“Me too,” Liza said quickly, nodding like a bobblehead. “Anything.”
Adam felt Dell roll his eyes. He was also pretty sure Holly snorted again, but when he looked at her, she was concentrating on Donald’s dogs.
He got the class back to work. He had them walk in a large circle, and each time they stopped, the dogs were to sit.
Holly was having trouble with this. Her dad’s dogs kept getting tangled up in her legs.
“They’re distracted,” she said breathlessly, arms straining to hold the dogs.
This was because Thing One was staring at the cute little white springer spaniel next to him. “Distracted by tail,” Holly said with some disgust. “Just like a man.”
Hard to argue the truth. Adam stepped between Thing One and the spaniel.
Thing One’s gaze rolled up Adam’s legs to his face, and then he sat. Adam looked at Holly. “It’s your job to keep his mind on the task.”
“Uh-huh,” she said dryly. “Is this where the…mastering comes into play?”
He slid her a look that she met evenly, with a daring quirk of her brow.
Under the guise of shifting the leashes back into her hands, he leaned in. “Are you asking for a private lesson?”
“If I get to be the master.”
He gave her his best wicked smile. “Only the teacher gets to master.”
She bit into her lower lip and slid a look to the building, specifically the loft where he slept at night. Playing with fire, he told himself, with only one possible outcome—someone was going to get burned.
Somehow he got through the rest of the class. When it was over and his pupils had all headed to their cars, Brady stepped outside. He intercepted Holly on the way to her Jeep.
“Worried?” Dell asked Adam, the two of them watching Brady and Holly from across the lot.
“Why would I be worried?” Adam asked.
“Because your woman is talking to your nosy brother, who’s maybe spilling all your secrets.”
“She’s not my woman.” Although ever since their trek, she’d been starring in all his late-night fantasies…“And I don’t have any secrets.”
“Uh-huh.”
Okay, so he had plenty of secrets, and he was uneasy. He’d been so since they’d gotten back. Adam was a realist and always faced the facts head-on. The facts here were simple. He’d had some problems when he’d come home from his last tour. He’d also had enough counseling to know that his reactions to what he’d faced over there weren’t unexpected. And he was better. But he still wasn’t back in the game. He was still being a benchwarmer in his own life. From the outside looking in, it might appear that he was an active participant, but he wasn’t. Not fully. He wasn’t letting people in. If he could let anyone in, it would be Holly, but he honestly wasn’t sure if he could.
The cave incident was a perfect example. He’d failed there, big-time. With an audience of one, no less. It was more than a little humiliating that after all this time he was still so fucked-up.
And now Holly knew it, too.
He had no idea if she was going to keep his little—big—secret, and that was more than a little unsettling. He headed toward her, complete with his shadow. “I don’t need an escort,” he said to Dell.
Dell kept walking with him.
Adam slid him a look. “Thought you said Brady was the nosy brother.”
“It runs in the family.”
Holly had put the dogs in the Jeep, and Brady was showing her something on his phone. A picture, it turned out, of Brady and her dad on horseback. Brady looked up as Adam approached. “Hey. Holly was just about to tell me why it took you three days to find Donald.”
“Two days,” Holly said, meeting Adam’s gaze. “It only took two days.”
“I could have gotten from here to Timbuktu and back in two days,” Brady said. “Next time, you should take me. I’ll fly you in the chopper.”
“We had a lot of ground to explore,” Holly said.
“Explore.” Brady went brows up at this. “Is that the line he gave you? Did he take advantage of you? Because if he did, I could beat him up for you if you’d like.”
“No!” She laughed, then took in Adam, who was doing his best to appear utterly uninterested. “You could really beat him up?” she asked Brady. “He’s pretty tough.”
Brady laughed.
Adam slid him a long look but Brady wasn’t cowed. “I could totally take him,” he said.
Yeah, over Adam’s dead body.
Maybe.
