My Kind of Wonderful(31)

This meant that there was a long line of people hanging over the mountain, skis and boards dangling as they waited for the lift to get moving again, watching in rapt fascination as the idiot brothers wrestled and yelled at each other.

“I didn’t say you could sleep with her!” one yelled.

“She dumped you!” the other yelled back. “You said she was a crazy bitch!”

“Yeah, so why did you screw her?”

“Because she’s a hot crazy bitch!”

“I’m going to kill you!”

Hud dragged one free while his team grabbed the other.

They looked so much alike that they were clearly brothers. And they continued to fight, though now they were united in that fight as they tussled with the ski patrollers instead of each other. But Hud and his team quickly got them under control and restrained.

One of the brothers, the one who’d slept with the “crazy bitch,” was cradling his clearly broken arm.

“Shit,” the other said, staring at the arm. “You broke it again.”

“You broke it!”

They argued about that the entire time Hud and Mitch were strapping the injured brother to a sled, preparing to take him down the mountain.

As they began the descent, the uninjured brother stayed alongside so that the two of them could continue to yell at each other.

“And don’t think I’ve forgotten that you owe me fifty bucks,” the injured one yelled from flat on his back. “I won our last two bets and you’ve never paid up! Cheapskate!”

“I don’t owe you shit! You stole my bike and crashed it!”

“That piece of shit was no good anyway!”

And so it went on.

When they got to the bottom, they loaded the injured brother directly into an ambulance. Yet another fight broke out when the uninjured one wanted to make the ride with his brother and the EMTs refused to take him because he kept stirring up their patient.

The ambulance drove off and the uninjured brother stared after it, suddenly silent and looking deflated. He lifted his head to Hud, eyes shiny and miserable. “They’ll take care of him, right? They won’t let him die?”

“They won’t let him die,” Hud promised, and turned away to get back to work.

But the guy grabbed Hud’s arm. “You swear it?”

Hud looked into his devastated face and was propelled back to another time, another fight, with his own brother. Ten years ago this had been them. Young. Cocky. Hotheaded idiots. “I swear it,” Hud said.

“I can’t be without him,” the guy said quietly, the fight gone, the adrenaline draining.

Yeah, Hud got that too. Once, he and Jacob had been like a pair of porcupine siblings, constantly needling each other but unable to be apart either.

How quickly they’d gotten okay with that. Except Hud had never gotten okay with it, not really. Every single f*cking day he missed Jacob, like he’d miss a damn limb.

“I need a ride to the hospital,” the guy suddenly said.

“How did you get here?” Hud asked.

“My brother drove his new truck. I crashed his last one, so I’m not supposed to drive this one. He said he’d kill me if I did.”

Hud shook his head and pointed to the shuttle’s pickup spot. “Every twenty minutes a bus comes by and drives into town.”

“Twenty minutes is a long time.” The guy looked thoughtful. “Maybe I should hot wire his truck… you know, since it’s an emergency situation and all.”

Normally Hud was excellent at compartmentalizing his life. All the Kincaids were. Family was family. Play was play. Work was work. And while he was most definitely affected by what he did on the job, and occasionally also moved by the people he helped, for the most part he didn’t allow any of it to stick to him. Couldn’t, or he wouldn’t have anything left to give the next day.

But these guys were brothers. They’d fought, and one had gotten hurt.

There were too many similarities between them and himself and Jacob for him not to be moved. “Listen,” he said to the guy. “You can do what you want, but I’m telling you to think about this long and hard. One of these days you’re going to pull a stunt that he can’t get over or forgive, and he’ll leave you. Do you understand me? So do yourself a favor and take the damn bus.”

The guy blinked. “Okay, jeez.”

When he’d stalked off, Mitch came up beside Hud. “That was a little harsh.”

“It was the cold, hard truth,” Hud said, and walked away. He headed for his office but then decided f*ck it, he needed to take a ski run to clear his head. Ten minutes later, he was flying down Devil’s Face, the wind in his face, his thighs burning, his lungs taxed, and feeling much better.

When the lodge came into view, he slowed and then stopped.

From here he could see the wall, which for as long as he could remember had been blank.

No longer.

It was crisscrossed with the scaffolding and he could see a small figure on the third tier. From here he couldn’t see much else since she was just sketching things in, but he knew that over the next few weeks that would change. Soon enough he’d be able to see himself and his family portrayed on that wall.

For better or worse.

He wanted to stay stoic about it, but there was something about the free-spirited Bailey Moore that grabbed him by the heart he’d thought long dead.