by Jillian Hart
“No, sweetie, you misunderstand. I feel that way about each one these. I love this rose garden theme. Can you really do this with frosting?”
“It’s easy.”
“I’m going to show these to Jack and see what he has to say. But…oh, the golden climbing roses on this ivory cake, with the leaves, that’s stunning too.”
“I can amend any of this, too. That’s not carved in stone, you know. A little erasing and redrawing and ta da, the wedding cake of your dreams.”
Katherine gathered up the sketches with care. “Are you okay? You seem a little down this morning.”
“Down? No, not me. I’m always in a good mood.” As long as she didn’t think about Brice, that is. She moved away—quick—before Katherine figured it out, and started assembling a second bakery box. “I’ve got a lot on my mind. The renovation is stressful.”
“I’ve heard nothing but renovation horror stories. What problems are you having?”
Katherine was watching her carefully over the rim of her teacup, so Ava did her best to steer the topic away from her confused, tangled up heart. “None. Not a single problem. The construction workers are organized. They’ve got their schedule, they do their work on time, they’ve already got the inspectors lined up, so there’s hardly any downtime. I haven’t been by yet, but they are supposed to have all the wallboard up and taped. Can you believe it? My shop is going to have brand new pretty walls and wiring that’s up to code.”
“I’m thrilled for you.”
“I should be able to open on time. Danielle is going to help me set up my books. I’ve been throwing all my receipts into a shoebox in my closet. That’s not going to work for a long-term bookkeeping solution, or so she tells me.”
“No, sorry.” Katherine smiled in that gentle, caring way of hers. “Now, tell me the truth. Something’s bothering you. Is it the stress of getting a start-up business off the ground? You know you have us to help.”
Ava nodded, slipping the last of the cookies into the box and snapping shut the lid. She deftly avoided mentioning her romantic confusion. “Tell Spence I might be a little late for my shift this afternoon. I have an ad to put into the church bulletin. The deadline’s today. Oh, and I’m meeting Danielle for a bookkeeping session.”
“Sure.” She kept sipping her tea, assessing over the rim.
Ava knew what was coming. “Well, I’ve got a busy morning. See you—”
“Wait a minute. Don’t run off just yet. You haven’t told me what’s wrong.” Katherine was a sharp tack. “That leaves only one possibility left. You like Brice Donovan, don’t you?”
“Like? That’s a pretty strong word. Especially for a woman who has a brilliant no-dating policy.” The smartest thing she’d ever done, hands down. Because without it, she’d be letting Brice charm her. Letting him close. Letting him into her heart. “I know you just want me to be happy, but I’m nothing but a country love song gone wrong.”
“There’s not one thing wrong with you. Maybe with some of the men you’ve spent time with, but you made the right decision in the end. Besides, you can’t really get to know a man—any man, good or not so good—unless you spend time with him and get to know what he’s really like.”
That was the problem with Katherine. She always saw the good side. She believed that good things happened to good people, but she just didn’t see the truth. Good men happened to other women, not her.
“Says the happily engaged woman. Get back to me on those sketches, right?” She grabbed the cookie box and her keys. If she left fast enough, Katherine couldn’t say—
“Not every man is going to leave you, Ava. Not every man is going to let you down.”
Too late. Ava stopped dead in her tracks, with her hand on the garage door. “I’m not going to give any man a chance to. I’ll see you later, alligator.”
Katherine said nothing, nothing at all, not that Ava gave her much of a chance to. She’d practically leaped into the garage and closed the inner door after her. Trying to shove out the words echoing in her head. Not every man is going to leave you, Ava. Not every man is going to let you down
And Brice’s words, With me, what you see is what you get.
Business wise, right? she’d asked.
Always.
Would believing in him be the right thing? Heart pounding, she caught her breath in the echoing garage, feeling the pieces of her past rain down on her like soot and ash, willing away the sadness. It came anyway. Sharp and bone-deep and in her mother’s voice.
Why, after all these years, did she still feel like that seven-year-old girl, standing in their old backyard beneath the snap of the clothes drying on the line, watching the blur of their 1960s Ford disappear down the alley? Why did she still feel the panic of being to blame? Why did it feel as if every failure just added to that pain?
She’d prayed for as long as she could remember with every fiber of her being for a good man to come into her life. But unlike all her other prayers, that one had remained unanswered. Over the years, her wishes had faded in luster and possibility until she couldn’t see them anymore.
And she was better off that way, really. Her no-man policy had been working perfectly fine. She’d already taken the leap to start a business. Already bought a shop and had placed advertisements, and already word-of-mouth recommendations were starting to come in. Okay, people weren’t exactly knocking down her door, but it was a start, right?
She’d finally learned to stop spending her life with her head in the clouds and now what?
Brice.
She’d finally stopped looking for the one man whose heart was stalwart enough to love her through all time and accepted that he didn’t exist. At least, not for her. And then what?
Brice. He came into her life like the impossible dream she’d given up on. But was he so impossible?
“Ava? Hel-lo? Earth to Ava.” Aubrey slowed the SUV to a crawl. “You’ve been a space cadet all day.”
