Pick me up in 5.
Mac ran upstairs, brushed her teeth, and threw her hair into a messy topknot. She yanked on jeans and a tank, then topped it with a flannel in deference to the chill that had finally settled over Havenbrook.
She flew out the door just as Edna’s mail truck came barreling down the gravel driveway. She screeched to a stop, dust billowing up around her, and called out the window, “Hurry up, honey! We don’t have a lotta time before that old fool’s gonna be back home.”
Mac slid into the seat and buckled her seat belt as fast as humanly possible. She’d ridden with Edna enough times to know exactly what kind of driver she was—like she was a seventy-year-old woman who wasn’t getting any younger and had shit she wanted to do. In this case, fuck with her ex-husband turned frenemy with benefits. “What’d Earl do now?”
“Stood me up last night for our standing weekly evenin’ plans.” Edna shot Mac a look over her sunglasses, her eyebrows waggling for emphasis in case Mac didn’t catch the suggestive note dripping from her tone.
“Did you check in on him? Maybe he wasn’t feeling well.”
“And this mornin’, he just happens to be out to breakfast with Betty Jo?” She snorted. “I was born at night, but not last night. Besides, you think I didn’t hear five times before eight this mornin’ exactly what he’d gotten up to?”
“He needs to find better friends who don’t narc on his every move.”
“It’ll never happen. I brought my friends into our too-damn-long marriage, and I kept every last one of ’em when I left his annoyin’ ass.”
“Annoyin’, is he? Then how come you’re still seein’ him?”
She sniffed. “A woman has needs, Mac. And I know you don’t like hearin’ this, but Earl is pack—”
“Tell me about this dead squirrel,” Mac cut in. “And let’s maybe talk about something else constructive we could do today instead of committin’ a felony such as breaking and entering.”
Edna cackled. “Where’s the fun in that?”
She sighed. “Okay, here’s the deal—I promised Will we wouldn’t end up at the police station again, so I’m gonna need us to do something that won’t get us arrested.”
With a glance in Mac’s direction, Edna shook her head in disappointment. “You’re the oldest twenty-seven-year-old I’ve ever met, I swear.”
“You’re the youngest seventy-year-old I’ve ever met, so I guess we’re a good pair. And don’t think I don’t notice you drivin’ straight for Earl’s. Turn it around, Edna. Find us something else.”
She sniffed. “I suppose I could be persuaded to pause my revenge. For the right currency, of course.”
“What do you want this time, old woman?”
“You could tell me about lockin’ lips with our very own hometown hero yesterday.”
Mac gasped and snapped her gaze to Edna. “How’d you hear about that?”
A slow smile swept over Edna’s mouth. “You just told me. Guess this old woman got one past you, didn’t she?” She laughed, slapping her hand on the steering wheel.
“I hate you.”
Edna reached over and patted Mac’s knee. “We both know that’s not true. You love me. Now, how about you tell me about Hudson and his kissin’ skills? And don’t skimp on the details. I’d be happy to give the boy some pointers if he needs ’em.”
Mac lifted an eyebrow. “Don’t you think you’re a little old for him?”
“Not even a little bit, honey. Not even a little bit.”
The irony in Mac choosing to go with Edna to avoid thinking about Hudson was not lost on her. She wasn’t sure which was worse—being forced into it by her obnoxiously-in-love sister who only wanted the same for everyone around her, or by her always-in-heat senior BFF. Mac didn’t need anything fanning the flames of lust she had for Hudson. And she certainly didn’t need to fall in love with him again, especially knowing the kind of love they had was once in a lifetime. Heap ten years of want onto an already smoldering pile of desire, and yeah… She’d pass on that risk, thanks.
“Did you know he runs a circuit around Havenbrook every mornin’? If I time my route just right, I cross paths with him three times.” Edna shimmied her shoulders. “And if I’m real lucky, he’s shirtless for at least two of ’em.”
