Her Best Man

“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.”