“We really did have a lot of places to look,” Holly said. “We hit Diamond Ridge and Mount Eagle first, and then the Kaniksu Caves—”
“The caves?” Brady turned to Adam, mocking gone. He knew how he’d managed to avoid any caves at all. And perfect, now both brothers were looking at him like he was a ticking time bomb.
“You got inside the caves?” Brady asked.
Jesus. This got better and better. “It’s not a big deal,” he said before Holly could say that no, in fact, he hadn’t gotten all the way inside the caves before having a colossally f**king humiliating breakdown. Because he should have gotten inside that cave. It wasn’t like they’d been in enemy territory, with bad intel and half the good guys already dead.
“And then from there, we went to Fallen Lakes.” Holly reached out to squeeze Adam’s hand. “I’d never have found my dad without him.”
Brady was clearly surprised, and so was Dell. They were surprised because they’d been giving Adam the kid-glove treatment, and Holly hadn’t bothered with kid gloves at all.
“Huh,” Brady said, looking impressed. His gaze warmed considerably as he smiled at Holly.
She blinked, as if blinded by the sight, and Adam rolled his eyes. Brady had always had a way with the ladies. But then Holly turned to Adam and the look on her face was all for him, and the oddest thing happened. His chest loosened from a tension he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding.
He could trust her, really trust her, the way he trusted Dell and Brady—when he didn’t want to kill them, that is. The knowledge wasn’t expected, but he wasn’t quite sure it was welcome, either. He’d liked assuring himself that she was just a diversion. Nothing more.
But she kept being more.
He wanted to touch her. Not just for sex, though he wanted that, too, wanted to bury himself deep and lose himself in her again. God, how he wanted that, to put his hands on her and have her hands on him.
But he also just wanted her close. He wanted to hold her and not let go. And damned if that wasn’t a thought. Maybe he should sleep with her again, work on clearing up this confusion with some down-and-dirty sex.
Except with Holly, it wasn’t just sex. He shoved his fingers in his hair and tugged. This wasn’t helping. He realized everyone was staring at him, but just then Jade stepped out the front door of the center and waved him over. Thank God. No more time to obsess or further embarrass himself, he had work. “Gotta go.”
“Adam,” Holly said.
He slowed, though he didn’t want to, and looked down at the hand she’d placed on his arm. Dell and Brady moved off, giving them privacy. Privacy he was damn sure he wasn’t prepared for, not with her.
“I’m hungry,” she said. “Want to get dinner?”
He looked into her eyes and knew he had to be honest right now, or this would get as out of hand as it had the last time. “Dinner isn’t what I’m hungry for, Holly.”
Her mouth opened, then closed. He didn’t know what she’d been about to say, but he knew that her response should have been a slap across his face. He certainly deserved it, if not for the other night on the mountain, then for all those years ago when he’d touched her and shouldn’t have.
But as it turned out, Holly had no response at all—at least not one she was willing to share with him. She gave him nothing but a look that he refused himself the luxury of interpreting. With a nod, he walked away, telling himself he was doing them both a big favor, but especially her, one she’d thank him for eventually.
Nineteen
Holly knew damn well that Adam had tried to scare her off. But she was no young girl, and she was not easily scared off. In fact, nothing much scared her at all anymore.
Except hiding her feelings.
She watched Adam stride to the porch where Jade stood waiting for him. Gertie was lying at his feet in an exhausted heap on the front steps. Obedience class was hard work. At Adam’s approach, she rolled onto her back, her tail beating the ground, dust rising. He crouched down, ruffling her fur, giving her a smacking kiss right between her eyes.
Gertie writhed in ecstasy, giving him as much emotion as a dog could possibly give.
Adam gave it back, honest and uninhibited, and from across the yard Holly melted a little, even as she sighed.
A hand settled on her shoulder. Dell’s. “It’s not you,” he assured her.
“No?” She was pretty sure it was her.
“No,” Dell said. “It’s because Brady here dropped him on his head when we were teenagers.”
