by Jillian Hart
“Do you always speak for her?”
“I’m just trying to be efficient. Where are your glasses?”
“Sit down. Both of you. You’re guests, let me do the fetching.” His words were deceptively light but when his gaze raked over her, tenderness charged the air between them.
Hmm. That didn’t feel like friendship. It felt like “more than friendship” in the nicest way she’d ever experienced. She took a shaky breath. Whatever she did, she had to remember not to start reading things into his actions. Friends only, he’d said. But she knew he wanted more.
“Wow,” Aubrey said somewhere behind her, and Ava turned.
“Look at that pool. It’s bigger than Gran’s.”
Ava went weak in the knees. “There’s my favorite guy.”
Rex was lounging in the cooling spray of the pool fountain. He looked up with a start, gave a goofy grin and heaved himself up on all fours. Dripping wet he took off for a run and disappeared from sight around a huge sixteen-foot awning that shaded a patio set, chaise lounges and a built-in brick grill.
“Rex!” Brice called out a second before a big golden streak charged into the kitchen.
The sound of heavy dog breathing drew Ava’s attention to the archway where the retriever streaked toward her. She caught a faint glimpse of a sleek dining room and a comfortable living room in the background before the oaf lunged toward her, both front feet wrapping around her shoulders. His tongue roughened her face and she started to laugh. The dripping heap of retriever stopped licking to give her a goofy grin and then started over again.
“Stop! Stop!” Ava was laughing, but it was kind of hard not to like such a good-hearted dog.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brice round the long span of counter, coming to her rescue, but it was too late. Rex dropped to the floor in front of her and gave a huge shake. Water droplets rained everywhere.
If she wasn’t soaked enough down the front from his hug, she was now. The retriever dropped to his haunches looking from Brice’s disapproving face to hers. Rex’s eyebrows shot up, the goofy grin dropped from his cute face and the happiness faded from his chocolate-sweet eyes. His whine said, “Oh, no. I messed up again.”
Ava’s heart fell and she followed him to the floor where she wrapped her arms around Rex’s wet neck. “I don’t mind,” she told him. “I know you didn’t mean for disaster to happen.”
“Speak for yourself,” Aubrey commented on a laugh. “I was standing downwind and now I’m wet, too.”
“But he was just excited.” Ava kept one arm around the canine’s neck. “I’m in love with this guy.”
Rex gave a whine low in his throat and dropped his huge head on her shoulder.
“The feeling appears to be mutual.” Brice. There he was, all six feet of solid male kneeling down, meeting her gaze with his. “Rex knows better than this. He just can’t help himself sometimes.”
“I think he’s perfect.”
“Another mutual sentiment.”
Perfect, Brice thought, that’s what Ava was. Dripping wet, her honey gold bangs tousled from wet dog kisses, sprayed with droplets, she’d never been more beautiful.
“I’ve always wanted a dog just like this, but Dad’s allergic to dogs.” She glowed with happiness as she hugged Rex, who looked like he was in heaven. “And then we’ve been in apartments and too busy for a pet. But one day, I want a handsome guy just like you.”
Rex’s eyes melted with adoration and gave Ava another swipe across the face.
“You are the best dog.” She laughed, all spirit, all brightness and big loving heart.
Brice was enchanted. Tenderness blazed so strongly, it transformed him completely. His heart fell—a measureless, infinite tumble from which there was no return.
They were beneath the shady awning, seated at the poolside table with an impressive view of the sparkling azure water. Ava looked around, ignoring the full plate of food in front of her. The forest-like backyard and the rise of the Bridger Mountains spearing up to the sky were spectacular. She had to give Brice’s home full marks.
But his cooking, wow. That deserved full marks plus. The juicy, flavorful steak was grilled to perfection. Talk about a total shocker. Who would have guessed that when Brice said he cooked a mean steak, he meant it?
He sat across the snazzy teak table, the breezes lazily ruffling his dark hair. He cut a strip off the fourth steak he’d barbecued—for Rex—and tossed it to him. Rex caught it neatly, gulped, swallowed and sat back down on his haunches.
