Was Dalton reacting to the cold…or to her?

At the latter possibility, warmth suffused her, turning to a streak of desire. She’d missed being appreciated, missed the stimulation of being attracted to someone. She stroked his face, realising how full his bottom lip was, how soft.

“Allaire,” he whispered, his gaze filled with a longing so intense that her entire being trembled. Then, before she realised what was happening, he slid his arm to the back of her head, drawing her down to meet his lips.

She pressed against him as he buried his fingers in her hair and spread his other hand over the small of her back, urging her even tighter against him.

So this was what it felt like to kiss her best friend…

To Beverly, whose art is eternal, too.

CRYSTAL GREEN

lives near Las Vegas, Nevada, where she writes for the Cherish and Blaze® lines. She loves to read, over-analyse movies, do yoga and write about her travels and obsessions on her website www.crystal-green.com. There, you can read about her trips on Route 66, as well as visits to Japan and Italy.

She’d love to hear from her readers by e-mail through the Contact Crystal feature on her web page!

Dear Reader,

Young love. True love. A love that hasn’t faded over time.

The moment I was given this story to write for the MONTANA series, I adored Dalton Traub. He’s the best friend from school who always stayed loyal, who would do anything for his “pal,” Allaire. The thing is, she never knew how he felt about her – not even when she ended up marrying his older brother.

What a heartbreaking premise, and when I was given the chance to see how their reunion plays out over ten years later – after Allaire is divorced and Dalton returns to Thunder Canyon – I felt my heartstrings getting tugged without mercy. I hope this story does the same for you… especially if you’ve ever had a Dalton in your life.

Happy endings,

Crystal Green

www.crystal-green.com

Her Best Man

Crystal Green

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Chapter One

One would think Allaire Traub would be smart enough to recognize her best friend across a parking lot. But when she first saw him, she had no idea it was the man she used to call “her D.J.”

Tori Jones, Allaire’s friend and fellow teacher, spotted him first as they walked into the parking lot of Thunder Canyon High School. Both her and Allaire’s arms were loaded with lesson plans and workbooks, their cheeks already reddened by a cool September wind.

“Please tell me that’s one of my students’ parents just dropping in for a conference,” Tori said.

Trying to get a bead on who her friend was referring to, Allaire whisked a strand of blond hair out of her eyes. Across the lot, the school band practiced their competition show. A coach’s whistle trilled from the football field to the east.

Her gaze soon fell on a man standing with his back to them, hands in his jeans pockets while he watched the band easing into formation. His shoulders were broad beneath his suede-and-sheepskin coat, his dark brown hair tufted by the same breeze that was presently sending a shiver over Allaire herself.

Without quite knowing what she was doing, she ran her eyes over his body. Nice. Jeans molded over well-muscled legs. His stance was casual, confident. Her art teacher’s fingers itched to shape him, to sculpt and feel.

But…nope, not for her, even if she did like what she saw. These days, Allaire didn’t have the will to invest herself in dating, much less the emotion it took to be intimate with someone. Divorce had sapped the energy right out of her and, even if her marriage had dissolved four years ago, it didn’t feel like enough time had passed to “get out there” again.

However, four years was enough time to get into the habit of being a single woman who depended only on herself, and Allaire had discovered she hadn’t minded that so much.

Really.

She shot Tori an encouraging grin. “You’d better hope he’s not the parent of a failing student. That’d be fun.”

The strawberry-blonde shrugged good-naturedly, wrinkling her nose as she smiled, too. A light spray of freckles added a pixie-like vibe to Tori’s short, wispy haircut. She was so hip that you could tell she’d moved here from a big city like Denver.

“Please,” Tori said. “I don’t mix business with pleasure. Look but don’t touch. That’s what I say—unless the looking comes during my off hours.”

“More power to you then….” Allaire trailed off as the man across the parking lot turned around.

It was as if he’d been tuned in to her presence, sensing the moment she’d walked out of the school. Then again, it’d always been that way with the two of them.

A couple of peas in a pod, Allaire thought, as the man in the sheepskin coat smiled at her.

“D.J.?” she whispered.

He sauntered toward them while the band started to play, horns blaring and echoing through a big blue sky already painted with strokes of pinkened clouds.

“Who’s D.J.?” Tori asked.

Good question, Allaire thought. Who was Dalton James Traub nowadays? She’d thought she’d known the answer all those years ago, when they’d been best friends throughout school.

When he’d been the best man at her wedding to his older brother, Dax.

Allaire paused, then smiled, the gesture weighing on her lips. “D.J.’s a…pal. Someone I haven’t seen in a long, long time.”

“Then I’ll leave you to him,” Tori said. “I need to get home and grade a batch of essays about Moby Dick, anyway. And, truly, I just can’t wait to read all the veiled phallic jokes in store for me. Wish me patience and good humor?”

All Allaire could do was nod as her friend headed toward her compact car. The wind flirted with Tori’s oversized coat and jaunty red scarf as she left Allaire to fend for herself.

Not only had she not seen D.J. in years, she hadn’t talked to him in a long, long time, either. They’d started floating apart ten years ago after graduation, when he’d gone across the country for college. She’d seen him at her wedding, of course, but things had been too crazy for them to really enjoy each other’s company. Then he’d left Thunder Canyon for good, except for a quick trip to his dad’s funeral five years ago, just before she and Dax had divorced. Even then, she and her old friend hadn’t talked to any extent—she’d just seen D.J. at the service, and he’d disappeared immediately afterward.

Stung, she’d been reluctant to call or e-mail, thinking he was avoiding her for a reason, probably because of her strained marriage to his brother. She’d even believed that D.J. might be taking Dax’s side, even if they weren’t the closest of brothers. She didn’t know why that was—neither D.J. nor Dax ever wanted to talk about it. Still, blood was thicker than water, so she hadn’t chanced the contact with D.J., afraid of how much an official rejection from him would hurt.

Now, as he approached, his gait slowed. He actually seemed more self-aware with each closing step.

Would he be uncomfortable around her now that she and Dax were kaput? And what would she and D.J. have to say to each other after all these years?

As he got closer, Allaire’s pulse picked up speed. It was a new feeling, at least around good ol’ D.J., and she didn’t understand why a mere glimpse of him across the parking lot had changed things.

Allaire searched for reasons: her heart was bippity-bopping because she was nervous about seeing him again, that’s all. She wasn’t a big social type, anyway, not unless you counted her new friendship with Tori. Marriage to Dax had been her world until it’d collapsed; she’d married young and never thought to make any friends because she’d had him.

Besides, D.J. was Dax’s brother. Her ex’s brother. There was no place for accelerated pulses here.

D.J. stopped a proper distance away, but it was close enough for her to see how brown his eyes still were, how his cheeks still got those ruddy stains in cold weather, how his hair still refused to keep to its combed style.

Yet there was something different about him now—a lot different. He’d grown up, his face leaner, more angled—sloped cheekbones, a firm chin with a slight dimple.

Allaire’s heart tilted, as if reconsidering him.

“I thought that was you,” he said, voice much lower, manlier, than the D.J. she remembered. Had he sounded like this when they’d fleetingly greeted each other at the funeral?

His tone sent a spark through her, but she doused it. What was going on? Once again… brother of her ex? Hello?

“You’re back in town.” Allaire immediately congratulated herself on announcing the obvious. Everyone knew that Grant Clifton and Riley Douglas had asked D.J. to open one of his celebrated barbecue restaurants up at Thunder Canyon Resort. She just hadn’t realized he would be here at the high school, not when there was so much to be done.

“I thought it might be time for a longer homecoming than the last visit,” he said.

