Rescue My Heart Read Online Free PDF Page A

by him, badly. And even a silly eighteen-year-old could learn not to play with fire—no matter how attracted to it she still was.
    “I feel like something’s happened to him,” she said, “and I need to find him before tomorrow night’s storm hits.”
    “What did Kel say?” he asked. “Did you fill out a missing-persons report?”
    “I tried, but everyone knows he takes these damn trips all year long, in worse conditions than we have right now. So no one’s particularly concerned. This is just for me—I need to go out there and make sure.”
    Adam turned his head and made a point of looking out the window.
    Pitch-black, of course.
    Again he met her gaze, his own ironic.
    “I don’t care what time it is,” she said. She’d go by herself, except that it had been a long time since she’d roamed these mountains during the day, much less at night. The Bitterroots were among the most gorgeous in the world, and also among the most remote, isolated, and dangerous. There were miles and miles of land accessible only by foot. Not that she wasn’t capable, but she was rusty. It wouldtake her a lot longer than Adam to get to her dad’s favorite hunting haunts.
    But asking for help was hard. She’d been taught to handle her own problems, thanks in large part to her mom, who’d spent her life pretending everything was okay even when it wasn’t. Her brother had also had a hand in teaching her how to be tough. So had her dad himself, Mr. Never Ask for Help.
    And then there was the man who’d been the hardest on her of them all. The one in front of her who was now wearing nothing but that low-riding towel and a few water drops sliding down the chiseled body that made her mouth dry up even as other parts of her dampened.
    “No one’s going out there tonight,” he said.
    It was true that the wind had kicked up since she’d gathered her courage to come here, battering at the windows. It was also true that only the craziest of the crazies would want to be out in this. “But—”
    “No one, Holly.” His eyes never left hers as he stood there in that very still way he had. “Where do you think he went?”
    She hated knowing that it wasn’t safe to go out now. That she’d have to wait until daylight to take action, but she did take heart in this question because he wouldn’t ask if he wasn’t going to help, right? “He didn’t say.” And of course he hadn’t left a note or a message. “But his favorite places are Diamond Ridge and Mount Eagle.”
    “Diamond Ridge and Mount Eagle are twenty-five miles apart.”
    “Yes,” she said, turning to stare out the window into the black night. “I’m going to start with Diamond Ridge—it’s slightly closer. Mount Eagle has that deserted ranger station he likes to camp in, so that’s my second guess.”
    “You remember how to get there?” Adam asked.
    She craned her neck so her gaze met his. And held.
    On that fateful long-ago summer, her dad had been busy. A lot. She’d been bored until she’d met the sexiest ranch hand she’d ever known—Adam, working part-time on one of the Reid ranches. There’d been instant chemistry between them, made all the hotter since her dad had forbidden her from dating any of his men.
    So they’d kept it a secret. She, because she didn’t want her dad to kill him. And Adam, because…hell, who knew. Adam tended to keep his own counsel. In any case, he’d taken her out on the mountain, to the deserted ranger station at Mount Eagle. She’d been seated behind him on his dirt bike, hands clutched at his waist, legs straddling his lean hips, the power of the engine rumbling up from beneath her. It had been a sensual, erotic, heady thrill of a ride, and once they’d gotten there, he’d given her another sort of ride altogether.
    To her eternal annoyance, the memory still rated as her top sexual experience. “I remember,” she said softly.
    His gaze dipped down to her mouth, and she chewed on her lower lip to keep from saying