Wild Flowers (Triple Diamond Book 2)

by Gemma Snow

  No. It wasn’t the wind that was making him ache.

  She loved him. She loved both of them. And they’d asked the one question that could ruin everything between them. Fuck. Fuck.

  One look over at Dec, who had grabbed a stack of their expense reports—and was reading them upside down—told Micah everything he needed to know about how his best friend was feeling.

  A low whine from the kitchen startled Axel, who lifted his lazy head from the couch and perked one ear. Micah furrowed his brow and dragged his sorry ass up to the kitchen. His phone was ringing against the countertop, vibrating teeth-chatteringly hard. Still, relief soared through him when he saw who was calling.

  “Lily.” His shoulders sagged, the panic leaving him in an instant. From the corner of his eye, he could see Dec whip his head around to the conversation.

  “It’s Maddy.” Her voice was very, very slow. “Lils left her phone here and I just dialed your number from it to let her know. Why on earth would she be calling you?”

  “Because she’s forgiven us and wants to talk,” Micah replied, before all of Maddy’s words had set in. “Wait, you’re calling here because Lily left her phone with you? When?”

  “At dinner…” Maddy sounded the kind of confused that wasn’t sure if it should be panicking. “Micah, what the hell is going on?”

  “Is Lily with you right now?” he asked, though he damn well knew the answer to the question. “Madison, did she ever get down to the ranch?” Dec was up and off the couch now and Rosie and Axel were one step behind him. They knew that tone of voice better than anyone and they stood over by the door, waiting, watching patiently. Micah only wished he could be so patient.

  “No, she didn’t get down to the ranch,” Maddy said. “She left with you guys—why on earth would she have come back with a storm on the way?”

  “We got into a fight,” Micah managed, somehow forcing the words past the tangle in his throat. Because fuck, fuck.

  “She’s not with you right now?”

  “No,” he repeated. “We thought she was with you.”

  “Jesus fuck.” Maddy’s voice caught, too, and he could hear the commotion of Ryder and Christian in the background.

  “We’re going out after her,” Micah said. He smashed the speakerphone button and grabbed his raincoat and hiking boots as fast as he could. “I’m going to take the phone, but there’s a good chance service will be out soon. We’re going to get her back, Maddy. I swear to God, if it’s the last fucking thing we do, we’re going to get her back.”

  The same conviction in his heart was all too apparent in Dec’s eyes, filled with dry fear that meant they had come to the same conclusion at the same time—they had just both made the biggest fucking mistake of their lives.

  “I trust you,” Maddy said. “Call me first thing. And God damn it, be safe. Because she’s going to want you in full working order to kick your asses.”

  Micah’s heart paused, frozen in that space of the moment. “She said she loved us, Maddy.” He scoffed, the sound so incredibly soft against the roar of the storm. “How on earth can that possibly be true?”

  He could almost see her rolling her eyes on the other end of the phone. “Why don’t you go find Lily and ask her yourself?” she asked. Then the call went out, plunging their reality back into saturated focus.

  “We pushed her away,” Dec said, zipping up his windbreaker and testing the flashlight in his hand. “We fucking did this, Micah. If anything happens to her…”

  “Nothing is going to happen to her.” He zipped his own jacket tight, grabbed his emergency search pack and hoisted it high on his shoulders. Then he pushed opened the back door, ushering Dec and the dogs out in the fray.

  It was even worse outside than he’d realized. The rain came down in hard, relentless pellets, a deluge that beat at his head and exposed hands. They couldn’t take the horses or ATVs out in this. It would be too dangerous on the hill, even for the treaded tires, and the likelihood of one of the animals spooking at the many slashes of lightning cutting across the sky was too high to risk. He did take a moment to leash Axel, though, and Dec did the same with Rosie. While both of the dogs were more than capable of being off leash, especially in search and rescues, the leashes might just save their lives on a nasty fall too close to the edge of a hill, which was all too possible right now.

  For people, too.

