Chapter Eighteen
After breakfast—during which, mercifully, we did not speak much—Adam got into his new hybrid electric car and sped off toward Anza proper, saying he wanted to explore the town.
In all honesty, I didn’t know what could possibly keep him longer than an hour or so. Anza was a small community perched on the edge of the Cahuilla Indian Reservation. Other than rugged outdoors and the Pacific Crest Trail, which bisected town, Anza had little more to offer the casual tourist. Perhaps I’d get Mom to suggest a visit to the Anza-Borrego State Park tomorrow. That would keep him out of my hair for the entire day if he set out after breakfast.
I helped Mom clean up the breakfast dishes and she had a strange smile on her face. I asked her what was up. “Mr. Drake is a really good-looking man,” she said in answer.
I shot a wary look at her. Had she seen what had happened on the porch the night before? “Yeah, I guess so.”
“You guess so? What, are you blind? He’s, what, almost thirty or so? If he were a few years older…”
Eww. Mom had the hots for Adam? That was gross. “Mom…”
“I’m just saying. If a guy like that doesn’t get your motor running, then maybe you should go back and talk to Dr. Marbrow for a few sessions, find out what’s going on with your natural urges.”
I blew out a breath of disgust. “I refuse to talk about ‘natural urges’ with you. And don’t you dare decide to go all cougar on me, please!”
She shrugged and laughed at me. Shaking my head, I left the kitchen for the stables, ready to throw myself into my work for the day.
He was gone most of the morning and did not return until after lunch. Not like I was keeping track or anything. Though, I might have glanced down the road a few thousand times while I was working with the horses in the arena.
On his way back in, at around two o’clock, he took the long way to his cabin, walking near the arena where I was lunging Tate. I had on my jeans, boots and my old hat.
He smiled and waved. “Howdy, cowgirl.”
I waved in return.
A few hours later, my mom told me that she had seen him take off on a trail and asked me to run some clean towels over to the cabin. Mom usually did this job and I really, really wished she would do it today. The thought of going into his cabin—of possibly being seen entering his bedroom…
So I ran over as quickly as I could with the stack, knocked on the door, waited and knocked again. When no answer was forthcoming, I used the master key with some relief, and entered.
I left the fresh towels on the counter in the bathroom while I gathered up a few of the used ones and draped them over my arm.
I collected some empty water bottles on the desk to put in the recycling, figuring I’d better take the opportunity to tidy up a little. As I grabbed one of the bottles, I inadvertently knocked over a stack of papers that fell to the floor. Cursing, I threw the towels and bottles just outside the front door and then went back inside to pick up the papers.
I gathered them and then reordered them, forcing myself not to violate his privacy by looking. Many of them were trail guides and local information, some flyers and menus from the few diners in town.
But I started when I saw the unfolded sheaf of papers with letterhead from Pohlman’s Law Office —a lawyer whose name I recognized. Not long ago, I’d looked over similar paperwork handed to me by my mother. The letterhead of my mom’s lawyer.
This was the same lawyer—one of only two in town—who had officiated the paperwork for my mom’s anonymous benefactor. The one who had invested in the ranch as a silent partner, taking a mere twenty percent of any profits accrued, if and when we ever stood to make a profit.
My hands shook. Because now I had to find out why Adam had my mom’s paperwork. But as I read on, I discovered that it wasn’t Mom’s paperwork. It was Adam’s. Because Adam was Mom’s benefactor. And at the bottom of the page, his signature said so, and the date, showing he’d signed those papers today.
My heart thumped so hard it was painful. The deal had been initiated before the auction. Weeks before we’d ever met in person. I felt like the coyote in that old cartoon who’d had the floor sawed out from under him. He stood there waiting—waiting for the fall. And the room spun from my disorientation and my hands shook.
I dropped the paperwork onto the desk and scurried out of that room as fast as I possibly could, stooping to pick up the towels and bottles. But I wasn’t fast enough because Adam stepped onto the porch at that moment and I jumped so hard I dropped everything. Towels went flying and bottles went bouncing.
