“Dell?”
“Yeah?”
“Go away. Far away.” And then he gingerly rolled over and fell asleep, ignoring Dell’s knowing laugh.
Five
A half hour later, Holly was slumped in her Jeep, one eye on the old Friends episode she had playing on her iPad, the other on Adam’s dark loft, when her cell rang.
“Just got your text,” Kate said. “You’re crazy if you’re serious about going after your dad tonight. There’s a storm coming.”
Holly sighed and adjusted the phone into the crook of her shoulder so she could shift her weight because her butt was numb. “I’m not crazy, just worried.” Really worried.
“You’re not going to be one of the stupid chicks in those crime shows you love and do this alone, right?”
Kate, definitely the cutest, sweetest person on earth, was also one of the sharpest. She taught at the elementary school in order to take care of her younger siblings, whom she’d had to raise on her own. If life hadn’t dealt her that blow, she’d be off chasing big dreams, making the most of the degrees she kept collecting online.
“Not alone,” Holly said. She hesitated. “I went to Adam.”
There was a beat of stunned silence. “Adam? The guy who broke your heart Adam?”
Holly grimaced. “I can’t believe I ever told you that story.”
“Yeah, well, we’d just suffered through Suzie Metzer’s very froufrou wedding, remember? We were drunk in the bar by eight p.m. Telling each other sob stories was a side effect. Now let me get this straight. You’re going into the mountains after your father, into a storm no less, with not only the hottest man in Sunshine but also the only man you ever really loved? Maybe I should come with you. Be your voice of reason.”
“I have lots of reason,” Holly said. “And you’ve got work.”
“True, but honey, honestly? It’s only been three days. Your dad’s often gone this long. Are you sure—”
“Yes. Something’s wrong, I know it.”
“So you and Adam…on the mountain. Alone.”
“It’s not like that.” And yet…
And yet he had a picture of her on his mantel…
“Text me,” Kate said. “Often.”
“I will.”
“And keep your heart zipped up tight. Your pants, too,” Kate added. “Oh, and don’t wear blue. Mosquitoes are twice as attracted to blue.”
Holly laughed. “I don’t think it’s mosquito season.”
“Okay, that’s probably true, but you still need to be careful. You’ve already experienced the dark, bad-boy sexiness that is Adam Connelly.”
“A very long time ago,” Holly reminded her.
“Yeah, but he’s improved with age, if that’s even possible.”
True.
“And we both know you’d have to be dead for it to not be a problem,” Kate said.
Also true. And she wasn’t dead. Not even close. She disconnected and went back to watching Friends. Half an hour later, she nearly came out of her skin at the soft rap on her window.
Dell looking so much like Adam it stopped her heart. She clutched her chest and powered down the window.
Dell smiled at her, sweet. Affable.
Not like Adam.
“Season five?” he asked, nodding to the iPad. “My favorite.”
Hers, too. She turned it off. “Let me guess. You’re here to chase me away.”
“Adam says you should go home.”
“And what do you say?”
“I say the same. Go home, Holly. Get some sleep.” He paused and flashed her a bone-melting grin. “Then be back by four a.m. Oh, and don’t bother watching his truck. It’s the ATV you should be worried about. Park your Jeep down the block, and then be in the ATV so he can’t sneak off without you.”
Holly jerked awake at the sound of the Ranger’s engine rolling over, for a moment completely discombobulated.
Then she remembered.
She’d set her alarm and done just as Dell had suggested: she’d come back to Belle Haven, planting herself and her gear in Adam’s ATV so that she wouldn’t miss his departure. The vehicle was open on the sides but had a roof. She’d hidden in the back among a tent, sleeping bag, and two carefully folded, heavy wool blankets, all of it covered by a tarp.
According to her watch, it was four thirty. She risked a peek through all the gear to make sure it was Adam in the vehicle and not the boogeyman.
But there was no doubt that the tall, broad silhouette was Adam. He was talking on the phone in his low, steely voice. “Lilah, are you really calling me at four in the morning to check on me? Seriously?…Well, stop worrying. I’m fine…Yes, I ate…No, I’m not in pain…Yes. Yes. Jesus, yes, I’ll text you. Go take care of Brady instead of me, would ya?”
There was a pause, and when he spoke again, he sounded greatly pained. “I could have lived the rest of my life without knowing how you plan to take care of my brother, but thank you, Lilah. Thank you for that image that is now burned in my brain. I’m hanging up now.”
It was the most words Holly had heard him string together since she’d been madly in love with him.
Holly had seen Lilah with Adam a few times at the animal center. The two of them shared an undeniable chemistry, and she’d wondered once or twice if they possibly had something going on. But listening to him on the phone with Lilah now, Holly could tell that the chemistry wasn’t sexual. It had the familiar, extremely comfortable feeling of siblings.
Adam tossed his phone aside and Holly went still as a possum.
He didn’t look back, but she still didn’t breathe. Then the engine revved, and they were off and running. Their first turn was out of the parking lot. The second was onto the main road.
So far, so good.
Then the Ranger abruptly stopped short. Holly slid, bumped her head hard on a cooler, and bit her tongue rather than make any noise. Please don’t let him get out, please don’t let him come back here and look—
Of course he got out. She felt the shift of his weight leaving the ATV, heard his booted footsteps crunching in the predawn ice as he strode to the back.
Crunch, crunch, crunch…
Then nothing. Utter silence, and once again she stopped breathing. She huddled into herself beneath the tarp and closed her eyes. Be the tarp, be the tarp—
The tarp was abruptly lifted away. A dark shadow loomed over her holding a flashlight. Another shadow leapt into the compartment with her.
A seventy-five-pound shadow that was a dog. Milo put his nose to Holly’s ear and snuffled, then licked her from chin to forehead.