They held gazes and, just when the contact seemed to go on a moment too long, Allaire glanced away, holding her papers tighter against her chest. There’d been something in his eyes, something that she couldn’t understand. An intensity.

Had that always been there, too?

As if to erase the tension, D.J. offered his hand in greeting. Something an acquaintance might do. Something far less intimate than what she thought she’d seen in his gaze.

She reached out to clasp his hand, wondering exactly why it was they couldn’t hug hello this time. But she knew. Life hadn’t only put a lot of miles and years between them—it’d taken something away, too. Something they used to share with such ease.

His hand was large, roughened by work, though she knew his job couldn’t entail all that much hard labor.

Nope, he’d made a small fortune by opening a slew of D.J.’s Rib Shacks across the U.S., meaning he probably spent more time behind a desk crunching numbers than anything.

A wealthy businessman. Her D.J.—the studious kid who’d been too bashful to ask anyone to the prom. At the reminder of how much things had changed, Allaire shifted, suddenly more uncomfortable than ever.

Still, as warmth from his hand suffused her skin, her stomach heated, melting to places she’d denied herself the pleasure of using for quite some time now.

Confused at her reaction, she decided to deal with things the easy way: to be the twenty-seven-year-old paragon of wonderfulness everyone expected. The bright, optimistic, open girl who’d pretty much deserted her, although Allaire still tried to make the world think she was that same person.

“Dalton James Traub,” she said, embarking on easy conversation. “What brings you to our esteemed Thunder Canyon High?”

One of D.J.’s eyebrows quirked, as if noting her sudden personality split. “Straight to business it is, then.”

“Sorry. It’s only that I never expected… I thought you might be busy up at the resort overseeing construction and design of the restaurant.”

“After you heard the news that I was coming back, you must’ve known you’d see me.”

“Actually,” she said, “I wasn’t sure I’d ever really see you again.”

Guilt seemed to swipe across his features. His jaws bunched, a muscle ticking in one of them.

The blare of brass instruments saved him from having to answer as the band pivoted in their direction. D.J. nodded his head toward the football field, clearly asking her to walk with him there. He even relieved her of her workload, easily taking her bound pile of papers as if he were holding her schoolbooks at his side.

Out of old, old habit, she fell into step with him. He’d obviously not forgotten how he needed to shorten his stride to match hers, seeing as she only came up to his shoulder.

They walked down a hill, and the band’s show tune softened into the background. Allaire thought that this might be the perfect opportunity for D.J. to answer her blunt comment about never seeing him again, but he didn’t. No, he had always been the best listener and the best philosophical conversationalist, yet Allaire knew all too well he had always kept a part of himself sheltered.

As he was doing now.

“I thought I might come out here to ask you a favor,” he said, peering into the near distance to scan the new football stadium that’d been constructed over the summer. “Well, not a favor so much as to lay out a proposition.”

Proposition. The word sent naughty jabs down her body, especially since D.J. was the last one she should be making mental innuendos about.

The sensations stopped in her belly, tingling, but she folded her arms and tried to press the awareness into obscurity.

“A proposition, huh?” she said, glancing at him sidelong as they continued their stroll. She wanted to ask him why he hadn’t offered any propositions over the years, why he’d kept to himself all that time.

But she knew D.J. well enough to realize he would get around to it—if he intended to address the subject at all. No use scaring him off with accusations and hard questions right now. She liked the idea of having him around again too much to blow it.

He was grinning, coming off as much more confident than ever. And why not? He was rich now, even though his modest coat, jeans and boots hardly made him out to be a wealthy man.

“Here’s my thought,” D.J. said. “I’ve seen the sets you’ve done for the dinner theater…what are they calling that burlesque show that’s split the town down the middle opinion-wise?”

“Thunder Canyon Cowboys.”

Allaire felt herself flush while referring to the gauche tourist-pleasing production that had premiered after the gold rush. A spread of riches, Thunder Canyon now attracted out-of-towners like flies to a banquet: jet-setters who descended on the resort, as well as curiosity seekers who wanted to check out the town’s Old West appeal. The resort itself had been operational for almost a year, yet that didn’t mean the locals had accepted the evolving status quo. Thunder Canyon Cowboys was just one of many flashpoints dividing the populace: those who embraced the new prosperity and those who didn’t.

“You’ve seen the show?” Allaire asked, cringing at the notion of D.J. sitting through its corniness.

“I…took a peek.” His smile told her he hadn’t lasted long. “And I found out you’d done the artwork, which was definitely the best thing about it. Really impressive, Allaire. Not that I’m surprised.”

Now she was feeling prideful. And why not? She’d labored hard on those set pieces, although she couldn’t say she’d put her entire heart into them. Lately, she’d found it impossible to commit that much to a project. It’d been far easier when she was young and full of dreams.

“So that brings me to my proposition,” D.J. added. “I was hoping you might consider painting a mural inside the Rib Shack.”

She stopped walking, stunned, and it wasn’t because of his request. It was more that he was reaching out to her, even after her disastrous marriage to his brother. Shouldn’t he keep avoiding her, especially because of her failure to make Dax happy?

“Of course,” he continued, “you’d be well compensated. I also understand you would need to keep freelance hours because of school.”

“I…” What should she say? She was still trying to figure out why D.J. had shown up out of the blue to ask her this in spite of how they’d lost touch.

As she searched for a response, the football team jogged past, their practice uniforms dirt-caked. Players called out greetings to her, and she couldn’t help noticing a few students giving her the “You go, Ms. Traub” look as they noted D.J.

Their scrutiny embarrassed Allaire, made her too aware of how everyone in the core community would be talking because she was standing here with a man. She knew that behind her back their tongues were already on fire with mention of how she’d utterly failed in marriage. How she’d shamed herself with a divorce. How Allaire Traub née Buckman, an overachiever in her youth, had been expected to do much greater things with her life.

She especially couldn’t bring on more gossip by getting close to her ex’s brother. No doubt it would cause everyone to wonder if she was making a move on the second sibling after messing up with the first.

She could hear it now. The girl’s plowing her way through those Traub boys, isn’t she?

Sure, she knew D.J. was just offering her a job, and that was a separate issue. But the mere thought of opening herself up to speculation was too much. Her life had gotten comfortable lately, so why ruin that?

“I can’t take you up on your offer,” Allaire said to D.J., her heart slowing to a painful throb. “I appreciate it, but you’ll have to find someone else to create that mural.”

As his shoulders slumped, she wished she could tell her old best friend why.

* * *

D.J. felt as if he had been slammed by the world’s largest hammer.

Damn it, he’d hoped that seeing Allaire again wouldn’t be like this. He’d spent half a lifetime running from his unrequited love for her, and he’d actually believed he’d worked her out of his system.

But the second he’d seen her across the parking lot, it was as if no time had passed at all—she was still so beautiful, with her Alice-in-Wonderland hair styled in an artful, spiky bun held together with two of her smaller paintbrushes. Her figure still small and slender, even under the long, bohemian-stitched sweater covering a black turtleneck, a skirt and boots. Her china-blue eyes and porcelain skin.

She was just as he remembered except, now, there were shadows in her gaze. And D.J. knew how they’d gotten there.

His brother could go to hell for hurting her.

Naturally, Allaire would never know how much D.J. resented Dax, both for the divorce as well as for everything that had led up to it. Yes, charming, bad-boy Dax had recognized Allaire’s incredible qualities when he’d been a senior and D.J. and she had been juniors. But, for D.J., falling for Allaire had come much sooner because he’d been smitten ever since grade school, after brainy Allaire had moved up two grades into his own.

She’d always carried herself with an air of maturity, and D.J. had never minded that she was a couple of years younger. Consequently, they’d grown up together, his affection intensifying by the year.

