Slow Heat

She stared up at him. “You think because I don’t have any siblings I can’t understand an obviously difficult relationship?”

“We’re dropping this,” he said. “It’s not up for discussion. Or for public consumption in the mural.”

She absorbed the unexpected hurt of that and turned away, getting as far as the door before she stopped and stared at her hand on the doorknob, remembering what Carrie told her.

Hud pushes away the people he cares about most. He’s good at it.

Bailey let out a breath and turned, walking back to him until she was toe-to-toe with him. “I almost let you do it,” she said.

“Do what?”

“Push me away. It’s apparently your MO when it comes to the people you care most about. Like Jacob.”

Still as the night behind him, only his eyes tracked to her. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

“I think I do. So if that’s what you’re doing now, Hud? Pushing me away because you care too much? You should know that I won’t go. I can’t be pushed.” To prove it, she moved back to the door and hit the lock.

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked.

She dropped her sweater on the floor on her way over to him. “If you don’t know, I’m not doing it very well.”

“Bailey—”

“No,” she said, and pointed at him. “You don’t feel like talking, remember?”

“You said last week that this thing was one night,” he said.

Was he worried that she’d try and cling to him? “I said one night?” she asked innocently, purposefully misunderstanding him. “My mistake. I meant two.” She gave him a little push until his desk hit the backs of his thighs.

“Bailey—”

“Shh.” She unzipped his sweatshirt and shoved it off his shoulders.

His hands went to her hips. “Bay.” His voice came out a low, barely there rasp. “This is a bad idea.”

“Well of course it is,” she said. “All week I’m thinking about you while pretending I’m not. And you’re here doing your best to keep me at arm’s length, which I know damn well means that you think about me too.” She smiled. “Really, we’re quite the pair.”

“Fucking pathetic.” But he returned her smile with a small one of his own and then he was tugging at her clothes and then his, exposing the necessary parts—and God, she loved his necessary parts—so that they could make good use of his desk.

And after that, the loveseat against the wall.

“I sit on this thing and work sometimes,” Hud murmured much later when Bailey was sweaty and still panting in his arms. “I’m never going to look at it the same way again.” She felt him smile against her damp skin. “In fact, I think I’ll have it bronzed.”

Chapter 15

Hud worked his ass off on Saturday afternoon, but that night he did something he couldn’t remember ever doing—he took himself off the roster at both the resort and the station. He also turned off his phone.

And then he knocked at Bailey’s employee apartment.

She opened the door and stared at him.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” She wore his favorite outfit—her skimpy PJs.

“Did you say two nights?” he asked, holding up a bottle of wine and a bag of Chinese takeout. “Or three?

Holding his gaze, she took the bag, dropping eye contact to peer in at the food. She smiled. “Oh, most definitely three.”

The following week was as crazy as all the others in ski season. On Thursday night Hud took his mom out for her “birthday.” On Friday he, Aidan, and Gray went out to dinner. They shared a pitcher of beer and recapped their week. This was usually a weekly thing. Sometimes Penny and Lily joined them, but tonight it was just the boys plus Kenna. She had blessed them with her presence even though she did spend most of the time on her phone.

Aidan gave Hud a worried look, but Hud knew she was simply playing Words With Friends and probably at this very moment kicking his ass.

“Our insurance company called to let us know we had three serious injuries this week,” Gray announced.

“Actually it was four,” Kenna said with head down and still concentrating on her phone. “Don’t forget that stupid snow bunny who sat too close to the fire pit in the lodge. She was striking poses on the bench in front of it, trying to get a good selfie, and fell on her ass. And since she was wearing ridiculously high-heeled boots, she couldn’t get up quickly and singed her hair extensions. Our mountain had nothing to do with it.”

“Yeah, well,” Gray said, annoyed. “However it happened, they’re sending a rep out next week to discuss better safety precautions. I don’t care if we have to put a sign by the fire pit that says women with hair extensions have to sit twenty feet back, we have to make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Gray took any affront on the resort personally.

Kenna rolled her eyes. “You can’t put out a sign like that. You’ll have feminists the world over hating on you.”

“Fine, make the sign say that anyone wearing hair extensions needs to stay twenty feet from the fire.”

“We’ve upped our training from every other day to every day,” Hud chimed in, hoping to avoid a fight. “We’re fully staffed. Unlike most of the other resorts, we didn’t make big cuts on either staffing or safety. They’re not going to find any reason to mess with you.”

“Yeah, well, see that they don’t.” Gray thumbed his way down a list on his iPad. “We were asked to sponsor the high school’s ski team again this year.” He lifted his head and looked at Hud. “They’re down a coach and asked for you. You got any time available?”

Shit. No he didn’t. And yet he could remember when all he’d wanted was to be on that ski team. There’d never been enough money for it. No way did he want a single kid to miss out on a dream because of money. “I’d find time if they let us give out scholarships for kids who have the skills but not the money. If I’m the coach, no one misses getting on the team for lack of funds.”

Gray eyed him over the iPad, amused. “And you’re going to pull the money for the scholarships from where exactly, your ass?”

“We’ll find the money.”

Aidan refilled Gray’s beer. “I’m with Hud. We’ll find the money.”

“Christ,” Gray grumbled, and made some notes. “‘Find the money,’” he muttered. “Sure, we’ll just find the goddamn money.”

“I have the money,” Kenna said, actually looking up from her phone.

When Gray started to open his mouth, she set down the phone—something rarely seen out in the wild—and stood up. And then, making a face at how short she still was, she let out a pissy noise and stood on her chair, snatching the pitcher of beer to her chest as she did. “You won’t let me help the resort,” she said to the table. “You won’t let me do shit because you think I’m fragile. Well fragile this, I’m not giving the beer back until someone says I can sponsor the goddamn high school ski team with my own goddamn money!”