Nobody But You Read online

  She knew what that expressionless facade meant. It meant he’d been deeply affected by whatever he’d seen.

  She watched him go. Correction, she watched his leanly muscled bod move effortlessly in faded-to-buttery-soft Levi’s that so lovingly cupped his…assets.

  And then she was flanked by the girls in the office.

  “He’s so damn hot,” Dani whispered. “I mean, he just oozes testosterone and badassness, you know?”

  The other office helper, Shelly, hummed her agreement. “Just like his brothers.”

  Sophie divided a look between them. “There’s a pack of them?”

  “The Kincaids,” Dani said. “That one’s Jacob, the missing Kincaid brother. He’s back.”

  Shelly nodded. “Hud looked pissed off about it too.”

  “They’re twins,” Dani explained to Sophie’s blank look. “I’m pretty sure they haven’t spoken in years. Not even when Jacob called or came into town to visit his mom.”

  “Wonder if Jacob’s seen the new mural at the resort yet,” Shelly mused. “It’s got all the Kincaid siblings on it, including him, which has gotta be weird, coming into town and seeing yourself painted on the side of a building.”

  “Yeah,” Dani said dryly. “’Cuz that’s what he’s worried about. Not that he hasn’t seen his twin or his other siblings in years, but what he looks like painted on a wall.”

  “Hey, you’ve seen that wall. You know how good he looks.”

  Sophie was flummoxed. She knew of the Kincaids; everyone in town did. They ran the ski resort up the road. She’d temped in the business office there for two days last week, answering phones, and she’d seen all of them several times. Gray was the oldest, then Aidan, Hudson, and Kenna.

  And now that she thought of it, Hudson and her Lake Patrol Guy—Jacob—had looked alike, very much so. But Jacob was broader and more built, and his hair was military short—a direct contrast to the several-days-old scruff on his jaw. But more than anything, what set the twins apart was the air of danger and authority Jacob emitted.

  Not that Hud was a pussycat by any means. As a cop and head of ski patrol at the resort, he was tough in his own right, but Jacob was a whole new level of badassery and testosterone.

  “Those brothers are hot,” Dani said. “And now that the resort has leased North Beach for the summer to host events, there’s going to be hot guys everywhere—better than any online dating app out there.”

  Which meant that Sophie should put the boat up for sale. North Beach’s campground was where she’d been showering, but once summer got into swing with these events and Kincaids everywhere, including Lake Patrol Jacob, it’d be too crowded for her to be able to lie low. And if she sold the boat, she could go anywhere. Except…

  She didn’t want to go anywhere. She loved Cedar Ridge.

  “You okay, Sophie?” Shelly asked. “You’ve been looking a little green lately.”

  No, she wasn’t okay. She was mad at the entire male population, thank you very much, not that she was about to admit such a weakness. Or her secret shame—Lucas had closed her accounts, forced her from her apartment, and as a result, the once-upon-a-time enviably chic, had-her-shit-together Sophie Marren had sunk just about as low as she could get.

  So low that all her married friends had—politely, mind you—ditched her for Lucas. And just today she’d been dumped by her book club. On Facebook.

  Humiliating.

  But she’d made a choice not to care what others thought of her, including Lucas. And yet another choice, she decided on the spot, would be to fix her life. She didn’t need a knight in shining armor. Especially not one with dark, melting eyes who made her feel far more than she wanted to feel.

  “Sophie?” Shelly asked, sharing a worried look with Dani.

  “It’s nothing,” she said. “I’m fine. I just need caffeine.”

  But caffeine didn’t help.

  Late that afternoon, Sophie walked to the marina and stared at The Lucas where she’d left it. “I hate you,” she told it.

  The kid standing in the booth at the marina gate about twenty feet away started laughing. “Lady, you don’t know your boat very well. The Lucas is awesome.”

  “You think?”

  “Well, sure,” he said. “She rides real sweet. Or that’s what your husband always says when he gets on it with—” He slammed his mouth shut and flushed a beet red. “I, uh…” He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and stared at it with desperation, like he was hoping it’d ring.

  Sophie just shook her head and headed down the dock.

  “Hey, wait! You forgot to pay your day fees,” the kid called after her. “Twenty bucks.”

  Dammit. She strode over to him, shoved her hand in her purse, and pulled out her wallet. It took her a moment to scrounge it all up, but she slapped the money on the booth’s counter between them.

  “Remember you have to be moored by sundown or risk a fine,” he said.

  “I remember.” She climbed onto the bane of her existence, kicked off her heels, sank to a vinyl bench, and closed her eyes.

  And then jerked them open when the wake from another boat came along and jostled her. Before she could start to feel sick again, she moved to the wheel, started up the boat, and pulled out of the marina.

  She’d implied to Jacob that she would be mooring at his place tonight, but hell if she really would. It took her an hour to find a stretch of beach that looked quiet. She knew she could get a ticket, but it was late enough that she hoped Jacob Kincaid had already made his patrol.

  Days went by but Sophie was able to ward off further motion sickness with a prescription patch she wore on her neck. She also somehow managed to get to work and moor the boat secretively every night.

  It was killing her. The constant moving around, the feeling like a thief in the night.

  She’d spent the last two days working at a high-end interior designer shop that catered to the rich and wealthy second-home owners in the area. She was exhausted when, after being on her feet and running around for ten hours, she boarded the boat where she’d left it at the day dock at the campgrounds on the south side.

  She levered the throttle and let the sun and wind hit her face, and for a moment, just a single beat of a moment, she enjoyed herself. But eventually reality sank in. She needed to find a place before nightfall. She’d used up all her secret spots and after half an hour ended up at the cabin where everything had started. It took her a few minutes to tie the boat properly, but a lot less time than it used to.

  She was out of options and had nowhere else to go, no one to turn to—at least no one she was willing to turn to.

  She could leave town entirely. She knew this. She could sell the boat and go. But it wasn’t Cedar Ridge making her unhappy. In fact, she loved it here. She wouldn’t let Lucas take this town from her. He’d taken enough, and she was over it.

  Besides, where would she go? Back to Dallas? Brooklyn, her sister, was a few years older than Sophie. She had her life together and didn’t need the hassle of a baby sister whose life was in the toilet. Her parents were in Dallas, too, but she couldn’t go there.

  It wasn’t until she’d left for college at age eighteen with two hundred bucks in her pocket and an ancient VW that she’d realized there was nothing normal about a father who, on good days, would sit like a zombie on the couch with a month-old beard, unshowered because he was too “tired of living” to get it together to help his daughter with her math homework—even though once upon a time he’d been a brilliant physicist. And on bad days…She closed her eyes at the memory of having to shut all the shades in the house and keep the lights off, not making a single sound for sometimes forty-eight hours or more at a time, not even the creaking of the wood floors beneath her feet, because her dad’s migraines had been so bad.

  No, she was satisfied with the semiannual visits she made to put in her time, to help out however she could. But more than that and she was afraid she’d end up like her dad and forget how to be ha