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  Tia opened her mouth, then shut it. With a pensive, petulant glare in Pace’s direction, she whirled and stalked off.

  “Interesting night,” Holly said into the silence. “I got both to interview you and to save you—not that you needed saving,” she added kindly.

  He stared down at her with the oddest desire to say, Yeah, I do. I need saving. Save me. “You seem to have experience with stalkers.”

  “What I have experience with is pissing people off.” She turned to head back down the trail as well. “I’m trying to learn how to defuse instead of ignite.”

  He followed after her. “Who did you ignite?

  “An ex.”

  He took her hand and slowed her down. He wanted to see her face for this. “What happened?”

  “I wrote a blog series about his industry, specifically the space industry.”

  “I read that series recently,” he said. He ran a finger over her forehead, where her bruise had been. “I was impressed.”

  “My ex wasn’t. I exposed his team for cutting corners where they shouldn’t have, linking an accident to their neglect, an accident where three astronauts died.” She sighed. “The program lost its tenuous funding, NASA pulled out, and Alex was fired and went to civil court, where he was sued for millions.” She paused. “And the truth is, though I hate that I got people I cared about in trouble with the law, I’d do it again because people got hurt directly due to the neglect. I have no tolerance for that.”

  “You did the right thing.”

  “Yeah.” She paused. “But he said if I’d loved him, I’d never have written about him.”

  “Did you love him?”

  She shrugged. “I liked him. A whole lot, actually. And when it was over, I hurt a whole lot. But love?” Something came and went in her eyes, a sorrow, a regret, but in a flash it was gone. “I don’t think I’m really cut out for that particular emotion. I question everything too much.”

  “Because you don’t trust anyone who hides things, and we all do,” he said, watching her absorb that, and think about it.

  “I guess that’s true enough.”

  She’d done a hell of a job raising herself in spite of being very alone and undeniably neglected to boot. But she’d made something of herself, and he loved the inner strength in her. “Thing is, Holly, I know that secrets make you feel unsafe, but the plain fact is that not everyone is hiding something bad or out to hurt someone.”

  “I’m getting to that realization. It’s a balance thing for me, between the Holly of old and the new me.”

  She was the first woman he’d met since his career had taken off who looked at him without diamonds and money signs in her eyes. “So this new Holly, is she going to believe in love?”

  “Probably not for myself.” Pulling free, she headed down the hill.

  “Wait,” he said to that sweet ass. “So you’re saying you don’t want a happily ever after? I thought all women wanted that.”

  “Fairy tales don’t exist in real life,” she said over her shoulder.

  He had pretty much seen and done it all. Sure, he was a little cynical, a little jaded, but in that moment, he realized he’d met his match. “Wow.”

  She sent him a questioning look over her shoulder.

  “You mean it. You really don’t believe in love.”

  “And you do? Have you ever been in love?”

  “With baseball, just about all my life.”

  “With something that loved you back,” she said dryly.

  “I don’t know, baseball’s showed me the love.”

  “Women, Pace,” she said with a shake of her head. “You ever loved a woman?”

  “Maybe,” he allowed. “Maybe a couple of times. I was even engaged once when I was very young and stupid. But if we’re being honest, that wasn’t the forever kind of love either.”

  “Are there two kinds of love then?”

  “There are lots of kinds.”

  At that, she stopped walking to face him, hands on her hips, expression amused. “Okay, Mr. Expert, like what?”

  “Well, there’s the love that hits you after a few drinks and laughs, the one that says take this woman to bed for the rest of the night.”

  Her mouth curved. “That’s lust.”

  True. “Then there’s the kind after you’ve already slept together and you’re still not over it. That kind of love takes several dates to get over.”

  “Again. Lust.”

  “Man, you really are a cynic,” he murmured. “How about when you’re with the same person for a while, a long while, and you still want to be with them naked? What’s that?”

  “A rut.”

  He laughed. “Okay, smarty pants, what constitutes love then?”

  She lifted her nose in the air and started walking again, somehow in spite of the game, the kissing, the hike, the stalker, still looking completely, carefully put together. “I’ll have to let you know,” she finally said.

  “Maybe you should write a series on that.”

  She smiled at him as they came to the now nearly empty parking lot. “Interesting idea.” She looked around. They’d missed the mass exodus. “Do you think she’s gone?”

  “Tia? Hard to tell.” His car was in the front row, in one of the reserved spots in all its apple red glory, but he passed by it, intending to walk Holly to her car. “Where did you park?”

  “All the way in the back.”

  They hoofed it out there, and she came to a stop in front of her beat-up Subaru.

  “You need a better-paying job,” he said.

  “Hey, this baby explored the ghost towns of California and lived to tell the tale. I can’t dump her now just because she’s not pretty.”

  “What about dumping her because she’s looking as unreliable as hell?”

  She pulled out her keys. “Thanks for the interview.” She cocked her head and looked at him. “I’m going to be honest with you here, Pace.”

  Uh-oh. “Is it going to hurt?”

  “Maybe.” She paused. “I’m interested in pursuing the drug angle.”

  “Ah, hell.” He sighed. “It is. It’s going to hurt.”

  “I want to write about what happened to Jim and Slam, and what happened to Henry and Ty.”

  “You’ve got apples and oranges. Jim and Slam tested positive for drugs. Henry and Ty didn’t.”

  “The pills—”

  “Vitamins. Tucker’s, actually.”

  “You take them, too, right?”

  “Sometimes. When I remember. You’re not going to find anyone using on the Heat.”

  She looked at him a long moment, then nodded. “Thanks for tonight.”

  “But . . . ? Because I definitely sense a but at the end of that sentence.”

  “But,” she agreed. “I’m going to write about what I want to write about.”

  He thought about what she’d told him about her last boyfriend and how that had ended, and understood that this was the same sort of situation—her work came first, always, a fact he reluctantly understood, even respected, though he didn’t necessarily like it.

  She tossed her purse and her keys into the passenger seat of her car and turned back to him. “I should tell you, I have a secret of my own.”

  “You do?”

  “I seem to have this little crush.” Her gaze warmed. “Three guesses.”

  There she went, being direct again. If she was angry or hurt or mad, or whatever emotion she was feeling, she put it out there for the whole world to see. No games. No subterfuge. No guesswork. She was open and honest and blissfully candid. And though it was crazy, he was crazy, he put his hands on her hips and pulled her in. Needing to assuage the ache low in his gut, the ache that said that the one thing that had been his entire life was no longer enough, that he needed more, he stepped into the only person he wanted to give it to him. Heat coiled low in his belly as he said, “I have a crush, too, along with my own secret.”

  “Which is?”

  “You, Holly Hut