Nobody But You

  realized, a rare tell, and he immediately dropped his hands. “It’s not that big of a deal. I mean, at first I didn’t even realize he was her ex.”

  “Yes, but after you did?” Kenna asked in a tone that spoke volumes on what she thought about his intelligence level. Or lack thereof.

  “You need to tell her,” Hud said. “And when you do, I’d wear a cup. And maybe a flak vest. But for the record, why didn’t you tell her again?”

  How was this so hard for them to understand? “Opening my mouth never works as well as keeping it shut and minding my own business.”

  Hud shook his head like he’d just heard more stupidity than he had the tolerance for and slowly stood up. “What the hell is that bullshit? Are you talking about us? About you and me?”

  Kenna sighed and stood too. “Are we going to need to draw a line in the sandbox here? Should I call Penny to referee?”

  “No need,” Hud said tightly, and turned to walk away.

  Jacob grabbed his arm.

  “What?” Hud said testily. “I’m only doing what you claimed to have learned from me—I’m keeping my mouth shut and minding my business.”

  Jacob stood up so that they were toe-to-toe. “You going to look me in the eye and tell me if I hadn’t done just that, if instead I’d stayed, we’d be in a helluva better place right now?”

  “Are you shitting me?” Hud asked, and took a step into Jacob’s air space.

  “Hud,” Kenna said softly, warningly.

  “No,” he said. “I’m going to get this out.” He poked a finger hard into Jacob’s chest. “I never wanted you to shut the hell up and keep your feelings to yourself. I never wanted you to go. What I wanted was for you to be a part of this family, and I still want that. And if you don’t get that, then fuck you.”

  And with that, he stalked off, shoulder-checking Jacob hard as he did.

  Kenna sighed and looked at Jacob. “Do you always have to be so stoic? Can’t you just once let it all out, what you feel, what you want, what you need?”

  He felt himself shut down a little bit. Didn’t she get it? What right did he have to impose his needs or wants here?

  She stared at him, made a rough sound, and poked him in the exact same spot Hud just had, which hurt like hell. “Don’t you do that,” she grated out, sounding furious. “Don’t you act like you don’t deserve to be one of us.” She poked him again, and he caught her hand.

  “Stop,” he said.

  But she just stared up into his face, her own going from angry to crushed in zero point two. “Oh, Jacob. Is that it? Do you really think you don’t deserve to be one of us?”

  Dropping her hand, he pushed it away from him.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered, and her eyes went suspiciously shiny. “You do think that,” she breathed, her voice a little broken and doing its best to do the same to him. “Damn you, you really do.” She came at him hard, and he braced himself, but she threw her arms around him and clung.

  He could handle a hell of a lot of things, but a crying woman wasn’t one of them. He was out of his comfort zone and way beyond his area of expertise. “Kenna, I can’t—” Emotion settled into his chest like a bag of stones. “Don’t cry. Anything but that, okay? You can even go back to drilling a hole in my chest if you just stop.”

  Kenna lifted her head and pointed at him, and he manfully held in his wince. “I want you to listen to me, you big oaf,” she said. “You aren’t alone. You have family who loves you, though God knows why. You deserve this family, Jacob. You deserve our love, every bit as much as Gray or Aidan or Hud or me. Say it.”

  “Kenna—”

  “Say it or I swear to God—”

  “I love you, too, Kenna.”

  This instantly swallowed up her frustration, and she sagged a little bit. “Wow,” she breathed. “You really said it.”

  “I meant it.”

  “Good,” she said fiercely, and hugged him tight. “There just might be hope for you yet. Now let’s go find your stubborn-ass twin.”

  “There’s something I have to do first,” he said, looking around for Sophie. Kenna was right. He had some things to tell her, and he hoped she’d hear him out before—as Hud had put it—she killed him dead.

  As Sophie had worked the breakfast, she’d known she wore a perma-smile. She simply couldn’t help it. It hadn’t been just the sex—though that got more spectacular each time, which was saying something.

  It was that Jacob loved her. He loved her. He loved her.

  And here was the thing. She knew that nothing good ever came from such a deep, potentially gut-wrenching emotion, but hope sprang eternal. And she couldn’t help but think that this, with him, was different.

  “Looks good on you,” Chris said when she refilled his orange juice.

  “What does?” she asked.