Yet he’d never made a move.

Not with his best friend.

And when Dax moved in it’d been too late. The pair became the school’s royal couple and, even though D.J. had always waited in the wings, telling himself he’d be there when love-’em-and-leave-’em Dax inevitably broke Allaire’s heart with his carelessness, they’d stayed together. In fact, they’d gotten engaged after Allaire’s graduation.

Then, just when D.J.’s heart hadn’t had any pieces left to be broken, she’d asked him to be their best man.

Normally, D.J. wouldn’t have refused her anything, ever, yet this was different. When he’d gracefully tried to get out of the wedding, she’d begged him to reconsider. Like the good guy he was, he’d broken down, then agreed, leaving her none the wiser as to his feelings. Smiling through the ceremony and acting the part of happy brother-in-law had left him with wounds he’d struggled to heal by returning to college at the University of Georgia and creating a life that didn’t include his brother and new wife.

From that point on, it had been too painful for D.J. to return to live in Thunder Canyon, as he’d always planned. Strange, because he’d pictured himself coming back as a man who’d made himself into someone Dax could never be—truly the best man. In D.J.’s mind, he would win Allaire over once she recovered from the rejection he was still sure Dax would deal out. But the marriage had endured, which meant D.J.’s part in Allaire’s life was over.

So he’d stayed in Atlanta and directed his energies to making good on his business degree. He’d become wealthy by first working at a barbecue joint for pocket change, then experimenting with his own recipe for rib sauce.

The rest was history, until Riley Douglas and the gang—Grant, Marshall, Mitchell and Russ—had persuaded him to open a Rib Shack at the resort.

D.J. had resisted at first, recalling how agonizing it had been to see Allaire at his dad’s funeral, even if he had been grateful his brother had had someone to stand by his side and comfort him. However, D.J. had eventually realized that he was over Allaire now, five years later. It was about time, too. So he’d taken his friends up on their offer, returning to Thunder Canyon as a better man than he’d left…

But at this moment, in the aftermath of Allaire’s latest rejection, D.J. realized that maybe he still wasn’t good enough.

As they stood silently on the grass of the high school that had brought so many good times to their lives, D.J. called upon the confidence he had developed as a wildly successful businessman. You didn’t come out here to win over Allaire, you idiot. You came here to hire an artist for the Shack. Don’t take her refusal personally.

Just as their extravagantly tense pause got to the point of absurd, D.J. forced a grin. “Sorry to hear you can’t do it. You were my first choice.”

Always his first choice.

She dug the toe of her boot into the grass, her arms folded over her chest. “I do want to take it on, but it’s…” She exhaled, then looked him in the eye.

It was a shock to his system, one that had never lost its surge.

“Is this about Dax?” he asked gently, hiding his anger with his older brother. He’d become a pro at that early on. “What would he have to say?”

“It’s not what he’d have to say. It’s that I…we might seem…disrespectful, maybe.” She paused. “It might be insensitive of me to spend a lot of time with you when he and I don’t even talk anymore.”

They didn’t talk anymore. That’s what the gang had told D.J., too. Funny how people, whether they were ex-lovers or ex-friends, just retreated when things got too awful to bear. But it didn’t sound like Dax’s style to fade into any background.

Allaire continued. “Sometimes I’ll see him across the Super-Save Mart or on the street. He’s lost his swagger, D.J., and I don’t want to add to that.”

A warped part of D.J. hit on an irony: while in Atlanta, he had gained the confidence Dax must have misplaced. Weirder still, Thunder Canyon seemed to be sucking it right back out of D.J., too.

It gave him no joy to know his brother probably had shadows in his eyes, just like Allaire. D.J. had always hated the part of himself that envied Dax his breezy good looks and charisma, both inherited from their dad and missing from the much more reserved younger son of the family.

There’d only been one time—after Dax had suffered that near-fatal accident—that D.J. had almost let go of his resentment. Seeing Dax out cold on the hospital bed, so weak, had almost dissolved all the years of alienation and hard feelings.

Almost. When the doctor had told D.J. that Dax would be okay, D.J. had left just as secretively as he’d come in, unwilling to put his wounded brother through the distress D.J.’s presence would have no doubt caused.

“Allaire,” he said, “I can understand why you’d feel that way about respecting Dax.”

“You can?”

“Sure. You’ve always been sensitive to how others feel. But Dax can take care of himself. I doubt he’s going around thinking about how his every action is affecting your opinion.”

When her eyes darkened, D.J. wanted to smack himself. He hadn’t meant to insinuate that she was entirely out of Dax’s mind. How could anyone forget her?

Yet he couldn’t say that out loud, not without giving himself away and risking another sure rejection.

“What I meant,” he said, “is that he’s probably trying to get on with life.”

She laughed shortly. “You don’t have to sugarcoat it, D.J. He’s moved on after four years, all right. And…well, so have I. I never would’ve agreed to a divorce if I’d still loved him like a wife should.”

Again, a terrible part of him—a part he wanted to disown—lightened at the news that she didn’t feel for Dax anymore.

If that was even true.

But something about the ingenuous way Allaire watched D.J. told him that she really didn’t have any emotion left for his brother.

Then again…

God, he needed to stop thinking about how she still might be drawn to Dax.

He shoved his free hand into his coat pocket. All he wanted to do was go to her, touch her. Damn it, he really hadn’t gotten over her at all, had he? And here she was, more ignorant than ever as to how he felt.

Was he really putting himself through this again? Had he returned to Thunder Canyon to be that same old “nice guy” who’d never stepped up to take what he wanted?

Of course not. He was a respected businessman, a success story. This lovesick adolescent boy stuff was going to disappear any second now.

Any second.

In the silence, Allaire offered him a tiny smile—a hint of devilishness on the face of an angel—and D.J. went liquid.

Damn it.

“The thing is,” she said softly, “I really missed you. Missed our old talks. Missed how we could sit around and never even have to talk. I’ve missed having you in my life.”

He tried to barricade himself against her, but it was useless. Still, he found himself assuming the old D.J.’s way of fooling her, of being that steady, loyal, nonthreatening best friend who just stood back while everyone else went after their heart’s desire. The kid who knew all too well how it felt to be left behind.

“I missed you, too, Allaire.”

Had he ever.

“So,” she said, her smile widening, even though it was still tentative, “since I can’t be hanging around your restaurant for hours and hours, would you want to drop by after Open-School Night tomorrow so we can catch up?”

In public, he thought. A safe meeting.

She added, “I’d really like to spend more time chatting tonight, but I’ve got to do some touchups on the Thunder Canyon Cowboys set before the performance and then hole up with work. How about it?”

“I’ll be there,” he said, once more finding that he was helpless to deny her what she wanted.

The best friend. The nice guy.

They went on to small talk about her parents and how they were doing, about her teaching and how she liked it, about changes the gold rush had brought to Thunder Canyon. Then, after reminding him that she had to get to the dinner theater before tonight’s seating, Allaire told him the best time to meet her tomorrow, and D.J. walked her to her Jeep.

In the meantime, he ripped into himself for falling back into the same waiting-in-the-wings buddy he’d tried to leave behind. Nothing had changed between him and Allaire, and nothing ever would.

Yet when he got into his pickup and chanced a look in the rearview mirror, his heart flared.

Allaire was still standing outside her Jeep, an expression on her face that he’d never seen before.

An expression he couldn’t even begin to decipher.

A flicker of hope remained, lighting him up as she got into her car and drove off.

Chapter Two

“It was just…off,” Allaire said while touching up a painted stream on a background piece for Thunder Canyon Cowboys.

