Nobody But You Read online

  He stopped in the bathroom doorway and looked into her eyes. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m coming back.”

  “And staying.”

  “And staying.” He lifted a shoulder when she only stared at him. “I walked away from my family and my life here once. I’m not going to do it again.”

  There was something new in her eyes now. A light he couldn’t read. “You should tell them that,” she said very softly.

  “After I earn my way back into their good graces.”

  “Oh, Jacob.” She touched him then, the first time she’d instigated contact, lifting her hand and setting it on his jaw. “They’d be crazy not to want you.”

  He let out a short laugh.

  “I’m serious.”

  “I was a real prick back in the day, Soph. I told you.”

  “You weren’t. You were a young kid who’d been hurt by his dad, who had to raise his mom instead of the other way around, and who didn’t know how to deal emotionally. And anyway, it doesn’t matter what you were then. I know who you are now. You come off all big and bad and tough, and those things are true, but you’d also give a perfect stranger the shirt off your back.” She spread her arms out to reveal herself wearing his shirt.

  He managed another rough laugh, even though she was killing him. “Maybe I gave it to you because you look hot in it. Especially since you’re cold.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “You’re also not a stranger,” he said. “Not even close.”

  Her breath caught. “I’m not perfect either.”

  From where he stood she was. He opened his mouth to say so, but her finger brushed over his mouth, keeping his words in. He closed his eyes a beat and soaked up her touch. When he felt the fine tremors going through her, he gently nudged her into the bathroom. Leaning past her, he turned the shower on hot and gestured to the towels. “There’s shampoo and soap there. Use whatever you want.”

  “See,” she said so softly he could hardly hear her. “One of the good guys.”

  To prove it, he left her there, gently shutting the door.

  Alone in the hallway, he had to take a deep breath. He was hard, aching with it. He looked down at it. It’s not going where you think…

  Shaking his head at himself, he strode into his bedroom, sat on the bed and pulled out his phone. He scrolled through his contacts and stared at Hud’s name for a long moment before pressing the button to contact him. He hit FaceTime for a video call instead of just a voice call because the two of them were having enough communication problems trying to be regular people.

  And they weren’t regular people.

  They were twins who’d once known what the other was going to think before they even thought it, and he wanted that back, dammit. To get there, he needed to see him, needed to look into his eyes.

  “Is it Mom?” Hud asked in lieu of a hello. He was sitting at a desk and looking irritated as hell.

  “No,” Jacob said. “She’s fine. I didn’t get a chance to tell you, she found the Twitter.”

  “I know. She tweeted Bailey that I couldn’t come out to play today because I was grounded for lying about my grades.” Hud blew out a breath and turned to look at someone, shaking his head with a low laugh. “Bailey says she’ll wait for me.”

  Jacob tried to smile but couldn’t.

  Hud frowned. “What is it?”

  “I’m not trying to buy my way back in. But I can’t deny that I do want back in.”

  “I was wrong to say that,” Hud said. “I shouldn’t have.”

  Relief washed through Jacob. He didn’t say anything, and for that matter, neither did Hud, but for the first time since he’d come back, the silence between them didn’t seem filled with animosity but rather the kind of quiet they used to have.

  “So,” Hud finally said. “Wounded Warriors tomorrow. Kenna told me you’ve both been working your asses off on it.”

  “Yeah.” And he’d loved it. “Going to be fun.”

  “I’ll be there,” Hud said. “We all will.”

  The implied support tightened his throat.

  “And I’ve been meaning to tell you,” Hud went on, voice gruff. “Bailey’s been bugging me to have you over—” He broke off and again looked over at someone. He listened a minute and then rolled his eyes. “Okay, bugging is apparently the wrong word here.”

  And then Bailey’s face appeared next to Hud’s. “Your twin’s an idiot,” she said. “Finessing a conversation is beyond him.”

  Jacob grinned and looked at Hud. “I knew I liked your woman.”

  “I’m my own woman,” Bailey said, but she smiled. “And I like you too. So get your ass over here for dinner sometime soon and spend some time with all of us. My other half would like that.”

  “Hey,” Hud said to her. “If I can’t call you my woman, then you can’t call me your better half.”

  “I didn’t say better,” Bailey said.

  Jacob laughed.

  Hud smiled and slid his arm around Bailey. “I’ll show you better. Later.”

  She waggled a finger in his face, and Hud leaned forward to nip it with his teeth. With a laugh, she pushed off of him.

  They had a bond, a hell of one by the looks of it. He wasn’t jealous. He liked knowing his brother had found that. No, what shocked Jacob was that he wanted it too.

  “You don’t have to stay away,” Hud said. “There’s plenty of room here at the resort for you with us, with all of us. And then you, too, can be annoyed as shit by the marrieds who seem to think they’re entitled to have sex as many times a day as possible. Or have to deal with the mercurial moods of one evil Kenna Kincaid—”

  “I can’t,” Jacob said.

  “Right, okay, yeah.” Hud’s smile faded. “I get it. You’re just back for…well hell, I don’t even know, and then you’re out again.”

  “I told you I was coming back,” Jacob said, “and I mean it.”

  “Then why the hell can’t you stay with us, where you belong?”

  Where he belonged. For a minute this struck Jacob completely dumb. He couldn’t talk. He couldn’t breathe. The warmth of it washed over all the cold, hard parts deep inside of him, the change so huge it actually hurt.

  “Fine, fuck it,” Hud said, rising to his feet. “I’ve got to go—”

  “I can’t stay at the lodge because I bought this cabin,” Jacob said. “But it’s good to know you’re still a hothead.”

  Hud didn’t say anything. Not a single sound, and Jacob stared at the phone, trying to figure out if the call had gotten frozen. “Hud?”

  “The cabin is yours?”

  “Well, technically, it’s the bank’s,” Jacob said, trying to lighten the mood.

  But Hud wasn’t interested in lightening the mood. “You bought the fucking cabin. Here in Cedar Ridge. With us.”

  “Yeah, well, not exactly there with you,” Jacob said. “Because a little distance from the crazy would be good, but it’s only six miles, so it’s close enough, right?”

  For the first time in way too many years, Jacob had the pleasure of seeing Hud smile. It took him only a second to realize it was mirrored on his own face as well. And hope—something he hadn’t allowed himself because it felt like a luxury—bloomed in his chest. Not trusting his voice, he didn’t say a word, but he knew he didn’t have to. Sensing movement, he craned his head and took in the vision in his doorway.

  Sophie, in nothing but the scent of his soap and his towel.

  “I’ve gotta go,” he said to Hud.

  “I know that look,” Bailey murmured.

  Hud narrowed his eyes a little and stared at Jacob like maybe he was trying to read him the same way Jacob had tried to do to him only a minute ago. Then Hud’s eyebrows vanished into the hair falling across his forehead. “Looks like maybe there’s something else keeping you in Cedar Ridge besides the cabin.”

  “It’s not what you think.”

  He smiled. “Wanna bet?”

  Jacob blew out a breath. “I’m