He slid her a look.
Right. Dumb question. Everyone behaved for Adam. It was his voice, low and utterly authoritative. He rarely raised it, he didn’t have to. “What if there’s a cat?” she asked. “Or better yet, a sexy two-year-old Lab strutting her stuff right in front of him? He can resist a distraction, just for you?”
Her attempt at brevity was met with a barely there smile as Adam hit the gas. “A dog is either trained and obedient, or not,” he said. “I don’t know how to half train a dog.” He glanced at her. “So what’s your plan here, Holly? How were you planning on getting to Diamond Ridge?”
“Up Pyramid Hills and then through Shirley Canyon,” she said, and wrapped her arms around herself. The ATV was open to the wind and icy air. She was wearing several layers, including her down parka, but she was still cold.
“Shirley Canyon’s got rock slides,” he said. “And by noon we’re going to possibly have snow.” He reached behind her seat and then something warm and thick was tossed over her.
A jacket. “Pyramid Hills is suicide at this time of year,” he said.
She gratefully wrapped herself in the thick down jacket. “What’s a better way, then?”
“Old Crestmont Road.”
“I’ve never gone that way. Isn’t it longer?”
“Yeah,” he said. “It’s also the only doable route in this weather. Mostly.”
Gulp. Well, at least she wouldn’t be alone. She’d have the best tracker and climber she knew right at her side. “Old Crestmont Road it is, then.”
He glanced at her. “Say the word and I’ll take you back.”
She had to wonder, was he so against her company because it was going to be rough-going and potentially dangerous? After all, even Lewis and Clark had nearly met their end here in these mountains.
Or was it that he didn’t want to spend time with her?
Both, she decided. “I’m not going back, Adam.”
He let out a long, slow breath, and looking resigned, he kept driving.
Six
They didn’t speak, which worked for Holly. She didn’t want to talk. She wanted to get this done, find her dad, and go back to pretending she wasn’t attracted to Adam in any shape or form.
Since he was quiet, she assumed he felt the same. Except probably he didn’t have to pretend anything. Hard to tell with his hat and hoodie up and no expression revealed as he handled the road like a pro. As she had multiple times a day, she tried calling her dad again. Still nothing.
Dawn arrived, a rose stripe where the sky met the purple outline of the majestic peaks. Burgeoning, tumultuous clouds pressed down, muting daylight, warning of the weather still to come. The land was vast and rambling, open but not flat, not by a long shot, and as they gained in altitude with each minute, the wind beat at them.
Holly hunkered into herself. Adam had already cranked up the heater, but after a glance her way, he turned the vents all in her direction. Grateful, she smiled at him, but he was already concentrating on the road again.
She did the same. The rose stripe in the sky widened as day broke over them, and she took in the landscape. This area was the largest expanse of continuous pristine wilderness in the lower forty-eight states. Much of its beauty came in the form of heavily glaciated, rugged, not easily approached peaks. The glaciers had formed steep canyons that opened onto a wilderness valley floor, all of it roamed by small and big game.
Simple beauty. Another world away from New York. Pristine. Pure. She had no idea what it said about her being out here, in the open ATV with Adam, with the wind beating at her and her nose nearly frozen off, with her father missing, with Adam not exactly thrilled to have her along, that she was still enjoying herself more than she had for far too long.
It didn’t say anything good, she decided. Especially since Adam didn’t appear to be moved one way or the other. He’d let you come…
The old Holly would have been satisfied with that, with whatever he offered. But the new Holly wanted acknowledgment from him, wanted his undivided attention, things that she wasn’t sure he could give any woman.
As if he could read her thoughts, he turned his head toward her. In the morning light, he’d slid on dark, reflective shades so she couldn’t see his eyes, but then he fried a few of her brain cells when he pulled off the sunglasses to meet her gaze, his own heated and swirling with emotion.
Huh, she thought weakly. So he was somewhat moved. She faced forward again because it turned out that looking right into his eyes was like looking into the eye of the tiger. If you weren’t equally strong, you were going down. She’d already been down.
She was now up.
Up, up, up.
She tried to occupy herself with their incredibly beautiful surroundings, but damned if her gaze didn’t keep straying back to the man next to her handling the ATV like he’d been born to it. This, of course, was extremely counterproductive to her resolve to stay immune to his charms.
Milo was happy. Behind them, he had his head in the wind, tongue lolling out. Doggy heaven.
Old Crestmont Road was a fifty-year-old, rarely used fire road, narrow, windy, and rutted. And truth be told, “road” was a bit of an exaggeration. The going got rough, but Adam continued to navigate with the single-minded ease of one who’d taken much rougher routes than this.
