Chapter 2
TWO
Yank on that sweatshirt as fast as you want, Sparkle. I’ve seen enough.
Adjusting a semi without losing his balance was another matter. Not a problem Dallas had yet faced.
The minute he caught a glimpse of Gabi Wilder’s hard nipples, well, that did it.
The long sweep of her willowy body, the wide eyes, the stubborn mouth—he’d have recognized that impossible poise anywhere.
She still carried the same blend of sweetness and steel that had wrecked him at fifteen.
Some people were just born with it. Once upon a time, he’d wanted nothing more than to discover what lived beneath both.
Only, she’d never given him the chance.
“Is this your revenge tour?” his cousin Campbell asked, settling beside him on the Ford’s tailgate.
He shifted the camera hanging from his neck, then gave Dallas a shoulder check that shoved him a good six inches sideways.
A renowned photographer who’d moved his main studio to Promise the year before, he’d been pressed into documenting the festival.
“Kicking ass and taking names, ’90s edition. ”
“Huh?” Dallas asked, dragging himself out of a lust haze.
A brisk breeze lifted the edge of his shirt, carrying the smells of grilling burgers and frying dough, a world away from the diesel, burned metal, and ash he’d lived with for years.
Like it or not, Promise had things he secretly craved—hand-painted yard sale signs, porch lights and fireflies, the thump of a basketball on a cement drive, and local Friday-night football on a crackly AM station. Family.
No checkpoints. No evacuation drills. No shouting over a satellite phone.
But he loved that life, too. Or he’d gotten addicted to it. Something.
His brother took a thoughtful sip of wine, his emerald eyes—nearly identical to Dallas’s—narrowing.
“You want us to believe you tripped Theo Donnelly by accident?” Justin checked the screen of the pager clipped to his belt, revealing a streak of yellow paint smeared across his palm.
“I’m trying to finish a canvas that’s already a month behind, okay?
The last time I got in a fight, I broke a bone in my hand.
Had my thumb tucked wrong. I couldn’t paint for weeks. ”
“I can handle things on my own,” Dallas murmured, the words coming straight from that brooding teenager. How did Justin always manage to drag him back into the skin of that kid with filthy Converse and Levi’s a size too small, when he’d been gone for ten damn years?
“Understood.” Justin settled in on his other side, effectively caging him in. “We got it. Back off.”
Buying time, Dallas drained his beer, then tipped the empty bottle toward the crutches.
“I’m just getting the hang of them, that’s all.
” He sure as hell wasn’t admitting Theo’s face had dragged up an old memory of him steering Gabi off the football field by the elbow, as if she belonged to him.
One glimpse of that arrogant prick, and Dallas had given in to the urge to send him to his knees.
In conflict zones, his temper had served him well. Here, it needed a shorter leash.
Campbell lifted his camera and snapped a shot. “Who are you kidding? You’re a fucking acrobat, Dal. I saw you riding Kit’s skateboard last night, planting those things like ski poles.”
Kit, the baby of the family and Campbell’s much younger half-brother, had stuck close to Dallas since his return.
Since his mother’s death, Kit had been living with Campbell and Fontana, who were raising him, and had folded Dallas into that small circle without a second thought.
It landed somewhere deep—good or bad, Dallas wasn’t sure—because Kit had made room for him more easily than most people in Promise ever had.
“As with most things involving men, that fancy little show was over a girl.” Justin rubbed distractedly at the paint on his skin as if he wasn’t spilling fraternal secrets into the night. “Or a woman, I should say.”
Dallas elbowed his brother, but it was too late.
Campbell leaned forward, catching Justin’s gaze. “Woman? What woman?”
Justin laughed, but there was an edge to it. He’d tried to corner Dallas three times since Dallas had come home and been soundly rebuffed.
Dallas guessed he was about to pay for it.
“He had a thing for Gabi in high school. What’d you call her those few times she wandered into your orbit?” Justin rubbed a hand over his chin in that practiced bullshit way of his. “Glitter. As in ‘all shine and no depth.’ Your words, not mine.”
“Sparkle,” Dallas whispered, closing his eyes to the pain. This was his penance for getting drunk on Pabst Blue Ribbon in that treehouse behind Campbell’s house and confessing his youthful crush. It was one of the few times he and Justin connected on anything back then.
