by Gemma Snow
Hollie half-swam and half-walked across the bridge, Cade right behind her. The water was up past his elbow, and on Hollie that meant higher than her shoulder, and rising steadily. She reached out and he grabbed her hand and with the other one she reached for Cade. Then, without words, the three of them began their slow, steady march across the flooded bridge to higher banks. Together.
Chapter Sixteen
Hollie had climbed pyramids, mountains and towers. She had set up camp on the edge of a volcano. Once, while scuba diving in South America, her partner’s tank had failed, and the two of them had made the world’s slowest ascent, sharing air while moving toward the surface.
None of it, not the hiking or rock climbing, had tired her bones and worn her muscles the way clinging to the edge of that bridge for nearly an hour had done. She let go of both Cade and Sawyer’s hands and half-sat, half-fell onto the muddy banks at the edge of the river. Her legs were aching like all hell, but it was her arms that burned and she knew it would be some time before she was able to so much as run a comb through her hair.
But it didn’t matter. They had saved her. They had realized she was missing and they had come out to find her. She didn’t want to think about how much longer she would have been able to cling to that broken beam. All she wanted at the moment was a warm bed and something strong to drink.
“We found her.” Cade’s voice was difficult to hear over the sound of the rain beating around them, but she glanced up to see him holding the walkie talkie close to his mouth. “Bridge is flooded, but the dam seems to be holding on the downstream. We’re coming back to you.”
It must have been Cam or Savannah he was talking to, and despite her exhaustion, her duty pushed her to her feet.
“How’s the rest of the town?” she asked, steadying herself against the side of Sawyer’s truck when the dizziness caught her by surprise.
“Sandbags are holding,” Sawyer said, his voice gruff and his expression dark. “We have downed trees on Main and off the Route Two ramp, but so far no residential dangers.”
Hollie closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then another. There was no way this flood wasn’t going to wreak havoc on the town, but they had done their best to ensure that everyone and almost everything was as safe as possible.
“Are you okay?” Cade asked, and his voice was too sympathetic, too concerned for her liking. She was in control, damn it. She would have found a way out of this bind just as she had every other bind she had ever been in.
But the floods raged around them and Hollie knew that there had been a chance she wouldn’t have made it out alive without their coming for her, and she finally opened her eyes.
“I am now,” she said quietly, too quietly, as if the strength that had kept her from letting go was all gone now and it was a wonder she was even still standing.
“Good.” With that, Cade picked her up in a single, swift movement and carried her to the back seat of Sawyer’s truck. He didn’t bother to put her down, simply climbed in with her on his lap and held close. Hollie hadn’t realized how desperately she needed to be held close until this very moment.
Without another word, Sawyer climbed into the front seat and pulled the truck away from the raging riverbank. They made their way back toward the Triple Diamond Ranch and Hollie’s eyes sagged closed. It felt like only a moment had passed, but when Cade gently woke her, they had arrived. The tent she had set up earlier in the week had been taken down and the ground was muddy and streaked with steady streams of water, but through the shade of intense sheets of rain, Hollie couldn’t make out any structural damage to the homes or cabins.
She was carried gently but quickly into the lodge, and when they entered, she felt the weight of a dozen pairs of eyes on her.
“Oh, thank God.” That was Savannah, who was pulling her first aid kid from the table and bringing it over to the couch when Hollie demanded Cade finally put her down. Maddy and Lily Hollis were there, as well as Dec and Micah, Ryder and Christian and Camilla. Around the room, she spied a few piles of wet towels and one or two buckets catching the stray drops.
Savannah fussed over her, poking and prodding, and sending Sawyer and Cade half scampering away in fear. Trust the redhead farm girl to do what a natural disaster couldn’t.
“You scared the fucking daylights out of me,” Savannah said. She shined a flashlight into Hollie’s eyes and directed her to look up, then down, then side to side. Apparently satisfied, she wrapped the blood pressure gauge around Hollie’s arm and continued in below-the-breath mutters and swear words. She peeled open a chocolate bar and practically forced a few bites into Hollie’s mouth.
