“Not pity,” she said, and forced herself to swallow the lump of empathy in her throat. “Admiration. What happened?”
He shrugged again. “We did what we had to do. Jacob worked at a local vet’s office at night cleaning up all the cages and walking the dogs for cash. He’d then take that cash and go play cards with the older kids in someone’s garage. Jacob had a thing for numbers and could count cards.”
She blinked. “And you?”
“I cooked at the old folks’ home. The breakfast shift. That’s where I learned to get up at four in the morning.”
She tried to imagine him as a kid cooking breakfast for an entire old folks’ home. “Seems slightly safer than what Jacob was doing.”
“Hell if it was,” he said. “I got my ass pinched every single morning by all the old ladies taking too many hormones. All these years later and my ass still hurts.”
She covered her mouth but the laugh came out anyway.
His eyes lit at her humor. “Would you still feel sorry for me if I told you at night I’d go play pool at some guy’s house down the street, conning him and his buddies out of their hard-earned cash to double my own cash flow?”
“You didn’t.”
“I did,” he said. “The rent had to be paid and my mom’s meds weren’t cheap.”
And then there were food and other necessities, she thought, aching for the twin boys who’d never really had a childhood. “But then you came here?”
“And inherited three half siblings,” he said. “Aidan and Gray’s mom took us in as her own so my mom could get the help she needed.”
“Wow,” Bailey breathed. “That’s a good woman right there, considering you were the offspring of the woman her husband had cheated with.”
“Char had dumped Richard Kincaid’s sorry ass by then,” Hud said. “And she has a heart of gold. She not only took us in, she took us on, loving us the same as she loved Gray and Aidan.”
“So things got better?” she asked.
He paused and she found herself holding her breath. She wanted that for him and wanted that badly. And she’d seen how much Gray and Aidan and Kenna adored him.
“It was better for a while,” he said quietly. “But before we got here, before we knew what we’d find, Jacob and I made a pact. We swore to each other that we’d leave the second we turned eighteen. We’d strike out on our own and stick together, just him and me.”
Her heart kicked hard because she knew she was finally going to get the story on what had happened to Jacob and why the twins weren’t together.
“But then we settled in here and I took to this place, hard and fast,” Hudson said. “It instantly became home for me. But not for Jacob. He wanted to leave before we ever even got here, and he never lost sight of that goal. Unlike me. I actually forgot all about it until high school graduation.”
“What happened?” she asked.
“Jacob said it was time for us to go. He’d been biding his time, counting down, and he wanted to leave as soon as possible. I didn’t. We fought about it.”
“But what about your mom and your siblings?” she asked.
“Jacob never got attached here like I did. And because of it, he held himself back. He didn’t get close to the others. And though he always paid for half of my mom’s care—and still does—he was bound and determined to leave no matter what. He needed adventure. He needed to live the way he’d always wanted—untethered.”
“And so he just left?” she asked in disbelief.
“Not before we had the big blowup. But yeah, he left and has never been back.”
“Oh, Hudson,” she said softly. “I’m sorry he left you like that, after all you’d been through together.”
“No, you don’t understand,” he said. “It was my fault. I said…” He closed his eyes. “I said shit to him that I can’t take back. That’s still between us, and I know it always will be. I did this. Not Jacob.”
She stared up at him. “What could you possibly say to him that couldn’t be taken back?”
He turned forward, his jaw tight. “I told him if he went, we weren’t brothers anymore.”
She took that in. “Well surely he knew those were just angry words spoken in the heat of the moment.”
“Yeah well, I also said that if he wanted to be like our dad, then he should just get the fuck out.”
“Oh, Hud,” she whispered, and set her hand on his arm. “I’m sure he knew that was just the anger talking. If not then, then surely later when he thought about it. My God, you were just eighteen-year-old kids. No one says what they mean when they’re eighteen.”
“I don’t know what Jacob thought,” he said. “I’ve spent a lot of time wishing I could take it all back, but I can’t. Fact is, you see, I pushed him away. And as you’ve already noted, I’m pretty damn good at it too.” He straightened. “Face forward. Feet up.”
“What?” she asked, still lost in his story, aching for his regrets. She looked up just in time to gasp.
They were at the top of the mountain.