“But apparently Mom figured things out,” Gray said, “and that’s when she went after him with a frying pan. And the rest is history. But Jesus, Aidan. All this time I had no idea you were there that night.” He paused and then said again, “You should’ve told me.”
“No,” Aidan said, eyes still closed.
“No? What the hell, man. He hit you, hurt you. I’m going to—”
Aidan opened his eyes and met Gray’s gaze. “I meant no, I didn’t keep that shit locked up.” Shame burned his throat like he was trying to talk over shattered glass. “I did tell Mom. Not about what he’d done to me, I’d never lay that guilt on her, but about the affair. Even though he’d threatened me and told me that it would kill her, I did. I wanted her to leave him right then and there and she …” He shook his head. “I’d hidden my injuries with a baseball cap and hoodie. She took them off and saw that I had a black eye and my ribs … they weren’t great. That’s when she went apeshit on his ass.”
“Good,” Gray said grimly.
“Don’t you get it?” Aidan asked. “It’s my fault she got hurt, my fault she got arrested. That’s all on me.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? You were just a kid, Aidan—”
“Doesn’t matter, I should’ve protected her,” he said. “Us.”
“No,” Gray said, his voice low and rough with emotion he rarely allowed to show. “You listen to me, A. Dad should’ve protected us. And failing that, Mom should’ve—”
“Don’t you blame her.”
“I don’t.” Gray shook his head. “It was a seriously messed-up situation that no kid should’ve been caught in. And I originally thought he should have to fix this, but now—”
“He can’t come here. Mom’s doing good, she’s happy. If he comes—”
“He won’t,” Gray said tightly. “If he does, I’ll kill him.”
“The resort is ours now. We’re going to save it. He’s not going to win, Gray.” He started to move away, but Gray caught him and pulled him back around.
“One more thing,” Gray said. “I’d give anything to be able to go back and protect you. I’m your big brother.”
“I can out-bench-press you. I don’t need protection.”
“Too bad,” Gray said. “I’m right here standing at your back and always will be. Got it?”
Aidan stared into Gray’s very serious eyes and nodded.
“Good,” Gray said. “So. We do this the way we’ve done everything. Without him.”
The relief almost knocked Aidan on his ass. “Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me for that. We’re a family. And speaking of that, I know you only stick around here for me.”
This was way too deep to handle on utter exhaustion. “Well, and also to watch Penny boss you around,” Aidan said, trying to lighten the mood.
Gray let out a rough laugh and dropped his head for a beat before lifting it and looking at Aidan. “I don’t want you to stay just because you feel you have to.”
“I don’t,” Aidan said. “I stay for you. And Mom. And Hud and Kenna. You guys mean something to me. I stay because I believe in us, dammit. We belong here. Together.”
Gray started to step into Aidan, no doubt to hug him, but Aidan slapped a hand on his brother’s chest. “What’s with you and Hud and all the chick flick moments?”
“Suck it up,” Gray said, and hauled him in anyway. And then for good measure he lifted Aidan off his feet and shook him like he used to do when they were kids, proving Gray could at least tie Aidan in a bench-press competition after all.
Aidan sighed. “We’re right on the side of the road for chrissakes,” he grumbled. “Anyone can see us.”
Gray laughed and tightened his arms, refusing to let him go until Aidan managed to give him a head noogie and they shoved clear of each other.
A few minutes later they were back on the road, their silence much more comfortable now. Aidan was the first to break it. “How much of a shot do we really have at handling this ourselves?”
“We have a year,” Gray said. “And there’s nothing us Kincaids are good at if it’s not saving our own asses in the home stretch.”
Aidan nodded and hoped that was really true. But he was too tired to give it much thought. He rested his head back and closed his eyes until Gray pulled up in front of their building, his gaze locking on the sight of Penny’s car parked in the lot. “Nothing like coming home to a good woman.”
They got out and Aidan stared at the building, wishing that he had even a half a percent chance at finding Lily in his bed waiting for him. “You’re a lucky son of a bitch, having Penny decide on you way back in middle school, when you were actually decent-looking.”
Gray laughed. “I know exactly how lucky I am. Especially given what an idiot I was.”
“Was?” Aidan asked.
Gray wrapped an arm around Aidan’s neck and returned the painful noogie.
Aidan gave Gray a push in front of him and then tripped his brother up the stairs.
