He relaxed very slightly, making her wonder what he’d expected. “And…?” he asked.
She knew what he was really asking. Her dad vanished all the time on hunting trips. In fact, he used the term hunting as an excuse to be alone—his favorite state—and everyone she’d approached in her worry had assured her that he was fine. He’d always been fine. “I can’t explain it,” she said. “I just have a really bad feeling. And you’re the only one I know who can track. Please,” she added, hating that it was Adam she was having to beg. “Something’s wrong, I know it.”
“Has something happened, did something change that would make this trip different from his others?”
Fair question. “Two days before he left, Deanna broke up with him,” she said. “I don’t know the details, but he was upset.”
“He’s got other women.”
Holly squelched a grimace. Her dad was a known womanizer. But this thing with Deanna had hit him hard. Her dad was a cowboy at heart, a good old boy who’d never shown much in the way of emotion unless it was about his horse or dogs. He loved women, too, and his family, of course, but he’d never been one for needing them around, not like his animals. “Yes, he has other women,” she said, “but apparently Deanna was his favorite. We had dinner together and he wasn’t himself. He left the next morning, taking his usual gear and the two dogs he’s fostering for you. They got into his ATV, so I know he was planning on off-roading to wherever he was going. And then he didn’t come back.” She caught Adam’s slight head shake and hastened to go on before he refused her like everyone else had. “I know, nothing unusual. But he’s rarely gone this long without at least checking in, and we’ve heard nothing. Not a single radio or cell call, nothing.” The words rushed out of her in a worried river, and embarrassed her. She’d managed to be cool and calm while talking to Red, her dad’s ranching manager, to Kel, to her dad’s friends…everyone.
But now, with Adam, she was falling apart. She drew in a deep breath, willing herself to keep it together.
Adam studied her for a long beat. “Donald goes out all the time,” he finally said. “He’s been doing so for years. Is there anything besides the Deanna thing that makes you think he’s in trouble?”
“This morning there was a board meeting, and he missed it. Didn’t even call in to check on how it went.”
Adam nodded. They both knew Donald loved business, all of it. He had great employees and wasn’t required for any day-to-day action, but he kept up on everything. He’d turned sixty-five this year and still insisted on attending all the important meetings. Just as he also insisted on riding the wildest of his horses, herding cattle, wining and dining too many women, four-wheeling into the wilderness to go hunting…
Until last year, Holly had run the business side of things from New York. She’d grown up in New York under the watchful eyes of her mother, who’d passed away five years ago, one of the many women Donald had gone through in his heyday. Holly had remained on the East Coast, an arrangement that had worked well for everyone. She got her beloved freedom, and her dad got the same.
But then he’d pressured her to move to Sunshine, reminding her that he wasn’t getting any younger, and with Grif still overseas, he wanted her—his only other family—nearby.
It had been a blatant manipulation of Holly’s emotions, but she’d come, anyway. Maybe because her personal life had been in the toilet. Maybe because the memory of the one summer she’d spent here as a teen made her nostalgic for the last time she’d felt truly happy.
“And there’s something else,” she told Adam. “Deanna called me looking for him as well. If she’s been calling him like she says, he’d have answered.”
If he could…
Adam’s dark eyes never wavered from hers and she felt a most annoying pull of the same sexual magnetism that had always been between them. His state of undress didn’t help, he was sex on a stick—not that she intended to go there. She didn’t. Not ever again. She’d been burned by him, badly. And even a silly eighteen-year-old could learn not to play with fire—no matter how attracted to it she still was.
“I feel like something’s happened to him,” she said, “and I need to find him before tomorrow night’s storm hits.”
“What did Kel say?” he asked. “Did you fill out a missing-persons report?”
“I tried, but everyone knows he takes these damn trips all year long, in worse conditions than we have right now. So no one’s particularly concerned. This is just for me—I need to go out there and make sure.”
Adam turned his head and made a point of looking out the window.
Pitch-black, of course.
Again he met her gaze, his own ironic.
“I don’t care what time it is,” she said. She’d go by herself, except that it had been a long time since she’d roamed these mountains during the day, much less at night. The Bitterroots were among the most gorgeous in the world, and also among the most remote, isolated, and dangerous. There were miles and miles of land accessible only by foot. Not that she wasn’t capable, but she was rusty. It would take her a lot longer than Adam to get to her dad’s favorite hunting haunts.
But asking for help was hard. She’d been taught to handle her own problems, thanks in large part to her mom, who’d spent her life pretending everything was okay even when it wasn’t. Her brother had also had a hand in teaching her how to be tough. So had her dad himself, Mr. Never Ask for Help.
And then there was the man who’d been the hardest on her of them all. The one in front of her who was now wearing nothing but that low-riding towel and a few water drops sliding down the chiseled body that made her mouth dry up even as other parts of her dampened.
“No one’s going out there tonight,” he said.
It was true that the wind had kicked up since she’d gathered her courage to come here, battering at the windows. It was also true that only the craziest of the crazies would want to be out in this. “But—”
“No one, Holly.” His eyes never left hers as he stood there in that very still way he had. “Where do you think he went?”
She hated knowing that it wasn’t safe to go out now. That she’d have to wait until daylight to take action, but she did take heart in this question because he wouldn’t ask if he wasn’t going to help, right? “He didn’t say.” And of course he hadn’t left a note or a message. “But his favorite places are Diamond Ridge and Mount Eagle.”
“Diamond Ridge and Mount Eagle are twenty-five miles apart.”
“Yes,” she said, turning to stare out the window into the black night. “I’m going to start with Diamond Ridge—it’s slightly closer. Mount Eagle has that deserted ranger station he likes to camp in, so that’s my second guess.”