  Fuck, no. He wouldn’t even stop to consider the idea of her getting so much as a scratch on that beautiful freckled skin. He pushed ahead, stepping out of the relative canopy of trees and cabin overhang and into the storm. Dec was on his heels and they moved back in the direction they had come up from Triple Diamond, riding on hope. Most of the signs he knew for following trails, torn bushes, kicked-up dirt, something so much as footprints, were well and far gone with the rush of the rain, and the scents were so stirred up in the crash of water and wind that even if the dogs miraculously picked up a lead, there was no telling where it might actually take them.

  For a while, they didn’t try to speak. Micah had no sense of time passing, since the light didn’t change and the storm never let up. The sky came in and out of brightness, thick cracks of lightning breaking through the curtain of smoke-like clouds and each roll of thunder could have very well been his heart bursting apart in his chest.

  She loved him. And he’d let her turn around and ride away, into an oncoming storm, without telling her the truth.

  He loved her, too.

  At that moment, like a fucking miracle, another strike of lightning cut across the sky and Micah saw two things in the same instant. Cee Cee ran free through a clearing of trees, skittish in the storm and racing too fast to catch. The horse knew the way home, though, and if she wasn’t back by morning, they could go looking for her. But the second, far more important piece of information was where they were. The Hut. The same little patch of mountain where he and Dec had…they had made love to her, here, not too many hours ago.

  The sky glowed and crackled and he saw her the same moment Dec did, the same moment that a branch high above the Hut, where Lily was huddling against the storm, began to crack.

  Everything slowed to impossible movement. He could see each individual raindrop in that moment, each ripe splinter of wood that peeled away from the tree, the frozen, terrified look in Lily’s eyes as she saw them without really seeing them.

  But she must have heard the crack, because she glanced up. She rolled off the porch, onto her side, then dragging herself the last few feet she could manage. The tree came down in slow motion, and Micah was paralyzed, frozen to his spot as the whole thing careened into the building, smashing the roof to bits. Shards of tree and house went flying in a thousand directions and the sound crackled through the forest as loud as thunder.

  At first, he couldn’t see Lily then he and Dec were taking off, the dogs hot at their heels as everything came back into real time, too fast time, too fast for his pounding heart, as he came around the uprooted tree to find Lily.

  Or, rather, to see her. She was ten feet below the edge of the cliff, hanging onto the lip of the mountain with every ounce of strength she had. Against the wild beat of the rain and the slanting, pounding wind, she wouldn’t be able to withstand much more and the drop below was into the sheer, pulsing, rioting darkness of the valley.

  “Lily, hold on!” Micah shouted. He had the backpack off and was yanking the climbing cord free in the same seconds it took him to yell. “I’m going down there,” he said, shouting again to be heard over the din of the storm. Dec nodded.

  “Do you want me to go?” he asked, knowing Micah’s weakness, knowing his never-leaving fear of heights.

  Micah shook his head. “I’ll bring her back to us,” he said. “I promise.” He yanked on the cord, still shouting as he tightened it around himself. “And when I do, I’m not going to make her choose.” His voice was raw, but he carried on, actions and words pushing against the storm. “I don’t care if you’re by my side on this or not, but I�
��m going to fight for that woman and I’m going to do my damnedest to keep her.”

  Because Lily had allowed him to believe that he deserved happiness, that the choices he had made, when he chose to leave his home and many parts of his culture behind, weren’t going to damn him for the rest of his days. She had convinced him, made him understand, somehow, some way, that he deserved love. And, God, he’d gotten hers.

  “We can’t let her go.” It was ten thousand times more complicated than that, but Dec heard everything Micah wasn’t saying.

  “Together?” he shouted, his face sloshing in rivers of rainwater as he helped Micah latch the climbing cord to a tree. A slash of lightning burst against the sky, strengthening his resolve.

  “There are way worse things than sharing the love of my life with you,” he said. “Now, let’s go get her back.”

  Then he was turning down the mountain in deliberate slowness, one foot, next foot, until he was able to reach her. Her eyes held panicked relief and her fingers slipped in the intensifying rain.

