She wasn’t even out serving. It was three in the afternoon, and the little lunch crowd had already filtered out. The dinner and bar crowd wouldn’t be getting in until a good bit later, and she ended her shifts early, wanting to be home with Ella when it got late...not that there was much purpose to that, of course.

She was in the kitchen working on some Danishes for the next morning when the back door creaked open and in walked Hudson Quinlan, over six feet of solid asshole.

Tali hadn’t seen him since the night of the wake, when he’d stormed out after their shouting match. Her mouth fell open slightly; she hadn’t been expecting it, and her brain seemed to be struggling to make a choice about what to do or say.

For a moment, he just stared right back at her.

She imagined there were a great many thoughts hidden behind those light-green eyes of his, but she couldn’t read any of them.

And then, just as she was about to make her useless tongue wake up enough to demand to know what he was doing there, he smiled. She hadn’t seen him do that before. His teeth were perfect, and it made his eyes even more stunning than they already were.

She hated it.

“Talia. Hey,” he said mildly, walking further into the kitchen, toward her.

It was absolutely freezing outside and Tali was wearing about three layers of super unflattering sweaters that Mabel had loaned her. Mabel had promised to soon unearth some “more stylish” ones from storage that her youngest daughter had left behind, but had not yet managed to do so.

Tali hadn’t minded. But now Hudson was sauntering in wearing a dark green plaid button-down and jeans that fit so well, and there were little flakes of snow resting in his thick brown hair and on the tips of his long eyelashes. He looked like he’d walked right off the pages of a Patagonia catalog. Now she suddenly felt extremely self-conscious of her dowdy appearance.

She took a step back as he approached. His eyes flickered toward her retreating feet for just a moment, but he continued to smile at her, a bit more hesitantly.

“How...how’s it going?”

“What?” she blurted, eyes narrowed, shocked at his would-be casual question.

“I was just wondering how you…” he started, running a hand through his thick brown hair, the snow melting away as he did. “I’ve been...meaning to track you down for a while now—”

“Why?” she asked, expression hard.

Had he?

He’d definitely come by a couple of times for Ella since their first meeting, but Tali had chosen to make herself scarce whenever she knew he was headed over. She’d have happily gone her whole life without having to face him again. She still burned with anger and humiliation whenever she thought about the way he spoke to her the night of the wake.

What did he want with her?

Probably to tell her to just go back to LA, since Ella obviously couldn’t stand her and he was better suited to look after her. He was in at least a half-dozen pictures around Matt’s house, taunting her. She’d go to open the fridge in the morning and there he was on a stupid Polaroid, a tiny Ella sitting on his shoulders, both of them smiling hugely. If any pictures of Tali and Ella existed, they were buried in a storage unit in town where her mother had lived.

He shuffled his feet, clearly unnerved by her coldness, though really, what the hell did he expect?

“Uh, well, I was hoping to talk to you. I’ve been going over our conversation from that night—”

She snorted loudly at that. “Conversation. Huh. Interesting word choice. I guess the Newcomb dialect is a little different from LA’s, because I wouldn’t call that a conversation,” she said, giving him a frigid stare before turning her back on him. For something to do, she picked up a large mixing bowl and headed over to the sink to rinse it out. She heard his footsteps behind her and cringed.

“Right. You’re right. It wasn’t. It was... I realize that I was...I mean, Matty would absolutely beat me senseless if he knew I’d talked to you that way, and I—it was totally unfair of me to do so,” he said.

Surprised to hear him admitting it so directly, she stopped scrubbing her bowl to listen as Hudson went on, still clearly nervous and stammering.

“I just...I can see how good you’ve been to Ella and how hard you’ve been trying and... I realize how hard it must have been to...to commit to all of this. But I really think it was the right choice, Tali, and it’s uh, really admirable of you to have made it and—”

He trailed off, because she’d swiveled around to face him again, too full of fury to ignore him any longer. She didn’t care that he was sorry. He should be sorry, but she didn’t care that he was.

Her mixing bowl had long since clattered to the bottom of the sink, the water still running.

“Uh-huh,” she said, marching forward and skirting around him to pick up some dirty utensils on the counter, then swiveling back around to throw them into the sink. “Okay. Are you done?”

“Um. Well, no. Not really,” he said, clearly not enjoying the way this was going.

His brows were furrowed, and he looked almost helpless as Tali continued to stomp around the kitchen, barely looking at him. It was pitiful, almost comical, considering how broad and masculine he was, but she wasn’t in a laughing mood.