“You remember how to get there?” Adam asked.
She craned her neck so her gaze met his. And held.
On that fateful long-ago summer, her dad had been busy. A lot. She’d been bored until she’d met the sexiest ranch hand she’d ever known—Adam, working part-time on one of the Reid ranches. There’d been instant chemistry between them, made all the hotter since her dad had forbidden her from dating any of his men.
So they’d kept it a secret. She, because she didn’t want her dad to kill him. And Adam, because…hell, who knew. Adam tended to keep his own counsel. In any case, he’d taken her out on the mountain, to the deserted ranger station at Mount Eagle. She’d been seated behind him on his dirt bike, hands clutched at his waist, legs straddling his lean hips, the power of the engine rumbling up from beneath her. It had been a sensual, erotic, heady thrill of a ride, and once they’d gotten there, he’d given her another sort of ride altogether.
To her eternal annoyance, the memory still rated as her top sexual experience. “I remember,” she said softly.
His gaze dipped down to her mouth, and she chewed on her lower lip to keep from saying more. She didn’t want to beg. Wouldn’t beg.
Surely he knew that.
She’d only ever asked him for one thing. When his circumstances had changed and he’d gone into the military, she’d asked him not to break up with her. Go if he must, but keep her in his heart.
He hadn’t.
He’d left without looking back: no letters, no contact, nothing.
He’d moved on, with shocking ease.
So she’d moved on as well, with the opposite of ease, foolishly getting sucked into a bad marriage with a bad-for-her man. Just like her parents’ marriage, it had been a sham, a façade, and one hell of a hard-learned lesson. These days Holly no longer ran with scissors or led with her heart.
Or let a man have power over her.
But as her father always said, Reids don’t quit. “So will you help me?” she asked.
“Where’s your husband?”
Not the question she’d expected, not from him. But not all that surprising. She’d kept her private life to herself—or more accurately her lack of a private life—out of self-preservation. And in any case, thinking about Derek never failed to make her feel vulnerable and stupid, and like a complete failure. “I’m no longer married,” she said. The rest was on a need-to-know basis, and as far as she was concerned, no one needed to know. Especially not Adam.
He studied her thoughtfully. “So why does everyone here, including your father and brother, think you are?”
Adam was still tight with her dad, and Grif as well. “I don’t know,” she said. A lie, because she did know. It was pride, of course. Hers. She’d come from a fractured family, had been asked to choose between her parents, but never really getting either of them.
Then Grif had left as well.
And then Adam.
The lesson learned had been clear—any sense of happiness, family, and security was an illusion. Heartbroken, she’d gone back to New York for college, where she’d kept to herself for a year. Then she’d met a man. Her professor. Derek had been romantic and nice and kind. He’d been gentle and…beta—a complete change from all the alphas who had always been in her life. He’d sucked her in with that slow charm and sensitivity. God, how she hated remembering how easy of a mark she’d been. A lonely, scared, vulnerable college girl, looking for love. Derek had dazzled her, completely, and even more so when both her dad and Grif had tried to tell her that she was being played. The three Reids had one thing in common—they were stubborn to the end. So of course they’d battled, and her dad and Grif had pushed Holly hard.
Holly had pushed back, being young and stupid enough to marry Derek at nineteen, giving him all she had, including her already trampled on heart. She’d settled in for her happily-ever-after, but that hadn’t been the ending she’d gotten. Derek had indeed played her with his quiet, passive-aggressive ways, so completely it had taken her taken several years to realize her dad and Grif had been right about him.
She hadn’t been the only student in her professor’s life.
Crushed, embarrassed, and completely ashamed—especially at how long she’d been fooled—she’d never told her dad or Grif that they’d separated. Pride before the fall and all that. For a long time she hadn’t even filed for divorce because she’d never intended to get married again. It had suited her, being free but not available.
She could only assume Derek enjoyed the pretense of being married as well, because he hadn’t made a move to divorce her, either.
But then a year ago she’d come back to Sunshine for her dad. And in doing so, she had decided to learn to live in the moment and not just pretend everything was okay like her mom had always done. She wanted to take full control of her own life, and be happy. Her way. So she’d filed for that long-overdue divorce, certain that after all this time Derek would agree to it.
He hadn’t.
She’d been forced to go to court, which had been a very unpleasant experience. Derek had fought her and then hadn’t even bothered to show up for their court date. Twice. Finally, just last week, the judge had agreed to sign off on the case without him, and, as far as she was concerned, the deal was as good as done.
And Holly was over faking her happiness.
Adam was still just watching her. She had no idea what it was about his melting-chocolate eyes, but they had a way of looking at her, as if he could see all the way inside, past her walls, past her guard, past everything, to where her real thoughts and feelings were laid bare.
It was disconcerting.
Terrifying.
Arousing.
“My past isn’t up for discussion,” she said. “It’s…complicated.”
The very hint of a smile curved his lips. “And what with you isn’t?”
She was pretty sure that wasn’t a compliment, but she didn’t want to go there. To give herself a moment, she walked the length of the loft. He hadn’t lit a fire, and the place was chilly. Framed pictures sat on the mantel. Adam with a search dog on either side of him. Another with a handful of guys on a cliff in full combat gear looking into the camera with varying degrees of stoic strength and camaraderie.
But it was the last picture that grabbed her by the throat. It was small, the photo itself a little wrinkled, as if maybe it had spent time in a wallet before making its way to a frame. It was Adam circa his Troubled Years, wearing loose, low-slung jeans and down jacket, hood up. No smile, dark glasses in place, hiding the eyes already old beyond his years. He had his arm slung around a girl.