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pointed to Ash’s head. “Maybe a few reddish highlights, like yours. Or should I grow it longer?” He ran a hand along the back of his neck. “Caroline always liked your hair. What do you think?”
    “No.” Women could make a guy second-guess breathing. Once they were in your head, you were doomed. He could look at Pete’s situation and see a clear way out of it, but his own issues with Arianna? That was another story. “Don’t go mid-life crisis on me. You don’t need a new haircut, or a new wardrobe.”
    “What if I joined the gym?” Pete stood and patted the small paunch above his belt. “The Club has a personal trainer that specializes in Pilates and body sculpting.”
    “No.” Ash was going to have to spell it out. “Let her take the grad class. No driver, no bodyguard.”
    Pete smacked his hands flat on the desk, eyes wild, jaw tight. “I don’t think I can do that.”
    Ash’s next words turned his brother’s color to paste. “You don’t have a choice.”
    ***
    How many times had he dreamed her beside him, close enough to smell the lilac scent she loved. Close enough to let her voice roll over him, creating all kinds of crazy longings. She was damn sure close enough for him to lean forward and touch her. How many times had he dreamed that?
    He hazarded a glance at her as she studied the photography hanging above the fireplace in his condo. It was a black-and-white shot of a country road somewhere between Wichita and Albuquerque. Brush and dust on either side amidst outcroppings of rock with a horizon that started and ended in pink-streaked blue. Arianna was like that road—mysterious, compelling, and layered in a caution that, if ignored, would toss you into an abyss from which you would not recover. He’d take it slow because he couldn’t risk her disappearing from his life before he had a chance to show her how much they belonged together. They hadn’t been wrong about each other before, and they weren’t wrong now. She was scared. Well, so was he, even if he hated to admit it.
    What if she refused to open up about her past? Could he really pretend he didn’t know she’d had another life, one that included a miscarriage and an estranged family? No matter how hard they tried to deny their past, it was always there, looking them in the eye, shaping the decisions they chose to make or not make. And driving a fancy car or traveling to the Caribbean was not going to change a childhood. Or lack of one. It had taken losing Arianna and going on the road with nothing but two saddlebags and a camera to learn what people were really about. It had been an opportunity to learn about himself as well, much of which he hadn’t liked. How long could you blame dead parents for your behavior and self-serving attitude? He didn’t look at life as a right anymore, but a privilege, like the people he met while traveling: hardworking, good people who believed in integrity and family. And tonight, after dinner, he planned to show Arianna what he’d been doing these past two years. He would not, however, tell her about the trips he’d taken to her hometown.
    She turned away from the photograph of the open road and made her way to the island in the kitchen where Ash was slicing a handful of portobello and shiitake mushrooms. “When did you start cooking? Last I knew you were stuck on Reheat and High.”
    He smiled and shrugged. “It was a fluke. My bike broke down in some little town along the Indiana-Illinois border and I had to wait ten days for parts to arrive. The mechanic’s wife was this little Italian lady who believed olive oil and garlic could fix everything: squeaky doors, faucets, broken hearts. I had nowhere to go and nothing to do, so I started showing up in the morning for coffee and cannoli. Next thing I know I’m tilling her garden and planting Swiss chard.” He grabbed an onion and peeled the skin. “And then she’s teaching me to make marinara sauce and a balsamic vinaigrette.” He