Free Dangerous Love by Teresa Ashby

tears were rolling down her face. He’d seen her get emotional before. Usually when she was dead on her feet and often when he’d got hurt.
    Yet at Tom’s funeral she’d been icily calm. Pale faced. Cool. No tears. He blinked the memory away because every time he thought about Tom, he remembered how he’d hung on to him in the water, telling him they were going to be okay.
    They’d got to be. Tom had two small children. But he hadn’t been okay. Even as Bram struggled to keep him afloat, it was already too late. The only thing Bram had been able to do was to spare Tom’s widow of the agony of waiting for a body to wash up on the beach.
    There was nothing icy or cool about Regan now. She was coming apart at the seams!
    Her nose had gone red and when she looked up at him, eyes huge and moist with tears, he felt a kick in his gut. She cuffed the end of her nose with the heel of her hand. He reached out for her, but she took a step backwards and he could see she was making a huge effort to compose herself.
    “It’s up there,” she said, pointing up the cliff. “The cave.”
    She pressed the shoe into his hands.
    “I’ll go up and see if there’s any sign of him,” she went on.
    “No, you…”
    “Oh, pipe down, Bram! You don’t have to do every damn thing yourself you know and I’ve done this a lot of times. With your twisted ankle and your sore back – and don’t tell me it isn’t sore! I saw you wincing when you were going over the rocks. There’s no way you’re climbing up there.”
    There was no point arguing the toss with her. He knew from experience that once Regan Tyler had made up her mind about something, there was no stopping her. And she was right. His back was sore. Worse than sore and his ankle was giving him hell. There was no way he wanted to climb up that cliff. But he didn’t want her doing it either.
    He hadn’t come back here, found her again only to promptly lose her. He still had quite a lot of work to do as far as Regan Tyler was concerned, but he hadn’t given up hope just yet. She hurried over to the foot of the cliff and looked up, no doubt planning her route.
    He tapped her on the shoulder and she turned round.
    “Actually I was going to say I’d call one of the other guys to go up, Regan,” he said quietly and he could practically see the wind falling out of her sails. “I might be reckless, but I’m not stupid and I don’t think you are either.”
    “I know what I’m doing,” she said and before he could stop her, she was crawling up the rock like a spider. After all she’d said to him about putting his life in danger, there she was doing exactly the same thing.
    Okay, it wasn’t a high climb, but it was a slippery one and if she fell she probably wouldn’t kill herself, but if she hit her head…
    “Regan, wait!”
    She was finding purchase on the slippery, weed covered rocks and grasped a handful of weed to pull herself up and it broke free. He couldn’t be sure, but he could have sworn he heard her fingernails snap. He held up his arms ready to catch her, but she halted her slide and carried on up, more determined than ever.
    This was not the Regan Tyler he knew, or thought he knew. The Regan Tyler he knew wouldn’t be climbing up rocks and she’d definitely be more coy about showing off her underwear.
    “What are you laughing at?” she called down.
    “Just enjoying the view.”
    “Look the other way, Fletcher.”
    He stopped laughing, reminding himself why she was climbing up the cliff. You had to laugh sometimes or you’d go mad, but he had an awful feeling that there wouldn’t be anything to smile about today.
    “Just be careful,” he said soberly.

    Regan pushed herself forward onto her stomach and slithered into the shallow cave. Amazing how the technique all came back to her despite it being many years since she’d done it. It hurt a lot more now though than it did when she was a kid.
    There were signs of a camp, but it was an old one,