Brady smiled fondly at the memory. “That’s not why he’s an idiot. It’s because she’s his cave.”
“Huh?” Holly said, but Dell was nodding.
“Yeah,” Dell said. “That’s it exactly.” He looked at Holly. “You’re his cave. The thing he fears yet wants the most. You’re going to have to make it safe for him to come inside.”
Well, gee, if that was all. “And how do you propose I do that?” she asked.
“Turn on all the lights and send him invitation?” Brady suggested.
Dell shook his head. “Too subtle. You need to set a trap and drag the big lug inside.”
Holly let out a low laugh. They loved Adam. That was beautifully clear. But they didn’t have a clue. She just hoped she did.
She walked to her Jeep and then took a call from her office about some billing mishap. By the time she disconnected, she was the last one from the class left in the lot. Dusk was falling but she had no trouble seeing across the yard to the very serious basketball game going on. Three-on-three and she knew the players on the skins team.
Dell.
Brady.
And Adam.
The three of them looking so hot that she was momentarily frozen, unable to look away. Dell passed the ball to Brady, who flung it to Adam. Adam caught it and flew toward the basket, where he was rudely and harshly fouled, his opponent’s hand chopping through the air, making an audible smack against his arm and hand. As if he didn’t feel a thing, Adam executed a layup with panther grace. Clearly his shoulder wasn’t bothering him in the slightest.
His opponent, one of Dell’s vet techs, swore viciously.
Adam gave him a steely-eyed look but didn’t retaliate for the foul or call him on it. “Game point,” he said, and passed the ball to Brady, who swished in a sweet three-pointer. Game.
Sweating, filthy, the brothers grinned and high-fived each other in triumph.
And from inside the chilly interior of the Jeep, Holly got a hot flash. She shoved the vehicle in gear and drove off into the night.
Holly was a half hour late to book club. By the time she got there, the food had been devoured, dessert included. Dessert was the whole reason for going to book club, dammit.
Kate was sitting next to Lilah and Jade. There were at least ten other women there as well, all of them discussing the chosen book with an intensity that matched the death and gloom of the plot.
Holly hadn’t enjoyed the book. She liked books with happy endings, and this one hadn’t had anything close to an HEA. She sat in the chair next to Kate and pulled the book from her purse.
“You’re glowing,” Kate whispered. “Why are you glowing?”
“It’s sweat,” she whispered back. “Thing One and Thing Two are a pain in my ass.”
“Sure it’s not the instructor making you sweat?”
Holly hid her face behind the book.
Kate pushed the book down and took in Holly’s expression, her smile fading. “Okay, now you’re scaring me,” she whispered. “This isn’t just fun and games for you. He’s not just fun and games for you.”
Holly glanced around and found Lilah and Jade listening in unabashedly. Great. Holly flipped through the book, pretending to listen to the discussion going on around her. They were talking about the characters.
“It’s all about the characters for me,” Jade said, and looked at Holly.
Lilah nodded her agreement. “Character growth is everything.”
“How about compassion?” Kate asked. “Loyalty? Heart? Because this…this book that we let into our lives”—she sent Holly a long glance—“needs to be compassionate. It needs to be loyal to a fault and have heart. Flawed is okay as long as it has heart.”
“That’s a big order,” Lilah said. “But in this case, the…book,” she said meaningfully, “flawed as it may be, can absolutely live up to expectations—if given a chance.”
Holly looked at both Jade and Lilah, two very sharp women. Two very sharp women who loved Adam like a brother. “I don’t mind flaws,” she said carefully. “What book doesn’t have flaws?”
“You’re sure?” Kate asked. “Sure sure?”
Holly hugged the book to her chest and nodded, hoping like hell that was true, and that she knew what she was doing.
The next day Dell walked into Adam’s office and deposited a ten-week-old black Lab puppy on his desk. A female, who lifted her head and blinked at Adam with sleepy dark eyes.