Tori had gotten restless while evaluating her essays at her apartment and had joined Allaire at the empty dinner theater.

“What do you mean by off?” she asked, a soy-cheese-and-tomato sandwich muffling her words as she sat at a table near the stage. Both she and Allaire had been experimenting with vegetarianism the past couple of months, ever since they’d met while prepping their classrooms during the summer. Little by little, the outgoing “new teacher” had encouraged Allaire to come out of the shell she’d built around herself after the divorce.

“I mean seeing D.J. again was a very different experience.” Allaire stepped away from the backdrop to survey her work, brush poised in her hand. “He didn’t seem like…you know…the old D.J. so much anymore. But then again, he did. Does that make any sense?”

“No.”

Allaire turned back around to find her friend keenly surveying her while leaning back in her faux-buffalo hide chair. Around her, the pre-performance theater stood in dim Old West spectacle, wagon-wheel chandeliers hovering, washboards, saddles and moose heads hanging on the dark plank walls. Large, round shellacked tables stood ready for the beans-and-beef dinners they’d soon be holding. In the meantime, the scent of old wood, must, campfire grub and paint all combined to create an evocative mélange.

Tori was shaking her head. “Allaire, Allaire…”

“What?”

Her friend raised her hands, sandwich and all. “Are you serious? You really didn’t get the dynamics of what was going on this afternoon? Yeesh. I took off and left you two alone when I felt the first couple of vibrations shake the air. So obvious.”

Allaire realized that this was a pivotal moment: she could either open her ears to what Tori was about to say—something she already knew herself but didn’t necessarily want to acknowledge—or she could turn right back around and keep painting herself into the same corner she’d been in for the past ten years or so. A corner filled with frustrated ambitions and torched dreams.

She lifted her eyebrows, inviting Tori to go on.

“You aren’t kids anymore,” her friend said. “And the two of you realize it, but it seems too weird or…something. You don’t fulfill the same niches in each other’s lives, but it’s too discomfiting for you to adjust your lenses.”

Oh, but Allaire had done just that when she’d first seen D.J. in the parking lot. She’d noticed his broader shoulders, a face that had gained more of what a person might call “character.” She’d never understood what that meant, but seeing D.J. today defined it. His eyes spoke of years spent away from his hometown, his skin grown rougher—a man’s shadow-stubbled complexion in lieu of a boy’s baby-smooth one.

At the thought, her stomach flip-flopped, and she barred an arm over it. What would everyone think if they knew D.J. had caught her eye?

“One Traub boy wasn’t enough?”

And she could just hear what Arianna, her older sister, would say. “Why even bother getting involved at all? Love rots.”

However, the worst part would be in having to face her parents. Sure, her mom and dad could handle the small-town gossip with their normal good grace, but Allaire would know what they were thinking all the same. They would silently wonder where their perfect little girl had gone wrong, why she wasn’t as successful in love as she’d been in algebra or literature or her art electives. They would never say aword, yet Allaire would know, deep down, that she’d disappointed them, just as she’d done when she had gotten divorced.

“So,” Tori said, commanding Allaire’s attention, “tell me you’re not going to pretend that you didn’t see it, too. I swear, Allaire, wake up and smell the cupid.”

“Smell the cupid?”

“Or…whatever. Don’t change the subject. It’s not such a bad thing to be interested in someone, you know. Getting divorced didn’t put a scarlet letter on your chest.”

“They didn’t put any kind of mark on me that I didn’t earn.”

“What are you, perfect? You’d be the only one.”

The other woman set her sandwich on her brown-bag wrapping. “You can’t give them the power to dictate your life.”

“I…don’t.” But, oh, she sure did. She’d been born and raised in this town, watched over by the community and held to their expectations. She hadn’t minded, either, because she’d intended to surpass every marker they’d laid out for her, every goal.

Allaire wandered over to rest her paintbrush, then hopped off the stage and joined Tori at the table.

“D.J. was my best friend.” She reached for her quilted hobo bag and riffled through it for a padded photo case. When she opened it, she smiled at D.J. and Dax’s senior pictures. Both were in spiffy suits, Dax looking suave in a smooth matinee-idol way, D.J. looking like he’d rather be yanking off his tie and ducking out of the frame.

“Wow. This is your ex?” Tori said, pointing to Dax.

No surprise—she’d fixated on the elder brother first. Next to Dax, D.J. had always disappeared into the woodwork.

So what had changed about him? Was it maturity that had given him more of an edge, an alluring quality?

“That’s Dax, all right,” Allaire said. “He owns the motorcycle shop near the Clip ’n’ Curl. He used to race professionally. Doesn’t he look the part?”

“Allaire, you have good taste.”

Allaire shrugged, but her friend had already moved on to inspect D.J.’s photo.

“Aw,” she said. “The boy next door.”

At that, Allaire’s heart sank a little. She and D.J. had lost so much, and she wished she knew how to get it back. You didn’t find friends like him growing on trees.

But what if they could piece their relationship back together? Hadn’t today been a start?

Couldn’t it be the same, even with everything that’d happened after high school?

“Seems to me,” Tori said, “that you outgrew Dax and found D.J. today.”

A sense of panic—or maybe it was the shock of truth—zapped Allaire. “Wrong. Even if your appraisal held any grain of truth, I’d never date the brother of an ex-husband. It’d be awkward, to say the least.”

“Are you still in love with Dax or something? Because that’s not what you’ve been telling me every time I want to go to The Hitching Post on a Friday night.”

Allaire was already shaking her head. “I don’t love him anymore—not in that way. There’s still a…fondness, I suppose. We don’t hate each other. There aren’t even hard feelings. Our marriage was like one of those songs that doesn’t have a real ending, if that makes sense. It kind of repeated over and over until it faded to nothing.”

Tori was cocking her head, fully invested, urging Allaire to go on.

“Dax and I started dating in high school, and our feelings really were genuine. You know how it is when you’re younger. At that point, real life hasn’t intruded much. There aren’t any big compromises to be made yet. And we didn’t live with each other before the wedding, though we did get married shortly after high school. I gave up all the plans I’d made, like going to a state college and studying art in Europe. Those things didn’t matter at the time. I loved Dax and that was top priority.”

“And you got resentful eventually.”

Allaire wasn’t so sure it was resentment as much as regret. “Sometimes young love doesn’t mature very well, and that was what happened with us. When I was a girl, I was this…I guess you could say ‘fragile dreamer.’ And when it turned out that I had a buried independent streak—something I hadn’t been very aware of—Dax balked. Not that I blame him. He’d been expecting a wife who would devote her time to being with him on the racing circuit, and that lost its shine for me pretty quickly.”

“Understandable. So while Dax raced, did you start pursuing those old ambitions? Did you go over to Europe for some studying?”

“I wish.” She’d still been Dax’s wife, keeping the home fires burning. “But I did pursue an art education on a different scale. I decided that by going back to school and getting a teaching credential, I could still live a few dreams through my students. I mean, teaching—what a job, right? I’d get to share my love of art while creating some of it on my own, too. But Dax didn’t see it that way because he wanted me to cheer him on in every race. One night when he was off-circuit, he said I’d become a stranger, because I hadn’t minded being his pep club before. I took exception to that and asked him if he seriously thought I was just going to remain the same compliant dreamer I had been in school.”

Even now, that particular epiphany surprised her. It’d taken years for her to develop, yet so many things had stayed the same. She was still too worried about what others thought, and though she was much more sensible nowadays, she would always have a heart prone to dreaming.

That’s why she spent so much time doing freelance work besides her teaching, balancing the fantasy with the reality as she avoided having to face hard questions about life.

