Always The Best Man. Michelle Major

something?” he guessed.

      “How do you know?”

      “I was at the hospital the day of your mom’s surgery. I made Lego sets with him while everyone was in the waiting room.”

      She gave the barest nod. Emily’s mother, Meg, had been diagnosed with a meningioma, a type of brain tumor, at the beginning of the summer, prompting both Emily and Noah to return to Crimson to care for her. Luckily, the tumor had been benign and Meg was back to her normal, energetic self.

      The Crawford family had already endured enough with the death of Emily and Noah’s father over a decade ago. Having been raised by a single dad who was drunk more often than he was sober, Jase had spent many afternoons, weekends and dinners with the Crawfords. Meg was the mother he wished he’d had. Hell, he would have settled for an aunt or family friend who had a quarter of her loving nature.

      But she’d been it, and lucky for Jase, Noah had been happy to share his mom and her affection. With neither of her kids living in town until recently and Meg never remarrying, Jase had become the stand-in when she had a leaky faucet that needed fixing or simply wanted company out at the family farm. He’d taken the news of her illness almost as hard as her real son.

      “I remember,” she whispered, not meeting his gaze.

      “Every time I’ve been out to the farm this summer, Davey was building something. Your boy loves his Lego sets. He’s—”

      “Don’t say obsessed,” she interrupted, eyes flashing.

      “I was going to say he has a great future as an engineer.”

      “Oh, right.” She crossed her arms over her chest, her gaze dropping to the ground.

      “I know five is young to commit to a profession,” he added with a smile, “but Davey is pretty amazing.” Something in her posture, a vulnerability he wouldn’t normally associate with Emily made him add, “You’re doing a great job with him.”

      Her rosy lips pressed together as a shudder passed through her. He’d meant the compliment and couldn’t understand her reaction to his words. But she’d been different since her return to Crimson—fragile in a way she never was when they were younger.

      “Emily.” He touched a finger to the delicate bone of her wrist, the lightest touch but her gaze slammed into his. The emotion swirling through her eyes made him suck in a breath. “I mean it,” he said, shifting so his body blocked her from view of the group of people still standing a few feet away on the sidelines. “You’re a good mom.”

      She stared at him a moment longer, as if searching for the truth in his words. “Thanks,” she whispered finally and blinked, breaking the connection between them. He should step away again, give her space to collect herself, but he didn’t. He couldn’t.

      She did instead, backing up a few steps and tucking a lock of her thick, pale blond hair behind one ear. Her gaze dropped from his, roamed his body in a way that made him warm all over again. Finally she looked past him to their friends. “Katie told me you’re the best man.”

      He nodded.

      “I’ve got some ideas for the wedding weekend. I want it to be special for both of them.”

      “Let me know what you need from me. Happy to help in any way.”

      “I will.” She straightened her shoulders and when she looked at him again, it was pure Emily. A mix of condescension and ice. “A good place to start would be putting on some clothes,” she said, pointing to the shirt still balled in his fist. “No one needs a prolonged view of your bony bod.”

      It was meant as an insult and a reminder of their history. She’d nicknamed him Bones when he’d grown almost a foot the year of seventh grade. No matter what he’d eaten, he couldn’t keep up with his height and had been a beanpole, all awkward adolescent arms and legs. From what he remembered, Emily hadn’t experienced one ungainly moment in all of her teenage years. She’d always been perfect.

      And out of his league.

      He pulled the shirt over his head and grabbed his gym bag. “I’ll remember that,” he told her and walked past her off the field.

       Chapter Two

      Emily lifted the lip gloss to her mouth just as the doorbell to her mother’s house rang Saturday night. She dropped the tube onto the dresser, chiding herself for making an effort with her appearance before a casual family dinner. Particularly silly when the guest was Jase Crenshaw, who meant nothing to her. Who probably didn’t want to be in the same room with her.

      Not when she’d been so rude to him after the football game with her reference to his body. He had to know the insult was absurd. He might have been a tall skinny teen but now he’d grown into his body in a way that made her feel weak in the knees.

      That weakness accounted for her criticism. Emily had spent the last year of her marriage feeling fragile and unsettled. Jase made her feel flustered in a different way, but she couldn’t allow herself be affected by any man when she was working so hard to be strong.

      Of course she’d known Jase liked her when they were younger, but she hadn’t been interested in her brother’s best friend or anyone from small-town Crimson. Emily’d had her sights set on bigger things, like getting out of Colorado. Henry Whitaker and his powerful family had provided the perfect escape at the time.

      Sometimes she wished she could ignore the changes in herself. She glanced at the mirror again. The basics were the same—blond hair flowing past her shoulders, blue eyes and symmetrical features. People would still look at her and see a beautiful woman, but she wondered if anyone saw beyond the surface.

      Did they notice the shadows under her eyes, the result of months of restless nights when she woke and tiptoed to Davey’s doorway to watch him sleeping? Could they tell she couldn’t stop the corners of her lips from perpetually pulling down, as if the worry over her son was an actual weight tugging at their edges?

      No. People saw what they wanted, like she’d wanted to see her ex-husband as the white knight that would sweep her off to the charmed life she craved. Only now did she realize perfection was a dangerous illusion.

      She heard Jase’s laughter drift upstairs and felt herself swaying toward the open door of the bedroom that had been hers since childhood. Her mom had taken the canopy off the four-poster bed and stripped the posters from the walls, but a fresh coat of paint and new linens couldn’t change reality.

      Emily was a twenty-eight year old woman reduced to crawling back to the financial and emotional safety of her mother’s home. She dipped her head, her gaze catching on a tiny patch of pink nail polish staining the corner of the dresser. It must have been there for at least ten years, back when a bright coat of polish could lift her spirits. She’d had so many dreams growing up, but now all she wanted was to make things right for her son.

      “Em, dinner is almost ready,” her mom called from the bottom of the stairs.

      “Be right there,” she answered. She scraped her thumbnail against the polish, watching as it flaked and fell to the floor. Something about peeling a bit of her girlhood from the dresser made her breathe easier and she turned for the door. She took a step, then whirled back and picked up the lip gloss, dabbing a little on the center of her mouth and pressing her lips together. Maybe she couldn’t erase the shadows under her eyes, but Emily wasn’t totally defeated yet.

      Before heading through the back of the house to the patio where Noah was grilling burgers, she turned at the bottom of the stairs toward her father’s old study. Since she and Davey had returned, her mom had converted the wood-paneled room to building block headquarters. It had been strange, even ten years after her father’s death, to see his beloved history books removed from the shelves to make room for the intricate building sets her son spent hours creating. Her mother had taken the change easier than Emily, having had years