on her own—a beautiful, healthy baby. Adopting Emma was a miracle that had altered Robin’s lonely, workaholic life in wonderful ways she was discovering each and every day as the two of them became a family.
Normally, Emma adapted to wherever Robin took her—errands, shopping, visits with friends. She especially liked coming to work at the Robin’s Nest Floral Shop, napping in the bassinet in the corner of Robin’s quiet office or supervising customer satisfaction and employee workloads from the baby sling Robin often wore across her chest. Maybe Emma loved the shop because of the building’s cool, climate-controlled air, or the friendly employees who doted on her. Or maybe Emma simply loved being close to the reliable, down-to-earth practicality and unconditional love that Robin provided.
But tonight was not normal. And Emma was not a happy camper.
Neither was Robin.
The baby’s restlessness could be attributed to something concrete, like the changing barometric pressure as the spring storm gathered strength outside. But it was more likely that Emma had picked up on Robin’s frustration with the numbers on her computer. Perhaps Emma was being fussy because Robin had been fussing over the business’s books ever since the shop had closed three hours earlier. Her accountant had had some questions about discrepancies between receipts and job estimates and stock manifests. Robin had been away from work far too much since Emma’s arrival, and maybe her employees had gotten lazy about keeping track of everything. But spending the night in her office wasn’t going to make the books balance for her. And although Emma normally stayed up past eleven most nights, she didn’t want her daughter thinking the shop and office were her new home, either.
Robin lay Emma in the bassinet and leaned over to kiss her dimpled cheek, taking a moment to inhale the innocent fragrance that was all powder and baby wash and Emma herself. “Let Mommy make one more check around the place and then we’ll go home.”
She pulled the cotton blanket over her round little body, hoping that second bottle of formula, a clean diaper and the muffled rhythm of the rain and thunder would soothe her to sleep. But when Emma’s face squinched up, promising another bout of crying, Robin hardened her heart against the urge to take the baby into her arms again. “Give me five minutes and we’ll be out of here.”
Emma’s tiny fists batted the air. Robin touched one of the perfect little hands and guided the baby’s thumb into her mouth. Emma started sucking and quieted for a few moments, but Robin had pushed them both long enough for one day. The bookkeeping questions could wait for tomorrow. Her daughter came first.
Turning away before sympathetic tears stung her own eyes, Robin quickly shut down her computer and stuffed the shipping manifests and customer orders into their respective files. Since she’d started carrying the diaper bag, her brief case
