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,