“Yes, Mom. I’m okay. No, Mom. I didn’t manage to make him fall in love with me.” Elena smiled as her mother clucked over the other line of the phone, pouring out all the maternal sympathy one could expect at just such a time. It was nice that her mom had so much confidence in her youngest daughter’s ability to woo a man old enough to be her—if not her father, at the very least an uncle—in less than a week. Unfortunately, her mom was as delusionally optimistic about life as Elena. All those stars in her eyes had to come from somewhere. “I think they’re still at the hospital. I couldn’t go inside with them. You know how I feel about hospitals.”

Germ factories. The place where antibiotic-strengthened diseases refused to die. Yet another in a long list of things she was afraid of.

“I caught an Uber back to Max’s house in case they needed someone to watch Tina while Ace and Wilcox were getting checked in.”

“So you’re there now?”

She nodded, even though her mom couldn’t see her. It didn’t matter, though, since that woman knew her well enough to read between the lines. Or, you know, over the airwaves. It wasn’t as if it were difficult either way. Elena was nothing if not predictable.

“How’s Tina doing?”

“I don’t know,” she said with perfect honesty. “No one is here. I’m just sitting on the front porch, trying to decide what to do.”

That admission only served to make her an even more pathetic figure—a woman all alone on an empty doorstep two days before Christmas—but there was no use in lying.

“Do you want your sister to come get you?”

Despite the fact that it was seriously freezing on this doorstep and she was at a complete loss about what to do next, she laughed. “No, I’m okay. I’ll probably just walk home from here. It’s only a few miles.”

A long pause greeted her on the other end of the line. “It’s awfully dark out, Elena.”

She knew that. It was dark and it was snowing and she wasn’t carrying her pepper spray. And a week ago, making that short journey to her family home would have been unthinkable. But a week ago, she’d been nothing but a fuzzy ball of anxiety.

She was still a fuzzy ball of anxiety, of course. She would probably always be that. But she’d faced up to her worst nightmare today. Not the snow or the dangerous beasts in the woods; not even a mountain crumbling away and a man falling off its side. She’d watched Max perform heroic feats and swooned appropriately over his prowess…and finally came to the realization that nothing she ever said or did would be enough for him.

He’d been right to keep her at bay all that time. She wasn’t exciting or brave. She wasn’t strong. The only reason she’d even stayed out there in the woods, staring down a black bear as the world slipped away around her, was because she’d been too scared to do anything else.

Max faced up to those kinds of dangers every day. Elena never wanted to see a mammal again. There was nowhere on earth the two of them could coexist.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll dial 9-1-1 and let my finger hover over the send button the whole way home. It wasn’t that life-changing of a trip.”

Her mom laughed and hung up, leaving her to the silence of Max’s front porch. She hadn’t been to his house too many times, but she liked the area where he lived. It wasn’t nearly as affluent a neighborhood as Quinn’s, but it had the kind of charm that came from lots of lumpy snowmen in front yards and broken sleds protruding from homemade hills. Even Max’s house was a testament to this family-oriented state, with snow tunnels zigzagging left and right.

“They’re probably going to cave in and smother whatever child is in them at the time,” Elena said aloud. She got up and brushed the seat of her jeans. Her butt was numb all the way through, but she was beginning to appreciate the cold in ways she never thought possible. “Either that, or someone will get stuck and they’ll have to call the firemen to extract them.”

“My tunnels are feats of architectural excellence, I’ll have you know.”

She whirled, her heart in her throat and her house key between her fingers. There was a trick to holding it so it protruded like a knife tip. It wouldn’t kill anyone, but you could get a few stabs in before your attacker knew what was coming.

She tried it now, jabbing her hand out until her key met with resistance. The resistance was soft and warm and gave way under the sharp edge of her weapon with alarming ease.

“Ouch!” came the immediate cry, followed soon after with “Jesus, Elena. Did you just stab me with your key?”

She dropped the key and watched, alarmed as it took a second to fall to the pavement below. It took that long because it had to extract itself from Max’s forearm first.

“You can’t sneak up on a woman alone in the dark,” she protested. “Especially this woman.”

Then, before he could answer, she lifted his arm to take a look at it. She had to push up the sleeve of his tight-fitting thermal shirt to get to the site of the wound, but sure enough, she’d managed to break the skin. “Huh. It actually worked. I’m going to have to remember that.”

He didn’t answer right away, which brought Elena forcibly to mind of the current situation. In other words, the fact that she was standing alone on this man’s front porch, in no way expected or invited—especially since Tina was nowhere to be seen. For the first time in all the years she’d known Max, she felt suddenly shy.

