Her Best Man

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

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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.