The gentle waterfall of the fountain and the leaves rustling through the trees only added to the pleasantness of the evening.
Earlier, after readying the steaks in their marinade, Brice had brought their glasses of strawberry milk to the poolside and relaxed in the shade. Since their clothes were wet anyway, she and Aubrey did cannonballs into the pool, trying to see who could leave the biggest splash marks. Ava had won, but it had been an intensely close—and fun—competition.
Now, drying in the hundred-degree shade, she was just still damp enough from the pool to be comfortable temperature wise. But emotionally? Not so much. Brice dominated her field of vision. He was impossible to ignore.
“I read in the paper a while back that you were engaged,” Aubrey said abruptly as she poked the tines of her fork into a cube of red herbed potatoes heaped on her plate. “Didn’t the wedding get cancelled?”
What? Ava could not believe her ears. The fork tumbled out of her hand and fell into the three-bean salad. Hello? Aubrey did not just say that, did she? How could she stick her nose where it didn’t belong?
Brice winced as if he’d taken a painful blow. “That’s true. I was engaged to Whitney Phelps.”
“Of the Butte Phelps,” Aubrey nodded, as if coaxing Brice along.
Ava sank into the comfy cushions of her chair and felt as if a hundred-pound weight had settled onto her chest. Sympathy filled her.
Brice put down his steak knife and took a long pull of strawberry milk. “It was one of those things. I’d just turned twenty-five. I had this plan. I had my business started and it was going well, and I was ready to get married. I figured we’d date for two years, get engaged for a year, be married for a couple more and then have kids.”
“It sounds like a good plan to me,” Aubrey said in the gentle quiet way of hers that made anybody want to tell her anything. “What happened?”
Ava knew. She could see it play across his face. Feel the resonance of it in his heart. He’d really loved this woman. The right way—heart deep and honestly. She wasn’t surprised when he spoke.
“The moment I saw Whitney, I thought she was classy. Poised. Polished. Just what I was looking for.” His tone wasn’t bitter. There was no anger in his words. Nor was there any pining. Just the pain of regret. “I must have been what she was looking for, too.”
“I imagine so,” Aubrey answered.
Poor Whitney, Ava thought. She must have felt something like this. Overwhelmed by his million-dollar grin and honesty. Helplessly sucked in by the pull of those deep dark eyes. Enamored by his decency and strength and manliness. Lost in too many wishes to find her way out.
Brice stared down at his plate for a moment, as if gathering his thoughts. A muscle tightened in his square granite jaw. “We came from the same backgrounds. We seemed compatible. I cared for her, and she fit into my plan. Or, maybe I made her. I prayed for our relationship to work out. For it to progress. Sometimes I wonder if I imposed way too much too early when we were dating, instead of just trusting God to work things out for the best.”
Oh, I so know what you mean. Ava felt the heavy pain radiate out from the center of her chest, into her throat, into her voice. “You have to be very careful what you pray for.”
“Exactly.” His gaze met hers, and she felt the connection, an emotional zing that opened her heart right up.
“I prayed,” he said, “and while my prayers were answered in a way, I’ll never know how much I messed up God�
�s plan for me. Maybe He had someone better for me, a better match, and a better chance for happiness for both me and Whitney separately. I don’t know.”
I understand completely, Ava thought.
“I only know He answered my prayers, but I asked in the wrong way. Whitney and I would never have made each other happy in the end. It was hard, admitting that, because I cared for her deeply. I was a disappointment to her. She slowly became disappointed in me. These days when I pray, I ask for the Lord to show me the way He wants me to go.”
You’re not falling in total serious like with him, she commanded herself. She knew better than that. So, he was perfect in many ways. She could feel the weight of his pain and the honesty of his experience. Her heart tumbled a little more.
“It was a mess.” He shrugged one big shoulder, looking vulnerable even for such a big, brawny guy. “My mom hasn’t forgiven me completely for calling off the wedding. She was very attached to Whitney.”
“Your mom still hasn’t forgiven you?”