Which she knew to be true.
He’d had it rough as a kid, too, real rough. She knew that he and Dell had lived with their mom on an Indian reservation for a while but that it hadn’t worked out. With their biological father dead, they’d had been bounced around before finally landing in a good, solid foster home. But by then, the wild, restless, badass Adam Connelly hadn’t been easy to wrangle in, and he certainly didn’t like to play nicely with things like rules and expectations.
To a teenage girl who’d never openly rebelled against anything, this had drawn her in like a moth to the flame.
A few years older than she, Adam had been dark and mysterious in every possible way. He and Grif had been good friends and had hung out together. Holly had been forbidden from doing the same, but once she’d been told that, her fate had been sealed. She’d wanted him.
Needed him.
Loved him.
She’d really believed they were the real deal, that she could tame him, that they’d get married and have babies and a ranch of their own.
Looking back, it was embarrassing to think about how naïve she’d been.
Halfway up Old Crestmont Road, Adam stopped. He gestured to Milo, and the dog leapt out and immediately lifted a leg, anointing the closest tree.
It was late morning now, and with the low lighting, the view was spectacular. So far this winter, the Bitterroot snowpack was trailing badly behind the average depth, but what there was of it was incredibly dangerous. Holly got out and took in the three-hundred-foot drop-off. Far below, the dry valley floor and lower foothills were awash in an arid-lands mix of grasslands, scrublands, and ponderosa pine lining rivers and streams. At the midelevation where she stood, there were stands of Douglas fir, lodgepole pine, and western larch. She took in the faraway glimpses of reservoirs and fast-running streams and drew a deep breath of cool, fresh air. “It’s not quite cold enough to snow.”
“No,” Adam said. “But that will change.”
She looked up at the sky. The sun was losing its fight against burgeoning, threatening clouds.
Adam kicked a fallen log closer, gestured her to it, then handed her a bottle of water, an apple, and a string cheese.
“Breakfast of champions?” she asked.
He remained standing, relaxed but definitely taking in their surroundings with the diligence of lifelong habit. She had no idea if it was the soldier in him or just the man, but he was always ready. Prepared. Battle-weary. “That picture on the mantel at the loft,” she said softly. “The one of you in your military gear. Was that your unit?”
His expression didn’t change. Actually, nothing about his posture changed, but there was a we
ight behind his single word. “Yes.”
She wondered how many of them were gone now and felt a pang deep in her heart for each of them. For Adam, too. Her knowledge of the tragic event had come from the online accounts she could find and also what she could browbeat out of Grif. Adam’s unit had been called in to rescue a group of British soldiers stuck in some caves on a mountain in Afghanistan, facing an unexpected, epic storm. Communications between the troops had gone down, but when Adam’s unit had gone in for a rescue, they’d been ambushed by enemy fire. Only half of them had made it out alive.
Holly couldn’t imagine the strength it took to go through something like that and survive, but she knew one thing. Adam had it. In spades. “I tried to contact you, when you first got back,” she said. “You weren’t taking calls. I don’t remember what I wanted to say exactly. Sorry doesn’t seem near enough.” She turned and looked at him. “I wanted you to know I was there, if you needed anything.”
“I was fine.”
They both knew that was a lie. It hung in the air for a long moment before he shrugged. “Okay, so I was pretty fucked-up.”
“Was?”
“Yeah.” He shrugged again. “Still working on it.” He nodded to her food. “Eat up. You’re going to need it.”
She opened the string cheese, noting Adam did the same for himself but not before giving Milo a doggy treat from his pocket. “I brought food, too,” she said. “I didn’t mean for you to do all the work. Why don’t you let me drive the next leg?”
Milo licked his chops and waited with bated breath for a second treat. A very small smile tilted the corners of Adam’s mouth. No clue if it was meant for Milo or her.
“You want to drive, Holly?”
Why did the sound of her name on his lips do funny things low in her belly? He was so freaking sexy just standing there. It wasn’t fair. “Yes,” she said. “I want to drive.” Which they both knew wasn’t going to happen because he wouldn’t give up that kind of control.
Adam leaned against the Ranger and drank from his water bottle, tilting his head back, downing the thing in a few long gulps that appeared to quench his thirst while making her own mouth dry. “Here it comes,” he said.
“What?”
Above them, the sky seemed to swell and darken. A few drops hit her face. And then more than a few drops hit.
“The rain,” he said. He tossed the water bottle into the ATV and narrowed his gaze at something behind her.
She craned her neck, but though she had her contacts in, her eyes were dry out here and she still couldn’t see much in the distance.
