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Her thoughts flitted to Eddie, the boy whose mother had just been sliced, diced and categorized in Miami Hope’s morgue.
Mario danced to their table, bearing a tray and swaying his hips to the beat of the music filtering through the bar. “Dos cervezas y dos tragos de tequila.”
He clicked the bottles and glasses onto the table and winked. “Enjoy.”
Lola picked up her shot glass, clinked it with Jack’s and tossed back the tequila. The fiery liquid burned her throat, and she chased it by biting into a slice of lime. Puckering her lips, she squeezed her lids closed for a moment.
When she opened her slightly watery eyes, Jack’s face swam into focus. His lips were twisted into something close to a smile, and then he wrapped them around the beer bottle and tipped back his head.
“Now that that’s out of the way—” Lola dabbed her sticky fingers on a cocktail napkin “—let’s get down to business.”
“So who is Jack Coburn?” He eased back in his seat, extending his arms along the edge of the red banquette.
“Jack Coburn…you are a hostage negotiator.”
“CIA?”
“Freelance.”
“And you hired me to negotiate for your husband’s release from terrorists in Afghanistan. What was…is your husband doing in Afghanistan?”
At first Lola had been content to allow Jack to believe Gabriel was her husband, when he still had possession of his gun. Now…she wanted to set the record straight. “Gabriel is not my husband.”
Jack’s eyes flickered. With interest? With relief?
“Gabriel Famosa is my brother, and he’s a doctor like me. Well, not exactly like me. Gabe’s a research scientist.”
“Is he doing research in Afghanistan?”
She nodded, taking a sip of beer straight from the bottle. “He was overseas, anyway, working with Doctors Without Borders. Then he heard about a deadly flu strain popping up outside of Kabul. Gabe being Gabe, he rushed to Afghanistan to study the virus. It’s his specialty—the flu virus. He’s been working on flu vaccines for years.”
“Then he was kidnapped and his captors demanded ransom.”
“That’s the weird part.” Lola took another gulp of beer. “They didn’t ask for ransom. Doctors Without Borders found out about the kidnapping and made inquiries as to what the kidnappers wanted, but they never made any demands.”
Jack put his hand over her nervous fingers, picking at the green label on the bottle. “I hate to ask this, Lola, but how do you know Gabriel is alive?”
Her fingers stilled under the warm touch from his calloused hand. “Proof of life. Isn’t that what you hostage negotiators call it? At least that’s what you told me before. Someone sent pictures of Gabe holding a current newspaper to the head of MSF.”
He dropped his hand to the table where he drummed his fingers. “MSF. Médecins Sans Frontières.”
“That’s right. That’s how Doctors Without Borders is known internationally.” How did Jack know all this stuff, including foreign languages, when he couldn’t even remember his own name? Which brought them back to the question at hand.
“D-do you want to go through all this, or do you just want me to tell you what I know about Jack Coburn?”
He traced the rough pad of his thumb around the rim of the shot glass, still full of the clear liquid. “Any background info you can give me is good. So the people at MSF contacted you?”
“Yes.” The call had turned her world upside down. Gabe was all the family she had. “I was ready to give anything to get him back, but no requests were made.”
“Did you try the U.S. government?”
“I contacted the State Department. They informed me they didn’t negotiate with terrorists.” She snorted, the taste in her mouth more sour than the lime she’d just sucked.
“How did you find me?” He wrapped his hands around the beer bottle, the whiteness of his knuckles against his brown hands the only sign of tension.
“An associate of my father’s. He’d heard about you from others in the Cuban community.”
“You’d obviously never met me, since you didn’t recognize me in your car.”
“Never met you. Sent a few emails to an address with one of those free providers. Spoke to you once when we finalized the details of the payment. After you left, neither the email address nor the cell phone number were active anymore. I tried both.”
His brows shot up and a light infused his dark eyes. “Do you still have the emails? Maybe we can trace them somehow.” He slumped back in his seat. “I guess my knowledge of languages and weapons far outpaces my knowledge of computers, since I don’t have a clue how we’d go about doing that, especially with a now-defunct address.”
