Parallel Desire Read Online Free Page A

questions as to how, precisely, she'd earned that time, well, he figured they'd be answered eventually. She'd told him vaguely that she had been posted to their Texas facility prior to its decimation by their enemies—and while that explained some aspects of her acquired Texan nature, it hardly explained it all. This woman had passed plenty of time among the locals, not something any of the soldiers at the Texas facility would or should have ever done.
    "Who are you, Shelby Tyler?" he asked softly, staring up into her clear blue eyes, finally letting her blot at his bruised jaw without ducking away. For a long moment she seemed arrested by his question, staring back at him wordlessly, hand frozen midair.
    "You know exactly who I am." Her words were careful, precise. No more Texas accent, not this time.
    "I don't know meshdki about you, Medic Tyler. So start talking."
    "And if I don't?"
    He propped his head along one elbow, giving her a smile. He hoped it looked wicked, seductive, even though he felt too battered at the moment to really mean it. "Well, I'll have to extract that information."
    "Don't even try and go that devilish, charming route with me, Lieutenant. Seen it all from you before."
    He narrowed his eyes, studying the pretty blonde medic In their few interactions he had no memory of having been either devilish or charming. Maybe there was something between them that he couldn't recall?
    "Say what you mean, Shelby Tyler."
    She removed the damp cloth from his face, making a great show of folding it first in half, then over again. "I know all your moves, sir, that's what I'm saying. Gone a few rounds with you down in the medical center and come out on the … well, the winning side, I'd say. You'd say different, no doubt."
    "Are you talking about when you stitched up my belly?" He remembered how she'd tended him after his fight with the Antousians months back.
    "Not your belly. Good lord, more than that. I mean when I was your night nurse, sir. Took care of you after your legs were shot out from under you at Warren."
    Jake's eyes slid shut. "Oh. Him."
    "Yeah, him—your younger self, that's who."
    "You're talking about Scott Dillon. He's the one you tended to after Warren, not me." He shifted on the mattress, fighting a wave of nausea. "I'm not him, and I keep telling all of you that." After all, Hope certainly knows that's true , he wanted to add.
    Shelby sidled closer, wedging her hip right up against his as she leaned down over him. "Um, then, who are you, sir? I mean, really? You're him, come back from ten years in the future; of course you are."
    Jake turned away from her, putting his face to the wall. "Go away, Shelby Tyler." He groaned, working a hand at his temple; it throbbed with a hangover from last night's drinking and brawl. "Honestly, just get away while you still can."
    "You denying it?" She pressed her face into the small space between the wall and his body. He couldn't avoid her, not like this—especially not with her wide blue eyes peering right into his own so openly.
    He burrowed his face into the flimsy pillow. "You took care of that knife wound of mine, end of story. Now, go away."
    "Our king charged me with a duty—to bring you back with me to Wyoming."
    He had to hand it to the woman: She was persistent if nothing else. "Tell him I wasn't willing."
    "I can't do that, now, can I? We're talking about Commander Bennett. Imagine me reporting something like that back to our king? No way, no how. You're coming, too."
    Jake rolled onto his back, shoving Shelby back across the bed. "Look, Nurse Tyler, clearly there are a few things you don't understand right now. One"—he raised his index finger—"I'm not Scott Dillon, not anymore. I don't have his body, or the exact memories your Lieutenant Dillon has … or that his wife does, either." Jake battled a spasm of intense, choking pain for a moment.
    "And two?" Shelby prompted, blue eyes alert and waiting.
    "Two, is that my