She nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to live. We all knew it. Aaron stayed by my side, even when…” She grimaced. “Even when I knew we didn’t love each other in the right way. I dreamed of passion, and I craved it, but I didn’t feel that with him. And yet he was a rock for me, always. Even when, as it turned out, he also needed… more. So yes, he’s still in my life. Sometimes more than I want him to be,” she said wryly. “But I’ve already broken his heart. I won’t push him away as a friend too. I can’t.”
“I get that,” Hud said. He also loved that about her. Loyalty meant everything to him, and she was the definition of the word.
“We’re not together, Aaron and me,” she said, turning her head to meet his gaze as she revealed her own, open and honest. “Not like that. And haven’t been for a long, long time.”
All Hud could manage was a nod because for a while now he’d had a fist around his heart. Part of it was worrying about his mom and her condition. Another part of it belonged overseas, wherever Jacob was fighting for his country and probably his damn life—he’d had no word from Max.
But some of that grip on his heart was Baily and it had just loosened.
Which was bad. Very bad.
The lift started again and then stopped with another jerk. The radio squawked to life. The newbie skier two chairs behind the little girl had been inexplicably wearing jeans—which had gotten frozen to the seat of the lift—and as she’d tried to get off, she’d ended up dangling upside down.
“Do you think she’s literally hanging by the seat of her pants?” Bailey asked, horrified.
He shrugged. “It happens.”
“Not to me,” she said. “Even I know better than to wear jeans to ski.”
“Yeah?” He smiled at her. “What else do you know?”
She gave him a slow smile. “That I want another night with you.”
Chapter 18
When Hudson smiled, Bailey promptly lost her train of thought. They were fifty feet in the air, and their feet were dangling over nothing but snow and trees. She should’ve been her usual anxious.
Instead she wanted to crawl into his lap, wrap herself around him like a monkey, and get some more of his mind-blowing kisses.
Not going to happen up here with people both in front of and behind them. So instead, she opened the Snickers and offered it to him.
He flashed another smile, leaned in, and took a bite, and then nudged it back to her.
Something fluttered low in her belly at his smile, and she took a big bite of her own and let out an entirely involuntary, heartfelt moan.
“You okay over there?”
“Oh, my God,” she said, licking her lips. “You have no idea.”
Hudson’s eyes darkened and she quickly searched her brain for a diversion. “So… you were a juvenile delinquent?”
His gaze lifted from her mouth to her eyes. “Yes.”
“Did you find the trouble or did it find you?”
“Both.”
She smiled. “A real badass, huh?” she asked.
“Still am.”
“Okay, let’s make a deal,” she said on a laugh. “How about you answer my questions with more than two words and I don’t push you off this lift? Sound like a good plan?”
He grinned. She couldn’t push him anywhere and they both knew it. A good wind could blow her away.
“Jacob and I came to Cedar Ridge when we were twelve,” he said. “We were just about as feral as they come.”
She blinked. “Wow, a whole sentence. Keep going.”
He glanced around them as if looking for his own distraction and she laughed. “Oh, no you don’t,” she said. “For once the radio on your hip is silent. There’s a lull on the mountain, probably because most of the skiers and boarders are at the lodge filling their empty bellies and warming their extremities. Talk.”
He studied her for a long beat and then let out a slow smile. “Maybe you’re the badass.”
“Uh-huh,” she said, “and don’t ever forget it. Talk.”
He smiled at her. She was pushing him but they both knew that he wasn’t going to say a single word until he was damn well good and ready.
“Jacob and I didn’t grow up here,” he said, surprising her. “We grew up near Jackson Hole. My dad came into town on some business, during which he took advantage of a very young, sweet girl working as a hostess at a dive bar and grill.”
“Your mom,” she breathed.
“Yeah. She got pregnant, kept us, and did so with minimal help from Richard Kincaid. She did the best she could with what she had.”
“She’s pretty amazing.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “But there were plenty of problems. You’ve seen her fade in and out of reality. It made holding down a job difficult for her. It all kind of collapsed around the time we hit middle school.”
“That must have been awful,” she said. “What happened?”
He lifted a broad shoulder. “Jacob and I took over for her. We got jobs.”
“In middle school.”
“I didn’t say they were legit jobs. Which they weren’t, by the way. But we were already dodging child protective services and didn’t want to get taken away from her. She needed us. And we needed money to keep our heads above water.”
Bailey’s stomach sank thinking of him at that age, doing whatever he had to do to keep his family together.
He took in her expression and gave her a small smile and a shake of his head. “You don’t want pity, so don’t you dare give it to me.”