Slow Heat

But he still didn’t want a mural.

“Why can’t I do this for free?” she asked.

Yeah, genius, why not? “Because…” Again he turned to Gray.

But Gray was very busy licking some butter off Penny’s finger, the asshole.

“Because,” Hud finally said, “it’s not only crazy, it’s not—” He broke off when his phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” he said, and pulled out his phone, staring stupidly down at a text from… Gray. Lifting his head, he sent his brother a look across the table.

Gray jerked his chin to the phone.

Hud blew a sigh and accessed the text.

What the fuck, man? She’s got a LIST. You can’t call a dying woman crazy!

Hud quickly thumbed a response.

We don’t know anything about her.

It was Gray’s turn to work his thumbs, and a moment later his response came through.

Penny wants this, so don’t fuck it up or I won’t get sex for a month.

They already had sex more than bunnies. And the problem wasn’t so much that Hud walked in on them doing it. It was that he kept walking in on them. Just last week he’d gone out to their building’s private hot tub and there they’d been, steaming up the already steamy air, gasping and clinging to each other.

Hud had executed a one-eighty so fast a drill sergeant would’ve been impressed. But then two nights later he’d gone down to the kitchen for something to eat and found Penny sitting on the kitchen island with her hand down Gray’s pants and her teeth on his throat. So Hud didn’t give two shits about their sex life and he glared at Gray before responding with:

Jack off for all I care, we’re not doing this.

Kenna raised a brow. “You boys going to share with the class?”

“No,” Hud said, and poured her and Penny more orange juice. They both smiled at him but weren’t distracted in the least, dammit.

Penny snatched her husband’s phone.

“I’m in the middle of a game,” Gray protested.

“Or texting Hudson like a three-year-old.” She accessed the texts, read them, and rolled her eyes again. “Seriously?” she said to Hud.

“Hey,” he said. “Your husband started it.”

“I’m the youngest,” Kenna told Bailey. “But as you can see, I’m most definitely the smartest.”

Hud pinched the bridge of his nose, counted to five, and then looked at Bailey. She’d finished his entire plate. Either the food or the rest had put color back into her cheeks. Her eyes were shiny, bright with intelligence and warmth. She looked… happy.

Shit. “I thought you’d left Cedar Ridge,” he said.

“No. Well, yes,” she said. “I left for the week, but I’m back.”

“But we discussed this,” he said. “You said you weren’t coming back.”

“No, you said that, not me.” She laughed, a soft, musical sound. “It takes more than some cranky-pants guy to get rid of me.”

The kids in the playground were greatly amused at this. All except Hud because what the hell did that mean? He wasn’t a… cranky pants. He simply worked hard to keep his life free of new complications because his entire life was one big complication. She was killing him here, just killing him because now he was torn between feeling handled—which he hated—and being distracted by needing to hear her say that she was okay.

He didn’t like this, any of it. Because the truth was, he also felt outsmarted, which he liked even less than being handled. “You can’t just start painting,” he said.

“Well, of course not,” she said demurely. “You all have to approve the draft.” She pulled out an iPad and showed them what she’d done.

Hud glanced at his family. Penny, Lily, and Kenna had scooted in close, looking at the screen raptly, “oohing” and “aahing” over what they saw.

In contrast, Gray was looking at Hud with a big, fat smirk. Ditto for Aidan. The assholes.

“It’s a family tree,” Bailey said, “since you guys are a family-run business. And I thought I’d do it as if it were an actual tapestry hung on the wall, the backdrop being the mountains, maybe the lake… highlighting the cameos of each of you on the family tree. I hear the Kincaid siblings are something of a legend, so I thought your visitors would love the little peek into your world.”

No. Hell no, Hud thought.

“Yes,” Penny and Kenna and Lily said in unison.

And given the looks on Aidan’s and Gray’s faces, neither of them were all that inclined to disagree with their better halves or their baby sister.

“Of course to draw each of you in your element, I’d need to interview you one-on-one. Just a few minutes of your time today, if that works.”

Hud opened his mouth to say it didn’t work at all, that none of it worked, nor did he have a few spare minutes today.

Or any day.

And that wouldn’t be just bullshit, either, because he really didn’t have a spare second, ever. His job took more hours than he had available in a day, and added to that were all the additional things that came with being one of the owners of the resort itself. Which didn’t even begin to count his other responsibilities, like making sure his mother was taken care of, finding Jacob, and keeping Kenna on the straight and narrow—a full-time job in itself.

But before he could say any of that, his siblings all were nodding like bobbleheads. Even his brothers, who were clearly not thinking with their heads, at least not their big heads.

Their would-be artist beamed at them. “Great,” she said.

“Not great,” Hud said.

Everyone looked at him.

“Interviews?” he repeated. “We don’t need to be interviewed for this. We’re all too busy right now.”

“You’ll have to excuse him,” Kenna said to Bailey. “He’s got one of those busy-guy brains. You know, the kind that means they’re not really listening when you talk.”

“I listen,” Hud said. “I just don’t always agree.”

“It’s only going to take a few minutes of your time,” Penny said. “I’m off today, so I’ll cover for you if I need to. Anything to get our Harry Potter–like family tree up!” She was clearly thrilled. Which meant Gray looked thrilled too.

Bailey nodded, those slay-me eyes bright and excited. “Yes,” she said. “It’ll be very much like the Black family tree in Harry Potter. Except the heads aren’t going to talk.”

Everyone laughed.

Hud didn’t see the funny, and Kenna looked his way and snorted. “He hasn’t seen the movies if you can believe it,” she told Bailey.

“Everyone should see the Harry Potter movies,” Penny said. She looked at her husband. “You loved them when we watched them, right?”

“Right,” Gray said with a perfectly straight face and then when Penny turned away, he shook his head at Hud. He’d either slept through the movies or had been trying to have sex with Penny instead of watching them.

“No worries, we’ll make time for the interviews,” Penny assured Bailey. “Even my curmudgeonly brother-in-law.”

“And if he doesn’t,” Kenna said, “you can just portray him any way that strikes you.” She laughed the evil-baby-sister laugh.