Page 5 of True Ruin

And this time, his slow smile told her he remembered.

Gabi stilled, the truck’s counter cool beneath her palm. She’d worn a ratty bra, fine under a sweater, but plainly visible through the thin tank. She should’ve pulled on that sweatshirt before Dallas looked over.

Dallas’s lips parted as he slowly hooked his sunglasses into his collar. His gaze swept over her shoulders, down her arms, then back to her face in an unmistakable once-over. Possessive, yet somehow not. The slow appraisal touched her like a fingertip, sparking heat low and bright, tightening her nipples for all to see.

The hot look confirmed one thing.

He’d known she was there all along.

And he remembered every second of their kiss.

TWO

#1 Crush–Garbage

Yankon 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 theyear 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 footballfield 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 hisyouthful 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.”