She started out the door and then realized she was barefoot, so she shoved her feet into the mud boots by the door. Then she stalked to her Jeep and headed down the road, reminding herself that she was no longer desperate to belong or desperate to be loved. She’d grown up. It wasn’t a mindless connection that she sought now. Nope, this time she knew exactly what she wanted.

And she was strong enough to go after it, too, settling for no less than absolutely everything.

Except…was that really true? Was she really getting everything she needed from Adam? Was she going to be able to accept what he could give her?

Yes, she told herself, ignoring the little clutch in her gut. At least for now. She was going to choose to be happy, and to that end, she pulled into the drugstore parking lot, belatedly realizing that she was wearing a cocktail dress, and…oh God.

Big, old, clumsy mud boots.

Too late now, she told herself. If she went back home, she’d never find the courage to come back out. So she wore her outfit with pride, right into the drugstore.

And then the liquor store.

Her third and last stop was Belle Haven. She parked and drew a deep breath. Then she got out of the Jeep and clomped in the boots toward the stairs.

A shadow stepped out from a side door. Tall, dark, built. He had Adam’s dark eyes and mocha latte skin, the same tall, rough-and-tumble exterior that said he was up for anything, complete with the devastating Connelly smile.

Dell.

“Hey,” he said. He stepped under the porch light and his smile faded. “You okay?”

She ran a hand over her hair, realizing she’d literally run out of the house. No makeup. Hair still up from her bath, damp tendrils hanging in her face. Fancy LBD.

And then there were the mud boots…

Dell ducked down a little, looking into her eyes. “Holly?”

“I’m fine. I’m just here to…” Jump your brother’s bones.

He waited patiently, looking more fascinated with each passing second.

Holly closed her mouth.

Dell laughed softly and nodded toward the brown bag she was holding. “Whatcha got?”

She hugged the bag to herself. Oh, hell no! No way could he see what she had in the bag.

“Okay,” Dell said easily, still amused. “So you don’t want to talk. You’ll be quite the pair. He’s upstairs. Oh, and Holly?”

“Yeah?”

“Be gentle.”

She felt the blush heat her face. “Excuse me?”

“You’re going to light into him for something, right?”

“No, I—” She nibbled on her lower lip. Okay, that was probably less embarrassing than the truth. “Maybe.”

Dell’s smile softened as he looked at her for a long beat. “You know, you might be just what the doctor ordered tonight.”

“Why, is something wrong?”

Dell hesitated, which was unlike him. Neither of the Connelly brothers were ones to mince words or hold back. “What’s wrong?” she asked.

“There was a search and rescue tonight that turned into a search and recovery before an S&R team could be mobilized.”

She knew what a recovery meant. They’d gone to get a body.

“They used Milo,” Dell said. “He’s young, but he’s an excellent cadaver dog.” He met her gaze. “It’s tough on Adam still. Finding bodies. Sometimes the old demons get him.”

Holly’s heart clenched hard, and she nodded. She’d never been to war. She’d never rescued anyone. She’d never failed to rescue anyone. Hell, she’d never had to see a dead body and probably never would. Adam had done all of that and probably more than she could even imagine. He’d put his entire adult life on the line for others, and never once had she thought of what the consequences might be. “Is there anything I can do?”

Dell looked at her, appraisingly. “You care about him.”

A question, not a statement.

“Always have,” she said.

Dell cocked his head. “Always?”

That secret was so old she’d nearly forgotten it was a secret. She thought about denying it, but what was the point now? And besides, Dell was far too sharp and astute to believe her, anyway. “Always.”

There was a beat of silence as he processed this, then he let out a long breath. “Guess I should have seen that one from a mile away. There always was something between you two.”

A truer statement had never been uttered. “So what do I do?” she asked. “He’s not exactly good at accepting help.”

Dell tipped his head back and looked up at the silent loft. Then he met her gaze. “You know what I think? I think you’re good at winging it. Just don’t let him chase you away with that bad ’tude of his. It’s all a front. Beneath, he’s a pussycat.”

“Do you really believe that?”

He laughed. “Undomesticated wildcat, maybe.”

She sighed and walked up the stairs, heart pounding so loudly she didn’t think it was even necessary to knock. Surely he could hear her coming.

But she did knock.

And he answered, wearing low-slung jeans and nothing else. He took one long, slow look at her, hands up high, braced on the doorjamb. Silent. Whatever he thought about her appearance, he was keeping it to himself. Fair enough. She’d certainly kept far too much to herself. Talk, she reminded herself. You’re here to talk.

But her mind didn’t get the message, couldn’t get past the gotta-have-him signals her body was putting out. Crowding him, she plastered her body to his, talking the very last thing on her mind.

Twenty

Adam stared into Holly’s gaze and felt something shift in his center of gravity. It was a good thing he was holding on to the doorjamb above his head because, good Christ, she leveled him flat.

“Yesterday, at class, you said you weren’t up for food,” she said. “That food wasn’t what you wanted.”

His mouth went dry. He wasn’t up for this, for battling wits or whatever she thought she was doing. What he was up for was a night alone. Being in such close contact with her on the mountain, and then again at the class, had stirred up emotions he didn’t want stirred up.

Brady had accused him of feeling sorry for himself.

Adam didn’t want that to be true, because that meant he was a f**king pussy, but he was starting to fear that it was true. Grif had made a career out of the military. Adam had always thought that he would, too. But he was still broken, as it turned out.

And that pissed him off.

He wanted to be alone to lick his wounds in private, but hell if he could get any alone time. Between Brady and Dell, and now Holly, it was like living at Grand Central Station. “I’m not up for games, Holly.”