Mac slowly turned her head and stared at Edna, who just shrugged in response, completely unrepentant in her lust for a man forty years her junior. Though Mac certainly couldn’t blame her. Hudson was a damn fine specimen—there was no arguing that. In fact, she wasn’t so certain a picture of a shirtless Hudson wasn’t currently being printed in the dictionary next to “virile alpha male.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook the thoughts from her head. She absolutely did not need to have sex fantasies about Hudson and all the things he could do to her while she was trapped in a car with Edna.
“I did not know that,” Mac said, her voice tight. “Speakin’ of your route, spill the tea.” If there was one thing Edna loved more than attractive men, it was gossip.
“It’s been a fruitful day already, can’t lie to you there. Let’s see… I heard Hudson’s single. No serious—or not-so-serious—girlfriends waitin’ in the wings. I also heard he’s been helpin’ out at The Sweet Spot with the demolition.” She shot Mac a grin. “Also shirtless.”
Mac blew out a frustrated breath and rolled her eyes. “All right, you perv. Did you hear anything that doesn’t have to do with Hudson or him bein’ half naked?”
“Well, sure, but those things aren’t as fun.” She grinned and shot Mac a wink. “’Course you know about Earl and Betty Jo.” Edna cut off, mumbling something about getting that squirrel into his house one way or another. “Timothy DeBoer was awful far from home this mornin’—and awful close to his ex-girlfriend’s place. Also saw your daddy leavin’ the clinic. He looked fit as a fiddle, but have you talked to your momma lately? Things goin’ okay over there?”
Mac furrowed her brow. She’d just spoken to her momma yesterday, but she hadn’t mentioned anything about it. “Probably just a man cold. He turns into such a baby, I swear.”
Edna snorted. “Been like that his whole life, from what your gran tells me.”
The morning had, indeed, been fruitful, because Edna spent the next two hours filling Mac in on the comings and goings of the dear residents of Havenbrook while they delivered today’s mail.
“We about done?” Mac asked, glancing at the bin that held the mail yet to be delivered.
“Almost,” Edna said, snapping a mailbox closed. “Just have to head up to Havenbrook Lake.”
Mac’s stomach somersaulted at the mention of the lake where she’d spent so much of her childhood. Hudson’s family had a cabin on it, and they’d whiled away huge swaths of their summers there. A barrage of memories overcame her—races down the dock to see who could jump the farthest into the lake. Paddleboarding. Lazing in the hammock. Early morning fishing trips. Hundreds of games of hide-and-seek and too many bets to count.
They’d had two fights their entire lives, and they’d both happened at the cabin. The first had been almost twenty years ago, when Hudson had been playing with the marble her grandfather had given her before he’d died and then managed to drop it in the lake. He’d spent hours looking for it until his skin was wrinkled and pruny, but it’d been lost forever.
He’d made it his mission from that point forward to atone for his mistake, using his allowance to buy her a new marble whenever he could. Even now, all these years later, she ignored the flip of her stomach when she received a package from Hudson, sent from wherever he was stationed around the world and filled with two things—a short note and a marble. She had every color of the rainbow now, not to mention about two dozen tiger’s-eye marbles like the one from her granddad. And if she happened to keep every one of the notes tucked away in a box in the back of her closet, well… No one ever had to know.
Their second fight had been the weekend when everything had changed. When he’d told her he’d b
een keeping a secret from her for months and that he was enlisting. When all her plans shifted and her entire life’s trajectory went off course.
The cabin also held the not-so-innocent memories—their first kiss. Rounding the bases. Losing their virginity to each other. And then the weekend of their last fight, when they’d made up by getting lost in each other’s bodies.
This was the last place she should be now. Especially with Hudson’s kiss fresh on her mind and her lips.
She opened her mouth to tell Edna they needed to turn around. That she had an appointment she’d forgotten about or that she was about to pee her pants and needed a bathroom, stat. Something—anything—to get her the hell out of there.
But before she could say anything, the car sputtered and then died.
Directly in front of Hudson’s cabin.
