by Jill Shalvis
with new growth. Once things dried up, it was going to be a hell of a fire season.
Not that there was any other job he’d prefer. Maybe it was the adrenaline junkie in him, maybe it was just his need for fast-paced action and nonstop adventure, but he thrilled to the insanity that was wildland firefighting.
He drove through the resort’s lower parking lot past the employee housing and offices, which made him think of Lenny. He’d tried calling him again to check on him, make sure he was okay.
Lenny had ignored the call.
Aidan continued on past the base building that held the mountain café, their equipment rental and sales shop, a general store, and the beauty salon. He turned onto the private service road that circled the resort. His truck bumped along on the dirt road, up past the lodge that housed ski and avalanche patrol, first aid, and the ski school to the very last building.
Originally the three-story log cabin had been the ski lodge. Built in 1920, it held plenty of personality and old rustic charm—emphasis on old. In other words, it was a true POS. There’d been a reason his family had abandoned it for a new ski lodge, but because it was a historic building they hadn’t been allowed to tear it down.
So Aidan and his siblings had made it their home—or as close to a home as any of them had ever had.
Not that it was ever as cozy as the word home implied. They were the Kincaids, after all, and there wasn’t much coziness about Aidan or his pack of wild siblings. Although they were a lot less feral than they used to be.
Cedar Ridge Resort had gone into a tailspin after their dad had started traveling a lot back when Aidan was two years old. Then around the time Aidan became a surly teenager, the truth had come out. Richard Kincaid hadn’t been traveling for business, he’d married another woman and started a second family.
And then a third.
To say that discovery of this had been hard on their mom was an understatement. When the dust had cleared, Richard was gone. He’d walked away from all of them.
Char had done her best to keep the resort going, but her injuries had never completely healed quite right, which made managing on the mountain tough. Plus, she’d had her hands full trying to get the wild, rebellious boys under her roof through school without killing any of them or letting them kill each other. The twins had shown up when they were twelve, and Kenna, from a third family of Richard’s, came a few years later, just before her twelfth birthday, for the ski circuit. The kids, all of them, had been her priority, and she’d done the best she could.
Gray had taken over for her as soon as he could, gathering in all the wayward half siblings.
They’d all stuck together—except for Jacob, who’d taken off at age eighteen and joined the army. He hadn’t been seen or heard from since, a fact that drove Hudson nuts.
In the meantime, Gray, along with his Midas touch and business degree, had worked his ass off. Not to mention pushed, prodded, and bullied the rest of them into doing the same. It’d taken a lot of blood and sweat and maybe a few tears—not that any of them would admit to such a weakness—but they were operating in the black.
Barely.
It was a start. And Gray was still cracking the whip hard, coming down on everyone around him. Always had, probably always would. He was the toughest son of a bitch Aidan knew, and he had only one weakness.
A five-foot-two domino named Penny.
Okay, so they all had a weakness for Penny, as she’d long ago worked her nosy self into each of their hearts.
The entire lot of them were like a pack of kittens, they couldn’t stand to be together but they couldn’t stand to be apart either. In the end, secretly starving for togetherness while fighting daily, they’d divided the building up for all of them into four living quarters. Aidan and Hudson were on the bottom floor. Kenna had taken half the second floor, the other half being full of all the crap they’d accumulated over the years. The third story was for the marrieds, Gray and Penny.
Char lived in a small condo in the town proper and rarely ventured up here to the resort because it brought back bad memories for her. Aidan had the same bad memories, but he was good at locking his shit down tight.
He parked his truck and jogged up the front steps. He keyed his way in and walked through the foyer, shedding his sweatshirt and shoes as he went.
They used what was formerly the lodge’s lobby as a living room/secondary office/great room, and the large room was most definitely lived in. The huge, overstuffed and battered leather couches in a wide V in front of a wood-burning stove held a variety of different remotes and several throw blankets, not one of them folded. There was also a flat-screen TV, a sound system, and two dead potted plants gifted to Aidan by an ex who’d been attempting to domesticate him.
And then there was the coffee table, currently littered with trade magazines and more than a few empty glasses that no one would claim because if you got caught leaving anything out, you had to clean the entire place.
Penny’s rules. And every one of them was afraid of Penny, so those glasses would not be claimed by anyone with a brain.
The first thing Aidan heard was yelling. This came as no surprise. The Kincaids didn’t have much in the way of volume control. Yelling was what happened when they were on top of each other night and day. Hopefully at some point they wouldn’t both work together and live in the same building, but for now, for better or worse, no one had made the effort to move away. Maybe because they’d grown up without much family and were making up for lost time. Or maybe it was sheer laziness.
Home. Sweet. Home.
By the time he shed his gear and stood in the middle of the living room, where he could also see into the kitchen, the yelling had stopped. He found Gray face-first in his fridge and Kenna sprawled on the couch. Aidan tossed his keys into some fancy bowl Penny had put on the coffee table. “What the hell’s wrong with your own places on your own floors?” he asked.
