Page 5 of Trapped

Chapter Two

“Cash, don’t.”

She spoke as though she knew him well, and the mingling of fear and determination in her voice was like a punch in the gut.

“You’re hurting my arm. Let me go.”

He eased up a little, but he didn’t loosen his hold in her. “Who are you? What are you doing here?”

In the darkness, he heard her swallow hard. “I’m Sophia—Sophia Rhodes.”

He hadn’t expected to hear a name he recognized. But the effect was like a baseball bat hitting him in the chest and knocking the breath from his lungs.

A few minutes ago, he had remembered nothing about his early life. But the mention of her name sent a bolt of lightning flashing through his brain. The lightning crashed through a mental barrier. Memories flooded his mind. Not just memories. Vivid physical sensations.

He remembered a night in her bed. A night of passionate kisses and touches. And then two bodies joined in ecstasy and desperation. A night that had branded him for life.

He summoned the breath to speak and managed to gasp, “You can’t be.”

“I am,” she answered, her tone almost as breathy as his, making him wonder if the same memories had flashed through her consciousness and affected her the same way.

Shock made his muscles go weak, and his hold on her loosened. With a small sound, she pulled away.

“It’s me,” she said. “See for yourself.”

Bending down, she turned on the light above the bedside table, and he thought with one corner of his mind that she knew just where to find the switch. He blinked, fighting the sudden brightness as he struggled to focus on her.

She was dressed in a uniform identical to the ones that hung in the closet. Only she had added a cap with a visor. When she pulled the cap off, a cloud of glorious wheat-colored hair fell around her shoulders.

His hand remembered the feel of that hair. Unable to stop himself, he reached out, running his fingers through the wavy strands, letting them tangle in the softness.

In the dark he had assumed she was a man. Now he was confounded that he could have made such a mistake.

Her large blue eyes searched his face, then slid lower—over his almost naked body.

He’d felt at a disadvantage, lying in bed waiting for some guy to assault him. The sensation was multiplied now as he stood half dressed—facing Sophia. But he held his ground, taking in the details of her. She still had the same delicate features. The little turned-up nose that he had found so enchanting. The bee-stung lips. The high cheekbones. The creamy skin that burned when she tried to get a tan.

Too bad he couldn’t see the mark that might confirm her identity—the little brown imperfection high up on her right thigh, just below her butt.

With an effort, he pulled his mind away from that spot and studied her face again.

She’d been nineteen and back from her first year at a posh eastern college when they’d made love. He had been a couple of years older—because he’d been kept back early in his school career when he’d had trouble learning to read. And he’d bummed around for a year before he’d let an army recruiter convince him that serving his country was his ticket out of a dead-end life—like his mom and dad’s.

She was definitely older than the girl he remembered. Probably about ten years older. But maturity hadn’t made her less appealing to him. There was wisdom in her eyes now. Or was it calculation? He hated to think of her in those terms. Because his memory had made her the goddess in the most satisfying and yet the most gut-wrenching night of his life.

The hours of passion they had spent together were on the night before he’d been scheduled to get on a bus for Fort Benning, Georgia. And if he hadn’t reported for duty, he would have been AWOL.

But maybe this woman wasn’t her. How could it be? How could she have found him? More to the point, how could she have gotten into this bunker in Thailand?

He hated standing in front of her wearing only a pair of revealing briefs when she was fully dressed.

Taking the chance on turning his back, he walked to the closet and grabbed a pair of uniform pants off the hanger. Then he pulled them on, wincing as he lifted his right leg and shoved it into the pants.

While he performed the simple task, his mind was racing. Who was she, really? What if someone had found a woman who looked like Sophia Rhodes, used plastic surgery to make her into an exact double and sent her to him?

And why go to all that trouble to fool Major Cash Baker?

After zipping the fly, he turned back to her.

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