“Here, let me get those,” he said.
“No!” I shrieked, still shaking. “No. I’ve got it.” And I bustled around like a freak trying to pick up every last thing while he watched me with the most obvious puzzlement I’d ever seen on his face.
“Emilia, what’s wrong?”
“Mia—” My mom showed up right behind me. “I’ll get the towels.” And with a huff of frustration, and still shaking as if it was forty below outside instead of a toasty ninety-five, I shoved them into my mom’s arms and walked away.
“I gotta…I need to be alone for a while,” I gasped and then headed out toward the front of the house. What I really wanted to do was get in my car and screech the hell out of the driveway, but I wasn’t about to stop everything, go inside and start searching for my car keys. So I set foot to the highway instead.
I walked for about ten minutes before I noticed a long shadow moving up behind me. The way it moved, the way it gained on me even when I stepped up my pace, I knew exactly who it was.
I stopped so abruptly that he almost ran into me. We were standing on the roadside along an empty lot. I ducked through the ranch-style fence into the field. Of course, he followed me.
“What has you so freaked, Emilia?”
I kept walking, this time not trying to outpace him, but the words were rolling around in my head so that I could hardly round them up to form a coherent sentence.
Then I turned on him. “You tell me,” I ground out.
He shook his head, utterly confused.
“Why do you have paperwork in there declaring yourself as my mother’s secret investor?”
His mouth set. “You went through my papers?”
“I knocked them on the floor because I’m a fucking clumsy housekeeper. If you didn’t want me to find them, you shouldn’t have left them sitting out there like that. It’s not like they were locked in a document safe.”
He shifted his stance, looking away. I could tell he was pissed. So the fuck what if his secret was out? It was just another one in his long string of secrets. “I set them down there because I just got them today, in town, from the lawyer. I had no idea you’d be going into the room.” He looked back at me with narrowed eyes. “You were never supposed to see those.”
I tried to breathe while gesturing wildly with my hands. “I don’t get—why did you—how could you have known—when—?”
And I would have continued on like that if he hadn’t put his hands on my shoulders, pulling me to face him. “Take a deep breath and calm down. You are shaking like you saw your own ghost.”
And I was. And no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t control it.
“Emilia,” he said again, this time quietly, and I looked in his eyes.
And then I scowled and smacked his chest with the back of my hand. “You tell me everything now, Adam Drake, or… or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
He caught my hands and held them inside his easily. And then, he pulled one of my curled fists to his mouth and kissed it.
I yanked away from him, tears immediately springing from my eyes.
“I’ll tell you everything,” he said in an even voice. “If you promise me you won’t flip your shit when I do.”
My voice was as shaky as the rest of me. I grabbed the insides of my elbows. “I can’t promise you that.”
He swallowed and looked away, actually looking afraid. Definitely an emotion I had never seen cross his face. Sighing, he ran a hand through his hair.
“Even though we only physically met two months ago, I’ve known you for over a year. I told you in St. Lucia that—that you meant something to me. I read your blog all the time. I liked your articles, your insights. You’re very witty, and I looked forward to my blog feed updating with your articles, even when you were mocking my game or lauding the competition.”
He shook his head, remembering some past frustration. “Sometimes you really pissed me the fuck off and other times I laughed so hard my sides felt like they’d split open. But—beyond that, I really felt I knew you. Especially when we started spending so much time together in game. I looked forward to those times. It was like a bright spot during a dark day smothered in work and responsibilities. I couldn’t wait to log in and share laughs with the group. I enjoyed them all, but with you—” He took in a deep breath and exhaled. “It was different.”
He shot me a look. “But then you wrote the Manifesto. You already know how much I hated it because I argued every single point of it with you for hours. The whole idea of the auction offended the hell out of me. You know the reasons why I feel the way I do about women resorting to selling their bodies.”
I looked away and he hesitated. He released my hands and cleared his throat. “And I just had to know, you know? What would drive you to do this? I had this image of you in my mind as this self-possessed, funny, mature, very intelligent, modern woman and then you put up the Manifesto and I just.…” He blew out a breath, shaking his head.
