The Perfect Storm, Chapter 2
*Beach reads *Second chance romance *Billionaire *Stranded in Getaway Bay *Series starter
Holden Holstein couldn’t really hold Eden’s weight, though she was a tall, lithe woman with hardly any body fat. But a rock had landed on his leg, and he was pretty sure it was fractured.
He laid Eden down as gently as he could, but he was pretty sure she groaned as he did. It was hard to tell above the pounding rain just a few feet away, and all that mud, foliage, and rock falling off the ledge up above.
He couldn’t believe he’d picked today to come out here. It literally hadn’t rained in Getaway Bay in a month, and he’d thought the wet season had ended. It was the middle of May, and the weather usually played nice by now.
Holden fell to the ground beside Eden, panting now that the adrenaline had worn off. Pain pulsed through his leg, and it would be a miracle if he got out of here alive. Of course, he would. If the hardships Holden had already endured in his life hadn’t killed him, this landslide wouldn’t.
At least he’d told Dean where he was going. Of course, his advisor at Explore Getaway Bay knew everything about Holden. Everyone thought Dean was the brains, brawn, and billions behind the survival company, outdoor tours from underwater to the top of the dormant volcano, and mega-online resource for wilderness survival.
Holden had brought his phone with him. At least Eden had a backpack on. He glanced at her, noticing that she was wearing an Explore GB T-shirt, and guilt spread through him like wildfire.
She worked for his company, and surely she could get them out of this mess. But he hated that he couldn’t do it. Hated that he owned the company but couldn’t tell Eden. Couldn’t survive in the wilds of Hawaii by himself. Hated that he’d lost Eden years ago.
But his mother had been dying, and he hadn’t been able to deal with the demands of a relationship too. Even though Eden hadn’t been a demanding girlfriend, Holden simply hadn’t been in a place where he could keep her.
So he’d cut her loose. He’d cut a lot of people and things loose during that difficult time of his life, and he’d been slowly putting pieces back together since then.
Privately. Behind closed doors.
His half-brother had taken over their father’s cattle ranch and become a billionaire himself. Holden had been building his wealth through selling flashlights, emergency blankets, and rations to the hikers and outdoor enthusiasts that came to Getaway Bay to see some of the world’s most amazing sights.
He worked closely with Dean Black, a childhood friend who’d stuck with Holden through all the ups and downs of his family life. When he tried to explain to people how he was younger than his half-brother, but that his dad was married to Lincoln’s mother…it hurt his own head.
Shaking the thoughts from his head, he told himself to focus. He didn’t need a family history lesson right now. He needed to stay awake so there wouldn’t be two unconscious bodies under this ledge.
He reached over and covered Eden’s hand with his. She wasn’t cold, which was a good sign, but she didn’t move either. Bad sign.
“Mom, what do I do here?” When he got really stressed, talking to his mother was the best thing to do. After his dad had gone back to his previous wife, leaving Holden and his mother, they’d relied on each other for so much.
“I just wanted an afternoon away,” he said. “Dean says there’s this new app service, and our company needs it. People can schedule their tours right from their phones. See availability. All of that. He says I should negotiate with Theo, because I already work there, and he thinks I could code the app myself. Get a deal on the design.”
Holden stopped talking, because it was way past time for Explore Getaway Bay to have an app, and he knew it. His mother couldn’t really help him with this.
No, what he wanted help with was Eden.
It had been five years since they’d been a couple. Five years since his mother’s illness. Five years since the funeral.
He’d thought of her every day since then, and while he’d blocked some memories from that time of his life and he knew he’d acted badly, he couldn’t help hoping she’d come back to him.
Walk into his office one day and ask him to lunch.
Of course, she wouldn’t do that. Couldn’t even do that. Theo’s offices were in a luxury condo building that required a code to get in. He’d known Eden was on his payroll, but he didn’t really know the day-to-day details of her job. He didn’t have to know. He owned Explore Getaway Bay on paper only, consulting with Dean every Monday and working at The Web Developer the rest of the week.
The rain beyond the ledge eased up, and Holden rolled toward the opening to see the water was definitely slowing down. A few feet of debris had piled up outside the ledge he’d found only a minute into the downpour. If he had anything besides his two hands, he could probably dig them out, even with the damaged condition of his leg.
As it was, he couldn’t get himself to move. So he cupped his hand around Eden’s again, closed his eyes, and evened out his breathing. If there was anything he’d learned growing up on the cattle ranch for a few years, it was to breathe through the pain.
His phone beeped, but it wasn’t the notification for a text or a missed phone call. It was his battery notification telling him his phone was almost dead. He didn’t even open his eyes. When he didn’t respond to Dean’s texts and calls, his best friend would call the cops.
And Eden had a whole slew of people who cared about her. They wouldn’t be stuck up here forever.
She groaned, and Holden’s eyes flew open. “Eden,” he said, and her hand shifted away from his. “Wake up.” He wasn’t sure if he was telling himself or her. Using his hands, he pushed himself up and looked down at Eden.
She had beautiful blonde hair—at least when it was washed and curled. Even if she had it in its customary ponytail, he liked it. Right now, it was filled with mud, and Holden reached down and plucked a small stick out of it.
Her freckles stood out on her pale face, and Holden traced his fingertips along her chin. Her eyes fluttered open, and he knew if she did that, he’d be looking into the blue-green depths of the ocean.
“Eden, honey,” he said. “Can you wake up?” I need your help. Please don’t make me carry you out of here on a broken leg.
She groaned again, and he kept talking. “Eden, you need to wake up. We’re stuck up on the cliffs, and I’m pretty sure if you don’t get us out of here, they’re going to have to call in rescue workers.”
He almost smiled, but he absolutely could not allow that to happen. He didn’t need his face splashed all over the newspapers, and people asking questions, and everyone assuming that computer nerds couldn’t take care of themselves in the wilderness.