Then they walked into the building together and went their separate ways. Aidan walked into his and Hud’s place starving and exhausted. He wanted a huge breakfast spread that included eggs rancheros and a mountain of French toast and Lily in his bed.
Naked and willing.
None of the above was waiting for him. He opened his fridge and was staring at slim pickings when his phone rang.
“Problem,” Hudson said.
Aidan closed his eyes. “Dude, I just got home and am on three hours of sleep. Solve your own problems.”
“I’m at Gray’s desk staring at a monitor and I’ve got Lily sitting on a north-facing rock staring down Dead Man’s Cliff.”
“Shit,” Aidan said.
“Want me to go out there?”
“No.” Aidan shoved his hand through his hair. “I’ve got her.”
He drove up the hill and jogged the rest of the way, and was at the trailhead in under seven minutes. He tried calling Lily. He went straight to voice mail. Blowing out a breath, he hit the trail. It wasn’t often he did this. In the winter, he often skied every part of this hill, but in the summer months if he ended up out here in any capacity, it was because he was looking for someone, or fighting a blaze.
He was halfway up when he heard Lily coming down. And sure enough around the next turn she nearly plowed right into him.
She was flat out running for her life.
So that she didn’t take them over the edge he grabbed her arms and absorbed the impact.
With a gasp she stilled. Out of breath, damp with sweat, she stared up at him. “What are you doing here?”
“You first,” he said.
She backed from him and gulped in air. “I’m running.”
“From what?”
She stared at him for a beat and then laughed. She had to bend over and put her hands on her knees, and he took the moment to soak up the sight of her in a T-shirt and spandex shorts, both revealing lots of smooth, gorgeous skin and mouthwatering curves.
Finally she straightened.
“You going to tell me what’s so funny?” he asked.
“You, thinking the only reason I’d be running is because something’s chasing me.” She smiled. “I’ve spent the past month eating my emotions. The only thing I’m running from is the calories I’ve consumed.”
“Oh.” He relaxed. “I thought maybe—”
“I needed rescuing?”
“Well … yeah,” he said, and rubbed his jaw, watching her closely to see if she was going to fall apart.
He should’ve known better.
Her smile gone, she shook her head. “I don’t need rescuing.” Then she gnawed on her lip. “Okay, so not counting the snake and the tire, I don’t need rescuing.”
“No,” he agreed. “You don’t. You’re one of the strongest women I know. You bury your shit deep. I know a little about that, Lily, and it never works out well. I can promise you that.”
“And just what do you think I’m bu
rying?” she asked.
“Just about everything … including your feelings for me,” he said.
She stared at him. He waited for her to laugh and deny it, or throw the words back in his face, but she did neither.
“This is my battle to fight,” she said. “Alone.”
This was an alien concept for Aidan, who never felt alone. Hell, his siblings lived right on top of him. “But you’re not alone.”
“I need to be for this,” she said stubbornly.
Independent to the end. And God forbid she accept help or support from anyone, especially him. “Lily, you’ve been on your own a long time, but you don’t have to be—”
“The past is the past. It plays no part in the here and now.”
“If that was really true, you wouldn’t be harboring a mad at me,” he said.
She crossed her arms over her chest. “I’m not mad at you.”
“You sure about that?” he asked.
She held his gaze for only a beat before looking away.
“We’re going to get to the bottom of this,” he said.
“Oh, goodie,” she said. “Sounds like fun.” And then she took off down the trail on her own.
Chapter 18
Lily slept poorly that night, thinking of what Aidan had said. She was mad at him, she realized. Not because of Ashley. It wasn’t his fault her sister had fallen for him. No, Lily was mad because he’d made her want him again, with no effort at all.
Also not his fault, a small part of her brain said.
She didn’t care. She wanted him, quite badly as it turned out, and irrational or not, it made her mad. Being back in Cedar Ridge was hard. Being on the mountain was even harder. But she was working on all of that.
But to fall for Aidan and even consider sticking around as she did in the deep dark of the night?
Insanity.
And now she was getting somewhere, she had to admit. Her anger was a cover-up for the real emotion that was clogging her throat—fear. Fear for her, because she wasn’t good at needing and wanting someone, and that made her vulnerable. She hated being vulnerable.
And in any case, she was much better at being independent and alone.
But that wasn’t all she was afraid of. She was also afraid for Aidan. It was his job to go up on the mountain that had claimed half of her family, and he did it in the worst, most dangerous situations possible, risking his life to save others. It changed nothing.