Campbell snorted, lifting his camera in time to catch Dallas’s reaction. “This is gonna be a fun winter.”
Frowning, Dallas rolled the bottle against his knee.
What, exactly, did they expect him to say?
That he remembered the smallest things about her?
That she’d chewed on the end of her pencil when she studied?
That she’d always smelled faintly of waffle cones after a shift at Sweet Cream, where half the boys in school pretended to need a scoop just to watch her work?
That she’d sat across from Theo in the cafeteria, tapping her sneaker against his in the thoughtless rhythm of people who belonged to each other?
Honestly, his unrequited infatuation had been sad as fuck.
He’d even joined the newspaper just to be near the room where the yearbook staff met, one of Gabi’s many extracurriculars.
The irony was, it had given him his first taste of what would become his career.
Maybe he had her to thank for that. The realization had him pitching the bottle harder than necessary into the dented metal trash can a good five feet from the truck.
“Holy shit.” Campbell laughed as Dallas’s silence gave him away, then punched him in the arm. “We were a few years ahead of you, so I figured you barely knew her.”
“He’s obviously losing it,” Dallas said as a flicker of the old bitterness cut through him before he could stop it.
Cars, girls, football—the whole glossy package of small-town belonging—had never been for him.
He’d watched the in-crowd, including his brothers and cousin, gather around bonfires in the cotton fields and spill into parties at the rundown mill Campbell’s mom had left him, but he’d never crossed the invisible line between watching and joining in. He’d been the lost kid on the fringe.
Still, he’d fallen for the town almost as quickly as he had for the girl.
“You know Gabi’s single, right?” Justin drawled, his smile wide enough to show his molars. “Thought you might want that memo before you go wasting rage on a guy who doesn’t matter to her anymore.”
Without a word, Dallas reached into Campbell’s cooler for another Rolling Rock and twisted off the cap.
Months earlier, he’d gotten the update from his eldest brother, Ransom, after casually asking the only family member who didn’t live in Promise, the one least likely to read anything into it.
Gabi had married Theo and had a son soon after, then ditched the Donnelly name before the ink was dry on the divorce papers.
Ransom had even let it slip that she’d finally come to her senses after catching the homecoming king with another woman.
Dallas had played along, pretending it was nothing but small-town gossip. Though he’d carried that knowledge with him into every danger zone since.
Gabi Wilder was single. Free.
And so was he.
That reckless kiss of theirs tugged at the edges of his mind as Dallas weighed what he might do if he got the chance.
He leaned back on the tailgate as darkness spilled over him in a calming wash.
Night had settled across the festival like a tarp, stars pricking through it in scattered points of silver.
Hard to believe this sky was the same one he’d stared into in Zaire—inky black, ripped open by tracer fire as the ground shuddered beneath his boots.
As if the universe had the nerve to pretend the world had always been this peaceful.
A bloom of red and blue flared above the courthouse, the rocket’s sharp crack sounding a heartbeat later.
Dallas jolted before he could brace for it, every muscle locking.
His hand flew to his chest, finding only the thin fabric of his T-shirt.
No Kevlar vest stamped PRESS. No shield between him and the world.
Panic hit, fast and absolute. The bottle slipped from his hand and shattered against the pavement, beer spraying in a glittering arc.
Justin stiffened beside him. “That’s the third time you’ve spooked over some random noise tonight,” he whispered, careful not to startle him again.
Dallas kept his gaze locked on the ground. A few deep breaths, and he’d have control again. “It’s fine.”
But his voice shook. No hiding it.
Campbell rested his forearms on his knees, always the calm one. “What exactly happened over there, Dal?”
Dallas braced his palms on the tailgate, anchoring himself to the present.
A small-town street strung with white lights.
Kids racing past with glow sticks. No alarms. No mortars.
No smoke clawing at the back of his throat.
“Drop it, okay?” He slid off the tailgate and reached for the crutches leaning against the bumper. “Please.”
Justin didn’t push, but the old, familiar hurt flickered across his face, left over from a day neither of them talked about. The day he’d taken one look at a surprise half-brother and turned away when the frightened kid needed him most.
Dallas told himself to get over it.
He wanted to. That was progress, even if his brother didn’t know it.
A gust of wind ripped through the square, carrying the acrid edge of smoke from the barbecue booth.