“I know. Sorry.” Ava blinked, focusing. She’d been trying to think of everything but Brice all day, and what was she doing? Looking out the window to see if his pickup was in her shop’s parking lot. Pathetic, she thought, undoing her seat belt. It looked as if the coast was clear. “Just park here at the curb.”
“Are you kidding? I’m coming, too. I’ve been dying to see this all week.” Aubrey cut the engine and pulled the e-brake. She never forgot to remove the keys. “Just think, this time next week it will be done. Can you believe it?”
“No. Yes. I don’t have to be too terrified of this venture failing until I open the doors, officially, for business.” It wasn’t the business she was terrified of, at the moment, but of not seeing Brice. Of turning down his more-than-friends offer to date, after the shop was done.
“You won’t fail,” Aubrey said with confidence. “You don’t give yourself enough credit.”
What did she say to that? Ava stumbled out into the stifling heat. The temperature was in the high nineties, and heat radiated off the pavement. She had to stop and dig through her purse to find her keys, no small feat. It gave her plenty of time to think over Aubrey’s words.
She gave herself plenty of credit. But what did you do when you succeeded at attracting doom? Most of the time, she didn’t let it bother her, but now….
Now, it was Brice. She could really fall for him, harder than any man she’d ever known. And that meant her heart could really be broken, right?
“Let me.” Aubrey grabbed Ava’s bag, plunged her hand in and pulled out the wallet so thick with debit and credit card receipts that it wouldn’t snap shut. “There they are—at the bottom.”
“I keep meaning to clean this bag out.”
“I know.” Aubrey dumped the wallet, papers and all, back into the bag and unlocked the door. She looked around the inside of the shop. “Wow, this looks great.”
“Wow. It does.” Ava followed her sister inside. The cooled air washed over her as she stared in awe at the tall cathedral ceilings and real wall
s. All the mess had been cleaned up. The cement slab was perfectly swept. The taped and mudded wallboard wasn’t pretty, but it took no imagination at all to add paint and trim and flooring to see the airy, sunny result.
Footsteps boomed in the kitchen behind them. Heavy, booted steps. Ava heard her sister yelp, felt Aubrey’s instant fear, but she knew the sound and rhythm of that gait. The instant she’d stepped foot into the building, she should have recognized his presence.
“Your dream is taking shape.” Brice Donovan filled the threshold between the kitchen and the main room looking like her dream come true in a simple black T-shirt, black jeans and boots. He looked stalwart and easygoing, like a guy a girl could always depend on.
Her heart wished for him a tiny bit more. It was a sweet twist of pain that moved through her. She stepped toward him and her spirit brightened. “Your construction guys have done a wonderful job. It’s just right.”
“The finish work starts Monday. We’ll be done before you know it.”
She gulped, unable to speak. There was only the magnetic draw of his gaze. Of his dimpled grin. Of his presence that drew her like an unsuspecting galaxy toward a black hole. That couldn’t be a good thing, could it?
“This must be your sister.” Brice broke his gaze, releasing her, to hold out his hand to her sister. “It’s good to meet you.”
“Ava hasn’t said a word about me, has she?” Aubrey’s hand looked engulfed by Brice’s larger one.
Oh, no. Ava held her breath, sensing what would come next. Knowing that, like it or not, Aubrey would know. It was that twin thing. Their brain cells would fire and she would guess the horrible secret Ava was keeping from everyone, including herself.
Yep, there it was. In the change in Aubrey’s jaw line, her stance, her voice. Aubrey withdrew her hand, but there was an “ah ha” glint in her eyes. “I know why she hasn’t said anything about you. In fact, she’s refused to do a whole lot of talking about this very important renovation.”
“It’s all the stress,” Ava added. The stress of the construction, the financing, getting a new business started, of being afraid she was falling in deep like with a man who was entirely wrong for her.
“I understand completely.” The way Brice said it, it was like he had unauthorized access to that twin brain cell, and that was impossible. “Ava and I currently have a business-only policy.”
“Ah, so that explains it,” Aubrey said as she backed toward the door. “I’m probably just in the way here. Brice, you probably have a lot of construction things to go over with Ava.”
“As a matter of fact, I do have a few things to show her.”
“Oh, sure you do.” Ava couldn’t believe it. That didn’t sound very business-like. She narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you here, anyway?”
“I spent all day in the woodshop, and I wanted to stop by and see the progress for myself. Make sure nothing had been overlooked before the painters show up at seven Monday morning. I want this done right for you.”
When he smiled, she couldn’t stop the rise of her spirit, the tug of longing in her heart. She’d come by because she’d wanted to see the progress of her dream, and Aubrey had wanted to see it, too. Now Aubrey was at the door, tugging it open. What kind of world was this when your twin abandoned you? Panic rattled through her. She’d feel better if Aubrey would stay—
“Aubrey, why don’t you stay with us?” Brice asked. “Unless you two have other plans?”
“Not at all,” Aubrey said so fast. “None that can’t be changed. We were just going to barbecue supper.”
“What? Wait one minute.” Ava had a bad feeling about this. It was four-thirty on a Saturday afternoon. Not exactly business hours. “Brice and I have a strict policy to adhere to.”
