Oliver (Project Arma Book 7)

“You’re a scientist?”

Tori couldn’t help but be surprised. She hadn’t suspected a scientist would be living in the small town of Marble Falls.

Maya smiled. “I used to work for a big pharmaceutical company in New York. That feels like a decade ago now.”

“Are there any pharmaceutical companies based in Marble Falls?”

Maya chuckled. “No. I’m taking time off from working in a lab.” There was some hesitancy in her voice. “There was an…incident. I need some time. Plus, Bodie needs to be here, and I want to be where he is. There aren’t a lot of jobs on offer for me in Marble Falls. I miss it, but I’ve got a whole lifetime to work. I’m happy just being right now.”

Tori wanted to ask about the “incident” but she didn’t know the other woman well enough. This was only the second time she’d chatted with Maya.

She took a sip of the orange juice in her hand. They were at Bodie’s home, sitting in his living room. Oliver was in Bodie’s office with some of the other guys. They were having a team meeting, and Tori was almost certain they were talking about her.

She tried not to let that bother her.

Tori could have remained at Oliver’s home, but it wasn’t like she had anywhere else she needed to be. Spending time with Maya seemed the better alternative to being alone.

“You could work at the Marble Protection front desk,” Tori suggested, half joking. “No one else seems to have the job.”

Maya sipped her coffee. “I noticed that too. Bodie told me Evie, who’s engaged to Luca, worked there for a bit, and still does the occasional shift. She’s studying now. They also had Lexie, who was their main receptionist. She had a baby with Asher not that long ago and hasn’t returned.” Maya shrugged. “The guys have cameras up so they can see from their office when someone walks in. They can also he—”

Maya stopped before she finished what she was saying. Her mouth snapped shut.

Tori frowned. “They can also hear? Do they have an alarm system that sounds in their office?”

“Yes.”

Was it just her, or had Maya answered that a bit too quickly?

“Anyway…what do you do?”

Tori nibbled on her lip, unsure how much to tell the other woman. She could always lie, but Maya would probably find out anyway. Oliver was going to tell Bodie, who would likely tell Maya.

“I can’t actually remember.” Maya’s instant confused expression almost made Tori laugh. “I woke up almost a month ago with retrograde amnesia after suffering a head injury.” She’d let Bodie fill her in on the rest.

Maya’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry.”

Tori lifted a shoulder as if it didn’t bother her. As if her entire world hadn’t been plunged into darkness. “That’s why I’m here in Marble Falls. I had a note in my pocket from Oliver. He’s going to try to help me figure out who I am.”

He would no doubt be keeping an eye on her, as well. Another thing she tried to not let bother her. She’d seen the distrust in his eyes last night. The suspicion. Why, exactly, she wasn’t sure. Did he suspect she’d been in town to hurt him? Why would she do that?

“So you have no idea who you are or where you live? You don’t even know where your mom is?”

For some reason, when Maya said the word “mom,” Tori felt a pang of pain. “No idea about any of that stuff.”

Maya’s brows furrowed as she clearly tried to wrap her head around what she’d just learned. Tori had been trying to wrap her head around it for the last month and had barely scratched the surface.

“That must be a bit lonely.” Maya’s words seemed more to herself than to Tori. Then her features cleared. “How about you come for a run with me?”

Tori chuckled. She had no idea how her amnesia and loneliness made Maya think of running. “You think that will help?”

“Yes! First, I can be great company. Take away some of that loneliness. But also, it’s a great way to get your mind working. I’m not saying it will bring your memories back, but it might help?”

Tori was willing to try anything. And having a friend in town didn’t sound so bad either. “Okay. Sounds great. I’m not sure how fit I am.” She didn’t think she was unfit. She’d basically run from the motel to Marble Protection the other day and hadn’t been very out of breath. “Don’t outrun me.”

Maya was already shaking her head. “A rule amongst runners is never leave a person behind.”

There was a chance Maya was making that up to help convince her to go, but she wasn’t about to argue the point. “Okay. Sounds good.”

“Great! How about tomorrow morning? Oliver doesn’t live far from here, so I can jog to you and then we can jog to Mrs. Potter’s Bakehouse together.”

Running and cake? Tori wasn’t sure that was the best combination.

“We’ll run to Mrs. Potter’s Bakehouse, then walk home,” Maya chuckled, just about reading Tori’s mind.

That sounded better. “If you run every day, you must be fit.” So fit that Tori was kind of hoping Maya’s run to Oliver’s house would tire her enough for them to be on a more even fitness level. It was entirely possible that Tori would need every advantage she could get.

Maya smiled. “I used to have a heart defect. Now that I don’t, I feel like I could run all day.”

Great.

The front door opened, interrupting anything Tori was about to say. A man with black hair and piercing blue eyes entered, a short blond woman by his side. In his hand were two leads, each connected to a dog.

At the sight of the dogs, Tori sucked in a quick breath. Not because she remembered anything. But because an unknown sadness suddenly filled her.

The couple stopped on the other side of the coffee table. Maya was already pushing to her feet and embracing the woman.

When Maya pulled out of the hug, she turned to Tori. “Tori, this is Mason and Sage. Guys, this is Tori.”