Dallas drew a slow breath and counted to five, forcing his shoulders to loosen.
The shrink in Germany had been pretty good, even if he’d only managed three sessions.
“I’m okay,” he promised, though the words rang false.
From the corner of his eye, he caught Campbell nudging Justin, a silent warning not to crowd him. Before either of them could say anything else, two animated voices cut through the air.
His cousin Kit barreled toward them, Luca right on his heels.
The boys skidded to a stop in a spray of gravel and thirteen-year-old enthusiasm.
Kit clutched a yellowed newspaper clipping in one hand.
Luca, quieter by nature, had been living with Campbell and Fontana as their foster son since spring, after meeting Campbell in a photography class at the Children’s Center.
Now the adoption process was underway, and they were one step closer to making his place in the family official.
“You’re so money,” Kit said, breathing hard. A streak of dirt cut across his cheek, ending just above his upper lip.
For one sharp second, Dallas envied their innocence. He thought of the long nights caring for his mother and wondered if he’d ever been that young. “I’m what?”
Luca groaned. “It’s from Swingers, man. Haven’t you seen it?”
Justin shot Campbell a look. “You let them watch Swingers?”
Campbell shrugged, unbothered, and adjusted the lens on his camera. “They hear way worse at school. Don’t you, of all people, know that?”
“Sorry, I’m lost.” Dallas shook his head, a wry laugh escaping. “I haven’t watched a movie since ’93. Hell, it might’ve been ’92.”
Kit barely seemed to hear him, thrusting the clipping at Dallas. “Mr. McHenry gave this to me. Said he kept it pinned to the bulletin board in the grocery office. You wrote it, like, forever ago. In the eighties.”
Repositioning his crutch, Dallas took the wrinkled page.
The headline was faded, the ink bleeding at the edges, but his byline was still legible.
An old Promise High editorial—too sharp, too ambitious, too honest for a sixteen-year-old who hadn’t known where to put that fire.
It was a decent piece, but why anyone had bothered to keep it all these years was a mystery.
“It’s good,” Kit said, practically vibrating at his side. “Like, really good. I’m thinking about joining the school newspaper this year. Maybe you could help me.”
Luca stretched for another look over Kit’s shoulder, a grimace twisting his face. “I could’ve done better with the photos.” Which made Campbell—world-famous photographer and Luca’s private tutor—laugh under his breath. Luca shot him an adoring glance that caught Dallas somewhere deep.
Because this kid was getting what Dallas had needed so badly at his age.
Dallas couldn’t help but be flattered, despite the tight spot he found himself in.
Kit’s earnestness cut through the heaviness of coming home, and damn if he didn’t understand why Campbell and Fontana had opened their home to two teenage boys without hesitation.
Family wasn’t always blood. Sometimes it was simply who made room for you.
Justin caught his gaze, his look pointed. See? Family matters.
Kit elbowed Luca, giving everyone—thank God—something else to focus on. “Told you he’d think it was cool.”
Luca rolled his eyes. “Whatever, fanboy.”
Dallas ruffled Kit’s hair and smiled. “I’ve got some old stories I can dig up. And pictures, though I’m sure they’re nothing like yours,” he added, glancing at Luca. “We can go over reporting basics to get you started.”
“I can’t wait!” Kit shouted, taking off toward the festival lights. Luca chased after him, the two of them arguing about their movie marathon as they disappeared into the crowd.
Dallas’s gaze fell to the clipping. Something strangely hopeful shifted in his chest. The soft press of the night and the low roll of music gathered around him, insistent as a heartbeat, nudging him toward the idea that maybe he could let this place—and these people—back in.
Until he had to leave them again.
Through the open service window, Gabi stood with her sweatshirt sleeves pushed to her elbows.
Her hair, pulled into a sexy little ponytail, shone dirty blonde under the dim wash of light, her smile wide as she laughed at something Lainey said.
She hardly looked a day older than when he’d seen her last, and another unsteady pulse moved through him.
Maybe he shouldn’t want anything from this town, from his family.
Maybe he shouldn’t want anything from her.
But when she glanced up—holding his gaze for a breath longer than chance—something inside him settled with startling clarity.
For now, he was done running.
Crazy, but there it was. Gabi Wilder was one reason he wanted to stay.