Just then—as if Adam had heard her thoughts—he turned and glanced at her, then started back to them.
“Back off of Adam, okay?” she whispered to Laura.
Jared called from the cave. “Come on in, guys. Get out of the rain.”
“Go ahead, Cobie,” Laura said. “Jen and I will go next—then Adam can be last.”
Cobie feared what her friends might say to Adam if she left them alone. Maybe she should let them have their say, but Adam had saved her life. That couldn’t make up for the past—no way—but the least she could do in return was save him from her friends.
“No, you go ahead,” she said. “Then Jen.”
“What are you doing?” Laura angled her head, her silent question ringing loudly in Cobie’s ears. Why are you staying behind with Adam?
“I need to talk to him alone, okay?” It was the only answer Laura would accept.
Her friend frowned. Shrugging, she slipped into the cave. Jen followed. Cobie had forgotten how overbearing Laura could be.
When Laura and Jen had disappeared inside, Adam approached. He studied her. What was he thinking? Okay, maybe she made a mistake. Maybe she didn’t exactly want to be left alone with him.
“Is that true?” Adam lifted his hand as though he would reach out to her but then dropped it.
“Is what true?”
“You told Laura you needed to talk to me alone.”
How did she answer that? “Um...honestly, I was protecting you.”
His questioning frown shifted into that knee-weakening grin that had won her heart years ago. A mistake, she’d definitely made a mistake.
“I’m not sure what I need protection from, but I won’t reject your offer.”
“It’s not what—it’s who. I didn’t want my friends to say anything to you.”
His grin dropped. He scraped a hand over his face. “Yeah, they’re pretty brutal. I appreciate your effort, but I can’t blame your friends for their low opinion of me. They’re trying to help you.”
Cobie saw the question in Adam’s shimmering blue eyes. All the lush greenery had turned his eyes more blue today, and they asked Cobie if she had a low opinion of him. She hadn’t yet decided. Regardless, there could be no future for them. That much she knew. Funny how nothing much had changed there. When she was younger and Brad was still alive, she had had such a huge crush on Adam and he never once looked at her. She hadn’t thought there could be a future then, either.
An odd feeling swirled up inside and rolled over the dingy walls of her heart. The way Adam looked at her now, she almost got the sense that he looked at her as more than his best friend’s sister. He looked at her like a woman—a desirable woman. In all her years of dreaming about him, she’d never seen that in his eyes.
She gasped for air. “I’d better go.” She made for the cave.
“Hold on, Cobie.” Adam adjusted her helmet. Squatted enough to be at eye level while he did it. Why did his nearness make her insides shaky like this? She was a traitor to let the man she blamed for her brother’s death affect her this way.
“What are you doing?” She moved to step away.
“Wait.” He messed with the headlamp. Then he flashed her his triple-threat grin. Oh, God, help me. I don’t know if I can do this.
Cobie swallowed. “I can take care of myself.” She stepped back from him, but not nearly far enough.
“Of course you can.” Adam crossed his arms. “Just like I can protect myself from your friends, but I’m not opposed to letting you fight for me.”
Cobie crushed down the fierce need to express her frustration. He turned everything into playful banter, and she didn’t want to play games with him. The events of today were certainly not unfolding the way she’d expected.
Waves crashed against the rocky edges of the island, reminding her that somewhere near was the bluff she’d jumped from. Part of her wanted to back out of exploring the cave.
“Cobie, neither of us planned this today. I know being here with me, going into this cave, brings back a lot of unwanted memories. But maybe there are some good ones, too.” Adam closed the distance she’d just created. “I—”
Laura slid out of the small crack in the limestone.
“You guys coming or what?” Though half her face was covered in mud, Cobie could see that Laura’s eyes held concern. “Cobie? Are you sure you want to do this?”
Laura and Jen had both taken time off from their jobs and families and traveled to meet her. She’d asked a lot of them, especially since she hadn’t had much contact with them since Brad’s death.
“Yes. I’m sure.” Cobie glanced at Adam. “I need to finish this while I’m here. And after it’s over, I need to move on with my life.”
Something flashed in Adam’s eyes. Regret? Hurt? Cobie wasn’t sure. When he didn’t say anything, Cobie followed Laura into the cave—a dark and muddy chute that she slid down until it delivered her into a cavern. When she arrived, she was grateful for the multiple headlamps spread out like streetlights.
Cobie climbed to her feet and carefully stepped out of the slippery stream that continued twisting through the cave. Her headlamp lit up the limestone walls marbled with white and black and gray. She wanted to lay her hand over them but didn’t want to cause any damage. The limestone was fragile enough she could easily chip a small piece off with one touch. Everywhere she looked, beauty and wonder met her gaze. Adam wasn’t kidding about the mixed memories connected to caving, but for this moment, she tried to focus on the good ones. And make new ones.
Adam came down the chute after her and joined his friends in exploring and surveying the cave. They had work to do, after all, and Cobie would leave them to it. Jen and Laura explored the far wall of the ten-foot-tall room, and Cobie hadn’t caught up to them yet.
She tried to picture her father standing here, at this very spot. Had he come to the cave in search of something for his job as a scientist, or for the sheer love of caving? If so, he hadn’t mentioned either reason in his journal. He hadn’t written in the journal religiously, and most of his notes were vague ramblings regarding people he met or a day on his job as an archaeologist. But most of the writing were old, except for a few notes about this cave. Nothing that held her attention or stood out. That’s why Cobie hadn’t paid much attention to the fact that pages had been torn from his journal after the mention of the cave.
Maybe Adam was right to think that her father’s disappearance had something to do with the man who had tried to kill her. The big question was what did this cave have to do with any of it? How long would it take them to map a caving system like this, which could have innumerable passages, loops, crawlways and rooms?
“Hey, guys,” she called to Laura and Jen. “I see a room through this tight spot. Just going to explore. I’ll be back up in a few.” They nodded their acknowledgment.
Cobie squeezed through, her headlamp easily illuminating the next passage. She noticed a small spring emerging and water streaming away beneath the wall where she couldn’t follow. And in the shadows, she saw something else.
Had someone left a pack? Was it her father’s pack? Her