Mummy in the Making. Victoria Pade
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She took a deep breath, exhaled it completely and told herself to try to have some composure, to be more outgoing than she was naturally inclined to be. The shyness had never served her well and it certainly wasn’t helping now.
Another deep breath and she opened the bathroom door.
When she did, she could see Hutch Kincaid in the vicinity of the apartment’s entrance again, this time with his back to her as he fiddled with the door handle.
The rear view of him was no less impressive than the front. His jeans definitely didn’t sag in the seat. Instead, he sported a derriere to die for, splendidly displayed in denim.
And from there up? Her gaze began at his narrow waist and rose to broad, broad shoulders that didn’t have the slightest hunch to them. Nope, straight and strong-looking, they formed a V-shaped canvas that squared into biceps straining the short sleeves of his polo shirt with well-defined muscles.
Okay, so there was nothing lacking in the man’s physique. It still didn’t matter to her.
“I just realized that I didn’t introduce myself,” she said when he changed angles and caught sight of her coming out of the bathroom. “I’m sure you know, but I’m Issa McKendrick. I didn’t mean to be rude.”
“Itta?” the little boy said from where he was hunkered down near the door, playing with a screwdriver and a pair of pliers.
“Issa,” she corrected.
“Itta,” the toddler countered as if he’d said it right the first time.
“That’s probably as good as it’s gonna get,” Hutch Kincaid said as he put the screwdriver he’d been using in one of the back pockets of his jeans. Then he put one hand on the knob on the outside of the door and the other on the inside knob. Cupping them, he slowly turned them both back and forth, back and forth…
And out of nowhere Issa suddenly had a flash of something far less innocent being done with those hands. And her own new B-cups.
Where that had come from she had no idea and she was so stunned by it that for a moment she didn’t know what to do.
Then she realized her landlord had no idea what had just shot through her mind and that she needed to ignore it herself. So, still not wanting to be a shrinking violet, Issa attempted to make small talk while he worked.
“I’ve known your brother Chase since I was a kid—he was at our house so much growing up that he was like one of us.”
“I’ve heard that. He’s talked about how unhappy he was with his foster father. We all hate that he didn’t get adopted the way the rest of us did.”
“It came as such a surprise to find out that he had biological brothers and sisters.”
“It came as a surprise to us, too,” Hutch said.
Hutch’s birth parents had been killed in a car accident when Hutch and his twin brother, Ian, were two months old, leaving behind five children—Hutch, Ian, an older sister named Shannon, their older brother, Chase, and a much older half sister, Angie. Angie had been returned to her birth father, the three youngest children had been adopted to two different homes, while Chase had been placed in foster care and grown up in Northbridge, best friends with Issa’s half brother Logan.
It was Angie who remembered the other four siblings, who sought them out and revealed that there were brothers and another sister when she’d faced the end of her own life and needed someone to raise her son.
“All that time Chase had all these brothers and sisters he didn’t know about…” Issa marveled.
“And now there’s also our half sister Angie’s son, Cody, to round things out,” Hutch added.
“Right. A nephew Chase is raising—it’s hard to picture the Chase I knew as a dad. But the whole thing was just amazing. I was here at Christmastime, so I met Shannon and Cody then, and I heard before I left that they’d contacted you and your twin—”
“Ian,” he supplied.
“Right. I’ve only been in town a couple of days, so I haven’t met him yet, but I knew that was his name. Ian Kincaid. And you’re Hutch…”
And she was babbling.
She was just no good at this.
Plus it didn’t help that it had suddenly occurred to her that Hutch Kincaid had exactly the same color eyes as his older brother, Chase. And that she’d always thought that Chase’s eyes were gorgeous….
Hutch Kincaid made it easier on her then by picking up the conversation and running with it.
“And we’re even in-laws now.”
It was true. Hutch’s newly found sister Shannon had recently married Issa’s brother Dag, although Issa had not been able to attend the ceremony. Her plane had been grounded due to weather.
“I came to Northbridge for Shannon’s wedding,” Hutch continued. “That was my first trip here since Ian and I were adopted and taken to Billings. The wedding was at the end of March. Through April and May I’ve been here off and on, so I’m only beginning to get to know who’s who. Logan and Dag I’ve seen a lot of, and I’ve heard there’s more to your family but I haven’t met the others.”
“And you and Ash live downstairs…”
“For now. I bought the place as an investment. It was a flip—I guess it was pretty run-down when the owners put it on the market, but the local contractor bought it, remodeled it and put it up for resale. I figured I could rent both halves out to college kids in the fall, and in the meantime Ash and I needed somewhere to stay while I look for a house for the two of us. Dag said you needed pretty much the same thing—somewhere to stay short-term—”
“While I look for a house to buy, too.”
“So you’re settling back in your old hometown?”
“I am,” she said without going into any details, even though she was relieved that he was making conversation and facilitating an easy flow between them.
“Northbridge has plenty of charm,” Hutch said. “It sucked me in at first glance and I haven’t found anything about it that I don’t like yet. I even bought out the old sporting goods store to turn into one of mine.”
Beyond his connection to Chase, her half brother Logan’s best friend and business partner, Issa really only knew two things about Hutch Kincaid.
She knew that he and his twin had been raised by former football giant and three-time Super Bowl-winning quarterback Morgan Kincaid. The Morgan Kincaid, who had parlayed his football fame and fortune into the Kincaid Corporation—a conglomerate of retail, rental and hotel properties, car dealerships, restaurants and various other ventures that now included his most recent purchase, an NFL expansion team that he was bringing to Montana—the Monarchs. Their training center was to be built in Northbridge.
The other thing she knew about Hutch Kincaid—only because Dag had told her—was that he’d had his own star-quality career in football at some point but now owned sporting goods stores.
“What’s it called, your store?”
“Stores, plural. The one here will be my fifth. They’re Kincaid’s All Sports. There’s a website, too. We do a respectable share of online business.”
“Cool…”
Cool? Had she really just said that? Issa wanted to kick herself.
Trying to get past the awkwardness as fast as she could, she angled her gaze down to Hutch Kincaid’s son. “What about you, Asher? Do you like sports?” she asked, fearing that sounded almost as dumb as cool.
“I yice cookies…” the toddler answered with an obvious hint.
“I don’t