My Kind of Wonderful (20 page)

Oh, Christ. “We shouldn’t talk,” he said desperately. “Until no one in this room is sloshed, we should have some quiet time.”

“And you,” she went on. “I was trying to protect you too. Against my feelings.”

“Bay.” He
thunked
his forehead to the door.

“Because the truth is I know you don’t have time for
anyone, even The One. You’ve got a full plate. And I don’t want to be someone’s… something, a something that they don’t have room for on their plate. That would make me… broccoli.” She shuddered. “And no one wants to be broccoli, you know?”

Drunk Bailey had her head on straighter than Stark-sober Hud. He turned to face her and found her struggling out of her bra, which she flung across the room. It landed on his lamp. “I’m going to get you some water,” he said. “Do you need anything else?”

She blinked and smiled and the blanket slipped out of her fingers to pool at her waist, revealing all that creamy, soft skin that he knew would be warm and welcoming. She patted the bed beside her, those amazing breasts shimmying. “Just you,” she whispered.

Jesus.

She reached down and hooked her fingers into the sides of her panties.

“Wait.” Good God. “Bailey, this isn’t going to happen.”

“I know,” she said, and he started to breathe easier. But then she spoke again and lassoed his heart. “I know what you’re going to do next,” she whispered.

Shoot himself?

“You’re gonna push me away. You’re going to do that because you care about me.” She swallowed hard. “I don’t know when, but I know you will. Because that’s what you do when you care too much. And I know you care about me because I can feel it in every look you give me, in every touch. So I guess what I’m saying is that I’m just trying to make the most of it before you do.”

Jesus. She slayed him. “You’re so sure of that, huh?” he said softly, not sure if he was teasing or stalling.

“Yep. Your family helped me get there.”

“What?”

She blinked, looked a little worried, and said… nothing.

“Bailey.” She tightened her lips. Oh, great, so
now
she was going with the fifth. “You’ve been talking to my family about me?” he asked with what he thought was damn good restraint.

“Not in the way you think.”

“How many ways are there to talk about someone?”

“Okay, first of all, you’re taking this wrong,” she said. “And second of all, you’re misdirecting, purposely picking something out of that conversation that you can get all self-righteous about so you can ignore the real issue.”

You know what? Maybe he didn’t like drunk Bailey so much after all. “You’re the one who said you didn’t want a relationship,” he said carefully. “You’re the one who put it out there.”

“Didn’t mean I didn’t want to know you.”

“People who are not in a relationship don’t need to know each other’s deep, dark secrets,” he said.

She stared at him. “You’re twisting this whole relationship thing around and out of proportion,” she said with the very purposeful speech of the heavily inebriated. “And I think you’re doing it on purpose.”

“Why would I do that?”

“So you can do what everyone said you would, push me away. For real.”

Direct hit. “You think you’re in my head,” he said. “But you’re not.”

That apparently stopped her cold. She opened her mouth and then shut it. And then, dammit, a flash of pain crossed her face. “Bailey—”

“I think I’ll go home now,” she said, and started to slide out of the bed.

“No,” he said sharply and she stilled. “You stay,” he said. “
I’ll
go.” He hesitated but she didn’t try to stop him.

Congratulations, idiot
, he told himself bitterly.
You got what you wanted. You pushed her away
.

B
ailey had never experienced a hangover, so it took her by surprise. Actually, it took her head by storm—pounding, drumming, beating behind her eyes, reverberating off her temples, throbbing mercilessly at the base of her skull. If she got lucky, she thought with a groan, if she got very, very lucky, her head would just blow right off her shoulders.

She didn’t get lucky.

Instead she opened her eyes and realized it wasn’t even dawn yet. She lay on soft sheets in a bed that wasn’t hers.

Alone.

She sat up, having to hold her head to do it. Someone, God bless them, had put a glass of water and a bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand. She made liberal use of both and took stock.

Hud’s bedroom. The evidence of last night’s activities was strewn about the room. The most damning was her bra, hanging haphazardly off a lamp.

And then there was the fact that she was in Hud’s bed. She lifted the covers and stared down at herself. She was in a very large black T-shirt and her panties. One sock.

But the most troublesome was Hud’s absence. She’d never scared a man off before. Another first…

She slid out of bed and pulled her bra off the lamp. A flash of memory came at that, the memory of trying to do a sexy striptease for Hud and nearly knocking his face into next week with her boot.

