My Kind of Wonderful(10)

Aching for him to grab her and take her against the wall…

“How about lunch?” he asked.

“Ex-fiancés don’t do lunch.”

“Maybe not, but you’re not just my ex-fiancée,” he pointed out.

Their eyes met, his revealing uncertainty. He wasn’t sure if they were still friends, not after what she’d witnessed a month ago.

He’d tried to discuss it with her but she’d refused.

What he did, who he did, was no longer any of her business.

Then he caught sight of what was spread out on her second screen—a draft of the mural.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“I’ve been commissioned to paint a mural up at Cedar Ridge,” she said, and watched him calculate the two-hour travel distance from Denver to Cedar Ridge. Watched as he started to shake his head.

“Not your call,” she said. “I plan to do this.”

“Does your plan include running yourself into the ground then? Because that’s what will happen if you work twenty-four-seven.” He softened, his voice gentle. “Honey, you still have to take care of yourself.”

“I know that,” she said. God, did he think she didn’t? “I realize I cheated death, Aaron. I get that. And because of it, I’m going to live like there’s no tomorrow. The cancer isn’t going to come back, because I won’t let it. But if the worst happens and it manages to win in spite of everything, well then at least I’ll have lived.”

“Bailey—”

“I know what I’m doing,” she said, and hoped that was true.

Maybe Aaron and her mom didn’t, wouldn’t, understand, but she knew this was the right thing. Yes, for Carrie and her sons, but also for herself.


She left before the crack of dawn on Saturday morning for Cedar Ridge and got lucky with good weather and clear roads. She parked in the ski lot and made her way to the lodge to take measurements of the wall.

It was a sunny and clear day, and according to her phone it was thirty-two degrees. But the early morning wind put a chill in the air, making it sharp and almost painful to draw into her lungs.

She loved it. Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and let the high-altitude sun warm her face. From a distance she heard the swish-swish of skis on the snow.

The lifts were running but not open to the public for another fifteen minutes. She’d been watching ski patrol put up roped fencing lining the ski runs and around the lifts to manage lines, though she hadn’t seen Hudson. The few skiers on the slopes were staff as well, and her eyes had caught on one in particular carving his way down the mountain like he was one with his skis.

Hudson.

She couldn’t tell for sure, of course, but the set to his shoulders reminded her of him.

And then there was the way her heart started pounding.

She had no idea what this odd hyperawareness of him meant. She was hoping it was nothing but simple orgasm withdrawal.

Because orgasm withdrawal she could handle on her own.

Probably.

Maybe.

Okay, so the truth was she didn’t know for sure. She had not exactly felt sexual in a very long time, but she’d like to think that would come back now that she had a new lease on life.

A life—period.





Chapter 4


The following weekend, Hud stuffed some food down and pushed himself back out on the mountain. It was a busy day and they needed to all stay alert and awake. Just yesterday, two hormone-driven twenty-year-olds had decided to have sex on one of the ski lifts. Because they were also idiots, they’d left the safety bar up and the lift operator hadn’t noticed.

A gust of wind had come along and swept the poor pantsless girl off the lift, down thirty feet onto a—luckily—soft berm of snow. She’d lived, though she’d do so with a broken leg and frostbite in some pretty private places. Her boyfriend, of course, hadn’t fallen, retained his pants, and reportedly broke up with her in the hospital due to the humiliation.

The story had made the news, but that wouldn’t scare anyone off from trying out other ridiculous stunts. In fact, they could count on the opposite.

Now he was patrolling the mountain, skiing hard and fast, pushing himself because it felt good to do so. He felt his phone vibrate from the depths of his pocket. Stopping on the edge of the run, he pulled out the phone and saw the ID. “You okay?” he asked his mom in lieu of a greeting.

“Of course, sweetheart. Just wanted to know if you cleaned your room yet.”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. An hour earlier he’d taken a call from Max, an old friend who’d been in the army and was doing some snooping on Jacob for Hud. Not too long ago they’d gotten intel that Jacob’s unit had taken enemy fire with injuries, but nothing more. No details. Max had reported that it appeared Jacob had been among the injured but had gone back to his tour of duty in Iraq, so all had to be well now.

Or relatively well.

Hud had been losing his collective shit worrying about his brother. The news that Jacob had to be okay enough to stay with his unit was good, but he didn’t have the bandwidth for anything else to happen today.

“Well?” his mom asked. “Did you? Or did you just shove all your stuff under your bed again and call it good?” She laughed. “I’m onto you, you know.”