Page 79 of Tough Love

“Who did you snuggle up with last year?” I feign a shocked look and he laughs.

“Definitely not Morley. This is the first year that I won’t have to freeze.” The smile that cracks his square jaw lights up his blue eyes.

“Is that why Mick is in a bad mood? Ned wanted to be big spoon?” I can’t keep the grin from my mouth. And then instantly I regret my words, thinking Mick will hear me.

Hudson cracks up, his laughter echoing through the trees. “You should probably keep that theory to yourself unless you want some type of wildlife ending up in your tent, Addy.”

“Oh shit! God, I hope he didn’t hear me.”

We make our way to the fire, and three tents are set up close by. The aroma of fresh coffee and something that smells like stew wafts around the frigid air of the camp.

Ned rolls over a stump, dusts off the snow, and pats it, gesturing for me to sit. “Thanks, Ned.”

It’s hard and cold, but the fire is warm and delicious.

“New York, hey, missy?” he says.

“Yup. Lewistown, hey?”

He chuckles. “Born and raised, sweetheart.”

Mick grunts, shoving the end of a long stick into the fire. Embers fly up into the air, fizzling out as they touch the snowy canopy above us. “Didn’t do you much good, either.”

“Speak for yourself,” Ned says, pointing a finger.

“You’re not from here, Mick?” I try to break the ice with him.

“Sort of.”

“Mick’s a man of few words, Miss Howard. He’ll warm up to you, about ten minutes out from home, in about a week, I reckon.” Ned tosses a twig at the other man. He swats it away and gives him a scowl.

“That’s okay; so was Hudson, once. And please, call me Addy.”

“This one?” Ned shakes his head. “Never shut up as a kid. Now he’s a chip off the old block.”

Hudson meets the old man’s gaze. “Easy, Ned, you say it like it’s a bad thing. Harry might hear you.”

“That old bastard clues onto everything. You’re probably right. If there’s one man who can read people like nobody else, it’s your old man. Knows what most people need before they do.”

I stare at Hudson, and his eyes find mine as his jaw feathers. I mull the words over in my mind and pull back the memory of the day I met him. The glance between us that Harry took. His insistence that his son help me back onto a horse. The mandatory ride-along-vet gig. Was Harry reading me or Hudson—or both? Or was it the way Charlie responded to me, like he hasn’t to anyone else except his master?

Hudson is still staring. Is he only now figuring this out, too? Harry knew Hudson wouldn’t deny him the request to make the vet ‘roundup ready.’ It was an easy play. It’s like all the pieces of the puzzle were sitting on the table, and Harry was the one to connect them together.

Oh shit.

He may have read both of us right, but the timing, the situation is wrong. I’m not staying. My contract ends. And I can’t throw away my career and be penniless. I shake my head, breathing faster.

“You okay, missy?” Ned asks, resting his hand on my arm. Hudson is staring into the fire, his throat working up a storm.

I stand and turn to Ned. “I’m sorry, I’m going to go to bed.”

He simply tips his hat, eyes searching mine, as if reading what I’ve figured out. Something like regret and hurt, fueled by the embers of desperation, wraps around my heart and tightens its surly grip.

After a while, the tent flap moves. I pretend to be asleep. But it’s too early, and any fatigue I was feeling a moment ago is washed away by the thoughts galloping through my head. Thoughts about Hudson, me, and my veterinary career. Harry’s goddamn stinking intuition.

Hudson sits on the end of the blankets and takes off his boots and hat before lying next to me. But he doesn’t touch me, only lacing his hands behind his head and staring at the peaked top of the cream tent.

“Addy, about what Ned was talking about?—”

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