“Um. I should probably go.” She looked around, wishing she’d accepted her mom’s offer of a ride so she had a more viable excuse. “You don’t need me.”

It was a perfect opportunity for him to contradict her—I need you, I want you, I can’t live another minute without you—but Max remained silent. At least, he did until he released a gentle cough and held out his arm. “But I’m bleeding. What if I get an infection? Or, um, tetanus? Gangrene?”

Elena had a strong feeling he was mocking her but, true, those were all possibilities. Puncture wounds weren’t something you wanted to neglect.

“Aren’t you an expert at first aid?” she asked suspiciously.

“Yeah, but this is my right arm. I need you to patch me up.”

There was that need she’d been after, but not in the correct context. Elena sought for an excuse to flee, but none came to mind. Technically, she was the one doing the stalking here. The least she could do was give him a Band-Aid.

“I left Tina with some friends of mine, Carrie and Scott,” he said as he handed over his own keys and waited for her to unlock the front door. “They met us at the hospital and took her back home with them. I wasn’t sure how much the doctors would need from me, so they came to lend a helping hand.”

Her fingers fumbled over the lock. “Oh.” She couldn’t think of anything better to say.

“Tina likes them. They have eight dogs.”

“Eight?”

His laugh was gentle, its warmth hitting the back of her neck like a whisper. He had to be standing pretty close to her for that to happen, but she didn’t dare turn around. Not while she was still so unsure of what she’d find waiting for her.

“They train them for rescues. You’d like Carrie. She flies helicopters for us.”

She made it through the front door, but only long enough to whirl on Max, annoyance taking over her uncertainty. “Are you kidding me? A helicopter pilot? What on earth could we have in common?”

Max’s expression was everything she’d feared it would be—slightly mocking, slightly cold. He was exhausted, too, which was a thing she’d somehow missed. The heavy lines of his face were even heavier with worry and physical exertion, the crinkles around his eyes more prominent than usual.

He was still gorgeous, of course—probably more than ever, since each of those lines represented a heroic deed—but Elena couldn’t keep her heart from going out to him. The last thing the poor man needed right now was for her to yell at him.

“I’m sorry,” she rushed out before he could say so much as a word. “You’re tired and I just stabbed you.”

“Elena—” he began, but she stopped him by walking away. She didn’t want to hear it, couldn’t have this conversation one more time. She and Max were as different as two people could possibly be, and they both knew it. She’d just refused to accept it for so long.

Well, she was accepting it now, darn it. There was nothing else she could do.

“Is this one the bathroom?” she asked brightly, pushing into a room to her right. Her assumption was correct. Like the rest of the house, the bathroom was small and outdated and, to her eyes, charming. Especially once she took in the small pink toothbrush at the sink and the bucket full of colorful toys and bubble bath options. Max’s house wasn’t the typical divorced bachelor pad—it was a home.

Her throat caught, something she covered by transitioning to full caregiver mode.

“Sit here,” she commanded, pointing to the edge of the tub. Her nanny voice was good enough that he obeyed. She rummaged in the medicine cabinet until she found what she wanted. But even then he thwarted her with his unquestioning commitment to fatherhood. “Are, um, ladybug Band-Aids all you have?”

“My real first aid kit is in the car, if you want me to go get it,” he said, watching her carefully. “But I don’t mind ladybugs.”

Of course he didn’t. He probably loved them, spent all summer outside with bug-catching nets and jars at Tina’s request. And when she fell and scraped her knees, he probably used this same numbing spray to clean her wounds.

“Are you going to kiss it and make it all better, too?” he asked as she finished spraying on the antiseptic and putting the bandage into place. “Or would that be asking too much?”

She would never know why she did it. Even though Tina wasn’t in the house at the moment, the touch barrier was fully in effect. Oh, not for the first-aid part of things—that was just a woman doing her job, bandaging up a man she’d attacked on his own front doorstep. But the other kind of touch, the kind that said more, promised so much, was nothing but a mistake.

She did it anyway, of course. There was nothing Max could ask of her that she wouldn’t gladly do for him. And the worst part was, he knew it.

Lifting his arm to her lips, she performed the same action she’d done for Tina countless times. Unfortunately, there was nothing maternal about the way his skin tasted, nothing paternal about the way his pulse leapt under the press of her mouth.

He groaned, echoing her sentiments to perfection.

“Is there anywhere else, Max?” she asked, unable to help herself. “Somewhere that hurts and needs attention?”

