Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

" Y ou don't know who you are?" Connor asked.

"No."

The flash of fear that crossed her face before she quelched it, spoke to the honesty of her question. She truly didn't know who she was.

He reached for the wallet and phone on his dresser. "This is the wallet and phone I found in your coat pocket."

Her fingers shook as she opened the wallet. As she studied the driver's license, she twisted her lips together. "Zoe Edgars."

"The picture fits."

"I guess better than most licenses do. My hair was shorter then." She read the issue date. "Two years ago."

"Does the address sound right?"

"1409 Twenty-seventh Street, Northwest, Washington DC," she read aloud and seemed to be trying to remember the house at that address. Nothing came to mind. No images of the outside of the house. Was it a townhouse? A Tudor? A Victorian? Some new modern building? What about the inside? Slowly, she shook her head. "Nope."

Connor leaned forward to rest his elbows on his thighs. "In my time in the Army there were lots of soldiers with concussions and head injuries from combat or IAD explosions. Having some memory loss happens."

"Any from getting shot in the head?"

"There's not a hole in your head," he said. He'd seen those before, and none of those guys were sitting up in a bed talking today. They were at least six feet underground. "More like a skid mark. You were just winged."

She shot him a narrow-eyed glance again. Her memory might've forgotten her name, but her personality couldn't help but show itself. The woman didn't suffer fools lightly. For the first time in a long time, he wanted to chuckle, but thought better of it—probably for his own safety.

"No, those guys are dead," he said in answer to her question. "But given time, the guys with concussions got some of their memories of the incident back."

"Did any forget who they were? Or where they lived?"

He shrugged. "I was just a grunt, not a doctor, so I can't answer that."

She heaved a sigh and tried to turn on her phone. "Great. It's dead. I don't suppose you have a charger out here?"

"Not that fits your phone. Who were you going to call?" Reasonable question. If she couldn't remember her name, how was she going to remember anyone on the phone?

"I was hoping there might be some pictures or names. Something I can recognize." She heaved a sigh, laying the wallet and phone on the bed.

Connor leaned back in his chair and waited. Something he learned in prison. Let the other person lead the conversation, answer questions only as they're asked, don't offer filler unless asked for details. The more words you use, the more people could use them to hang you.

"Why am I in your cabin and not in a hospital?" she asked, concern in her eyes.

He didn't blame her. She didn't know him from Adam. It was smart of her to be wary, he would.

"By the time I got you down the mountain and back to the cabin, it was snowing. There was about a foot of snow last night and it's still snowing this morning. More than enough to block the exit of the holler onto the roadway. My old pickup isn't built to travel on snow or ice."

She went quiet again as she mulled over his words.

Duke went to the cabin door and whimpered.

"You know the rules," Connor said.

The hound immediately sat.

Connor walked over and paused with his hand on the door. "Stay close."

The dog tilted his head indicating he understood the command. Connor opened the door and Duke took off like a shot.

"You aren't worried about him?" Zoe asked, concern in her voice.

"He's trained to obey. And I won't leave him out long. Besides," he said, going to the stove and putting a cast iron pan on it, "he's an animal and has to do his business outside, not in my home."

When she didn't say anything more, he focused on getting his morning chores underway. First, he opened the bucket he kept Duke's food in, filling his bowl. Then he went to the fridge and pulled out the bacon and eggs. He put twice as much bacon as he'd usually eat into the skillet. "You hungry?"

Behind him, silence.

Slowly he turned, expecting to find her asleep again. She'd had a lot thrown at her all of a sudden this morning. Instead, she was staring at the door, her lips pressed into a thin line.

"Duke really is okay," he said coming over to the bedside.

She shook her head slightly, blinking hard and one tear escaping to roll down her cheek.

"Hey, I know you're scared. You need to give it time, and I'm sure your memory will come back."

"It's not that," she said.

Fighting the urge to growl in frustration he remembered she was wounded and scared. He sat in the chair again, mustering all the patience he had. "What's wrong, Zoe?"

"I have to pee, and I don't want to go out in the cold."

He laughed. He couldn't help it.

She shot him another one of those pissed-off woman looks. "It's not funny."

It took all his effort not to grin at her. "You're assuming I only have an outhouse here?"