“Darlin’—” Tori leaned over the table to place a hand on Allaire’s arm “—you still might have a lot of sweet and fragile in you, but there’s the heart of a lion beneath it all.”

Allaire smiled, wondering if that were true, especially as she rested her gaze on the stage-bound set pieces.

She didn’t see much heart in her work at all.

The next night, D.J. made sure he wrapped up his meetings with the Rib Shack contractors on time and was out the door before the clock struck eight. Allaire had told him that she’d almost be done greeting her students and parents by that hour.

And D.J. wanted her all to himself.

As he parked his pickup in the lot, he told himself not to get excited. First of all, other teachers would still be around as de facto chaperones. Second of all, he shouldn’t expect her to suddenly realize she’d made a mistake in marrying Dax and run to him instead. He knew his old friend better than that. Both of them realized Dax would be standing between them, no matter how hard D.J. might hope that she really saw him—the man who’d been waiting for her to notice—and not his brother.

He walked into the school’s side entrance, moving past a rainbowed sign that said Open-School Night! Allaire had told him that she was based in Mr. Richard’s old classroom, so D.J. headed straight there. Funny how he still recalled these locker-lined halls, even with the changes—a new wing of classrooms, a revamped office area. Even the same stale school air lingered.

When he found Allaire leaning against a wall and chatting with another teacher, he almost tripped over his own boots. His pulse threaded in and out of itself in a demented race.

Her pale hair was up in that spiky bun again, and she was dressed in a beige suit with black piping that reminded him of a Victorian woman. Even her shoes were those black ankle boots that buttoned up the side.

She was his every fantasy, right here, in the flesh, and D.J. didn’t know if he had it in him to ever claim her.

But, again, he hadn’t come back to Thunder Canyon for Allaire. When he’d left, he’d promised himself that he would return only when he truly became a man worthy of winning her, and he wasn’t sure when he’d get to that point. Or if he ever would. Besides, it wasn’t in D.J. to disrespect Dax by taking up with his former wife. Even though D.J. and his sibling hadn’t spoken much over the years—only via phone calls when Dad had passed from a heart attack—they were still related. Still bonded by family, although D.J. hardly felt the connection.

When Allaire spotted him, he could’ve sworn that she was affected, too. Her gaze locked with his, digging into him until his heart blasted against his breastbone, chiseling at it.

Then she stood away from the wall, sending him a cool smile that had him wondering if he’d imagined the moment.

He took that as a hint to approach, his boot steps echoing off the walls like beats of a clock going backward in time.

Nodding at the older female brunette next to Allaire, D.J. said, “I’d forgotten how this place smelled.”

The brunette laughed. “Teenaged bodies. Sweat, perfume and a general sense of wildness.”

“Smoke, too,” D.J. added.

“From the bathrooms.” Allaire gestured down the hall, where a banner advertised the homecoming dance in pink-glitter glory. “We do our best to monitor, but it’s not always good enough.”

Quickly, she introduced D.J. to Mrs. Steph, the PE teacher and softball coach. Then the other woman excused herself, eager to get home to her family.

“Looks like the place cleared out,” he said while Allaire began walking him down the hall, away from her closed classroom.

“We got a rush around six-thirty. Now everyone’s in the family room watching prime-time TV, I suppose.”

Her talk was light, casual, but the ghosts of old kept thickening every word, weighting them with far more than she probably intended.

“You giving me a tour?” he asked, trying diligently to keep himself in check. But all he wanted to do was reach out—just one time—and touch her hair. He imagined it’d be as soft as the shampoo she’d always used: a lavender concoction. Yet now there was a certain kick to the scent that hadn’t existed before. It drew him until he had to fight himself back.

“A tour was the plan.” She grinned up at him, and it was as if they were back ten years, him walking her to physics or U.S. history. “You haven’t seen the new cafeteria yet. It’s our pride and joy.”

“Must be a trip for you to see how things change before your eyes here. It’s weird enough for me. All the benches and windows seem really small now.”

“Perspective, D.J. How can you not see things differently when you’ve come back here as a millionaire?”

The term struck him as uncomfortable. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

Allaire shot him a curious glance. “Why not? You’re almost a Horatio Alger story—a kid who went to seek his fortune in a big city, apprenticing, then discovering he had a real knack for the restaurant business.”

Honestly, D.J. considered his success to be a bit ludicrous, his swollen bank account obscene. He’d never thought making so much money doing something he loved to be possible. But he’d paid a price, and the cost had been losing touch with the woman he’d secretly loved.

“Honestly,” he said, “I’m still not used to it all.”

She smiled, more to herself than him, really. “That’s not surprising. You were never flashy.”

Not like Dax.

Though the thought went unsaid, it was there, a solid specter.

She seemed to realize it, too. Flipping the subject, she said, “I’ll bet you have to pinch yourself every once in a while as a reminder that you can afford fine things, huh?”

She’d hit the nail on the head, as usual. No one else had ever come close to understanding his every thought. Still, she would never guess that he wished he could use his money to fulfill all those dreams Allaire had treasured in high school: moving to Paris to study the exhibits in the Louvre with all the time and care this would require, setting up an easel on the banks of the Seine to paint the sunset over the water.

But none of that mattered anymore. It couldn’t. Hell, even if D.J. ever summoned the courage to tell her how he felt—or, he told himself, how he used to feel—about her, he would always wonder if she was seeing him as the runner-up to the dashing Dax.

D.J. didn’t want to be her consolation prize, especially since he’d spent a lifetime being second best to his sibling—with Allaire, and even with D.J.’s own dad.

When they reached the cafeteria, which was locked for the night, she peeked through the windows, clearly not recognizing that she was tearing D.J. apart.

“Come here.” She waved him to her side.

He hesitated, then obliged her. Her scent filled him up, made him dizzy.

“They put in a food court,” she said. “Don’t you wish we’d had something like that way back when?”

D.J. didn’t give a hang about the cafeteria.

He must’ve taken much too long to answer, because she peered up at him, her soft lips shaped as if to ask a question. Yet she stopped before a sound came out. Then, almost imperceptibly, she put distance between them. It wasn’t even physical space: it was far more devastating because it was mental, emotional.

“I wish you hadn’t gone to Atlanta,” she finally said.

What could he say? I left because, at your wedding, I wanted to die, Allaire. I couldn’t stand to see you pledging yourself to Dax when I should’ve been the one standing with you at the altar instead.

But voicing that wasn’t in anyone’s best interests. However, there was another reason he’d left, one he’d never told her. Maybe now was as good a time as any to do it since the anguish wasn’t so immediate anymore.

“I’d had enough here in Thunder Canyon,” he said. “Enough of a lot of things.”

“Like…what?” She looked as if she regretted bringing up the subject, but there was something about her that seemed to egg him on, too, as if she wanted him to come clean.

Hell, that was probably just a wish begging for fulfillment.

“When we were kids,” he said, “you might’ve noticed that Dax and I weren’t that close. I’m guessing it became even more obvious after you married.”

Allaire turned to lean against the cafeteria window. At the same time, she kept a chasm between them.

“I suspected that you two weren’t bonded. I never knew why, though.”

“That’s because we never enjoyed what you might call a ‘buddy-buddy’ relationship.”

Allaire frowned, processing something in that quick mind of hers. He’d missed watching her think.

“See,” she said, “I would’ve expected you two to be close after your mom died when you were so young.”

Maybe it should’ve been that way. When Mom had gotten in that accident out near the bypass, Dax had been eleven, D.J. ten.

