He cleared his throat and sat up a little taller. “It was a warm night . . .”
“We spoke of the weather?”
He licked his lips . . . stalled. “I was trying to get your name.”
Her eyes narrowed as she looked down her pert nose. “You were flirting with me?”
Leo repositioned himself in the chair. “Ah . . . yes.”
Now her smile was forced back, as if she were trying not to grin. “And was I flirting back?”
“Well . . .” What the hell was he supposed to say to that? No, you were trying to walk away. In this case, honesty was likely not the best route. “You weren’t running away,” he told her. Which wasn’t a complete lie.
“I was busy getting shot.” This time she chuckled.
“You’re laughing about it.”
“I’m not happy I took a bullet . . . or at least I think I wouldn’t be happy about something like that. Who would want that?”
He didn’t have time to answer before she kept talking.
“I’m much more upset that I look in the mirror and don’t recognize myself. That’s quite a bitch, isn’t it?”
“I can’t imagine.”
She moved her shoulders and started to cough. Short bouts of breathing between each eruption.
“Should I get the nurse?” He moved closer to the bed.
Olivia reached for her side and attempted to take a deep breath and started to struggle.
Leo jumped up and stopped at the door. “I need a nurse.”
The man in the chair brushed past him and looked into the room.
Both of them stepped back when a nurse rushed in. Calm and collected, the nurse soothed the anxiety swimming in Olivia’s eyes. When she lifted the bedsheets to look at Olivia’s side, she pivoted and closed the curtain between them.
Only when Leo heard Olivia’s cough start to subside did he step completely out of the room and start to pace.
“Hey?” Neil’s man stood a little taller than Leo and spent more hours at the gym. But his smile was easy, and his eyes were kind. “You okay?”
“She shouldn’t be in there.”
“And the Dodgers should have won the World Series . . . and?”
Leo stared. “What’s your name?”
“Rick. Neil and I were in the service together.”
That made sense. The men were cut from the same physical cloth.
Leo stepped closer, lowered his voice. “Do you know her?”
Rick shook his head. “I overheard the doctors. They want to transfer her out of the ICU. I encouraged them to wait until tomorrow. It’s harder to get in here than the main floors.”
Leo didn’t like the sound of that.
“If all goes well, the chest tube comes out tomorrow, and within a day or so she’ll be ready to leave.”
Leo’s heart started to pound. “And go where? She doesn’t know her name.”
Rick’s voice was a whisper. “We have it covered.”
Of course they would.
Except she was a witness . . . or could be at any moment. “We’ll bring her into the protection program,” Leo told him, knowing that would be the next step. “My superiors will insist on it. At least until she regains her memory.”
Rick paused.
Leo looked at him.
“Do you want to keep her safe?”
“I’m the reason she’s in here. I fucked up. Approached Navi, pissed the man off . . .” He ran a hand through his hair.
“Then you’ll do, tell, lie, or whatever you need to in order to get your superiors to go along with our plan. She is not safe in a protection program, or more to the point, those protecting her are not safe with her there.”
Those words stopped Leo midstep. He leaned closer. “Mind explaining?”
Rick smiled, shook his head. “Talk to Neil.”
Leo turned away. His gaze moved to the closed curtain.
“I’ll make a deal with you . . . If you can’t fall asleep on your own, I give you enough to take the edge off so you can.” The nurse was negotiating the pain medication with Olivia.
“I’m fine.”
“Your vital signs say differently. Sleep is the best thing for you, and you can’t sleep if the pain is too intense.”
“I don’t want the fog.”
“Small amount . . . I promise. You’ll wake up in the morning feeling so much better.”
Silence made Leo wonder what was happening behind the curtain.
When the nurse left the room, she stopped long enough to mutter, “That’s one stubborn woman.”
Rick chuckled.
Leo walked in.
The coughing had taxed her. Those eyes lost some of their luster, her skin had paled.
“Better?” he asked when their eyes caught.
Her smile was fleeting and not convincing at all.
“Why not let the nurse give you something?”
She shook her head.
“Do it for me.”
“The guy I flirted with is asking for a favor?”
“I see the tired in your eyes, a little will help you sleep.” For a second he thought she was wavering. “You have a lot of people looking out for you here.”
That wavering drifted away. “Like the man outside. The guard.”
Leo looked over his shoulder at the empty doorway.
“The doctor told me I’d remember day-to-day things. Like driving a car or how to use a computer, just not the details like passwords or addresses . . . or who I am. And one thing I know is that man out there is here to either protect me or protect people from me. And since no one has said I’m in police custody, I’m going to assume the former. In which case, I know something . . . that I’ve obviously forgotten . . . and that information needs protection.”
Leo blinked several times. Holy shit.
“And I see by the expression on your face I’ve concluded correctly.”
Leo sunk into the chair at her side. “I have to add smart and beautiful to your list of attributes.”
“You’re flirting again . . .”
He lifted both hands in the air, felt heat in his cheeks. “Guilty. And inappropriate in light of everything.”
“It’s okay. Refreshing, actually. But for all I know, I’m married.” Her face rejected the thought. “If someone was missing me, they would have come looking by now, wouldn’t they?”
Leo thought of Neil and everyone involved with him, all working together for her at that moment. But how they couldn’t say a thing to her. Not yet. “You could have come to Vegas for a quick weekend.”
“Alone?”
“Maybe for work. And maybe you’re not due home for a few days?”
She chewed on that for a full minute. “Dr. Everett said I have dissociative amnesia. He thinks because of the shooting. That my mind can’t process the assault, and it’s protecting itself by hiding the memory and those around it.”
“Did the doctor say how long it would last?”
“Hours, days, weeks, months . . . He said my memory could come back quickly or in slow chunks. But sometimes people like me will never remember the events leading up to the shooting, or the shooting itself.”
Leo pulled in a deep breath. “You were facing the street. My back was to the shooter. You saw something, because you reached for me and told me to get down.” He nodded toward the door. “The security is for you. We don’t have an ID on the shooter, and there is always a possibility that the people involved will . . .”