Rogue's Passion(17)

Frowning, the woman tapped the stylus against her lips. “Explain something to me then, because I’m confused. If the two of you have been here this whole time and together, why is it that you—” She pointed the stylus at Olivia. “—didn’t know he was injured?”
Crap. Good point. “Um…”
Asher answered for her again. “She was trapped in the wine cellar. And in this condition, I wasn’t able to get to her. She escaped on her own, but it took awhile.”
Yes, perfect. “When I got out, I knew he’d been injured, I just didn’t know it was this bad. Ash, why didn’t you tell me?” She scowled at him in order to sell the ruse, then turned back to the army woman, giving her a woman-to-woman look that said men can be so frustrating sometimes. The woman didn’t smile.
A fresh round of fatigue washed over her. She tried not to fidget or yawn, but she was so damn tired.
Suddenly, Asher’s large hand enclosed hers, his thumb caressing her skin in a non-stranger-ish, almost intimate way. Twinges of electricity shot up her arm, making all the little hairs stand on end. She stiffened, expecting to feel a sudden loss of energy again, but there seemed to be a barrier there now. His fingers and palm were warm and callused. And very reassuring. It made her feel stronger, not weaker, like they might actually make it through this as long as they stayed together.
With their heads close, the man and woman were whisper-arguing. Maybe some small talk would convince them that she knew nothing, and they’d move on. “Any idea how big it was on the Richter scale? Do they know yet?”
The woman looked slightly amused and tapped the stylus on her lips. She and her partner made eye contact again and something silent passed between them. “You think that was an earthquake?”
She took from her response that it wasn’t.
Before she could answer, the man interjected, speaking for the first time. “It was a bomb. The fucking Cascadians again.”
Now it was Asher’s turn to stiffen. His nostrils flared slightly and his pupils were pinprick small.
“A bomb?” When she’d felt the rumble down in the wine cellar and heard the noise, she’d assumed earthquake. It hadn’t crossed her mind that it was a bomb.
“Witnesses saw a man running from the scene less than thirty seconds before the explosion.” The man stared at Asher as if he suspected him. “He wouldn’t have gotten far. May even be hurt.”
Was it possible that he had set the bomb? Could he be a Cascadian terrorist? Olivia considered the possibility, rolled it around in her head. If he was her enemy, then that meant these two were her allies. That assessment didn’t make sense, either. It felt as if she and Asher were on the same side. Of the same mindset. He could’ve thrown her under the bus and told these two the truth about her in order to get away, but he hadn’t.
As much as she distrusted this stranger, her intuition told her he wasn’t responsible. What it did tell her was that these army people were dangerous. Not Asher.
The woman asked Olivia for her name and address. Since they already knew her first name, she gave them a fake last name and address. If they went so far as to cross-check it with Marco’s records later, she’d be long gone. As soon as she got home, she was packing up her things and leaving again.
“Okay, got it. And your name?”
“Asher.”
“Is that your first or last name?”
“First.”
Her stylus was poised over her screen. “Last name.”
“Smith,” he said.
“Spell that, please.”
Panic flashed in his eyes so quickly that when it was gone, Olivia couldn’t be sure it was ever there in the first place. Must not be his real last name either. That was another thing they had in common.
She gave his hand two little squeezes for encouragement.
“It’s just like it sounds,” he told the woman.
She looked up from her screen. Her partner leaned slightly forward at the waist as if he were ready to pounce. “There are several spellings.”
Could he really not know how this common last name was spelled?
Olivia debated jumping in and answering for him, but she’d done that once already and worried it would look fishy.
Maybe if she got him started, he could figure it out himself. She moved their clasped hands out of sight of the army interrogators. With her pointer finger, she traced out the letter S on his palm.
“S.” She could almost hear the relief in his voice.
When he didn’t continue, she scratched out an M, holding her breath that he wouldn’t think it was a W.
“M,” he said.
The woman turned her attention back to her handheld. Olivia gave him two little squeezes. He squeezed back, which she interpreted as needing more help. She traced the rest of the letters, thankful that he’d picked a short name, and he slowly recited them aloud.