“In my gut I knew it had to be something else—that you were desperate for a reason, even though you never told me that there were financial issues behind it beyond the cost of medical school.” His gaze sharpened. “So I had you investigated.”
Those words hit me like a blow. “What do you mean, ‘investigated’? You mean like a PI walking around with my picture asking questions about my past?”
He looked long and hard at me. “No. I just had a buddy run some financial history on you. And your mom. And I figured it out. So I set the wheels in motion for a charity organization I’m associated with, Golden Shield Group, to help her out in a way that would have absolutely nothing to do with the auction.”
Thoughts were writhing inside my head. My interior had transformed into a howling gale that threatened to tear at my soul. I swallowed a sob, turned from him and began walking.
For two steps, he let me go, then he followed. “Emilia—”
I stopped, putting my head in my hands, and began to pace in front of him. “How many more secrets are there, Adam? It’s like you’re a fucking onion with layer upon layer of lie. First you win the auction, but you don’t bother to tell me you never want to have sex with me and so you drag it out between us, leading me to believe it would happen even though you had no intention of it ever happening. Then I find out that we’ve actually known each other way longer than I thought and now this!” I could hardly get it out. The betrayal threatened to suffocate me.
Adam followed my movements, his eyes dark with worry. “This is it. You know everything now.”
I shook my head. “Why did you bother with this entire charade?”
He rubbed his jaw. “Because I couldn’t help it. I never wanted you to go through with this. I told you—I never intended for it to go so far. But—” He hesitated and took a step toward me, but I could tell he really didn’t want to say any more.
“But what?”
He steeled himself and when he spoke, his voice was quiet. “But I lost control. I couldn’t help it.” He closed his eyes. “I’m not proud of that fact. But whatever this is between us got a lot bigger than me very quickly. I couldn’t stop thinking about you from one time to the next and I kept telling myself that I’d cut things off the next time and the next time never came because every time I was with you I discovered I wanted you more. And not just in my bed, Emilia, though that part was driving me crazy.”
I stopped pacing, my arms folded in front of my chest. I listened to him but could not look at him. He spoke again. “I wanted more and I’ve never wanted that from any other woman ever. I wanted to spend all night watching movies with you or taunting you with irrelevant hints about the game or arguing over which version of the first Star Wars trilogy is better or having you taunt me about how my taste in music is exactly like your mother’s.”
He paused and I finally looked at him. I wish I hadn’t. Emotion was written on every feature. His eyes pinned mine down, dared me to look away. “Every minute I spent with you made me want a hundred minutes more.”
I extricated my gaze from his. My eyes stung and emotions threatened to bubble up from my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath. He moved to stand in front of me and, slowly, carefully, he placed his hands on my shoulders. “I’m going to say something right now that I know is going to scare the shit out of you because it scares the shit out of me. But I have to say it.” He paused, waiting for me to look at him. But I knew what he was going to say. And I didn’t want to hear it. Finally my eyes met his.
“Please, don’t,” I whispered.
He closed his eyes, clearly disappointed. When he spoke, his voice was shaky. “I love you, Emilia. I love you so goddamned much that I can’t breathe when I don’t know where you are or how you are doing. This last month has been torture. I wonder if it’s possible to have room in my heart for anything else but these feelings.”
I couldn’t respond, just shook my head. I wanted him to stop talking and I wanted him to never stop.
He cleared his throat and continued. “If this past month without you has taught me nothing else, it’s shown me what I want. I want—I need—you in my life. If I have to, I’ll wait as long as it takes to get that.”
I put a hand to my forehead, tears coating my cheeks now. I’d never cried in front of him before, but now my barriers were so brittle, so fragile that I seemed near tears at every moment.
Anger burned at my cheeks, the base of my throat. I was so pissed at what he was doing to me. With those words he’d seized control again—like he always did—declaring what my future would be. He’d wait as long as it took but that meant that, ultimately, he’d get what he wanted. And he was a man who didn’t settle for anything less.
