by Marina Adair
“Yes, sir.” Ty took the dry suit with one hand, unwilling to let go of Avery just yet. “I’ll get suited up and meet you at the chopper in thirty.”
Decker gave him a quick rundown of the missing boy, background, description, necessary information, then left him to get dressed.
“You sure you’re okay? You should go to the hospital,” Ty decided while making short order of stripping down to his boxers. “Medic,” he called out.
“All I can think about is that you’re practically naked in the middle of the highway, so I think I’m good,” she teased, and he leaned up and kissed her while he stepped into his dry suit.
She ran a hand down his arms, as if needing the contact as much as he did. “Are you going down there alone?”
“Harris will fly me in.”
Her face paled. “But then you’ll be alone down there.”
“I have ten more seconds of not being alone.” He cupped her face. “I don’t want to spend it talking about work.”
“But this is more than work, Ty,” she whispered against his lips. “You’re going after a missing boy who’s the same age as Garrett.”
“But it’s not Garrett.” Not that he hadn’t thought it the second he got the rundown on the victim.
“I know, but the girl we pulled out said he’s been in that water for hours. Won’t he be—” He watched her throat work hard to stay calm, to swallow the word everyone was thinking.
Dead.
“Most likely.”
Her gaze went glassy, and he gently pulled her against him, wrapping his body around her tightly. Probably too tightly, but he couldn’t seem to let go. She’d experienced enough loss in her life. It broke his heart that she was witnessing this.
“But you’re going to go get him?” she whispered.
“It’s what I do.”
She tilted her head until she met his gaze. “Be safe and know that when you come back, I’ll be here if you want to talk or just watch the water lap.”
Ty stared at her for a long moment. “Wait, are you worried about me?”
She placed her hand on his chest and gave a shaky smile. “You jump out of helicopters and save lives. I ride bulls for crowns and worry about my friends. It’s what we do.”
“You think of me as a friend?” he asked, not sure if he liked the sound of that.
“I think of you as a lot of things.” She rolled on her toes to give him one last kiss. “In fact, I think of you all the time.”
As fate would have it, twelve hours, a busted shin, and a safe rescue later, Ty was still thinking about that kiss.
And the amazing woman who gave it to him.
CHAPTER 17
Avery wasn’t worried when the workday came to an end and there was still no word on Ty or the missing boy.
She’d spent most of the afternoon accomplishing as much prep work for the inspection Monday as she could. Partly, she wanted Ty to have one less thing on his plate. Between his dad and the lodge, he was already dealing with so much. Then this boy went missing, and Avery couldn’t help but see the similarities to Garrett, which meant Ty had too.
Mostly she busied herself to stop worrying. About the boy, Ty, his relationship with his dad, what was going to happen come Monday when the inspection was over and he was free to leave. She hadn’t meant to get so emotionally involved, but Ty was generous and sweet—and noble. It was foolish to think she could have kept her distance.
Kept things light.
Well, Avery sure didn’t feel light right then. Not when dinner came and went, and the evening news passed without even a mention of a recovery. But the crushing pain in her chest didn’t start until it was time for bed and Ty hadn’t called. His absence meant one of two things. They hadn’t found the boy, or they had found him and Ty needed time to process. Either way led to heartache, she was sure.
She let out a weary sigh and sat down in the window seat overlooking the mountains. The rain was back with force, tapping her windows and tin roof with a hollow thud. Even though she’d lit a fire that had warmed her cabin, she felt a chill roll over her. Was he still out there, or had he simply gone home and passed out?
Maybe he’d left.
Her heart tried to reject that option, but her brain reminded her that he’d cut out once before and kept his distance from Sequoia Lake for a reason.
After the past few weeks, then the talk she’d had with his dad this morning, it wouldn’t surprise her if today was the end of Ty’s rope. It would crush her, but it wouldn’t surprise her.
She’d said a lot of goodbyes in her life thus far and was able to find peace in each and every one. Saying goodbye to Ty—that was going to leave a mark.
The phone rang, and hope flared as she reached to answer it.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello, dear.” Irene’s voice came through the phone. “I know it’s late, and I hate to think I woke you if you were having one of your good nights, but have you heard from Tyson?”
Avery sat back down. “No, I wasn’t sleeping, I was waiting up to see how things went. In fact, I was hoping that you were him calling.”
If anything just to tell her that he was okay, that he’d found the boy and everything had worked out.
“Have you heard anything at all?” Avery asked.
“Prudence stopped by a little bit ago and said they found the boy,” Irene said, and Avery’s eyes pricked with relief. “He was alive but in bad shape, so they airlifted him to Reno. I stopped by the lodge to see how Ty was doing, but he wasn’t home yet.”
Avery looked out the window again at the sheets of water sluicing down the street, and a gnawing ache started in her gut. “How’s Dale holding up?”
“He walked in the door, said he needed to see a specialist, then went right to bed. Hasn’t come out since.” Irene’s voice wobbled slightly.
“I think this is a good thing, Irene.”
“I know,” Irene said, sounding anything but good.
