by Jill Shalvis
this far without Adam’s help, but being with him like this was harder than she’d thought.
She didn’t want to fall for him again, but how could she not?
He’d come out here for her. He’d dropped everything to do this, simply because she’d asked. He’d shared his food, his equipment…his body. She smiled to herself at that and looked at him. He was moving along at a pace that she knew was for her benefit, not his. He had his pack on his shoulders, which was much heavier than hers, hoodie up, reflective sunglasses on, every movement a study in genetic, testosterone-filled masculine glory.
And he had no idea that she was walking behind him, waxing poetic to herself about him. The guy who’d once destroyed her. But…
He’d changed. Grown up from the wild hellion he’d once been. Everything that had come up, he’d handled, fixed, or resolved with quick, easy efficiency.
It was shockingly appealing. Lost in her thoughts, she was startled when he stopped so suddenly she plowed into him. Looking up, she realized they’d come around the last turn and faced the caves.
Tilting her head back, she took in the towering, building-sized rocks that had drifted down in the last ice age, forming a maze of open caverns.
Adam was standing still, staring at them as well. Holly dropped her pack and searched it for her flashlight. When she had it in hand, she turned to Adam with a hopeful smile that died in her throat.
The color was gone from his face and his entire body radiated tension. “Adam?” she asked, heart dropping. Had he seen a bad sign from Milo? She didn’t know what the signal from dog to owner was when they found a dead body, and fear seized her. “Oh God.”
“No,” he said. “It’s not that.”
She looked at him, startled by his distant tone. It was very unlike him to not reach out and reassure her, but he was definitely not reaching out. If anything, he was completely blank-faced, and as mentally withdrawn from her as was possible. “What is it?” she whispered.
He shook his head as if tossing off a bad memory and then pulled out his flashlight. Expressionless, he started inside. “Stay close,” was all he said.
Fucking caves, Adam thought. Of course it had come down to the fucking caves. His gut clenched tight, and with wooden feet he stepped to the ancient, three-story-tall rock formations and nearly suffocated—not from lack of air, there was plenty of air—but from the memories. Memories of another set of caves, on another continent, in another time.
Dark.
The thundering boom of mortar.
Flash of a firefight.
Screams…
Jesus. He took a deep breath and forced his feet to take another step.
“Adam?”
Ignoring the concern in Holly’s voice, as well as the hand she set on his arm, he moved forward. Because that’s what he’d learned to do.
Move forward.
Except sometimes it felt like all he was really doing was spinning his wheels. No matter how much he tried.
And then it happened. Three steps into the cave, his feet refused to go another step. Just flat-out refused.
The urge to turn and run out of there nearly overpowered him, and that pissed him off. It was just a few stupid rocks stacked on top of one another. Hell, he’d spent half his childhood hiding out here. He knew these caves as well as he knew the back of his own hand, so he refused to acknowledge the bells clanging in his head and the way his vision was flashing like IEDs going off around him. But he was sweating now, and yep, right on cue, a stabbing pain arrowed into his chest.
And then another.
He pressed his hand to it, hard, but it didn’t help. It wasn’t a heart attack. He knew this. But the pain still sucked the breath from his lungs and replaced it with a ball of bitter panic. Utterly out of control, he dropped to his knees rather than pass out. “Oh Christ,” he whispered, because here it came. He set his hands onto the ground and let his head hang, eyes closed, as he tried to ride it out while his brain screwed with him.
“Adam.”
He squeezed his eyes tighter but the images slapped at him, replacing his vision completely. Choking dust. Burning lungs. The stench of blood and fear.
And death.
“Adam. Come on, up you go.” Pulling hands. “That’s it, I’ve got you.”
He opened his eyes, realizing that Holly had gotten him to his feet and outside the cave by sheer force. Pretty impressive given that he outweighed her by eighty pounds.
“Breathe, Adam.” She crouched in front of him and tugged off his backpack, putting her cool hand to the back of his sweaty neck. “Bigger breaths,” she said matter-of-factly. “Deeper.”
Jesus. She was using his own techniques on him. Closing his eyes again, he dropped his head to his knees and concentrated on imitating her breathing. It was all he could do.
“Here.” She thrust a bottle of water at him. “Slow sips.”
He slid her a look as he drank, then moved to get up.
She didn’t attempt to try to keep him down but merely got up with him and slipped her hand in his. “We walking, then?” she asked.
