Page 80 of Heat Exchange
With a sigh, Lydia decided against another drink. What she really wanted was ice cream and she knew for a fact there was a half gallon of Rocky Road in the freezer, but she probably shouldn’t go get it. If she did, she’d have to share and, when it came to ice cream, she didn’t play well with others. Plus, if there was any chance of her friends getting sick as part of their revelry, she thought she’d do her sister a favor and leave the chocolate ice cream out of it.
“You okay?” Ashley asked, and she realized they were all staring at her.
“Uh, yeah? Do I not look okay?”
“Becca just said she likes walnuts in her peanut butter cookies and you didn’t say anything. That’s not like you.”
“Nobody wants walnuts in their peanut butter cookies,” she said, because it was easier than explaining to three drunk women why ranking cookie types wasn’t high on her list of things to do tonight. “Actually, there shouldn’t be nuts inanycookies.”
“You don’t like nuts?” Courtney asked and, of course, all three of them broke out in a case of the giggles.
She managed a smile, but she couldn’t giggle with Aidan so front and center in her thoughts. Not a second went by that she didn’t think about and miss him. She ached for him, day and night, and there was a little voice in the back of her mind constantly questioning if going back to Concord was the right choice.
Kincaid’s Pub was in her blood. No matter where she found a job, it wouldn’t be the same. She had a feeling that Ashley and Danny would be starting a family soon, and she didn’t see how it would even be possible for her to miss any of her niece’s or nephew’s lives, to say nothing of Ashley needing to cut back on her hours. She’d missed Courtney and Becca and would miss them even more when she left. And she wanted things to be good between her and Scotty again, but that wouldn’t happen with physical distance between them.
Most of all, every time she tried to picture the rest of her life without Aidan, it was depressing as hell. Somehow he’d gone from the sexy guy she wanted to scratch some itches with to the man who made her laugh and held her hand and who looked at her like she was the only woman who’d ever made him smile like that.
But Aidan was a package deal. With him came a lifetime of being a firefighter’s wife. She’d raise children who were proud of their dad, but afraid for him every time he went to work. He came with a brotherhood and a code of conduct and expectations.
To get the guy, she had to take the whole set. Aidan Hunt not sold separately. It was a risk she wasn’t sure her heart could afford.
Chapter Nineteen
THEKNOCKONAidan’s door the following evening jacked his heart rate up like a shot of adrenaline to the chest, and he practically jogged to the door. Anybody else he could think of besides Lydia would have sent him a text first.
But when he opened the door, he saw the wrong Kincaid standing in the hall. Tommy had never been to his place before and Aidan felt panic rising in his throat. Fear for Lydia, followed immediately by fear for Scotty. “What happened?”
Tommy frowned at him. “What happened? I knocked on your door and you answered it with no pants on, that’s what happened. Who the hell does that?”
“Shit.” He stepped back into his living room, knowing he wouldn’t get a lecture if there was bad news waiting to be delivered. “Sorry. Come on in and I’ll grab some sweats. It scared me when I saw you because you’ve never been here, so I thought you had bad news.”
“I’ve never been to your place because most of the time you’ve always been at my place or at the bar.”
“Good point.” Aidan grabbed a pair of sweatpants out of the clean clothes basket and pulled them on. “You want a drink or something?”
“Nope.” He sat down at the kitchen table and gestured for Aidan to sit across from him.
Uh-oh. He was about to get a stern talking-to from Tommy, which wasn’t usually an enjoyable situation. Before sitting down, he grabbed a soda from the fridge just in case he was there awhile.
“What’s going on with you and Lydia?” Tommy asked once he was seated.
Aidan clenched his jaw, breathing in deeply through his nose. If ever a conversation required him to think before he spoke, it was this one. “Last I heard, she was going back to Concord.”
Tommy nodded. “Tomorrow.”
If he knew that, Aidan didn’t see the point in asking him the question, but he didn’t say so. “That’s pretty much what’s going on with me and Lydia.”
“You just going to let her go? That’s it?”
“She doesn’t want to be married to another firefighter, Tommy. I can’t change that.”
“Okay. You’re right about that, because you can’t change her.” He nodded. “She’s so much like her mother, it drives me crazy sometimes. Most of the time, actually. Let’s talk about you, then. How do you feel about my daughter?”
“I love Lydia, sir. Absolutely and completely.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“I, uh...”
