Her Best Man

“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.