“We?” she thought. Did he just say “we”? She still needed to find Gabe, find a way to get him back home, but she didn’t want to sign up to help Jack Coburn find himself. Down that path lay danger, an abyss of unknown feelings and complications.
“How long ago did all this take place?”
“At the beginning of the summer, so about six months ago. You went out to Afghanistan in July.”
Jack whistled.
“How did you get out? That must’ve been some fall if you hit your head and lost your memory. Are you injured…I mean physically?”
“I’m sore, bruised, scuffed up, but all parts are in working order…except my mind.”
She wouldn’t mind testing out the working order of a few of his parts. She put her hand over her mouth just in case the booze loosened her tongue. “How’d you get out of the country?”
“What?”
She slid the hand from her mouth and dropped it in her lap, ready to bring it back into service if those naughty thoughts about Jack Coburn clouded her brain again. “How did you leave the country?”
“With the help of this black bag—” he patted the duffel squeezed into the banquette beside him “—and a boy named Yasir.”
“Another round, Lolita?” Carlos called from behind the bar.
She lifted an inquiring brow at Jack, but he held up his hands as if he couldn’t take any more when he hadn’t even knocked back his tequila. “No más, Carlos. Just the check, por favor.”
Shifting her gaze back to Jack, she asked, “Anything in that black bag about my brother?”
“I’m sorry, no.”
Her nose tingled and tears pricked the back of her eyes. When she hadn’t heard from Jack after several months, she’d hoped it meant progress. How could she ever hope to get Gabe home now after she’d pinned all her expectations on this damaged man sitting across from her?
She dropped her lashes and then jerked back, her lids flying open, when the pads of Jack’s fingers brushed her cheek. His fingertips glistened with her tears, and she mopped her face with a damp cocktail napkin.
She blew her nose with the napkin and crumpled it in her fist. “Sorry. You came here with me to find out about yourself, and I’m laying a guilt trip on you.”
He cocked his head. “I don’t feel guilty. Why should I? I may have information about your brother buried in my brain somewhere. It’s not within my grasp right now.”
“I can put you in touch with the man who referred you to me. Maybe he even knows you. He didn’t cop to that when he suggested I engage your services, but maybe he wanted to be discreet.”
“That’s a start. Do you know where I live?” His lips quirked at the absurdity of the question.
“I don’t. Like I said, we exchanged some emails and a phone call. You never gave me your address. I left the money in a locker at a bus depot. Everything was very hush-hush.” She shoved the glasses out of her way and folded her arms on the table. “Where are you staying?”
“Little motel near the water. I like the water…and books. I like books.” He closed his almost ebony eyes and massaged his temples.
Her heart skittered in her chest. “Do you remember things?”
“I have flashes sometimes. Headaches.” He shrugged. “I probably need a good psychiatrist or neurologist. Too bad you’re a pediatrician.”
“I know a good psychiatrist, and she uses hypnosis. Would you be willing to talk to her?”
“Maybe, but I’d like to talk to the man who set us up first.”
“I’ll call him tomorrow.” Lola dug into her purse for her wallet, but Jack flipped a few bills onto the table before she could find it. She shoved them back. “You shouldn’t be tossing your money around, since I’m sure you don’t have much of it.”
He pointed to the black bag. “I have a lot of money, but it probably belongs to you.”
“Oh, no. I paid you that money for taking the job and going to Afghanistan. For all we know, you earned it already. You should at least keep it as compensation for losing your memory. What do you think? A million bucks for a man’s mind?”
“Depends on the mind.”
Shouts from outside the bar cascaded through the open window. Jack jumped to his feet, reaching into his jacket, probably for the weapon Lola still had stashed in her purse.
The man was definitely on edge.
Mario’s bartender, David, scuttled from behind the bar, a white cloth in one hand and a Louisville Slugger in the other. “What was that? Mario went out back to take out the trash a while ago. That was his voice.”
