Page 48 of Cabin Fever Baby

“Um.” She glanced up at me, her big blue eyes widening. “No. Funny story.”

“What kind of funny story, O?”

“The storm is really bad out here.”

“Worse than here? Fucking Kentucky doesn’t know what snow is. It’s only like six inches here and the whole freaking state shut down, for fuck’s sake.”

She winced. “Well, we have more like six feet by now.”

“Six feet!” The man’s voice boomed through her phone.

Who was Kent?

Hell, I’d never even asked her if she was involved with someone. I got the impression she hadn’t been with anyone in a long time, same as me.

Stomping down the initial kick of jealousy, I rewound the conversation to thekiddocomment. It must be one of her brothers.

Shit, I needed a goddamn moment here. I didn’t have any right to be jealous.

No, that wasn’t fucking true, either.

I had to own it at this point. We were new and intense—and hell, it didn’t work geographically—but I wasn’t going to discount my feelings for her.

Even if part of me wanted to shrink back and leave the room. I should give her privacy. I shouldn’t push her for more.

But she made me greedy on several levels. Including knowing all about her and the people who had made her who she was.

If that made me a sap, then so be it.

I stepped around her to get into the frame for the video call. “I’m Hudson MacGregor. A snowplow ran me off the road, and I ended up crashing into her yard.”

The man in the video was exhausted and disheveled. It seemed as if he was in a hotel of some kind. I figured it was an airport, but it looked more like a hotel lobby. His bloodshot blue eyes—so much like Ocean’s—narrowed suspiciously.

His gaze lifted to the fading bruise on my forehead, currently in the ugly mottled green and yellow stage. “Is that so?”

“Truly. There haven’t been many plows coming through. Not that we have really been watching the news, but?—”

“And why is that?” Kent bit out.

Because I’ve been having sex with your sister all over the cabindidn’t seem to be the proper reply.

“We’ve been distracting ourselves?—”

“What he means is we’re fine,” Ocean interrupted. “We’ve been doing a lot of cooking.” Ocean elbowed me and panned around to the cookies and pans on the stove. “I’m still hoping you guys can come.”

Kent’s sigh rung out clearly across the line. “I’m trying, but I may not get up there until after Christmas, kiddo.”

Ocean’s shoulders sagged. “I know. Just try to come. We have a whole week between Christmas and New Year’s.”

“Oh, I will get there. I just don’t know if it’ll be Christmas day.”

“Christmas is when we make it.” Her voice was full of bravado and false cheer.

Kent knew it as well as I did.

But that was what she needed right now.

“She’s safe with me. My brother lives about a mile away. We just haven’t been able to get me out of here. My rental car’s a total loss.”