My Kind of Wonderful Read online

  on her face?”

  “Listen to you,” Hud said. “You fell in love and got all stupid and mushy.”

  “You don’t know what you’re missing,” Gray called out as Hud walked away from his brother’s smug face.

  He did know what he was missing. And that was part of the problem.

  Halfway through the week Bailey had gotten an email from Cedar Ridge Resort and her tummy quivered. So did some other unmentionables because just the sight of the email brought her back to the weekend before.

  She’d kissed Hudson Kincaid.

  She had no idea what she’d been thinking. Nope, scratch that. She knew exactly what she’d been thinking—that she’d been so happy and excited and hopeful, and on top of that she’d been standing right there in front of a good-looking guy who’d been smiling at her like she was hot as hell.

  He hadn’t seen her as a cancer patient.

  He hadn’t seen her as someone to feel sorry for.

  He hadn’t seen her lying on the bathroom floor, sick as a dog, unable to lift even her head. He hadn’t seen her throw up. He hadn’t seen her stripped of her dignity, stuck on hospital death row in a gown with needles protruding from her everywhere.

  He’d seen her as a woman, a sexy one given the light in his eyes. And it’d been the most empowering, wondrous feeling. She couldn’t have contained herself if she’d tried.

  So she hadn’t tried.

  She’d kissed him instead.

  God, she’d really kissed him…

  The email stated that her draft was family approved and she could start whenever she was ready.

  So she’d rushed through the rest of the week and the following Saturday morning she hit the road before dawn. She was just pulling into the Cedar Ridge Resort parking lot when Aaron called.

  “You’re not home,” he said. “I’m standing at your door with two McDonald’s breakfasts and you’re not home.”

  “Nope.” She paused and bit her tongue so the automatic I’m sorry didn’t pop out. She wasn’t sorry. She was happy. She had an entire weekend of working on her mural in front of her. “I didn’t know you were coming by. I told you what I’d be doing with my next two months of weekends.”

  “You’re at Cedar Ridge,” he said, none too happily.

  “Yes.”

  “You had a long week at work,” he said. “Scott said you were run ragged.”

  This was the problem with her biggest client being her ex’s brother. She’d known that going in and she’d known that going out. The ties hadn’t been fully severed and never would be. “I’m fine, Aaron,” she said as gently as she could. And actually, she was so much more than fine. Excitement was thrumming through her and she couldn’t wait to get to work.

  “I’m tempted to come up and see that for myself,” he said.

  “No,” she said. Not gently. Bailey forced herself to speak calmly for fear she’d set off his protective nature and he’d come up here no matter what she said. “I’m working. We’re not together anymore, Aaron. You know this.”

  “What I know is that it was a mistake to let you go.”

  “My choice,” she said quietly. Firmly.

  “And my fault,” he said just as quietly.

  Unbidden came an image of Aaron locked in the arms of another woman, pressing her against the wall, his face a mask of savage pleasure—a side he’d never shown her, not once.

  She’d wanted that kind of smokin’ chemistry. She needed it and craved it like air.

  But it was too late for that.

  Another image came to her, a far better one. Hud pulling her in hard and kissing her like she’d always dreamed of being kissed, hard and hot and deep… “You’re going to let me do this,” she said.

  No response.

  “I’m going to repeat that,” she said. “You’re going to let me do this.”

  “As long as we stay friends,” Aaron said. “You promised that, Bailey. And friends check on each other.”

  “Agreed,” she said. “And I’ll let you know when I need checking on.” With that, she disconnected. She slid on her jacket and got out of her car, stretching her legs. The air was crisp and felt good. She felt good. Maybe she’d only been in Cedar Ridge twice before in her life, but somehow the place already felt like home.

  Chapter 8

  They’d had a big storm over the week, Bailey saw. The lot had been cleared but she could see several feet of new powder in the berms lining the walkways.

  Kenna Kincaid greeted Bailey and shook her head when Bailey marveled at the new snow.

  “Three feet,” Kenna confirmed, sounding annoyed. “And people have come out of the woodwork to ski it this weekend too. Hud and his crew have been working twelve-and fourteen-hour days getting ready. It’s going to be crazy today.”

  Bailey hadn’t given much thought to the day-to-day life of those who actually lived here and had to run this place. But if Hud’s phone and radio last weekend had been any indication, he was swamped twenty-four-seven.

  Kenna took her to a large storage unit where they had scaffolding stored among other equipment such as a large snow-blower and a snowcat. “Help yourself in here,” Kenna said, and then eyeballed Bailey’s small frame. “You going to need help?”

  In truth, Bailey had no idea. She’d never worked on scaffolding before, but she gave her standard statement. “I’ll be fine.”

  When Kenna shrugged and left, Bailey went to work. She separated out the steel bars and wood planking and was banging with a hammer on two pieces of steel that were stuck together when the doubts slid into her brain.

  What had she been thinking? How did she possibly think she could handle building the scaffolding on her own? Or for that matter, the mural itself? What did she know about painting on such a scale? Panic hit her then, right in the gut, and she sat on the floor and pressed her forehead to her knees.

  Don’t worry about staying inside the lines, darling…Bailey could still hear her grandma’s voice, joyful and in high spirits, even though she had already been fighting the cancer that would slowly drain the life out of her. But she’d never lost her positive nature, never.

  Don’t worry about whether you can do it, Bailey-Bean. Just pretend you can. Pretend enough and it becomes real.

  That was how her grandma had lived her life and it was how Bailey intended to live hers. Her grandma would want this for Bailey, and Bailey wanted it for herself. It was on her list. She wanted to paint a mural big and happy enough that her grandma could see it from whatever cloud she was sitting on, watching from above.

  So she went back to hammering the shit out of the steel.

  “What the hell?”

  She whipped around and found Hud staring at her. He was in ski patrol gear today, looking official.

  And officially hot.

  She did her best to roll her tongue back into her mouth, and smiled. “Hey.”

  “My sister said you were about to be stupid and not admit you needed help.”

  “So you came by to get a front-row seat for the stupidity?” she asked.

  He smiled. “You’re going to drive people crazy with all the banging.”

  Pretend enough and it becomes real.

  So Bailey lifted an eyebrow and pretended she was a sexy siren. “Now there’s a complaint I’ve never had before,” she said in her best Marilyn Monroe whisper.

  He laughed.

  Okay, so maybe she’d have to work on it. “So you, what, drew the short straw to go rescue the stupid chick?”

  “No.”

  “No?” she asked, a little breathless because he’d come inside the storage unit and had stopped only when they were toe to toe.

  “I won you,” he said, his voice whiskey smooth.

  Her good parts quivered. “What does that mean?”

  “In our offices,” he said, “everything that has to be done each week goes up on a scheduling wall, which inevitably starts a fight over who’s going to do what, so we started a new thing this year. W