“You mean the ex-fiancé.”

“He was kissing you,” Hud pointed out.

“Right,” she said. “He was kissing me. I was not kissing him.”

He just looked at her.

She blew out a breath and looked around. “Listen, I’d like to tell you the whole, sordid story but I can’t go on until I get some chocolate. And I promised myself that I’d take a few ski runs during my lunch break today. I really want to be a better skier.”

He took her hand and tugged her toward the front of the cafeteria. The lines were long today. Too long. So he steered her past them, grabbing a handful of candy bars on the way.

At the front he waved at the checkout clerk. He’d known Sydney since tenth-grade algebra. He’d done her math homework and she’d written his English papers for him. And sometimes, when he’d gotten very lucky, they’d done other stuff for each other in the back of her daddy’s truck. For each other. To each other…

She winked at him and nodded that she’d put the candy bars on his account, waving him off at the same time. Fifteen minutes later he’d gotten Bailey skis and boots from rentals and had her on a lift with him.

“What are we doing?” she asked, breathless, and it was no wonder. She made getting on a lift a dangerous sport, knocking out an entire line of people. Hud had shown her the right way to get on, which didn’t involve injuring any of his paying guests. “You’re telling me a story,” he said. “And I’m going to make you a better skier.”

At least a non-dangerous one…

“Cocky much?” she asked.

“Nope. Just good.” He dumped four different candy bars into her lap. “Wasn’t sure which one you’d like.”

“You didn’t ask.”

“Didn’t need to, because I covered all the options available,” he said. “Pick your poison.”

“And if I said I wanted all of them…?”

He laughed. “I’d probably try to sweet-talk you out of the Snickers.”

She didn’t look impressed. “She winked at you.”

“She?” he asked.

“The cute blond clerk at the checkout.”

“She did,” Hud agreed. “Sydney.”

“Sydney the cute blond clerk winked at you.”

“Jealous?”

“Of course not. Why did she wink at you?”

“Because I’m cute too?” he asked.

She narrowed her eyes. “You’re something,” she agreed. “But not cute. A mountain cat isn’t cute. Smart, sleek, beautiful, and deadly, maybe. But not cute.”

He laughed again. He was doing that a lot around her. “You think I’m smart, sleek, and beautiful?”

“And deadly,” she pointed out. “And most definitely not cute.”

The lift slowed and then stopped entirely. Someone had undoubtedly fallen off of it either at the top or the bottom. But for once Hud was happy to be stuck on a lift. “Tell me more,” he said.

“About…?”

“Eric.”

“Aaron.” She narrowed her eyes. “And you knew that.”

He shrugged. Yeah, he’d known that.

“He was my first boyfriend,” she said. “For a lot of years. And he’s my only ex.”

“Only?” he asked, not sure he could have heard right. She was sweet and cute and sexy and smart and talented… Why in the world would she have had only one boyfriend?

Because, you idiot, she fought cancer for most of her life.

“I got sick when I was fifteen,” she said softly, confirming his thought as she stared out at the scenic view of the Rockies for as far as the eye could see.

Reaching over, he covered her hand with his. “You don’t have to—”

“No,” she said. “I want you to understand. It wasn’t pretty, Hudson. I ended up out of school more than I was in it. Aaron lived next door and he would bring me my homework and help me.”

Well, hell. He’d been working up a good and instant dislike of the guy and as it turned out, Aaron deserved more than that from him.

The lift still didn’t budge. He could hear the conversation on his radio, turned to low. A beginner had fallen getting off the lift. She was six and was apparently in the middle of a full-blown temper tantrum.

Hud had never been more grateful for a spoiled little kid in his life.

A low cloud had moved in and blanketed most of the landscape, leaving them in their own little world. Bailey looked lost in her memories, and unhappy.

He squeezed her gloved hand with his. “You were sick for a long time,” he said quietly, wanting her to keep talking.

“More accurately, I was a dead girl walking.”

He made a completely involuntary sound from deep in his throat. It could only be described as sheer grief at the thought of her no longer being in this world. She turned her hand over to grip his fingers in hers.

Comforting him.

Yep. Most amazing woman he’d ever met.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I always forget. I had a lot of years to get used to it, but I shouldn’t blurt it out like that.”

“Yes,” he said. “You should. Don’t ever sugarcoat things, Bailey, not for me. I want to hear it, all of it.”

She nodded. “I wasn’t supposed to live. We all knew it. Aaron stayed by my side, even when…” She grimaced. “Even when I knew we didn’t love each other in the right way. I dreamed of passion, and I craved it, but I didn’t feel that with him. And yet he was a rock for me, always. Even when, as it turned out, he also needed… more. So yes, he’s still in my life. Sometimes more than I want him to be,” she said wryly. “But I’ve already broken his heart. I won’t push him away as a friend too. I can’t.”

“I get that,” Hud said. He also loved that about her. Loyalty meant everything to him, and she was the definition of the word.

“We’re not together, Aaron and me,” she said, turning her head to meet his gaze as she revealed her own, open and honest. “Not like that. And haven’t been for a long, long time.”

All Hud could manage was a nod because for a while now he’d had a fist around his heart. Part of it was worrying about his mom and her condition. Another part of it belonged overseas, wherever Jacob was fighting for his country and probably his damn life—he’d had no word from Max.

But some of that grip on his heart was Baily and it had just loosened.

Which was bad. Very bad.

The lift started again and then stopped with another jerk. The radio squawked to life. The newbie skier two chairs behind the little girl had been inexplicably wearing jeans—which had gotten frozen to the seat of the lift—and as she’d tried to get off, she’d ended up dangling upside down.

“Do you think she’s literally hanging by the seat of her pants?” Bailey asked, horrified.

He shrugged. “It happens.”

“Not to me,” she said. “Even I know better than to wear jeans to ski.”

“Yeah?” He smiled at her. “What else do you know?”

She gave him a slow smile. “That I want another night with you.”