“Milo, down,” the big, grumpy shadow said.
Milo sighed at the command but followed the request and jumped down.
A sliver of moonlight slashed across Adam’s face. Leaner than Dell, he was built more like one of those cage fighters, tough and edgy and hard—except for his face.
An angel’s face. Dark disheveled hair, strong features, and a devastating smile when he chose to use it.
He didn’t choose to use it now.
There was a long beat during which Holly debated on continuing to play possum or face the music. Playing possum felt like a chickenshit way to go, but then again it was a bit early to face the music.
Or late…
And, anyway, facing the music was totally and completely overrated. Maybe a compromise halfway between? So it was with a sigh that she pushed the hair from her face and sat up.
Adam was crouched on his haunches, the bill of his ball cap low enough to completely hide his face except for his square jaw.
Something low in her belly quivered. She told herself it was the fact that she’d forgotten to eat dinner. “How did you know?”
“Your empty Jeep’s parked on the street.”
Yeah, crap. She should have pulled into the woods.
“I have no idea why I’m surprised,” Adam said, calm as you please. Wrapping his hands around her arms, he hauled her out of the Ranger and onto her feet in front of him.
Her heart stuttered at his unexpected touch, and she grasped at the hard, knotted sinews of his biceps. He’d just taken another shower, she could smell his shampoo, his soap, his clean, warm, male skin.
A few raindrops dotted his head and the shoulders of his heavy winter coat. He wore a black hoodie beneath it, hood up over the ball cap, jeans that were taut over his hard thighs, and ass-kicking boots.
He looked heart-stoppingly amazing.
Twelve years and he still amped her pulse rate. It wasn’t fair, not one little bit, and it took more than a little bit of concentration to focus on the task at hand instead of his hard-muscled body. “I was waiting for you,” she said. “And fell asleep.”
His silence was disconcerting. He was probably trying to figure out how to leave her on the side of the road. She straightened and tried to look unleavable. “I didn’t want you to go without me,” she added.
“Going without you was the plan, Holly.”
“Yes, well, the plan sucked,” she said. “Did you get some sleep? Is your shoulder okay?”
He gave her a barely perceptible nod. His posture was annoyingly relaxed for someone who’d just found a stowaway. Relaxed but not amused.
Then their gazes met, and for a minute, being this close to him, she got this grown-up, distant, edgy Adam confused with the younger version.
The version who’d cared about her, however briefly.
It softened something inside her and she found herself leaning in closer without meaning to.
But whatever he caught in her expression—memories, confused emotions, something—tipped him off because his eyes went hooded and he pulled back. “Holly,” he said quietly.
“You can’t make me stay behind.”
But they both knew he could do just that if he really wanted. He could make her do anything he set his mind to, thanks to his superior size, not to mention his sheer will. Not that he’d ever force her physically.
He wouldn’t.
Mentally…well, that was another game entirely. Mentally, he had her.
He always had.
“I need to do this, Adam.”
“Holly—”
“No, I mean it. I’ve got this really bad feeling that won’t quit, and…” Dammit. She let out a shaky breath. “I’m scared, okay? I’m scared and…” Her voice broke, which really pissed her off. She didn’t want to lose it, not with Adam.
A low, rough sound escaped him, and he reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips brushing feather light across her temple, his thumb at the line of her jaw.
Gentle.
So terrifyingly gentle that it was almost her complete undoing. Not again. She couldn’t survive him again.
“You don’t have to be scared,” he said quietly, and pressed closer, sharing his body heat as he sighed against her temple. “You’re not alone.”
She pressed her face to his shoulder. Then she remembered his injury and jerked her head up. “I’m sorry—”
“I’m fine.”
The fine word again. But he was fine. And sure. So absolutely sure of himself.
“We’re going to find him,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Because you won’t let me give up until we do.”
There was wry humor in his voice now. She closed her eyes and had to stop herself from pressing her face into his throat and inhaling him in. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me yet.” He wrapped his fingers around her ponytail and gently tugged until she lifted her head to his. “We have a long way to go.” He paused, and for the first time she sensed a hesitation in him. “Together.”
“It doesn’t have to be a problem, Adam.”
He locked eyes with her, and she got it. He thought it would be a problem for her. Oh, hell no. “I moved on a long time ago,” she said.
His thumb made a slow pass along the curve of her jaw and she shivered. To make sure he knew that was to be attributed solely to the cold air, she wrapped her arms around herself and took a big step back, both mentally and physically. She was independent now, unwilling to depend on anyone for emotional happiness.
But damned if being with him wasn’t making her feel a whole lot of things that she’d forgotten how to feel. She didn’t trust those emotions, or him. She’d been fooled, and hurt, by him before, badly.
And then again by her ex.
She refused to do that to herself a third time. At some point, she had to learn. That point was now.
Adam looked at her for another long beat, saying nothing. He rubbed his jaw, and since he hadn’t shaved that morning, and possibly not the morning before, either, the stubble beneath his fingers sounded rough.
And sexy.
He nudged her out of the way and rearranged the equipment she’d messed up. “Up, Milo,” Adam said.
Milo shot Holly a look of sorrowful reproach, then settled in the back with the equipment.
Holly took the passenger’s seat. “Does Milo always behave for you?”
He slid her a look.
Right. Dumb question. Everyone behaved for Adam. It was his voice, low and utterly authoritative. He rarely raised it, he didn’t have to. “What if there’s a cat?” she asked. “Or better yet, a sexy two-year-old Lab strutting her stuff right in front of him? He can resist a distraction, just for you?”
Her attempt at brevity was met with a barely there smile as Adam hit the gas. “A dog is either trained and obedient, or not,” he said. “I don’t know how to half train a dog.” He glanced at her. “So what’s your plan here, Holly? How were you planning on getting to Diamond Ridge?”