“To be honest, I hurt all over.”

Elena gasped, but the sound was covered by Max’s low laugh. “That wasn’t an innuendo, by the way. It’s been a while since I had to climb that quickly or lift rocks that heavy. I think I’m getting weak in my old age.”

“Liar.” She busied herself putting the supplies back in the medicine cabinet, willing herself to look anywhere but at his face. “You could do that again twenty times in a row if you had to. I’ve seen you at work now, Max. You can’t pretend anymore. I know who you are. I know what you are.”

“And what’s that?”

“A superhero. Spiderman. Kristoff. All of them—all wrapped up in one.” She sighed. “One kiss from you is enough to vanquish fears and force women into doing your bidding. No, don’t look at me like that. I understand why you did it, and for the sake of Wilcox and the Georges, I’m glad it happened that way. But you were right, Max. I’m not like you. I can’t be friends with helicopter pilots and spend my afternoons facing down bears. I can’t watch you go out into the wilderness knowing what’s waiting out there to eat you. My fears would eventually get in the way of your kind of life. I’d hold you back.”

Max’s lips turned into a grimace. “Elena—”

“No, please don’t.” She wasn’t sure she could bear hearing him say it out loud. Chalk one more into the Elena-is-a-weakling category. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad. I’m just saying that I understand. I want…”

She trailed off, unsure how to finish. The truth was that she wanted a lot of things, including for him to stop looking at her as though a second head was sprouting out of her neck like a goiter.

“I want you to be happy,” she said, since it was the best way to sum things up. And it was true. She wanted his happiness more than she wanted her own. Both he and Tina deserved it. “After today, I realize I’m not the woman who will make that happen for you. I’m too much of a coward, too restricted by my anxieties. You’d always have one foot outside, where you want to be, and one in the door, where I am. That’s not a good life for anyone.”

“Bullshit.”

She jumped, the vehemence of Max’s words taking her aback. She wanted to point it out to him—see, even one harshly spoken word makes me cringe—but he took hold of her hands and held them pinned in front of her. Her fingers were sore from holding onto those ropes for so long, but she didn’t make a sound. She couldn’t. The ferocity of his grip was such that she could barely breathe, let alone speak.

That was exactly how she’d always wanted to be held by him. As if her life depended on it. As if his life depended on it.

“You are a lot of things, Elena Villanova, but a coward isn’t one of them.”

She blinked.

“I know you don’t believe me, but you faced a bear today and won. A bear.”

She yanked her hands away from his, but the damage had already been done. Her skin tingled everywhere he’d touched her, the impression of his palms seared into hers.

“I didn’t win. I just stood there like a statue while everyone else did all the work. You could have put literally anyone else in my place—even Ace, with his broken leg, even Tina—and the outcome would have been the same.” Her lower lip trembled. “I’ve never been so scared in my entire life. I hated you for making me be there, hated myself for thinking that kiss meant anything except you trying to distract me long enough to get the Georges and Wilcox down off that ledge.”

He laughed then, a short, bitter sound that matched the desperate rake of his hand along one jaw. “You think that’s why I kissed you?”

She stared at him. “Yes.”

“Oh, Elena.” He said the words as a groan and possessed himself of her hands once again. This time, however, he didn’t just hold onto them—he brought them to his lips, pressing a soft kiss into either palm—reverently, lovingly. “I kissed you because I wanted to, because I needed to. I kissed you because I was scared.”

“Scared?” she echoed, his words making little impression on her brain. It was a wonder she even heard them, what with her hands still so close to his mouth.

“Terrified,” he amended, and that time, she registered it. “I know you think I’m the fearless one, that I stand up to danger with a laugh and a smile, but that isn’t remotely true. I’m scared. I’m scared all the time.”

Now it was her turn. “Bullshit.”

His laugh, though still desperate, held a note of actual warmth. He pressed her hands. “I mean, I’m not scared of mountains or bears or anything like that. I never have been and I doubt I ever will be. But what I am scared of—what frightens me to my very core—is you.”

“Me?” She was the least scary person on the planet. A single mouse could run by and send her to the top of a dresser for hours.

“Your honesty, your openness, your willingness to tell me how you feel even when it had to be the most uncomfortable thing you could do.” He swallowed heavily, his eyes never leaving hers. “I’m not like you. I wish I could be, but the things you make me feel…”

Oh. Oh. They were having this conversation again. Not angrily, but calmly. Painfully.

“Because of Quinn?” she asked.

“No. Yes. Maybe.” He swore. “I’m not saying this right, am I?”