Tori greeted the couple, trying to give them her undivided attention. It wasn’t undivided though. Because she couldn’t shake the sadness in her chest. Tori crouched and gave the dogs a pat, receiving plenty of licks in return.

“The mutt on the left is Nunzie, and the jumper on the right is Dizzie,” Mason said.

The more she pet them, the more upset she felt. Why? Why did she feel like she could almost cry at the sight of them?

“I think I had a dog,” Tori said quietly, knowing she sounded like a nutcase but unable to stop the words. “He died.” Tori added the last part so quietly, no one would have heard.

Tears moistened her eyes but she madly blinked them away. She couldn’t cry in front of strangers for no reason.

Standing, she took a quick step back. “They’re beautiful.”

Sage smiled. “They are. They make it impossible to not be a dog person.”

The women started chatting but Tori was too distracted. She caught an odd look thrown her way by Mason.

Tori didn’t have the memory, but she knew with absolute certainly there had been a dog in her life. And its death had been heart-wrenching.

“No memory at all? Not her name, her address, anything?” Bodie asked.

Oliver shook his head. “Nothing.”

Wyatt frowned. “You’re sure she wasn’t…”

“Lying? I’m sure.”

Wyatt didn’t push it. He knew if Oliver said she wasn’t lying, then she wasn’t. They could all spot a lie a mile off.

Over twelve hours had passed since Tori had told him about the amnesia. About the timing of her attack. Yet Oliver was still trying to wrap his head around it.

He’d messaged his team last night and asked for a meeting this morning. Bodie, Kye, Eden, Asher, and Wyatt had made it.

“What did you learn about her the day you spent together?” Asher asked.

Ah, hell. Oliver had known this question was coming. He’d been dreading it. “Other than her first name, nothing. I didn’t even get a hometown.” He got none of the important stuff. Oliver leaned his elbows on the desk, running his hands through his hair. “Our conversations were light. Flirtatious. We got to know each other on a very shallow level.”

“Did you sleep together?”

Trust Eden to ask the hard-hitting question. Not that he had to. They all knew the answer. They had. Oliver didn’t regret it. He couldn’t.

“It doesn’t matter. But nothing was planned that day.” Not on his end, anyway. “We had a coffee together, which became a tour of town, which became lunch…” Etcetera, etcetera. “I did ask her what she did for work, and she changed the subject. I didn’t push.”

Now that he thought about it, she’d been very good at keeping everything impersonal between them.

Wyatt tapped his fingers on the table. “It’s interesting that she didn’t just lie.”

A heavy silence settled over the room. Oliver knew what his friend was saying. He’d actually been thinking the same thing. “You think she might have known that I could detect a lie.”

It wasn’t a question, but a statement.

“It’s possible. The woman meets you. Spends the night with you. Then almost gets killed. Maybe…” Wyatt lifted a shoulder.

“Maybe she was here to do something but screwed up,” Oliver finished for his friend. And that something had to do with him. Pain hit him hard at the idea. “I sense goodness in her.”

In the way she looked at him. Spoke. Maybe he was blinded by his attraction for the woman. By the way she commanded his attention.

“I didn’t sense any misgivings from her the entire time,” Oliver added. “And it was she who got hurt. Not me.”

“People often get hurt when they become entangled with Hylar,” Luca said quietly.

Oliver could feel his defensive walls rising. Why he felt the need to defend a woman he barely knew, he wasn’t sure. But he did. “I want to believe she’s good. I know I have no evidence to support it. But for now, I think we should focus on learning her past, rather than hypothesizing it.”

Bodie sighed. “Ax is right. We shouldn’t be treating her like she’s guilty of doing anything unless we know it’s the case. She hasn’t hurt any of us.”

“We can watch her though,” Eden added.

Oliver’s voice hardened. “Was planning on it.”

Which was true. He’d planned to watch her not only to ensure she wasn’t an enemy but also to keep her safe.

“I’ll get on the facial recognition,” Wyatt said, already opening his laptop. “We can ask Evie to look into missing persons.”

Mason walked through the door, closely followed by Nunzie and Dizzie.

Bodie frowned. “Ah, couldn’t have left the mutts out there? Or, better yet, at home?”

Mason dropped the leads, the dogs moving around the room, sniffing everything. “Sage and I already told them we were spending the day together. If I’m required to work on a day off, then they can come.”

Eden scoffed. “They’re dogs, and you have a big-ass yard. They would have been fine.”

Mason shook his head. “Nope. These guys need some people-loving. And to answer your other question, I didn’t leave them in the living room because the sight of them seemed to upset Tori.”

Oliver straightened. “Upset her?”

Mason’s brows pulled together. “She said, ‘I think I had a dog. He died.’ Then she looked like she was going to cry. I think she only just managed to stop herself.”

The thought of her being upset had Oliver wanting to go to her. Check that she was okay.

He gave himself a mental shake.

“Things are starting to come back to her,” he mused. She’d said she remembered their kiss yesterday, too. “We need to help her. Do what we can to figure out who she is. We also need to keep an eye on her. I don’t think it will be too long before she remembers something important.”

He just hoped that “something important” wasn’t anything that would turn her into an enemy.