  “The morning after.”

  She jerked and poured orange juice down the front of herself. “Crap.”

  Chris grinned.

  “You,” she said. “Zip it.”

  He mimed zipping his lips and throwing away the key.

  Sophie rolled her eyes and headed toward the next table but was stopped by a voice that put her back up before she even turned.

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  Lucas. Grinding her teeth, she looked down at herself. Orange-juice-splattered apron over jeans shorts, flip-flops, and a tank top. No makeup, which meant she was without her armor. She blamed all the great sex she’d been having because she’d mistakenly considered the after-sex-glow makeup enough—

  “You going to turn around?” Lucas asked.

  She grimaced, swallowed it, and then faced him.

  He took in her appearance. “At least you spilled on yourself this time,” he said.

  “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “There’s a dent on my boat. Why is there a dent on my boat?”

  “You mean there’s a dent on my boat.”

  He narrowed his eyes. “We could fix that right now. I’ll buy the thing from you.”

  “I’m not selling it to you,” she said.

  “Name your price.”

  “Fine,” she said. “One million dollars.”

  He choked. “Are you insane? Wait, don’t answer that. I already know.”

  She crossed her arms. “I still don’t get why you are here.”

  “The question is why are you here?” Lucas asked.

  “I’m working. Your turn.”

  “But servers are supposed to be nice,” he said. “And sweet. And subservient.”

  She lifted the pitcher of OJ threateningly, and he raised his hands in surrender, laughing, the bastard. “Okay, okay, cease fire! I’m working too. I’m Cedar Ridge staff. Well, not staff staff. I’m the resort’s attorney. I’m just here making sure everything’s going well.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re a Cedar Ridge attorney?”

  “Yep.”

  She blinked as she processed that. So Lucas worked for Cedar Ridge too. And Jacob hadn’t mentioned it. Not once. “Since when?” she asked.

  “Since the Kincaids hired me, shortly after our divorce.”

  “All of them?”

  “All of them who?”

  “All the Kincaids,” she said. “You work for all of them?”

  “The five siblings, yes.”

  “Including Jacob?” she asked, heart in her throat.

  “Well, no.”

  Sophie let out a shaky breath. Okay. Okay, so this wasn’t any big deal. She knew Jacob couldn’t have had anything to do with hiring Lucas, as he hadn’t even been in town at the time. And he must not know even now. Otherwise he’d have absolutely told her. One hundred percent, he would have told her—

  “Didn’t meet Jacob again until he came back to town.”

  “Again?” she asked.

  “We went to school together.” Lucas cocked his head and studied her closely.

  Sophie turned away. Lucas was a people reader, and he
was a master at it too. But he simply turned her around to face him again. “You’re her,” he said slowly, understanding dawning in his gaze. “The one he’s been seeing.”

  She closed her eyes.

  “And he didn’t tell you about me.” He laughed. “Oh, that’s good. That’s really good.”

  Which was funny because Sophie kind of felt the exact opposite. She’d trusted Jacob with pieces of her that she hadn’t ever trusted Lucas with. And he’d shaken those pieces up and tossed them out, leaving her once again feeling like a tumbleweed in the wind. Heart in her throat, she walked away.

  “Does he know you’re crazy?” he called after her. “’Cuz I can tell him for you if you’d like…”

  She increased her pace, blood pressure somewhere around stroke level. She moved toward the kitchen canopy to drop off the pitcher of juice and ran right into Kenna.

  Kenna stopped short and took in her expression. “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Uh-huh.” She looked past Sophie, caught sight of Lucas walking across the beach socializing, and stilled. “I’m going to guess your idiot ex got to you before my bigger idiot brother.”

  Deciding she was mad at anyone named Kincaid, Sophie went straight to the donut tray and grabbed a leftover jelly donut, and on second thought also took a bear claw. It was a double-fist sort of day.

  “Just do me a favor,” Kenna said. “Don’t leave until Jacob can explain.”

  Not willing to make any promises, Sophie stuffed the jelly donut into her mouth.

  “Right,” Kenna muttered. “Okay, you know what? New plan. You don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

  Sophie was mowing her way through her second donut when she felt her heart rate double and the nape of her neck get warm.

  Jacob.

  She turned and faced him, not appreciating her body’s response. Her brain sent the rest of her a memo that she was no longer allowed to be attracted to Jacob. On any level.