“You’re not just my boss, Hollie Callihan. You’re a goddamn inspiration…” She glanced up and caught Hollie’s eyes, and Hollie could actually see a sheen of tears. “You’re my friend. I know you don’t like to hear that. I know you don’t like to settle or have too many roots in one place, but there it is. You’re my friend and I don’t want anything to happen to you, damnit.”
Hollie almost knocked Savannah off the couch when she wrapped her in a hug.
“You’re my friend too, Sav,” she managed, the words catching in her throat. Across the room, she spied Cade and Sawyer in deep conversation, one that, for the first time since she’d arrived, didn’t appear fraught with tension. “And I think I might be okay with putting a few roots down.”
Savannah turned and followed her gaze, then gave her a dazzling smile.
“Then I’m happy for you,” she said quietly. “I’ll give you guys a minute.”
She grabbed her bag of equipment and beat a hasty retreat to the card room near the door, where apparently everyone else had gathered to provide their trio a little bit of privacy. There was something to be said about her love life being so obvious. At least there wasn’t any beating around the bush.
“Are you okay?” It was Sawyer who asked this time, and in the bright, clear room, she could see the depths of his worry in those dark green eyes.
Hollie nodded. “I am.” She held up the chocolate bar in her hand. “Chocolate cures all problems.”
Before she could even finish, Sawyer pushed her back against the couch and kissed her roughly and possessively, claiming her mouth with a fierceness that rivaled the storm outside. She kissed back, her body responding to his touch with a wildness that only came from surviving something insane, with a need she barely knew from inside herself.
Eventually, they were able to pull apart and Hollie instinctively glanced at Cade. To her surprise, he wore only an expression of mind amusement, laced with something darker and more promising.
“We should have given you an answer before we left,” Cade said quietly. He settled on the table before the couch and looked her directly in the eye. “I was scared. Hell, Hol, we were both scared. It’s a lot to ask.”
She went to respond but he cut her off with a shake of the head, and she let him continue.
“It’s a lot to ask, but it doesn’t matter. When we saw you out on the bridge, Hollie, my heart jumped out of my fucking chest and I realized it doesn’t matter how I get to have you in my life or who I get to love you alongside, only that I do. Whatever you need, I’m willing to do it because I love you, Hollie Callihan. Completely.”
Hollie’s heart felt huge in her chest and she turned to Sawyer, who was sitting on the couch next to her, idly stroking the back of her neck with his strong, capable hands.
“Cade’s the poet,” he said, and she didn’t miss the use of Cade’s first name. “But me too, Hollie. I fucking love you. And I know he does too.”
She closed her eyes, hearing the words but not quite able to make sense of them, hoping mingling with fear, mingling with excitement.
“What are you guys saying?” she asked, desperate evident in her voice. If they meant…
“Be ours, Hollie,” Cade said plainly. “Both of ours. We can’t promise it’ll be easy or that we’ll suddenly become best friends, but we’re willing to do whatever it takes
to be with you.”
She burst into tears. She didn’t mean to. She wasn’t a crier by nature, but the events of the day, with the flooding and the nearly dying and the hurt she had felt walking away from them and now the overwhelming joy that bubbled to the surface and pushed everything else along with it, had her overflowing like a fountain.
Sawyer’s hand stilled on her neck and Hollie let out a laugh that sounded more like a hiccup. Leave it to two of the most capable, heroic men she’d ever met to act like deer in the headlights at the sight of a woman crying. Well, she’d change that—now that she had the chance.
“Happy tears,” she managed. “So happy.”
Wet from the river and rain and her own joy, Hollie leaned forward and kissed Cade squarely on the mouth. Then she turned and did the same to Sawyer.
“I love you both,” she managed, through her overwhelming emotion. “I always have. I was just too scared to admit it until now.” She paused and met both of their gazes. “Thank you for giving me the chance to realize the best thing in my life.”