She worked all day, and when she got home, tired and out of sorts, it was to find her apartment the temperature of a refrigerator.
She’d left the windows open.
Only a few hours earlier it’d been in the nineties and so hot and dry the air had crackled and she’d given herself electroshocks every time she touched anything. But this was the Rockies, and often the temps dropped drastically with the sun.
She blew out a breath and eyed the cute little framed pic of her and Ashley that her mom had sent. Ashley was smiling.
“Let me guess, it’s because you don’t have to load wood anymore,” Lily said, picking up the baby-blue cashmere scarf that she’d left alongside the photo. She wrapped it around her neck, feeling the incredible softness of it like it was a hug from above. Lily buried her face in the cashmere, remembering the last time she’d seen Ashley wear it. They’d been on bikes—racing each other, of course. Ashley had been in the lead and she’d glanced back at Lily, laughing wildly, the blue cashmere flying out behind her.
For a long moment Lily stood there, lost in the memory. Then, needing to feel her fingertips and toes, she kicked off her sandals and shoved her feet into her boots and went outside and down the stairs to the woodpile.
She stood and stared at it, trying to will any snakes away.
A car drove up and stopped. The window rolled down.
It was Penny. She was beautiful, deceptively petite, even dainty, and though Lily didn’t know Penny all that well, she did know that Gray’s wife could kick some serious ass.
“Long time no see,” she said to Lily. “Nice look.”
They both eyed Lily’s cute sundress and Uggs. “I’m freezing my parts off. I forgot how cold it gets at night here in Timbuktu.”
“Yeah,” Penny said. “But since it’s so gorgeous here, I tend to forgive it.”
“I’m working on that.”
Penny’s smile faded. “You doing okay?”
“Sure.”
“I’m not just being polite,” Penny said. “I really want to know. Are you doing okay being back? It’s got to be hard—or so I’m guessing, since it took you ten years to do it.”
Lily sighed. “Yeah. I’m sorry I didn’t keep in touch.”
“No apology necessary. You’re making some changes at the salon, I hear. That facial you gave Aidan made his face look smoother than a baby’s butt. If I come in, can you make my face look smoother than a baby’s butt?”
“Absolutely,” Lily said.
“And maybe while you work your magic, you’ll tell me all about what’s going on between you and my brother-in-law,” Penny said in a casual tone that was in direct opposition to her obscene brow waggle.
Lily kept her cool. “That won’t take long, since there’s nothing going on.”
Penny studied her a beat and then smiled. “Do you know what I do for a living these days?”
“No.”
“I’m an investigator for an insurance company, and I happen to specialize in reading people. That’s how I know you’ve told me two lies in two minutes.”
“I …” Lily shifted her weight. “Well, not two whole lies.”
“First lie,” Penny said, holding up a finger. “You’re not fine. And the second …” She added another finger to the first. “There is something going on between you and Aidan, some sort of relationship. I just don’t know what.”
Lily managed a laugh. “You know as well as I do, Aidan isn’t all that interested in relationships.”
“You’re wrong there,” Penny said. “He’s actually extremely attached to the people in his life and protects his relationships with them like a dog with a bone.” She let that sink in a beat. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll come into the Mane Attraction this week. Maybe we can have drinks after and count the ways in which the Kincaids drive us crazy.”
“You’re married to one of them,” Lily pointed out.
“Which makes me an expert on counting the ways …”
Lily laughed, and when Penny drove off she went back to the woodpile. All she needed were two, maybe three logs. That would warm the place up enough to get going. She carefully chose her logs, surprised at how heavy they were with last night’s rain soaked in. Damn, maybe she needed to lift fewer cookies and more weights.
She stacked the logs in her arms and climbed the stairs. At the top, something dropped from her load and hit the landing. Then it ran over her feet and vanished.
She screamed, took a step back, and—
Fell backward down the stairs.
The logs went with her, hitting each stair with a thump, making the entire fall—which seemed to happen in slow motion—super noisy.
She landed in a heap at the bottom, stunned.
There were a few beats of utter silence during which the only thing she could hear was the thunder of her heartbeat in her ears. Then—
“Don’t move!” A face swam into her focus. Lenny. “Jesus, are you all right?” he asked.
“Are you here for a haircut?” she asked a little woozily and a whole lot confused.
“No, I live in your building,” he said. “Are you all right?”