identical twin, the one person on the face of the planet who knew him inside and out. “I couldn’t have heard that you’re out of here. I couldn’t have heard that you’re already packed and we leave tonight.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Jacob asked. “It was always our plan. Go see the world.”
“‘What’s wrong with that?’” Hud repeated, shocked. “Are you kidding me? What isn’t wrong with that? What about Mom? Or the fact that for the past six years since we first came here—with nothing!—we actually have a roof over our heads and food when we need it, food we didn’t have to beg, borrow, or steal. We have family now, Jacob. People who care about us. There’s no reason to go.”
Jacob shook his head, frustrated, pissed. “I get all that. And they’ve been really good to us but, Hud, staying was never the plan. Leaving was. Always. Travel the world, see shit… Have you forgotten? Maybe with life being so easy here, you like being fat and lazy.”
Hud managed a laugh at that. They were still both so lanky and thin that people were always trying to shove food down their throats. And as for lazy, neither of them would know what to do with a day off. “Mom’s here,” he said again. “She can’t go. And we can’t just leave her. We’re all she has.”
Jacob closed his eyes and then opened them, and when he did they were full of pain. “We’ll send all our money back to her, everything we earn. But listen to me, Hud, and know that this kills me every bit as much as it does you—she knows, she’s always known, that we wanted to leave. She doesn’t expect us to stay. She loves it here. And hell, man, half the time she doesn’t even know whether we’re with her or not.” He stopped and in a move that was identical to the one Hud made when he was the most frustrated or unsettled, Jacob scrubbed a hand down his face. “She’ll be okay here,” he said. “Here more than anywhere else.”
Hud knew that. He did. And he’d absolutely made plans with Jacob to do this, but that had been before. Before they’d met Gray and Aidan, and Char, and then Kenna. Before they’d all become true family in a way they’d never had before. They’d had their mom, yes, but the mother/son bond had always been tenuous, dependent on the day of the week and whether Carrie had her feet based in reality or in the clouds. The fact was that they’d raised her, not the other way around, and here in Cedar Ridge, for the first time in their lives, they truly had someone, several someones, at their backs.
No matter what.
At least that’s how Hud felt. But Jacob had never really settled in here, had never allowed himself to get to know the rest of their family. He’d kept himself apart and that had driven a wedge between the twins that Hud had never imagined happening. “We have family here,” he repeated, wanting Jacob to get it. Needing him to. “Jacob, we don’t have to leave like we thought we would.”
“We’ve had family before,” Jacob said stubbornly. “Never made any difference to us.”
“If you’re referring to Dad,” Hud said, “be careful cuz he’s not the best example. But hey, if you want to be like him and split, fine. Do it.”
Jacob narrowed his eyes, temper lit. “What does that mean?”
Hud’s temper matched. “You want out? Then go, man.” He shoved Jacob back a step. “Get the hell out. Just like he did. Who needs you?”
Jacob stared at him for a long beat. “Apparently not you. And if that’s how you feel, preferring them over me, your own flesh and blood, then fuck you, I’m gone.”
“Fine!”
“Fine!” Jacob echoed.
And then, sick to his stomach, had come the words Hud didn’t even know could be strung together in a sentence, words born of frustration and a stupid teenage bad ’tude. “If you go,” he said, “we’re no longer brothers.”
Jacob stared at him for a long beat and then without another word, walked away. He didn’t look back.
When he realized his phone was vibrating with an incoming call, he sat straight up in bed, heart aching. But it was nearly a decade later, time to get over that shit. Besides, it was four in the morning on Saturday and the job needed his attention, which made him groan. Two hours of sleep wasn’t going to cut it, but what choice did he have? He scrubbed a hand down his face, still feeling the loss of his twin as if no time had gone by at all.
Dammit, Jacob.
Back then, on that long-ago day, Hud had nearly gone after him, but in the end he hadn’t. He couldn’t leave his mom and he wouldn’t leave the rest of the family either.
True to his word, through an online bank, Jacob had set up an automatic payment that dropped into their mom’s account every single month since he’d been gone.
Which at times had been Hud’s only indication that Jacob was still alive.
At first, hurting at missing out on the adventure with Jacob, Hud had gone for the closest thing—the police academy. He’d become a cop and had also worked his way up through the resort to run ski patrol.
And it was ski patrol calling him.
Mother Nature had dumped another six inches of snow since he’d fallen into bed, which meant he needed to get with his avalanche patrol crew and check the mountain.
By dawn they’d deemed the place safe to open for the day. Hud sent his guys off to breakfast before they had to be back out there setting lines and patrolling when the resort opened.
