Hud had stopped walking, just stopped on a dime in the middle of the hallway. Slowly. He pulled off his sunglasses and stared at Jacob, relief and joy evident on his face.
Jacob nearly hit his knees at that. With his heart suddenly feeling way too big to fit inside his rib cage, he took a few steps toward his brother.
Hud met him halfway, wrapping his long arms around Jacob, clapping him hard on the back.
For the first time since Brett’s funeral, Jacob felt emotion, hot and all-consuming, swell up and block his throat.
Arms still tight around him, Hud lifted Jacob off the ground—not easy to do—squeezing the hell out of him while he was at it. “Holy shit. How much does all this muscle weigh?”
Jacob shrugged. It was his job to be big and bad, which, yeah, was pretty much a complete turnaround from the too-skinny, too-scrawny kids they’d once been. Which reminded him all that was between them.
And given the look on Hud’s face, it’d hit him too. His twin schooled his features into a blank mask so fast Jacob’s head spun.
“What the fuck, man?” Hud said, taking a step away.
“Hudson Kincaid, you watch your language!” came a woman’s shocked voice, a voice that Jacob would know anywhere.
His mom.
He and Hud turned in unison to the patient room where Hud had come from. Carrie sat on her bed wearing black leggings with bunny slippers and a huge bright pink sweatshirt that said NEVER STOP FIGHTING. Her hair was as it always had been, so light blond it looked like a cotton ball, the flyaway strands doing whatever they wanted. Eyes locked on both Jacob and Hud, she slowly set down her tablet. “It’s not a dream.” Her mouth fell open. “Oh my goodness, it’s not a dream,” she whispered, and her eyes filled. “Jacob?”
Jacob managed a nod. His voice, when he managed to speak, was low and rough. “Yeah, Mom, it’s me.”
She brought shaking fingers up to her trembling mouth.
He let out a breath, feeling like he’d been stabbed in the gut. “Please don’t cry.”
She closed her eyes, and a few tears spilled out down her cheeks.
Hud sent him a fulminating look, and Jacob knew he deserved no less. “Mom—” he whispered hoarsely, letting out an oomph of air when she launched herself off the bed and flung herself at him. Since she was at least a foot shorter than he was, it wasn’t all that hard to catch her. Holding her tight, he pressed his face to her shoulder.
“Did you think I wouldn’t find out?” she asked in a hurt voice. “Did you?”
“Uh…” Lifting his head, he eyeballed Hud, who was a granite statue and no help at all.
Carrie pulled away and shook a finger in his face. “How many times have I told you, cutting school is bad. Baby, you need your education. You’re so smart. You’re going to make something of yourself. I just know it. But Mrs. Stone called me and said you missed her math test…”
Mrs. Stone had been Jacob’s sixth-grade math teacher.
And he had absolutely ditched her class often, usually to get to a card game at a neighbor’s house, where he’d used his considerable math skills to count cards and make their rent money. “I’ll make it up.”
“Yeah, well, see that you do,” his mom said, looking very much the same as she always had, which was a little batshit crazy and a whole lot wonderful, the warmest, sweetest woman on the entire planet. And as she always had, she brought out conflicting emotions in Jacob. Rough memories of being a kid and yet having to be the adult, relief that she was exactly the same, the only person on the planet to unconditionally love him even if she didn’t know what year she was living in.
She hugged him again. “It’s just that you can do better,” she whispered, squeezing him, her small hands patting him gently. “You can do so much better, Jacob. Please try.”
He closed his eyes and held her. “I will,” he promised.
“Hud can help you. I know you’ve been doing all his English and history papers.” She gave Hud a long look before turning to Jacob. “Let him pay you back by helping you in math, okay?”
Jacob met Hud’s gaze, which was cool and assessing. Nope, there wouldn’t be much help coming from that direction, for anything.
“Now shoo,” Carrie said, pushing them both to the door. “I’ve got book club to get to.” She picked up a book from her bedside table.
Fifty Shades of Grey.
Hud choked and then turned it into a cough when Carrie looked at him.
“That’s the book you’re discussing at book club today?” he asked.
“Yes,” she said, her cheeks a little pink. “And don’t ask me to tell you about it. There’s nothing in here for thirteen-year-old boys, trust me. I’m raising you right, so I’d best not ever hear in the future—way in the future, when you’re grown men—that you treat your women anything like Christian Grey treats his. You got me?”
Hud lifted his hands in a surrendering pose. “Jacob’s the one with authority issues,” he said. “Not me.”
And then the rat-fink bastard darted out of the room, leaving Carrie to stare at Jacob.
He stared back, finding himself starving for her sweet warmth and affection. He flashed a smile.