Free AWOL with the Operative by Jean Thomas

slept.
     
     
    Like last night in the root cellar, Sam was unable to let himself fall asleep. Not for a while, anyway. His mind was too active. Eve, of course.
    Hell, McDonough, can’t you think of anything else?
    No, he couldn’t. He was responsible for her.
    Yeah, like that’s what’s on your mind.
    Okay, so it wasn’t. Not at this moment. At this moment, it was plain lust. Well, that and all these tender feelings he had for her that went beyond more than just his need to protect her.
    You could have had her. She was more than willing.
    Sure, but he wasn’t. All right, so maybe he was a fool, but it was just as he said. When he made full love to her, he wanted it to be perfect in every way. Reliably warm and comfortable, for one thing, and, for another, with no article of clothing between them. Eve deserved that. Until then, he’d just have to endure this misery of self-denial.
    If she has to be in your thoughts, then try to make them a little more pure. Things like how much you’ve come to admire her spirit and her endurance.
    It was true. He did admire those qualities in her. Thing was, he couldn’t seem to separate those qualities from her looks, and that was a direction that meant trouble.
    He should turn his mind to something useful. Like how he was going to get them out of this mess. It would help if he could only get his memory back.
    He’d made a little more progress with that tonight while evading his pursuers. He’d pictured himself in that place again where the paintings were. This time he had realized that something very bad happened there, but he had yet to know what. He’d also recalled that other room with its view of a city street. Could now identify it as the living room of his apartment in Chicago.
    But there had been nothing else. He’d have to keep working on it until he regained his full memory. Only then would he know the information his squad supervisor must have shared with him before he’d sent him off to the Yukon. Things like why Eve was so important to this Victor DeMarco character.
    As it was, Sam had nothing to rely on but what Eve had told him. That she didn’t know why DeMarco wanted her either dead or captured. He had no reason to believe she hadn’t been telling him the truth.
    If those two goons of DeMarco’s had been trying to shoot their plane down, he could only surmise they’d wanted to kill Eve, as they’d allegedly killed Charlie Fowler. But Sam couldn’t be sure of that.
    He recalled what else Eve had told him. That their plane had dived into a cloud cover to lose the helicopter. Which meant their enemy wouldn’t have known what happened to them after that. Sam could only guess they had heard afterwards that a bush plane didn’t arrive in Calgary as scheduled and was presumed to be down somewhere in the wilderness with possible survivors.
    One of those survivors could be Eve Warren, and that was all DeMarco’s boys needed to put them hot on Eve’s trail.
    And that means you’d better stop worrying over what you can do nothing about tonight and get some sleep.
    Oh, yeah, he would have to be rested for tomorrow. Because he was going to need all his resources if he were to have any chance of getting Eve safely away from the threat to her. And considering how much she was beginning to matter to him, that was imperative.

Chapter 4
    T he first gray light of daybreak was filtering through the pines when Eve awoke with a start. What was she doing out here in the open like this? For a few seconds she was too disoriented to understand, and then she remembered. She and Sam were on the run.
    Her memory of the last two days’ events, however, didn’t explain what had so sharply awakened her. Danger? Their two armed pursuers creeping up on them?
    Her body tensed when she heard a cry off through the trees. When it sounded again, she realized what it was. Nothing more than the call of a jay. Eve relaxed when the jay’s mate shrilled an answer, convincing her it was the