Good, she thought. Suffer.

“I really owe you an apology, Tali. Matty and Ella have been the closest things I’ve got to family. I’ve known her since the day she was born, and I’ve been there all along. I know how much she loves Newcomb, and how many good memories Matt made sure to build for her here. I just, I was just…in a messed-up place that night, and I was scared, honestly, that you were going to take her away. I got desperate, all right? The whole world shifted the day we lost him, and I still haven’t found my footing. I wasn’t thinking clearly, Tali. But I am sorry, I swear—”

“Save it,” she said quietly.

“What?” he asked, stunned.

“Save your breath, Hudson. Look, I can appreciate that you loved my brother and you love my niece. That’s…great. Really. But I didn’t ask for an apology and I don’t want one, okay? I’d rather just not do this. If you really want to make it up to me, just...leave me alone.”

She may not know him well enough to read all his expressions, but it was perfectly obvious that he found her reaction deeply disappointing.

Too bad.

He’d hurt her that night, made her feel small and selfish.

His words had played in her head a million times since, and every time they did she felt like shit. Every time Ella slammed a door in her face or ignored one of her questions, all she could hear was his voice telling her about all the other people who’d gladly take Ella off her hands, and it made it harder than ever to imagine their relationship would ever grow into anything meaningful.

“Tali, please,” he said, stepping closer to her again. He looked desperate, like he wanted to reach out and grab her, though he seemed, thankfully, to think better of it. “I’m…I’m admitting I was entirely at fault here. And I’m trying to bury the hatchet—”

“Yeah, well, you don’t get to decide that, Hudson!” she snapped, jutting her chin up at him. God, he was tall. And broad. She couldn’t let him or his solid chest or his pleading green eyes distract her though. “Not after you’ve used said hatchet to beat my character to death and make me feel like a goddamn monster!”

She said it with passion and conviction and all the righteous anger she could muster, but she still felt like a little yappy dog next to him. Still, her bark must have been at least a little fierce, because he finally took a step back out of her space. Which was good, because he smelled like pine and something else, something masculine that she couldn’t define, and it made her distracted and dizzy.

“I didn’t...I didn’t mean to do that,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”

His eyes were soft and so sincere. And were there flecks of gold in all that green?

It doesn’t matter.

She wasn’t ready to pretend it was okay.

“Okay. You’re sorry. That’s great. That’s fine. Thank you for that,” she said, briskly, making it abundantly clear that it was not fine and she was not thankful. “You’ve barged into my place of employment and said your piece. I’ve listened. Now can you kindly get the hell out of here?”

He looked at her for a moment, and she thought she saw his jaw twitch like he was holding back a smile. Those damn green eyes of his seemed to have some sort of...twinkle in them now.

Why? There was nothing about any of this that was even a little funny.

“Uh. Well…”

“What?” she demanded, furious and flustered. He’d been here far too long already. It was throwing her off. Her heart was damn near pounding out of her chest and her hands—which normally had some of her LA tan on them—were pure white from how hard she was clenching her fists.

“The thing is,” he said, a bit awkwardly, rubbing at the back of his head. “While I was certainly hoping for a chance to see you and attempt to apologize... you are not the, uh, main reason I’m here.”

Uh. What? Tali felt her face starting to burn, and prayed it wasn’t totally obvious to him.

He gave her a chance to say something, but she couldn’t get anything out, so he went on, “I’ve got a delivery. For Mabel.”

Oh.

Kill me now. Someone. Please. Or...ground, open up and just swallow me, anything, she thought, swiveling around so he wouldn’t see her cringe.

She headed for the door that led from the kitchen out to the bar and screamed, “Mabel! There’s... someone here with a delivery for you!”

Please. Come rescue me from this nightmare.

No such luck.

A moment later, she heard Mabel call back, though not with any response Tali wanted to hear.

“Oh, that’ll be Hudson, dear. I’m a bit tied up at the minute, but I think you’ve got this one, sweetheart. It’s just a drop-off. You know where the fish go, right? Back left of the walk-in.”

Shit. Shit. Shit.

“Um. Yeah. Okay. Sure!” she called back, dying inside a little.

When she whipped back around, Hudson was grinning, though he wiped it off his face quick enough when he caught sight of her dangerous expression.

“Let’s get this over with,” Tali muttered, charging past him toward the back door.