“It happened the opposite way,” he said, noticing that his voice held a note of latent pain. Maybe this was all much closer to the surface than he’d thought. “Instead of bonding with each other in the aftermath, we went into our own personal caves. I became studious, Dax became interested in his motorcycles, just like Dad. They would work together, night after night, not saying anything, but you could tell it made them feel better. It gave them solace.”

“And that put you out in the cold. Oh, D.J., I never realized that.”

“I never told you. Besides, it’s all in the past.”

The lie tasted foreign on D.J.’s tongue, and he realized that he’d never graduated from the profound sense of isolation that had resulted from being ignored by his dad and brother. He wasn’t about to admit that their bond had made him envious. He’d worked too damned hard to overcome it, and just because he was willing to let Allaire in on some explanations didn’t mean she would get any others.

It was best to hide his resentment toward Dax for stealing their father’s attention when their mother had so recently been snatched from their lives, too. D.J. didn’t even like to recognize this acrimony in himself, and his unwillingness to face it had caused the hard feelings to escalate, then fester when Dax had won Allaire’s affections.

D.J. had been the odd man out in so many ways, but he’d always tried to master the complex. All the same, he kept hating himself for never having the bravado to step up and claim the woman he loved, just as he should’ve stepped up to claim his dad’s attention, also. What made things so much worse, though, was that D.J. knew that he—and he alone—was responsible for all this fruitless pining.

So that’s why he’d tried to become a new man.

A person he could be proud of again.

Chapter Three

Allaire watched the emotions play across D.J.’s face. His cheeks, leaner and hungrier than when he was young, tensed as he clenched his jaw. His eyes were dark and unreadable.

This didn’t feel right, his shutting her out.

“I think I get what you’re saying about your relationship with Dax,” she said. “No one wants to be stranded to fend for themselves emotionally. It wasn’t fair that they cut you out of their inner circle after your mom died, but I’m sure they didn’t realize what was happening.”

“You’re right.”

His tone was weary, and she didn’t sense bitterness as much as acknowledgment. And when he sighed, then walked away, she wondered just what else D.J. had been hiding from her all these years. Had she really known her best friend that well?

Maybe she should’ve made it a point to find out why D.J. and Dax had always seemed civilly distant with each other, even if they’d hung out with the same group. She’d just assumed that, even with the subtle tension between them, they still had a bond, like siblings were supposed to. In her experience, she’d enjoyed a close, if sometimes strained, relationship with her own much older sister and, true to naive form, Allaire had assumed that was how it was for most families.

But after marrying Dax, she couldn’t remember ever hearing the brothers talk on the phone or seeing them exchange an e-mail—not until their dad died, anyway. And even then their communication had been brief and to the point.

A couple of times, she’d asked Dax to elaborate, but he’d told her that he and D.J. were men, and how many men spent hours on the phone gabbing to each other? With a heavy feeling, she hadn’t pursued the subject. Her marriage was already weak at that point, and this was the least of their issues.

However, now wasn’t the time for pursuing the truth with D.J., either, so she caught up with him, bumping against his arm as a tacit way of saying she understood that he wanted to drop the subject.

The second she felt the hard muscle, even through his coat and her suit, Allaire’s skin came alive. Heat zinged through her chest, downward, zapping neglected areas and settling there.

She crossed her arms, wishing the sensations would go away. Wishing they would stay.

Soon, the two of them came to the gym, which was already chained shut. Even so, she seized the chance to look through a window, just as she had at the cafeteria when she’d been searching for anything to avoid the confusion D.J. was conjuring inside of her.

He came up behind her. She could feel the warmth of him, feel his breath stroking the back of her exposed neck.

“Old Mr. Ozzel,” she said, referring to the elderly custodian who was dust-mopping the gym’s shiny wooden floor. “Remember him?”

D.J.’s laugh softly chopped through Allaire. Her nape tingled, prickling the rest of her skin to goose bumps.

What was happening here?

“How could I forget him?” D.J. asked. “That night when you and I were leaving late because of a journalism deadline? Ozzel thought we were up to no good, wandering the halls with a mind to vandalize, so he hid himself and then yelled that we needed to scram or he’d ‘git us.’”

Allaire laughed, even though, at the time, she’d been scared of getting in trouble. Such a good girl. “We didn’t know it was Mr. Ozzel at first, so I ran, and you came after me because I was escalating the situation. He was fast on your tail, waving his mop. But he wouldn’t have caught us if you hadn’t come to your senses and turned around to make peace with him.” She laughed. “You were so well mannered, D.J., even in the face of catastrophe.”

She remembered it all now. D.J. the peacemaker, the levelheaded nice guy who smoothed out each and every hairy situation.

Except, obviously, his own home life….

“I tell you,” she said, her old affection for him feeling new again, “Mr. Ozzel became your number-one fan that night when you handled everything so…how did he say?”

“So like a wise sorcerer who’s out to calm a fire-breathing dragon. Ozzel was way into his fantasy novels.”

“That remains the same.” She smiled, still facing away from D.J. It gave her the courage to voice what she said next. “I think Mr. Ozzel wanted to marry you off to his daughter because you were such a catch. A lot of the girls thought so, too. Just how is it that you managed to avoid being roped in by someone in Atlanta, D.J.?”

She heard his breathing hitch, and heat lined her belly.

Turning her head slightly, still not looking at him, she fished some more. “You did date there.”

Shame on her for asking, but she wanted to know. Needed to know for some indefinable reason.

He cleared his throat, sending a cascade down her body.

“You first, nosey,” he said.

“All right.” No biggie. “I haven’t had much interest in ‘playing the game,’ as Tori might say, since the divorce.”

At his silence, she continued. “I know, I know, I need to start, but…I’m not enthused about trying. Not right now.”

He waited, as if anticipating that she would go on. But there was nothing to add. Zip. Bo-o-o-oring.

At that moment, Mr. Ozzel saw her peering through the window, and he raised a hand from the handle of his dust mop and waved.

She returned the gesture. “And you, Romeo?”

In spite of her flippancy, his voice lowered. “I dated all right. But there was never…anyone.”

“Anyone?” Clam up, Allaire. It’s not really any of your business.

“What can I say?” He laughed, but it sounded almost too jovial. “No one could ever measure up to you, Allaire.”

Her heartbeat yanked and tangled, blood stopping in its flow, leaving her light-headed. But was it because she hadn’t wanted D.J. to say something so blunt?

Or because she had?

When he laughed again, less forcefully this time, she turned all the way around, coming face-to-chest with him. She raised her chin to look up at her old friend, just to see if he was truly joking around.

Time suspended in suddenly thickened air. A flash of something—what?—filled his dark gaze, and his lips parted as if to speak.

Allaire found herself holding her breath, eyes widening. Instinct told her that he was about to turn her world on its ear, and she didn’t know if she could withstand the change. Not after she’d failed so miserably in her first marriage, not after she’d disappointed herself—and her family—so spectacularly.

Besides, this was D.J. D.J.—the one guy who would never threaten her heart.

As if reading her, D.J. pressed his lips together, then averted his gaze as he backed away, hands stuffed in his coat pockets.

Breathless, Allaire couldn’t move for a moment. What had that been about?

Did she even want to know?

She didn’t think so. More than anything, she wanted a friend again. She’d missed his companionship so much, and now she had the opportunity to reclaim it.

He headed back to her classroom, shoulders stiff. Luckily, two of Allaire’s colleagues strolled past, breaking the tension with cheerful good-nights and see-you-tomorrows.

By the time they got back to her room, D.J. had loosened up. She almost would’ve guessed nothing had transpired back at the gym doors but for the way her heart was still jammed in her throat.

At the threshold of her closed door, he sent her a very D.J.-like grin: soothing, sweet. The type of smile moms and dads all over the heartland loved to see on the faces of a neighborhood boy.

