Assumed Identity(52)

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” He pulled another license from the bag and handed it to her. Now she was even more confused. “Otto Lundgren?”

He reached for the licenses, but Robin turned her back on him to study the cards more carefully. “This is you.” The same face as the man behind her, with longer, darker hair and no scar at the temple, stared back at her. “These are both you. I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I.”

She spun around. “What kind of answer...?” Jake held up a placating hand and she bit her tongue, giving him a chance to explain.

“There are six different IDs in this bag. Jake isn’t even one of them. It’s a name I picked because I thought it went with Lonergan.” He paused, pressed his mouth into a grim line, then exhaled a quick breath. “And it’s easy to remember.”

“Easy to remember?”

“I, um...” he touched the scar in his scalp “...have gaps in my memory.”

She pulled her gaze from the ridge of scar tissue that bespoke some injury to his brain. “Gaps?”

“One big gap. I’m missing a whole lifetime.” He nodded toward the cards in her hand. “I don’t know if I’m Ken, Otto or someone else.” He dropped his hand on top of the black leather bag. “But I know how to use these things. Better than any man should. I know how to keep someone safe.”

“You have amnesia?”

“I was shot in the head. Two years ago I woke up in a Texas hospital in some no-name border town with this bag and no memory of the man I used to be.”

“Oh, Jake. How awful.” She hurried back to the table and lay her hand over his. When he turned his hand to capture hers, she squeezed him just as tightly. She stroked her thumb across his knuckles, offering him what comfort she could. “Why are you hiding away from the world? Why aren’t you out beating the bushes, trying locate your family or friends? Somebody has to be missing you.”

His thumb mimicked the same caress across the back of her hand. “There was nobody at my bedside in that hospital. No cards, no flowers. I’ve never once seen my face on a missing person news story. Nobody’s looking for me. Nobody I want to meet, at any rate. Every now and then I think somebody’s watching me and I move on. For all I know, Otto Lundgren or any of those other aliases could be a criminal wanted by the police. Or by some other lowlife.”

“Why would you think...?” She looked at his damaged face and down at the weapons cache beneath their joined hands and understood.

“Told you I wasn’t Prince Charming.” He let her pull away. He splayed his fingers at his waist, thickening his biceps and shoulders, and looking every bit the dangerous man he believed he was—the fugitive from the law he might well be. “Still want my protection?”

Robin turned away to watch her daughter sleep. She tucked the cotton blanket up beneath Emma’s chin and brushed a finger along one precious, chubby cheek. So Jake, or whoever he was, had amnesia. Did she risk her daughter’s life, and possibly her own heart, on a man who might have done something horrible in a life he couldn’t remember? Or did she believe in the man he was now? She stroked Emma’s cheek again. “Have you done anything bad—hurt anyone—that you can remember?”

“Stopped a guy from raping a woman one night.”

Turning at the deep, husky statement, Robin searched those uniquely handsome eyes for the reassurance she needed. “You won’t let anything happen to my daughter?”

Jake stood there, silent, imposing—showing her with his stance and demeanor that that had been a question he didn’t need to answer.

With her decision made, Robin crossed back to the table and handed him the licenses. “Then I don’t care who you used to be. You’re the man I need now.” She picked up the carrier while Jake slung the heavy bag over his shoulder and followed her to the door. “And I know we’re an imposition, so I’m going to repay you.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Hot meal. Comfy bed. It’s what people do when someone helps them.”

He locked the door behind them and followed her down the hallway to the elevator. “Robin, that’s not neces—”

“I want you to talk to me, too. If you don’t know the answer, say so. But you have to try.”

“I still need your keys.”