“Holden?” Eden’s voice sounded like she’d gargled with rocks, but her eyes opened, and she focused on him.
“Hey.” Maybe he said it a little too softly. Or maybe his leg hurt a lot, and he wasn’t thinking clearly. “You fell off a ledge.”
She tried to sit up, but pain flashed across her face, and she laid back down.
“Yeah, don’t move,” he said. “You literally fell off a ledge. I’m not sure how far up it was, but you passed out pretty dang quick, so I’m guessing you hit your head pretty hard.”
She shifted, her eyebrows crinkling together. “Can you move my backpack? It’s killing me.”
“Sure, yeah.” Holden quickly pushed the straps off her shoulders and pulled it out from under her. “What do you have in here? Anything good?” The darkness beyond the ledge didn’t settle him, and he wondered if they’d get off the mountain before dark. At this rate, he didn’t think so.
Eden grabbed it away from him with surprising strength and speed. “I—nothing.” Their eyes met, and Holden felt the same attraction to her that had always existed between them. He thought about the first time they’d met, while she was a waitress at a place where everyone wears roller skates. She’d only been there for six months, just to pay off the last of one of her sister’s funeral bills from the death of her husband.
She’d done it anonymously, and he wasn’t sure if she’d ever told Orchid what she’d done.
He’d known her in high school, but she was a couple of years behind him, and he’d been quiet and kept to himself then too.
“I’m sorry,” he said, a spasm of pain making his hands shake. He wiped his face, the spot of blood from the cut on his forehead dry now. It stung, but nothing hurt as much as his leg. “Got any painkiller in that pack?”
“Yes,” Eden said in a hoity toity voice. “Of course.”
“You should take some.”
“Don’t tell me what to do, Holden,” she said, throwing him a nasty glare. So she wasn’t going to play nice, even in this precarious situation. Holden hadn’t realized how much he’d hurt her until that very moment.
“I won’t,” he said.
She shook the bottle of pills into her hand, the rattling noise making Holden’s nerves scream at him. She took out a bottle of water—Holden didn’t even have that—and swallowed them before looking at him again.
Her eyes went to his forehead, and he watched the concern march across her face. “Here.” She handed him the bottle, and he shook four pills into his hand and swallowed them dry.
“Thanks,” he said. “What else hurts? Anything broken?”
She started to move her limbs, and they all seemed to work, though she did flinch in pain the tiniest bit. “I don’t think anything’s too bad. My right ankle hurts a lot.”
“You probably landed on it when you came shooting over the ledge with the landslide.”
“Is that what happened?”
“Yeah.” Holden looked at her. “I’d ducked under here, but I thought I heard someone screaming, so I was stumbling out, and that’s when you appeared.” Like an angel, out of the storm and the mud.
“Thank you for catching me before I fell,” she said softly.
“Yeah, sure,” he said again. He wondered how many more times he’d say it, and he told himself not to utter it again.
She shifted on the hard rock as the rain started to fall again, and Holden couldn’t help his sigh. He tried to move, but a white hot flash of pain sliced through him, and he sucked in a breath and said, “Oh.”
He hoped he could just play it off on the rain, but Eden was smarter than that. She always had been. She had a real mind, one she used and one he admired.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said, but he didn’t even believe himself.
“Holden.”
He’d always loved it when she said his name, but not this time. Not when it was laced with danger and warning.
“My leg is jacked up,” he said. “What about you?”
“We already talked about me,” she said, her eyes sliding down to his legs. “Which one?”
“Right.”
She moved, and he drew in his breath through his teeth, making a hissing noise.
“I don’t want you to touch it,” he said.
“I have to touch it.”
“It’s broken,” he said. “No one needs to touch it to know that.” Every muscle in his body screamed at him to make sure she didn’t touch his leg. But she kept inching that way, and Holden felt like he always did when he was with Eden—like he was trying to hold back the tide. And he hadn’t been able to hold on last time.
He didn’t think he ever would.
“Eden,” he said, but he clearly didn’t have the warning voice down the way she did, because she just looked at him with those teal eyes and focused back on his leg.
“I’m going to move your pantleg,” she said.
He tried to grip the rocks behind him, but they were slippery and smooth, and he still ground his teeth together as she pushed the fabric up to look at his leg. His skin was dirty, and a flash of embarrassment squirreled through him.
She paused and rummaged through her backpack, pulling out a package of wet wipes. “I’ll be gentle, but I can’t tell if the skin is broken.”
“My bone isn’t poking out,” he said, almost rolling his eyes. Eden was always so careful, and this examination could take an hour.
So what? he asked himself. He had nowhere to go, as the rain continued to fall beyond the ledge. At least no more of the mountain was coming down.
The pressure on his leg made him yell out, and she immediately pulled back. “Sorry.”
“I really don’t think this is necessary,” he growled.
“We could be up here for a while,” she said. “Especially if you can’t walk.”
“I can walk,” he said, not really knowing if that were true.
“Holden.”
“Eden,” he said in the same reprimanding tone.
She sighed like he was being difficult on purpose. “Just lay back.”
“Fine, but can you hurry?”
“I’ll try.” She wasn’t a great liar, and she didn’t hurry. She cleaned his leg despite all his hissing, and she probed around with a couple of chilly fingers, finally saying, “I don’t think it’s broken. I think it’s really badly bruised.”
“You think so?”
“Got hit by a rock, right?”
“How did you know?”
“You have a massive lump on your leg, and it’s really red.” She pulled his pantleg back down and leaned over him. “Are you—?”
Holden looked up at her, wishing they were lying on the beach, the sun shining gloriously overhead, and she was about to kiss him.
“Am I what?” he asked, but she still didn’t answer.