Hudson drove the familiar path down winding back roads, surrounded by trees lit on fire with their orange and yellow and red leaves. He’d only been back in Havenbrook for three days, but he’d already fallen so easily right back into a rhythm that hadn’t ever quite left him.
He’d thought about traveling this path a thousand times while he’d been deployed. He loved flying his bird, loved the rush of returning to base with a mission complete, but he’d missed meandering through the back roads of Havenbrook in his beat-up truck, knowing exactly where he was going without even trying.
He’d missed home, plain and simple.
And more than that, he’d missed Kenna.
After she’d hightailed it out of his place yesterday like her ass was on fire, he figured he’d give her some time to get used to the idea that this attraction between them still burned as hot as a Mississippi summer, and it wasn’t going anywhere. Because there was no way he was stepping back. Not now that his memories of her taste had been refreshed and were currently taking up ninety-seven percent of his thinking ability.
“You’re really not gonna talk about this, huh?” Caleb said from the passenger’s seat, his gaze focused out the side window. Just because his attention was pointed elsewhere didn’t mean he wasn’t totally and completely in tune with every move Hudson made.
Which meant there was only one way to play this. “Talk about what?”
As if he had all the time in the world, Caleb turned his head and locked eyes with Hudson, one eyebrow raised.
Yeah, so, he’d avoided all talk of Kenna since she’d left yesterday. Since the only thing that had saved them from fucking right there amidst all the piecrusts was Caleb interrupting. If Hudson’s friend weren’t like a brother to him, he’d hate him a little bit for it. Okay, he still hated him a little bit for it, brother-bond or not.
He’d managed to distract and avert Caleb’s attention almost immediately yesterday and figured that was that. No talks to be had, no answers to come up with. He should’ve known better. Caleb was one of the most astute people he’d ever met—nothing got past him.
“I didn’t sleep with her,” Hudson said.
“I didn’t ask if you did.”
Hudson blew out a heavy sigh. “What do you wanna know? I’m not gonna give you a play-by-play.”
“Never asked you to. But considering how much I knew about Kenna before even meeting her, I figured you’d have a few things to say.” Caleb shrugged. “Maybe not.”
Silence hung in the cab, which was nothing new with them. If Caleb said fifty words over a three-hour span, he was running his mouth. But today it wore on Hudson, and he finally shook his head, gripping the steering wheel.
“I want her. Badly. And if I had any illusions that I’d somehow want her less while being here, those were all eviscerated yesterday in my momma’s kitchen just before you walked in.”
“And is Kenna on board with that?”
Hudson barked out a laugh. “Not even a little bit. She runs from things that are risky, and I’m the biggest risk of all.”
Caleb was quiet for long moments. That was it? He wasn’t going to impart some kind of magical wisdom that would show Hudson exactly how he should proceed? True, Caleb wasn’t much for talking, but when he did, Hudson had learned to listen.
Finally, Caleb said, “You know how we have to throttle down?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Maybe storming in full throttle isn’t your best bet with her.”
No, it probably wasn’t. But he didn’t have a lot of time to ease into things. He had two and a half weeks before he was due back on base, and he wanted to spend them with Kenna, not chasing her. He wanted every morning—and night and afternoon and all the hours in between—to be like yesterday. He wanted her in his arms and in his bed.
But she was hardheaded and tougher to crack than a macadamia nut. The only time he’d ever been able to talk her into something she had her mind set against was if he made a bet out of it.
By the time Hudson pulled to a stop in front of his family’s cabin, he’d run through a dozen different possible scenarios with Kenna. The only trouble was, he had no clue which one was the right one.
“Honey, we’re home,” Hudson said, shifting the truck into park.
Caleb stepped out, shutting the door behind him. “Nice place.” He didn’t lift his sunglasses, but he didn’t have to for Hudson to know he was assessing everything about the location, just like he would on any mission. “It’s quiet. Private.” Caleb turned around and lifted his chin toward the heavily forested area at the back of the property. “That yours too?”
Hudson nodded as he walked toward Caleb. “Some of it.”
“Any climbing trails back there?”
