My Kind of Wonderful(9)

“Oh.” Looking slightly mollified, she nodded. “But the answer is still no.”

“No?” he repeated.

“No, I’m not going to invoice you for my time,” she said just as an orderly came down the hall pushing a cart filled with supplies. This forced Bailey to back up and give the guy room to get by, which was fine except she backed right into Hud, pressing him between the wall and her soft, warm, curvy body.

“Sorry,” she whispered, stepping on his toe and bumping her sweet ass into his crotch. “Sorry—”

He stilled her with his hands on her hips, holding her there until the orderly had passed.

The sound of her sucking in air filled his ears, along with blood rushing through him at the full body contact.

When she could, she stepped clear and turned to face him, her eyes filled with awareness and shock.

Join my club, he thought.

“Okay, then,” she finally said, looking more than a little dazed. “I’m just going to go. Please tell your mom it was lovely to meet her.”

And then she was gone, leaving him to let out a low laugh. Clearly it hadn’t been lovely to meet him. For some reason that little crystal clear snub kept him smiling to himself for the rest of the day.


Two days later Bailey was in her office—the living room of her apartment—staring at her two large computer screens and trying to finish up a job for a local health-food store. She’d been commissioned to create a new logo that would go on everything from T-shirts to menus to coasters. The job had been a huge coup and she’d been hugely excited when she’d landed it over several other, bigger graphic design companies.

But all she could think about was the resort, specifically one Hudson Kincaid, and how his lean, hard, hot body had been pressed up against hers. She could still feel his warmth and strength…

She’d ordered supplies for the mural, which she’d assured herself had nothing to do with Hudson.

And she’d meant it when she’d told him she wouldn’t be invoicing him. In spite of the fact that she was—and would be for a long time to come—digging out of medical debt, she was doing this one pro bono. She was doing it for Carrie, the woman who maybe couldn’t keep her mind straight but loved her boys so very much.

Because it absolutely was not for Mr. Tall, Dark, and Sexy Grumpy Ass.

Bailey glanced over at the small picture of her grandma on her desk and smiled. “And maybe it’s also a little bit for you,” she said, blowing a kiss to the woman she missed every single day.

Behind her, the front door opened. A heartbeat later, two hands settled on her shoulders and a mouth brushed a kiss into her hair. “You’re tense.” Fingers gently kneaded the knots. “You should take a break.”

With a sigh she turned to face Aaron, and his handsome face creased into a smile.

“I don’t need a break,” she said. “And what are you doing here?”

“You usually nap in the afternoons,” he said. “I just wanted to see if you needed anything.”

She did her best to hold back the temper because he was right. For years she’d napped in the afternoons because she’d barely had the energy or stamina to make it through the day. “I haven’t napped in months.”

“You’re pale, you’re tense, and you’ve got shadows under your eyes,” he said.

“Aw. You say the nicest things.” She turned back to her computers, uncomfortable with her conflicting emotions, which had her torn between hugging him and strangling him.

“Bailey, honey, we both know you went back to work too soon. You’re pushing yourself too hard—”

“Aaron, stop.”

“Just because you dumped me doesn’t mean we’re no longer friends,” he said.

He said this mildly. He said everything mildly. Just as he’d loved her mildly. She knew she owed him, that she should be grateful for all he’d done for her, and she truly was.

But she had so many emotions swirling through her at all times, wild uncontrolled emotions, and sometimes she resented that he didn’t.

“Don’t ask me to watch you run yourself into the ground,” he said quietly.

“I’m not asking you to do anything.” She took her hands off the keyboard, mostly to resist the urge to chuck it at his head—a terrible thought and a terrible instinct that she hated herself for—as she slowly turned to face the first and only man she’d ever loved.

She’d fallen for him on her first day of ninth grade. She’d just had her first chemo treatment for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and had been feeling sick, but she’d refused to miss the first day of school. One hour into biology, staring at the slide on the big screen in front of the classroom showing a dissected frog, and she knew she wasn’t going to make it out of there in time.

She tossed her lunch and what felt like her guts… right into Aaron’s backpack as he held it open for her, somehow managing to hold her hair back as well.

He’d been holding her hair back ever since. Metaphorically. But God, how she wished that he’d show her an emotion, any emotion other than empathy and pity. She’d wasted a lot of time yearning for that.

Too much time.

Wanting him to stop treating her like a piece of fragile glass that might shatter, wanting him to be wildly passionate about… something, anything. Yearning to see him express a strong feeling, even temper.