Rescue My Heart Read online

  managed any time together. Holly would have known.

  Wouldn’t she have known?

  NYGirl: How do you know Kate’s going to the balloon races?

  ShootFirst: Facebook.

  NYGirl: You’re stalking my friend on Facebook?

  ShootFirst: She poked me. She was being friendly, sent me a long newsy note. That’s what people think we want over here, news from home.

  NYGirl: Don’t you?

  NYGirl: Grif?

  ShootFirst: Don’t go out to Diamond Ridge or Mount Eagle alone.

  Interesting subject change. Grif wasn’t “friends” with women. He went through women like other men went through socks. And Kate wasn’t the one-night stand type—though she’d give a perfect stranger the shirt off her back.

  If Grif had taken the shirt off Kate’s back, Holly would have to kill him. And that’d be a shame, since she loved her brother’s stubborn, nosy, interfering hide. Mostly.

  ShootFirst: Stay home, Holly. I mean it. I’ll get ahold of Adam. He’ll check things out.

  NYGirl: I’ve already contacted Adam. He said he’d go.

  And no matter what he thought, she was going with him.

  ShootFirst: Let him handle it, then.

  NYGirl: Grif, you can’t micromanage me from 7,000 miles away. Be safe. Love you.

  And then, because she’d discovered this was what worked best with both of her two well-meaning but more than slightly overbearing male relatives, she logged off. “Oops,” she said out loud. “Bad connection.”

  She took another moment to send e-mails to her staff and Red, the ranch manager, letting them all know her plans in as much detail as she knew them. She also put in a call to Kel to tell him what she was up to. Because unlike her father, she wanted people to know where she was.

  Then she got a backpack together with extra clothes, food, and since she knew exactly how quickly things could change out there, she added stuff for an overnight—not that that was going to happen.

  Adam had said he’d leave at first light, but she was going back to Belle Haven now because, one, she didn’t trust Adam. And, two, she didn’t trust Adam. He was likely to take off in the middle of the night just to make sure she didn’t tail him. She’d sleep in her Jeep if she had to. Yes, she was being paranoid, but she was also being proactive, tackling the things in her control.

  Letting go of the things not in her control.

  Or at least attempting to let go of the things not in her control. That part was still a work in progress.

  The lights were on in the building so she took the stairs again, determined to have a calm and rational two-way conversation with Adam about the morning. But when she knocked on the door, it swung open and then she was sucking in a breath, unprepared for the sight in front of her.

  Adam was sprawled out facedown on his bed still in only a pair of sweatpants, snug across the best ass she’d ever seen, low-slung enough as to be almost indecent. He was holding stoically still—though swearing viciously into his pillow—as Dell pulled a needle through the skin of his shoulder, stitching him up.

  Four

  Oh my God.”

  At the soft, distressed female voice coming from the doorway, Adam gritted his teeth. He didn’t have to turn and eye the leggy blonde to get his blood pressure rising—her voice was enough. Normally it rose his blood pressure and a certain portion of his anatomy at the same time but not tonight. Craning his neck, he glared up at Dell. “You didn’t lock the door.”

  “No,” his brother said calmly. “My hands were full.”

  Milo had been sound asleep, but the yellow Lab lifted his head now, assessing the new visitor. Clearly deciding she wasn’t a food source, he yawned and closed his eyes again.

  So much for him being a watchdog.

  Holly sucked in a shaky breath. “I knew you were hurt,” she said. “And now you’ve got a needle in you.”

  “Get her out of here,” Adam said softly to Dell.

  “Little busy right now.”

  The needle continued to go through Adam’s flesh and he gritted his teeth. Something hit the hardwood floor, Holly’s keys maybe, but the sound was like a shot. He’d been purposely directing his thoughts elsewhere, so he wasn’t sure exactly when his entire body had broken out in a sweat. Or when his heart had begun to race. Or how suddenly the loft faded away and he flashed to a barren, cold cliff in Afghanistan, just outside the caves, frozen into immobility as he watched dead bodies being pulled out—

  “Adam.”

  He blinked at the sound of Dell’s voice. “Just one more,” Dell said, and the pounding in Adam’s chest retreated as he looked up and met his brother’s knowing gaze.

  “You’re good,” Dell said. Not worded as a question. Adam nodded. He was good.

  Or at least he was working on it. Two years ago, the panic attacks had ruled his life, but they rarely if ever made an appearance these days. He shook it off as Holly walked up to the bed.

  “What happened?” she asked, trying to get a look over Dell’s shoulder. “Who hurt you?”

  If he hadn’t been grinding his back teeth into powder at the glide of the needle in and out of his skin, he might have laughed. He was six foot two and built tough enough that few, if any, ever messed with him. He’d made sure of it from a very young age. The way they’d grown up had made it a necessity.

  “He saved a kid out at Black Forest River,” Dell said to Holly.

  “Seriously?” she asked Adam. “You’re the guy all over the news who leapt halfway down a cliff to save the boy from falling?”

  “Yep,” Dell said. “Our very own Batman.”

  Adam opened his mouth to tell him to shut the fuck up but Dell grinned at him. “He’s a bit shy about it though. Has a complex. Doesn’t like us to talk about his skills, hasn’t since he got back.”

  Adam slid his brother a keep-talking-and-die look but it didn’t stop Dell. Nothing ever did.

  “We’ve got the PTSD under control,” Dell continued conversationally to Holly. “But that whole stage-four hero complex thing…It stuck. Maybe you should hold his hand. Stroke his hair.”

  “Swear to God,” Adam muttered beneath his breath.

  “Why isn’t he at the clinic getting this done?” Holly asked.

  “He’s not big on clinics,” Dell said.

  If he hadn’t been wielding a needle, Adam would’ve strangled him. Even though it was true. He wasn’t big on clinics. He wasn’t big on doctors, MDs, or shrinks, even though he owed a bunch of them his life. “Holly,” he said wearily. “Go home.”

  Instead she came even closer, and then the bed compressed as she sat at his hip. “That cut is pretty deep.” Her voice sounded funny, and remembering that she was incredibly squeamish about blood, Adam lifted his head to get his first real look at her.

  Her eyes were locked on his shoulder and the needle being plunged in and out of it, and a soft sound of distress escaped her. Her skin looked waxen, and her eyes had gone glassy, and if she wasn’t careful, she was going to fall off the bed and onto her head. “Holly,” he said sharply.

  She didn’t respond, though she slumped over a little.

  “Shit,” he said, “there she goes.” He pushed up to his knees to grab at her, managing to catch her just as she would have indeed slid to the floor in a boneless puddle.

  Dell swore at Adam’s sudden movement, but Adam ignored him. Had to, because now there was incidental body contact.

  Full body contact.

  She was soft and warm and flush up against him, and even though she was sweating, she smelled like heaven. “Holly,” he said. “Holly, look at me.”

  She did, but it wasn’t good. Her eyes were dilated and she felt clammy to the touch. Keeping her in his lap, resolutely not thinking about how she felt up against him, he pushed her head between her knees. “Breathe,” he told her. “In through your nose, out through your mouth.”

  “Speaking of mouth,” Dell said. “Maybe she needs resuscitating.”