by Jill Shalvis
beautiful it only further infuriated her because it mocked romance. It mocked her divorce. It mocked everything she was feeling in that moment, which explained her juvenile reaction. She snatched the bouquet from Adam’s hands and whirled on Derek. “Are you kidding me? More stupid flowers? What is this, a bad romantic comedy?” She threw the bouquet at Derek’s feet and stomped on them.
“I…didn’t send those,” Derek said through clenched teeth, still cupping his family jewels.
Oh God. Holly turned back to Adam.
“You okay?” he asked, voice low and calm enough to get past the adrenaline rushing her system.
Was she okay? Her answer depended entirely on how long he’d been standing there and what he’d heard. Her mind raced backward, trying to remember exactly what she’d said. You can’t make someone love you the way you want to be loved…Trust me, I know…I love someone else. And to be honest, I always have…
Oh God. She had to figure by the light of barely banked anger in Adam’s eyes that he’d heard it all, every bit of her dirty little secret. Embarrassed, horrified, she kept moving, grabbing her purse, leaving both men in the kitchen as she made for the door.
She ran out into the night, into the rain. It didn’t seem so bad now. Or maybe that was just compared to the storm brewing inside the kitchen. She thought she heard Adam call her name, but she kept going. She jumped into her Jeep, slamming and locking the door as she pulled out of the driveway. She was on the street before it occurred to her that leaving Derek and Adam alone might not be such a smart idea.
She didn’t care. She turned her concentration to the road because the night was pitch-black. No city lights, no streetlights, nothing but the slick roads.
And the wind beating at her Jeep.
The rain seemed to amp up now, viciously slashing at the windshield, and she began to doubt her sanity for leaving the relative safety of her house. She debated turning around, but at this point Kate’s place was just as close. If she was home…Since the last thing Holly wanted to do was be the stupid chick who drove off the road trying to get to her phone, she pulled over to fumble through her purse. When her fingers closed around it, she made a sound of relief that was short-lived.
Low battery.
Damn stupid smartphone, with only enough battery to get her three-quarters through a normal day. What the hell was wrong with technology? “Please work,” she said, and hit Kate’s number, sagging with relief when she answered. “Hey, you’re home.”
“Yeah, got a sick brother acting like a baby.”
“How does an ice-cream pity party sound?”
“Perfect,” Kate said. “On a night like this, we need something hot to go with it. I’ll heat the fudge. Be care—”
The phone died. Holly tossed it aside and carefully pulled back onto the road. The isolated road, with no other cars in sight.
Driving straight into a storm.
Seemed she was the stupid chick, after all.
The road was slick, the water flowing across it in sheets now, past the rails on her right, down the embankment to the river rushing below. She slowed down, way down, not wanting to be a statistic. It happened out here all the time. The people of Sunshine were a hardy bunch, but they also thought they were invincible.
She did not think she was invincible. She had a healthy sense of preservation and a will to live for that ice-cream pity party with Kate, so she slowed down even more. She crossed the bridge—the one that washed out every few years at flood time—and gulped in relief when she got over it. Another gust of wind hit and she fought the steering wheel as she headed into the next hairpin turn. In spite of her low speed, the Jeep slid, and both right tires rolled off the edge of the asphalt. She jerked on the wheel but her tires didn’t respond. Adam’s words flashed in her head.
Steer into the slide…
She could hear him plain as day in that low, authoritative voice. But before she could do that, there was a loud POP—her tire, she thought—and her Jeep hit the railing. The railing broke. She screamed as she went airborne off the ice-slicked surface and over the embankment.
Twenty-five
Adam heard the front door slam signifying Holly’s departure, and it galvanized him into action. He strode across the kitchen floor and squatted before the man curled in a ball on the tile floor, still clutching his gonads. “Derek?”
The guy wheezed and nodded.
“You all right?” Adam asked.
Derek let out a shuddery breath. “I think so.”
“That’s too bad.”
Derek’s eyes flew to Adam’s face. “Who the fuck are you?”
Adam was tempted to say “your worst fucking nightmare,” but he didn’t want to sound like a bad movie line. “You touch her?”
“She’s my wife.”
Adam grabbed Derek by the front of his shirt and pulled him up, possibly banging the back of his head on the cabinet just a little bit.
“Hey, man, watch it.”
Adam did it again, harder.
“Ow, Jesus! What’s your problem?”
“You,” Adam said. “You’re my problem. You’re still worked up over the divorce?”
“Yes.”
“Wrong answer.”
“You threatening me?” Derek asked.