The two of them embraced her and she welcomed the capable, protective hold around her. She wasn’t sure how long she stayed like that, only that the sound of Savannah sighing deeply and Camilla uttering a finally, brought her back to the room around her and their group of friends now gathering at the couch.
“Were you guys spying?” Hollie asked. Dec’s face was way too innocent and Micah just raised an eyebrow.
“You think we’re going to let two of Wolf Creek’s most notorious hardasses admit their undying love without watching?” Cam asked, her own voice so neutral and bland that Hollie couldn’t help but let out a watery laugh.
“We tried to stop them,” Christian added unhelpfully, but one glowering look from Maddy gave Hollie all the insight she needed into how much Christian Harlow and Ryder Dean—two more of the town’s bad boys lost to love—had been ear-to-the-door for their supposedly private scene.
“I think this calls for a toast,” Lily said. She slid over to the other side of the bar and popped open a bottle of champagne. She poured the flutes quickly and passed them around, then raised one of her own.
“To love in the storm,” she said.
The group of them echoed with their own toasts, and Hollie raised her glass, looked first to Sawyer, then to Cade. They’d been wading through their deep waters for so long, and now the skies had finally cleared, bringing sunshine to the love that had long existed between them.
Love in the storm, indeed.
Epilogue
“And when you anticipate northern flooding, the best course of action is to stem the dam from the northeast corridor, like we did in this example,” Hollie explained, indicating a large map projected against the screen. The small group of people in the room were nodding along and taking notes, and Hollie moved to switch to the next slide when she saw Dec standing in the corner.
“It’s lunch time,” he said, glancing to the clock on the far side of the room. “I thought Micah was the hardass professor, but you have to let them eat, Hol.”
Hollie smiled and nodded and the small group of search and rescue and emergency responder experts who were attending Micah and Dec’s training camp—her training camp—began gathering their belongings to head down to the mess hall on the far side of the grounds. But Dec didn’t leave right away. Instead, he walked farther into the room and waited until all their students had departed to lean against the side of the desk and cross his arms with a knowing smile.
“You’ve got some guests, professor,” he said, and Hollie had to resist the urge to smack the smug smile off his face. In the months since Dec and Micah had offered her a position teaching with their survival program, she’d grown closer to both of them and to Lily, and allowed her roots to flourish and settle. They had Sunday dinners at the Triple Diamond Ranch and Hollie had planted a garden, a garden, literal proof of her roots, as she found her own version of home in the small town where she had grown up, the town she had been so desperate to leave.
But it was the presence of the two men who shared her bed and her life that would have made Wolf Creek the place she wanted to rest her head, even if Savannah hadn’t followed her back to join to Wolf Creek Police Force, even if Maddy and Lily hadn’t welcomed her into the family with open arms, even if their friend Ev hadn’t arranged for Federal Agent Emergency Training Programs at the Wolf Creek Survival Camp, taught specifically by Hollie.
It was the way the sun shone through the back window to her little house early in the morning, when Sawyer cooked pancakes and Cade growled at the coffeemaker. It was the way the two of them, in companionable silence, had worked together to add a large extension on the back of the home, as they’d collected first a stray cat, then a litter of puppies, then, inexplicably, a goat, who had wandered onto the property one day and simply never left. It was the way they had both sacrificed so very much to be with her, for the opportunity to love her, and had never once mentioned it again.
It was falling asleep, sated and safe, and waking up in the arms of the men she loved.
“Where are they?” she asked Dec, who, damn him, definitely knew something she didn’t know.
“Out on the ridge,” he said, “It’s cooler out there.”
Summer was on the rise in Wolf Creek and she had gathered with the Hollis sisters on more than one occasion to marvel at how all their lives had changed so incredibly in merely a year, from the day Maddy had inherited her uncle’s ranch, to Lily’s visiting for her graduate program, to the wedding where their friend Ev had found that love had been right in front of her the entire time, to the return Hollie had made to a town she had never thought she would visit again. A year, and all four of them were more in love than they had been on day one, no matter how unorthodox or different each relationship was.
