“I’m sure hearts are breaking all over the West that Adam Drake is dancing the tango with me.”

He smiled at me. “It’s a sexy dance. I’ll be the first to admit it.”

“Well, if it’s sexy and it’s with you, then I’m definitely in.”

“Britt’s coming over to help me teach you.”

And that’s exactly what they did. Down in the dining room, the long table shoved aside, we had tons of room and even though I had to take a break once in a while to rest, I learned the basic steps to the tango.

This went on until right around noon, when Jordan showed up with a briefcase full of work to go over with Adam. He threw a quizzical glance around the room, raised a brow and said, “What’s this, you’re opening a dance studio?”

“Come on in, we’ll show you how to do the polka!” exclaimed Adam’s cousin, Britt.

Jordan glanced around and gave me a nod. “Hey, Mia, glad to see you’re feeling better. Mind if I steal Adam for a bit?”

I smiled. “Be my guest. He’s exhausting me, anyway!”

Adam left me with Britt and followed Jordan out to his office with an invitation for us all to sit down to lunch together afterward.

***

As we watched them go, Britt, suggested we sit down in the living room with some ice water. I think my comment about being exhausted had concerned her. I gave her a smile. She asked after my mom whom, she’d said repeatedly, she adored and firmly believed she was the best thing that had happened to her father in a long time.

Then, after a brief, awkward pause she frowned and shifted in her seat to face me. “How are you feeling, Mia?”

I thought about that for a moment, mentally assessing my energy levels. The achiness was gone but I still got fatigued very easily. I nodded and we went to sit on a nearby couch. I reached up under my cap and scratched my sweaty scalp.

I glanced out the doorway through which Adam had left with Jordan. If Britt noticed, she didn’t say anything. “So…I know everyone asks you how you are doing all the time. You must be getting tired of that. I am curious, though, about how Adam is doing.”

I smiled. “I’m doing better, thanks. And Adam’s…” I hesitated, looked at the doorway again. I shifted in my seat and fell back against the cushion.

“Intense, stressed out and distracted?”

I returned my gaze to Britt, confused for a second.

“It doesn’t take someone with his IQ to figure that out after spending the morning with him.” she smiled.

I shrugged, looking down. “I’m worried about him.”

“He’s worried about you.”

I nodded and darted a glance at her, wondering how much she knew. It was unlikely that Peter or Adam or even my mom would have told her everything that had gone on earlier in the year.

She reached out and patted me on the leg. “It will be okay. It’s his nature. He’s always been the overprotective type.”

“Somehow that doesn’t surprise me.”

Britt’s mouth twisted. “In high school he got into a lot of fights because of my brother.”

I raised my brows—or would have raised them if I hadn’t sweated them off already from the dance practice. I made a mental note to use the Sharpie next time I practiced. “That’s…um…that’s so surprising. Wasn’t he a skinny weakling in high school?”

She laughed. “Adam was skinny, but he wasn’t a weakling. He was an excellent runner. But Liam got picked on quite a bit. Kids are so cruel.”

I nodded. “And so Adam was defending his cousin?”

She shrugged. “Well, it started out that way but the one big incident—he told you about that, right?”

He hadn’t told me about it, no. But I did know from Heath, who had looked into Adam’s background while doing research for the auction. Adam had been the victim of a particularly cruel bullying incident in high school. A group of boys had ganged up on him after a track meet and beaten him up, duct taped his arms and legs and mouth and shoved him into a locker, where he stayed until he was found the next morning. It had been so severe that he’d had to be hospitalized. He never returned to the classroom again, choosing to finish high school early via independent study.

“Uh, yeah, I know about that.”

“Those kids started out by picking on my brother, but Adam deflected their attacks onto himself. Then he became the target.”

I sat stunned for a moment. That was beyond awesome of him.

Britt straightened, perhaps realizing that she might be divulging sensitive information. She cleared her throat. “Anyway… it’s just an example of how he is. He wants to be the big protector…and sometimes it really gets him into trouble.”