“I don’t have a couch yet,” Kenna said.
Like Hud and Jacob, Kenna hadn’t grown up in Cedar Ridge. Her mom had brought her to Colorado for the skiing, and it hadn’t been long before she’d joined the professional snowboarding circuit and become a world phenom by age fifteen. After that, she hadn’t set down roots anywhere until she’d imploded her life last year. Publicly. Very publicly.
She still wasn’t on the people train. The only socializing she tolerated was her half brothers, and even then only barely.
“You can stay,” Aidan told her and looked at Gray. “But not you.”
Gray scowled. “Why not me?”
“You’re eating my food.”
Kenna snorted. “That’s because he texted Penny asking her what was for dinner and she texted back that his dinner was in the cookbook, any page, and that the ingredients were all at the store.”
“So I came here,” Gray said, mouth full as he foraged, holding up salami and cheddar cheese. “You and Hud stock the good stuff.”
“It’s called the deli aisle,” Aidan said. “Also at the store.”
“Penny won’t let me have salami or dairy,” he said. “Says it makes me gassy. You should see the stuff in our fridge, it’s all green and ‘healthy’ shit that”—he used air quotes—“cleans our colon.”
Aidan grimaced. “That’s—”
“Disgusting,” Kenna filled in. “And let me perform a public service announcement here and tell you that you seriously overshare.” She stood up.
Gray pointed at her. “Stay.”
“Um, yeah, hi. My name is Kenna and I’m the boss of me. Not you.”
“Goddammit,” Gray said. “You’re not going back to your cave and holing up for another night.”
“Again,” she said icily, heading toward the door. “I call my own plays.”
“Hold up,” Aidan said, and snagged her hand before she could escape, pulling her around to face him. “What’s going on?”
Kenna gave him a pointed look that said, Ask Gray.
Behind her, Gray circ
led his finger around his ear—the universal sign for crazy.
Jesus. “I’m not playing kindergarten teacher today,” Aidan told them both. “Someone’s going to have to use their words.”
Gray stuffed three pieces of salami into his mouth all at once, and then let out a groan. “Oh, my God—this is the real deal, fully loaded with all the fat and everything. Damn, I almost forgot what I’ve been missing …” More groans and moans.
Aidan shook his head. “You sound like you’re starring in a Red Tube video.”
“That’s because this salami’s almost as good as sex,” Gray said, and the moment the words escaped he whipped around, clearly making sure Penny hadn’t shown up and overheard him comparing their sex life to salami.
Kenna shook her head. “You’re so whipped.” She tugged free from Aidan. “Okay, I’m out.”
“What’s the rush?” Aidan asked. Gray wasn’t the only one worried about her.
She sighed. “I’m not in the mood for another fight.”
Aidan slid a look in Gray’s direction. His brother’s jaw was doing that tightening thing it did when he was pissed and trying to control himself. “Seriously,” he said to them both. “What’s going on?”
“I’m tired,” Kenna said. “I just want to go to bed, but Gray here thinks I’m acting like an old lady and should hit the town.”
After her self-destruction last year she’d turned herself into a hermit. They’d been trying to work on that with her, but the truth was, they just wanted to fix her and she didn’t appear to be in all that big of a hurry to be fixed. “I could give you a ride,” he said casually. “Want to go get a drink?”
“Hell no,” she said. “The last time we had a drink, you tried to give me the sex talk.”
“No, I tried to tell you not all men think with their—”
“Stop!” she said on a rare laugh, covering her ears. “The first time was bad enough.”
“How about if I take you up to Mt. Hennessy?” he suggested.
There’d been a time when she’d loved to go four-wheeling up to Mt. Hennessy with him. The faster they’d gone, the louder she’d laughed in sheer delight. At the top, they’d sit on the edge, their feet hanging over the crevice a thousand feet below and they’d just … be. In a rare moment of openness, she’d once told him that had been her favorite thing to do next to strapping on her board and taking any double X diamond run on Cedar Ridge.
But now she just shrugged her indifference.
“Come on,” he coaxed. “I’ll even yell into the crevice and maybe nearly get arrested by Hud again. Just for you.”
Kenna smiled a little at the memory of Aidan taking her up there last year. They’d taken turns yelling themselves hoarse into the canyons, laughing at the echoes. They’d been so loud that someone had called the cops on them, saying someone was screaming bloody murder. Hudson had responded to the call and been pissed to find two of his siblings screwing around.
“Good times,” he said, nudging her shoulder with his.
Her smile vanished, and she sighed. “Maybe another time.” She met his gaze. “You look pretty done in, A.”
Aidan felt Gray take a second, longer look at him as well. “I’m fine,” he said.
“You’re not,” Kenna said, laughing a little. “You’re as screwed up as I am and we all know it.” She patted his cheek like he was the baby sister. “You do know you don’t always have to take care of me, right? You can work on taking care of yourself.”