  “I love you!” she shouted, her voice getting caught on the wind. “I love you both. Tell Dec, please.”

  “You tell him yourself,” Micah said. He reached for her hand and her fingers began to slide off the mountain ledge. Stretching, pulling at the cord then…fucking bliss, he caught hold of her wrist and gently, slowly began pulling her up from the now cracking ledge. The storm surged and Micah let go of the cord in the moment to pull Lily close to his body. They didn’t say a word, and Micah simply tugged on the rope, as he held Lily as tight as he could. They walked slowly, until Dec’s head appeared over the lip of the mountain.

  But just when Dec came into sight, a burst of light shattered the air around their heads blasting blinding light, sending a tree near the mountain’s edge crashing to the ground. It tilted and swayed before pulling free of the earthen hold and plunging into the darkness, but not before smashing the edge of the mountain just a foot from where they stood, smacking against the rope holding them to the earth. The motion rocked Micah’s body and Lily screamed, her grip on him loosening, fear knotting within him as he held tight against the shaking mountain, the ground and wind and rain pulling her from him in every direction.

  The climbing cable began to fray where the tree had hit and Micah hoisted Lily high, pushing her up toward the lip of the mountain, trying to steady himself against the panic rioting in his entire body. The rope was going to fray and they were going to die, to fall to the depths of the valley below. It zinged, the pinging sound of a thread breaking. Then another. Then another. He tried to push Lily to safety, but she clung tight to him as they continued each slow, agonizing step together. Then he watched in horror as the last of the cable withered and thinned and, in frozen motion, unraveled against the night.

  He fell.

  Three inches, before Lily’s small hand caught him around the wrist and Micah opened the eyes he hadn’t realized were shut to see that Dec held her other hand, carefully maneuvering them back to the mountain’s surface. Her hand was cramping and too small to get a good grip, but she held on with all of her ever-loving might and he could see every bit of her strength and power, as Dec dragged them, pushing through to get them each hard-won inch up the mountain.

  “Lily,” Micah shouted, desperate for her to know, to hear, in case they didn’t make it to land.

  She shook her head. “You have to survive so you can tell me,” she shouted back. Then Micah heard Dec heaving Lily up. Her fingers slipped against his wrist, but this time it was Dec who grabbed hold, hauling all three of them backward and onto the muddy, wonderful, spectacular ground in a heap of sopping limbs. Not that he gave a fuck. They’d done it. They’d saved her. Together.

  “I sprained my ankle,” Lily explained, eyes filled with unshed tears. Because Lily Hollis was a fucking fighter and she would do whatever it took to see things through. Now that she was safe, though, and he was going to work damn hard to make her believe she was safe in his arms, she was allowed to lose a little of her staunch resolve and give over to the emotion of the night. “I couldn’t walk and I realized I’d left my phone back at the house and… Fuck.” She looked first to him then to Dec, her eyes bright with sorrow and regret. “I shouldn’t have run away like that. I should have listened to you and talked things through.”

  “You have every right to be angry,” Micah replied. “We gave you an impossible choice and it wasn’t fair. We shouldn’t have asked that of you.”

  “Well, it’s not exactly fair for me to ask you to both be okay dating the same woman,” she replied. “Assuming that’s even still on the table.”

  “What are your thoughts on us loving the same woman?” Dec shouted.

  Lily froze and he pulled her closer to his body, aware of the shivering and racking of her arms and chest.

  “What did you say?” she asked, teeth chattering.

  “We love you, Lily,” Micah replied and, goddamn, his chest really did feel warm and glowing as he said it. “Fuck, I think I fell in love with you the day you walked through our door. You made me believe I even deserved a shot at love, made me realize how fucking incredibly, miraculously lucky I am to know you. So, yeah, I love you.”

  A sob caught in her throat and she glanced over at Dec. He shot her his trademark grin, only it was all real and no charm this time and, in that moment, Micah knew he could do it. He could love Lily and be okay with Dec loving her, too. Because he understood what it was like to fall under Lily Hollis’ spell and another person who loved her as much as he did was all right in his book. It didn’t hurt that there wasn’t another man in the world he trusted more than Dec.