A knock came at the door, and Avery jumped to her feet. Walking across the front room, she looked through the front window and saw Ty standing on her porch. Her heart leapt. “He’s here, Irene. Ty’s here.”
“Well, thank the Lord,” Irene said, and Avery could hear her playing with her beaded necklace in the background. “You give him a hug from me and be sure to tell him I love him, and if he doesn’t come see me by tomorrow morning I’m busting his door down.”
“I’ll let him know.”
Avery hung up the phone and raced to the door. She yanked it open, coming to a full stop when she took in the sight before her.
He was still in the same clothes he’d been wearing that morning. Only now they were soaked through, his face was covered in dirt, and his eyes were lined with exhaustion. He was breathing heavily, as if he’d just climbed up from the ravine and came straight here.
“Ty,” she said, glancing behind him to see that there was no car in sight. “How did you get here?”
“I walked.”
“From the accident site?”
“From the lodge. I got there and I just couldn’t go in.”
“So you walked here?”
His gaze met hers but he said nothing.
“The lodge is a few miles away.” A gust of wind strong enough to rattle the window frames and splatter rain into her house blew past, yet Ty’s hair was so wet it didn’t budge. Neither did he.
She opened the door to let him inside, but he just stood there, water pelting his body, a haunted look in his eyes that didn’t ring of victory.
“We found him.”
“Your mom told me,” she said quietly, reaching out to take his hand, which was frozen solid. She gently led him into the house.
“Alive. After ten hours. Can you believe it?” Ty laughed, which turned into a raspy cough.
“That you found him? I never had a doubt,” she said, shutting the door behind him, but not letting go.
“The kid had enough whisky in his veins to take the t
umble down the hill and a half-mile swim down the river. Lucky son of a bitch managed to grab onto a rock in the middle of the rapids and hoist himself up.”
“We need to get you out of these clothes.”
He looked down, as if just realizing that he was dripping all over her wood floors. But when he looked up, she realized he wasn’t just frozen, he was hurting—and lost.
She unzipped his jacket and hung it on the hook by the door, leaving a slippery path. Next came his shoes. “Here, lift up and let me help you with your boots.” He raised his foot enough for her to slide it off, and then she removed the other.
“He was pretty far downriver when I found him,” he said as she took off his socks as well. His feet were swollen and waterlogged, and she wondered just how long he’d been standing in the rain. “Banged up, body temp low enough to mess with his heart rate, and too damn injured to move back across the current. So we sat there, waiting for Harris to airlift him out. But there was too much tree coverage, so after the third try I knew I’d have to carry him to shore.”
“Ty, I need to get you warm.” She wanted to hear his story, listen to him unload everything that he was feeling, but he was shivering, and the way he spoke, almost shell-shocked, made her afraid for him.
“It took more than two hours to get him stable enough to move,” he said, as if unable to process what she’d said. “He’d been on that rock for most of the night, bleeding pretty bad, then had to lay there waiting for us to get our heads out of our asses and figure things out.” Ty shook his head. “You know what? The kid never complained. Not once.”
She reached for his other hand, and he winced. It was scraped and swollen, one of the knuckles bleeding. “What happened?”
“Must have banged it on a rock.”
“Come with me,” she said, tenderly twining her arm through his and leading him down the hallway. She considered sitting him in front of the fireplace, but he was too wet for it to make a difference. Ty needed a hot shower, some food, and a safe place to process.
He also needed tenderness, something he’d denied himself. Ty was convinced that suffering in silence was a badge of honor—a mistake she’d seen time and again with people in chronic pain. It only served to create distance from loved ones—not from his emotions.
Ty needed connection. The kind that was real and open and allowed one to be vulnerable without the chance of drowning.
He would never admit it, but a part of him acknowledged that need. It was why he’d ended up at her front door instead of his own.
“He had some cracked ribs, a punctured lung, hypothermia was setting in, and he just kept clutching that rock as if he wasn’t ever going to let go,” he said as Avery led him into the bathroom and cranked the shower to hot. He caught his reflection in the mirror and locked on, straining his eyes as if looking for the answer to all of his questions. “I thought I’d have to pry his hands off, but then I said, ‘I’ve got you, man,’ and that was it. He let go. Just like that.”
“Because he knew he wasn’t alone, and that you did have him,” she said. In seconds the bathroom filled with steam and the mirror fogged up, but Ty’s gaze never wavered. “Shower’s ready. If you set your clothes outside the door, I’ll put them in the dryer.”
“You don’t get it—he just surrendered to blind faith in me that everything was going to be okay.”
Avery placed herself between Ty and the mirror and took his face in her hands. “It did turn out okay. You stabilized him, calmed him down, and got him the help he needed. He’s going to be just fine.”
And so was Ty, she’d make sure of it. He was putting his trust in her, desperate for it to be okay. For him to walk away from this, from the past, and somehow manage to find peace with it all.
Realizing he wasn’t going to get in the shower unless she steered him, Avery tugged his shirt up, struggling with the wet fabric, his skin ice-cold against her fingers. He lifted his arms, and she dropped it to the floor.
Her breath caught at the faint purpling on his side, and another coming in below his right shoulder. He’d taken a beating today too.