That depended on what he was trying to say. If his goal was complete and utter heartbreak, he was on the mark.

“You are, without question, the bravest woman I know.”

Her heart leapt to her throat and stayed there, making it impossible for her to call him out the way she wanted to. No one had ever used the word brave to describe her before—not even her parents, and they were disproportionately fond of all their offspring.

Not that it would have mattered what she said, anyway. Max continued, a strange light in his eyes, “I mean it. You get up every day and face the worst of your fears. And you do it with a smile. You admit your weaknesses and share your feelings. And you do it with a smile. You also made me realize that I’ve spent the past seven years of my life hiding from anything and everything real.” He lifted a hand to her cheek and traced the pad of his thumb over her mouth. She opened it to let him in, shuddering when he gave a gentle tug on her lower lip. “And you did it with a smile. You make me feel like I could fall in love—deep love, real love. That’s what scares me. Not because you’re like Quinn, but because you’re like you. And you’re amazing.”

She saw Max’s lips moving and heard the words issuing from between them, but a daze overtook her before she could fully grasp their meaning. That meaning became perfectly clear, however, when the hand cupping her face tensed and Max buried his fingers in her hair. The gentle tug was a plea and a promise, and she arched into it. As if in reply, Max issued a low groan, and he pulled her so close their foreheads touched.

“I want to learn to face my fears. I want to start living again. Will you help me?”

It was all she could to do hold back a sob. Being someone Max Stafford could count on—being needed by him—was literally the thing she wanted most in the world. And she could do it, too. She knew she could. Not because she was brave, like he thought, and not because she had vast experience being scared, either.

It was because she loved him. For all his age and experience, Max hadn’t yet realized that love was the one thing that fear would never be able to touch.

I guess I’ll just have to teach him, then. I guess we’ll have to find a way to be the strength the other needs.

As friends. As partners. As equals.

“You know, someone wise once told me there are pressure points on the body that can reduce anxiety,” Elena said, feeling a smile tug at her lips. “The feet, in particular, are a good place to start.”

His answering smile was all that her heart hoped for. “Oh, really? I seem to recall hearing something about that myself. But, no offense, my feet aren’t where I was hoping you’d start.”

She could hardly believe those words—those actual words—were coming out of Max’s mouth. He was flirting with her, big time. And for the first time, they were in an actual position to do something about it: they were alone, and they were alone together.

“Your feet aren’t what I had in mind, either,” she said. Then, before she allowed reason or that always-present bastard, fear, to get in the way, she dropped to her knees in front of him.

Max’s cozy, family-oriented bathroom was hardly the location she’d have chosen to reach for his belt, but it seemed fitting. She’d had more than enough of danger today—now she wanted the comfortable ordinariness of life, the excitement that came from two people being brave enough to meet on common ground.

“How’s the anxiety so far?” she asked as she ran her hands up his thighs, reveling in the flexing hardness under her fingertips.

“Um. So far, so good.” His voice was a low rumble. It turned to a full growl when she stopped moving along the ridge of thighs and moved to a different kind of ridge altogether. Max’s stamina and strength had long been features she’d been looking forward to, but she’d somehow failed to overlook the value of a well-formed cock.

From her first forays into investigation, it seemed that well-formed was an apt description. The increasingly hard length of him held nothing but promise and power, and it was all she could do not to give up on this pretense of seduction and go for full-on, Stephen Colbert, table-bending sex.

This isn’t about you, she had to remind herself. Max was scared. Max was unsure. She needed to take her time and do this right.

“Jesus, Elena. Are you trying to kill me?” His hands went to her hair, tangling in the long strands. It was going to be a pain to brush out later, but she didn’t care. She was making Max lose control. She was doing that, Elena Villanova, a scared little nanny he barely knew existed a few weeks ago.

“This is supposed to be making you feel better,” she said with a playful pout. She took her time opening his belt buckle, lingered even more over the button and zipper. “Don’t you feel better?”

“What will make me feel best is for you to get up off the ground and kiss me properly.” He took her hands from his fly and yanked her to her feet. She wanted to protest—after all, there was more than one way to put her lips on a man—but there was no chance before Max dropped his mouth to hers in a searing kiss.

He tasted of wilderness and open skies, of rocky cliffs and danger. All of those sensations were reinforced as his mouth moved insistently over her own, his grip unyielding and his passion intense. Max was a man who lived on the edge, and it seemed he demanded the same kind of pulse-pounding adrenaline from his woman.

That was okay with her. She didn’t need to live those experiences to appreciate them. She only needed Max.

