But she’d done that, she reminded herself. She was alive and now planning on staying that way. So it was definitely time to treat herself to the things she’d missed out on.
Like painting a mural. Skiing in the Rockies. Learning to ballroom dance. Explore some castles in Europe. See the Greek Islands. Skydive. Her list, basically. Which meant that the prickly Hudson Kincaid could bite her, sexiness and all. She took a quick glance and found him watching her, a look in his eyes that made her the prickly one. “We’re not going to talk about it,” she said. “Ever.”
“Which?” he asked. “The fact that you can’t read a map but you expect me to believe you can create a sixty-foot-long, thirty-foot-high mural? Or that you manipulated me into doing it anyway?”
She blew out a sigh. And then let out a low laugh. Dammit. He wasn’t going to ask her to talk about it at all. She’d vastly underestimated him.
“Just tell me you know how to paint a mural,” he said.
“Scared?” she asked.
“Terrified.”
“Uh-huh.” She arched a brow. “You don’t seem the type to be afraid of much.”
“You’d be surprised.”
Maybe. She was certainly surprised at her unexpected attraction to him. She was also surprised at his phone and radio, both which were going off constantly. She could tell he was multitasking, monitoring the radio with one ear and concentrating on her with the other. His phone he simply pulled out, glanced at, and then ignored. She was fascinated by this, by him. He definitely hadn’t shaved that morning. Probably not yesterday morning either. His hands were big and sexy, even with the ragged scars across his palms, and she wondered how he’d gotten them. “I can paint,” she said. “I promise.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” She smiled with what she hoped looked like confidence and determination. “Trust me, Hudson, I can do this and it’s going to be good.”
His eyes darkened a little, whether at the use of his given name or the way she’d said it, which had been admittedly a little low and husky. Entirely unintentionally, of course, but the man made her feel things.
Such things…
He didn’t say anything for a few moments, which should’ve been uncomfortable but in reality was the opposite. “Heard you interviewed everyone,” he finally murmured.
“Except you,” she agreed. And it’d been fun and fascinating. She’d learned a lot about the Kincaids from what they’d told her.
And even more from what they hadn’t. “Are you ready to be interviewed?” she asked.
“Tell me what you think you already know.”
She smiled. He didn’t want to talk about himself. She got that loud and clear. Gray had been the first one up to speak with her and he’d told her there were five Kincaid siblings. They all had the same father, though no one had anything good to say about the man. The only other Kincaid missing from the mountain was Jacob, Hudson’s twin. She’d heard that little bit from Carrie, although Bailey still wasn’t clear whether Jacob was alive or dead.
Gray had been pretty close-mouthed about the subject, letting her know that it was Hudson’s story to tell. Or not tell. Aidan had been even less forthcoming, saying only that Jacob had gone into the military at age eighteen and hadn’t come back.
Kenna had been more frank. “Jacob’s gone and Hud’s fucked up because of it,” she’d said. “He misses his other half.”
Bailey would eventually need the story if she wanted to represent the entire Kincaid clan, but she knew now it’d have to come from Hudson himself.
“What I know,” she said carefully, “is that I love to draw caricatures of people, often times people I don’t even know. I do it by observing and then assigning one word to them.”
“And the words you assigned to us Kincaids?”
He was quick, she’d give him that. “Bossy, funny, adventurous, brave, original,” she said.
He remained still, only the slightest of smiles curving his lips. “Gray, Penny, Aidan, Lily, and Kenna, in that order.”
“I’m impressed,” she said. “You know your family.”
“Impressed and something else.” He met her gaze, his shuttered from her by those glasses.
The way he read her with such ease was startling. “Nope,” she denied. “That’s it. Just impressed.”
He cocked his head and studied her. “Liar,” he chided. “And we both know you don’t have to interview me for your one word. You already have it. What is it?”
She let out a low laugh. “I don’t think—”
“Tell me.”
“Know-it-all.”
“That’s three words,” he said.
“I hyphenated.”
His mouth twitched. “So you’ve got me all figured out. What else could you possibly need to know?”
“Lots, actually,” she said.
He arched a brow, silently saying, Such as?
In for a penny, in for a pound… “Jacob,” she said softly.
His expression shifted from mildly amused to absolutely stone blank. It was both fascinating and heartbreaking. “There are five of you Kincaid siblings,” she said. “And going off what I’ve heard so far, everyone wants the mural to be a true reflection of the group. As a whole and individually.”