Hudson tossed him a quick grin, knowing exactly where he was going with this. “Used to be. Not sure how they’ve fared since Kenna and I’ve been gone.” He lifted his eyebrows and jerked a thumb into his truck bed. “You wanna take a stab at it? I’ve got some tools in the back.”
“Thought you’d never ask.” Without another word, Caleb grabbed his backpack from the truck bed and strode off toward the blanket of trees, a pair of loppers hanging at his side and a determined hitch to his gait.
Hudson took quick stock of the exterior of the property, making a mental list of the items that were deteriorating or in need of repair. For the most part, the cabin was exactly how he remembered it, although it was a little worse for wear now. His momma and Lilah hadn’t spent much time there with the bakery keeping them busy all hours of the day.
While he’d been gone, he’d hired someone to take care of lawn maintenance, as well as a basic cleaning once a month to make sure no critters moved in to the cabin. But hiring people for upkeep on superficial things didn’t do much for the loose railing on the porch or the peeling exterior paint or the window screens that needed to be replaced.
He slid his key into the lock and opened the door, walking over the threshold and immediately sinking into memories made of quicksand. So much of his childhood had been spent here—with his family, of course, but also with Kenna. She’d been a near-constant fixture on their weekend trips to the cabin when they’d been young.
And then when they’d gotten older, they’d used it as their own personal getaway—a place to sneak off to and get up to all kinds of shit he hoped to God neither of their parents ever found out about.
He walked through the cabin, his eyes landing on every place he’d had Kenna’s lips on his. In the kitchen, at the dining table, against the wall in the front entry. When he got to his bedroom, he was already half hard, but seeing the bed and remembering their last hours in it had him at full mast immediately.
Bracing his hands against the doorframe, he hung his head between his shoulders, closing his eyes and remembering what it’d been like to sink inside her for the first time—the true first time. When there wasn’t a bet or an ulterior motive between them. They’d both agreed to lose their virginity together, and while it had blown his fucking mind being inside a woman for the first time—especially since that woman had been Kenna—it was nothing like it’d been when they’d slept together of their own vol
ition. For no other reason than they’d been attracted to each other. They’d wanted and needed each other. They’d loved each other.
He hadn’t said the words back then—she’d stopped him before he could—but he’d felt them. A thousand times over, he’d felt them. Had for years prior to that weekend before he enlisted. Had for years after his enlistment too.
A rumbling motor pulled Hudson out of his thoughts, and he strode to the living room to peer out the window. Edna’s old beater Jeep that she used for mail delivery was sputtering down the gravel driveway before the engine cut off and the car crawled to a stop right in front of the cabin.
He stepped outside and jogged down the porch steps toward the car. The windows were down, and Edna was either talking to herself or she had company.
“Hey, Edna, you all right?” he asked as he leaned down and braced his forearms on the Jeep’s doorframe.
“Well, hey, sugar,” she said, reaching out to pat his arm, but he couldn’t focus on that or the rest of the words that came out of her mouth because the person sitting in the other seat drew his attention immediately.
Kenna.
She wasn’t even looking at him. Instead, she glared daggers at Edna, though the older woman either didn’t notice or just didn’t care. Hudson let his eyes roam over Kenna, from her hair carelessly pinned on top of her head, to the low dip of her undershirt and the way it hugged her breasts, to her well-worn and ripped jeans. He wanted them all gone—every last article of clothing off her body so he could worship her skin like he’d been dreaming about for too damn long.
He cleared his throat and kept his arms braced on the doorframe, hiding his inconvenient and obvious erection from Edna’s scrutinizing gaze. “Did you just stop to chat, or do y’all need some help?”
“This damn truck,” Edna said without any heat. But then she seemed to realize how it sounded and slammed her hand on the dashboard to illustrate her anger. Anger that was totally vacant from her stare as she met Hudson’s eyes. “Always breakin’ down on me! Would you be a doll and give us a ride into town so I can grab Frank and get him to come out and look at this pile of junk again?”
Captain Heartbreaker (Havenbrook Book 4) Page 6