“It was fine this time.” He met her eyes, and that haunted look became laced with confusion—and enough anger to have his hands shaking. “Why this time, though? I’ve done this same kind of rescue a hundred times, followed the same protocol, and still can’t tell you why one makes it and another doesn’t.”
“Oh, Ty,” she said, her heart breaking for him. She didn’t have to ask who hadn’t made it. The pain etched on his face said it all.
“There’s no way that kid should have made it. No fucking way he should have been able to survive,” he said. “If it hadn’t been for mainlining a quarter bottle of Jack and a random rock, he wouldn’t have.”
“But he did,” she whispered.
Ty was right there in front of her, yet it felt as if he was in the middle of his own ocean. Unwilling to let him drift farther away, Avery stepped into him and held on for the long haul. There was nothing sexual about the embrace, just Avery’s way of saying she had him. And she did.
She felt his body cave from the inside, then his arms came around her and he pulled her to him, tethering himself as if she were his lifeline.
“You did too, Ty. You made it through, and now it’s time to let go.”
He pulled back, his expression breathtakingly sad. “It’s not that easy, angel.”
“It can be if you let it.” Stepping back, she quickly shed her nightclothes and stepped under the hot spray, then reached out for him. “Let me help you.”
He stared at her hand for so long she thought she’d lost him. “I’ve got you, Ty.”
She watched his resolve crumble, watched the pain surface, and without hesitation he moved forward, stepping in the shower and into her care. She turned him so he was under the spray, which plastered his pants to his legs and chased the chills off his skin.
Lathering up some soap, she started with his shoulders and then his chest, rubbing and massaging, washing away the river, the storm, and everything that was trying to cling to him. When she got to his stomach, she felt it knot and ripple beneath her fingers, watched his pulse pick up when she struggled with the wet fabric of his pants.
“You’re playing with fire, angel,” he said gruffly, his hands stilling hers, which were inches away from his erection.
“I’m not playing.” Any game that had been started had ended that morning when she saw him rappel down that cliff. “I’m moving forward, and I’d like to do it with you.”
He gave her a weary smile. “Most people would get out of the way of a falling boulder.”
She looked up at him through the drops on her lashes. “Good thing I’ve got wings.”
“Driving up to that scene, wondering if you were in that car, going through every worst-case scenario of what could have happened to you—” He shook his head. “It killed me,” he said, running his fingers through her wet hair, letting the strands slip from his fingers. “I nearly jumped over that cliff looking for you, terrified that I was too late, that I wouldn’t get to you in time.”
He broke off again with a hollow groan. “Feeling like that? Like there’s nothing I can do to help. It makes me crazy.” He cupped her face. “You make me crazy, Avery.”
Her eyes stung at the conviction in his voice. The man who put it all on the line every day to rescue complete strangers needed some rescuing of his own. “Crazy is a good start, but I’d like to get to happy.”
“I’m not looking to be saved.” He needed her to hear the words. To understand. But she understood exactly what he needed. And it wasn’t a night of distraction—it was a night of connection.
A night where he could let go and be confident that someone would pick up the pieces.
“No one ever is,” she whispered, then let his pants slide to the ground. When he went to pull her to him, she scooted to the side to grab more soap.
She watched him watch her as she bathed every inch of him, taking gentle c
are around the gashes on his knee and the bruise on his side. She worked her way around to his back, stroking and massaging the battered muscles and tense lines, going deeper when she hit a sore spot, but the tension didn’t fade.
He had so much adrenaline pumping through his body he was like a live wire. Taut and needing release.
Slipping her arms around from behind, she ran her palms down his chest to that sensitive spot right below his belly button. He sucked in a breath and his abs jerked.
“Avery,” he groaned, slapping his palms against the tile wall and hanging his head into the spray.
“I got you,” she promised again, going lower until she did have him. In her hand. Gently stroking and caressing.
When his eyes fluttered shut, she picked up the pace, tightening her hold at the right moments, then reeling back to a feather touch. A combination that had him breathing hard. Had his body coiling until she was sure he was about to go over the edge, and he let himself get there, walk right on the line, back and forth, back and forth.
Ty’s hand came to join hers, their fingers interlaced. He didn’t take over or try to control the pace. It was as if he needed to know she was there. It was such an erotic sight, watching as they both moved in sync.
“Look up, angel.”
She did and found Ty staring at her. His head was tilted and cocked to the side, those whisky pools latched on—intense and hungry. Avery felt her own body respond, felt her core heat and tighten.
“Jesus, I’m going to come.”
“I want you to.”
And to show him exactly how much, she gave a gentle squeeze, then a not so gentle one that had his groan echoing off the shower walls.
Without warning, Ty spun around. One minute she was behind him, the next she was pressed against the wall, her legs around his waist, the cool tile pressing into her back. And Ty, that hard body of his was pressed to her front.
“I do too, but I want to be inside of you when I do.”
His lips crashed down on hers. The kiss had a gentle desperation to it, a desperate longing that was impossible to resist. And his mouth.
Good Lord, his mouth was devouring her with every touch. Taking and taking until she was sure that she would pass out from the sensation. He kissed her until she was shaking from the rush.