My Kind of Wonderful(5)

How he’d beaten her down the mountain, on his own power no less, she hadn’t the foggiest. “Hey,” she said, trying to act like she wasn’t breathing like a locomotive on its last legs. Or dripping sweat. Staggering to her feet, she casually leaned over her poles, surreptitiously trying to catch her breath.

“Hey,” he said. Not breathing like a locomotive. Not sweating. In fact, not out of breath or exerted at all, the bastard. “The binding held.”

“You wouldn’t have let me go if you’d thought it wouldn’t,” she managed.

“True.” He paused. “You going to yell at me again if I want to know if you’re okay?”

She managed a snort. “I didn’t yell at you.”

His mouth quirked a little as he stood there all wind-tousled perfection, clearly yanking her chain in his own oddly stoic way.

And in her own not stoic way, she kind of liked it. She straightened. “For the future, I’m always okay,” she said. “So you don’t have to ask me that question again.”

“It’s my job.”

Oh. Right. Ski patrol.

“Want to tell me why you’re so touchy about being asked if you’re okay?”

Nope. She really didn’t. It was a trigger for her, not surprising given how many times over the past ten years those three simple words—are you okay—had been asked of her. Now when someone brought it up, what she really heard was all the pity the words usually conveyed.

And she hated pity with the same level of loathing she saved for all creepy-crawlies, kale, and men in open-toed shoes of any kind. “Let’s just say it annoys the crap out of me.”

“Duly noted,” he said. “Next time I’ll query you about the weather. Or if you’ve had a real ski lesson yet.”

Look at that, Man of Few Words did have a sense of humor. And she liked that. A lot. She liked him for some odd reason, not that that was going anywhere. “You have a name?”

“Hudson Kincaid. You?”

“Bailey Moore,” she said as his radio went off. Without taking his eyes from her, he cocked his head and listened, then turned down the volume. “I’ve got to go.”

Good. Maybe when he was gone she could stop making a fool of herself.

He started to turn away but then stopped and gave her one more long look. “Stay off the top.”

“Sir, yes sir,” she said, and saluted him.

Another smile threatened the corners of his mouth. “If only I thought you meant that,” he said, and then he was gone.

Bailey let out a slow, shaky breath. What had just happened? It’d been so long since she’d had any sort of interaction she wasn’t exactly sure.

Liar. That was flirtation and you started it.

And she’d liked it.

But man, she was rusty. Sir, yes sir? Seriously, she needed some practice being normal.

She struggled a few minutes to gather up her skis and poles into one of the long lines of ski stands.

It took a few more minutes to pull off her helmet and figure out how to lock it to her skis. Man, this sport looked so much easier on TV. Everyone always appeared to glide so effortlessly down the mountain and then carried their skis on their shoulders like it was no big deal. It really was deceiving. Still, she was challenging herself and that felt… well, amazing. She glanced at her phone to check the time and was gratified to see she was half an hour early for her meeting. She’d use it to feed the beast, which had been grumbling loudly all morning.

The cafeteria wasn’t crowded, most likely due to it being a weekday. Bailey loaded a tray and sat down in a secluded corner of the place, cozied between a half wall and a huge wall of windows where she could see the incredible view.

You almost, nearly, sort of skied down that, she thought with pride. She could also see that huge blank wall, as it was one of the walls designating the outside eating area. It was protected from the elements by being half dug into the hill behind it and also a huge extended patio roof. She stared at that wall, trying to envision her mural on it.

It was going to be amazing.

She was stuffing her face, nearly moaning with pleasure because the food was incredibly good, when her phone buzzed an incoming text. Her meeting place had been changed to another address in town.

Damn.

It took her nearly half an hour just to turn in her rental skis and get to her car. By the time she drove into Cedar Ridge from the ski resort, she was already ten minutes late, but even that didn’t dampen her excitement.


Hud jerked awake when his phone buzzed in his pocket. He blinked the boardroom into focus and also his siblings’ faces, ranging from amused to pissed off. “Shit,” he muttered.

“Yep,” his sister Kenna agreed from her place across the table where, if he went by the jelly beans layered all over him, she’d been tossing them at him as he snoozed. “You fell asleep,” she said. “When you opened your mouth and started snoring, I wanted to go for a bull’s-eye but Gray wouldn’t let me. He was afraid you’d choke.”

Gray, the oldest Kincaid sibling and ruler of their universe—at least in his own mind—shrugged at Hud. “No one here wanted to take over ski patrol,” he said, “so your premature death would’ve been annoying. We boring you?”

“Shit,” Hud said again, and straightened in his chair. Hell yes, they’d bored him, right to sleep, not that he could say so and keep his teeth. But the truth was, he had two speeds—ninety miles an hour and fast asleep. “And I don’t sleep with my mouth open or snore.” He looked to Gray for confirmation.