“You heard that and immediately did a search for him?” His fingers bit into his biceps. “That makes no sense. Try again.”
“It sounded fascinating.” She hopped up from the chair and spun away from him. “I was curious.”
Hugging herself, she walked away from him and stopped by the window to peer through the glass.
“Jane.”
She hunched her shoulders and leaned her forehead against the windowpane.
“Do you know what I’m thinking right now?” He couldn’t explain to her exactly the thoughts crossing his mind because along with irritation with her lies and his suspicions, he had a strong desire to take her in his arms. He couldn’t explain it to himself, so he sure as hell wasn’t going to admit it to her.
She shifted to display her profile. The defiance had gone out of her chin. Her long lashes and parted, pouting lips suggested a vulnerability all out of proportion to a woman who was a liar and possibly connected to the cartels.
She’d been playing him since the moment she flashed her knife at him. A place to stay, a job, clothing, meals, sex... That hadn’t happened, but if he hadn’t uncovered her search history at the library, they might be tangled up in his sheets right this minute.
He cleared his throat and repeated the dangerous question, the one he hoped she couldn’t guess in a million years. “Do you know what I’m thinking?”
She turned to face him, tucking her hands behind her back like a chastened schoolgirl. “You probably think I’m connected to El Gringo Viejo, that I was on some kind of drug run that went bad, or that I double-crossed him and the drug cartels and they retaliated by running me off the road and torching my car. Or you think I’m still in their good graces and this—” she flapped her arms at her sides “—is some kind of setup, some sort of infiltration into the Border Patrol through my seduction of you.”
He felt his eyes pop out of their sockets like some kind of cartoon character, so he closed them and rubbed them with his fists. She’d come up with more scenarios than he’d let creep into his brain. Had she been seducing him?
“Is that close?” A little smile played about her lips, but her eyes drooped in sadness and he felt that crazy urge to charge across the room and engulf her in a bear hug.
“Close enough.” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “Which is it, or is it all of the above?”
She turned back toward the window and doodled on the glass with her fingertip. “I don’t know.”
Rob blew out the breath he’d been holding, uttering a curse at the same time. “You’re gonna have to tell me, or I’ll have to...take action.”
He crossed the room in a few long strides and touched her shoulder. “Just tell me, Jane. And why don’t you start by telling me your real name?”
“I would...if I could.” She pivoted and grabbed his arm. “Rob, I am connected somehow to El Gringo Viejo, but I don’t know how. I—I think he’s trying to kill me, but I don’t know why. And my name? I don’t have a clue.”
His gaze dropped to her hand on his arm just to make sure she didn’t have the knife. She wasn’t right in the head...or maybe he wasn’t. Either way, he couldn’t make sense of her words.
“Wait.” He held up a hand as much to stop her words as to stop the thoughts swirling in his clouded mind. “I don’t understand what you’re telling me. If it’s more lies, I don’t want to hear them.”
“I wish I were lying, Rob. I wish I knew enough to lie.” She rubbed the side of her scalp, digging her fingers into her hair. “It must’ve been the head injury. I don’t remember anything before waking up in that wreck. I don’t know my name. I don’t know who I am, and worst of all, I don’t know who’s trying to kill me and why.”
The words tumbled from her lips in a rush, too fast for his brain to sort and comprehend. “We need to sit down.”
He collapsed on a cushion of his couch, and Jane sat beside him, folding one leg beneath her—almost too close to him for rational thought.
Now that the dam had broken, she couldn’t stop talking.
“I heard those men talking about killing me, and that’s when I first heard of El Gringo Viejo. I had the knife in my pocket, so when you came along, I thought you might be one of them.”
Placing his hands on her shoulders, he pinched his fingers into her flesh beneath the light T-shirt. “Stop. Tell me everything from the beginning...and I’ll decide if I believe you or not.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath and folded her hands in her lap. “The first thing I remember is coming to in the car. It was upside down. I was disoriented right from the beginning.”
He barely breathed as she told him about releasing herself from the car and then hearing another vehicle arrive and voices.
“Something made me hide from those men. Alarm bells were sounding in my head.” She looked up, studying his ceiling as if searching for her memories there. “I saw their shoes but not their faces. They couldn’t see me at all. That’s when I first heard of El Gringo Viejo.”
He took his thumb out of his mouth, where he’d been gnawing on the cuticle, on the edge of his seat as she spun her story. “In what context?”
“Something about how El Gringo Viejo would be angry if they had to tell him they weren’t sure whether or not I was dead.”
“To be sure, they torched the car.”
She nodded and drew her knees to her chest, wrapping her arms around her legs. “They thought I was still inside.
