Chapter 4 #2
Before either of them could figure out a polite way to pivot, Justin appeared at Dallas’s side with the timing of a brother who lived to make things worse.
“Hey, Gabi,” he said, smacking Dallas on the shoulder with his rolled-up blueprint.
“I meant to tell you, I ran into Julie Arnett this morning. She wanted to know if you’d consider writing about this project for the Community Bulletin.
I gave her your number at the cottage. Funny how many people have asked for it since you got back. ”
Dallas felt a sudden pinch in his temple as he calculated how hard he’d have to swing his crutch to knock his brother out.
The cottage sat on Campbell’s property, a converted art studio that had once belonged to Dallas’s mother and then served as Fontana’s rental before she married Campbell. Now it was his.
For one uncomfortable beat, Gabi’s lips parted, then pressed together again. “You should help Julie,” she finally said, shoving her hands into her back pockets. “It’s a good newsletter. People love it.”
Dallas shifted his weight and nudged his glasses up, trying to decide if this was funny or infuriating.
Even if Gabi was interested, she wasn’t ready to admit it.
She was skittish, no mystery there. Bad marriage.
Single mom. A kid to protect. Especially after his brother had decided to paint him as a man with women lining up for his attention.
A small-town lothario didn’t strike him as Gabi’s type.
“I need to discuss a few move-in details. I won’t be long,” Gabi said, retreating a step.
“Sure, but can you take him”—Dallas tipped his crutch Justin’s way—“with you?”
She let out a strangled laugh, still backing away. “Thanks for watching Sam. I should, well, Campbell’s waiting. And I…I should go.”
“Yep, no problem. I’ll keep Sam safely occupied until you’re done.”
Gabi gave Dallas a grateful smile, then headed toward his brother’s desk, the tails of her flannel skimming her slender hips, her jeans fitting snugly enough to make his pulse kick.
A vivid image flashed through him—Gabi bent over the nearest stack of lumber, his hands locked on those hips as he kissed his way up her spine.
She didn’t glance over her shoulder, but the sway in her step said she knew he was watching.
A mild flirtation, maybe. Enough to soothe his bruised-for-no-good-reason ego.
Beside him, Justin whistled softly. “Okay. Guess you didn’t need my help.”
“Really,” Dallas murmured, his gaze still fixed on her.
Justin shifted the rolled-up blueprint from one hand to the other. “I thought you were in trouble, struggling to score, like in the old days.” He let out a halting chuckle. “I panicked. Men in love start pulling civilians into the line of fire. We can’t help ourselves.”
Dallas tightened his grip on the crutch, jaw clenching. “I have no trouble scoring, thanks. And your solution was the jealousy approach? I don’t even know who this Julie person is.”
“Lawyer. Single, attractive, and the fifth woman to ask me about you. Evidently, you’re the fashionable flavor.
Trust me, I’m as shocked as you.” Justin shut his eyes in resignation.
“Yep. Hearing it back, terrible plan. And not much of a compliment for someone so damned good-looking who looks a hell of a lot like me.”
Dallas dragged a hand over the back of his neck, then closed it around the crutch grip again. His brother was trying to reach him, and here he was shutting him out. Hadn’t that goddamn therapist said not everything had to lead back to 1983? What he did now mattered, too.
Justin went on, his voice losing its teasing edge.
“Word in town is, Theo’s not the greatest dad.
Doesn’t show up for baseball games, shows up late for school plays—you know, the seemingly simple stuff that isn’t simple.
Gabi’s taking a lot on herself.” His gaze flicked between Dallas and the path Gabi had taken, his expression sharpening.
“Probably part of the reason she finally figured, Why am I fighting to keep this together when I’m doing most of it? ”
Dallas glanced at Gabi’s son, who was diligently drawing chalk marks on the floor as he goose-walked across it.
A heartbreaker if a man was looking for heartbreak, which he wasn’t.
He needed to get through two months and make it to Cairo with his head on straight.
That was it. “Guess it’s just me and Sam for a while, seeing as I’m not having coffee with his mom anytime this century.
I don’t know squat about kids. Truthfully, they terrify me. ”
“I’m not saying the way in is through her son if you don’t mean it, but he’s pretty adorable.”
