Read Online Secret Identity by Paula Graves - Free Book Online Page B

walked in on that morning in the kitchen of her mother’s home.
Much worse.
She felt movement next to her, and her heart skipped a beat. Then she remembered more about where she was and why she was there. Rick Cooper lay on the cold ground beside her, his large, hard-muscled body radiating heat like a furnace. She felt a powerful urge to scoot closer to him, to bask in his warmth. She held herself in check, however, remembering how easily she’d fallen into his arms at the motel the previous day.
Some mistakes didn’t need to be repeated, however tempting they might be.
Rick shifted next to her, making a low groaning sound deep in his throat. His breathing, harsh and rapid, didn’t sound like normal sleep respiration.
It sounded like a man having a nightmare.
A flutter of sympathy dancing in her chest, she reached to her side and found the small survival kit she’d taken from Rick’s bag before she fled the motel. She took the compact flashlight from inside and snapped it on, letting the narrow beam glance across Rick’s face.
His eyes were still closed, but there was nothing peaceful about his expression. Deep furrows creased his forehead and the skin around his eyes, making him look ages older than his thirty-five years. Despite the cold, sweat beads had formed on his brow, glittering in the flashlight beam.
Was he ill?
Edging closer, she laid the back of her hand against his forehead and found him warm but not feverish. Releasing a soft sigh of relief, she started to sit back.
Like a striking snake, Rick reached out and grabbed her hand, his eyes snapping open.
For a second, even though she knew she was strong enough and well-trained enough to hold her own in a fight, Amanda felt a flicker of fear. Because the cold light in Rick’s dark eyes was nothing short of lethal.
“It’s me,” she whispered, not because she was trying to be quiet but because her voice failed her.
His expression softened, though he didn’t let go of her wrist. “Turn off the light,” he commanded softly, sitting up.
Her finger trembled on the switch, unwilling to extinguish the only thing keeping this cave from once again becoming a cold, black void.
“Amanda?” His voice remained quiet but with a harsh edge that made her stomach knot. “The light.”
She forced herself to push the button, plunging them into inky nothingness. For a second, she thought she felt icy fingers crawling down her spine, trailing goose bumps. She felt the immediate jump in her pulse and tried to slow her breathing to compensate. But the only thing she succeeded in doing was making herself feel light-headed.
“Rick?” she whispered, not because she had anything to say but just to reassure herself he was still there.
“I’m here,” he answered, his voice little more than a breath in the dark.
She reached for him, her fingers colliding with the rock wall of his chest. She felt his heartbeat quicken beneath her touch, and for a moment, the urge to curl herself around him was almost more than she could resist.
“How’s your arm?” she asked.
“Hurts like an SOB. But I think I’ll live.”
“I could put some more ointment on it.” Anything to take her mind off the gaping maw of blackness.
“You can’t see it in the dark.” Humor tinted his low murmur. “I don’t think I want to risk you poking me right in the wound.”
His voice was so familiar, even after almost three years apart. Of course, she’d held on to his voice, trapped it in her mind during the worst of those days in Kaziristan, when the icy night winds rattled the eaves of the mud house where they’d kept her prisoner.
For the first days, she’d been kept utterly in the dark. Al Adar’s version of sensory deprivation, she supposed. For the first couple of days, she’d even kept her spirits up. They hadn’t raped her, and she considered that fact a good sign that she’d be able to get through the ordeal without coming apart.
But that had been before she realized just how many ways