Adam got a little closer, and this time when Derek’s head banged into the cabinet, it was his own doing as he tried to move back.
“You’re the guy,” Derek said slowly. “The one she loves.”
Against all odds and disbelief, yeah. He was. He’d never been worthy of that love, but he was going to work on that.
“Did you know she was coming off a long-term relationship when you took up with her?” Derek asked.
Adam purposely took his hands off Derek so he wouldn’t be tempted to strangle him. “You want to talk? Let’s talk about what a college professor was doing hooking up with a vulnerable nineteen-year-old.”
Derek swallowed but didn’t look away.
“Drop the appeal,” Adam said. He rose and headed for the door.
The storm had intensified, but he was already drenched, anyway. He started toward his truck.
Holly was long gone already. Not surprising. He’d seen her expression when she’d turned to him. Embarrassment, and hurt, which killed him. He pulled out his cell and called her, but he went right to voice mail.
He had no idea where to look for her. He called Dell. “Where would a really pissed-off woman go?”
“You’re asking me?”
“You’re with Jade, and I figure you piss her off daily, so yeah, I’m asking you.”
Dell let out a breath. “Jade wouldn’t go anywhere—she’d stay and kick my ass.”
“Not helping.”
“Holly, right?”
“No, the Tooth Fairy.”
Dell laughed softly. “Okay, so you pissed her off and she stormed out. Give her some space. Then grovel. She’s a hell of a good woman, and she’s worth a little time on your knees.”
Adam hung up. Fuck space. He’d given her enough space over the years. He was done with space.
But most of all, he was done holding back how he felt about her. He’d long ago learned to shelve his emotions, long before he met her, in fact. No amount of training could have prepared him for her, and no one could have told him that he would be brought to his knees by a woman.
But that’s what she’d done, brought him straight to his knees.
He’d always told himself that there was a better man for her, and that man wasn’t him. Even though deep down inside he’d wanted to believe that he was the only man for her.
She’d believed it all along, and he finally believed it, too.
All he had to do was find her and tell her he’d caught up. He told himself this, knowing it wasn’t going to be that simple, nothing with her ever was. He drove out into the storm, figuring he’d take the only road into town and wing it once he got there.
One hundred yards later he was thinking he
was insane to be out in this. And so was Holly. The road was an exercise in concentration, and a disaster waiting to happen. Deeply concerned for Holly, he crossed the bridge, then hydroplaned on the next curve, swearing viciously when he saw the broken rail.
It hadn’t been broken on his way here, which meant that it had just happened.
A car had gone over.
He called 911 and then pulled to the side of the road. Grabbing his Maglite, he hit the ground running, the storm beating at him. At the broken rail, he flicked the light below, trying to take in what he was seeing. The riverbanks had flooded, and Jesus Christ, there was a car at the bottom of the embankment, nose in, the water rising toward the doors. An old memory nearly knocked him to his knees. That long-ago night, drag racing, watching the cop car skid out and go over the embankment…
Fuck.
He didn’t see anyone moving around, but he needed to get down there for what would hopefully be a rescue and not a recovery. It would take emergency responders at least twenty minutes to get here. But whoever was in that car didn’t have twenty minutes.
He ran back to his truck for rope, tying one end around a sturdy tree at the top of the embankment, the other around his waist. Two cars had driven by him and not even slowed. He was on his own. No Kel, no Milo, no anyone but his own wits, which were weak at best.
He rappelled down the bank. Normally the river would be at his knees, but tonight it was raging and about to take the vehicle into its greedy grasp. Closer now, he shined the light on it and his heart stopped.
Holly.
Holly opened her eyes and panicked. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t move, couldn’t see. Disoriented, confused, she couldn’t even tell which way was up or down. She was reaching out, trying to feel around when she saw a shadow move outside her Jeep. She flinched with instinctive fear, but that was quickly replaced with knee-melting relief because it was a man, and he had a flashlight. He flicked the light inside her vehicle and she realized her Jeep was nose down, her seat belt holding her suspended between the seat and steering wheel. Water was swirling around her, filling up the interior of the Jeep.
“You okay?” the man yelled through the wind and slashing rain.
Holly jerked in stunned disbelief because either she was hallucinating or it was the one man she didn’t want to see right now. “Adam?”
He knocked on the window. “Unlock your door.”
She blinked and took better stock. She was still having trouble breathing, no doubt because she was hanging from her seat belt, the nylon cutting into her chest. Water was filling the Jeep at an alarming rate as she fumbled for the door lock control—but it was underwater and she couldn’t find it. Straining forward, she ran her hands beneath the surface of the water over the slippery controls on the door and accidentally dunked herself. “I can’t—” She choked on fear. “It won’t unlock!”