Heck, she’d been creating monsters out of shadows, hadn’t she? D.J. hadn’t meant anything back by the gym. He’d truly been joking around.

“In the end,” he said, jerking his chin toward her door, “I really can’t leave without at least seeing what you’ve been up to. You ready to show off?”

Suddenly shy, she meandered past him to unlock the door. Warmth flooded her yet again.

Okay, that really needed to stop.

“You asked for it.” She pushed open the door. “Enter at your own risk.”

She gauged his reaction, hoping for approval, as always. But with D.J., it was as if she were taking him to a favorite viewpoint on a mountain or reading him a poem that had touched her. Although her classroom was public, it was also a private treasure: a place where she and her students transferred all their dreams into art.

She realized how much D.J.’s opinion meant to her. How much it’d always meant, even though she hadn’t been exposed to it for so long.

He entered, silently taking in the ordered insanity of halfway-finished tile murals, collages, paintings, drawings and sculptures. Through him, she smelled the oils and plaster, felt the cool of the air and the shiver of a creative haven.

“Damn,” was all he said.

But, somehow, it meant everything. The extent of his “damn” showed in the glow of his gaze, in the way he planted his hands on his hips as if he were surveying an impressive skyline.

“It’s nothing much.” She wandered to her desk and shuffled through a neat pile of papers, just so she wouldn’t have to show him how much his reaction affected her. “The kids work hard.”

D.J. had walked over to a painting near the shuttered window: a canvas half-shrouded, leaving only a peak of blue-gray uncovered. As he lifted off the sheet, Allaire sucked in a lungful of oxygen.

He’d found it—the project she’d been laboring over since school had started.

It was an educated guess—a whimsical take—on what nighttime Paris might look like from the balcony of a modest hotel. It was a substitute for her never having traveled there, a representation of the ambitions she’d let fly into the wind after high school.

“Allaire,” D.J. said softly, and she knew exactly what he was seeing because she’d described her hopes to him so many times.

Sadness, happiness, something tightened her throat and dampened her eyes, yet she didn’t allow herself to cry. Nothing was so bad it could make her do that.

“That’s how I’ve been letting off steam,” she said carefully. “That and my freelance dinner-theater stuff.”

“This…” D.J. kept staring at the painting, even if it was only the beginning of a final image. “You’ve matured. I always knew you had talent—everyone knew—but, damn, Allaire, what’re you doing teaching in a high school?”

Ouch.

D.J. glanced at her, an apology in his gaze. “I didn’t mean it that way. Teaching’s noble. I was only trying to compliment you.”

The honesty in his tone unsettled her. She didn’t know why, but she’d never been able to deal with praise. It was much easier to believe the negative and strive to improve after that.

The curse of a people pleaser, she thought.

Her next words came out more as a dodge to hearing additional compliments than anything. “Dax said that teaching was a better idea than taking time off to study art. I mean, he told me I was good, sure, but I don’t think he ever paid enough attention to my work to really see it….”

At the mention of his brother’s name, D.J. had straightened, covering her painting back up.

Great. She’d had to go and open her big mouth. Why did Dax always seem to wedge himself into their conversations? D.J. obviously didn’t want to talk about him, but there she was, bringing him up again.

Maybe, subconsciously, she’d even done it on purpose.

D.J. glanced at the ground, then at her. She could tell that there were no hard feelings, thank goodness. Wonderful, dependable D.J.

“I wish you’d reconsider doing that mural for me,” he said. “And I’m not only offering because of the old-friend network. You’d add some beauty and substance to my place, Allaire. I mean it.”

Maybe it was out of guilt for mentioning Dax, or maybe it was because she sensed D.J. genuinely did appreciate her talents. But Allaire found herself giving the idea a second thought.

A new start on a new project, she thought. But there had to be rules.

“Would I be working…alone?” she asked.

D.J. narrowed his eyes. “If you’re worried about provincial gossip that might surface because you’re around me, then no. I’ll make sure there’s always quiet work going on around you.”

“Quiet.” She laughed. “I’m kind of used to being surrounded by students. They work by my side unless they need guidance.”

She couldn’t help it. Fresh ideas were already flooding her head. Maybe this mural could even be her best effort yet. Then again, that’s what she always thought before starting a new work.

“Great.” D.J. rubbed his hands together. “So, as the featured artist, you’d need to clear room on your calendar for the grand Rib Shack opening. You’d be my special guest.”

Thoughts of what he’d said earlier about never finding anyone as good as her rushed back. It led Allaire to a gut feeling that D.J. could be asking her to the opening as his date, so she nipped that in the bud. Or maybe she was just that neurotic. Probably.

“Just tell me when to show up and I’ll be there for my buddy’s big night,” she said brightly.

When his smile fell, Allaire scolded herself. Had she gone too far in her effort to make things clear?

But, in the next moment, he was back to being casual, nice D.J.—the guy with the comforting grin.

“To a buddy’s big night then,” he said, as her heart slumped in relief.

Or maybe it had slumped in…

Jeez, she didn’t even know anymore.

A week later, ten days prior to opening night, the Rib Shack was almost set to go.

They’d moved into an area where the resort had already planned to house a restaurant, so the kitchen was just about in working order. As well, the dining room’s family-style tables and picnic benches were due for delivery soon. D.J. had even secured a staff, thanks to the guidance of Grant Clifton, and some of them were in back, experimenting with cooking gadgets and listening to the expertise of current employees brought over from already existing Rib Shacks. D.J. had known he could depend on Grant for anything, especially since his high school pal had played a major part in bringing this restaurant to Thunder Canyon.

Now, D.J. stood at the long bar lining the left side of the room across from where the mural would lord it over the diners. He was tinkering with the frame of one of the sepia ranch photos that would decorate the rough-pine walls. Yet, even though he was at work, he couldn’t help glancing at Allaire every few seconds as she immersed herself in her art.

It was something to behold, although D.J. knew the poetry of her motion wouldn’t speak to everyone. Certainly her beauty—even hidden beneath roomy overalls and a gray thermal shirt—would enthrall most. But the mere sight of Allaire tilting her head as she considered where to use a certain color was pure magic to D.J. Maybe it was because he could sense the deep thoughts going into every brushstroke… or maybe it was because he’d never been able to keep his eyes off of her anyway.

Damn it, with each of her visits, he couldn’t help but to admit the truth: he’d never stopped loving her.

So, what was he going to do about it? Stand back, just as he’d done when they were younger? Was that the best choice when all he wanted to do was make her happy?

She was over Dax—he was becoming surer of that each day. From chatting with his friends while taking care to hide his true feelings, D.J. had discerned that Dax and Allaire’s marriage had gradually waned. Actually, the boys said that the only reason the couple had stayed together for as long as they had was that neither person had wanted to give up. D.J. could understand this coming from both Allaire, a woman ultrasensitive to what others thought, and his brother. D.J. knew competitive Dax was stubborn, and a divorce would mean he hadn’t won.

Or maybe there was more to it—if only D.J. were to hear Dax’s side, he wouldn’t have to listen to what others were saying about him.

But neither brother had contacted the other, and that spoke louder than any chatter.

Done with the frame, D.J. went back into the kitchen, where he gave himself a break from being around Allaire. Seeing her was enough to recall Open-School Night, when she’d reminded him that they were just buddies after he’d asked her to the Shack’s grand opening. That was one of the reasons he had never gotten up enough guts to ask her out pre-Dax, and the reminder hadn’t exactly been encouraging.

Needing a distraction, D.J. whipped up a batch of ribs for dinner as the new line cooks gathered round.

