“Well, you’ve been gone a long time, honey,” Char reminded her. “But this goes back a ways too. My ex—the son of a bitch—racked up a lot of gambling debts and then took a loan out on the business. None of us knew of course, not for a long time. And by then it was too late. Now the balloon payment’s coming due and it’s in my name and the boys are killing themselves trying to figure the entire mess out. Gray’s been tearing his hair out about it for a couple of years now. They’ve been working hard on some options, but nothing’s come through yet.”

“I’m so sorry,” Lily said. She knew how much the resort and property meant to the Kincaids. She couldn’t imagine how betrayed they must all feel. And Aidan. Her heart hurt for him. “Will they lose the place?” she asked softly, half afraid of the answer.

“They might. The boys are certainly going to have to cut staff this next quarter to try to lower costs.” Char’s eyes sparkled with unshed tears that she sniffed away. “Okay, listen to me run my mouth. They’d hate it if they knew I was talking about this. They’d also hate to see me cry over it. So they won’t,” she said with determination, lifting her chin. “But if the worst happens, I’ll tell you what, I’m going to hunt that man down myself and finish what I started all those years ago and I’ll use more than my frying pan this time.”

Lily didn’t know Hudson or Jacob as well as she knew Aidan and Gray, but she did know that not a single one of them would let that happen. She drew a deep breath and called Aidan.

“Kincaid,” he answered after the third ring, not sounding particularly happy to hear from her.

She held her breath and nearly hung up.

“Lily,” he said, still impatiently but with something else as well.

And that something else coiled through the connection, jump-starting her heartbeat and scraping across her belly. And farther south as well. She closed her eyes. “Remember that favor I owe ya?”

He paused. “Yeah.”

“I’d like to repay it. Now.”

Crickets.

“So if you could come over,” she said.

“I just got down off the mountain from a rescue, I’m filthy dirty.”

Oh, the images that conjured up in her mind … She shook them off. “It’s okay. It won’t matter for what I have in mind.”

A shorter silence this time, filled with a new kind of tension.

And her nipples went hard. “Aidan? You still there?”

“Your place in ten.”

Her place? What the— Omigod. “No, I’m at the Mane Attraction! I have a treatment I want to give you!”

More crickets.

“Aidan?”

“In ten,” he repeated.