Lola half rose from the booth when Mario himself staggered through the front door of the bar, his face bloodied and his shirt ripped.
Gasping, Lola rushed to his side as he dropped to his knees. “What happened?”
Mario clutched his side and groaned. “Somebody just tried to break into your car.”
Chapter Three
Jack’s blood thumped through his veins as he strode toward the open door of the bar. His fingers twitched. He felt naked without a weapon in his hand.
“Don’t bother. He’s long gone.” Mario, crumpled on the floor, waved a bloodstained hand. “He ran off after we mixed it up, the cabrón.”
David hooked his arms beneath Mario’s and dragged him to a chair. “What happened, boss?”
Mario winced as Lola dabbed the split above his eye with a damp cloth. “I was taking the trash out to the Dumpster in the alley and heard a noise out front. When I looked around the corner of the building, I saw some guy lurking around Lola’s car. I confronted him and the dude fought back.”
“Who looks worse, boss?” David sniggered.
Lola sent him a chilly stare. “David, make yourself useful and call 911.”
Mario sputtered the one syllable that roared through Jack’s head. “No!”
Lola’s hand froze, and she frowned at Mario. “Why not?”
“I don’t want any trouble, Lolita. I don’t want any cops at the bar. It’s bad for business. You can check, but the guy didn’t damage your car.”
“Yeah, but shouldn’t…” Her voice trailed off when her gaze collided with Jack’s.
He gave a slight shake of his head. The last thing he needed was a bunch of cops asking questions when he had a bag full of cash and Lola had his gun in her purse.
“Okay, okay, but are you hurt?”
“This?” Mario framed his face with his battered hands. “Bloody nose, cut over my eye and a few bruised knuckles. You’re a doctor. Fix me up.”
Rolling her eyes, she asked David to fetch a first-aid kit, and then set about patching up Mario. When she finished cleaning and bandaging his wounds she returned to the booth where Jack lounged, one hand on his duffel bag. Lola leveled a finger at the shot glass still brimming with tequila. “You drinking this?”
Jack rapped his knuckles on the table. “It’s all yours.”
Lola put the glass to her mouth and swallowed the shot. Then she placed a lime wedge between her plump lips and squeezed, her face contorting for a second at the tartness.
A slow burn traveled through Jack’s core as if he’d tossed back the tequila himself. It was about the sexiest damned thing he’d seen since…well, since the last time she’d sucked that lime.
Pinching the glasses between her fingers, she said, “I’ll give you a ride back to your hotel. Are you sure you’re okay, Mario?”
“I’m fine.” He tapped the bandage over his eye. “Thanks for the doctoring.”
As Jack held the door open for Lola, she tripped on the step to the sidewalk and he grabbed her elbow. “Careful.”
She shrugged him off and took a turn around her car. “Everything looks okay.”
“Anything like that happen here before?” Folding his arms, Jack wedged a hip on the trunk of her Mercedes. She hadn’t seemed to link the attempted break-in of her car to his presence. Could it just be a coincidence?
“Not to me personally, but I told you the neighborhood wasn’t too safe.”
She grabbed the handle of the driver’s-side door, and Jack placed his hand over hers. “I’m driving.”
A spark lit her hazel eyes, not quite green, not quite brown. “You don’t even have a driver’s license.”
“Actually, I do have a driver’s license, but more importantly, I haven’t had a full beer and two shots of tequila.”
“I can hold my booze.” She giggled, belying her words.
He held out his hand. “Maybe, but you’ve had a rough day, and I’ve had a rough day, and I’m not up for a negotiation.”
Stepping back, she took his measure, her gaze traveling the length of his body and settling on his face. She dropped the keys in his palm. “You win.”
Her inventory of his body had heated his blood, had made him feel more alive than he’d felt since he’d climbed down from that mountain in Afghanistan. He hadn’t forgotten the fire that could ignite between a man and a woman. Thank God.
He accompanied her to the other side of the car and opened the door for her. When he dropped in the driver’s seat and locked the doors, he turned to her. “Give me my gun.”