With Gray still looking at him like a bug on a slide, Aidan tugged lightly on Kenna’s ponytail and bent a little to look right into her eyes so that she really heard him. “I know I don’t have to take care of you. I want to.”
She sighed again, and he prepared for her to roll her eyes, but then she surprised him and walked into his arms. She even let him hold her tight for a beat before pulling free.
She wasn’t back on the touch train yet either.
And then she was gone.
“Shit,” Gray said, staring at the door. “She’s not getting any better.”
“Yeah, but she’s not getting worse,” Aidan said. He took heart in that.
The front door opened again, but it wasn’t Kenna coming back. It was Hudson. He was in uniform, holding half a bagel and a to-go cup of coffee.
Gray gave him a brows-up glance.
Hudson ground his teeth.
“Yes or no?” Gray demanded. “You play, you pay.”
“Shit,” Hudson said, and looking pained, he kicked off his shoes, shoved the bagel into his mouth, and still holding his coffee, he untucked his shirt. He was leanly muscled, emphasis on the lean. Without the shirt tucked in, his pants sagged down on his hips, revealing a strip of pink satin beneath.
Women’s panties.
Gray grinned.
Hudson shook his head. He’d had to wear the women’s panties or lose a bet. The Kincaid brothers had a long-running joke that had started out with a tie Gray had gotten as a gag gift. It’d had penises on it. Gray loved to have it delivered to either Hud or Aidan, and the rule was that the recipient had to be seen wearing it before he could deliver it to one of the others.
Penny—not a supporter of the penis tie—had nipped that shit in the bud when she’d shoved the thing into the office paper shredder.
After that they’d switched to underwear. Aidan couldn’t remember why, exactly, other than that it was funny. Now, once a month or so, whoever had last been punk’d would purchase and have delivered a particularly embarrassing pair of undies, and they had to have proof that they were worn the day post delivery no matter what.
Gray, who’d sent this particular pair, shook his head. “Dude, pull your pants back up, what if Penny walks in?” So far they’d managed to keep her out of the loop on the undies thing. No sense in bothering her …
At Gray’s question, Hudson just shrugged—which loosely translated meant, Penny isn’t here, so why should I worry? At the movement, his pants sagged beneath his ass. Completely unself-conscious, Hudson frog-marched through the place with his pants still at his ankles, vanishing into his room.
Aidan’s stomach rumbled loudly, and Gray tossed Aidan the package of salami. “Feed that beast. And how did that last call turn out? The kid?”
Aidan shoved some of the meat into his mouth. “Got him home to his hysterical mom in one piece. Can’t say the same for the husband, though. He was supposed to be watching their son while Mom was out shopping. He’d gotten into the game, and the kid walked out the door right beneath his nose.”
Gray winced. “That’s going to hurt.” He took the salami back from Aidan and grabbed some bread and a knife. He added mustard, mayo, cheese, lettuce, and some tomato, then handed the sandwich to Aidan.
Aidan wasn’t the only caretaker in the family. He looked down at the sandwich. “Aren’t you going to cut off the crusts for me, Mom?”
“Bite me, bitch.”
“I should,” Aidan said. “Explain the Lily thing.”
“I did.”
“How about in a way that actually makes sense,” Aidan said.
“The salon needed an experienced stylist and cosmetologist,” Gray told him. “I told you Jonathan was looking for someone.”
“Yeah, but you didn’t tell me he was going to hire Lily.”
“Because you didn’t call me back.”
Aidan shook his head. “When?”
“A couple of weeks ago,” his brother said, with a vague wave of his hand as he dove back into Aidan’s fridge. “You were on a call fighting that Eagle Peak fire or something.”
“You mean when I was gone for nine straight days working twenty-four seven fighting that seventy-five-thousand-acre fire, trying to save a hundred homes and uncountable livestock?”
“Maybe.” Gray pulled out some leftover Chinese. He sniffed it, shuddered and grimaced, then shoved it back into the fridge. Next he found a plate of brownies and his eyes lit. “Score.”
“What about our rule?” Aidan asked
. “The no working with exes rule.” He yanked the plate from Gray’s hand. “And those are mine. A woman brought them by the firehouse. For me.”
“The statute of limitations regarding working with exes is long over as it applies to Lily,” Gray said, and managed to steal a brownie off the plate, licking it to claim it.
“Are you serious right now?” Aidan asked. “How old are you?”
Gray grinned. “And plus, Lily’s not a real ex. She’s more a fantasy ex.”
That it was mostly true just pissed Aidan off. Yeah, okay, so he’d fallen hard and fast for Lily. Unfortunately the recovery from her leaving without so much as a Dear Aidan letter hadn’t been nearly so fast.
“Did you ever find out what she thought she was doing up near Dead Man’s Cliff?” Gray asked around a mouthful of brownie.