The royal we should have irritated the hell out of him, but he had other problems. There was the horror he felt that he’d let her see him like this. Shame that he wasn’t in control. And then there was the fire still in his chest, and his heart was palpitating against his ribs so hard he was surprised they didn’t shatter. He couldn’t catch a damn breath, and while a moment ago he’d been flashing hot and sweating like a pig, he was now freezing-ass cold and shaking with it.
And having trouble remembering a single damn thing he’d been taught to stop this nightmare.
Walk, he thought. Breathe. So he did a few laps around a stand of trees, he and his parade. Milo. Holly. He could feel her calm, quiet presence at his side. She was still holding his hand, hers warm and steady in his icy one.
When he’d first come home from Afghanistan, he’d walled himself off from the world. His work made that easy. He’d slipped into a routine. He’d closed off his mind to feelings and emotions, because if he didn’t allow himself to feel, then he wouldn’t be vulnerable to loss.
His brothers had helped him feel comfortable. So had Lilah. And Jade. And if they’d treated him with a certain care, he pretended not to notice. And eventually he’d made his way back to the living. He’d been there awhile now and had thought this was behind him.
Liar. If that had really been true, he’d have long ago put himself on active S&R duty instead of incident command. Still, for the most part he’d managed to function at nearly one hundred percent, though his therapist had warned him that there’d be the occasional setback.
And there had been. It was a stark reminder of why he wasn’t in a place to let anyone into his life. Why he wasn’t ready for a real relationship. He couldn’t do it to someone he cared about. Especially someone like Holly, a person he’d already hurt. “I’m not losing it,” he said. “At least not completely. You don’t have to walk with me.”
“I know,” she said. But she kept walking with him, Miss Total Control all of a sudden. She was shockingly calm and efficient, if not more than a little grim-faced, no doubt from having to get him out of the caves since he hadn’t been able to manage it on his own.
Yeah, he really hated that.
Finally he let out a long, shuddery breath and stopped, leaning back against one of the tall, sturdy pine trees, eyes closed. When Holly didn’t speak, he opened his eyes again and looked at her.
She gave him a small smile, but didn’t offer any empty platitudes like “It’s going to be okay” or “You’re looking better now,” for which he was eternally grateful. He hated useless, unnecessary conversation, and he hated to be patted on the head like a child and to be made promises that couldn’t be kept. And he really hated being made to feel stupid, although he was doing a bang-up job of that all on his own.
He was also grateful that she didn’t try to get him to talk about it. Thanks to therapy, he could, but he did
n’t like to, and he sure as hell didn’t want to do it now, when every time he closed his eyes he was still flashing back. “I fucking hate caves.”
She nodded. “I’m getting that loud and clear.”
“I’m okay now.”
She slid him a sideways look from beneath her side-swept bangs. She wasn’t wearing any makeup, and her full lips pursed for a minute as she studied him carefully. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Really really?”
“No.” He blew out a breath. “But I’m getting there.”
“Why don’t you stay here a few minutes? I’ll just go check the rest of the caves and—”
“No. I’m going with you, Holly.”
She gave him a long look, but she didn’t argue, once again earning his undying gratitude. “Okay,” she said. “But let’s give it a minute first.” That said she slid down the tree until she was sitting at the base. Since she was still holding his hand, he was pulled down along with her.
They were silent for a little while. Perfectly fine with him. It was cold enough and late enough in the season that there were no birds, no insects. Just the eerie, beautiful quiet of the remote landscape. “I didn’t expect that,” he finally admitted.
“What, you thought you were impervious to a freak-out?”
He turned his head and met her gaze. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t even try to tell me that wasn’t a complete freak-out,” she said. “A most spectacular one, too.”
He let out a low laugh. “Aren’t you supposed to be kind to the mentally ill person?”
She held his gaze, all kidding aside now. “You’re not mentally ill, Adam. You’re human.”
Fourteen
Though Holly was anxious to look through the caves for her dad, she was more anxious about Adam at the moment. If she hadn’t seen his panic attack up close and personal, she’d never have believed it possible for him to lose control so completely.
But he’d gotten it together pretty fast, much faster than she could have accomplished. It was amazing, and awe-inspiring. She felt other things, too. Far more complicated things. Affection, for one. It was hard to watch a big, bad, tough man like Adam fall apart and put himself back together again without wanting to hug him. And yeah, she really wanted to hug him—which would be essentially the same thing as hugging a lit fuse.
