“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.
She winced and tried to back away, but he tightened his grip. “Oh, hell no,” he said. “I’m not letting you go, not ever again.”
“Ever?” She sniffed. “You don’t do ever, remember?”
“We’ll talk about this after I get you to the hospital.”
“You don’t do talk, either.”
He dropped his head to his chest, and then looked at her. “That was me being that chicken you accused me of being,” he said. “I’m sorry, Holly. So f**king sorry. I’ll straighten my ass up, but I’m going to need help. I’m going to need to learn how to share more of myself with you.”
She ignored the apocalyptic moment of an Adam apology for a moment to concentrate on the prize in that statement. “All of you,” she said. “You have to share all of you—the good and the bad.”
“Yes, but only if you do it, too.”
She pressed her face into the crook of his neck and nodded, smearing blood, tears, and rainwater on him.
“Did you just snot me?”
She let out a watery laugh and nodded.
“Just checking,” he said, and because she was shivering, quite violently now, he pulled her in close. “Time to get you up the embankment, Holly, and then warm and dry.”
Her limbs were boneless, she could barely control them. Shock, she figured, and it was damn annoying. “How are we going to get up there? I’m tired…”
“No problem. I’ve got you.”
He might be the most stubborn man she knew, but he was also the best man she knew. If he said he had her, he had her. She managed a weak smile. “I owe you.”
“I like the sound of that.” He wrapped her up in one strong arm and used his rope to begin to pull them up the embankment, just as, from above, flashing lights approached.
The cavalry had come.
Twenty-six
When Holly woke the next morning, it was still dark. She could see Adam asleep in the chair by her bed, head resting on his hand, long legs sprawled out. When she struggled to sit up, he came instantly awake. Standing up, he moved to her bed. “Hey.”
“Hey.” After getting her up the embankment, Adam had called her dad and Kate, who’d met them at the hospital. Holly had been cleaned up, poked, prodded, andx-rayed. Her ribs were bruised, she’d received four stitches above her eye—which was also black and blue by now—and she had a mild concussion.
But she’d slept in her own bed.
“How do you feel?” Adam asked.
She had little men jackhammering in her head and her ribs felt like she’d gone ten rounds in the ring, but she was breathing. Breathing was good. “Like I drove over an embankment.”
“Your head hurt?”
“No.”
His eyes smiled, but not his mouth. “Liar.”
She scooted over and he sat on the bed facing her, a hand on either side of her hips, his gaze running over her as if reassuring himself she was in one piece.
“I’m okay.” She touched her bandage. “Just a little bump.”
He drew a deep breath, his eyes never leaving hers. “Then you’re right, you are okay, since you’ve got the hardest head of anyone I know.”
He was the same solid, warm presence he’d been last night. The same solid presence he’d always been, with several days of stubble on his face, making him appear even darker, more dangerous.
At least to her heart.
Looking into his eyes, she could see how tired he was, but she saw something else, too. Lifting her hand, she cupped his jaw. “Did you sleep?”
“Not yet. Your dad went into town to get some food. He’ll be back in an hour, and then I’ll get some sleep.” He turned his face and pressed his mouth to her palm. “We need to talk, Holly.”
Her stomach dropped. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
She closed her eyes. Because that made it so much better. “About?”
“Relationship etiquette.”
Her eyes flew open. “Relationship etiquette?”
“Yeah. See, when you’re in a relationship, you charge your cell phone so that the person that you’re in the relationship with doesn’t have heart failure when he knows something has gone FUBAR and can’t get ahold of you.”
She must have hit her head harder than she thought. “What?”
“FUBAR. Fucked-up beyond all recognition.”
“I know what FUBAR means,” she said. “I’m stunned over the word relationship coming from your mouth. We have a relationship?”
“We have a relationship.” He didn’t exactly sound thrilled about it, either. He pushed her hair from her face and eyed the bandage on her head, mouth grim. “Not that we seem to have any control over it.”
And, oh, how he hated that. Anything that wrestled precious control away from him was a cause for concern. Her warrior didn’t like to be vulnerable. “I scared you,” she said softly.
“Took at least ten years off,” he admitted.
She pulled him down to her, cupped his face, and kissed him. His lips were soft, a sharp contrast to the hardness of his body. He let her have her way with him for a minute, but when she tried to tug him over the top of her, he resisted. “No,” he said. “You’re hurt.”
“Either come down here or I’m going to get up and climb you like a tree.”
“Holly.” He lay alongside her on the bed, his hands gentle. But she didn’t want gentle. She bit his lower lip.
He responded without hesitation, deepening the connection, devouring her mouth with his.
Wanting even more, she again tried to pull him over her, but he shook his head.
“I won’t hurt you,” he said, voice thick.
She slid her hands into the back of his jeans and rocked him into her. “You won’t.”
He groaned once and then again when she sucked on his neck while attempting to work his shirt up and off. He lent his hands to the cause, tugging it over his head.
“Now mine,” she demanded.
“Holly.”
Oh, hell no. “You can’t say we’re a bad idea anymore. Because you’re here, Adam.”
“I am.” He came over the top of her, supporting his weight on his forearms. His fingers slid into her hair and he lowered his head to brush his lips over the bandage covering her stitches. “I’m here.”
“Why?”
He shook his head. “You know why.”
“Humor me.”
Quiet now, he ran his thumb over her jaw, then he swallowed hard. “When I saw your Jeep trapped in the river, with the water filling up the interior…I thought I’d lost you. I thought I’d lost my chance to tell you how I feel and that I’d have to live with the regret for the rest of my life.”
She felt his words all the way to her heart. “You didn’t lose me. You saved me.”
“Luck.” He shook his head again. “I can get through almost anything, and have. But losing you isn’t something I’d be able to get through. I’m crazy about you, Holly. You’ve worked your way under my skin.” He closed his eyes. “Into my heart.”
She pulled him down and softly caressed his mouth with hers. “You love me,” she whispered, not quite successfully keeping the triumph out of her voice.
He choked out a laugh. “I do. I love you. I think I always have.”
“Show me.”
His gaze darkened. “Your injuries—”
“You won’t hurt me.”
He stripped her out of her pj bottoms with little effort. “Don’t even think about moving,” he commanded. “Not your ribs. Not a muscle.” He stared at her until she nodded with a secret thrill that his simple male strength could both arouse and protect her.
In the blink of an eye he had his jeans off and then spent long moments kissing every inch of her, and some inches twice. When she’d shuddered and cried out his name, he made himself at home between her wet thighs. The sure and solid weight of his body was as comforting as it was arousing.
Holding her gaze, he entered her. She cried out again, unable to help herself. Still panting for breath, she watched as he dropped his head, taking in the sight of them joined, then lifted his head and met her gaze again. She tried to see herself as he must. Hair wild. No makeup. A black eye…