Milo, who’d been playfully bounding around in the terrain about ten yards ahead of the Ranger only seconds ago, began growling low in his throat. The hair at the back of his neck ruffled, and all his muscles bunched as if to charge forward.
“No,” Adam said.
The dog stilled, quivering with energy.
“What—” Holly started, but Adam pulled her to her feet in one swift, economical movement, kicking the tipped-over log out of her way.
“Get in the ATV.” Then he practically dragged her there himself.
She scrambled into the Ranger and reached for the binoculars she’d seen in the console. That’s when she saw them, on the ridge just past where Milo had gone still. Three still forms, watching them all intently.
Wolves.
The middle one tipped back its head and howled, sending a chill racing down Holly’s spine as they crept closer. “Adam,” she said shakily. The wolves had been a problem this year. Their numbers were higher than in previous years, and, being squeezed out of their usual hunting grounds, they were bolder than ever before. In town, three dogs had been attacked and killed in the past few months. No people that she knew of, but that didn’t stop her fear. “Adam. Get in.”
Of course he didn’t. He was in his protective alpha zone. He reached into the back and came up with his rifle. “Milo,” he said low, calm. Utterly authoritative. “Come.”
Milo didn’t want to come, not when the wolves were on the move in their direction. The overzealous puppy wanted to show he could protect his pack, too. He ignored the testosterone radiating from Adam and whined, tossing an Oh please can I? look over his shoulder at them.
Adam strode to the front of the Ranger, his movements every bit as purposeful and aggressive as the two smaller wolves, still slowly stalking forward toward them.
Adam sighted the rifle, the muscles of his arms and shoulders bunching with the ease of a man who’d performed this action thousands of times.
Holly sat there gripping the dash, blinking through the rain, eaten up with envy. She wanted a big, badass-looking gun, too! Most of her life she’d been protected in some way. By her father. Her brother. Adam. Even Derek had done his fair share of protecting her from the world for a while, and she’d let him.
Then she’d discovered life was so much better when she was in charge. Well, she sure wouldn’t mind being in charge now, facing down the wolves with the same fearless courage that Adam was.
“Now, Milo,” Adam said.
Milo jumped into the Ranger in one graceful arch, but he didn’t look happy about it. He sat in the back behind Holly, one hundred percent alert, his focus divided between the wolves and Adam.
With Milo inside, Adam lowered the rifle, never taking his eyes off the wolves as he slid behind the wheel. He cranked the engine and the wolves scattered, vanishing into the landscape as if they’d been a dream.
Holly let out a breath. “Would they have gone after Milo with us right there?”
“They were thinking about it.” Casually, as if he faced down three crazy wolves every day, he picked up a CamelBak and squirted water into a stream over his shoulder, which Milo caught out of thin air, taking a nice long drink.
Milo licked his chops when he was done and gazed at Adam with love and adoration.
“He’s pretty impressive off leash,” she said.
“An S&R dog necessity.”
So was blind trust, apparently. Milo had trusted Adam to take care of him.
Holly knew the feeling.
Without another word, Adam hit the gas. He drove until the road seemed to come to an end. When he stopped, Holly faced him. He wasn’t a bad view, as far as views went. Even beneath his heavy jacket, with water beading off of him, his chest was broad.
Strong.
And she knew from long-ago experience that he would be warm to the touch. And oh how she wanted to touch. She wanted that more than she wanted her next breath of fresh air—and that scared her to death.
But Adam didn’t appear to share the yearning, which was good because she didn’t think she could resist him.
The wind kicked up and the temperature dropped. Adam pointed to Diamond Ridge ahead, and she nodded. Hopefully, they’d find her dad there and be on their way home by this afternoon.
Another hard, vicious gust hit them and she looked at Adam, wondering why they were stopped, wasting valuable daylight. “The road ends here?”
“Only if you don’t know where you’re going.” He gestured with his chin to what appeared to be a wall of woods. “You can pick it up about a hundred yards north.”
She was going to have to take his word on that. He got out of the vehicle and muscled a fallen tree that was in their way. He got back behind the wheel and turned to her. “So, tell me again why you’ve pretended to be married this whole time.”
She blinked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“Nothing, actually. Answer the question.”
She sighed. “I didn’t pretend. Everyone just…assumed.”
“And by everyone,” he said, “you mean…”
“My dad. Grif.” She shrugged, not wanting to talk about this. “Neither of them are exactly big emotional talkers.”
“No guy is,” Adam pointed out. “But what does emotion have to do with it? You say, ‘Hey, Dad, Grif, my husband left me—’”
“I never said Derek left me.”
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“So he didn’t?”