And then another. She remembered telling him things.
I think I’m falling for you because you’re everything I want in a man; strong from the inside out, steady, calm, smart… sweet
.

She’d told him he could be The One.

Oh God
. Why had she done that? The answer was painful. She’d told him because it was the truth. “Clearly he’d like me to go away,” she said aloud, her voice dry and rough.

Which was just what she suddenly needed to do because now he knew. He knew exactly how she felt and that was her own fault. Especially since in return, she had no idea how
he
felt. The heat of embarrassment flamed her cheeks. Yep, she needed to be gone and she suspected he wanted that as well. She wrangled on her knit cap, slipped into her jeans, and stuffed her feet into her boots. Then she snagged one of Hud’s shirts—which smelled like heaven—and made her way out of the bedroom to hopefully find a ride to where she’d left her car and get the hell off the mountain, where she could lick her wounds in private for the week.

Luckily, Hud wasn’t anywhere to be seen so she ventured out farther and found herself standing on the main
floor in a huge open room. One wall was all windows, leading out to the still-dark morning where a small sliver of the black sky was lightening.

In front of the window stood a tall, broad shadow sipping at a steaming mug.

Her heart stopped.

“Just me,” Aidan said mildly.

“Oh,” she said on a breath of relief, and then hoped her sheer relief wasn’t too obvious. “I was just hoping to get a ride to my car.”

He turned and looked at her for a long moment. “I could do that. You know Hud’s downstairs, right?”

Bailey blinked. “I thought this was the bottom floor.”

“There’s a basement. We have it set up as a gym. He’s been at it for a couple of hours now. You might want to get down there and put him out of his misery.”

“How do you know it was me who made him miserable?”

Aidan laughed low in his throat, his smile real and genuine, and suddenly Bailey knew exactly what Lily saw in him. “I didn’t suggest
you
made him miserable,” he said. “I’m suggesting that your presence might chase away his misery.”

She managed a small smile. Because she remembered throwing herself at Hud last night and he’d…

Resisted.

Easily.

Aidan looked down at his mug and then back into Bailey’s eyes. “He ever tell you why he doesn’t easily get attached to people?”

“Because his plate is full,” she said. “He doesn’t have room. Especially since he’s determined to find Jacob.”

Aidan’s smile was humorless. “Yeah, he talks a good game, doesn’t he? He’s full of shit, Bailey.”

“So he lied to me?”

“He’s lying to himself. He blames himself for our dad leaving his mom—which, don’t even get me started. He blames himself for his mom not being well—more ridiculousness. He blames himself for Jacob leaving—a whole new level of ridiculousness.”

Bailey’s heart squeezed. “That’s a lot for him to put on himself.”

“No shit. But our boy likes to blame himself.” He took another drink from his mug. “The stairs at the end will take you down to the gym.”

“Oh. Well, actually, I think I’m just going to…” She gestured to the front door.

Aidan just looked at her for a beat. “My mistake then,” he said coolly. “Do you still want a ride?”

She looked at the door and paused. The silence in the room was deafening. “Dammit,” she whispered.

I’m falling for you because you’re everything I want in a man…

She closed her eyes. What if she did go see him? What would that accomplish? It’s not like she could take the words back. Nope, they were out there now taking root, making a life of their own.

Maybe he’d just shrug it all off as the ramblings of a cheap drunk…

No. No, she’d seen his face, had seen the regret, and worse, she’d seen the horror.

He didn’t want her to feel these things for him. Which made two of them. But if she left now, she knew she’d kill whatever this was. If she left now, she would be taking
them down a path she couldn’t retrace, sending the message that she was ashamed of what she’d said last night.

She wasn’t ashamed. She’d meant every word.

And yet to stay and face him… That was definitely the tougher route. But last night he hadn’t done anything wrong. He’d kept her off the roads. He’d allowed her to stay. And more than all of that, he’d taken care of her.

She needed to thank him. It was just good manners. Turning, she glanced at Aidan where he still stood watching the dark night slowly turn into a glorious morning.

He’d let her have her inner battle in private.

“I’ll get my keys,” he said.

She drew a deep breath. “Not necessary. Turns out we were both wrong about what I’m doing next.”