“All right, it’s okay.” His voice was calm, suggesting that this was no problem at all. “I’ll come to you.”
But then he was gone from her view.
Her head was pounding and her eyes drifted shut. She shivered and tried to be patient but panic gripped her. “Adam!”
“I’m not going anywhere without you, Holly, I promise.” His voice came disembodied in the dark. “Cover your head with your arms.”
When she’d done so, he smashed in the back window with his flashlight. He jabbed at the glass with the butt of his flashlight until it was clear and reached in for her. “Take my hand.”
“I can’t reach you. I…” She fought her seat belt but still couldn’t get free. And the water was rising. She choked on another mouthful and coughed. The next thing she knew, Adam, water running down his face in rivulets, was inside the Jeep with her. “Why are you here?” she murmured, heart tight.
Or maybe that was the seat belt, still cutting off her circulation.
His eyes locked on hers. “For you.”
In all his big, bad, pissed-off glory. His jaw was tight, his eyes glittering with some emotion she couldn’t even begin to decipher. But he was steady as a rock as he reached for her.
“I’m stuck.”
He came up with a knife. The blade glinted in the air as it sliced through the seat belt and then she was in his arms. He hauled her out through the back window just as the river swallowed up the Jeep.
On solid ground, he ran his hands over her, assessing for damage.
“I’m not hurt,” she gasped.
That wasn’t true, and they both knew it. She had a gash above one eye that was bleeding, and her ribs were killing her—proven when Adam pulled her into him, his arms closing tight and hard around her, holding her close. She felt a fine tremor go through him, and her heart squeezed at the realization that he’d jumped into yet another rescue—for her. “You should have waited for your team.”
He shook his head. “It’s not that. It’s you— Christ, Holly, I was almost too late.”
She pulled back and looked into his face. His usual calm was shattered, and in that one brief second, she could see every emotional wall he’d constructed come tumbling down. His gaze was eating up the sight of her, the lines around his eyes and mouth drawn tight. She put a hand to her aching head and tried to take it all in but she was having trouble putting thoughts together. “I want you to know, my driving like a so-called granny was a good thing tonight. How did you even find me?”
“The broken rail. I saw it and knew someone had gone over.”
Someone. He hadn’t even known it was her and he’d stopped. Fate, pretty much hand-delivering him to her. Made sense. Fate had always had a sense of humor when it came to their relationship.
He pulled off his jacket, then his T-shirt, which he balled up. Pulling her hand from her head, he pressed the cotton to her forehead over her right eye, making her wince. “Hold still,” he said. “You should have waited for me—”
Oh, that’s right. She was pissed off at the entire male race. She’d almost forgotten. “I didn’t want to be with you,” she said, pulling back. “I wanted to be alone.”
“In this storm? Jesus, Holly, if I hadn’t come along—” He broke off and tried pulling her into him again, but she fought him and then slipped on the wet embankment and went down in the mud and sleet.
“Godammit.” Squatting before her, he put his hands on her arms and held her still. “You’re bleeding. You need to calm down—”
“Calm down?” She pulled free. “You heard things I didn’t want you to hear! And then when I went over the edge, I thought I was going to die before I got to tell you how mad I was at you for eavesdropping!”
“I wasn’t eavesdropping. You didn’t answer the door and I was worried.”
“No one stopped,” she repeated, suddenly exhausted. Dizzy. Shaking. She closed her eyes and dropped her forehead to his chest. “Except the one person I didn’t want to stop…”
Then she horrified the both of them by bursting into tears.
“Ah, Holly. It’s okay.” He hauled her up into his arms. “It’s going to be okay.”
“No, it’s not. You saw me at my worst,” she said soggily into his shirt. “And you brought me flowers, which I accidentally stepped on!”
“Accidentally?”
She began to cry harder, unable to stop. It hurt her head, as did her chattering teeth.
“Holly. Holly, listen to me.” His hands were on her arms and he ducked down a little to make sure they were eye to bloody eye. “I’ll buy you more flowers. I’ll buy you all the damn flowers you want, in the entire town, in all the land. Just please, God, stop crying.” His voice dropped, his hands softened. “And besides, you’ve seen me at my utter worst, too, remember? You saw me in that cave. You saw me completely lose it. That didn’t seem to change how you felt about me, so how can you possibly think I’d judge you?”
She stared up at him while he stroked her matted hair from her face. He looked at her injury, grimaced, and pressed his T-shirt back against it.