“You’re not coming with?” Mitch asked inside the cafeteria, surprised when Hud didn’t head toward the food with them.
“Got something to take care of,” he said.
Mitch’s easy smile faded. “News on Jacob?”
“No.” Nothing new to report on that front was better than bad news given that Jacob was still completely incommunicado, something that both frustrated and scared him. “Nothing new,” he said to Mitch. “I’ll meet up with you.”
He headed into the cafeteria kitchen. It was hustling and bustling, people cooking and preparing food to support the resort for the day. His nose was assaulted with the scent of coffee, bacon, cinnamon rolls… all of it making his mouth water.
“Hudson,” a female voice purred.
He turned to find Quinn, one of the chefs and the ex Gray had mentioned the week before. She smiled warmly. “You’ve been avoiding me,” she said with her usual frankness. Like it didn’t even matter that the last time he’d seen her, she’d chucked his own phone at his head. Her smile and teasing tone promised all was forgiven.
“Just busy,” he said. The utter truth. She was beautiful and fun and he told himself if he’d had a spare second, he might have taken her up on the promise in her eyes, even if it’d lead to another blowout. But as of two weeks ago and one blue-eyed muralist, he hadn’t given another woman a single thought.
Quinn shook her head and called him on his bullshit. “You’re such a liar, Hud. No one’s that busy.”
And that was an argument they’d had a million times and the reason he couldn’t go there again with her. “I just need to get some stuff to go,” he said, gesturing to the food.
“Want me to take a quick break and eat with you? It’s been a while.” She smiled. “I’ll even resist throwing your phone at your head when it goes off the whole time.”
“Quinn, I’m on the run. I’m sorry.”
“Sorrier than you know,” she murmured, and shrugged. “You’re the one missing out, Hud.”
This he knew firsthand. He selected what he wanted, put it all in a bag, and swiped his card. He didn’t really know why he was doing this. It would let Bailey in on a little secret, tell her something that he didn’t particularly want her to know.
That he’d been thinking of her. That he’d hoped she’d show up and not give up—although he knew she’d at least indeed shown up, as he’d checked the employee housing log.
Insanity, really, all of it. He’d kissed her last week half hoping that it would burn out the embers. Instead it’d done the opposite.
Yes, he’d wanted her gone. But now he just wanted her.
“So who is she?” Quinn asked.
No one he wanted to discuss.
Quinn shook her head, annoyed now. “What is it with you Kincaids? You’re all wild and crazy and fun, and then one day a woman captures your heart and it’s game over in a damn blink.”
Was that true? It sure had been for Gray and Aidan.
But not him. It didn’t happen that fast, couldn’t happen that fast. He wasn’t going to allow it to happen at all. He didn’t have the time in his life for this.
You could make time, a little voice said. A voice he steadfastly ignored.
Bailey awoke with a start, completely discombobulated. She sat straight up in a bed that wasn’t hers, a gasp on her lips.
She’d been dreaming again, the recurring nightmare where she was back in the hospital hearing the results of her tests, only they weren’t good.
“The treatment didn’t work,” her doctor said solemnly, so unlike last time when the woman had practically danced a jig in her excitement to impart the good news to Bailey. “It’s time to make sure your affairs are in order…”
A knock on the door made her jump. She got the feeling it was the second or third time, which solved the mystery of what had woken her up.
She was in her efficiency apartment on the resort property. A place she’d been given for the weekends over the next two months as she worked on the mural.
Which of course was no longer going to happen since she’d come up here to tear down the scaffolding, apologize to Carrie, and paint the wall white again, hiding her grid.
Or… get over herself and her doubts and paint the mural.
Another knock on the door—whoever was out there had clearly lost patience with waiting.
She sighed and slid out of the bed. She went up on tiptoe and peered through the peephole. Damn. She sank back onto her bare feet and stared at the wood, heart pounding.
“I can hear you breathing,” Hudson said.
An entire week and still just the sound of his voice made her nipples happy. “You cannot.” Dammit. She bit her tongue to keep herself silent.
“Come on, Bailey. Open up and let me have it. You know you want to.”
Yeah, far too much.
“I have coffee, donuts, and bacon,” he cajoled. “I wasn’t sure what your poison was so I tried to cover all the basic food groups: caffeine, sugar, and trans fats. If none of those work, I’ll…”
“What?” she asked.
“I’ll tell you about Jacob.”
She stilled and then whipped open the door. “You will?”
He strode in and kicked the door shut behind him, slouching onto the couch, making himself comfortable. “No.”
“So you lied?” she asked, shocked.