“Ah, I don’t know.” Dallas wondered if Justin had ever considered a career in politics. “I don’t want to start anything I won’t be around to finish.”
Justin shrugged and tapped the blueprint against his thigh. “Kids aren’t that hard to figure out. Campbell opened his heart, and Kit and Luca ran right in.”
Dallas glanced toward Gabi, now behind Campbell’s desk, laughing as they chatted, at ease with everyone but him. He shut down the hollow pull in his chest before it could climb any higher and become something he had to name.
She was complicated, and he wasn’t exactly simple. She’d walked away like distance was the only sensible thing left between them.
Smart woman.
Too bad the spark had already caught.
Gabi put the car in park, Sam’s excited chatter drifting from the back seat—a burst of childish delight she should cherish because she knew it wouldn’t last forever.
Usually, the cracked concrete driveway of the perfectly serviceable house she rented reminded her that starting over came with a budget, and hers wasn’t generous.
But today, with a folder of contracts to sign for the Wilder Grounds location in one hand and a bundle of pastry recipes in the other, something dangerously close to anticipation buzzed beneath her skin.
A new business. A wildly misplaced infatuation. Both reasons to look forward instead of back.
It was time to forgive herself, even if forgiving Theo remained safely off the table.
She’d made a mistake. Picked the wrong guy.
Married the wrong guy. Spent years trying to fix a broken relationship.
Built her life around his instead of her own.
Done, done, and done, she concluded, giving the doorknob the jiggle to the left it needed to open.
Women repeated these patterns every day—and had for centuries.
Falling for a charming cheat wasn’t original.
Constructing a life around his wants wasn’t original.
Blaming herself for staying too long? Tragically unoriginal.
And now…
Gabi laughed softly, earning a return smile from her son.
Dallas True might be just the complication she needed.
He’d asked her out. Sort of. Though for all she knew, Julie Arnett was making a play for him this very second, using a column for that silly newsletter as an excuse.
Funny, wasn’t it? Back then, Gabi had been one of the only people who saw how brilliant Dallas was beneath that restless, wounded-boy attitude.
Now the whole town had caught up.
Gabi halted in the entryway, kicking a Matchbox car into the corner as Sam raced around her and headed straight for the kitchen in pursuit of the Pop-Tart she’d promised he could have before dinner, a questionable parenting choice that said plenty about her day.
“Yes,” she murmured, closing the door and leaning against it.
She repeated the affirmation twice more as she made her way down the hallway, dumping her bounty on the turquoise Formica dining table Verna Mae had given her as a housewarming present.
She’d kept it in storage since the ’60s.
It was gorgeous and kitschy, inspiring Gabi to remake the entire place in midcentury splendor, one carefully selected (and not too expensive) piece at a time.
After all, yes was a simple word.
One she wouldn’t let slip away the next time someone asked.
Gabi pressed her palms to her cheeks, trying to calm the foolish flush. She’d say yes no matter what Dallas True asked.
The afternoon had been indecently scenic, to say the least, men in clinging cotton and ripped denim, muscles flexing beneath a sheen of sweat, the scents of raw wood, coffee, and sawdust mingling in the air.
She wasn’t that strong. Neither were the—oh, she tapped a finger against her jaw—four women who’d stopped by to view the new space, though it was fairly obvious they’d come to appraise the True brothers.
As expected, Justin handled the interruption with ease, slipping effortlessly into tour guide mode.
As the project’s managing architect, he had a way of making exposed brick and half-framed walls sound visionary as he steered the visitors away from the active worksite.
The smooth talker of the group, he was born to persuade, and being happily married probably left him free to enjoy the attention as harmless atmospheric nonsense.
Campbell was harder to read and had been since high school.
A renowned photographer restoring the mill as much for his family as for himself, he worked with sharp focus and a perpetually furrowed brow, creative instincts firing as he wrestled with budgets and permits instead of darkrooms and camera angles.
Also happily married, he gave off the distinct impression that female attention ranked somewhere below electrical inspections.
Ransom, the eldest and the actual builder in the family, kept the process tethered to reality, reading the space with a contractor’s eye and making sure their vision didn’t outpace what could actually be built.
The visitors earned a polite nod from him, then immediate demotion beneath load-bearing walls and delivery delays.