I stepped back from his hold, my fists balled. “Fuck you, Adam Drake,” I hissed. “I never asked for you to come into my life and arrange things. I never needed you to save me!”
His head tilted in that way he had of studying me, his eyes calculating. This outburst had not been a surprise to him. He swallowed, squared his shoulders.
“No. Probably you didn’t,” he said so quietly I could barely hear him over the raging, wild twister of emotions swirling inside of me. “But I sure needed you to save me.”
And with that, he turned and walked away. And every part of me wanted to throw myself after him, wanted to wrap my arms around him with all of my strength and pull his body against mine.
Instead I doubled over and sobbed, pain wracking me from forehead to ankle. I sobbed so hard that my head felt like it would split open. I sobbed so hard that I could barely catch my breath, gasping like a diver on an empty tank. The hurt was too much, too intense.
Those words. Those words every woman dreamed of hearing from a wonderful man like Adam had made me sob instead. Because I doubted I had what it took to ever live up to them. To ever be able to return those sentiments. Because Adam wasn’t the one who was empty inside. I was.
***
By the time I made it back to the house, it was well after dark. Adam’s car was still in the driveway. Mom had made and served dinner—to which she had apparently invited him, because they sat at the table over their empty plates, talking and sipping wine.
I tried to file past the dining room unnoticed but Mom stopped me. “Mia, I made you a plate. Come eat!”
I stood in the doorway, aware that I looked like complete shit. I had dust and tear tracks all down my cheeks, swollen eyes and nose and dried snot all down the front of my shirt. I refused to look at Adam, who was apparently fascinated by his own empty plate.
“I’m just gonna go take a shower and hit the hay.”
Mom frowned. “Are you—?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.” I cut her off with a significant glance at Adam’s bowed head.
She didn’t look convinced. “Oh, okay. Well, Mr. Drake let me know that he had some business come up. He’s going to have to check out early in the morning.”
My eyes shot to Adam’s and we held each other’s gaze for a long moment. My heartbeat came with increasingly sharp, stabbing twinges.
My voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I cleared my throat. “Excuse me.” And I withdrew, heading straight for the shower.
I turned the water temperature up as high as I could tolerate it. I needed it to wash away the numbness, the painful emptiness inside me. Tomorrow he’d be gone and this time I’d likely never see him again. By rejecting him, by allowing him to go, he’d know that I wanted him to get on with his life. Without me.
I thought about his accusations, about the reasons why I couldn’t let him in. I knew it was because I was certain he’d hurt me. He’d leave me. All men leave. And he would, too. Just like the Bio—just like Gerard. Every single man you look at for the rest of your life is tainted by him. I was agonizingly aware of the truth in his words. Adam was not Gerard. Adam was not married, was not using me. Adam wanted more. Had just told me he was in love with me and, for all that meant, I honestly felt he believed it.
Adam was not Gerard. And there were many men in the world who weren’t. And I had to stop believing, in my childish way, that because one didn’t want me—because Gerard had rejected me before I was even born—that everyone else would, too. I had to find the courage to believe it and follow a path to happiness according to that new belief.
I stayed under that pulsing hot spray until it ran tepid and Mom banged on the door in protest because there was no hot water for the dishes.
“Mia,” she said when I got out, wrapping my robe around my dripping body.
“I’ll be fine, Mom.”
“Our guest…Mr. Drake—”
I panicked, heart racing. “Did he leave already?” I grabbed her arm with my urgent need to know.
Mom wrested it free from my grip and frowned. “No. I told you—tomorrow morning. You two already knew each other, didn’t you?”
I pulled back, turned and walked into my room. Of course, she followed me. “Mia, is he the guy you’ve been seeing?”
I stopped, that same old muscle knotting between my shoulder blades. I sighed. “Yes.”
“You know I’m a shitty judge of character, so you shouldn’t trust me as far as you can throw me, but—”
I turned. “Stop blaming yourself, Mom. Stop doubting yourself. You made one mistake and you shouldn’t beat yourself up for it for the rest of your life.”