Brice studied Ava’s dismay. “She’d come to love Whitney like a daughter and it was a severe loss for her. She loves me, but I’m different from my parents in a lot of ways. They just don’t get me.”
“You’re talking about your construction company?”
“Yep. Like the dog. He’s not a purebred.” He cut another piece of steak for Rex. “Not that it’s good or bad, I just was looking for a best buddy, and went to the pound looking for a puppy. Rex and me, we connected.”
When his gaze met hers, Brice couldn’t tell if she knew that’s how he felt about her. There’d been something special about her right from the beginning, something unique and amazing and rare that made him look and keep looking.
And it kept him riveted now. She made him take this risky step toward another relationship. It was hard opening himself up. But he took the risk. “Ava, it’s your turn to tell the real story behind your no-man policy.”
“What? Oh, you so don’t want to hear about that.” Ava averted her eyes, dismissing his question. Then, as she cut a small bite off her steak, she appeared to reconsider. “Maybe it is a good idea. Then you can see what I mean and you’ll understand how important being just friends is to me.”
“Tell me.”
“Where to start?” She looked to Aubrey for help.
Aubrey took a sip of strawberry milk. “The high-school boyfriend. It’s classic Ava.”
“True.” Ava set down her fork, looking even more adorable with the way her hair was drying in a flyaway tangle. “Okay, here’s the scoop. Lloyd was in my earth sciences class. Now, I’m totally not a science whiz but I had to take some kind of science credit, and it was like the easiest science class in our high school. So there I was, trying to figure out some weird earth crust layer experiment, I don’t know, I never did figure it out. Lloyd was cute, he saw me struggling and came over to help me. I need a lot of help.”
“I’m beginning to see that.” Big time. She clearly could take care of herself, but it didn’t hurt to have, say, someone like him to look out for her. Help her find her keys, watch over her, make her happy. He was interested in that job. “Poor Lloyd. I bet he fell for you.”
“Poor Lloyd,” Aubrey agreed with a nod.
Just what he’d thought. Brice could picture it. The teenage boy probably had such an incredible crush on Ava to begin with, he’d been all vulnerable heart. “What did poor Lloyd do that made you dump him?”
“Oh, it wasn’t me,” Ava insisted. “I liked him. I mean, he was cute.”
“Cute,” Aubrey agreed, a mirror of Ava. “But clueless.”
“He was like a big dopey puppy, sorry, Rex.” Ava flashed him a smile and the big adoring dog tilted his head to one side, quirked his brows and gave a sappy grin. Totally besotted.
Yeah, Brice knew just how he felt.
“A girl wants a boyfriend with a clue. Aubrey, what was the first really nutso thing Lloyd did?”
“The utility pole.”
“That’s right, our first date. We were on our way for hamburgers at the drive-in, and he drove smack into a big light pole going twenty-five miles an hour. Not looking where he was going.” Ava lifted both hands in a helpless gesture. “He wouldn’t stop looking at me while he was driving. I kept telling him to keep his eyes on the road. I mean, even I know better than that. But his gaze just kept coming back to me and I said to him, ‘Lloyd, turn. There’s a utility pole.’ But he just said, ‘yeah, uh-huh’ and didn’t listen and didn’t look. I was too smitten to notice that he didn’t have a lick of common sense.”
“He was nice, though. Unlike a few of your boyfriends.” Aubrey began cutting her steak.
It was interesting, sitting with a view of both sisters. They were identical but the more he got to know Ava, the more different the two of them looked. Similar, but different. Aubrey was more composed and sensible, clearly the more responsible of the two, always there to watch over Ava. The way she studied him, as if he’d met with her approval, made him think she wouldn’t mind handing over the caretaking of Ava to him. Good to know. It was nice feeling to have her sister’s positive opinion.
“I didn’t date for a while,” Ava continued. “Until I was out of high school.”
“That’s because I had my accident,” Aubrey added, setting down her steak knife. “I jump horses, and one day in the middle of a competition, my mare went down. On top of me. She broke her leg and I cracked my hip and back. It took us both a long time to recover. Ava was there helping me faithfully without complaint.”
“It was my privilege to be there with you,” Ava said.
