Hard to argue the truth. If it’d been just Aidan, he wouldn’t give a shit if the resort crashed and burned. To him, the legacy and his father’s memory were tainted by the vastness of the man’s betrayal. Aidan had absolutely zero loyalty to his dad. But for his siblings and his mom, who’d been hurt way too much, he’d do anything and everything, even though the Kincaids could’ve been pictured in the dictionary under dysfunction. But one thing they did and did well was stick together.

Always.

To get themselves out of the financial mess they could have gone the corporate route and sold out, getting stockholders—but none of them were all that fond of institutions or rules. So, by unanimous decision, they’d gone the hard route.

Status quo for a Kincaid.

Probably today’s so-called board meeting would also be status quo—which meant it’d be Gray and Aidan and their half brother Hudson yelling at each other while their half sister, Kenna, watched YouTube on her phone. But just as Aidan pulled into the lodge’s parking lot, his cell buzzed.

An S&R call, which had him pumping his fist, because only one thing could get him out of the meeting and he now had it.

A lost mountain climber on Palisade Peak.

Aidan responded to the text with his ETA and put the truck into gear again. Halfway back to town was the local fire station, which they shared with the county’s S&R team.

Aidan’s home away from home.

Within five minutes he was geared up and heading out with his unit. He’d cleared his mind of everything, the board meeting, his ongoing concern about his mom and her physical health, and especially the sexy blast from his past in a deceptively soft, beautiful package named Lily Danville, and got down to the only constant in his life—work.

Chapter 5

Lily drove up Pine Pass Road, her heart thumping harder and heavier with each beat. For the hundredth time she glanced down at the address on her GPS, saw she was still going the right way, and kept at it, jaw tight.

The thing about GPS, it didn’t really reveal hills and valleys. Everything looked deceptively flat on the screen. She’d seen the name of the street and assumed the salon was the one she remembered being downtown.

She’d been wrong.

So wrong, she thought, gut quivering as the elevation climbed and she began to suspect her final destination.

She hadn’t been on this mountain in a long time, or any mountain as a matter of fact. Not a single one since that terrible day when Ashley had died.

And then her dad.

Which had been reason number one and reason number two for leaving Colorado.