“I know. But as was previously established, neither of us plays games.” Her gaze ran over his body. She nibbled on her lower lip as she looked at him.

She was thinking of sex. And of course he was always thinking about sex, so they were perfectly in sync. He loved her body, loved being all over it, loved the reactions he got from it. From her. But even he knew this had bad idea written all over it.

She looked down at the bag she held and something in her expression narrowed his senses and made him curious enough to take the bag from her. He peeked inside and found a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a box of…

Condoms.

She cleared her throat and shifted her weight, and he tore his eyes off the condoms to look at her. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes bright, pupils dilated. Yeah. She was absolutely thinking of sex.

Which meant he needed a shot of the whiskey. What stopped him from suggesting just that was his realization that she looked like she needed it even worse than he did.

Something had driven her here, to this. To him. “What happened?”

“What makes you think something’s happened?”

“Well,” he said, his gaze raking over her, “for starters, you’re wearing a fancy-ass dress with mud boots. Which, by the way, is sexy as hell.”

“The dress?”

“The boots.”

She looked down at herself. “Maybe I’m making a statement.”

“Which is?”

“Some things aren’t as they appear on the outside.”

He cocked his head. “Like?”

“Like…an onion, for example. The layers have to be peeled away one at a time to see the real heart and soul of what’s beneath, you know? Even a bruised onion, a damaged onion, is worth saving.”

He just stared at her. “You’re trying to tell me something.”

“Yes! Listen, once upon a time, you were the bad influence, right?”

“Yes,” he said slowly.

“Well, it’s my turn now, at least for tonight.”

This might have made him smile. If he didn’t want to both f**k her and strangle her at the same time. And he did want both of those things—badly. Then she leaned in, her body brushing his, and he flashed back to the other night on the mountain. When he’d been with her, his entire world had shrunk, pinpointed to nothing but sensations. The feel of her hot and wet around him, the way her fingers and thighs held him tight, the sound of her voice.

The heat of her skin.

It doesn’t have to be just a memory. Hell, her hands were on his chest right now and gliding lower. He caught them in his so he could think. His brothers seemed to think he was being a dumbass when it came to this, to her, that he should do the right thing and open up and let her in.

That she needed him every bit as much as he needed her.

He was still processing that, just as he wanted to know what had put the haunted shadows in her eyes. “What brought this on, Holly?”

She went still, then looked away.

He moved so she had no choice but to meet his gaze. “Tell me.”

“Derek’s appealing the divorce.”

“Why?”

She shrugged. “Turns out, he likes the shield of being married. Gives him an in with all the cute coeds.”

The fucker. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know,” she said, “but when I find him, I’m going to kick his ass.”

“Yeah?” He wouldn’t mind seeing that. “How about I hold him down for you?”

“Aw.” This made her smile. “That’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever offered to do for me.”

He was a lot of things, but sweet most definitely wasn’t one of them. “You got your attorney on this?”

“Not yet. Derek just told me.”

And she’d obviously come straight to him. Adam didn’t know what to make of that. Truth be told, he’d always been a little jealous of Holly’s marriage. He could admit that now, at least to himself. Adam might not have been the right man for her, but he sure as hell wouldn’t have cheated on her or treated her like shit. He’d have—

Saving him from that ridiculous train of thought, she gave him a little push and pressed the advantage, stepping over the threshold and shutting the door behind her. Snatching the brown bag of goodies back from him, she pulled out the bottle of Jack and tossed the condoms to the bed.

He arched a brow.

She broke eye contact and struggled to open the bottle. “Dammit,” she muttered when she couldn’t get it. “This never happens in the seduction scenes in the stupid movies.”

If she’d come to seduce him, it wasn’t going to require much effort on her part. Hell, who was he kidding, it would take zero effort on her part. He really needed to stop this, now, but instead, he was just staring at her, his mind racing.

His usual MO was to avoid feeling, at all costs, but whenever it came to Holly, that resolve seemed to fly right out the window. He was feeling so many things, he didn’t know where to start. “You really shouldn’t be here.”

“Why not?”

Yeah, ace. Why not? “Earlier tonight, for starters.”

“When you were rude?” She was bent over the bottle now, which she’d shoved between her legs to get better leverage as she tried to open it.

“I wasn’t rude,” he said. Abrupt, maybe, he silently conceded. She was still fighting with the bottle, so he slid his hand between her legs and took it from her, absolutely not noticing how warm her inner thighs were or how they’d also warmed the bottle.

Much.

She sighed and straightened. “Thank you.”

He didn’t open the liquor. Instead, he set it on the coffee table.

She narrowed her eyes. “Problem?”

“Why did you protect me with the cave bullshit?”

She blinked. “Protect you?”

“You told Brady I went into the cave.”

“You did go into the cave.”

“No, you did.”

“You were right there with me, Adam.”

“For two feet, maybe. Before my complete mental breakdown.”

She studied him a moment, and he hated that enough to turn his back on her. But not before he grabbed the bottle of Jack. She’d been right, the top was tight, but he managed to get it opened and tossed back a healthy shot. It burned a path clear to his gut to match the burn in his chest.

“You went in,” she said softly behind him. “And you’d have gone in even farther if you’d had to, if my father had been in there. I know it.”

He decided another shot was in order. And Jesus Christ, it burned more than the first. “You don’t know that.”

“I do.” She took the bottle from him and tossed back her own shot, licking her lips afterward, as if she was trying to get a taste of him off the bottle.

It shouldn’t have done anything for him, but it did.