He looked amused at her disbelief. “I needed to see you.” He handed over the coffee.
Eyes still narrowed, she greedily took the coffee and sipped because the caffeine was calling her name.
Huh. Sugar and a shot of vanilla cream, just the way she liked it.
She supposed that was all the apology she was going to get. She stared at him, telling herself she was not moved in the slightest by the sight of him. Even if the sight of him was incredibly sexy, all clad in a skintight black Under Armour shirt and black cargo ski pants loaded with gear coming out of every pocket.
And then there was his smile as he waggled the bag, wafting the scent of bacon and donuts, damn him, like he knew very well she couldn’t possibly resist. She blew out a breath and sat next to him.
He opened the bag. “Donuts or bacon?”
She gave him a look like he was an amateur, making him laugh.
“Both it is,” he said. He handed the whole bag over and she wasn’t mad enough at him not to dive in.
“Crispy,” she said on a moan around a bite of bacon. Just the way she loved it. And there were two donuts. She grabbed the old-fashioned chocolate glaze and offered him the other. “It must be Christmas.” The first bite of the donut yanked another moan right out of her. She had to close her eyes to savor it.
“Need a moment alone?” he asked, sounding amused again.
“Yes.” But when she opened her eyes, he was still there.
In fact, he hadn’t taken his gaze off her. “I’m glad you’re here. Glad you didn’t give up,” he said.
She was glad too. “I’m not equipped to have a deep conversation until all the sugar and fat and caffeine sinks into my system.” She licked the sugar off her thumb and dove back into the bag.
He patiently waited until she’d finished every last bite.
She looked at him, his fathomless eyes holding everything close to the vest, his square jaw suggesting equal parts strength and stubbornness. Emphasis on the stubbornness, she was beginning to learn. His broad-as-the-mountains shoulders that held the weight of his world.
He both drew her in and terrified her. “I regrouped,” she said.
He smiled. “Glad to hear it.”
“But I still don’t have all the information I need to do the full Kincaid family tree,” she reminded him.
Jacob. His name hovered between them a moment.
“Fair enough,” he said. “One question, whatever you want.”
“Where is he?”
“Missing.”
She waited for more but true to form, nothing came. “I want to ask what that means,” she said. “But the truth is, I can leave Jacob out or I can fake it. I’m a damn good faker,” she said. “I’m also insanely nosy. I’m trying to curb it out of respect for you, but I’ve never been very good at curbing myself.”
“No kidding.” He paused. “We were eighteen when he left.”
“Left? But you said he was missing.”
“Missing from my life.” He took her empty coffee cup and shoved it into the now-empty bag and wadded it all up. Then he executed a perfect three-pointer into the trash in the kitchenette on the other side of the room.
It hadn’t occurred to her that Jacob had walked away from his family and never returned. Bailey had been upset with her mom plenty over the years, but she’d never once considered going away and breaking off all contact, every last tie.
“I meant it about quitting, Bailey,” Hud said, stretching out an arm along the back of the couch where his fingers settled just behind her neck. “Don’t quit. Not because of me. Don’t let me win. I don’t deserve it.”
“It’s not because of you.”
“Then what?” he asked. “You’re not the quitting type.”
“You don’t know that,” she said.
“I think I do.”
She met his gaze. His mouth was still curved slightly but his eyes were serious. Serious and she found herself wanting to fall into them and drown. “I let my doubts take over,” she admitted.
“You can do this.”
The words fueled her and filled a hole she hadn’t realized was inside her, much less that it needed filling. Before she even realized what she was doing, she leaned toward him.
He cupped her jaw, his thumb rasping over her lower lip. Then he sucked the pad of that thumb into his mouth. “Mmm,” he said, voice low and gravelly. “Chocolate.”
That’s when she remembered she was in her pajamas—a pair of sweat bottoms cut off to indecent heights and a thin, tight tank top that wasn’t going to hide the fact that certain parts of her were happier to see him than other parts. She was embarrassed but she could tell by the heat in Hud’s eyes that embarrassment wasn’t what he felt… Far from it.
“Oh boy,” she whispered as he cupped the back of her head and drew her mouth to his—
His radio went off.
He stilled for a beat, their mouths a fraction of an inch apart, the anticipation so high she nearly cried before slowly pulling back. “Duty calls?” she asked.
“Yeah.” Blowing out a sigh, he rose to his feet.
Bailey did the same, a hand to her chest, trying to calm her heart rate.
Impossible.
Especially when he looked at her for a long moment and then pulled her in again for one quick
kiss. Just the appetizer on his menu, but no less potent for it. It left her dumbstruck—kiss -struck, she corrected.