Her face set into grim lines. “Wise words that you should live by. You shouldn’t be basing your entire life on my mistake, either.”
I slumped onto my bed and looked at her. I took in a shaky breath. “I’m scared.”
She sank onto the bed next to me and put her arms around my shoulders. “Growing up is a scary thing. I think I know why he came up here and I think I know what decision you are scared of making. And the only thing I can tell you is that the decision is yours and yours alone to make. But consider me. I’ve been alone for a long time by choice and I’d rather you found someone who makes you happy. Mia, if you love him, don’t choose to be alone.”
If you love him…I rested my head against her shoulder and closed my eyes, that pain throbbing deep inside me again. I sighed, knowing the truth of her words.
***
In nothing more than my nightshirt and underwear, I stood on his doorstep in the cool desert night, shaking but not from the chill. In the distance, I could hear a pack of coyotes calling to each other, and the ubiquitous chirps of crickets.
There was no light coming from under his door and as it wasn’t very late, I was concerned. As far as I knew from the nights we’d spent together, he was not one to retire early. But maybe he was tired tonight.
Well, tough shit, I’d wake him up, then. This couldn’t wait. I reached up and knocked loudly on the door, listening carefully for footsteps to approach on the other side. But there was complete silence.
I glanced at the window. The curtains had not been completely pulled to cover it so I pressed my face against it, cupping my hands to look inside. And I couldn’t see a damned thing because it was so dark.
“Adam?” I called through the window, giving it a bang with my fist and then waiting. Nothing.
For long moments I refused to let myself believe that he wasn’t on the other side of that door. I knocked again. Called again. My stomach twisted until it threatened nausea. Oh God—Oh God! He’d left. I gasped for breath. He’d packed up his stuff and gone even though he told Mom he wouldn’t be leaving until the morning. He’d driven away while I was in the shower. Fuck.
I had to go after him. There was no other way. I could chase him down to OC tomorrow but who knew where he’d be or how I could find him? I didn’t have his number because it was in the contacts of that damned phone I’d given back to him. I had his e-mail, but he’d just told me he was going without e-mail contact during his break from work.
I knew where he lived and could go to his house, but if he was planning a leave of absence from work, who knew where he’d be tomorrow—maybe on a plane to somewhere far away?
Tears threatened at the realization that he was gone. The tiniest of voices in the back of my head asked what if I never saw him again? What if I never heard his voice? Or felt his arms tighten around me? What if I never knew love like this ever again?
Nearly paralyzed with grief I spun and pressed my spine flat against his door, my mind racing to come up with a plan. I’d run and grab a pair of jeans and my keys. I’d get myself down the mountain tonight. He was two hours away. I’d bang on his door at one in the morning if I had to.
Shit. I struggled to breathe, tears coating my cheeks now. How could this be happening? My back slid along the door until I sat at his doorstep. I pressed my face to my knees, helpless with the loss. I’d only just managed to acknowledge that I could have these feelings—that the world would not implode if I allowed myself to love a man.
This man. This wonderful man. He was gone and I’d paid dearly for my stubbornness. This love had cost me more than three-quarters of a million dollars. It had cost me my heart.
And there was no buying it back—at any price. It belonged to him. Forever.
If he still wanted it after I’d shoved him away. Fool, Mia. Coward.
I sobbed into my hands, unable to find the strength to follow through with my plan. The will was draining out of me and threatened to leave me in a pool of misery right here on the porch of this little cabin. My shoulders shook and I was thankful that there was no one out here to hear me wailing like a baby.
And God only knows how long I would have allowed myself to sit there, a pathetic, weeping mess, if I hadn’t heard the scuff of shoes stepping across the porch, coming to a stop right beside me. I looked down at a pair of big feet in sneakers—the same ones Adam had worn when we’d gone running a couple nights before.
I froze but I kept my face covered. He didn’t move for a moment and then sank onto a knee to look into my face.
“Don’t you think you’ve done enough of that for one day?”
My breath was painful in my chest and my head bounced back against the door behind me. I looked at him through swollen eyes as, humiliatingly, I hiccupped. “I thought you left.”