Go figure. Apparently he wasn’t the only one of the two of them with a crazy streak.
As she watched, he settled himself back to normal. Normal being a cool, calm exterior that revealed nothing of the inner man. He lifted her backpack for her, setting it on her shoulders. He did the same with his own and moved to the entrance of the caves.
And stopped.
She came up beside him. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I do.”
She stared up into his face. Grim determination. “How do you manage S&R with this sort of PTSD reaction to tight places?” she asked.
He paused, and she wasn’t sure he was going to answer.
“I don’t,” he finally said. “Or I haven’t been. I work the incident command, organizing the search teams from a central location.”
“But the other night, on the rescue for that kid, you weren’t at home base,” she pointed out.
“No. By sheer dumb luck, Kel and I were scoping out training terrain when the call came in. The kid had been last seen on the east bank of the Black Forest River. His brother kept saying they’d been by the big rocks near the river caves. But the only rocks out that way are on the west side.”
“By the caves out there,” Holly said.
“Yeah. We just happened to be close by and were able to respond within minutes.”
“So let me get this straight,” she said. “You went after the boy, even knowing you might have to go in a cave?”
“Yeah, well, luckily I didn’t have to, or we might still be out there.”
She met his wry gaze. “You did something superhero-like,” she said. “It was all over the news. You shimmied down a rock cliff where he was clinging and were able to hold on to him until Kel got to you with ropes.”
“Yes, I grabbed him and held on, but I didn’t have to go into the caves.”
“Well, if that’s all…” Turning to face him, she slid her hand up his chest and around the back of his neck, tugging his face down to hers. She brushed her lips over his and then lingered.
He pulled her in without hesitation, took her mouth with his, and gave her a long, hot, lingering kiss. “Not that I’m complaining,” he said when they broke apart, “but what was that for?”
“An apology,” she said.
“For?”
“When we first started out yesterday, I didn’t like you.”
His mouth quirked slightly. “I tell you one sob story and you feel sorry enough for me to change your mind?”
“Is that what you think?” she asked. “That I feel sorry for you?” Silly, proud man. She went up on tiptoes and kissed him again. Gentle.
And then not so gentle.
“I feel a lot of things for you, Adam,” she said. “Too many, probably. But one thing I don’t feel is sorry for you. Clear?”
He raised a brow at her bossy tone, and she was gratified to see a light of good humor in his eyes. “Crystal,” he said.
Even knowing he was humoring her, she felt relieved. He was going to be okay. She’d make sure of it. “Ready?”
The very ghost of a smile crossed his lips and she felt even better. “For anything,” he said.
And she believed it.
They moved just inside the entrance to the caves, the cool wind at their back. Holly took her cue from Adam, and when he stopped, so did she. She was just about to once again offer to go in on her own, when he spoke.
“He’s not here.”
She bit her lower lip and stared into the dark opening.
“It’s not because I don’t want to go in there,” he said. “Which I don’t, by the way. I’d rather have my nuts cut off with a rusty knife.” He pointed to Milo, who was sitting relaxed at Adam’s side. “Milo’s telling me no one’s in here.”
Holly’s stomach cramped. “But what if whoever’s in there isn’t alive?”
He paused, and she got the feeling he was choosing his words carefully. “Milo’s also a cadaver dog.”
Her stomach dropped. “Oh?”
“Dead or alive, he’d know.”
She let out a slow breath and Adam slid his hand into hers. Surprised, she met his gaze. “We’re going to find him,” he promised again. “Just not here.”
“Then where?”
He turned and looked out into the gray, foggy morning. “Where we should have checked first,” he said. “The place he first showed me back when I was a stupid punk-ass, where he goes to disappear.”
“Where’s that?”
“Fallen Lakes.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “He won’t be there. That’s where Deanna dumped him.”
He glanced at her, brow furrowed. “What?”
“Yeah, he took her up there last week. They had some big fight and…” She broke off at the look on Adam’s face. “Oh my God.”
Her dad had been mourning the loss of that relationship all week, not that Holly had been exactly sympathetic. It had been hard for her to be when she distinctly remembered him not mourning the loss of his marriage to her mom.
Yet he’d mourned his girlfriend, Deanna, quite possibly the only person he’d ever really let all the way past his tough cowboy exterior. And suddenly, it made perfect sense. “He is,” she