“True. But we agreed to excuse dating and romance from our business policy, right? That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends.”
“Friends.” Friendship did not begin to describe this swirl of confusing emotions she had for him. Emotions she did not want to analyze, thank you very much. What she wanted to do was to stay in denial about them. Denial was an excellent coping method.
“Sure, my business partner has been my best friend since kindergarten. Friendship and business don’t have to be mutually exclusive. In fact, it can often be beneficial. If you two don’t mind, come out to my place. I fix a mean steak. I was going to barbecue dinner tonight anyway, I’ll just throw a few more steaks and shrimp on the barbie—”
“Shrimp?” Aubrey perked up.
Now there was no way to get out of this. Ava knew she should be sensible, like her sister Katherine. Stoic and self-disciplined like big brother Spence. Be calm and think things through like her twin. Her problems always came from leaping before she looked, and right now looking at his dark tousle of hair, the curve of his grin and the steady hope in his eyes made her want to leap into agreement.
“Lots of shrimp,” Brice promised. “I’ve got a shop behind my garage, so I work at home a lot when I’m doing custom stuff like this. Hey, while you two are there, I’ll show you a few new ideas I have. Something for the display case.”
“Now I don’t believe there’s an allowance for even more custom stuff in the contract I signed.”
“True. This is just because. This is what I want to do for you as a friend. We start as friends. See where it goes from there.”
Didn’t that sound harmless? It was like a test-drive of a new car. You got to see if you liked it first before you bought it. It was the same situation here. If she didn’t like him for a friend, she wouldn’t date him and marry him, right?
Ava felt her heart fall even more. There it was, that terrible urge to leap. To just tell him yes. Friends first, and then let’s see where this goes. What could go wrong with that?
Chapter Nine
“Did you know he lived up here?” Aubrey asked from behind the wheel as she negotiated the curving road that led into the foothills where the posh people lived.
“Nope. I had no clue.”
Ava couldn’t seem not to look at Brice. There he was right in front of them in his snazzy red sports car.
Aubrey followed Brice into an exclusive gated community. “If you’re falling for this guy, you have to stop this destructive thing you do.”
“I tried my best at all my other relationships. It’s my fault-blindness. Maybe it’s a good thing you’re here. I need your help. You can watch for his faults that I can’t see.”
“You definitely need help.” Aubrey rolled her eyes and turned her full attention back to the road. “Look at this place. This is really wow. How rich is this guy?”
“He’s a Donovan. How rich are they?”
“Well, his grandfather knew Grandpop. They played golf together.”
Grandpop had been pretty rich. “It still hurts to think about him, doesn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Aubrey paused a moment, the sadness settling between them. He’d been gone two years now and it was a terrible hole in the family. It was why Gran had moved permanently to their winter home in Scottsdale. She’d found it so painful to be alone in the house he built for her when they were a young married couple, that she simply stayed down south where there were fewer memories to haunt her.
The quiet stayed between them as they followed Brice through a gate and along a grand driveway to a private house tucked into the hill, surrounded by lush trees and lawn. Views of the Bridger Mountains backed up behind him, and views of the Rockies rimmed the entire western exposure.
Brice parked in the third bay of a three-car garage, and Ava was too busy looking around to realize Aubrey had parked the SUV and was already climbing out of the vehicle. Okay, pay attention. She joined her sister outside the wood and stone house that looked like something out of a magazine.
“That’s nicer than Gran’s house,” Aubrey said.
True. Which only pointed out the plain truth. Brice was so wrong for her. He was going to look for the wife to fit into this house. Face it. It was such a good
thing they had this friends-only policy.
He closed the car door and pocketed his keys. “C’mon in this way. I never use the front door.”
“Not even when you entertain?” Aubrey asked.
“I never entertain. Having my folks over is about as elaborate as I get.” There was that grin again, the inviting warmth, the good-guy charm that was so totally arresting.
He held open the door for them at the back of the garage. Ava saw a wide but short hallway with a laundry room to her right elbow and what had to be a huge pantry to her left. Ahead of her was an enormous kitchen with a family room off to the side, not that she noticed that. She was too busy salivating over the kitchen.
Gleaming, light maple cabinets and a gray granite countertop stretched for miles. She spotted a gas range, Sub-Zero refrigerator and a double oven. There were plenty of windows, a bay in a huge eating nook and then a row of them looking out to the green backyard. “This is better than Katherine’s kitchen.”
Brice went straight to the fridge. “Is that where you’ve been doing your baking?”
“Yeah. It’s working out okay, but sometimes I know I’m in her way.” Ava ran her hand over the expensive granite. “This is a nice work space you’ve got here.”
“It’s wasted on me. I don’t cook much. What do you want to drink? I’ve got soda, iced tea and lemonade. Oh, and milk.” He opened the door wide so she could see what was on the shelves.
Something pink caught her eye. “Wait one minute. You have strawberry milk?”
“Chocolate, too.”
“I never would have pegged you for a guy who would drink pink milk.”
“Hey, I like strawberries. Nothing wrong with that.”
“No, it’s just—” Did she tell him it was one of her very favorite things? “I’ll take a glass of pink milk. Aubrey will, too.”