There was no mistaking the affection between the sisters as their gazes met.
“Then there was Brett,” Aubrey began.
Ava pealed with laughter. “Oh, Brett. He was the worst. He was like a stalker. But did I figure that out right away? No. We’d dated two years and he’d proposed. That’s when he went really strange.”
“Plus, he was mean to you.”
“Yeah, but I was going to cooking school and working full-time at the bookstore. That was before Dad and Dorrie retired to Arizona, so I had to help out at home, I never had a spare minute to just sit down and think. Or I might have noticed it. It started out subtle at first.”
“He was sarcastic right up front.” Aubrey corrected. “Then it snowballed from there, especially after the proposal.”
“Exactly.” Ava rolled her eyes, adorable and sweet and as wholesome as the sunshine glittering on the spray of the fountain, a bright sparkle that he would never tired of watching.
Show me the way, Lord. He felt the conviction deep in his soul. Do I have a chance here?
“Well, he would get sharp or distracted or gruff, but he’d be tired. He was going to school full-time, too. But it kept getting worse and there’s no excuse for that. So I gave him his ring back, and then he started turning up wherever I went. Apparently, he thought I had another boyfriend on the side. Like I’d want another one. So it sounds like I’ve had boyfriend after disastrous boyfriend, but it hasn’t been that many.”
“Just that disastrous, but serious. Lloyd had proposed too,” Aubrey commented. “This is why I don’t date. Ava’s experiences have scared me.”
He watched the way the sisters laughed together, seeming amused and not traumatized by their experiences. “So you both have a no-man no-dating policy?”
“Well, mine is more habit,” Aubrey said.
“Mine is a philosophy. I date guys that seem great.”
“You have a talent for it—” Aubrey started.
“—But then when I really get to know them, it’s not the truth,” Ava finished. “They’re marginally moral at best. Or so-so, or have secret habits like gambling. What’s a girl to do? The Mr. Yucks look nice on the outside. It isn’t until you get to know them that you see them for who they are, and see the things they are trying to keep hidden. It’s that fault-blindness, not a good trait to have in the dating world.”
Ava shrugge
d, and there it was, the hint of sadness at the corners of her eyes, dimming the wattage of her smile. There was a lot of pain there. More than she was going to talk about.
“I’m not like that,” he said. “I don’t run off, I don’t leave, and I don’t have destructive habits. Just so you know. I’m respectful toward women, I’m not mean and I try as hard as I can to be one of the good guys.”
Ava sighed. Yeah, she was noticing that about him, and his words made her soul ache with longing. He could capture her heart, if she let him.
And wasn’t that the problem? Brice Donovan could be her downfall. The one thing she could never do was amend her policy, because if she dated him and fell in love with him, he could hurt her most of all.
He was like a dream man and too good to be true.
A few hours later, the sun was sinking into the amethyst peaks of the Rockies as Ava guided the SUV out of Brice’s winding subdivision. Talk about gorgeous homes. She tried to focus her thoughts on the road, on how Rex had hopped into the driver’s seat of the SUV when they went to leave, wanting to go with her.
She tried not to think of the man who’d grabbed his stubborn dog by the collar, kindly helping him down. He was a dream man. So where did that leave her? In more trouble than she’d been when she’d agreed to dinner. Now what? How was she going to resist him now?
“He’s a great cook.” Aubrey yawned. “I haven’t had that good a dinner since Gran was up from Arizona.”
One more thing to add to the growing list of the great things about Brice Donovan. Ava negotiated a corner, slowed to a stop and checked for traffic on the main road. “I know where you’re going with this.”
“He likes you, you like him. Why won’t you go out with him? I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s asked you out and you turned him down.”
“I never said I liked him.”
“You don’t have to. Do you know what your problem is?”
Ava stared extra hard at the road. “I don’t need you to tell me.”
“Yes, you do. That’s why God assigned me to you. I’m telling you this for your own good.”
“Please don’t.” Ava pulled to a stop at another stop sign, staring in frustration at the city laid out like glitter in the twilight valley. “I know you mean well, but I’ve got things under control.”