He turned then and met her gaze, a small smile on his mouth. “Not me,” he said. “I had money on you and I never lose.”

She let out a shaky breath. “Well you could’ve saved me some time and anxiety if you’d just said so to start with.”

White teeth flashed. “Where would the fun be in that?”

The stairs did indeed lead to the gym. The only windows in the place were high, up close to the ceilings, and set in the concrete walls. The moon was still up and beaming ghostly slants of light across the hardwood floor, casting the room in a patchwork of luster and shadow.

Hud was indeed there, shirtless, sweatpants dangerously low slung, working weights. As she moved across the floor to the weight bench where he was mechanically lifting, she shifted in and out of the moonbeams. Dark. Light. Dark. Light.

Matching the flip-flopping emotions churning through her. Stay. Go. Stay…

Hud continued to silently hoist weights in perfectly timed repetitions like some dark superhero, and she took a moment to appreciate the beauty of the man and how much she ached just looking at him.

She leaned over the bar and smiled at him.

He didn’t look surprised to see her. Nor did he return her smile.

“Right,” she murmured. “Because
you
remember everything about last night.”

He settled the bar into the rack and sat up as she moved around to straddle the bench facing him. “You don’t remember?” he asked with a whisper of disbelief.

“Not at first, but it’s all coming back to me.” Determined to keep the tone light, she tried smiling again. “So. I threw myself at you. Should I apologize for that?”

The false stillness in his face told her that he wasn’t going to let her keep anything light and he wasn’t going to smile this away either. “Absolutely not,” he said.

Okaaaaay. “And the things I said,” she managed. “How about that?”

“You shouldn’t apologize for what you feel,” he said carefully. “Ever.”

With a sigh, she scooted forward and invaded his space. When he didn’t make a move to get away, or make any move at all in fact, she splayed her hands on his chest. “I wanted to thank you.”

“For which part?” he asked, staying on his side of the bench, not making a move to touch her in return. “Letting you drive up here into an oncoming storm to give me my phone back? Or maybe for being so nice to my mom. Or hell, how about having to keep Lily company when I ditched you for a robbery call?”

“All of it.” She let her hands drift a little because she couldn’t help herself. He was warm and hard and a little sweaty. It shouldn’t have been such a distraction but it was. He was one big distraction. “I meant I wanted to thank you for
everything
,” she said. “Allowing me to paint the mural, which gave me time on this mountain. Teaching me to ski better. For the friendship that had nothing to do with having cancer.” She paused because this one was harder. “For making me feel whole again,” she said softly.

He stared at her for a long beat and then leaned forward. The burgeoning daylight softened his features from a superhero to a mortal man, one with weaknesses and hopes and dreams like any other. She liked the superhero. After all, he’d given her chills and excitement. But she loved the man.

When he reached for her, she slid her arms up and wrapped them around his neck, sighing in pleasure when he leaned in farther to press his forehead to hers. “That sounded like a good-bye,” he said.

“It was.” Her voice was a whole lot firmer than her heart. “I’ve got to get home.”

His lips moved down to hers and he hovered there as he whispered, “I didn’t peg you for a runner.”

“I’m not running.”

“Feels like it,” he said.

The temptation to kiss him was strong and she was weak, so she gave in, pressing her mouth to his. Their mega attraction exploded between them, as always. Before she lost herself to him fully, she pulled away and stood up, determined to keep her resolve. “I can’t think when we do that.”

He stood up too. “What do you need to think about?”

She met his gaze. “Work. I’ve got to go, Hud.”

“Okay. But you’ll be back this weekend,” he said. He didn’t word it as a question, but it was one.

“Yes,” she said. “For the mural.”

“Bay.”

He said her name softly, with so much feeling her throat tightened. She stepped back into the shadows, relieved to have them.

“If this is about last night—” he started.

“No.” She closed her eyes. No, she didn’t want to go there. He didn’t have time for her, for this, and she needed to protect herself. Besides, this wasn’t exactly in her plan either. She wanted to go out and see the world, and it wasn’t as if he’d drop everything to go with her. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I did a foolish thing, letting this go so far.”

He was silent, and she took that for her answer. Unable to look at him again, she kept her eyes closed, the memory of his regret burning in her brain. Backing away, she struggled to keep her voice even. “Good-bye, Hud.”

And then she ran up the stairs.