Eventually he emerged from the back, finding Allaire on her knees, texturing a horse’s hoof. The mural surrounded her with like images: cowboys, miners, even The Hitching Post—the town’s old, so-called brothel-turned-bar-and-grill. The ironic parallel to the state of today’s Thunder Canyon didn’t escape D.J.; upon his return, it’d been a shock to see how commercial everything had become. Then again, a gold strike and a multimillion-dollar resort could do that to a place.

A few minutes later, when Allaire paused in her task, D.J. shuffled around, not wanting to sneak up on her. She jumped anyway, hand to her heart as she turned around and laughed.

“I get so caught up,” she said.

“It looks perfect.”

He bent to a knee, handing her a plate filled with ribs, coleslaw, home-fried potatoes and a slab of corn bread.

Allaire ran to the washroom to clean up. In the meantime, D.J. settled himself on the floor since there wasn’t any furniture yet. The aroma of his sauce, slathered over the meat, made his mouth water; he hadn’t eaten since an early lunch meeting with Grant.

However, when Allaire returned and made herself cozy on the plastic covering the carpet, D.J. saw that she picked right over the ribs and preferred the coleslaw. Hmmm. People generally went face-first into his main course.

She noticed his reaction and smiled. “Hate to break it you, but I’m a vegetarian.”

He almost choked on his meal. “Since when?”

Allaire raised her gaze in thought. It was cute enough to make him forget everything and scoop her right against him.

But…he knew better. He’d been trained well.

“I believe it’s been a little over a month now.” Allaire made a sorry-about-that expression and nibbled on the slaw. “This is great, though.”

“A month? Allaire, when we used to go to that drive-in burger joint off Main Street, weren’t you the girl who wolfed down the Monster Special?”

“At Digger’s?” Now she looked dreamy, as if recalling the taste of those meals they’d grabbed on the weekends. “That was me, all right.” Then she seemed to remember her resolve. “But those days are over. I read Fast Food Nation. Do you know what goes into mass-produced beef?”

“Whoa, whoa.” D.J. held up his sauce-coated hand. “I deal directly with private ranchers who have standards. That’s why I serve modest food that’s just upscale enough for the Thunder Canyon Resort.”

He sent her a cocky grin.

“Oh, you’re so cool.” She took a bite of the corn bread, then closed her eyes and dramatically fell to her side. “The bread. The bread. I’m in heaven.”

At pleasing her, D.J.’s chest swelled. However, his body swelled in another region altogether as she lay on the floor, smiling as if he’d just satisfied her deepest craving.

He calmed himself. Right. Dream on.

“Feel free to catch a wink or two while you’re at it,” he said.

“Maybe I will. Working these hours has been getting to me, but you know what? I wouldn’t want to be doing anything else.”

He knew it—art was Allaire’s escape. And, from what he’d pieced together about her divorce, he realized she yearned for the freedom to fly away, even mentally.

From the floor, she grinned at him again, and he couldn’t help doing the same. Yet then he realized he probably had a face full of sauce, and the moment dissolved as he reached for a packet of moistened towelettes and used one.

When he was done, Allaire pushed herself to a sitting position. “You missed a spot.”

She took another towelette and moved toward him, close enough for him to breathe in her soft perfume, the lotion she used on her skin.

God…

With care, she ran the cloth under his bottom lip, and D.J.’s eyes fluttered shut in primal response. His chest throbbed, the cadence echoing low in his belly as he imagined Allaire in their house, at their dinner table taking care of him.

It should’ve been that way, D.J. thought. He should’ve been the one who’d courted her. He should’ve been the one asking Dax to be his best man, because by then, with Allaire at D.J.’s side, it would’ve been so much easier to find peace with his brother.

But in the next heartbeat, D.J.’s eyes had opened, and what he saw was the reality.

Allaire was watching him with wide eyes. He could see her questions, the fear that D.J. would once more step over the line of their friendship. He’d done it last week, too, at Open-School Night, when he’d told her that there’d never been anyone else like her in his life.

Yeah, he’d spun that into a joke—one he doubted Allaire bought—but it’d been the truth. And, for the first time ever, being honest about his feelings had been liberating…until he realized that Allaire probably didn’t want to hear what he had to offer.

He would always be her pal.

As if to prove that, she patted his face lightly and went back to her seat.

“Want to know something?” she said.

He would’ve expected the world to come down around his ears after such a strained moment, but Allaire was wearing that devilish grin and he couldn’t give in to the stress.

D.J. took the bait, even though she was only changing the subject again. “Shoot.”

She got to her knees, canting toward the mural. “Don’t hate me, but I’ve been doing more than just rendering cowboys here.”

“Do tell.”

She pointed to a darkened spot that served to transition a gold pan into a shimmering waterfall.

His gaze focused on an ethereal symbol amid the painted transition.

“Tell me that’s not the Eiffel Tower,” he said, leaning closer.

Allaire made a touchdown sign with her arms. “Yes! I wanted to put my personality into this. Eventually, you’re going to be able to pick out my fantasy trip to Europe in the mural—iconic images like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and the Swiss Alps. But you’ll have to look closely.”

D.J. loved the thought of having a part of her in his restaurant. It was like a gift.

She must’ve taken his silence for disapproval, because immediately she seemed worried.

“Is that all right?” she asked.

He latched his gaze to hers, connecting, settling into what was more of a home than he’d ever had. “You shouldn’t wonder about my opinion,” he said. “I’ll always appreciate your work.”

And you, he tacitly added. I’ll always appreciate anything you see fit to give me.

Her gaze brightened, as blue and vivid as the mural’s waterfall, and D.J. told himself it was enough.

At least for now.

Chapter Four

Four more days passed, filled with nights that Allaire spent perfecting the Rib Shack’s mural.

Nights that Allaire spent wondering what was going on between her and D.J. as he continued to oversee the last-minute details of the opening.

Whenever he was in the same room, she felt him on her skin, under it. But she never looked back at him. Instead, she became a part of her mural, losing herself in its fantasy.

Tonight she was working the Roman Colosseum into a red dress worn by Lily Divine, the infamous was-she-or-wasn’t-she town madam back in the early days. Just a touch of shading here, a dab of texture there, and Allaire almost had it.

But then she sensed D.J., and her thoughts went up in smoke. Heat seemed to undulate in her tummy as the sound of careful bootsteps thudded to a stop behind her.

She sent an inquisitive glance over her shoulder, finding D.J. there, all right, dressed in his jeans and flannel shirt. There was nothing big-city or rich-boy about him, and when she remembered that he was a wealthy businessman, it always came as a bit of a surprise.

“Are you here to remind me to eat again?” she asked.

“Am I that predictable?”

He said it as if being constant was a bad thing. But Allaire wanted to tell him that his kind of predictable was nice, welcome, exactly what she’d been lacking in a marriage that had always seemed to shift beneath her feet.

D.J. hitched a thumb toward the rear entrance, where a man in camouflage was painting the wide door frame.

“I was thinking we could grab a bite at the Grubstake,” he said, referring to the grill in the main lodge.

“Sounds good to me.” Allaire stood, then went to clean up and grab a jacket before recalling that the main lodge was connected to one of two Rib Shack entrances via a hallway. But since she wasn’t dressed to the nines—not even to the ones, really—she slipped her jacket over her paint-dotted shirt anyway, merely to cover up.

She and D.J. took off then, passing a corridor filled with high-end shops featuring winter wear in the windows. A few slender, coiffed women milled inside, choosing their finery with care. Open storefronts languished in between the franchises, spaces that the resort would be renting out in the future.

Allaire was fascinated. “I hadn’t actually toured this place until you came along, and I never realized it’d be so much like falling down the rabbit hole.”

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