Page 3 of Collision of Winters (Hillcroft Group #4)

I scrunched my nose. Um, where was this food? Because I’d rummaged through the cupboards above the sink and counter, and I’d only found some dry goods. We couldn’t live off that every single day.

After taking off his boots and parka, he went over to the nearest window where he had a big wooden chest. He gestured for me to join him, so I pushed off all the blankets.

As I walked closer, I saw the chest was packed with more dry goods. More flour and pasta and rice and cans.

“The shed is its own freezer,” he went on. “It’ll be even colder soon. We’ve got a storm system comin’ in.”

Just great.

He closed the chest again, then pulled his hoodie over his head and walked over to the basic kitchen. “Whatever you do, don’t leave food outside,” he told me. “We have quite the population of predators, and they don’t all hibernate.”

Fucking fantastic.

“Won’t they snack on the dogs?” I asked.

He let out a chuckle. “They might try if I don’t get there first.” He grabbed two pots from below the counter—a skillet too.

“The dogs are my alarm system. Once they start barking, I head out with my shotgun. Which sounds worse than it is. The bears don’t really come close unless there’s food lying around. ”

Had I mentioned I was going to die here?

“Where are the dogs when you’re not around?”

Wade furrowed his brow and cast me a look over his shoulder. “They come home with me, of course.”

“Oh.”

I didn’t know.

I wasn’t as close to Wade and Chris as I would’ve liked these days, and it wasn’t only because we didn’t live in the same state anymore. They saw each other all the time, and Dad and Chris even worked together. When I’d lived at home, we’d had dinners often.

I couldn’t actually remember the last time I’d visited Wade’s ranch.

“So what’s the plan here?” I walked closer to the kitchen and leaned against the wall next to the bedroom door. “How am I gonna get my shit together and become perfect like you and Chris?”

He huffed a gruff laugh. “Since when are we perfect?”

Bitch, please.

Maybe Wade didn’t expect a response, because he moved on as he emptied two cans of crushed tomatoes into the smaller pot.

“We don’t have a big agenda, Kayden. We just know that since you moved three years ago, shit’s gone downhill.

You’re not happy anymore, you’ve gotten into trouble with the law, and we barely see you.

” He slid me a brief look. “Three months in jail is nothing to scoff at. You have a record now.”

I swallowed hard and did my best to keep my face composed.

My stomach twisted painfully.

“Yeah, well. Every family needs its black sheep, I guess.”

He frowned and shook his head, adding garlic paste and some seasoning mix to the tomatoes.

“I don’t believe you’re as unaffected as you let on,” he said. “Have you talked to a professional about your struggles? Are you depressed?”

Oh, for the love of?—

“Thanks for the diagnosis, but I’m good.” I trailed back to the couch and slumped down on it.

“That wasn’t a diagnosis. It was a question,” he told me. “It can happen to all of us—even your so-called perfect brothers.”

Whoa, what? I sat up straighter and peered over at him. “Are you depressed?”

He wasn’t allowed to be depressed!

“I have been,” he answered honestly. All casual, while he poured water into the larger pot. “It’s why I left the hospital around the time you moved. I can’t handle stress anymore.”

How did I not know this? It wasn’t as if we never talked. I saw them for major holidays, and not once had Wade mentioned depression and stress.

“How come you never told me?” I asked in a small voice. I didn’t like this one bit. Wade had to be okay.

He sighed and bent over to get a fire started in the woodstove. “It didn’t feel like something I wanted to bring up on Christmas or Easter. Besides, we’ve never had that relationship. I barely told Chris—until he forced me to admit something was wrong after I couldn’t work for a week.”

I frowned. “How would he know you couldn’t work?”

Wade smirked a little. “Yaya ratted me out.”

I had missed a lot.

“But you’re okay now?” I pressed.

He nodded once. “Almost fully recovered. My threshold is just much lower.”

That made sense. “’Cause you’re old.”

That one earned me a scowl, and I grinned. I couldn’t help it.

“I see you’re still a fuckin’ brat,” he muttered.

Yeah. Totally. Brats were awesome.

We fell into a semi-comfortable silence for once, and I watched him prepare supper.

My anger and hurt were going to return eventually, but for the moment, it felt good to be with Wade again—to see with my own eyes that he was okay.

He almost made me forget I was in a cabin in the middle of fucking nowhere. Without a functioning toilet.

“By the way, how do you shower out here?” I asked.

“Right here , I don’t.” He walked over to the chest to look through his stash o’ cans.

“We need the small generator we have here to keep the temperature high enough to prevent mold buildup when we’re not around, so we decided not to overburden it.

We have a better generator at the boathouse that powers a freezer, a shower, and an incinerator toilet.

I use those as much as possible.” He dug out a jar of olives and a can of lentils.

“If you work hard, you’ll get to use them too. ”

Excuse me? I gotta work hard to earn the right to use a shower?

He sent me a faint smirk on the way back to the kitchen, knowing full well that could piss me off.

“For the record,” he said, “I’ve missed you very much. But this isn’t going to be a vacation. You’re here to get your priorities in order, and I’m going to help you.”

I smashed my lips together and clenched my jaw.

“My hope is to convince you to go back to school,” he went on.

The anxiousness was instant, putting a noose around my throat and raising my hackles. Talking about work and school tended to make me defensive, and no fucking wonder. I refused to admit out loud I was stupid. I’d rather let them think I was reckless and not interested.

There was nothing wrong with my fucking priorities.

I was just too dumb to get decent grades.

I couldn’t focus, my spelling was shit, and teachers hated me.

I was doomed to fail at everything. Meanwhile, when I’d joined the Winters family at the age of nine, Chris and Wade had been old enough.

Chris had earned his degree in forensic science and worked in private security, and Wade had been a decorated soldier who’d once abandoned med school because of 9/11.

“Quinlan wants to pay for it, you know,” Wade added. “If you move back home.”

I swallowed against the nausea that thickened my throat, and it took all my strength to remain calm. I couldn’t let him see me lash out or react too strongly, because he’d put two and two together.

It’d been a full-time job to hide my failures from them. Mostly Wade and Dad.

The only thing that had ever worked for me was distance. I’d recognized it from the day I’d moved in with them as a pissed-off kid. I couldn’t get too close.