He frowned. “Tomorrow. I was feeling restless tonight. Went for a little walk.”
I stared at him dumbly, unable to find the words to match this jumble of feelings inside me. They were tangled, like spiderwebs all sticky and matted inside my chest.
We stared at each other for a long, tense moment and I found that I was barely breathing. My chest would rise just enough to catch a mouthful of air before it blew back out again. His gaze intensified.
“Do you want to come in or would you rather sit out here?”
Without a word, I snuffled and struggled to my feet. Adam rose and opened the door, which, I only then realized, was unlocked. He flipped on a light and held the door for me, as if unwilling to turn his back on me for fear that I might bolt out into the night again.
And yeah, I might have been inclined in that direction, but he blocked my easy escape, so I inched into the cabin.
I threw a glance around the room, saw the stack of books on his nightstand, one opened and face down on the bed, Segment Hiker’s Guide to the Pacific Crest Trail. My eyes darted back to where he waited, just inside the closed door.
My entire body started to shake—like an unattractive shivery kind of shake. He watched me from the doorway, attentive to my every move but standing stiffly, unmoving.
Those dark eyes gave nothing of his feelings away. He was waiting for me to do the talking. I was the one who’d been blubbering like an idiot on his porch, after all.
I still had no idea what I was going to say. I took a deep breath and asked him a question instead. “Why? Why did you come into my life and completely wreck everything I knew? I thought I was happy. I thought I didn’t need anyone…” My voice faded.
His lips turned up in a humorless smile. “I could ask you the exact same thing.”
I mopped at my cheeks with the back of my hand. “I’ve done more crying today than I have in the past ten years combined. I’m not this much of a sniveling idiot—I swear I’m not.” I put my hands over my face. “I just—I don’t know what to do.”
He paused, shifted his weight so that he leaned a sturdy shoulder against the door. “Yes, you do.”
I dropped my hands and shook my head mutely.
“Come here, Emilia.”
And I did. I walked straight into his arms. And he pulled me to him and the tears came again. He kissed my hair, his arms tightening.
My head fell against his shoulder and my arms slid around his waist. And I breathed him in, feelings of desire and belonging coursing through me. His arms felt so good around me, so solid, so real.
My voice trembled as I took a deep breath and finally spoke. “I need you,” I said. His mouth moved to my neck and he kissed me there, bolts of electricity shooting down every nerve connected with that spot. It had taken everything in me to admit it…because I’d led my entire life until that very second firmly believing that I didn’t need anyone—not a goddamn soul. That Mia Strong was an island, a fortress.
But I needed Adam Drake. I needed him as much as I needed to breathe, eat or drink. And finally my brain allowed my heart to admit it.
“I need you so much,” I repeated. “I love you.”
He took my face between his hands, holding it still. He raised his head so he could look me in the eyes. “I can’t promise that things will be perfect, Emilia. But I can promise you that I will never give this up. Because I don’t think I knew how to live before you came into my life.”
He pushed the hair back from my face but never took his eyes from mine. I sniffled, the tears still coming, and I shook in his hold. “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t so scared I could pee myself. But I’ll never deny it again. I’ve loved you for longer than I even know. I fought the good fight but I can’t fight anymore. I won’t fight it. I love you, Adam.”
And we kissed. And it was like that first time… that connection swelling between us, strengthening. In his embrace, I found comfort, closeness. And when the kiss grew more intense, presaged something more to come, I knew, too, that I was ready for that as well. Adam nudged us toward the bed and I went with him…and whether it was to make love or to just lie beside him while we talked all night, I knew that whatever happened, it would be all right. Because this was so right.
~~~
Adam and Mia’s story continues in () and (), books 2 and 3 in the series. Keep reading for an excerpt from At Any Turn.
Their wedding book, (), is book 6 in the Gaming The System series and is available.
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Done with Adam and Mia for now? You can skip ahead to a new stand-alone love story. Jordan and April’s story is (). William and Jenna’s story stands alone in ().
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