Tia opened her mouth, then shut it. With a pensive, petulant glare in Pace’s direction, she whirled and stalked off.

“Interesting night,” Holly said into the silence. “I got both to interview you and to save you—not that you needed saving,” she added kindly.

He stared down at her with the oddest desire to say, Yeah, I do. I need saving. Save me. “You seem to have experience with stalkers.”

“What I have experience with is pissing people off.” She turned to head back down the trail as well. “I’m trying to learn how to defuse instead of ignite.”

He followed after her. “Who did you ignite?

“An ex.”

He took her hand and slowed her down. He wanted to see her face for this. “What happened?”

“I wrote a blog series about his industry, specifically the space industry.”

“I read that series recently,” he said. He ran a finger over her forehead, where her bruise had been. “I was impressed.”

“My ex wasn’t. I exposed his team for cutting corners where they shouldn’t have, linking an accident to their neglect, an accident where three astronauts died.” She sighed. “The program lost its tenuous funding, NASA pulled out, and Alex was fired and went to civil court, where he was sued for millions.” She paused. “And the truth is, though I hate that I got people I cared about in trouble with the law, I’d do it again because people got hurt directly due to the neglect. I have no tolerance for that.”

“You did the right thing.”

“Yeah.” She paused. “But he said if I’d loved him, I’d never have written about him.”

“Did you love him?”

She shrugged. “I liked him. A whole lot, actually. And when it was over, I hurt a whole lot. But love?” Something came and went in her eyes, a sorrow, a regret, but in a flash it was gone. “I don’t think I’m really cut out for that particular emotion. I question everything too much.”

“Because you don’t trust anyone who hides things, and we all do,” he said, watching her absorb that, and think about it.

“I guess that’s true enough.”

She’d done a hell of a job raising herself in spite of being very alone and undeniably neglected to boot. But she’d made something of herself, and he loved the inner strength in her. “Thing is, Holly, I know that secrets make you feel unsafe, but the plain fact is that not everyone is hiding something bad or out to hurt someone.”

“I’m getting to that realization. It’s a balance thing for me, between the Holly of old and the new me.”

She was the first woman he’d met since his career had taken off who looked at him without diamonds and money signs in her eyes. “So this new Holly, is she going to believe in love?”