  Her body rejected said memo and did a little quiver at the sight of him in board shorts and T-shirt advertising the resort. No shoes. Bedhead hair—which should have made him look ridiculous but instead made her inner ho sigh in pleasure. And then that inner ho remembered him pulling her to the edge of his bed and then kneeling on the floor, her legs on either of his shoulders as his mouth drove her straight to heaven.

  Dammit.

  “Woke up without you,” he said. “Didn’t like it.”

  “Yeah, well, you’re going to have to get used to that,” she said, and stuffed the last of the bear claw into her mouth so she could cross her arms. It wasn’t easy to maintain her pissy dignity with her mouth full, but she gave it her best shot.

  Jacob nodded slowly. “I’m getting that. We need to talk, Sophie.”

  She had to ignore how the sound of her name on his lips always made her ache. Needing something to do with herself, she grabbed the last donut. “I’ll go first,” she said. “Were you laughing at me this whole time? Was it all just one big joke between you and Lucas?”

  He studied her face a moment and then set down his coffee. He started to take the donut from her hand, stopping when she let out a sound that might have been construed as a growl. Changing tactics, he reached for her free hand instead.

  She pulled it back, which she realized made her look like a three-year-old, but she was furious. And upset. And…shamefully embarrassed—a bad combination for her, always had been.

  “Soph,” he said in that low, gruff morning voice, the one that until fifteen minutes ago would have made her melt.

  Well, okay, so she was still melting, but that only made her angrier. God, she’d been such a fool, a complete idiot, and the worst part was, she should’ve seen it coming.

  Nothing good came of falling for someone.

  Nothing.

  Ever.

  “I gotta go,” she whispered.

  “After we talk.”

  “Can’t,” she said. “I’m working now and then I’m gone.”

  He froze. “You’re leaving Cedar Ridge?”

  “No, just you.” She turned to walk off, but he caught her and turned her around to face him.

  “Hear me out. You owe me that much, Sophie. And then, if you still want to dump my sorry ass, have at it.”

  She gave him a push. “Fine. But hands off.” She couldn’t think when he touched her.

  He lifted his hands but didn’t back away. “I can see you’ve decided some things on your own about me,” he said, “but you’re wrong. Very wrong.”

  She just stared at him, doing her best to remain composed. She’d signed on to work the breakfast, help with cleanup, and get the beach cleared by noon. That meant two more hours of having to keep it together.

  Or at least the pretense of.

  She could do that. Hell, she’d held it together for much longer, under far worse circumstances—such as her entire childhood. And her marriage to Lucas…

  She was a master at holding it together. So this, with Jacob, should be easy. Totally easy.

  Now, if only she believed that… “Please move,” she said. “I have work to do.”

  “In a minute.” He lowered his voice. “We have an audience. Come back home with me and—”

  “No.” Hugging herself with one arm, still clenching the rest of her donut, she shook her head. “I’m on the clock.”

  “Fine. Shift over.” He wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and not giving her much of a choice, pulled her from beneath the canopy and toward his cabin.

  “Don’t even think about it,” she said, digging her heels in. She wasn’t going to his place, no way in hell. He’d talk and she’d melt, and she’d end up in his amazing bed beneath his luscious bod, and she’d hate herself.

  He quickly and easily redirected without argument, taking them down the beach instead, far past the event, until the sounds from it faded away.

  Now all she could hear was the occasional squawk of a bird, the chatter of a frantic squirrel. Insects humming. The water gently sloshing onto the rocky shore.

  Oh, and the sound of her own heart breaking.

  When they got to a secluded little spot Jacob presumably felt was a good enough place, he turned to face her and gestured for her to sit on a fallen log at the water’s edge.

  She shook her head. She’d eaten the rest of her donut on the walk here and now it sat in her gut like a heavy rock.

  “Please sit,” he said, sounding so weary that she took a look at him, her first real look since seeing Lucas.

  He was too good to show his mood in his body posture. He stood there like he always did, calm, watchful, a little dangerous, like he was locked and loaded and ready for anything. And she knew that was probably true. But a closer look showed her that his mouth was set to grim, and he had shadows beneath his eyes, suggesting he was beyond tired.

  That’s what happens when you are a sex fiend, she thought, and then had a brief hot flash because she was one, too, with him. For