She nodded.

"One of the things my grandfather did when he moved out to this cabin was build on a bathroom."

"Where is it?" she asked trying to look around.

"Behind you." He stood and walked to the door she couldn't quite see.

Opening it he walked down the small hallway past two more closed doors to the door at the end of the hallway. He opened it to let heat into the room and turned on the light. When the county power company finally got electricity in this part of the mountains, Grandpa Mac not only had the house hooked up, he'd had a water pump put into the cold spring well several yards from the cabin. Then he'd added on the bathroom so Grandma Ruby didn't have to use an outhouse anymore.

The day he'd gotten out of prison, he'd wanted solitude and peace. He wanted home. He wanted to be here in the one place he'd always felt safe and loved. Updating the bathroom to have a roomier shower by getting rid of the old cast iron tub and a waterless hot water tank were his own indulgences. He'd even installed marble tiles to make it feel like a hotel spa. Zoe was going to be the first person to see what he'd accomplished.

When he returned, he found her pale as a ghost, sitting on the edge of the bed, with her left leg stretched out straight and trying to stand on her right one.

"Whoa!" he said, one hand on her good shoulder, stopping her from moving. "Y'all can't walk on that leg."

There was that look again, the one said if she had access to her gun, he'd probably be dead.

"What about I have to pee did you not understand?"

He squatted down, which brought him eye level with her. "Look I set your leg as best I could. It was at a crazy angle. The splints I made out of a sapling growing near that ledge. I don't know how stable that leg is. Y'all put weight on it with it not real stable? You're gonna make the situation worse."

"How am I getting to your bathroom without standing?"

"Simple." He stood and before she could react, scooped her into his arms. She yelped and draped her good arm around his neck. He lifted one brow at her. "I carry you."

The hallway was too narrow to carry her straight in without beating her leg against the wall, so he turned so her broken leg went first and side-stepped until he had her in the bathroom.

"Wow." Her voice was filled with awe.

"Thank you," he said stepping next to the toilet and the pedestal sink.

"You did this?"

He didn't take offense at her question. She had no idea what skills he had. "Took me about six months when I got here, but it was important to me." He turned, so she'd be facing the door. "I'm going to set you down. Put your weight on your good leg and brace yourself on the sink. I'll hold onto you until you're steady. Okay?"

She stared at him, determination in her deep blue eyes. "Got it."

He released his hold on her legs, shifting his body to stand in front of her and hold her around her waist, while she grabbed hold of the sink. Once her foot was on the floor, he stepped back slightly. "You doing okay?"

Biting her upper lip, she nodded, then paused, finally shaking her head. "No."

"Want me to take you back to bed?"

"No," she said, shaking her head again. "I really need to pee."

"Need me to just sit you on the toilet?"

She shook her head, this time color coming into her cheeks. "It's not that."

"Not a mind reader, Zoe," he said as patiently as he could. Patience wasn't one of his strong suits. Not since prison.

She tilted her head like a petulant teenager. "I can't pull my panties down."

"Oh." He swallowed hard. He hadn't touched a woman intimately in over ten years, even something as innocent as helping her go to the bathroom. "Okay, I can handle that, if y'all think you can stand on your own for a moment?"

"I can," she said, staring over his shoulder, her embarrassment palpable.

He let go of her, stepping back slightly. Careful to make as minimal contact with her skin, he slipped his hands up under his shirt she wore to grasp the band of the silk panties and wiggled it over her backside and down her thighs.

"That's good," she snapped.

Quickly, he let go and took hold of her left side as she lowered herself onto the seat.

"Call when you're done," he said, going to the door.

"Thank you," she said as he was halfway through the door, his hand on the doorknob.

"Just call," he muttered closing the door.

Safely on the other side of the door, he inhaled and slowly exhaled, wiping his sweaty palms on his thighs. He hadn't been this threatened since the day he'd walked into prison.

The smell of bacon sizzling hit him and he stalked down the hall to check on it. He'd stack some firewood inside and stay busy. Anything to keep from thinking about the long-legged woman he'd held in his arms or the feel of her skin as he slipped those damn panties down her legs.

Yeah, God had a special torture for him this time.