  “Honey, you turned my life upside down in a hot second,” he said. “Micah said it, but it bears repeating—you walked through our door and changed everything. Forever. So, for the love of God, say you’ll stay and love us and let us love you.”

  She cried then and Micah released her so Dec could wrap her tight to his chest. With an uncharacteristic gentleness, Dec picked her up and the whole lot of them began the slow descent back down the mountain toward the cabin. Miraculously, they made it home and, dogs and people alike, they spilled inside, dripping like drowned rats and laughing their asses off, between rain-soaked kisses. They stripped, right there in the mudroom, peeling off soaked windbreakers and socks and boots and jeans. Lily’s ankle was swollen and painful and so she iced and elevated it, while they called Maddy to tell her the good news, or rather, some of the good news.

  And when the lights finally went out with the storm and they all gave over to the madness of joy and lust and adrenaline at having lived, at having found each other in the great madness of life, Micah knew, without a doubt, that they had their own light in their lives now, and that Lily would always be the brightness to guide them back home in the storm.

  Epilogue

  “I never thought ranger uniforms were sexy before,” Dec said, his appraisal of her outfit so outrageous that Lily had to laugh. The uniform wasn’t sexy. It was bulky and square and the pants were too short for her, landing two awkward inches above the top of her hiking boots. But she didn’t care. When she walked through the front door to her cabin, her cabin, on the first day of her new job, to a home filled with two incredible men who loved her, she felt sexy and happy and free from so much that had held her back. Daniel would have approved of her choices, of her leaving the business in Mia’s capable hands, keeping only a percentage.

  And he would have approved of the men, too. By the end of his life, his patience for judgment and disapproval of the way others lived their lives had been long gone, and he appreciated love for what it was in any form.

  This form, with Micah on one side, kissing the slope of her neck, and Dec pressing his lips to her mouth, was without a doubt her favorite.

  The door swung open behind her and Maddy walked through and into the kitchen with a smug grin, followed by Christian and Ryder, who were eyeing the other men with overprotective suspicion.

  “You
can’t kill them. I need them for things,” Lily said, stepping in front of the much taller, much broader men, as if anything about her would serve as protection.

  “I do not want to hear about things,” Maddy said, as she unpacked a large grocery bag of chips, cookies, dips and paper plates. Lily glanced over and realized that Ryder and Christian both had boxes of beer in their arms, too.

  “Well, I didn’t want to see things, but here we are.” Lily kissed Maddy’s cheek. “And are we having a party?”

  “Hell, yes, we’re having a party! Not every day you start a new job and move a thousand miles from home, oh, and get your master’s research get accepted in the fucking Smithsonian.”

  Lily blushed, but before she could speak, there was another knock at the door and Georgie and Darla stood outside, Darla with a stack of bakery boxes and Georgie holding more beer and wearing a grin.

  Then, just like the night they first arrived, they spilled out to the patio, drinking and dancing and making merry. It was simple like that, the way Wolf Creek just accepted her, accepted the way she lived and the way she loved. And, by God, she loved.

  She walked over to the far end of the patio for a moment of peace and stared out over the edge of the Black Reef Mountains. A new group of survivalists would be arriving soon and the chill in the air and stark landscape out beyond meant that winter was no longer distant but right upon them. Five weeks has passed since the night Micah and Dec had saved her in the storm, since the night they had all saved one another, and Lily had come and gone several times, clearing up things at home, finalizing the business sales. She had tried to convince their parents to make the great move to Wolf Creek, explaining that her relationship had ended up just as unorthodox as Maddy’s, and their mother had said that the Montana men seemed as good a reason as any to go, but for now they were just fine to stay put.

  But now, her flat was rented, the store was in Mia’s capable-business-partner hands and Lily was here. For good. Strong arms wrapped around her back and a bearded chin brushed her neck.