He pulled her body flush against his, and all that delicious, below-the-belt promise pressed insistently against her. Unable to stop herself, she released a soft moan and spread her legs so he could nestle between them.

She needn’t have bothered. Despite his protestations that his muscles were sore from the day’s activities, he lifted her easily to the bathroom counter, his body notched between her thighs. A little more pressure to the left, and she’d have probably climaxed right then and there, but he halted in his movements to run his hands up and down her back, his eyes looking intently into hers.

“Thank you,” he said, a serious note in his voice. “You helped save a life today.”

She suppressed a shudder at the image of Wilcox that arose. It had taken a long time to bring his inert body down to the ground, even longer to carry him across the snowy landscape to where Ace and Tina waited for them. “Yes, well. I’m glad Wilcox is going to be okay, but don’t ever ask me to do that again. From now on, I think I’ll stick to making the hot cocoa for when everyone else gets back from their adventures. I’m good at cocoa.”

He ran his knuckle along her cheek. “I’m not talking about Wilcox’s life. I’m talking about mine.”

“In that case,” she said on a purr, turning her head so that her lips grazed his hand. “It was my pleasure. Now. Are we going to Stephen Colbert this thing, or not?”

His laugh came out as a strangled choke.

“Absolutely not,” he said and lifted the shirt from her head. His pupils darkened at the sight of her simple white bra. “I intend to take my time and enjoy myself. After today, we’ve both earned it. Besides, would Stephen do this?”

He leaned down and placed a reverent kiss on the top of each breast, his mouth lingering so long her heart almost stopped. She moaned and widened her legs to let him closer in hopes that he’d do it again—harder this time and suckling deep—but he didn’t get the hint.

“Um, yeah,” she said, hoping to jolt him into action. “I’m pretty sure Stephen has kissed a boob before.”

Her taunt worked. He grabbed her ass and yanked her forward, bringing their bodies into jolting contact. This time, his kisses moved lower, his tongue swirling a pattern over her nipples that had her writhing in agonized delight.

“Would Stephen do that?” Max asked, his voice hoarse.

“For his wife’s sake, I certainly hope so. You know, for a man who has a half-naked, incredibly hot and bothered woman on his bathroom counter, you’re kind of obsessed with Stephen Colbert.”

His smile was a lopsided quirk. “Incredibly hot and bothered?”

“Painfully so. I can’t remember the last time I wanted a man inside me so bad. Please fuck me, Max. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”

All thoughts of talk show hosts and slow, careful lovemaking vanished after that. After a quick, fervent prayer of thanks cast up in the name of women who said exactly what was on their minds, Max altered her state from half-naked to all-the-way naked. He pushed down her bra to her waist, impatient with clasps and eager to lift each breast to his lips. Her shoes and socks—wet from the day’s rigors—were whisked away with only a small foot massage detour. But as she was wearing jeans still damp from the cold and he didn’t seem to want her to leave the bathroom counter, there was a struggle to remove the denim with anything approaching grace.

Fortunately for them both, Max had already learned that Elena would never have grace. She wasn’t elegant or cool in the face of danger. She said the wrong things and wore every emotion on her face. She was human and she was flawed.

“And always so fucking alive,” Max said as he shed his own clothes and finally entered her.

She was too caught up in the sensation of Max’s hard, perfect cock buried between her thighs to give too much consideration to his words. Men often said silly things in the heat of the moment, and their moment was scorching. Their sweat-slicked bodies fit together perfectly, each thrust built like a crescendo upon the last. There didn’t seem to be any end to Max’s strength or in his ability to pick her up and hold her body exactly where he wanted it.

On the counter. Against the wall. Pressed tight against his.

And through it all, Max kissed her long and deep and so hard she wasn’t sure they’d ever come up for air. She decided, only half delirious with oxygen deprivation, that she didn’t mind. Air was overrated.

After all, Max Stafford climbed mountains, where the oxygen levels at twenty-two thousand feet could easily kill a man. And Elena Villanova had panic attacks, where the only way to avoid a spiraling descent was to breathe into a paper bag until clarity came once again.

None of that mattered. As Elena’s entire body shattered into an orgasm that left them both shaken, Max’s arms held her tight, and he said the one thing she’d been waiting her whole life to hear.

“You scare the shit out of me, Elena, but I can’t imagine anyone else I’d rather be terrified with—or for.”

“Finally,” she said on a sigh. “Now you understand.”

“What? How to be scared?”

“No.” She lifted her face to his and kissed him long and deep. “That there are some people in this world who are worth the risk.”