Hollie moved to the door and absently patted the front pocket of her light spring jacket. Two small boxes nestled in the lining and out of sight. She’d been feeling that pocket for the better part of a month, waiting for the perfect opportunity.
Dec called her name and Hollie turned around to see his face break into a grin.
“Go easy on ’em, Hol,” he said.
Furrowing her brow and trying not to smile, Hollie left the small lodge and headed down to the ridge. It was a sprawling, beautiful vignette. The Black Reef Mountains were awash in every shade of green around, above and below them, and pockets of wild flowers dotted the mountain’s edge. Truly, Wolf Creek had become nothing short of a paradise for her.
At the sight of Cade and Sawyer standing in a small cleaning, Hollie’s heart felt lighter and fuller all at the same time. They had their share of challenges—every relationship did. But they had survived the storm together, quite literally, and had been a team ever since. Cade and Sawyer’s friendship was unique, deeper for their having been at odds for so long. But whether the men admitted it aloud or not, they loved each other as fiercely as brothers and were both better people for the closeness they shared.
“What’s all this?” Hollie asked, indicating to the small picnic blanket set with plates and bowls and a large pitcher of tea on a tray. “You guys are spoiling me.”
“Every day,” Cade said, pulling her to his side and holding her possessively against him. Sawyer flashed her a grin.
“Every day for the rest of our lives,” he said. The two men glanced at each other with friendly, knowing smiles she would have thought impossible three months before. Then, as if they had practiced it in unison, both sank to their knees before her.
“Hollyhock.” It was Cade who spoke first, and if she wasn’t imagining it, his eyes were definitely shiny. “We don’t want to leave anything up to fate, or chance or natural disaster.” He pulled a small ring box from his pocket and held it before her.
Sawyer did the same and continued, “It hasn’t been very long since you returned to Wolf Creek, but we know how we feel about you and we want the whole world to know too.” They both opened their boxes and Hollie ga
sped at the simple, elegant designs each of them displayed.
“Will you handfast with us?” Cade asked. “Both of us?”
“Forever?” Sawyer added.
God, it was something heady to have two beautiful men down on their knees before her.
“On one condition,” Hollie said, trying and failing to contain her grin. Twin eyebrows rose in response.
“You will both handfast with me.” She pulled the two boxes from her own pocket and handed the deep blue velvet one to Cade and the deep red velvet one to Sawyer. She had picked rings that matched each man, Sawyer’s bold and gentle at the same time, done in a style of carbon fiber and wood. Cade’s was subtle and intricate, a printed pattern designed in sterling silver, and a wild possessive feeling settled over Hollie as she helped both men slide the rings she had chosen for them onto their strong, capable fingers.
And by the time all three boxes were open, Hollie, Cade and Sawyer were misty-eyed and quiet in the beauty of the moment. Hollie realized they had chosen a set of interlocking rings, ones that connected together with two gemstones and sleek rose-gold bands. They fitted perfectly into one another and perfectly on her finger.
“So that’s a yes then,” Cade asked, coming to stand at her side.
Hollie simply kissed him. Then she turned and kissed Sawyer, and she very well might have taken them both down to the picnic blanket if Dec’s wolf whistle hadn’t had her turning around to see her their friends and family pouring from the lodge, where they’d undoubtedly been watching the entire scene.
She raised one eyebrow at the two men, but Sawyer just shrugged. “It’s love,” he said. “People love love in all forms.” He pinched her ass and Hollie got the distinct impression it was because he felt he needed to retain some of his masculine facade. “Plus, they got a great show…” She grinned and allowed herself to be absorbed by the group of their friends and family, taking the hugs from Savannah and Lily and Maddy and Wes…
Wes.
“Surprised?” he asked, pulling her into a hug. “I got in about fifteen minutes ago, so good timing.”
